Borage

Borage, also known as bee plant, is one of the chosen culinary herbs used by our grandmothers who made their meals look and taste better, be it to prepare popular green sauce, to garnish salads or to pamper children with candied flowers! this ancient garden herb exudes a characteristic "cucumber-like" aroma to the recipes it added to. For the same reasons, it is one of the most sought-after herbs in the mediterranean households. Botanically, it belongs to the family of borabinaceae, in the genus, borago. The herb is known also as starflower,asince it bears five-petal, deep-blue, star-shaped beautiful flowers in clusters. Some of the other common names include bee bread, burrage, common-bugloss..etc.

Borage is annual hollow stemmed plant with bristly hairs and reaches about 75-90 cm in height. It grows in plentiful all over the wild highlands of eastern europe and asia minor regions.athe plant features broad oval shaped, dark green fuzzy leaves. In general, its leaves are gathered from the plant soon after the flower buds formation but before flowering. Younger leaves are used in salads while older leaves can be employed as greens. However, as the plant gets older, their leaves get tougher, larger, more fuzzy, and bitter in taste.

Borage is one of very popular low calorie culinary herb, especially used in the mediterranean countries. 100 g of fresh leaves carry just 21 calories. The herb contains many notable phyto-nutrients, minerals, and vitamins that are essential for optimum health and wellness.

The herb parts contain essential fatty acid gamma-linolenic acid (gla), typically in concentrations of 17-20%. Linolenic acid is omega-6 fatty acid that plays a vital role inrestoration of joint health, immunity, and healthy skin and mucus membranes.

Fresh burrage herb has high levels of vitamin c (ascorbic acid); provide 35 mg or 60% of rda per 100 g. Vitamin c is one of the powerful natural anti-oxidant help remove harmful free radicals from the body. Together with other anti-oxidants, it has immune booster, wound healing and anti-viral effects.

Starflower herb is one of the rich sources of vitamin a (140% of rda) and carotenes. Both these compounds are powerful flavonoid anti-oxidants. Together, they act as protective scavengers against oxygen-derived free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ros) that play vital role in aging and various disease processes.

Vitamin a is also known to have antioxidant properties and is essential for vision. It is also required for maintaining healthy mucus membranes and skin. Consumption of natural foods rich in vitamin a and carotenes are known to help the human body protect from lung and oral cavity cancers.

The herb holds a goodaamount of minerals like iron (41% of rda), calcium, potassium, manganese, copper, zinc, and magnesium. Potassium is an important component of cell and body fluids, which helps control heart rate and blood pressure. Manganese is used by the body as a co-factor for the antioxidant enzyme, superoxide dismutase.airon is an important co-factor for cytochrome oxidase enzyme in the cellular metabolism. In addition, being a component of hemoglobin inside the red blood cells, it determines the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.

Further,athe herb is one of the average sources of b-complex vitamins, particularly rich in niacin (vitamin b-3).aniacin helps lower ldl cholesterol levels in the body. In addition, it has riboflavin, thiamin, pyridoxine, and folates in adequate levels. These vitamins function as co-factors in the enzymatic metabolism inside the body.