Radish belongs to the plant family "cruciferea", which also includes mustard plant. In Urdu and Hindi it is popularly called "Muli" it is a root like carrots, sugar-beet and turnip. It is under cultivation from the remote times. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and the Romans cultivated radish for eating purposes. According to some workers radish presumably originated in Asia. It is a short season crop cultivated both in summer and winter. It is usually planted on the ridges, made in seed-beds. When the crop is harvested the whole plant is pulled out and prepared for marketing. It is generally eaten after slicing. Radishes are generally eaten raw in salads or without it, after a slight helping of table salt or without it. Radish is inherently pungent and some varieties are also sweet. Radishes are small, oblong, globular, and slender in size, red and white in colour. Red coloured radishes are round and less pungent. The leaves of the radish plant are also cooked like any other leafy vegetable. Radishes treat cancer, fight constipation and treat leukoderma.
Chemical contents: Radish is an excellent source of Vitamin A, B6, C, D, E and K. Radishes also provide niacin, folic acid, fiber, calories, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, iron, zinc and oxalic acid in needful quantities to keep one healthy and sound.
Uses: Radish Leaves, flowers, seeds and roots are its important vegetative parts that are used in Ayurvedic and Tibb-e-Unani therapies. Radish figures in cooking as a vegetable. Radish salt in an important ingredient of "Unani" stomach-powders and "tablets" used for stomach-ache. Radish is pickled in vinegar. Radish-stuffed loaves called "muli-key-parathay", are the favorite of many epicureans. Tender pods of "Muli plant" called "Mogra" in Urdu are the delight of a good many foods lovers in the subcontinent.
The leaves: The radish leaves are fondly cooked as a vegetable. The leaf juice increases the secretion of urine. It is laxative in nature. It prevents scurvy. It is lithotriptic. The juice is effectively used to treat painful urination, its strangely, calculi and is also stimulant.
Flowers: The radish flowers are rarely a part of our cooking cuisines, but they have medicinal use in the eastern medicine and also in Ayurveda.
The root: Radish root is used in urinary and syphilitic diseases. It is used to treat the Piles, strangely, dysuria and stomach problems. A syrup of the root is given in soreness of the throat, whopping cough, bronchial disorder and chest congestion.
Shaheed Hakeem Muhammad Saeed - the great Pakistani advocate of herbal drugs, has modernized the old Tibb-e-Unani in the light of modern advances made in allopathy. Radish "in his opinion can dissolve the spleen. It can also cure jaundice, Muli juice with a touch of saltpeter 'Qalmi Shoora' can stop in burning urine. It is also good for the liver cure and other stomach ailments.
Some fashionable food lovers detest eating "muli" in any form for its pungency and emitting unpleasant odour that comes out after eating it. The unpleasant odour can be suppressed if a small piece of "gur" (Jiggery) is munched or a handful of green pea seeds (matar) are chewed. According to some food-lovers, the unpleasant odour can be eliminated by this exercise.
Radish is not an expensive vegetable. It can also be cultivated by seed on ridges in small beds of green land, where water and sunlight is handy. It can be grown in fruit orchards, where the requisite conditions are available. Like other root crops (such as carrot, turnip and sugar beet), radish need not be excluded from our diet nor it should be under estimated for its latent health benefits.
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