Bitter gourd is another staple food in our household.  We cook bitter gourd in a variety of interesting ways from the usual bitter gourd omelette to bitter gourd soup, stir-fried bitter gourd with pork slices, braised bitter gourd chicken, stir-fried bitter gourd with fermented soy bean or black bean and juicing with bitter gourd.

Of the 3 girls, only Sherilyn is not bitter over bitter gourd. She loves them!

Funnily, though Cass does not fancy bitter gourd, she loves pork noodles cooked with bitter gourd, except that she will single out all the bitter gourd slices and chuck them onto my bowl.

There’s this stall at our neighborhood coffee shop that sells really delish pork noodles with bitter gourd.  It is my must-have bowl of noodles for breakfast on Saturdays, along with my favorite glass of pumpkin barley cooling drink.

Food For Thought (information extracted from diabetes.co.uk)

Bitter melon, also known as bitter gourd or karela (in India), is a unique vegetable-fruit that can be used as food or medicine.

In addition to being a food ingredient, bitter melon has also long been used as a herbal remedy for a range of ailments, including type 2 diabetes.

The fruit contains at least three active substances with anti-diabetic properties, including charantin, which has been confirmed to have a blood glucose-lowering effect, vicine and an insulin-like compound known as polypeptide-p.

These substances either work individually or together to help reduce blood sugar levels.

It is also known that bitter melon contains a lectin that reduces blood glucose concentrations by acting on peripheral tissues and suppressing appetite – similar to the effects of insulin in the brain.

What other health benefits does it have?

Bitter melon is used in traditional medicine for:

Colic
Fever
Burns
Chronic cough
Painful menstruation
Skin conditions
It is also used to heal wounds, assist childbirth and, in parts of Africa and Asia, prevent or treat malaria and viral diseases such as measles and chicken pox.

In addition, researchers from Saint Louis University in the US say they have shown that an extract from bitter melon can kill breast cancer cells and prevent them from growing and spreading.