What is Amaranth in Medicine and Food?

According to the Pharmacopoeia
This product is the dried above-ground part of Portulaca oleracea L., family Amaranthaceae. Harvested in summer and fall, remove the residual roots and impurities, wash, slightly steamed or scalded and dried in the sun.
[Properties] This product is wrinkled and curled, often clumped together. Stem cylindrical, up to 30cm long, 0.1-0.2cm in diameter, surface yellow-brown, with obvious longitudinal grooves. Leaves opposite or alternate, fragile, complete leaf blade obovate, 1-2.5cm long, 0.5-1.5cm wide; greenish brown, apex obtuse flat or emarginate, entire. Flowers small, 3 to 5 at branch ends, petals 5, yellow. Capsule conical, about 5mm long, containing most tiny seeds. Slight gas, slightly sour flavor.
Sour, cold. Attributed to the liver, large intestine meridian.
Functions and Indications] Clearing heat and removing toxins, cooling the blood to stop bleeding, and stopping dysentery. It is used for fever and blood dysentery, carbuncle and furuncle, eczema, salpingitis, snake and insect bites, blood in stool, hemorrhoidal blood, hemorrhagic leakage and bleeding.
Usage and dosage】9～15g… Externally, pound the appropriate amount on the affected area.
Storage]: Place in a dry and ventilated place, moisture-proof.
Efficacy of Amaranth
Antibacterial effect: Amaranth has a certain inhibitory effect on dysentery bacillus, typhoid bacillus, Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. It also has different inhibitory effects on certain pathogenic bacteria. It is known as “natural antibiotic”.

General pharmacological effects: maternal oral fresh amaranth juice 6-8ml, can make the uterus contraction, treatment of postpartum sweating postpartum blood dysentery, but also appendicitis, many years of malignant sores, bacillary dysentery, enteritis, pediatric whooping cough, etc., tuberculosis also has a different degree of therapeutic effect.
The special health care role of Amaranth: With the application of high and new technology in food science, in the past ten years, scientists at home and abroad have conducted in-depth research on the effective composition of Amaranth, and found that Amaranth contains physiologically active ingredients (such as desmethyl adrenaline, tanning, resin, alkaloids, coumarins, flavonoids, and so on) that enhance the body’s immunity and prevent and cure heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and other diseases. Food Value of Amaranth
Amaranth is both a medicinal plant and a highly promising multi-effective cultivated specialty vegetable with rich nutritional value and wide application value. It is determined that every 100g of fresh amaranth contains 2.3g of protein, 0.5g of fat, 3g of carbohydrates, 0.7g of crude fiber, 23mg of vitamins, 0.7mg of nicotinic acid, and also contains vitamins A, B, and D as well as inorganic salts.
Amaranth is a kind of high protein, high ash, low-carbohydrate wild vegetables, known as the “king of vegetables” reputation. Therefore, amaranth stems and leaves can be taken as vegetables or as raw materials for processing. Comprehensive utilization of Amaranth
Fresh food: pick amaranth young and tender stems and leaves, wash and stir-fry food or make soup or blanch after mixing, choking, crunchy and slightly acidic, fresh and delicious.
Dry food: Amaranth is dried and eaten, and the dried products can be made into tea and bagged instant noodles after soaking. Dry storage has the whole storage and crushed storage, as well as clear storage and pickling. Clear storage is used for braised meat, and dried beans, eggplant, etc., as dried vegetables with a strong flavor; pickling is the amaranth washed and sun-dried into eight dry after salting with sesame oil, is a good salt dish.
Convenient food: fresh or dried products can be made into amaranth buns, dumplings, candies, pastries, pancakes, bread, instant noodles and so on after soaking. For example, there are “amaranth salad”, “amaranth sandwich”, “amaranth sauce” and other kinds of food in some food stores and restaurants in Europe and the United States. The frozen food grade canned food produced by amaranth as the main raw material in our country is very popular in the national market.
Make porridge: such as amaranth porridge, amaranth wolfberry porridge, amaranth snail porridge, amaranth betel nut porridge and so on.
Making dry powder of amaranth: amaranth juice is concentrated or mixed with fruit juice (e.g. pineapple juice) and concentrated, add loosening agent for spray drying to make dry powder of amaranth. One can be added to flour, cookies and other foods. Second, it can be drunk directly with boiled water. Its flavor is sour and sweet, which is good for eyesight and body, preventing cardiovascular disease, and antiseptic and anti-inflammatory.
Adding amaranth powder to bread, noodles and other cereal products in a certain proportion can not only increase the nutrients and health care efficacy of the product components, but also improve the processing characteristics of flour. According to the experiment: in 5%-15% of amaranth powder addition, with the increase of the addition amount, gluten gluten enhancement.