What is Nokhod?

Nokhod is the Persian name for the chickpea, Cicer arietinum. It is a bean-like seed eaten every day in Iran, India, Turkey and the Arab world. In Persian and Unani practice it is also used as a simple home remedy.

Healers have used it to build strength after illness, to ease a dry cough, to keep the bowels moving, and as a paste to clean the skin. The whole seed, the roasted seed, the flour and the water from soaking are all used.

Long use is not proof that a remedy works, and that is true here as well. Chickpeas are a well-studied food, but very few trials test them as a treatment. Think of Nokhod as good food with modest support behind it, not as a medicine.

How does Nokhod work?

Most of what chickpeas do comes from being a high-fibre, high-protein food, not from a drug-like action. The fibre and the slow starch let sugar enter your blood more gently after a meal. The same fibre adds bulk to stool and feeds the bacteria in your gut.

Soluble fibre (the kind that turns soft and gel-like in water) also traps some bile acids in the gut. Your body then uses cholesterol to make more of them, which may pull blood cholesterol down a little over weeks. This is a small effect, and it shows up best when chickpeas replace meat or white bread rather than being added on top.

Persian and Unani writers explained it a different way. They called Nokhod a warm, moist food that builds the body, loosens phlegm (thick mucus) and cleans the blood. That idea guided its use, but it is not a modern test of whether it works.

What forms does Nokhod come in?

You will meet Nokhod in these forms:

Dried whole seeds that you soak and boil. Canned or jarred cooked chickpeas. Roasted chickpeas eaten as a snack, sometimes called leblebi.

Chickpea flour, known as besan or gram flour, used in breads, batters and skin pastes.

Older Persian and Unani texts also use the soaking water, a thin gruel of the flour, and the sour dew collected from chickpea leaves. The dew and leaf preparations are traditional only and are not sold as tested products.

Where it comes from:

Chickpeas were farmed in the Near East thousands of years ago and spread early into Persia, India and the Mediterranean. Classical Persian and Unani writers, including Avicenna, listed Nokhod as both food and medicine.

The same seed sits in Ayurvedic practice as chana and in Greek and Roman humoral medicine. That shared history is why its traditional standing is rated high, even though formal trials are few.

What does Nokhod help with?

• Blood sugar control in type 2 diabetes (support only): Chickpeas raise blood sugar slowly compared with rice, potato or white bread. Small feeding studies in healthy adults show a lower sugar rise after a chickpea meal than after a wheat or potato meal. This is a food swap, not a treatment. Keep taking your prescribed diabetes medicine and tell your doctor if you change your diet a lot.
• High blood cholesterol (support only): Diets that include pulses such as chickpeas most days are linked with slightly lower total and LDL cholesterol (the harmful kind). The change seen in diet studies is small and takes weeks. Chickpeas may help most when they take the place of red or processed meat in your meals.
• Constipation: A cup of cooked chickpeas gives a large dose of fibre, which softens stool and helps it move. Many people notice a change within a few days. Increase the amount slowly and drink more water, or you may trade constipation for gas and cramps.
• Appetite and weight management: Protein and fibre together help meals feel filling, and short diet studies report less snacking on chickpea-rich days. No trial shows that chickpeas on their own cause weight loss.
• Low iron and low protein diets: Chickpeas are a useful source of protein, iron, folate and zinc for people who eat little or no meat. Soaking, sprouting and long cooking cut the phytate that blocks mineral uptake. They do not replace iron tablets if your doctor has found true iron-deficiency anaemia (low iron in the blood).
• Dry cough and chest dryness (traditional use): Persian and Unani practice uses warm chickpea broth, sometimes with honey, for a dry, tight cough. This rests on tradition. No human trial has tested chickpea broth for cough.
• Building strength after illness (traditional use): Nokhod gruel was a classic food for people recovering from fever or long illness. It is nourishing and easy to make, which fits what we know about protein needs in recovery. The specific claim of restoring strength faster has not been tested.
• Oily skin and cleansing (traditional external use): Chickpea flour mixed with water or yoghurt is a very old face and body wash in Persia and India. It works partly as a mild scrub. There is no good trial showing it treats acne or any skin disease.

Which foods are rich in Nokhod?

1. Cooked chickpeas - the food itself, whole and plain
2. Hummus - mashed chickpeas with sesame paste, a full serving of the bean
3. Falafel - fried chickpea patties, though frying adds fat
4. Besan or gram flour foods, such as flatbreads, pakora and Persian nan-e nokhodchi
5. Roasted chickpea snacks (leblebi) - dry-roasted whole seeds
6. Chickpea pasta - a wheat-free pasta made from the flour
7. Aquafaba - the thick water left from cooking chickpeas, used as an egg-white substitute

Practical Tips:

Chickpeas are a food, so eating them is both the traditional use and the best-supported one.

What are the side effects of Nokhod?

• Gas and bloating
• Stomach cramps
• Loose stools if you eat a lot of fibre suddenly
• Feeling overly full
• Allergic reaction: itching, rash, swelling, wheeze (uncommon but can be severe)
• Sudden tiredness, pale skin or dark urine in people with G6PD deficiency (an inherited blood condition) - rare
• Stomach upset from raw or undercooked dried chickpeas

Good to know:

For most people chickpeas cause nothing worse than wind. Gas and bloating are common at first and usually settle as your gut adjusts over a week or two.

Soaking dried chickpeas overnight, throwing away the soaking water and cooking them well cuts the gas. Serious problems are rare, and they are almost always either a true legume allergy or a reaction in someone with G6PD deficiency.

How much Nokhod should you take?

• Recommended daily: There is no set medicinal dose for Nokhod, because it is a food. Diet studies use about 100 to 200 g of cooked chickpeas a day, which is roughly half a cup to one cup, on most days of the week. Chickpea flour is used in normal cooking amounts. For the traditional skin paste, mix a spoonful of chickpea flour with enough water or yoghurt to make a soft paste, then rinse it off. Always cook dried chickpeas fully; soak them first and boil until soft.
• Best time of day: Any time. Chickpeas at lunch or dinner fit best, since a large fibre load late at night can leave some people gassy in bed.
• With or without food: Chickpeas are a food, so they are eaten as part of a meal. Keep them at least two hours away from thyroid tablets, iron tablets and other medicines that fibre can block.
• Time to effect: Bowel changes often show within two to five days. The gentler blood sugar rise happens at the meal itself. Any cholesterol change takes about 4 to 12 weeks of regular eating.
• How long to take it: Chickpeas can be part of your diet for life, the same as any bean. If you are eating them for a specific reason, give it a fair trial and then check. For constipation, judge after one to two weeks. For cholesterol or blood sugar, allow about three months and use your normal blood tests to see if anything changed. Stop and speak to a doctor if you get pain, ongoing diarrhoea or any rash.