Spices: Nutritional Benefits

Recipe for Category Food Tips, Hints & Articles

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Contributed by Angela Cleveland

Adding spices and herbs to your meals provides a break from the ordinary. A sprinkle of chili pepper on your mashed potatoes, a dash of rosemary in your salad, a dusting of turmeric on your rice – the options are endless. But the benefits of spices and herbs go farther than taste. Studies show that spices contain high amounts of antioxidants which are believed to help prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, and premature aging. For example, by adding marjoram to your salad, you can increase the antioxidant capacity by 200% (www.naturalnews.com). Furthermore, the Journal of Medicine and Food reported spices such as cloves, cinnamon, and allspice inhibited tissue damage and inflammation brought on by high blood-sugar levels. Here are some examples of the health benefits that certain spices offer (www.naturalnews.com):

- Cinnamon: has antimicrobial properties, can stop the growth of yeast, fungi, and bacteria, has anti-clotting and anti-inflammatory properties, boosts brain function, and has insulin-like qualities.

- Oregano: has antibacterial properties, kills unfriendly bacteria, fights against candida albicans overgrowth throughout the body especially in the sinus cavities, and has four times the antioxidant activity of blueberries.

- Turmeric: one of nature's most powerful healers, a potent anti-inflammatory, helps with inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, cystic fibrosis, cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

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