What does it feel like to eat betel nuts?

What does it feel like to eat betel nut?

The feeling of eating betel nut is that it is a bit astringent in the mouth, like eating unripe persimmons. Immediately afterwards, I felt blood rushing into my brain. It was a bit like drinking alcohol, but not as serious. My throat was tight and I wanted to drink water. I was confused all day long.

Betel nut (scientific name: Areca catechu L.) is an evergreen tree in the palm family, with upright stems, tree-like, more than 10 meters high, and up to 30 meters high. It has obvious ring-shaped leaf marks and is both male and female. The plant has multi-branched inflorescences, oblong ovary, oblong or ovoid fruits, oval seeds, and the flowering and fruiting period lasts from March to April.

Betel nut is native to Malaysia and is mainly distributed in tropical areas such as Yunnan, Hainan and Taiwan in China. It is widely cultivated in tropical Asia.

Betel nut is an important Chinese medicinal material, and some ethnic minorities in the south still use the fruit as a chewing hobby.

Main value

Nutrition

Betel nut contains a variety of nutrients and beneficial substances needed by the human body. The main components of the original betel nut fruit are 31.1 phenols, 18.7 polysaccharides, 14.0 fat, 10.8 crude fiber, 9.9 moisture, 3.0 ash and 0.5 alkaloids. Betel nut also contains more than 20 trace elements, 11 of which are essential trace elements for the human body. Areca nut seeds contain total alkaloids of 0.3-0.6, mainly arecoline, and contain a small amount of arecoline, desmethylarecoline, isodesmethylarecoline, arecoine, and homoarecoline, all of which are combined with tannic acid. exist. There are also tannins, fats, mannitol, galactose, sucrose, catechin, epidithelin, colorless anthocyanins, betel nut red pigments, saponins and various dimers and trimers of procyanidins. bodies, tetramers, etc. The composition of the fatty acids contained is: lauric acid 19.5, myristic acid 46.2, palmitic acid 12.7, stearic acid 1.6, oleic acid 6.2, linoleic acid 5.4, dodecanoic acid 0.3, tetradecenic acid 7.2, and also contains amino acids. Among them, proline accounts for more than 15%.

Medicinal use

According to the drug regulatory department, there are currently 225 medicines in my country containing betel nut. Traditional medicine believes that betel nut has the effect of "killing insects, breaking up accumulation, reducing qi stagnation, and moving water to remove dampness". It has been used to treat parasitic infections such as tapeworms, hookworms, roundworms, roundworms, and Fasciolopsis. Simo Decoction, which is composed of betel nut, black medicine, ginseng, and agarwood, is mainly used to treat "seven emotional qi inversions, shortness of breath, and difficulty in eating". There is a folk tradition of taking Simo Decoction one week after the baby is born. It is said to be beneficial to the child's gastrointestinal , I won’t have stomach upset in the future.

Economy

Betel nut has high economic value, and about 1,500-2,000 plants can be planted per hectare. Chinese betel nut varieties have high yields, the yield per plant can reach about 30kg, and they have high economic value. People in Hainan, Taiwan, Hunan and other places in China have had the habit of consuming betel nut since ancient times, and it is the main chewing food. At present, the processing output value alone reaches 3.5 billion yuan, providing 200,000 jobs. The market potential is huge. With the injection of science and technology, the types of deep-processed products are rich, the consumer market is gradually expanding, and the market prospects are better.