Karela Chota - Momordica Charantia - Bitter Gourd Small

Chota Karela is a young, tender, edible fruit-pod in the Momordica genus of climbing vines. Although its bitter taste might turn some people away, nonetheless, it truly can sweeten your health through virtue of its disease preventing and health promoting phytochemical compounds.

Botanically, balsam pears belong to the Cucurbitaceous family, in the genus; Momordica, and are member of the same family as squash, watermelon, cantaloupes, cucumber, etc, belongs to.

Scientific name of Karela is Momordica charantia. Some of the related varieties are balsam pear, cundeamor, la-kwa, etc.

Chota Karela is one of traditional edible pod vegetables in many Asian countries. It is grown widely as a field crop as well as backyard vegetable and, in fact, is among the most bitter tasting of all culinary vegetables.

Dried Bitter Gourd Seeds is a temperate/tropical plant probably originated in South-East Asia. Like in other members of the Cucurbitaceous family, it too is a fast-growing, trailing or climbing vine with thin stems and tendrils which require a trellis to support their climbing vines.

Chota Karela pods are characterized by soft lengthwise ridges and uneven pebbly surface. Depending upon the cultivar type, its immature pods can be light to dark green and have oblong or oval shapes with a pointed tip at the blossom end. Internally, the flesh is white with rough-edged seeds, somewhat similar to ridge gourd seeds in appearance. As the fruits begin to mature, they gradually become hard, turn yellow or brown in color.

Chota Karela Benefits:

Chota Karela is very low in calories, carrying just 17 calories per 100 g. Nevertheless, its pods are rich sources of phytonutrients like dietary fiber, minerals, vitamins, and anti-oxidants.

Chota Karela notably contains phytonutrient, polypeptide-P, a plant insulin known to lower blood sugar levels. Also, it composes hypoglycemic agent called Charantin. Charantin increases glucose uptake and glycogen synthesis inside the cells of the liver, muscle, and fatty (adipose) tissue. Together, these compounds may have been thought to be responsible for blood sugar levels reduction in the treatment of type-2 diabetes.

Fresh pods are an excellent source of folates, carrying about 72 µg/100g (18% of RDA). Vitamin folate when taken by mothers during their early pregnancy time, would help reduce the incidence of neural tube defects in the newborn babies.

Dried Bitter Gourd Seeds is an excellent source of vitamin-C (100 grams of fresh pod provides 84 mg or about 140% of RDI). Vitamin-C is one of the powerful natural antioxidants which helps scavenge harmful free radicals from the human body