Umeboshi (Japanese: 梅干) are pickled ume fruits common in Japan. The word "umeboshi" is often translated into English as "Japanese salt plums," "salt plums" or "pickled plums." Ume (Prunus mume) is a species of fruit-bearing tree in the genus Prunus, which is often called a plum but is actually more closely related to the apricot. Umeboshi are a popular kind of tsukemono (pickles) and are extremely sour and salty. They are usually served as side dishes for rice or eaten on rice balls (often without removing the pit) for breakfast and lunch. They are occasionally served boiled or seasoned for dinner.
==Special Precautions of Umeboshi==
* They are commonly harvested green The seeds and unripe, when the flesh of ume contain cyanogenetic glycoside, which is very sour a compound of sugars and laced with cyanidehydrocyanic acid, and when consumed, making it potentially poisonousmay cause, among others, difficulty of breathing, dizziness, spasms, and even paralysis. But the fruit *The amount of cyanogenetic glycoside contained in a green ume plum is edible when it’s smokedvery limited, boiled or cured with sugarthough, salt or alcoholso there is only risk of serious, adverse side-effects if an adult consumes 300 ping-pong ball-sized ume plums, or a lengthy process that can take monthschild consumes 100 ume plums, in one sitting.* Since the pit of However, you need to take extra care when eating young, unripen greenplums taken from trees, unripe ume contains because the toxic substance amygdalinseeds contain 10-20 times as much cyanogenetic glycoside as the flesh. Do not eat soft green plums taken from trees whole, which generates harmful hydrogen cyanide, avoid with the seeds still in them. For safe eating green , umeplums need to be heated, pickled or dried so that toxic cyanogenetic glycoside is destroyed.
==Benefits and uses of Umeboshi are==