Identity:
Banana is a highly nourishing fruit and a staple food used throughout India. It is also offered during religious rituals and festivals. The medicinal use of both the fruit and the banana plant has been practiced across India since ancient times.
Common banana varieties used as food—such as green bananas, Chapa, Martaman, and Kathali—are all nearly of the same species and are generally consumed when ripe.
Uses:
Almost every part of the banana plant is used medicinally, including the fruit, leaves, rhizome, roots, flower bud, stem core, pith, and seeds.
Banana leaves, especially young ones, are used as coverings for burns and to keep the eyes cool. Raw (green) bananas are soothing, nourishing, and constipating in nature. Any type of green banana is an excellent dietary food for patients suffering from diabetes and blood vomiting.
Green bananas sliced, sun-dried, powdered, and cooked like barley are effective in treating chronic diarrhea and indigestion.
Ash made from green bananas is beneficial for inflammation of the rectum, throat lesions, asthmatic cough, and intestinal worms.
Applying mashed boiled green banana like an ointment helps heal burns and relieves itching caused by syphilis.
Slightly warmed juice of the banana leaf stalk, used externally, relieves sharp ear pain.
The rhizome and stem (pseudostem) are strengthening and help purify impure blood. Juice from the stem reduces blood vomiting and relieves thirst in cholera.
Juice from the rhizome destroys all kinds of intestinal worms. When banana root juice is mixed with ghee and sugar and given to a gonorrhea patient, it produces excellent results and helps stop bleeding from the reproductive organs.
Eating ripe banana mixed with aged tamarind or rock sugar and salt helps reduce bloody dysentery within two days.
