00:00 There are the classic Moorish meadows,
00:02 that is, the so-called forest fruits that we all know and that spontaneously grow
00:06 among the wild bushes.
00:08 And then there are the Moorish meadows, which instead
00:11 mature between May and August on majestic trees,
00:15 even up to 20 meters high, already known in the Roman times when Pliny
00:20 described the virtues and health properties, virtues and properties that we too
00:26 our little one, we will decline in this new episode of the Taste of Health.
00:32 [Music]
00:58 The gelso tree belongs to the family of the Moraceae. It is a long-lived plant,
01:03 resistant to the wide foliage, endowed with bright green and chory leaves,
01:08 leaves of which the silk-barked ones feed on,
01:12 they feed on in a voracious way before wrapping themselves inside their
01:17 prized bushes. In Italy, of the gelso trees,
01:21 there are two different varieties that differ from each other
01:27 because of the colors of their fruits.
01:30 We have the white gelso, Morus alba,
01:34 plant native to East Asia and producer of small white fruits,
01:39 certainly edible but not easily found on the markets
01:43 because of their not easy conservability.
01:47 And then there is the black gelso, Morus nigra, which is instead a plant
01:52 native to Asia Minor and producer of the classic gelso blackberries,
01:57 small berries of a maximum length of two and a half centimeters,
02:02 carnivorous, succulent, very dark, which can be consumed as such,
02:08 therefore raw, that is, used to prepare sweets, confections, syrups, jellies.
02:15 These berries, as I said at the beginning,
02:19 were known in Roman times when Pliny told about them,
02:23 described their health properties, which, among other things, Pliny himself
02:27 differentiated according to the levels of fruit ripening,
02:31 in the sense that the acerbic fruit, according to Pliny,
02:35 was able to block bleeding, while the ripe fruit was able to
02:40 effectively counteract stomach or throat pain.
02:45 But let's try to go a little more into the specifics of the historical curiosities
02:50 of this little fruit, taken care of by our Marco Renna.
02:55 In Greek culture, the gelso was considered a sacred plant,
03:05 while the Latin poet Ovid gives it a literary centrality in its metamorphosis.
03:12 The great writer and naturalist Pliny the Elder
03:16 defined it as "sapientissima arborum", the wisest among plants,
03:21 because the gelso had the ability to emit leaves only after it had
03:26 conjured the last jellies.
03:28 Originary from China, it was Marco Polo, after his long trip to the East,
03:36 to bring home important sparks of gelso, which then, in the following century,
03:43 spread throughout Europe.
03:46 And Marco Polo documented, in some way,
03:50 the ability to relieve throat pain, and if mixed with a little honey,
03:58 also to somehow manage to keep the stomach disorders at bay.
04:04 It is said that in the easternmost part of Italy, in Otranto,
04:09 during the conquest of the Saracen Turks in 1480,
04:13 women would gather under a gelso tree to pray
04:19 for the Turks to leave Otranto or to be somehow expelled.
04:25 And from there, a few months later, the coalition, led by the Duke Alfonso d'Aragona,
04:33 in some way, fulfilled those prayers.
04:38 From a nutritional point of view, gelso has a low caloric power,
04:47 so certainly fruits that are great for diets for the lean.
04:51 100 grams of these fruits provide about 43 calories.
04:55 They are made up of 90% water, 9% carbohydrates,
05:00 and the rest, instead, is made up of proteins and even lower in fat content.
05:05 They contain fibers, very important for digestion and to improve intestinal mobility.
05:10 Gelso are considered natural integrators, because they are rich in minerals.
05:15 They are rich in iron, but also in potassium, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus.
05:18 For this reason, they are very suitable in the summer,
05:21 especially if you do sports, if you sweat excessively.
05:24 As for the vitamin intake, we have, above all, vitamin C,
05:28 but also important quantities of vitamins from the group B, vitamin A, vitamin E and vitamin K.
05:33 Gelso contain important amounts of antioxidants.
05:37 We have carotenoids, alpha and beta carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin.
05:40 Above all, gelso are distinguished in white and black, not only for the color,
05:44 but also for the antioxidant content, which is greater in the dark type.
05:49 Actually, the dark ones are sweeter and juicier than the white ones,
05:52 which are hardly used in the wild.
05:56 Fruits are generally used fresh and dried to prepare sweets,
06:00 jam, granita or ice cream, while the advice is certainly to
06:04 use them for breakfast, for example, together with a yogurt or in the
06:08 spuntino to enrich a macedonia.
06:12 The mores of gelso can be considered as a real source of
06:22 antioxidants and therefore as such able to counteract or at least
06:28 slow down cell aging processes and therefore to protect
06:33 our body from inflammatory states, neurodegenerative diseases,
06:38 infections, tumors. Among the antioxidants contained in these small fruits,
06:44 I would like to remember, for example, the anthocyanins, but also the manganese,
06:48 but above all the resveratrol, a substance that we know to be contained
06:53 in grapes and red wine and that certainly exerts an important antioxidant action,
07:00 but it is also a powerful ally of cardiovascular health.
07:04 Other substances, however, are contained
07:07 within the fruits of gelso. Among these substances, I would like to
07:11 remember in particular the zeaxantin, which exerts a protective action on the
07:17 skin and therefore is certainly a good support for the visual function.
07:21 Then there are still the phytoestrogens, which can be quite useful
07:28 to keep the hematic levels of cholesterol under control.
07:31 And it is still made up of iron,
07:34 useful to compensate for the anemic iron deficiencies.
07:38 There is vitamin C, useful to support the functions of the immune system.
07:42 There are vitamins of group B that we know
07:45 to be important supports for the overall metabolic functions of our body.
07:50 On the other hand, it must be said that the
07:53 mores of gelso, being particularly rich in
07:56 sugars, should be taken with a certain
08:01 parsimony from those subjects possibly diabetic, perhaps already in treatment with
08:06 hypoglycemic drugs, but then it must also be said that these fruits are able to
08:12 supplement, for example, the side effects of anticholesterol drugs and are able to
08:17 interfere with the pharmacological action of different drugs, among which I remember
08:23 in particular the antidepressants or the anxiolytics, in particular benzodiazepines,
08:29 still the barbiturates, the drugs for the gout and in general all those drugs
08:34 that follow the metabolic path of the so-called P450 3A4 chitochrome.
08:41 It is in this last case of
08:43 technical information that, as always, will be compared with those that are the
08:48 opinions of our doctors of trust.
08:50 I.
08:52 I.
08:54 I.
08:56 I.
08:58 [music]
09:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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