Once you discover the potential of this fruit, you’ll likely want to grow tropical exoticism right in your home. The benefits of lemons go beyond their valuable nutritional qualities—they also serve as a natural cleaner, disinfectant, and fragrance ingredient.
Healing Composition
Lemon, ginger, honey, and nuts are some of the most beneficial foods that should replace your home medicine cabinet. In a dietary product like lemon, you’ll find organic acids, phytoncides, pectins, and flavonoids. Despite its sour taste, lemon contains up to 3.5% sugar (three times more than strawberries). Key players in its vitamin profile include ascorbic acid, carotene, rutin, thiamine, and riboflavin. Fat-soluble precursors of vitamin A and water-soluble vitamins P, B1, B2, and C help produce energy from proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, conduct nerve impulses, regulate metabolism, strengthen capillaries, promote cell growth and repair (benefiting blood vessels, bones, and gums), accelerate hair growth, combat seborrhea, enhance iron absorption, and prevent vitamin deficiency.
How Does Lemon Affect Blood Pressure?
This is a proven remedy for atherosclerosis and hypertension. Consuming one lemon a day can lower blood pressure by 10%. The potassium in lemons helps combat hypertension by reducing bad cholesterol levels in the blood, normalizing blood pressure, and improving heart function. This mineral alleviates fatigue and nausea, energizing the body. Doctors recommend incorporating lemons into your diet for heart health and to protect against heart attacks. Regularly drinking lemon tea can provide an effect similar to aspirin: the acid cleanses blood vessels and makes them more elastic.
Benefits of Lemon
Pregnant women should consume lemon daily, as this citrus fruit is beneficial for fetal development. The antioxidants in lemons slow down inflammatory processes and prevent aging. In folk medicine, lemons have long been used as a vitamin remedy for scurvy: vitamin C is found not only in the flesh and peel of the fruit but even in the leaves of the plant. Lemon zest boiled in honey is recommended for improving digestion (take 1 teaspoon half an hour before meals). The essential oils in lemons have a calming effect and help curb excessive appetite. Lemon syrup (chopped lemon with flesh and peel—1 liter of water and 5 tablespoons of honey) is considered an effective anti-parasitic remedy, to be taken 1 tablespoon before meals. Lemon is also known for its reliable wound-healing properties: applying the juice to affected areas can prevent inflammation. For therapeutic and preventive purposes, lemon is consumed for lung diseases. An alcoholic tincture of lemon zest (peel of two lemons—1 liter of water and 100 grams of vodka) should be taken in ¼ cup doses as a stomach, anti-nausea, and sedative remedy.
What Does Lemon Water Treat?
Lemon baths and compresses can treat fungal skin infections and eczema (juice from half a lemon in 1 liter of cold water). Rinsing your mouth with diluted lemon juice (half a lemon in 1 liter of water) is beneficial for inflamed mucous membranes and sore throats. This citrus should be included in the diet for rheumatism, gout, edema, kidney stones, jaundice, and even gastritis with low acidity. Lemon water can treat kidney stones, gastrointestinal diseases, and mineral metabolism disorders: juice from a whole fruit is dissolved in a liter of water and consumed three times a day. Natural lemonade is the best way to quench thirst during a fever. Mix the fresh juice of one fruit with 5 tablespoons of sugar and dilute the syrup with a liter of water (this ratio can be used to make homemade lemonade with any number of lemons). Lemon juice acts as an antidote for snake bites or alkali poisoning. In such cases, it’s crucial to drink a concentrated solution of lemon juice quickly: squeeze several fruits (3-5) into a liter of water and take a glass every half hour.
Benefit or Harm?
As a spice, lemon enhances the flavor of fruit salads, pastries, drinks, and syrups. Lemon juice improves the “gastronomic experience” of fish or meat dishes, cold appetizers, sauces, creams, and desserts. You can use lemon in both cakes and soups. The benefits of lemon are greater when consumed fresh. Always try to drink tea with lemon, ginger, and honey, but remember not to add lemon and honey to boiling water, as high temperatures destroy vitamins and beneficial compounds. It’s also important to note that people with stomach issues, especially those with high acidity, should avoid drinking lemon water. This drink can also trigger allergic reactions (rashes and itching). Before consuming lemon, it’s essential to ensure there are no allergies to citrus fruits.
Lemon Recipes
As the warm weather arrives, refreshing drinks with citrus become especially relevant.
Lemon and Honey Kvass
Ingredients: 9 liters of water, 2 lemons, 800 grams of honey, 800 grams of raisins, 2 tablespoons of rye flour, 15 grams of yeast.
Preparation: Mix honey with sliced lemons and raisins. Pour in 8 liters of cold boiled water with dissolved yeast and flour. After a day, add another liter of boiled water. When the lemons and raisins float to the top, strain the mixture through a sieve. Pour the kvass into bottles, adding 3 raisins to each. Seal and store in a cool place horizontally. The drink will be ready to consume in three days.
Cold Honey Drink
Ingredients: 2 lemons, 100 grams of honey, 2 eggs, 1 cup of sugar, ½ cup of strong hot tea.
Preparation: Beat the egg yolks with honey, dilute with strong hot tea, and whisk over heat without boiling. Add the lemon juice, cool, and pour into tall glasses that have been chilled in the freezer. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites with sugar, lemon juice, and zest, and place them on top of each glass before serving.
Homemade Lemonade with Honey
Ingredients: 5 lemons, 12 liters of water, 1 kilogram of honey, 30 grams of brewing yeast.
Preparation: Pour hot boiled water (but not boiling) over the honey and add the yeast. The drink will be flavored with lemon juice. The next day, when fermentation begins, pour the homemade lemonade into bottles (it’s best to use sparkling wine bottles) and seal them, securing the corks with wire.
Quick Honey Lemonade
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of honey, 1 cup of water.
Preparation: Mix lemon juice with honey and dilute with boiled water to taste.
Lemon Life Hacks
Here are some methods our grandmothers used to maintain hygiene and order in the home.
- A lemon solution cleans dirty glass: 1 tablespoon of lemon juice in 1 liter of water.
- For faucets that have become white from water and stains, and metal sinks in the kitchen, wipe them with the inside of a lemon peel and a damp sponge with soap, then dry with a cotton towel: everything will shine.
- The same trick will restore shine to metal cookware: wipe the dull surface with the inside of a lemon peel, then rinse with cold water.
- Porcelain items can also regain their shine by rinsing with cold water mixed with lemon juice (squeeze half a lemon into 1 liter of water).
- Lime scale on plumbing dissolves in lemon juice: squeeze lemon onto the surface and rinse with water after half an hour.
- For polishing furniture, prepare a homemade acidic-oily solution: mix ½ cup of lemon juice with 1 teaspoon of oil. Apply the mixture with a sponge to the furniture and wipe dry with a cloth after a minute.
For Scale and Stains
In terms of naturalness and non-toxicity for humans and the environment, lemon outperforms household chemicals.
- To tackle scale in a coffee maker, use this mixture: 2 tablespoons of crushed lemon zest, 2 tablespoons of salt, and 2 ice cubes. Add all ingredients to the coffee maker, shake vigorously for a minute, then remove everything and rinse the coffee maker. The scale will disappear.
- To remove scale in a kettle, fill it with water, add 2 tablespoons of crushed lemon zest, bring the water to a boil, and let it sit for an hour. After cooling, pour out the water and rinse to remove any detached scale flakes.
- Ink stains on fabric (from a pen or marker) can be removed with a mixture of lemon juice and salt in a 1:1 ratio (apply to the stain and rinse with water after removal).
- Refresh laundry after washing by rinsing in water with lemon juice: 2 tablespoons of lemon juice per 1 liter of water.
What Else Can It Do?
- Lemon extends the life of fruits, eliminates unpleasant odors, wards off insects, and rejuvenates the skin.
- To keep fruits fresh longer, place a lemon cut in half among them.
- Sliced lemons placed on shelves will remove unpleasant odors in the refrigerator within an hour.
- A bowl of water with a few lemon slices can freshen up a microwave. Run the microwave for a couple of minutes, then wipe the interior surfaces with a damp sponge after turning it off.
- Breathing in the room will be easier if you boil water with the zest of three lemons in an uncovered pot.
- The natural citrus aroma will lift your spirits and boost your energy, while the humid air with antimicrobial phytoncides will strengthen your immune system.
- To prevent moths in closets, stick 10-20 cloves into whole lemons and place the fruits on shelves where insects are a concern.
- If ants invade your home or balcony, smear surfaces with lemon juice and wait for the “great migration”: uninvited guests will leave the area within two days.
- Lemon water will soften and whiten facial skin, and when combined with cologne, glycerin, and whipped egg whites, it can eliminate freckles and age spots.
- Lemon can also help with brittle nails: simply soak your fingers in lemon water periodically.
How to Grow a Lemon Tree?
Having such an effective helper at home is a dream for any hostess. Thanks to its high essential oil content, this plant will have a bactericidal effect in your living space. For indoor cultivation, seedlings with their own root systems or those grafted onto seedlings are suitable. You can find plants with two or three old leaves or short (up to 15 cm) young shoots for sale.
When purchasing, ensure the roots are not dry: to avoid harming the mycorrhiza, they should be covered with soil or moist sawdust. Do not plant the lemon in a large pot right away. Start with a one-liter pot, transplanting it into a two-liter pot after a year, then into a three-liter pot, and after four years, into a large pot with a volume of up to 10 liters.
Lemons thrive in soil rich in humus (the top layer). Leave about 1 cm of space at the top of the pot. When planting, the root collar of the seedling should be buried no more than 0.5 cm deep. After planting, mist the plant and water it with a pink solution of potassium permanganate. Position the seedling so that the leaf surface faces the light, and in summer, shade the plant from direct sunlight. Lemon trees prefer diffused light and are sensitive to drafts. Avoid rotating the pot excessively to turn the plant toward the sun—this should only be done once every 20 days, as excessive stress can harm the lemon tree.
Chlorinated tap water is also detrimental to citrus plants. Water the plant only with settled water (chlorine evaporates from an open surface within a day) and only when the soil crumbles, not when it clumps together from moisture. In winter, it’s important to warm the water for irrigation to about 30 degrees Celsius: this will accelerate growth and fruiting. During hot weather, the lemon tree should be misted. Within a month, the potted plant can bloom, but you should remove the buds until the tree matures. You can allow the lemon tree to bear fruit at five years of age: from that point on, you’ll have a steady supply of this exotic fruit.