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Okra · Abelmoschus esculentus
Fruits & Vegetables
Okra
Abelmoschus esculentus
Okra's slippery gel strips microplastics out of polluted water. Tested against the synthetic chemicals normally used for the job, the okra worked as well or better.
Benefits
Okra powder, taken alongside the medicine people were already on, brought fasting blood sugar and the long-term measure down.
The same okra powder brought total cholesterol and triglycerides down.
What It Is Known For
What was tested was okra powder taken alongside metformin, in people already being treated, and it moved the numbers a little.
Nothing tests it.
It is a good vegetable with useful fiber, and that is a different claim from the ones made for it.
It carries folate, as plenty of green vegetables do, and no trial has ever tested okra itself in pregnancy.
Key Active Compounds
The thick gel inside the pod.
The vitamin most needed in early pregnancy.
One of the plant pigments in the pod.
Needed for blood to clot properly.
How to Take It / Use It
Take dried whole okra powder, morning, noon and evening, with meals. Eating the pods as a vegetable is good food and is not what was tested.
Cautions
Okra is high in oxalate, so anyone who has had kidney stones should keep to modest amounts.
Okra is high in vitamin K, which works against blood-thinning medicine.
Where It Comes From
Okra comes from Ethiopia, and spread across Africa long before it reached the Americas in the seventeenth century, carried through the Atlantic slave trade and landing first in Louisiana. India now grows most of the world's crop.
How We Choose It
We check every product so you don't have to. A okra only makes our list if:
- Fresh pods small and firm — under four inches. Large pods turn woody and stringy.
- Frozen is fine. It's picked and frozen young, so it keeps its texture and benefits.
- No okra extracts. An extract pulls one compound out and packs it above what the pod holds. Dried whole okra powder is the vegetable with the water taken out, and that is what was tested.
If no product meets these standards, we don't list one. No exceptions for affiliates.
See our picks
Sources6
- American Chemical Society. Okra and fenugreek extracts remove most microplastics from water. Study
- Healthline. Nutrition and health benefits of okra. Review
- FoodPrint. Okra, real food encyclopedia. Encyclopaedia
- News-Medical. Okra and diabetes: what research says. Review
- PLOS One. Antiadhesive properties of okra fruit extract against Helicobacter pylori adhesion. Study
- Chemistry World. Slimy solution to stomach disorders. News