The Bitter Gourd
On the television there is a rather misleading statement-like advertisement of the bitter gourd. It looks like a club of a goblin. One of the biggest diseases that modern people suffer for their entire life is diabetes. After getting diabetes, it ends up with complications with other illness as well. When I see the TV sometimes I see a medicine advertisement, there are so many advertisements about medications to fix diabetes problems. I think the problem is many modern people have issues with less exercise along with food and drinks with lots of sugar consumption being the root of the issue.
Right after I resigned as the superintendant of the Korean District of C&MA in Spring of 2004, I was attending seminars to the church leadership in Los Angeles area. I got a call from my family doctor. Apparently my blood sugar level was slowly rising so I had to be careful. Apparently the way to prevent diabetes was to exercise twice as much, lose the weight and eat less of carbohydrates.
While I was working as the superintendant for 3 years, it was almost impossible to control my eating habits. In a single year, I had spent about 150 days (or more) of travel abroad all over the United States to visit Korean Denomination churches, attend anniversaries, and many more events. While eating food from the hosting churches, my weight had increased along with Hepatitis B as well. Thankfully after moving to California I had constantly checked up on my liver and took precautionary measurements, I found out 4 years ago that I no longer needed treatment. I had checked again every 6 months and so far, nothing.
When I got the doctor’s note, my body weighted 150lbs. For my height, it was an ok ratio. My doctor told me to bring my blood sugar level amount for 6 months. I had consumed less and less of carbohydrates and ate a lot of vegetable instead. I did not drink any soft drinks either. After I had checked 6months later, I was down to 130lbs. The sugar level that was rising had fallen back down as well. I was happy but the doctor was impressed. He said, “I had treated many patients but this is the first time ever!” and said that if I were to write a book about this, it would be a best-seller as a joke. I had simply followed doctor’s orders.
It has been 14 years now and I still maintain my health. My wife one day told me about the bitter gourd. Apparently it was good for preventing blood sugar level and told me to buy some from the market. There are many varieties but the most well known was sold in Chinese Supermarkets. Sometimes they were very fresh, but some would become old and deflated looking. It was not encouraging to eat something of bad quality so I had avoided them for while.
When you eat this vegetable raw, it is so bitter. As there is a saying, “Bitter things are good for body” it was impossible to eat raw, so I had stir-fried with onions, tomatoes. As the heat cooks the bitter gourd, the bitter factor is lowered. Now days, it has become so normal to eat the bitter gourd in cooking.
Few years ago, I stopped eating rice and wheat.
Last year or so I went to a Korean Supermarket with my wife and bought a packet of bitter gourd seeds. There were only about 10 seeds in the bag total but was pricy. Since we wanted to eat the fresh bitter gourd, we decided to plant it anyway. However, our current senior apartment does not have any spaces to plant. So I had planted them behind our daughter’s place, and waited for it to sprout. After three weeks, (the seed was thick) two of them had finally sprouted! But one of them was gone. Did the bugs consume it or birds ate it?
Thankfully, one of them was growing slowly. However, the many cucumber plants that were at the vicinity had grown almost uncontrollably. It was hard to pull the vines all out now and left until the harvest was finished around July. After removing all of the cucumber plants, the bitter gourd was the last one standing. I gave the nutrients and my wife gave the water (after washing rice.) with utmost care.
After short time the plant started to grow in strength! Come around late August and it started to bear fruit up till the end of October.
In that period of 2 months, we had harvested about 200 bitter gourds. From a single plant 200! It was a pleasant shock. I had decided to read about the plant itself. Apparently it was not a direct cure to blood sugar but was helpful instead in controlling it. All the parts of the plants were good for medicinal purpose. Also the plant supposedly would bear more fruit till November.
Sure enough, the plant again flowered and had born more fruit. Unfortunately, the weather had turned rainy and cold so the fruits were much smaller. So we decided to salvage the plant and use the leaves that were still green and pulled the plant from the root. The root was boiled into tea. The leaves were so bountiful that filled a large box entirely! My wife had spent many days to make kimchi out of the leaves and to organize and clean it.
As Jesus said in his teachings, one small seed can sprout into 30 times, 60 times 100 times in fruit. Just like his words, from a single bitter gourd plant, we were able to harvest over 200 times worth of fruit! No, almost endless amount of fruits! My wife took the best bitter gourds and after it had ripened red, took out the seeds and many tens of them came out. How many more would we have if all 200 or so of these fruits were harvested for the seeds?
One last surprise was, while pulling the roots and the leaves from the plants, over 100 smaller gourds that had stopped growing from the cold were harvested! If the weather was only warmer or grew it from a greenhouse, it would have been over 300. Amazing! Thankful!
(November 30 2016)
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The Strange Acorn Tree 
The Bitter Gourd