If you’re overweight, consider eating a cucumber. It has soluble fiber and high water content, making you feel full the rest of the day. You will lose appetite, thus lose weight. The water content also helps you to remain hydrated. It’s rich in nutrients and antioxidants, thus protecting you from some chronic diseases such as cancer and autoimmune disease. Its helps you have a regular bowel movement among other benefits.
Some people think that a cucumber is a vegetable while others believe it’s a fruit. The truth is it’s a fruit but just like a tomato used with vegetables. After all, it originates from a flower, and it contains seeds.
When you plant a cucumber, you can put some supporting frame to help the vines creep on it. Alternatively, you can let it grown near the ground. You can eat the fresh green fruit when it’s plain or can accompany other dishes.
Many people around the world plant cucumber and it come in three types. They include slicing, pickling, and burpless/seedless. The most common cucumber is the slicing cucumber. You have to harvest it before it becomes ripe. A ripe slicing cucumber is bitter and sour. Seedless cucumbers are also called English cucumber. It has dark green skin, and it’s long and thin. Its skin is thinner thus easy to digest. It has a slightly sweet taste. Due to their fragile nature, supermarkets wrap them using plastics.
The third type is the pickling cucumber. So, what does pickle means? It’s a way of preserving food, to help it extend its shelf life. Many peoples use different solutions to ferment food, including brine and vinegar. Among the food that you can pickle includes cucumber, vegetables and fruits. Some cucumbers are perfect for pickling thus have the name pickling cucumber. Among them includes the Gherkins and Kirby cucumbers.
Unlike the other types with a cylindrical shape and thinner skin, pickling cucumber has an irregular shape. It’s thick and shorter with bumpy skin. So, what’s the main difference between pickles and cucumbers? Before answering the question, you need to understand more about pickles.
Table of Contents
What’s The Pickle?
As explained above, it’s a way of preserving food to minimize wastage and prolong its shelf life. When fermenting the cucumbers, you need to insert the fresh fruit in salt brine or even an acidic solution. The sugar content in the cucumber turns into lactic acid. Once the environment becomes acidic, no spoiling bacteria can thrive in it. That means your food will remain good for long. You can use the pickled cucumber to make salad and stuffing chicken.
Now that you already know the health benefits of cucumber, will pickling destroy the nutrients? Luckily, most nutrients and antioxidants remain. The acidic environment only destroys water-soluble vitamins. Such vitamins include vitamin B and C.
Also read:Difference Between Cookie Sheet and Baking Sheet
Health Benefits of Pickled Cucumber
Other than extending the shelf-life of the cucumber, it comes with several other benefits. They includes
1. Helps in digestion – If you have had gut health concerns, then consider eating pickled cucumber. Maybe you have an autoimmune condition, skin irritation or even food intolerance. The probiotic bacteria released by the acidic environment, help your gut to remain healthy.
2. Fight diseases – Chronic diseases are a nightmare to many. But thanks to beta-carotene antioxidant, the chances of you getting heart diseases, cancer, among other illnesses, reduces.
3. Other benefits – include ease of muscle cramps and help your body to curb sugar spikes among other benefits.
Does that mean that pickled cucumber and pickles are the same? Looking at pickled cucumber vs pickles what’s their difference? As indicated above, pickled cucumber is a cucumber that has been fermented. Those in the USA and Canada, call pickled cucumber pickles. Since you can pickle a variety of food, then pickled cucumber is part of mixed pickles.
Also read: Does Apple Pie Need To Be Refrigerated After Baking?
Notable Differences between Cucumber and Pickles
Back to the question cucumbers vs pickles what are their differences? Check more below.
Uses
So how do you use the cucumber? You can either eat it when green and fresh when plain. You can also add it to other dishes. Since the pickles are sour, you can only add it in the salad dressing or even stuff your chicken.
The state
The cucumber is in its natural state, and you need not ferment it to use it. After harvesting, you can use it immediately. Pickles, on the other hand, have to through fermentation and may take weeks to ferment.
Taste
The cucumber has a mild sweet taste making it edible when plain. The sweet taste comes as a result of the high water content. But the pickles have a sour and a bitter taste.
Shape
Most cucumbers, especially the sliced ones, have a cylindrical curved shape. Some are long and comes with a thinner, delicate skin. Pickles come with an irregular shape, and their skin is bumpy and thicker. They don’t need to be wrapped when getting sold in the supermarket.
Nutrients Level
Both come with a high nutrient value. Cucumber has many health benefits, as mentioned above. Unfortunately, the lactic acid mess the water-soluble nutrients. That means by the time you want to use it; it will not have soluble nutrients such as vitamin c.
Conclusion
Cucumber is a health food, especially if you have excess weight. It reduces your appetite since you feel full the entire day after eating it. Again you will remain hydrated, courtesy of its high water content. Since cucumber can’t last long in the room temperature, you can preserve it to increase its shelf life. Note that other than the cucumber, you can also pickle fruits and other vegetables. The best type to pickle is the pickling cucumber. Their design makes them perfect for pickling. You can use vinegar and salt brine to ferment the cucumber. Though the water-soluble nutrients will disappear, you will remain with other vital nutrients such as antioxidants. Pickled cucumber and pickles are the same; their names differ depending on the location.