Jujube

Jujube

Scientific Name: Ziziphus jujuba

Uses: Immune

Native to: Asia

That’s right, jujubes could save your life. In fairness, I must tell you that the jujube I am referring to is not the confection sold at the dime store and movie house. It’s the genuine item, a life-giving and restoring sweet treat few Westerners have ever had the pleasure of tasting. The real jujube fruit is the product of an Asian tree, Jujube ziziphus. It looks like an olive, but tastes like an apple in both its dried and fresh forms. It is a preferred fruit of the orient for health and table eating. Whereas we Westerners say that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, the Asians believe that a jujube does the same trick.

These dried fruits made their way from Asia into Europe during the days of Marco Polo. Sometimes called Chinese dates, they’re slightly less sugary than actual dates, and they found such favor in Europe that in time the term jujube came to apply to any dried sweetmeat and then to candy in general. Though the candies sold at theaters today probably have no natural ingredients at all, their namesake is quite natural, and healthy as well.

Despite its unfamiliarity to most Westerners, the jujube is known from Arabia to the far reaches of the orient. The main jujube is called Ziziphus jujube, but other members of the same tribe – Z. ziziphus and Z. spina-christi – all find medicinal use. The Arabs, who use the fruit of all three trees to ensure health, feel that the leaves of the plant kill parasites and worms in the intestinal tract which cause diarrhea. The fruits are said to cure coughs, resolve any other lung complaints, soothe the internal organs, and, last but not least, reduce water retention.

Jujube fruits are said to increase the flesh and strength of the seriously ill, reversing the process of disease.

In Haiti, twelve fruits or a handful of leaves and roots are boiled in several cups of water to make a tea taken as an antidote to poison. I’ve said it before, but the modern world is filled with poison, most of which we take into our bodies without any coaxing, and the jujube may be the corrective we need.

To learn more about the jujube, it is best to go to its home, Asia, where the fruit has been cultivated since ancient days. The Asians use two kinds of jujubes, a wild sort and a domestic type. Although the two are closely related, there are some important differences, the first noteworthy one being that the spines have been bred out of the domestic plant, making picking easier.

The wild plant is called suan-tsao. As you may have noticed earlier, one of the medicinal jujubes I’ve mentioned is called Ziziphus spina-christi, and you guessed it, the name means Christ’s spiny jujube. That plant gets a whopping seven listings in the Bible, including one rather unpleasant quotation from the Book of Judges: "Then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness, and with briars." It’s no exaggeration. Some jujubes, like the wild Asian suan-zao, make a good old southern bramble patch seem like a bed of silk. Suan-zao produces a small, sour fruit that is used mainly for the stomach and as a general tonic.

The Chinese have found that the wild jujube fruit improves the health of the body. In fact, the common belief is that if the fruit is taken on a daily basis, it will improve skin color and tone, both signs of physical well being. The tree, by the way, is said to have been discovered by a fairy or angel-like creature who disclosed it to humanity for our benefit.

Its domestic counterpart, known as pei-tsao in northern China and nan-tsao in the south, is considered to be cooling to the body. Like an Asian version of the aspirin, the fruits somehow reduce pain and distress. They are strongly recommended for cases of sleeplessness caused from mental fatigue, physical weakness, or pain. They reign supreme in the treatment of rheumatic symptoms and are said to rejuvenate the body, whether it is suffering from stress or age. The plant is used to prevent intestinal or respiratory flu and to speed the recovery process along.

In the old days, diseases that caused the body to waste away were called wasting syndromes. The ancients knew which plants would reverse this process and allow the body to build itself back up again, and the jujube was one of these plants. Its fruits are said to increase the flesh and strength of the seriously ill, reversing the process of disease. To my mind, preventative medicine is where it’s at, and if the plant can restore a wasting body, one can only imagine what it could do for a reasonable healthy body under stress. The Chinese do stipulate, however, that the jujube should only be used fresh in wasting conditions, as it can cause fever otherwise.

In modern Chinese medicine, the jujube is used to tone the spleen and stomach, to treat shortness of breath and severe emotional upset and debility due to nerves, and to mask the flavors of unpleasant-tasting herbs. Scientists have found that mice fed jujube gained more weight and did markedly better in endurance tests than those not given the fruit. When rabbits exposed to carbon tetrachloride consumed jujube teas daily for a week, they recovered faster than a control group. Also indicative of jujube’s positive effect on the liver was a test in which rabbits fed a toxic chemical recovered much more rapidly after consuming jujube than those that did not eat the fruit. What’s more, jujube improved the liver function of patients suffering from hepatitis and cirrhosis.

Jujube pits, when aged for three years, are considered excellent for wounds and abdominal pain. The leaves are used to treat children suffering from typhoid fever – they induce the sweating thought to break the fever. They are also used for a number of infectious diseases. The heartwood is considered a powerful blood tonic. The root is used to promote hair growth and in treating such eruptive fevers of children as smallpox, measles, and chicken pox. Last but not least, the bark is used to make an eye wash for inflamed eyes. We might as well call this one the medicine tree.

Although we Westerners have largely forgotten all about the jujube, its medicinal worth was recognized enough in Europe at one time that it received a mention from Gerard in the 17^th century. He seems to have felt the same way the Asians do about jujube – it’s an excellent tonic for all the parts that matter, especially the lungs and the kidneys:

The fruit of the jujube tree eaten is of hard digestion, and nourisheth very little; but being taken in syrups, electuaries, and such like confections, it appealeth and smootheth the roughness of the throat, the breast and lungs, and is good against the cough, but exceeding good for the reines of the back, and kidneys and bladder.

The Indians and Pakistanis agree that jujube is a fine blood cleanser and a great addition to any diet, particularly if one is prone to illness. Both cultures use the plant as an overall tonic, strengthener, and disease preventer.

Did you ever notice that when you get run down, you get sick, and sometimes once you get sick, you keep getting sick? First it’s a sinus infection, then it’s an ear infection, then it’s a chest cold, and then you get the flu. Have you ever been sick off and on again for a whole season? This seems to be more and more common, and it’s just the phenomenon for which the Indians and Pakistanis use jujubes.

They definitely belong in our tonic. Jujubes are readily available at Asian grocery stores and pharmacies, and if you don’t have one in your city or town, there are mail-order Chinese herbal supply companies that will send you as many jujubes as you could ever use. Don’t try to substitute the over-the-movie-refreshment-counter variety. It won’t work.

Better than buying your jujubes, you might as well grow your own. Any one of several varieties of jujube trees can be had by picking up the phone and calling a mail-order nursery. The shapely tree is a great addition to the yard. With the look of a Japanese weeping cherry, it is as decorative as its fruit is edible. In addition, the tree produces bumper crops of fruit and never has to be sprayed for anything. That’s right, a fruiting tree that is not subject to the ravages of a million insects. Squirrels, known as tree rats to some, do like the fruit, but it is produced in such quantities that there is enough for everybody.

One of the problems with most fruit trees is that they produce a million pounds of fruit in a week-long period, which means you have to process a lot of fruit all in one day. Not so the jujube. Jujubes will dry right on the tree so that by the time the fruit falls off, you can pop it in a jar for later use.