Tukhm-e-Khurfa (Purslane Seed): The Cooling Unani Seed, Not the Saag
Tukhm e khurfa, written tukhm-e-khurfa (purslane seed), is the tiny jet-black seed of kulfa, the same fleshy summer weed you eat as saag, sold dry by Unani pansaris as a “cooling” drug. The leaf and the seed are the same plant, Portulaca oleracea, but they are not the same thing on the shelf, in the old books or in the research, and this page is about the seed.
In brief
- English: purslane seed
- Urdu, Hindi: tukhm-e-khurfa, tukhm khurfa, kulfa ke beej; khurfa siyah is the same black seed
- Arabic, Unani: bazr-ul-baqla al-hamqa; tukhm-e-khurfa
- Scientific name: Portulaca oleracea L., family Portulacaceae
- Form: whole dried seed, or ground into safoof and seed mixes; also sharbat
- Traditional roles: cooling, mild sedative, for thirst, burning urine and “garmi”; modern interest in blood sugar
- Safety flag: MEDIUM. Oxalate (kidney stones), diabetes medicine, no pregnancy data.
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Seed or saag? Why it matters
Kulfa the vegetable is eaten by the bunch, cooked with daal or as a saag, and our kulfa saag guide owns that story. Tukhm-e-khurfa is what the plant leaves behind when it bolts in late summer: a small capsule that pops open and spills seeds finer than mustard, black and glossy. Pansaris collect these from cultivated and wild plants, clean out the stalk dust, and sell them by the tola or the 100 g.
The two parts do not share a nutrition sheet. The leaf is mostly water, with omega-3 fat (alpha-linolenic acid), vitamin C and a lot of oxalate, while the seed is dry, oily and starchy, with a mucilage that swells slightly in water. When a Unani text says khurfa is cold and moist, it means the leaf. The seed is classed cold too, but drier.
What “khurfa siyah” means
Readers often ask whether khurfa siyah is a separate drug. It is not. Siyah means black, and it simply describes the ripe seed as opposed to the green leaf, though some sellers use the phrase for a cleaner, darker grade. Same plant. Same seed.
The pansari’s check: colour and shine, then a bite
Fresh purslane seed is tiny, almost dust-fine, and uniformly black with a glossy, slightly granular surface, like coarse black pepper ground very fine but with a shine. Here is how to check a lot before you pay.
- Pour about half a teaspoon onto white paper and tilt it under good light.
- Good seed rolls freely, catches the light and is one colour: black. Odd pale or brown grains are stalk fragments, soil, or seed of another plant.
- A dull, greyish-brown lot that clumps has usually been stored damp or for years; the oil in the seed goes rancid.
- Bite three or four seeds. Fresh seed tastes faintly nutty and bland. A paint-like or bitter edge is rancid oil. Spit it out and move on.
- Smell the bag. Musty means damp storage. Walk away.
This check tells you freshness and cleanliness. It cannot tell you oxalate content or whether a seed mix has been bulked with cheaper seeds; for that you would need a laboratory.
What tradition says
In Unani practice the seed is a mubarrid (cooler) and musakkin (calmer). It was given for excessive thirst, burning in the urine, heat in the stomach and liver, feverish restlessness, and sleeplessness from “garmi”, often in summer. It travels in company: tukhm-e-khurfa sits beside tukhm-e-balanga (basil seed), tukhm-e-karafs (celery seed), tukhm-e-kahu (lettuce seed) and tukhm-e-kasni (chicory seed) in cooling seed mixes, and in sharbat and safoof prescriptions for the bladder. In homes, a pinch was soaked in water on hot nights much as tukh malanga is.
The modern claim riding on top of all this is diabetes; “khurfa seeds for sugar” is now one of the most searched phrases about it.
What research says about purslane seed
Reasonably supported: that the seed is safe to eat in food amounts, and that it carries omega-3 fat, fibre and polyphenols. That much is uncontroversial.
Preliminary, with small human trials: the blood-sugar story. A 2011 trial in Yemen gave 30 people with type 2 diabetes either purslane seed or metformin for eight weeks and described falls in fasting and post-meal glucose, triglycerides and liver enzymes in the seed group. A 2015 Iranian cross-over trial in 48 people with type 2 diabetes gave seed in yoghurt for five weeks and saw small drops in weight, triglycerides and systolic blood pressure, but no meaningful change in fasting glucose or insulin resistance. A 2016 trial in Iranian women with type 2 diabetes paired seed with aerobic exercise and measured changes in blood vessel markers. A 2024 systematic review in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences counted only two human trials that met its criteria, both from Iran, and said plainly that the human results fall short of the animal data and that broader trials are needed.
So: small, mixed, mostly from one region, and not enough to call the seed a sugar remedy. Interesting, unproven, and nothing to change your tablets over.
Tradition only: cooling, thirst, sleep, burning urine. There are no trials for these, though a bland soaked seed in water is a perfectly reasonable summer drink.
Unsupported or unsafe: the idea that purslane is good for kidney stones. The opposite is closer to the truth, as the next section explains.
How it is used today
At home the seed is used three ways. Soaked: a level teaspoon (about 3 g) stirred into a glass of water or lassi for 10 to 15 minutes and drunk as a cooling summer drink, where it swells only slightly, far less than tukh malanga or chia. Ground: toasted dry for 2 to 3 minutes until it smells nutty, then ground and sprinkled a teaspoon at a time over raita or into dough like a milder flax seed. Sharbat: boiled briefly with sugar and a little lemon and strained. Pleasant, but sugar water first.
As a Unani drug, in safoof and seed mixes for the bladder or for “garmi”, the pack or a qualified practitioner sets the amount, not this page. Toast seeds for food use only; the seed-mix prescriptions are made from raw seed by the compounder.
Kidney stones: purslane leaf is one of the highest-oxalate plants in common use, and the seed’s oxalate is far less well measured, so treat it with the same care. There is a published case of oxalate nephropathy (kidney injury from oxalate crystals) in a person who ate large amounts of purslane. Anyone with a history of kidney stones, chronic kidney disease or a single kidney should skip regular khurfa seed, leaf or sharbat. Diabetes medicine: if you take insulin or a sulfonylurea (gliclazide, glimepiride, glibenclamide), anything that may push sugar down adds to the hypo risk, especially if you are also eating less in summer. Never reduce or stop a diabetes tablet for a seed; tell your doctor you are taking it, and know the hypo signs (sweating, shaking, confusion, hunger). Pregnancy and breastfeeding: no safety data for medicinal amounts; the vegetable as food is fine. Children: a pinch of soaked seed in a drink is fine over 5; dry seed is a small choking and inhalation risk in toddlers, so soak it. Sharbat khurfa is sugar syrup; count it as such if you have diabetes or are losing weight.
Stop and see a doctor if: you pass blood or gravel in urine, get flank pain, pass much less urine than usual, or notice swelling of the feet after regular use. Bring the packet.
Buying and storing
Buy whole seed, not powder, because a powder hides stalk dust, soil and whatever cheap seed was mixed in, and goes rancid in weeks; choose a shop that turns stock quickly in summer, keep the seed in a tightly closed jar away from heat and light, and use it within six months. Toast only what you will use that week. Smells like old cooking oil? It has gone, whatever the pack date says.
Price is low because the plant is a common weed and the seed a by-product of saag farming; a “khurfa siyah premium” label is paying for a word. If uric acid, rather than sugar, is your concern, our uric acid dal guide is a better place to spend attention than any seed. More ingredient explainers are in Unani & Herbal, Decoded.
Bottom line
Known: tukhm-e-khurfa is the black seed of the kulfa plant, safe as a food, oily and fibrous, from a plant very high in oxalate. Claimed by tradition: cooling, calming, good for thirst and burning urine. Uncertain: whether it helps blood sugar; a handful of small trials disagree with each other. The main safety issue: oxalate for anyone prone to stones, and hypo risk layered on diabetes medicine. Glossy and black means fresh; dull and brown means leave it.
Tukhm-e-khurfa: your questions answered
Tukhm-e-khurfa kya hai?
It is the dried seed of purslane (kulfa, Portulaca oleracea), the fleshy summer green eaten as saag. Unani medicine uses the tiny black seed as a cooling, calming drug and in seed mixes for the bladder and for summer heat.
Khurfa in English?
Purslane. The leaf is purslane greens; tukhm-e-khurfa is purslane seed. Some older books call the plant pigweed or little hogweed, but purslane is the name you will find in shops and research.
Tukhm khurfa ke fayde kya hain?
Tradition credits it with cooling the body, easing thirst and burning urine, and calming restless sleep. Research adds omega-3 fat and fibre, and a few small, mixed trials in type 2 diabetes. Nothing is proven enough to call it a remedy.
Khurfa siyah kya hota hai?
The same black purslane seed; siyah just means black and separates the ripe seed from the green leaf. Some sellers use the term for a cleaner grade. It is not a different plant or drug.
Kulfa ke beej kaise istemal karein?
For a cooling drink, soak a level teaspoon in a glass of water or lassi for 10 to 15 minutes and drink it. For food, toast for 2 to 3 minutes and sprinkle a teaspoon over raita or into dough. Medicinal amounts in Unani mixes come from the pack or a practitioner.
Tukhm khurfa ke nuksan kya hain?
The main one is oxalate, which matters for anyone with kidney stones or kidney disease. It can add to the sugar-lowering effect of diabetes medicines. Rancid seed can upset the stomach. There is no pregnancy safety data for medicinal amounts.
Kya khurfa seeds sugar mein faida karte hain?
Not reliably. Small trials in Yemen and Iran disagree: one described lower glucose, another saw no meaningful glucose change. A 2024 systematic review found the human evidence thin. Keep taking prescribed medicine and treat the seed as food, not treatment.
Tukhm khurfa pathri (kidney stones) mein le sakte hain?
No. Purslane is very high in oxalate, the main ingredient of common kidney stones, and there is a published case of kidney injury from eating large amounts. People with a stone history should avoid regular khurfa seed, leaf and sharbat.
Tukhm khurfa aur tukh malanga mein kya farq hai?
Different plants. Tukh malanga is basil seed, which swells into a thick jelly in minutes. Khurfa seed is purslane seed, smaller, black and glossy, and swells only slightly. Both sit in Unani cooling seed mixes, often together.
Tukhm khurfa pregnancy mein?
Kulfa as a cooked vegetable is fine. For the seed in medicinal amounts there is no safety data, so skip safoof and seed mixes during pregnancy and breastfeeding unless a qualified practitioner who knows you are pregnant prescribes them.
Sources
- El-Sayed MI. Effects of Portulaca oleracea L. seeds in treatment of type-2 diabetes mellitus patients as adjunctive and alternative therapy. J Ethnopharmacol, 2011
- Esmaillzadeh A et al. The effect of purslane seeds on glycemic status and lipid profiles of persons with type 2 diabetes: a randomized controlled cross-over clinical trial. J Res Med Sci, 2015
- Purslane Ameliorates Inflammation and Oxidative Stress in Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review. Int J Mol Sci, 2024
- Wang X et al. Purslane-induced oxalate nephropathy: case report and literature review. BMC Nephrol, 2023