The ugli fruit belongs to the citrus family, and regardless of its name, this magical herbal fruit carries an awe-inspiring interior that exhibits a sweet flavor. In general, the ugli fruit is a hybrid of Seville orange, a grapefruit, and a tangerine, and can be seen in large numbers across any fruit market around the world from November to April.
It is typically an excellent citrus fruit and is loaded with a wide range of vitamins and minerals. Packed(1) with just 45 calories per serving, the ugli fruit is an excellent choice for health-conscious people, particularly for those trying to lose weight.
The ugli fruit is found in the wilds of Jamaica, stays wrinkled mainly as well as green until it completely ripens, and finally exhibits a bright orange color.
What is Ugli Fruit?
The name “ugli” is derived from the appearance of this citrus fruit, which is indubitably ugly. Ugli’s outer rind is pocked and wrinkled, with blemishes of several colors, and later undergoes the process of budding, and has green, yellow, and ultimately orange.
The health benefits of ugli fruit include accelerating weight loss, managing cholesterol level, improving eyesight, supporting bone health, stimulating growth, preventing cancer, boosting blood circulation, dissolving gallstones as well as kidney stones, supplying the much-needed fiber to your body, enhancing your skin, and increasing the immune system.
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Nutritional Value of Ugli
The ugli fruit contains a different and dense quantity of essential vitamins and minerals to keep your overall health at its peak. Ugli fruit is a powerhouse of vitamin C and offers the classical savor of your favored citrus fruit. Also, it carries a spectacular quantity of dietary fiber that helps keep your digestive system in good health.
Besides, ugli also offers a wide range of other vitamins and minerals such as iron, vitamin A, protein, and calcium. Moreover, this fruit is also amazingly low in calories and packs a shallow sugar level for any citrus fruit to have and, therefore, it is highly sought after by weight-conscious individuals the world over.
What are the Health Benefits of Ugli Fruit?
With just 45 calories per serving, the ugli fruit offers a whopping 70% of the recommended daily value (RDA) in vitamin C, thence proving hugely beneficial to boost your immunity, fight a wide range of infections, facilitate the collagen formation, and maintain artery elasticity.
The ugli serves a decent amount of calcium and vitamin A, and dietary fiber each day. Also, the ugli fruit is naturally cholesterol and fat-free and has a low glycemic index that helps keep your cardiovascular system working properly.
The ugli fruit is extremely rich in a wide range of essential antioxidants that help the body fight free radicals along with reducing the oxidative effects to help prevent you from several chronic diseases, notably different types of cancers.
Modern research has also highlighted the potential of the ugli fruit in supporting various brain functions such as memory retention and learning. Another benefit of the ugli fruit is its essential citric acid that comes in handy in preventing renal stones.
10 Awesome Benefits of Ugli Fruit
While the ugli offers numerous health benefits to keep your body and mind working in their original form, the following ten benefits make the ugli an absolute treat to have in any kitchen:
1. Gives a Fiber Punch
One medium serving of the ugli, which is about 50% of the fruit, offers around 2 grams of dietary fiber. Fiber is one of the essential factors that keep your digestive system working efficiently. The fiber content in this fruit helps prevent constipation, regulates blood sugar level, prevents stroke and heart attacks, as well as decreases your odds of falling prey to Type-2 diabetes.
2. Supports Weight Loss
Being a low-calorie and low-fat fruit, the ugli doesn’t overload you with calories or unwanted fat and therefore, aids in your weight-loss plans. Also, the fiber in ugli keeps your metabolism at its peak to ensure you stay in shape.
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3. Skincare
The ugli is a rich source of catechins, flavonols, and several other antioxidants that come handy in improving the symptoms of skin inflammation and several other skin conditions such as psoriasis, rosacea, and eczema. Also, the antioxidants in ugli are also potent in improving the appearance of your skin along with clearing up age spots and blemishes.
4. Improves Eyesight
The presence of vitamin A in the ugli fruit is known to reduce oxidative stress in your retina. This leads to slowing down the development and progression of macular degeneration along with delaying the onset of cataract with age.
5. Manages Cholesterol Level
Being extremely rich in dietary fiber, the ugli fruit also helps reduce your cholesterol levels, along with balancing your HDL and LDL levels, which can prove beneficial in reducing your risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, or heart attack. Also, this fruit offers the right amount of pectin that promotes your cardiovascular health(1).
6. Stimulates Growth
The ugli fruit is extremely rich in vitamin C that facilitates collagen production in your body. As collagen is essential for each tissue, cell, and blood vessel, an adequate quantity of it helps stimulate the repair, growth, and development of your cells and tissues.
7. Supports Bone Health
Along with calcium, there are several essential minerals found in the ugli fruit that demonstrate its ability to help build and maintain stronger bones, thence avoiding your risk of falling prey to premature osteoporosis.
8. Enhances Blood Circulation
The ugli fruit has just enough amount of iron to avoid anemia (iron deficiency) along with promoting oxygenation to different parts of your body. Also, iron helps to increase the production of red blood cells in your body to safeguard you against several critical ailments.
9. Prevents Cancer
Proper nutrition helps to enhance the capacity of your body to combat cancer-causing cells. The ugli fruit, a nutrition powerhouse, is loaded with antioxidants that fight cancerous cells. Also, the ugli contains several other minerals that are incredibly beneficial in protecting your body against different types of cancers.
For example, the pectin content in this fruit comes in handy in destroying cancerous colon cells and, therefore, proves to be a useful addition to a diet and helps the body combat cancer. Also, the ugli fruit has the right amount of terpene, a nutrient proven to reduce pancreatic as well as a malignant mammary tumor.
10. Dissolves Kidney Stones
The cancer-fighting terpene found in the ugli fruit also exhibits a powerful effect on gallstones and renal stones. As a result, the ugli has been one of the most dependable and effective alternative remedies to dissolve even the most persistent gallstones and kidney stones.
[Also Read: Dissolve Kidney Stones with Baking Soda]
How to Eat Ugli Fruit
While there are several ways in which you can enjoy the goodness of the ugli fruit to take advantage of its medicinal properties, ugli is mostly used in the following ways:
1. Salads
The ugli makes a nutritious addition to fruit or green salads. You can merge ugli sections with strawberries, spinach, avocado, and vinaigrette to prepare a flavorsome and nutritious salad.
2. Salsas and Relishes
Create a simple salsa by blending ugli fruit with minced garlic, basil, and diced tomato to enjoy a mouth-watering flavor that’s nutritious and safe too.
3. Main Dish
The ugli fruit can pep up your main course. Prepare a tangy and wholesome sauce using either the ugli fruit or its juice, stir it with honey or mint, and serve chilled with the main course.
4. Dessert
You can prepare granita mix by adding lemon juice, ugli fruit juice, a little sugar, and water. Also, you can make a pudding mix with the zest and ugli fruit juice mixed with a bit of butter, cornstarch, and honey. The desserts prepared with ugli are incredibly delectable along with being a rich source of vital nutrients and minerals.
With the current unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle, most of us have in this modern world; we are incredibly susceptible to a wide range of acute or chronic health conditions, which are mainly caused by free radicals, oxidative body stress, improper nutrition balance, and so on. As a result, our risk of developing critical illnesses such as strokes, cancer, and heart diseases is on an all-time high.
However, the intake of foods rich in antioxidants and other nutrients such as herbal teas, leafy greens, herbal teas, and healthy fruits regularly can help boost the ability of our body to combat different ailments. One medium serving of the ugli fruit contains 70 percent of the 90 mg of our daily recommended intake of vitamin C. Also, the ugli is rich in minerals that help boost our immunity and fend off common ailments. Therefore, the ugli fruit certainly deserves a sweet spot in your kitchen.
