Spice Up Your Life

It’s super easy to spice up your life by adding the following 5 herbs and spices into your meals and drinks.  I have been flavouring my meals and making nutritious drinks with them for the last 5 years and ‘touch wood’ I’m rarely ill!

Let’s start with my favourite (not for the taste, but because of its powerful properties)

Turmeric -This is the spice that gives curry its yellow colour and haddock too.  It contains several compounds with medicinal properties, the most important of which is curcumin.

Curcumin is a powerful antioxidant, helping to fight oxidative damage and boosting the body’s own antioxidant enzymes.  This is important, because oxidative damage is believed to be one of the key factors behind ageing and many diseases.

Curcumin is a strong anti-inflammatory, to the point where it matches the effectiveness of some anti-inflammatory drugs.

I like to consume turmeric by making ‘Golden Milk’ and drink it before bed.

Simply froth up some none dairy milk. (I used rude health almond milk)
In a mug add 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric and a pinch of cinnamon (vary this depending on your taste) then squeeze honey into sweeten. Mix in the ingredients and drink!

Ginger

Ginger is well know for it’s health benefits, in particular easing nausea, aids digestion and strengthens the immune system.  It’s also known to improve bone health, ease joint pain and increases sensitivity to insulin.  If you’re type 2 diabetic I would certainly recommend this spice in your meals.

This spice is great added into stir-frys, in a smoothie and like the golden milk above, as a latte with coconut milk and nutmeg.

I use ginger blitzed with apple if I feel a cold coming on… It literally blasts it out of you!

Cinnamon

Cinnamon comes from the inner bark of several tree species.  The truest form is called ceylon, but most of the cinnamon you find in the supermarket comes from the cassia cinnamon family.

It has a long history of use in traditional medicine and has become a popular spice because of its health benefits.  It boasts anti-inflammatory properties to help auto-immune diseases and has positive effects on insulin resistance to lower blood sugar, so if you’re pre diabetic or have diabetes, try adding more of this spice to your diet.

Try adding healthy sprinkle of cinnamon in your morning smoothie or over your yogurt, it will naturally add sweetness to any drink, snack or dessert.