For flowers, people pay more attention to their ornamental value, but ignore their edible function. In fact, many flowers have higher nutrition and health care functions than ordinary vegetables.
Professor Zhou Wuzhong, a famous expert in flower culture research, once pointed out that China's edible flowers will surely become one of the most dynamic industries.
With the increasingly fierce competition in the field of ornamental flowers, it is necessary for us to find another way to open up the edible flower market.
Eat flowers and taste sweet and romantic.
In the history of China, eating flowers was once very popular.
In the pre-Qin era, Qu Yuan's Lisao once pointed out: "When drinking Mulan in the morning, you will see the dew, and when having dinner, the autumn chrysanthemum will fall to England.
"In the literati class at that time, eating flowers was associated with keeping a clean and honest life.
It is also mentioned in Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica that eating chrysanthemums will "make people strong and resist aging".
Tang and Song Dynasties were the most prosperous period of ancient flower-eating culture.
There was a custom of eating chrysanthemums on the Double Ninth Festival in the Tang Dynasty.
In the Song Dynasty, the flower-eating culture developed further. During this period, there were many kinds of flowers used for eating, and the cooking methods were more abundant.
In Song Dynasty, a special flower cookbook "Shan Jia Qing Gong" was published, which included 10 ways to eat many kinds of flowers, such as plum porridge, snow dew soup and so on.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was popular to distill flowers to make fragrant dew, which was added to wine and soup in the form of seasoning, which was a great progress in flower eating technology.
In the Ming Dynasty, Gao Lian recorded a variety of edible flowers in "Respecting the Eight Tones of Life".
Dai's "Raising the Moon" includes 18 kinds of edible flowers.
According to historical records, Empress Dowager Cixi of the Qing Dynasty had a special liking for flowers and food. In order to cater to her preference, the court chef developed many foods based on flowers, which have been popular ever since.
At present, some traditional cuisines still keep the habit of flowers, such as osmanthus balls in Shandong cuisine, hibiscus chicken slices in Beijing cuisine, lotus seed soup in Shanghai cuisine and Baiju Wushe soup in Cantonese cuisine.
In recent years, flower-eating fever has also quietly arisen abroad.
South Americans like to eat fresh nasturtium; Eastern European countries like to make jam with rose petals; Turks make candy with jasmine and violets; Japanese and European and American countries put cosmos, daisy, begonia, pansy, marigold, elderberry, gourd flower, pumpkin flowers and rose on the table, among which salads and snacks mainly made of flowers are popular. In Southeast Asian countries, flavor dishes made of herbs such as basil have become special dishes.
Eating with flowers in your mouth is nutritious and healthy.
Researcher Huang of Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry told the reporter that they have cultivated 18 special varieties of edible chrysanthemums, all of which are characterized by high content of flavonoids, vitamin C and calcium. Some vegetable farmers have generally achieved good economic benefits after introduction.
Wu Tingchun, Jiangsu Jurong Special Food Development Center, is one of the presenters. After his edible chrysanthemums went on the market, the demand was in short supply, and the income per mu was 6,543,800 yuan.
Huang pointed out that flowers are popular not only because of their beautiful appearance, but also because the petals of most flowers have high nutritional value and health care function.
Therefore, we should cultivate and develop more flowers with nutrition and health care functions.
Chinese food pays the most attention to color, fragrance and taste, and flowers just meet these needs.
The petals of flowers are colorful and delicious, and mixing them into dishes will make people appetite.
Flowers are rich in protein, fat, sugar, amino acids, vitamins A, B, C, E and various trace elements, such as iron, zinc, potassium, etc., and are truly green foods.
At present, there are many kinds of edible flowers in China, such as plum blossom, chrysanthemum, rose, lily, jasmine, lotus, clove, osmanthus, hibiscus, gardenia, honeysuckle, begonia and so on 100.
In China, flower consumption has a profound background of traditional Chinese medicine.
For example, lily has the functions of moistening lung and relieving cough, clearing heart and calming nerves, honeysuckle has the function of clearing away heat and toxic materials, and eating cactus has the function of diuresis, which has a good auxiliary effect on treating nephritis and diabetes.
These characteristics make flowers an ideal healthy food.
Unfortunately, the edible function of flowers has not been well developed at present, and edible flowers have not yet formed an industry.
Edible flowers are more promising and challenging.
In recent years, China's flower industry has developed rapidly and the variety of flowers is very rich, which has laid a solid foundation for the development of edible flowers, but there are still many blind spots in the development of edible flowers, which need to be solved urgently.
First, the planting scale of edible flowers is small.
Edible flowers are few, and they are high-grade food. The price in the market is extremely high, and most of them are sold to high-end hotels. The price is difficult to be accepted by ordinary consumers.
In the field of planting, edible flowers are not popular at present, and growers are worried that they will not sell them, so they are doing business at a loss.
In addition, the industrialization development of edible flowers needs high-quality seedlings with high nutritional value and high yield.
At present, the lack of special varieties of edible flowers and the low propagation degree of edible flower seedlings hinder the large-scale production of flowers.
Second, there is a lack of quantitative analysis of the nutritional value of edible flowers.
Many people have eaten dandelion, daylily and so on. Experience often comes from the generation of mothers and grandmothers who experienced famine years, but which flowers are edible? Which part of the flower is edible? Specifically, what trace elements does each edible flower contain? What are the health care functions? Many people can't explain it clearly.
Some people even think that eating flowers is an adventurous behavior. What should I do if I am poisoned? Lack of quantitative analysis of the nutritional value of edible flowers is an obstacle to the promotion of edible flowers. Few nutritionists and health care experts scientifically analyze edible flowers, and even recommend some flowers with nutritional and health care functions.
Thirdly, the problem of fresh-keeping of edible flowers has not been well solved.
Edible flowers, like vegetables and fruits, freshness is one of the important standards to measure their quality.
Edible flowers are mostly produced in rural areas, and the largest consumption market for edible flowers is in cities, so they cannot be picked and eaten locally.
Some experts point out that the fresher flowers are, the more nutrients they retain. If the flowers are dried in the sun, their nutritional value will be easily lost.
If you eat flowers, its effective nutrients are more easily absorbed by the human body, and the health care effect will be better.
Because edible flowers have not yet formed an industry, the problem of flower preservation has not been well solved.
We believe that edible flowers, an industrial rich mine, will be well developed and the wind of edible flowers will prevail again.