Recently, my friend Daler, a Tajik by nationality, surprised me with his knowledge of botany, explaining why cucumbers are actually bitter, and not just shrugging off “watered a little”, but from a scientific point of view, he also spoke about the trick that they used on market to get rid of bitterness in already ripened cucumbers! Let's start!
And let's start with why cucumbers are bitter at all. The reason for this is the natural toxin “cucurbitacin”, in simple terms – the protective mechanism of cucumbers, if the environment in which it grows is aggressive – the cucumber produces a toxin to increase the protection of the seeds inside.
This is essentially a reaction to stress that can be caused by a number of reasons, including: too high or low temperature, too high or low humidity, lack of light, poor soil, pests.
However, a lot depends on the variety, there are varieties with more developed protection, some of which become unbearably bitter, that is, toxic, but there are varieties that almost do not emit toxins even under stressful conditions.
By the way, we often repeat the terrible word “toxin” here, but in reality this toxin, cucurbitacin, is only harmful for pests, for people, on the contrary, it is useful! Yes, yes, we can say that bitter cucumbers are more useful than ordinary ones, because
However, if I don't want to eat bitter cucumbers? How to?
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Well, how did summer residents know about this? Write your opinion in the comments!