Portulaca

What is the Portulaca?

Generalities on the portulaca

Portulcaca is an edible wild plant.

Herbaceous succulent (or fat) and typically maritime, the purslane is spread spontaneously in all the coastal shores of the Mediterranean Basin. In agriculture, many different types are produced, all small.

In the nutritional field the purslane is listed in the VI fundamental food group: "Vegetables and Fruits Sources of vitamin A". In the kitchen it is mainly used as a raw or cooked side dish, and as a main or secondary ingredient for some more elaborate recipes.

Synonyms for portulaca

They are synonyms of portulaca: verdolaga, little hogweed, red root, pursley and khorfe. In some parts of India, portulaca is known (in different languages) as: sanhti, punarva, paruppu keerai, gangavalli and kulfa.

Description

Description of the portulaca

The purslue reaches a maximum height of 40 cm. It has a smooth and reddish, prostrate stem, from which sprout numerous alternate leaves and grouped at the base of the insertion. The flowers are yellow and have five regular petals, up to 6 millimeters wide, in the shape of a heart; they bloom individually, for a few hours, during sunny mornings. Flowering is not seasonal but follows the pattern of rainfall. The seeds are enclosed in a small pod that opens only when fully ripe. The underground portion is characterized by a single taproot from which numerous fibrous roots open.

Portulaca Nutritional Properties

Nutritional characteristics of the purslane

Portulaca is a product that belongs to the VI fundamental group of foods: Vegetables and Fruits Sources of vitamin A. It has a very low caloric intake, supplied mainly by carbohydrates and proteins. Lipids are quantitatively small but of excellent quality. Carbohydrates tend to be simple (glucose and fructose), peptides with a low biological value (also the percentage of free amino acids, including glutamic acid, alanine, etc.) and unsaturated fatty acids. Portulaca contains more omega 3 (alpha-linolenic acid - essential fatty acid) than any other leafy plant. Studies also show that portulaca contains 0.01 mg / g of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA - another omega 3, not strictly essential but very active from a metabolic point of view).

The precise concentration of fibers is unknown; cholesterol is absent, as are histamine, gluten and lactose.

Portulaca contains many vitamins, mainly vitamin A (retinol and equivalents), vitamin C (ascorbic acid), vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) and small concentrations of vitamin B. The concentrations of certain minerals such as magnesium, manganese are also excellent. potassium and iron (although not very bioavailable).

Portulaca is a food that can be used in any diet. It has no contraindications for weight loss diets in case of overweight and for dietary patterns designed to combat metabolic disorders (hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertriglyceridemia, hypercholesterolemia, etc.). On the contrary, thanks to its concentration of omega 3 and antioxidant vitamins, raw purslane can even be considered beneficial in the treatment of metabolic disorders.

It is also relevant in the diet of celiac, lactose intolerant and histamine intolerant. It is also allowed in the vegetarian, vegan and all religions diet.

Although the precise quantity of fibers is not known, their chemical nature is instead known. They are mainly mucilaginous, water-soluble compounds, excellent for modulating intestinal absorption, feeding the intestinal bacterial flora (prebiotic function) and counteracting constipation (in association with the right amounts of water) avoiding the side effects typical of insoluble fibers (such as those prevalent in bran) type: swelling, meteorism, diarrhea, abdominal tension and flatulence. But be careful, excessive amounts of raw purslane, due to the presence of oxalic acid, can still create an adverse intestinal reaction.

The only effective contraindication of the purslane seems therefore to be the presence of oxalic acid which, giving rise to oxalates, in addition to exerting an anti-nutritional effect in the intestine (chelating agent for certain minerals such as calcium and responsible for the production of gas), in subjects predisposed promotes the formation of kidney stones.

Being thermolabile, oxalates can be effectively reduced by cooking. On the other hand, high temperatures also compromise the integrity of various beneficial nutrients such as vitamin C and the omega 3 polyunsaturated essential fatty acids. Furthermore, by boiling the purslane in water it also causes a certain dispersion of minerals by dilution in cooking liquid.

The average portion of portulaca is about 50-100 g raw or 150-200 g cooked, for a total of 10-40 kcal.

* The percentages (approximate) refer to the recommended US ration (US) for the adult population

Portulaca in the kitchen

What do you eat of purslane?

Stems, leaves and flower buds are eaten from purslane. Raw in salad or cooked, it has nothing to envy of any vegetable. The cooking methods are mainly: boiling (in water or steam), in the pan and stewing (for example in soups).

Taste and taste of purslane

The purslane has a fairly characteristic but soft taste. The prevailing tastes are sour and salty. The acidulous notes, maximum in spring and especially when the plant is harvested in the early hours of the morning, are conferred by oxalic acid and malic acid (metabolism of crassulaceous acid - CAM - typical of plants that live in drought conditions ); the savory ones instead, from minerals (sodium, magnesium, potassium etc.) and from glutamic acid.

How do you eat portulaca in Italy?

In Italy, especially in Campania, portulaca is harvested and used raw like wild rocket.

In Romagna and in the Marche coast, portulaca and agretti are the typical wild sea vegetables to be boiled.

Inevitable in the Tuscan-Lazio mixture of vegetables from the garden and wild, the portulaca or porcacchia is also known (especially in Corsica) as "frateca herb"; this name was attributed to him in the past when the friars regularly passed from house to house to collect the mite.

In Sicily, the purciddana (so called the portulaca) is an essential ingredient of the ferragostana salad (tomatoes, onion, olive oil, vinegar and salt), but also of the boiled vegetable salad and pancakes (with flour batter and water).

How do you eat purslane abroad?

Discredited in the northern American continent, portulaca is instead regularly consumed in most of Mediterranean Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Mexico.

Australian aborigines still use portulaca seeds to prepare food similar to semolina.

In Greece, on the other hand, where it is known as andrakla or glystrida, its leaves and stems are eaten in salads, along with feta and other vegetables such as tomatoes and onions; everything is seasoned with garlic, oregano and olive oil. Also in Greece the purslane is widespread boiled or in chicken stew.

In Turkey, as well as in salads and baked desserts, portulaca is cooked in a similar way to spinach or is mixed with yogurt to obtain a kind of tsatsiki (appetizer - sauce - side dish).

Similarly, in Egypt, the reglah (local name for portulaca) is stewed along with other mixed vegetables.

Known as bakleh in Syria and Lebanon, it is eaten raw in salads (fattoush) or cooked and used as a garnish in fatayeh (triangular savory pastries).

In Albania, under the name of burdullak, it is stewed over low heat or boiled, seasoned with olive oil, and used together with other ingredients as a filling in the layers of byrek.

South of Portugal (Alentejo), baldroegas is used as an ingredient in typical soup.

In Pakistan it is known as qulfa and is cooked in stews together with lentils.

Other Uses

Use of purslane in folk medicine

Also known as Ma Chi Xian (pinyin - translated "amaranth horse tooth") in traditional Chinese medicine, portulaca is used for topical use to treat insect bites, eczema, pimples, blisters and sores; internally it is used against diarrhea, infectious dysentery, hemorrhoids, postpartum bleeding and intestinal bleeding.

Obviously, most of these applications are not reflected in conventional medicine.

Contraindications

Contraindications of the use of purslane

The use of purslane is contraindicated in pregnancy and for subjects with digestive difficulties of any kind.

Botany

Botanical notes on the purslane

Portulaca is a succulent, fat herbaceous plant belonging to the botanical family Portulacaceae, Genus Portulaca and oleracea species ( P. oleracea ). Tendentially spontaneous and wild, in some areas it is even considered a weed. Rustic and resistant, it tolerates poor, compact and dry soils. Thanks to its edibility, it is grown for human food in over 40 different types of cultivars.

Distribution of the purslane

The purslane is distributed, also thanks to human intervention (anthropogeny), throughout the Old World; it is particularly widespread in North Africa, Southern Europe, the Middle East (Iran) and the Indian subcontinent (Malaysia and Australasia).

The status of the purslane cultivars spread in the New World is uncertain. It is generally considered exotic or alien, although some evidence suggests an alleged spread in the pre-Columbian era; in fact, it seems that the plant was normally consumed by Native Americans, who would later spread the seeds throughout the continent.

Also naturalized in other places, portulaca is generally considered a weed.

Portulaca in agriculture

The purslane covers the ground creating a microclimate favorable to the neighboring plants, stabilizing the soil moisture. Its roots make it possible to exploit water and nutrients hidden in depth. Maize, for example, develops following the roots of the portulaca that act as a "drill" in the hardest and most compact soils (ecological facilitation). In uncultivated land, the presence of purslane is considered positive.

Historical notes on portulaca

Archaeobotanical findings from various prehistoric sites suggest that portulaca has always been used in many countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin.

Traces of his seeds dating back to the 7th century BC have been recovered in Greece (Kastanas) as well as in Turkey (Heraion).

In the fourth century BC, Theophrastus (Greek philosopher) mentioned the portulaca among the numerous edible summer herbs to be sown in April.

The purslane also appears in "Marvels of Milan" (1288) by Bonvesin de la Riva, more precisely in the list of edible plants enjoyed by the Milanese in the 23rd century.

The healing and protective properties of purslane have been known since ancient times, so much so that Pliny the Elder advised wearing the plant as an amulet to counteract the evil influences (cit. Natural History 20.210).