Pak Tamlueng or Ivy Gourd: Natural Medicine That Literally Grows Like A Weed

by Marike Van Breugel

 

 

I had started pulling the invasive creeper out by fistfuls before I even saw them: small cucumber-like fruits hiding behind the leaves.

 

The extremely vigorous vine was choking out my pretty double blue butterfly pea on the side fence. I enjoy to gather and dry blue butterfly flowers (in Thai called Dok Anchan) for herbal teas. Not wanting to harm my pretty Clitoria ternatea, I had discarded my usual machete, and was pulling it out by hand instead.

 

“C’mon have a look at this!” I called out to my 15 year old Thai daughter. “You think they’re edible?”

After a brief look-see and shrugged shoulders, my daughter picked one, snapped a few pics and went off to ask our Thai staff. And the answer came back unequivocally: “Cannot eat. Thai people not eat.”

 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 17 years here in Asia, it’s that we western people glorify “local knowledge” and assume local Thai people just know. I have learned, over and over, that oral culture may be traditional and worth preserving for some reasons, but often it’s like Chinese whispers: i.e. the ‘knowledge’ that is passed from one generation to the next is sometimes blatantly wrong. And this day was one of those times. It took me not more than 5 minutes on a search engine to identify my vigorous “weed”.

 

Coccinea Grandis. Commonly called the Ivy Gourd. In Thai: ผักตำลึง Phak tamlueng (Central); แคเด๊าะ Khae-do (Karen-Mae Hong Son); ผักแคบ Phak khaep (Northern). A potent natural medicine which grows right across the equatorial-tropical regions from Africa to Australia. Common, well studied, thoroughly edible and a potent natural medicine.

 

Full Story: https://expatlifeinthailand.com/health-and-beauty/pak-tamlueng-or-ivy-gourd-natural-medicine-that-literally-grows-like-a-weed/

 

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Weird Thai say they dont eat as its used in 

In Thai cuisine, it is one of the ingredients of the very popular clear soup dish kaeng jued tum lueng ^[11] and some curries kaeng khae curry and kaeng lieng curry.

I guess, i eat it not long ago, the soup, and indeed in that is a bitter tasting ingredient. They fill it up with grindend meat.

Im not a big fan of bitter, but i could eat it. Yesterday i had the mini eggplant, also bitter.

I see it is a terrible weed, almost impossible to get rit off, but on the other hand it is used for many medicinal ways. All of the plant roots, leaves and stem, see : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccinia_grandis

It is such a plant, you can not drop one piece of it or it restarts again. Some bugs can destroy it or a chemical Triclopyr.

However its a weed with many positive healing effects, even with diabetic problems, although not real proven.  

I too was told that this was inedible. Investigating, I will no longer be eradicating these plants.

I have seen Thais eating various things out of the hedges over the years but it has taken me time to find out what it actually is that they are eating. You need the Latin name to see if any serious scientific research has been done, and this can be almost impossible in Thailand. 

I added Basella alba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basella_alba to my list of useful plants, recently as well as Chaya, Cnidoscolus chayamansa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnidoscolus_aconitifolius. This was advised as a part of diet for diabetic patients at a local hospital and is muchmore useful than spinach (Name: tree spinach)

and Sour melon, Momordica charantia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momordica_charantia.

There are likely to be others beyond my ken. 

 

Very useful sources of vitamins, minerals and anti-oxydants etc.