Papaya

Latin name: Carica Papaya

Family: Caricaceae

Other names:

Latin name: Carica Papaya

Family: Caricaceae

Other names: Pawpaw

Culinary use

Eaten raw or cooked. Served fresh for breakfast, juices, desserts. Versatile fruit that can be preserved, dried, cooked in pie, made into jam, jellies, sherbets. Young leaves, shoots, and fruits cooked as a vegetable or into chutneys and vegetable soups. Seeds used as a spice.

Medicinal use

Digestive aid. Skin of the unripe fruit and leaves is a source of the enzyme papain – digestive stimulant for digesting protein. Also applied externally to help slow-healing wounds. Juice of the fruit helps treat diabetes and hypertension. Leave and the fruit can be taken internally for range of digestion, diarrhoea, high blood pressure, painful womb.

other info

Nutrients: Vitamins A, B, C, E, 

Origin: Central America, Southern Mexico

Region: Tropics, subtropics

Dried leaves can be use to form a soap substitute. Papain also used for cosmetic skin creams, termite control, clarifying beer, degumming natural silk.B,

 

Source

Rain-tree