According to folk peasant tradition, keeping a chestnut in your pocket helps prevent colds. But what's true?
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerousAccording to folk peasant tradition keeping a chestnut in your pocket helps prevent colds. But what's true?
Typical of autumn, chestnuts are a much loved and appreciated fruit not only for their sweet taste and full-bodied texture but also for their beneficial qualities and properties.
Also in autumn it is common to catch a cold. But what relationship can there be between this disease and chestnuts?
The peasants used to use a curious and ancient remedy against colds that exploits the beneficial virtues of the chestnut. You may be imagining a decoction based on this fruit, a syrup or whatever and instead it is simply put a chestnut in your pocket!
In reality, an important clarification must be made: the chestnut to use to keep the cold away is not the one we commonly know, but the Indian chestnut or "horse", the so-called mad chestnut! These are those shiny and round chestnuts that they are the fruit (inedible and toxic) of the horse chestnut and therefore not that of the chestnut.
Tradition has it that it is held in the coat pocket for the whole winter in such a way as to avoid ailments but there are also those who believe it is sufficient to keep it in the car, on the desk or in the bag.
But where would the benefits of this remedy come from?
The origins of the belief derive from the properties that the matte chestnuts have in soothe the symptoms of colds and asthma in horses. Human beings, however, cannot in any case ingest them as they are toxic and consequently dangerous.
The active ingredient of interest for the treatment of colds isescin that these chestnuts contain and which has an anti-inflammatory action as well as useful for promoting lymphatic drainage and capillary permeability.
It 'obvious that there is nothing scientific about this remedy, it is difficult for the properties of a fruit to migrate from the pocket to the viruses present in the organism but it remains a fascinating and somewhat magical proposal, a legacy of a cultural system of our past that should not be forgotten.
Have you ever tried it just out of curiosity?
Read also:
- Chestnuts: properties, uses and how to cook them to enhance all their benefits
- Horse chestnut: properties, uses and contraindications
- Colds: 10 Natural Remedies That Really Work
- The ancient medieval recipe to defeat colds and flu
