Health Benefits of Longan – Its native to Southeast Asia, the small fruit that resembles to lanzones has a sweet taste and fresh. Longan is usually used as a complement to cakes, its used as a topping on some cake. However, some of these plants are not familiar with either.
This is including seasonal fruit. So, the fruit often pack in the form of cans. Sweet and fresh fruit is not only delicious food but also save a lot of health benefits for the body. Here are some health benefits of longan as quoted from various sources.
Longan Fruit vs Lychees
Longan and lychee are very refreshing tropical fruits, at first glance they are the same, but both have differences, even though they are still the closest relatives in the fruit family.
When you peel it, you will see the white flesh wrapped around the black seed. However, the difference between the two is that longan has a smaller size than lychee. Longan skin is smoother, and darker. While the skin of the lychee is pink and there are small bumps on the surface of the skin.
The difference between longan vs lychee is also seen in terms of taste. The taste of longan is musky, and lychee tastes like flowers. Both are delicious when eaten fresh. However, longan fruit is sometimes difficult to find fresh, but there are many frozen and canned longans available.
Health Benefits of Longan
1. Healthy skin
The fruit very useful for skin health, anti-aging content in longan able to keep skin fresh include keeping the skin in Eye Area.
See more: Health benefits of lychee
Regularly consume longan useful to minimize cracking of the skin, improves skin tone. Another health benefit of longan is maintain healthy gums and teeth.
2. Natural Antidepressant
The benefits also great for dealing with nerves. This fruit can provides a relaxing effect on the nerves and improves nerve function, decrease anger, and reduce fatigue.
Beside that, the fruits also useful for neurasthenic neurosis disease, neurasthenia, and nice to overcome sleep disorders.
3. Preventing tissue damage
The content of vitamin C in longan beneficial to prevent damage to skin tissue. Vitamin C also acts as an antioxidant that prevents free radicals, lipid, DNA damage, and cell membrane oxidation.
The number of free radicals that accumulate in the body would be bad for the health as it cause cancer, and arthritis. Regularly eating longan helpful to get rid of free radicals.
4. Increase your metabolism
Riboflavin is an important compound in longan that acts as an important substance for the body’s metabolism. Among the benefits is to produce energy, to enable the co-enzyme for the metabolism of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins.
In one portion of longan is already provide as much as 0.14 milligrams of riboflavin, which is 11% of the daily requirement for men and 13% of the recommended daily requirement for women. In addition, according to a study longan fruit also contains niacin and thiamine are useful for metabolism.
5. Healthy food for the brain
Furthermore, health benefits of longan are for eye health. Copper content could promote brain health. Norepinephrine is one of the substances that useful to produce copper. Norepinephrine is very beneficial for brain health because it is used by the brain cells in interact and communicates.
Another health benefit of copper is maintain the health surrounds nerves. 100 grams of longan fruit could generate as much as 169 micro-grams of copper that are 19% of the recommended daily intake. Thus, the results set by the Institute of Medicine.
See more: Healthy foods to educate the brain
6. Meet the needs of vitamin C
Longan is load fruit with Vitamin C. Deficiency of vitamin C will be susceptible to hypertension, heart disease, macular degeneration can even cause cancer.
So, this fruit is one source of vitamin C. In 3.5 ounces Longan contains 84 milligrams. It already meets 93% of the recommended daily requirement of the vitamin for men, and already meets 100% of vitamin C for women.
7. Strengthens bones
Our bones also will get huge benefits from longan fruit. Based on research conducted in 2013 reported that women with copper deficiency are more at risk of osteoporosis.
The adults should consume 900 micro-grams of copper every day. In 3.5 ounces longan provides 19% of copper supply the recommended daily. Dried longan is the best source of copper, in 3.5 ounces of dried longan contains 807 micrograms of the mineral. It is almost 90% of the RDA.
8. Prevent eye disease
Longan fruit contains a lot of riboflavin, which is very useful for health. Riboflavin deficiency can increase the risk of the eye against a variety of eye problems, including cataracts.
9. Meet the needs of iron
Other, Health benefits of Longan is fulfill the iron needs. In 3.5 ounces longan containing 5 milligrams of iron. This is 62% of the daily recommendation.
Nutritional Value of Longan Fruit
Longan fruit loaded with nutrition so it’s great to meet the daily nutritional needs. A variety of minerals and vitamins can be found in longan. Here’s a list of the nutritional value of longan fruit, may be useful.
- Water – 83 grams
- Zinc – 0.05 mg
- Protein – 1.3 grams
- Fiber – 1.3 grams
- Carbohydrates – 15 grams
- Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) – 0,031 mg
- Vitamin B3 (Niacin) – 0.3 mg
- Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) – 0,014 grams
- Vitamin C – 84 grams
- Magnesium – 10 grams
- Iron – 0.13 grams
- Calcium – 1 gram
- Potassium – 266 mg
These are some health benefits of longan fruit and the nutritional value within.
Possible Side Effects of Longan
High Sugar Content
Longan is a fresh and sweet fruit with a high sugar content. In 100 grams or one serving with a size of 1 ounce contains 65 grams of sugar. So, for diabetics, it is not a good idea to eat this fruit. It is also low in fiber, so it is very bad for the health of diabetics.
In 100 grams contains only 1 gram of fiber. This includes fruits with a high glycemic index.
If you want to compare fresh and canned longan, then canned longan is higher in sugar content. Moreover, most canned longans are equipped with sweet syrup, this will increase the sugar content. If you want to try longan, you should look for fresh or freshly harvested because the sugar content is much less than canned.
Pesticide Poisoning
Longan side effects, not only because it is high in sugar. This fruit is very susceptible to various pests, so many farmers choose to use pesticides to eradicate these pests.
This can increase the risk of food poisoning, especially when the use of pesticides sometimes exceeds the recommended dose.
If you peel longan fruit with your teeth, it can easily infect toxic pesticides. However, an organic version of longan is also available but at a higher price.
Dangerous for pregnant women
Side effects of longan fruit on pregnant women. Consuming longan can increase body temperature like when you eat durian. If pregnant women consume longan, it can worsen the condition of the body and the fetus. Eating longan fruit can cause dry mouth, stomach pain, constipation, and can cause complications during pregnancy.
So, pregnant women should not consume longan, if you really want this fruit, wait until you give birth first.
