Cilantro, a Way to Filter Water

The Team Tested Various Samples of Plants and Determined that Cilantro is the Most Prevalent and Powerful Bioabsorbant Material in the Tule Valley in Mexico City where Water is Heavily Contaminated

Cilantro pairs together with many dishes very well, especially in Mexican cooking. The tender leaves are virtually calorie free and typically best to eat raw or add at the end of cooking in order to keep the delicate flavor and texture. It's an amazing addition to salsa!

Interestingly, cilantro acts as a natural preservative due to its high antioxidant content. The oil extracted from the leaves has been shown to inhibit unwanted oxidation processes when added to other foods, thereby delaying or preventing spoilage. It's also been found to have an antibacterial effect against Salmonella.

Cilantro can purify water too!

The next time you come across to questionable drinking water, consider adding cilantro! According to a research team lead by Douglas Schauer from Ivy Tech Community College in Lafayette, Indiana along with a group of Mexican researchers, cilantro leaves is a cheaper way to filter water especially poorer regions where water is not clean.

The team tested various samples of plants and determined that cilantro is the most prevalent and powerful bioabsorbant material in the Tule Valley in Mexico City where water is heavily contaminated with lead and nickel. The cilantro bioabsorbant is replaced by the typical charcoal, which is more costly, in order to capture metal toxicity.

Schauer says, "The organic toxins we can take care of pretty easily with a number of different methods, but the only way to really get rid of those heavy metals is to treat them with filtering agents like activated charcoal, but those types of materials are kind of expensive. They are a little expensive for us to use, but they are very expensive for the people living in that region."

Only minimal processing is required

Typically, cilantro can be inserted into a tube from the ground-up, which water is passed through and eliminates any heavy metals resulting in a cleaner drinking water. Additionally, dried cilantro can be used in place of tea bags in a pitcher of water for a few minutes in order to suck out heavy metals.

"It's something they already have down there, it takes minimal processing, and it's just a matter of them taking the plants and drying them out on a rock in the sun for a couple of days," says Schauer.

Cilantro isn't considered an essential crop in the Tule Valley, so by using it as a purifier won't affect people's needs. It's relative easy to grow, which makes it realistic for them.

Source: The RawFood World

Media

Taxonomy

• Purification
• Filtration
• Research