Dried white mulberries to strengthen the spleen and stomach

What are dried white mulberries(Sang Shen)?
As China’s most common mulberry variety, medicinally white mulberry is the default choice in all formulas that contain this herb. That’s to say, it mainly refers to the dried ear of Morus alba L., which is a plant in the family Moraceae. Therefore, other names of it include Mulberry Fruit-Spike, Fructus Mori, Sang Shen Zi, White Mulberry Fruit, Mori fructus, Fructus Mori Albae, and so on. In China, it is basically produced in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Hunan. It is usually harvested from April to June when the fruits are ripe. And then it still needs to be dried in the sun, or dried after slightly steamed.

Dried mulberries are oblong, 1 to 2cm long, and 6 to 10mm in diameter. Base is with handle that is 1 to 1.5cm long. Surface is purple, black, or white in color. Ear are polymerized by 30 to 60 achenes, which are ovoid, slightly flat, 2 to 5mm long, and with 4 membranous bracts outside. Embryo is white, oily, and rich in sugar. It is with light odor and sweet and slightly sour in taste. In general, the preferred one is bigger in size, thick in flesh, black in color, and richer in sugar content.

Dried mulberries benefits
Since they are generally divided into white and black mulberries, many people would wonder which one has better healing properties? In fact, as for medicinal uses there is no significant difference between them. Nevertheless, traditional Chinese medicine thinks that black color acts on kidney meridian while white color works on lung channel. Therefore, black mulberry is recommended in treating kidney deficiency and pain in the leg and waist while white mulberry is preferable in curing deficiency of lung qi and chronic cough. Specifically, its health benefits are as follows:

a) Nutritional supplement. It contains large amount of water, carbohydrates, vitamins, carotenoids and essential trace elements, which can effectively increase the body’s blood volume. More importantly, this tonic is not stagnant. That being said, it is a perfect diet therapy for patients with high blood pressure or female diseases.

b) Strengthening the spleen and stomach and improving digestive health. It contains tannic acid, a fatty acid, malic acid and other nutrients, which can help digest fat, protein and starch. As a result, it can be used to treat diarrhea caused by indigestion.

c) Improving the hair and restoring color. Besides of a lot of nutrients needed by the body, it still contains ingredients that benefit hair, which can stimulate hair growth and thus help restore gray hair back to color.

d) Preventing vascular sclerosis. It is rich in resveratrol, which is a potent antioxidant that can inhibit LDL lipid peroxidation, prevent cytotoxic caused by LDL oxidation, and then protect the cells specifically from lipid peroxidation. In addition, resveratrol can also reduce platelet aggregation and thus prevent Atherosclerosis.

e) Anti-cancer. It contains large amounts of rutin, which has been proved by modern medicine that it is able to prevent the formation of colon cancer. And rutin can cool blood, stop bleeding, clear liver-fire, reduce inflammation, and destroy viruses. Hence, eating it on daily basis can also help prevent and treat cerebral hemorrhage, Hypertension, retinal hemorrhage, Chronic Bronchitis, and so on.