Cool as a cucumber

Well being

When it comes to these hot summer months, cucumber is perhaps one of the best vegetables to consume. It’s widely known for its cooling properties, but it has many more benefits.
Here’s a bunch of them:

• About 95% of cucumbers is made up of water. This means that you gulp down purified water every time you take a bite of this green vegetable. Obviously then, eating cucumbers helps keep the body hydrated. It also acts as a quick refreshner, just like a steaming cup of coffee or tea, but sans all the ill-effects of caffeine.
• Cucumbers are said to be rich in lignans, a group of chemical compounds found in plants that are a source of antioxidants, vital in keeping your body and mind vibrant and ageless. The three lignans, lariciresinol, pinoresinol and secoisolariciresinol, that cucumbers contain have also been proved to be helpful in reducing the risk of several types of cancer.
• Cucumbers are also the most easy and natural means to obtain the body’s requirement for Vitamin B. Thus, the debilitating effects of the summer season can be reversed substantially by including cucumbers in your summer diet.
• When dehydration prevails, leaving your eyes, skin, hair and mouth feeling dry and itchy, cucumbers can come to your rescue. Consider placing slices of cucumber over your eyes to reduce puffiness caused by the heat. Placing the sulfur- silicon-rich skin of this vegetable on sunburns helps in reducing inflammation.
• The skin of the cucumber is also said to stimulate hair growth, and it acts as a conditioner too.
• Pressing a cucumber slice on the roof of the mouth for 30 seconds causes the phytochemicals in the vegetable to kill the bacteria that causes bad breath.

When cucumbers have so many benefits to offer, why not include them in your salads, curries, raitas and more?