How I Process Fresh Bitter Leaf 🌿

Hello my fellow Steemians and members of the Steem-Agro Community!

I hope you all are doing great today. Welcome back to my blog! Today, I want to share with you a complete guide on how I pluck, wash, extract medicinal juice from, and process fresh bitter leaf with zero waste.

HOW I CAREFUL PREPARED MY BETTER LEAF 🌿

Bitter leaf is a wonder plant. You can drink the natural extract as medicine, and you can cook the washed leaf for delicious meals. Let me take you through how I do it step by step!

Step 1:

Setting Up the Tools and Plucking
First, I pluck the fresh bitter leaves straight from the tree and set them inside my large basin.

Here are the items I use for the job:

• A big stainless steel basin
• A green sieve bowl (colander) and a black basin
• A small green bowl
• A stainless steel kettle filled with clean water

Why I strictly use a kettle: I always advise anyone doing this to use a kettle to pour water instead of dipping a plate into a bucket.

Once you start squeezing bitter leaf, your hands get stained with green particles. If you use a plate to scoop water from another bowl, your hands will stain and waste that clean water automatically! Carrying the kettle lets you pour clean water smoothly without touching or contaminating your main water supply.

Step 2:

_{Squeezing and First Wash.}

I place the bitter leaves into the basin and use my bare hands to squeeze them well. This is the traditional hand-squeezing format that my grandmother taught me.

As I squeeze, a lot of thick foam starts coming out. I grab my kettle, pour in water, and squeeze it one more time so that the foam comes out very well. After squeezing, I compress the leaves to remove the water and put them inside my small green bowl.

Because there are still small leaf particles floating in the basin, I use my sieve and the black bowl to catch all the remaining particles, squeeze them dry, and add them to the green bowl. Then I pour out that old first water because it is too acidic.

Step 3:

_{Adding palm oil to the better leaf to reduce foam}

After pouring out the old water, I return the bitter leaf back into the basin. Now, if you have ever washed bitter leaf, you know how stressful the foam can be! The foam can even make your bitter leaf waste because it traps the leaves and makes them float away.

To solve this without stress, I use a trick my grandmother taught me: Red Oil (Palm Oil)!

Inside that blue container I held, I poured a little bit of red oil directly onto the bitter leaf. Once you add red oil and start squeezing again, the heavy foam reduces and stops automatically! It calms the bitterness and clears the foam completely so you don't waste time or leaves. I highly recommend you try this format anytime you wash bitter leaf.

Step 4:

After adding the red oil and squeezing, I pour in more clean water from the kettle and squeeze again.

Now look at the difference in the water, there is no foam inside it at all! It is just pure water with a deep green color containing the rich bitterness.

I use the sieve to strain out all the tiny remaining leaf particles so the liquid is completely smooth. Then I pour the dark green juice into a glass cup.

Why skip the first wash? The very first water is too harsh and acidic.

_{Extracting the Medicinal Juice}

Why drink this second wash? As my mother taught me, this second water is a fantastic natural medicine! It calms stomach bites (stomach pain caused by worms) and works as a great natural remedy for hepatitis. It is very good for general stomach wellness, so you can drink it as health juice!

Step 5:

After taking out the medicinal juice, I pour out the remaining water. Then, I repeat the process of squeezing the bitter leaf with clean water and pouring it out for at least 3 good times again.

Doing this repeatedly washes away all the remaining harsh bitterness. By the time you get to the last stage, you can see the fully processed bitter leaf in the stainless bowl. At this point, there is not a single atom of bitterness left in it! It becomes very soft and actually tastes sweet.

You can now use this washed bitter leaf to cook delicious bitter leaf soup, add it to your porridge yam, or even eat it just like that!

CONCLUSION

That is how I process my bitter leaf from start to finish! From natural health juice for the stomach to sweet, non-bitter leaves for cooking, nothing goes to waste.

Thank you so much for reading my post today, I really, really appreciate.

CC.
@hive-118902