Pomelo or pummel (Citrus grandis, syn. Citrus maxima) is especially popular during the Chinese New Year and Chinese mooncake festival (in Malaysia)

Usage and potential:

Medicine: The Chinese eat the sweet and sour fruit to fortify the lungs and the spleen. They make various medicaments from the seeds, flowers, mature peel, and slices of young fruit by usually drying them up. The leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds are sometime used as herbal medicine to treat cough, fevers , dyspesia, swellings, vomiting, indigestion, in removing phlegm and resolving alcohol toxins and hangover. The Malays eat the fruit to treat abdominal pains, oedema and phlegm. The leaves are boiled into a lotion and applied on swellings and ulcers. In the Philippines, and other parts of Southeast Asia, decoctions of the leaves, flowers and rind are used for their seductive effect in cases of epilepsy, chorea (neurological disorders) and convulsive coughing. The fruit juice is taken as febrifuge. Gums that exude from declining trees are collected and taken as a cough remedy in Brazil. Pomelo fruit is an excellent source of Vitamin C (Morton 1987).

Other uses: The Chinese boil pomelo skin and leaves for a ritual bath that cleanses a person and repels evil. It is also used by Malays in exorcism to remove evil spirits. Oil can be extracted from the leaves, peel or seeds of some pomelo races. Oil from the seeds is used in lighting up opium pipes in Indo-China. Flowers are used to extract perfume. Timber from pomelo trees is used in making tool-handles and being moderately heavy and hard, it can be used for other purposes accordingly.

The white inner part of the peel can be candied after the outer peel containing oil glands have been removed. In Vietnam, the highly aromatic flowers are used in making perfumes.

Best Uses: Use for juice or add sections to fruit or green salads or fruit salsas. Good with fish. Pomelo fruit offers an excellent source of Vitamin C, fiber and folic acid (especially important) to women who are in the child birthing age. Folic acid helps your body heal itself and grow new tissue. Along with these elements, the citric acid in the pomelo fruit offers health benefits as well.

Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. It has been known to have adjuvant treatment for diabetes, hypertension decreases incidence of asthma symptoms especially among young children. Basically, the antioxidants in pomelo protect us from nasty free radicals in our body. These antioxidants block free radicals from breaking down the needed chemicals in our body.

Besides, pomelo fruit is a wonderful source of fiber that has a positive effect on cholesterol in our body. The action of waste passing through our body quickly protects us from Diverticular disease which can be very painful and toxic. Soluble fiber not only helps to regulate blood sugar and controls the effects of diabetes, but also protects our colon from cancer.