Composition and properties of poppy, its harm and benefits for the body. Dishes with poppy seeds

Poppy is an amazingly beautiful flower that has earned a controversial reputation due to its controversial properties. Even in ancient Greece, people loved and revered this plant for its ability to calm the mind and treat illnesses. The benefits and harms of poppy have been studied for centuries, which is why today so much information has been collected about it. Our distant ancestors also resorted to the help of these mysterious flowers. Unfortunately, today few people know about the healing effects that this plant has on the human body. People who abuse opium have created a terrifying image of a beautiful flower. Because of this, poppy is used mainly for confectionery purposes, although many pharmaceutical companies include some of its substances in their preparations.

Features of poppy

Poppy grows throughout the CIS, where there are more than 70 species. In total, more than 100 varieties of this beautiful flower can be found on our planet. Its stems are usually straight, and the leaves can be very diverse: from narrow and covered with many small hairs, to wider and smooth varieties. There are poppies of different colors and shades. The most common are the familiar red flowers, but you can also find other options - pink, purple, white, yellow.

After flowering ends, seed pods are formed in place of the flowers, having a characteristic appearance that is difficult to confuse with something else. As they ripen, they produce a fair amount of small black seeds, which are known to all lovers of poppy seed buns. It is important to remember that only fully ripened seeds are edible.

Compound

About half the mass of the seed is fat. They are also rich in protein and sugars, making poppy seeds a nutritious food. In addition, it contains useful microelements: potassium, magnesium, sodium, sulfur, phosphorus, iron, copper and vitamins E, PP. The petals contain alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides, organic acids, anthocyanins, as well as a fair amount of fatty oil and even vitamin C. Alkaloids such as papaverine, codeine, morphine, and narcein can be found in the jelly of the poppy. In folk medicine, all parts of the plant are used: from roots to flowers. It is the unique composition that gives poppy seeds its healing properties.

Useful properties of poppy

Contrary to popular belief, this mysterious flower can be used for more than just food or drugs. The medicinal properties of poppy have been known to mankind for a long time. Back then, people preferred to treat ailments with plants rather than with the suspicious inventions of chemists. Poppy seeds can normalize digestion, relieve diarrhea and dysentery. They can treat a disease that has become a real scourge of our time - insomnia. This natural remedy can also eliminate some respiratory diseases.

Oncological diseases are another problem that poppy can counter. The benefits and harms of this plant are due to the same substances. They can either lift your spirits and restore the joy of life, or take everything away from a person who has become dependent on poppy seeds.

Harm

Despite the fact that the benefits and harms of poppy depend only on the wisdom of the person using this remedy, many of its species are prohibited for cultivation. It is this beautiful flower that serves as the basis for the preparation of the most dangerous opiates of our time. Those who are unfortunate enough to become dependent on the poppy are doomed to a hard life filled with suffering and pain. The longer a person is under the influence of opium, the greater the place it takes in his life. Over time, the addict ceases to value anything other than the treasured potion. Relatives and friends no longer matter; the main goal in life becomes the extraction and consumption of poppy seeds.

Without the drug, the addicted person experiences flu-like symptoms. Chills and weakness begin, the body is filled with painful sensations, bringing terrible torment to the drug addict. At the same time, the same thing happens in a person’s mind, which seriously aggravates the situation. In order to stop the torment, people are ready to commit any crime. Unfortunately, the benefits and harms of poppy are assessed precisely by these unpleasant individuals. Thus, the medicinal properties of this flower are often ignored.

Edible poppy. Benefits and harms

The use of poppy seeds in cooking has a rich history. It is used to make pastries, buns, bread, all kinds of sweets and cookies. At the same time, it does not lose its beneficial properties and supplies the human body with treasured calories. 100 g of poppy seeds contain about 500 kcal. In addition, all beneficial properties are retained in the seed. Of course, drying with poppy seeds should not be taken as a medicine. The benefits and harms of such a delicacy are incommensurable, since the amount of seed in it is usually small. However, even a small amount of poppy seeds can have beneficial effects on the body.

Poppy seeds used for food must be completely ripe and dried so that no narcotic substances remain in them. Unfortunately, confectionery poppy seed manufacturers do not always follow this principle in an effort to maximize profits. Therefore, opium is found in some batches of edible poppy. Fortunately, this happens infrequently, and the content of narcotic substances is so low that it is unlikely to harm anyone's health. Don’t be afraid because it is certainly healthier than most substances used in the food industry. The leaves, roots and stems of the plant are suitable only for medicinal purposes and are not eaten. For these purposes, only poppy seeds are used. The benefits and harms of this delicious delicacy are known to everyone, as is its wonderful taste.

Contraindications

Poppy, like any other plant, has contraindications. It should not be used if you have heart failure, asthma or a drinking problem. Also, given the astringent properties of poppy seeds, you should not take products with them if you are constipated. Many sleeping pills are made from this beautiful flower. They can become addictive if taken regularly or harm your health. Therefore, you should not use such medications without consulting your doctor.

The benefits and harms of poppy have been actively discussed lately. New laws are being introduced to protect people from this terrible drug. This beneficial plant is often mentioned only in a negative way. But its healing properties could help many people. We can only hope that in the future people will learn to use this medicinal plant for its intended purpose.

For most of her admirers, it is quite justified. Products with such filling are incredibly fragrant, tasty and appetizing. But few people know that poppy, in addition to its taste, also has a lot of beneficial properties. For example, the fatty acids omega-6, omega-9 and omega-3 contained in poppy seeds prevent the development of atherosclerosis and heart disease, and the lion's share of vitamins A, D, E, B3, as well as protein and calcium, help strengthen the nervous system and musculoskeletal system, normalize metabolism and regulate cholesterol levels in the body.

Thus, while enjoying a poppy seed roll, we combine business with pleasure. But the main thing is to know when to stop and not eat sweet pastries in the afternoon, so as not to harm your figure.

Today we will look at in our recipes how to properly prepare poppy seeds for rolls so that the product from it turns out really tasty and healthy.

How to properly steam poppy seeds and make a roll filling from it?

Ingredients:

• poppy – 480 g;
• butter – 90 g;
• granulated sugar –140 g;
• – 85 g;
• milk – 240 ml.

Preparation

First of all, we rinse the poppy seeds thoroughly, and then pour water heated to a boil for about fifteen minutes. As time passes, we refresh the water by pouring boiling water over the poppy seeds in the bowl again and leaving it to steam for another ten minutes.

After a while, mix the poppy seeds squeezed out of moisture with granulated sugar and turn them through a meat grinder three times. Now place the poppy seed mass in a saucepan or stewpan, add milk, honey and butter, place the vessel on the stove and simmer over moderate heat for about forty minutes or until the moisture has evaporated.

Before forming the roll, the prepared poppy seed filling must be cooled to room temperature.

How to prepare poppy seeds for rolls and cook them without milk?

• poppy – 280 g;
• nuts and raisins (optional) - to taste;
• granulated sugar – 140 g.

Preparation

The poppy seed filling for the roll can be prepared without milk. To do this, rinse the poppy seeds thoroughly, changing the water several times, and then pour boiling water over them and leave to steep for ten minutes. After this, place the vessel with the workpiece on the stove, add granulated sugar and, after boiling, cook for seven minutes, stirring. Now let the poppy seed mixture cool a little and puree it with a blender, adding chopped nuts in the process. If desired, you can also add washed and slightly steamed raisins to the roll filling.

How to cook poppy seeds for semolina roll?

Ingredients:

• poppy – 260 g;
• filtered water or whole milk – 420 ml;
• granulated sugar – 140 g;
• semolina – 50 g.

Preparation

The poppy seed filling for the roll can be prepared without additional grinding using a meat grinder or blender. To do this, squeeze out the thoroughly washed poppy seeds a little, fill them with filtered water or whole milk and place them on the stove burner over medium heat. After boiling, add granulated sugar, stir thoroughly, reduce the heat under the container with poppy seeds to the minimum and cook the mixture, stirring, for an hour. Now add the semolina, stirring the poppy seeds intensively, boil for a couple more minutes, remove from the heat and let the finished filling cool.

How to brew ground poppy seeds for roll?

Ingredients:

Preparation

This option for preparing the filling for a poppy seed roll involves steaming already crushed grains. To implement it, we grind thoroughly washed and squeezed poppy seeds using a special mill or blender container. You can also simply grind it in a makitra or pass it three times through a meat grinder with a fine grid. Now mix the poppy seed mixture with granulated sugar, pour in milk heated to a boil and wrap for several hours. If the filling ends up being a little runny, you can squeeze it out a little or add some ground nuts to thicken it.

Small, round poppy seeds have been used in cooking in different countries since ancient times, and their popularity has not diminished over the years, and even over centuries. Each poppy seed is covered with a dense shell, hiding an aromatic and tasty core, which gives baked goods such an incomparable “poppy taste”.

Most often, poppy seeds are used to make confectionery products as a topping or filling. To sprinkle buns and other baked goods, use whole dry poppy seeds. When adding it inside rolls or pies, the poppy seed is boiled, partially kneaded, and mixed with sugar, honey, butter, various seeds, nuts, and candied fruits.

Besides sweets culinary poppy added to salads and hot dishes to give a unique taste. Milk of the poppy is obtained from ground poppy seeds, which serves vegetarians as an excellent source of fat and protein. Oil obtained from culinary poppy is used to make margarines and spreads, and even in the paint and varnish industry.

The benefits of culinary poppy

Poppy is a source of many vitamins, essential amino acids and microelements. Certain varieties of poppy contain active substances that are used in medicine as an antispasmodic and analgesic. Culinary poppy will easily stop diarrhea and normalize the functions of the gastrointestinal tract. Poppy decoction has a calming effect.

Harm and contraindications

Maca contains many active substances that, when consumed in moderation, have only a positive effect on the body. But an excessive amount of poppy eaten can cause fatigue, drowsiness, severe constipation, as well as a sharp release of bile, which will cause a lot of inconvenience to patients with cholelithiasis.

Since the poppy appeared in people's lives, it has gained extraordinary popularity and even the love of many of us. Which is not surprising, because this plant has truly attractive beauty and strength. Bright scarlet, purple, pink, white... poppy flowers can take on any form, but that’s not why they love him...

What is truly important for people is the “healing rainbow” composition of poppy seeds. After all, it is in it that both great healing power and no less great danger for the human body are hidden. At least this is true for those types of poppies that contain opium. It is noteworthy that the potential danger of “Opium poppy” is assessed so highly that in Russia since 2004 it has been prohibited to independently grow any opium-containing species of poppy of the genus Papaver. And since then, only “pure” poppy varieties have been sold in stores.

As for the healing power of poppy seeds, this aspect has also found universal recognition in the world. Moreover, both in orthodox and traditional medicine.

Let's talk about this.

Chemical composition of poppy

The benefits and harms of poppy

People have learned to benefit from all parts of the plant, but here we will talk exclusively about poppy seeds. Because as soon as we can buy them in their pure form in the store. The rest is the lot of industry and traditional medicine.

By the way, technical oil is prepared from poppy seeds, which serves as a raw material for the production of margarine. But this does not mean that poppy seeds should be “branded” as a harmful food product. On the contrary, poppy seeds are an excellent source of health, youth and pleasure (and we are not talking about opium at all, because it is obtained not from ripe poppy seeds, but from green pods).

However, what to hide, most often they remember poppy seeds precisely in moments of weakness, when you want to pamper yourself... And at such moments you cannot deny yourself, because delicious buns, rolls or honey with poppy seeds can have a very, very beneficial effect on the entire human body.

More specifically, ripe poppy seeds:

• They improve digestion for people who do NOT suffer from constipation, and help in the fight against diarrhea and even dysentery.
• Calm the nervous system and help people with insomnia fall asleep easier. In addition, poppy seed helps calm convulsive coughs in any bronchopulmonary diseases and relieves pain quite well. The ideal “sleeping pill” is obtained from crushed or mashed ripe poppy seeds mixed with a small amount of honey.
• Relieve fatigue and lift your spirits.
• Strengthen the body's resistance to cancer cells and infections.

On top of that, poppy seeds are a storehouse of easily digestible calcium, magnesium and copper. Which together results in strengthening bone tissue and increasing hemoglobin in the blood. If we compare the effectiveness of poppy seeds and modern calcium preparations, then it is better to choose poppy. This will be both more effective and safer. Moreover, to obtain a noticeable effect, it is enough to eat about 50 grams of crushed/ground ripe poppy seeds (separate from other food).

Unfortunately, nowadays poppy is loved mainly for its calming effect on the body, and only a few know about the valuable mineral composition of these wonderful seeds. Therefore, almost no one uses this natural source of “living” calcium. Now all the “storehouses” of poppy seeds are open for you - use them for your health.

But remember! Poppy seeds can also be harmful. When exactly? In case of uncontrolled use of poppy seeds as a sleeping pill (sedative) by people from among:

• patients with cholelithiasis
• those suffering from pulmonary emphysema
• with depressed breathing and bronchial asthma
• for liver diseases
• suffering from chronic constipation

It is not recommended to give poppy “sleeping pills” to small children (at least under 2 years of age). Although other sources call milk of poppy an absolutely safe remedy. Which, of course, is not far from the truth if given in tiny doses.

It is also important to understand that when we talk about contraindications, we do not mean pharmacological sleeping pills made from poppy seeds, but folk remedies, the recipes of which are shared without a twinge of conscience and without thinking about the consequences by all and sundry.

Use of poppy in cooking

From ancient times to this day, many ritual dishes such as kutia, Easter cakes and wedding pies have been richly flavored with poppy seeds. In addition, everyone is probably familiar with the taste of buns and rolls with poppy seeds.

Milk of the poppy is also prepared from poppy seeds, which is an excellent source of complete vegetable protein and easily digestible calcium, magnesium and copper. Moreover, it is much easier to absorb nutrients from milk than from whole seeds.

Poppy seeds are added to dairy products (yogurt, kefir), and to halva, and even to pasta (after frying it in butter). So if you see the benefits of eating poppy seeds, you can easily find dishes to which you can add them...

Not everyone knows how to properly prepare poppy seed filling for baking. Each housewife has her own recipe for preparing poppy seeds for filling pancakes, pies, and rolls. In India and Pakistan, housewives prepare sweet poppy seed paste, which is consumed as a separate sweet dish. To prepare this paste, the poppy seeds are first washed with warm water, then the water is squeezed out and ground in a mortar with sugar until it becomes a viscous, homogeneous mass. How to prepare poppy seeds for filling?

Some of our housewives simply pour boiling water over the poppy seeds, and then grind them with sugar or honey, some cook them over low heat until they become soft, then grind them with sugar or pass them through a meat grinder with a fine mesh a couple of times, also with sugar.

Whether to cook poppy seeds or not is a matter of each person’s taste, but for those who like to experiment, you can try several recipes for cooking poppy seeds and choose the more suitable and tasty one for yourself and your family.

Poppy fillings can be prepared with sugar, honey, raisins, nuts, candied fruits, and cinnamon. But how to make a tasty poppy seed filling, in what order to add components to get a more tasty poppy seed filling.

Recipes for poppy seed filling for rolls, pie, pancakes:

1. Poppy seeds are first boiled in milk with honey or sugar. Then they grind or pass through a meat grinder (or grind in a blend).

2. The poppy seed needs to be ground - DRY, in a blender or coffee grinder. And then cook it with milk and sugar, you get this kind of poppy seed jam. Doesn't crumble. Doesn't squeak on teeth. Doesn't come out. It's good to add raisins, nuts and flavor with lemon or cinnamon.

3. Pour boiling water over the poppy seeds, let stand until the boiling water cools or longer, then drain the water and grind the poppy seeds thoroughly in a mortar, it becomes slightly whitish, add sugar and walnuts to taste.

4. 1 cup poppy seeds, 1 cup milk, 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, 2 tablespoons honey, 1/2 cup almonds, cut into pieces and mixed with lemon zest (1/2 lemon), 1/4 cup raisins, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 1 grated sour apple. Mix all the ingredients except the grated apple and put on fire. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Add sugar to taste, remove from heat and cool. Add grated apple or jam. Stir thoroughly. The filling is ready.

5. 200 g poppy seeds, 200 g sugar, 3/4 l milk, 2 tbsp. spoons of crushed crackers, 100 g of butter, vanilla or vanillin. Rinse the poppy seeds in cold water, put them in a saucepan, pour boiling water over them and leave for several hours. Then drain the water, crush thoroughly and cook in milk along with crushed breadcrumbs, sugar and vanilla, stirring all the time until the mixture thickens. Add butter and leave for a while, let it cool. You can add raisins or grated lemon zest.

6. 1/2 cup milk (360 ml/), 80 g butter, 2 tsp. vanilla essence, 3/4 cup sugar (150 g), 1/2 cup honey, 400 g ground poppy seeds, 3/4 cup ground almonds, 2 eggs Pour milk into a saucepan, add butter, vanilla essence, sugar and honey, stir and bring to a boil. Stir in ground poppy seeds and almonds and cook for about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and beat first one and then another egg into the mixture, mixing thoroughly until a homogeneous mass is formed. Let cool and refrigerate until ready to use.

7. A very tasty poppy seed filling recipe. An excellent filling for poppy seed pies, rolls, and other poppy seed products. 375 ml milk 250 gr. grated poppy seeds 2 tbsp. semolina 2 bags of vanilla sugar 2 tsp. rum (can be cognac, brandy, liqueur) 100 gr. raisins 75 gr. almonds (or nuts) 1 egg Grind poppy seeds in a blender, or in any other way. Bring the milk to a boil, pour poppy seeds, semolina, and sugar into it in a thin stream. Bring to a boil 2-3 more times. Remove from heat, add the remaining ingredients, finally the egg. Now every housewife has various ways of preparing poppy seed filling, and each of you knows the secret of preparing poppy seeds for filling.

How to steam poppy seeds for baking?

Probably everyone loves homemade baked goods, especially confectionery with poppy seeds. In order for the poppy seed filling in pies or rolls to be tastier, you should first properly prepare the poppy seeds. Every housewife should know how to steam poppy seeds for baking, because this secret will make her baked goods even tastier. To steam poppy seeds you will need: - poppy seeds - 1 glass - water - 1 glass - sugar or honey - to taste How to properly steam poppy seeds for baking? 1. Rinse poppy seeds with plenty of water. You can pour it into a fine bowl to rinse or carry out this procedure in a bowl. 2. Pour boiling water over a glass of poppy seeds to steam them. After 10 minutes, drain the water, or leave the poppy seed in the water until it cools completely; this will not harm it in any way. At the same time, a certain consistency is ensured (it becomes softer and juicier) and the taste characteristics of poppy seeds necessary for confectionery products. 3. Grind the poppy seeds in a special clay bowl. If this is not available, you can also grind it in a blender or coffee grinder. 4. When grinding poppy seeds, add sugar, vanillin, sour cream, honey or jam to taste. 5. After this, you can add raisins, candied fruits or nuts to the poppy seed filling if you wish. Now you know how to steam poppy seeds correctly and why you should do it, and you can please your family with poppy seeds - pies, rolls, pies, pancakes, and many other delicacies.

HOW TO REMOVE BITTERNESS FROM POPPIES?

One day you went to the store or market, bought poppy seeds, came home, and discovered that the poppy seed was bitter. This situation is familiar to every housewife. It’s a pity to throw it away, and I want to somehow correct the situation. To remove (or at least reduce the bitter taste) it needs to be steamed or boiled. The poppy seeds are steamed so that they become soft and the bitter taste is removed from them, and in return a characteristic poppy aroma appears.