As everybody know October is the 10th month of the calendar year and is the time when the rains end and transition to winter in Myanmar. In Europe, there is Autumn weather. In Myanmar, famous festival is Thadingyut and in Europe and US Halloween festival is very famous. That is also lantern festival and there will be Halloween decoration in every corner of the city and in every supermarket. The main theme as you know is pumpkin. Pumpkins, apples and berries are mostly harvested in this season.

What I’d like to talk about is pumpkin. Pumpkin is a kind of fruit because it contains seeds, but its more similar to vegetable in nutritionally. 100 gm of cooked pumpkin gets 18 Calorie. You can see Pumpkin is not much Calories as we think. It has plenty of filling of fiber and it may aid in weight-loss efforts.

Is pumpkin suitable for person with diabetes?

Glycemic index of Pumpkin is medium. Glycemic Index (GI) is the range of scale (0-100) that shows the food is digested and turns blood sugar in the body. If GI of the particular food is high, it digested and quickly turns into blood sugar. Cooked pumpkin has glycemic index (GI) of 51 and boiled pumpkin is 64.

Another sugar indicator is Glycemic Load (GL). Glycemic load means a measure of the number of carbohydrates in a serving of food. GL of pumpkin is 3 and it is low GL. GL is a better scale to know which food will affect blood sugar. So pumpkin is safe for people with diabetic with a single portion of serving. If you eat a large amount, you will get increase of blood sugar.

Pumpkin also provides essential vitamins and minerals.

You can see pumpkin is not only delicious taste, but also it has an attractive color of yellowish orange. It shows us that there are plenty of beta-carotene in it. Beta-carotene is precursor of vitamin A and it is essential for healthy eyes, healthy neurons and good skin.

Together with Vit A, C and Vit E in pumpkin boost your body immunity. Vit C is good for your gum, healing of wounds and body resistant. Vit E is good for healthy neurons, healthy skin and reproductive health. All of vitamins in pumpkin are antioxidant vitamins, they help to prevent risk of developing cancer.

Minerals in pumpkin are sodium, potassium, iron, phosphorus and zinc. Sodium is essential for your body by preventing fatigue, muscle spasm, confusion etc. Potassium is for electrolyte in the body and good for your heart. Iron is as you know essential to prevent anemia. Phosphorus is for preventing ataxia, muscle weakness, confusion etc. A little amount of zinc in pumpkin is good for your healthy intestine, skin and reproductive organs.

How about Pumpkin seeds? Pumpkin seeds are suitable food that rich in minerals I mentioned above. In one cup of pumpkin seeds there are 9.5 mg of iron that is equivalent to about 50% of Recommended daily allowance for female of reproductive age.

We can enjoy pumpkin with various ways of cooking. In Europe, in this season they used to eat pumpkin pie, pancake, muffins, cookies and pumpkin and bean soup. Mostly I used to cook pumpkin is together with prawns and onions. It makes the dish so sweet and good smell. And we also have to taste for pumpkin smoothie.

Written by ML