The beneficial properties of common hazel are actively used by traditional and official medicine. Many doctors, healers, and now recommend it to their patients. Hazelnuts (hazel) are a very useful food product. Kernels are sweet, incredibly nutritious, nourishing. Everyone loves them. And with the growing number of people leading a healthy lifestyle, fitness enthusiasts, hazelnut consumption has become more common.
Common hazel - deciduous shrub grows in many parts of the world, countries with a temperate climate. Even in ancient Greece and Rome, hazel was bred. It was grown by Theophrastus, Sophocles, Virgil. Later, from the VI century, it came to Turkey, and then began to grow on our Black Sea coast.
The selection of the shrub was strict: they took for propagation shoots with the most delicious, large, thin-bred fruits. The trade center was located - the Italian port of Avellian. Here the common hazel got its specific name "Avellian."
Where does hazel grow
Currently, hazel is a large shrub, rarely a tree, up to 8 meters high, grows throughout the European part of Russia, is cultivated in many countries of the world, is found in the mountains of the Crimea, the Caucasus at an altitude of 800 to 1600 m, sometimes rises to 2300 m above sea level. The area of thicket of common hazel is large. Only in the forests of state importance of Russia, it is about 14 thousand hectares. In addition, hazel still grows with oak, forming a beautiful undergrowth on an area of about 2 million hectares.
The hazel genus is represented by 20 species. It grows on the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor, Northern Iran, the middle and mountain parts of the Caucasus. This is a mighty tree with a straight trunk (height about 30 m), a wide pyramidal crown. It grows 200 years, a ripe tree gives 20 kg of small, with a thin shell, tasty, oily fruit. By its beauty, power, a tree filbert can argue with a beech. In the Far East, two types of hazel grow: Manchurian and variegated, in the Caucasus and Crimea - Lombard, or large, whose nuts are known as hazelnuts, in Transcaucasia - Pontic and Colchis.
Hazel is a shade-tolerant breed, but it bears fruit well where there is more sunlight, where the earth is more fertile, where there is more moisture. It grows mainly in bushes. A large bush sometimes consists of 50 nuts, and among them there is not a single main one - all stand with an inclination in different directions.
In the steppes hazel is found along forest edges, ravines, cliffs, river banks, streams. Her root system is powerful, distributed in the upper horizons. For an oak forest, it is an indispensable soil-protective undergrowth. This is a very valuable shrub when creating ravine-beam plantings. Giving natural layering, hazel prevents flushing or erosion of the soil.
White hazel wood has a pinkish tint, strong, viscous, it pricks well, bends. Goes to hoops, to poles, upholstery of fruit boxes, furniture. The coal obtained from it is used for the manufacture of pencils and gunpowder. Young light chocolate trunks chopped into rods: flexible, durable. Previously, wicker barriers were erected from them, beautiful baskets were woven, rakes and canes were made.
According to ancient belief, the branches of hazel possessed mystical, magical power: for example, a treasure pointer was made from annual shoots. Moreover, they had to be cut off on a moonlit night on Ivan Kupala or on an early Sunday morning.
And the Czechs took a consecrated willow and three branches of hazel: one for finding water underground, another for gold, a third for silver. Marriage ceremonies could not do without branches of hazel - they served as a symbol of fertility.
This is a fast-growing breed. Over the summer, its shoots stretch to one and a half meters. Hazel has many ways to breed. If you pin a young shoot to the ground - consider, a new bush has formed. It can be transplanted next spring. It, like currants, propagates by dividing bushes.
If in the fall, ripe nuts fall to the ground, wait for beautiful shoots in spring. Another method of reproduction is the grafting of cuttings on stocks of a bear nut. Fruiting occurs in the second year, and abundant in the fourth.
Hazel and hazelnuts - what's the difference
Everything is very simple - cultivated varieties of hazel are called hazelnuts. That is, hazel and hazelnuts are almost the same thing, but the fruits of hazelnuts are larger, and its shell is thinner than that of hazel.
Both shrubs — hazel and hazelnuts — are growing in my country house. Both give a lot of shoots in the spring. Hazelnut bush is more powerful. Of course, hazelnuts are larger, but, it seems to me, the taste of hazelnut is more saturated, although they are small.
Useful properties of hazel
Nuts are a real treat. They can be eaten raw, fried, dry. They make cakes, creams, various fillings, sweets, halva, cream, butter, as well as flour, which does not lose its taste for two years. All dietary products with its addition become tasty, high-calorie.
The walnut kernel contains 60% fat, 18% protein, up to 5% sucrose, also contains vitamins B and C, iron salts, trace elements. The yield of walnut is 50% of the total mass of the nut. By caloric content hazel nuts are twice as good as white bread and meat. Walnut oil contains 65% oleic, 9% palmetic, 1% stearic acid. It also contains many vitamins.
The beneficial properties of hazel is used in many industries. Walnut oil is used not only by chefs. It is used by painters, perfumers for the production of toilet soap, other cosmetics products, food, paint and varnish industry. Even the shell goes to the production of plywood, linoleum, briquette, grinding stones, activated carbon.
The healing properties of hazel and their use in medicine
As a therapeutic drug, common hazel has long been used. It has been used in medicine for a long time - for relieving headaches, for rheumatic diseases, for diseases of the kidneys, urinary system, anemia, as a general strengthening. Hazel oil mixed with egg white treats burns.
An anti-inflammatory milk can be prepared from the kernels of nuts, the caloric content of which is twice as high as natural cow's milk.
Hazelnut milk
Grind nuts with a coffee grinder, or better, grind them thoroughly with a mortar. Fill with water for 8-10 hours. Water should cover slightly ground nuts. In the morning, you do not need to drain the water, but just rub the nuts in such a way as to make a nutty gruel. Let the porridge mass infuse for 3-4 hours. Then it must be boiled, filtered. Take 1 teaspoon 3-4 times a day.
It helps nut milk for diseases of the upper respiratory tract, for example, bronchitis, at elevated temperature. Traditional medicine recommends taking nut milk to nursing mothers, especially when they have little milk.
Hazelnuts for epilepsy
Epilepsy is a very serious, insidious disease. A decoction of leaves, bark, hazel roots can alleviate the condition of such a patient.
Harvested raw materials are crushed as finely as possible, placed in enameled or glassware. One part of the dry collection is poured into ten parts of cold water, mixed. Place this dish in a water bath, bring the water to a boil. Stand the dishes with the collection in boiling water for 20-30 minutes. Remove the finished broth from the fire, stand for 12-15 minutes, filter. The volume of the broth naturally decreased, so they are added with boiled water to the initial volume.
For a day you need to drink 1 liter of broth. Every day a new daily rate of decoction is prepared. Before taking, the broth is slightly heated to body temperature. One liter of broth is divided into five parts - this is at one time (200 ml). Take an hour after a meal.
Hazel leaves as a therapeutic and wellness remedy
Leaves of hazel for health purposes are harvested in late spring (May-June). They should be dried in the fresh air, not in the sun. Store in a dry place in paper or cloth bags or bags. Shelf life is 3 years.
Hazelnut tea has diuretic properties. Curiously, the same tea is very effective for urinary incontinence. It will benefit with varicose veins, diseases of the lymphatic system, anemia, rickets. Brew in the same way as regular long leaf tea.
Hazelnut Oil
Hazelnut oil has useful healing and wellness properties. One dessert spoon of oil (20 g) before bedtime will help with atherosclerosis. A teaspoon (10-15 g), taken in the morning on an empty stomach, is useful for the prevention of thyroid diseases. Hazelnut oil tastes good, smells good. It can be bought without a prescription.
Hazel in nature - interesting facts
Hazel blossoms - and are filled with jubilant, unstoppable singing of finch, everywhere they are echoed by blackbirds, hemispheres. Bees rush here. The ovary of each female flower contains two ovules. But only one of them is destined to fertilize, so the nut contains one core.
However, it happens that both ovules develop. Then two kernels take root under the shell. Amazing Such nuts A.S. Pushkin found in the groves around Mikhailovsky, where he stayed in exile for several years. For him, as for other people of that time, this phenomenon seemed mysterious, unusual. He even wrote such humorous lines:
"We are exactly the same as a double nut under a single shell."
Once in the thicket of hazel, under the rough wide, rounded leaves you will see small "lamps" - clusters of nuts. Each nut, like a light bulb, is covered with corrugated, with an openwork edge “plafonchik” - a plush.
We have come up with many puzzles about this nut, but you won’t immediately understand what it is about:
Plant common hazel in your country house - you will receive great benefit and great satisfaction. Show attention to her, care - she will generously answer you kindly!