The Health and Culinary Goodness of Curry Leaves

Who is not familiar with the use of curry leaves in our kitchen? The curry plant is a purple black fruited tree famous for its aromatic leaves. It belongs to the family Rutaceae and to a height of 2 to 5 meters. The small and pinnate leaves of this plant have a very pungent aroma. They are valued not only for their unique flavor but also for their immense medicinal importance.

The English term 'Curry' is of Indian origin, as in Tamil an important South Indian language, the word 'Kari' means 'Soup' or 'Sauce'. The Tamil name for curry leaves is Kariveppilai, although these leaves are known by a different name in different languages. They are called girinimba in Sanskrit, feuilles de cari in French, meetha limbdo in Gujarati, curry bavu in Kannada, karea pela in Malayalam, Kari patta in Hindi.

French curry leaves contains 2.6% volatile essential oils containing trepans - beta caryophylline, beta gurjunene, beta elemene, beta philandearene, beta thujene and others. These trepenes have anti bacterial and anti - fungal properties. The curry leaves contain (per 100g ) proteins, 6.1g ; fats,1g ; carbohydrate, 18.7g ; calories, 108 cal ; fiber, 6.4g ; calcium, 830mg ; phosphorus, 57mg ; iron, 0.93mg ; magnesium, 44mg ; manganese, 0.15mg ; zinc, 0.20mg ; folic acid, 93.9mg ; carotene, 21000mg ; beta carotene, 7100mg ; thiamine,0.08 mg ; riboflavin, 0.21mg ; niacin, 2.3mg .

It is observed that curry leaf powder supplementation in diet causes a reduction in blood, glucose level ( at fasting and after meal ) in non-insulin dependent diabetic patients. Hypoglycaemic action of curry leaves has been demonstrated in the alloxan induced diabetic rats. The feeding of curry leaves has been show to protect the tissues against free radical mediated oxidative stress. They observed a reduction in free fatty acid levels and malondialdehyde and increase in the concentration of hydroperoxides and conjugated dines in lever and hearts of rat. They also noted an increase in the activity of superoxide dismutase and catalase and decrease in glutathion and glutathion's transfer ace in lever, heart and kidneys.