Key Limes Not Just For Pies
Used to, you could buy a wide variety of lime trees to grow here. Deep sigh! Oh well, it seems that these days all you can find in any nursery is Key Lime. What can you do then, except grow Key Limes?
Everyone knows limes are loaded with Vitamin C, but did you know that, besides eating or drinking the limes themselves, you could be enjoying a delicious medicinal tea from that same tree’s leaves? Yep/ Key Lime leaves have been used for many, many years to make a tea to reduce fevers, help with cold and flu symptoms, relieve headaches and stress, soothe an upset tummy, and even fight certain viruses and germs, lower inflammation, support immune health, etc.?
The juice and the peel of the fruit are applied topically to inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria, including staph. The inner part of the fruit supports immune function, assists in mineral absorption, and helps regulate post-meal sugar spikes. The leaves, as a tea, soothe sore throats and coughs, and because of their high Vitamin C content, can help prevent certain types of kidney stone formation by softening and binding to many minerals found in the urinary tract,
Both the leaves and the fruit are anti-lipidemic (pull fluid off to ease swelling), anti-fungal, lower blood pressure, help fight cancer, anti-bacterial, anti-parasitic, hepatic, anti-platelet, and act as a fertility promoter.
The Texas-grown Key Lime, in particular, may be effective at fighting colon cancer; at least, early studies are promising. Also, the juice of this lime will stop and kill up to 59% of certain pancreatic cancers. (The problem for us is how to get the pure juice onto our pancreas…). And there are a lot of other cancers that studies show key lime juice has quite a dramatic effect on! They’re even seeing results showing that regular consumption of key lime, yes, both the fruit and the leaf, seems to be inhibiting metastasis via the circulatory system. You know, it tastes good and is easy to grow as long as you bring it in during the winter; sounds like a win-win to me!
In Ayurvedic Medicine, the leaves of this tree were crushed and applied to snakebites. Traditionally, and even today still with the older generation, every morning starts with fresh lime juice, black pepper, and honey to ‘kick start’ their digestion. Lime, coconut oil and turmeric are mixed into a paste and used to treat sunburn. Lime and ginger are mixed and consumed to fight mild bronchitis.
In the Philippines, they use the fruit, roots, bark, leaves, and rind. And they use it for EVERYTHING: nausea, Headache, malaria. Sore throat, dysentery, fever reducer (roots), eyewash (leaves), mouthwash and gargle. Stomach issues. Cleaning wounds, soothing insect bites and stings. Gonorrhea (root), high blood pressure, heart ailments and weaknesses, UTI’s, and many, many more. Funny though, the Filipinos claim that consuming lime juice can disrupt the hormonal cycle in women, reducing her fertility, while Western research lists it as a fertility promoter for males… Hmmm, another interesting thing the Filipinos use it for is fighting toxic fungus and fungal infections and infestations.
C. Shaw
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