Long prized for its deeply pur­ple, glossy beau­ty as well as its unique taste and tex­ture, egg­plants, al­so known as me­l­on­gene, be­long to the night­shade fam­i­ly of veg­eta­bles, which al­so in­cludes toma­toes, sweet pep­pers and pota­toes. They grow in a man­ner much like toma­toes, hang­ing from the vines of a plant that grows sev­er­al feet in height. While the dif­fer­ent va­ri­eties do range slight­ly in taste and tex­ture, one can gen­er­al­ly de­scribe the egg­plant as hav­ing a pleas­ant­ly bit­ter taste and spongy tex­ture.

Health ben­e­fits: Brain food

In ad­di­tion to fea­tur­ing a host of vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als, egg­plant al­so con­tains im­por­tant phy­tonu­tri­ents, many of which have an­tiox­i­dant ac­tiv­i­ty. Re­search on a phy­tonu­tri­ent found in egg­plant skin called na­sunin, a po­tent an­tiox­i­dant and free rad­i­cal scav­enger, has shown to pro­tect cell mem­branes from dam­age. In an­i­mal stud­ies, na­sunin has been found to pro­tect the lipids (fats) in brain cell mem­branes. Cell mem­branes are al­most en­tire­ly com­posed of lipids and are re­spon­si­ble for pro­tect­ing the cell from free rad­i­cals, let­ting nu­tri­ents in and wastes out, and re­ceiv­ing in­struc­tions from mes­sen­ger mol­e­cules that tell the cell which ac­tiv­i­ties it should per­form.

In­di­vid­ual con­cerns: Egg­plant and ox­alates

Egg­plant is among a small num­ber of foods that con­tain mea­sur­able amounts of ox­alates, nat­u­ral­ly-oc­cur­ring sub­stances found in plants, an­i­mals, and hu­man be­ings. When ox­alates be­come too con­cen­trat­ed in body flu­ids, they can crys­tallise and cause health prob­lems. For this rea­son, in­di­vid­u­als with al­ready ex­ist­ing and un­treat­ed kid­ney or gall­blad­der prob­lems may want to avoid eat­ing egg­plant.

Lab­o­ra­to­ry stud­ies have shown that ox­alates may al­so in­ter­fere with ab­sorp­tion of cal­ci­um from the body. How­ev­er, the abil­i­ty of ox­alates to low­er cal­ci­um ab­sorp­tion is rel­a­tive­ly small and def­i­nite­ly does not out­weigh the abil­i­ty of ox­alate-con­tain­ing foods to con­tribute cal­ci­um to the meal plan. If your di­ges­tive tract is healthy, and you do a good job of chew­ing and re­lax­ing while you en­joy your meals, you will get sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits-in­clud­ing ab­sorp­tion of cal­ci­um-from cal­ci­um-rich foods plant foods that al­so con­tain ox­al­ic acid. Or­di­nar­i­ly, a health­care prac­ti­tion­er would not dis­cour­age a per­son fo­cused on en­sur­ing that they are meet­ing their cal­ci­um re­quire­ments from eat­ing these nu­tri­ent-rich foods be­cause of their ox­alate con­tent.

How to se­lect and store

Choose egg­plants that are firm and heavy for their size. Their skin should be smooth and shiny, and their col­or, whether it be pur­ple, white or green, should be vivid. They should be free of dis­col­oration, scars, and bruis­es, which usu­al­ly in­di­cate that the flesh be­neath has be­come dam­aged and pos­si­bly de­cayed.

The stem and cap, on ei­ther end of the egg­plant, should be bright green in colour. As you would with oth­er fruits and veg­eta­bles, avoid pur­chas­ing egg­plant that has been waxed. To test for the ripeness of an egg­plant, gen­tly press the skin with the pad of your thumb. If it springs back, the egg­plant is ripe, while if an in­den­ta­tion re­mains, it is not.

Al­though they look hardy, egg­plants are ac­tu­al­ly very per­ish­able and care should be tak­en in their stor­age. Egg­plants are sen­si­tive to both heat and cold and should ide­al­ly be stored at around 50 de­grees Faren­heit (ten de­grees Cel­sius). Do not cut egg­plant be­fore you store it as it per­ish­es quick­ly once its skin has been punc­tured or its in­ner flesh ex­posed. Place un­cut and un­washed egg­plant in a plas­tic bag and store in the re­frig­er­a­tor crisper, where it will keep for a few days. If it is too large for the crisper, do not try to force it in; this will dam­age the skin and cause the egg­plant to spoil and de­cay. In­stead, place it on a shelf with­in the re­frig­er­a­tor. If you pur­chase egg­plant that is wrapped in plas­tic film, re­move it as soon as pos­si­ble since it will in­hib­it the egg­plant from breath­ing and de­grade its fresh­ness.

Tips for prepar­ing egg­plant

When cut­ting an egg­plant, use a stain­less steel knife as car­bon steel will re­act with its phy­tonu­tri­ents and cause it to turn black. Wash the egg­plant first and then cut off the ends. Most egg­plants can be eat­en ei­ther with or with­out their skin. How­ev­er, the larg­er ones and those that are white in col­or gen­er­al­ly have tough skins that may not be palat­able. To re­move skin, you can peel it be­fore cut­ting or if you are bak­ing it, you can scoop out the flesh once it is cooked. To ten­derise the flesh's tex­ture and re­duce some of its nat­u­ral­ly oc­cur­ring bit­ter taste, you can sweat the egg­plant by salt­ing it. Af­ter cut­ting the egg­plant in­to the de­sired size and shape, sprin­kle it with salt and al­low it to rest for about 30 min­utes. This process will pull out some of its wa­ter con­tent and make it less per­me­able to ab­sorb­ing any oil used in cook­ing.