Chapter 18

Ten Super Spices for Your Kitchen

In This Chapter

Learning about spices and their culinary uses

Implementing spices for healing

You may not realise it, but you have a pharmacy in your kitchen. Food is your best defence against ill health, and you can boost its effectiveness by using the spices in your kitchen cabinet. This chapter runs through ten spices worth keeping and using to enhance flavour and health.

Turmeric

Turmeric is a little tuber that packs quite a force and has been used as a spice, medicine and colouring agent since time began! It really became prominent when modern science discovered that it’s a powerful antioxidant with anti-tumour properties.

You can use turmeric in myriad ways. It’s an anti-inflammatory, a digestive and a cholesterol-lowering agent. It makes a very good antibiotic, because it purifies the blood and improves intestinal flora. Also, it’s been proven to help balance blood sugar.

If you have a family history of cancer, have been exposed to smoke or inhaled chemicals, you may like to take half a teaspoon of turmeric twice daily on food. An easier option is to take two capsules twice daily; they’re available from your local health-food shop.

For respiratory allergies and asthma, mix honey with turmeric.

Cinnamon

You can use cinnamon, one of my personal favourites, in almost anything. Highly prized as an antioxidant, cinnamon appears for sale as oil, powder or sticks of bark excised from the tree. Its benefits include:

Improving heart health, because it helps thin the blood and strengthen the heart muscle

Promoting the flow of the energy known as vyana vayu, which promotes circulation in your body

Improving the digestive fire known as agni and therefore helping the digestive tract expel toxins

For those of you suffering with colds and sinus infections, try a teaspoon of manuka honey with half a teaspoon of cinnamon powder in warm water, two or three times per day.

A great treat on winter days is Langdale’s Essence of Cinnamon. Add a teaspoon to a cup of warm milk or water. If you have a cold, you can have this three times a day (unless you’re a man hoping to soon become a father, because cinnamon affects sperm production).

Black Pepper

Ubiquitous black pepper is a household remedy with a wide reach, including:

Encouraging your stomach to secrete saliva and gastric enzymes

Increasing the motility of your gut

Helping you release trapped wind

Burning toxins in the digestive system by stimulating your digestive fire

Comforting coughs and colds by helping your body sweat them out

If you have a cold, you can use a pinch of freshly ground pepper with two cloves of garlic in a glass of warm water three times a day, or try a pinch of turmeric powder and a quarter of a teaspoon of black pepper in boiled, cooled milk.

One of pepper’s best applications is to counter the effects of cold raw food; a crack of pepper improves digestibility.

Pepper is not advisable if you have any gastric irritation or high pitta conditions where there’s a lot of heat in your body. For those of you in serious meditative practices, remember that it can cause excitement of the mind because of its pungency.

Mustard Seed

Mustard seeds are an important part of the Ayurvedic kitchen because of their pungency – they enhance the flavour of any savoury dish you put them in. Yellow mustard seeds are milder in action and taste.

The seeds help to relieve both vata and kapha doshas in your body, because they work in opposition to their cold properties.

You can find mustard seed oil in Indian grocery shops. It’s great for cooking, of course, but you can also use it for body massage if you want to stimulate the circulation. I find it very effective when rubbed into my cold feet in the winter, and it aids any sign of arthritis in a joint.

For poor circulation, tie two teaspoons of mustard seeds in a cheesecloth and immerse in hot water, and then soak your feet in the water.

Don’t take mustard seed if your stomach is acidic or you have an aggravated pitta condition.

Ginger

Ginger is practically a pharmacy within itself and has earned the name vishwabhesaj, or ‘universal medicine’. It’s very calming to the mind and a tonic to the heart. It earns considerable interest in the scientific community because of its antiplatelet activity in the blood (which improves circulation), its anti-inflammatory properties and its ability to treat nausea.

You can chew a piece of ginger before meals with a little salt on it to stimulate the digestion. Add ginger to food to make it easier to digest and help control any flatulence.

For painful menstruation, take a little chopped fresh ginger and boil it in a cup of water for a few minutes, add a sprinkling of cane sugar and take three times a day after food.

Dry ginger, or sunthi, has a hotter potency and as such is more effective than the root for relieving mucousy coughs and colds; take a quarter of a teaspoon twice daily in warm water.

Cumin

Cumin is essential in Indian cuisine. Its distinctive flavour arises from a volatile oil known as thymene. Cumin is unsurpassed as a herb for digestive and gas problems, because its mild pungency helps build the digestive fire and get the juices flowing.

If you have painful swellings you can use cumin externally, made into a paste, because it has analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties. (Remove the paste after an hour.)

You can use cumin as a diuretic by taking a glass of warm water with half a teaspoon of cumin powder and one teaspoon of raw cane sugar.

If you suffer from menstrual pain, you can get relief by roasting some seeds until the aromatic oils are released and then chewing a teaspoonful. Chase them down with one teaspoon of aloe vera juice.

In India, hiccups are relieved by smoking a cigarette made of ghee with cumin seeds. Imagine how that would smell!

Coriander

You can very successfully grow coriander in your garden, producing better-tasting seeds and leaves than you can buy. And what a good thing, because this is another essential spice for the Ayurvedic kitchen.

Coriander seeds help to soothe an excess of kapha dosha or mucus in your body, while green coriander relieves pitta dosha or heat in your system. You can steep green coriander seeds in a little water and apply the paste to your skin to relieve rashes and urticaria.

If you experience pitta problems such as rashes, nausea and irritability, you can make a decoction of half a teaspoon of cumin, one teaspoon of coriander and a little raw cane sugar to taste. Boil in a little water for 15 minutes and then add to a cup of hot milk. Take up to twice daily to soothe symptoms.

When I was in India, I got ‘Delhi belly’. One teaspoon of coriander seeds steeped in hot water for 15 minutes drunk throughout the day soon got me back on track.

Coriander seeds can also act as a tonic for the nervous system. One teaspoon of seeds with a cup of boiled milk can help you in cases of memory loss, vertigo and fainting.

I should also mention that coriander’s a very good diuretic and is very helpful if you get water retention, especially in the summer months, and will help to protect the kidneys, especially in cases of pitta-type diabetes. Just sprinkle the chopped leaves on your food.

Cardamom

You find two types of cardamom in common use, but I refer to the small green variety.

Cardamom is a very mild digestive stimulant and regulates the peristaltic movements in the intestines and colon.

If you have toothache, you can relieve it with cardamom oil. Simply put a drop on a small piece of cotton wool against your tooth before going to the dentist.

Eating cardamom can be very useful if you have a persistent cough, because it’s an expectorant and can shift mucus sitting in your lungs.

Cardamom’s also a source of manganese, which helps to metabolise cholesterol and fats in the body and gives you energy. So include cardamom regularly in your cooking.

Clove

Clove is a friend in the kitchen because it keeps well and has many uses.

Chewing on a clove not only refreshes the breath, it also cures hoarseness and helps relieve stomatitis (inflammation of the lining of the mouth, the gums and tongue) and skin disorders.

Like cardamom, clove has analgesic properties and is very effective at numbing the pain of toothache. Clove is also mildly aphrodisiac, so if you’re celibate you may want to avoid it!

If you have morning sickness you can take it with a spoonful of honey; clove also helps with milk production and has the added bonus of purifying it.

Clove is a liver stimulant and is useful if you experience hyperacidity, flatulence or abdominal colic.

Nutmeg

One of the most fragrant of spices, nutmeg is best kept whole in the kitchen and freshly grated to release its sweet overtones. You can use the smallest amount to flavour milk products. I add it to mashed potatoes for a delicious flavour.

For your digestion, nutmeg removes bad tastes from your mouth, stimulates your liver and enhances your appetite, while improving absorption of chyle, especially from your small intestine.

You can use a little nutmeg powder with ginger to help alleviate a headache brought on by a cold.

Nutmeg’s quality of being rather heavy and dulling to your system makes it ideal if you have a problem sleeping; try a quarter of a teaspoon in a cup of warm milk.

A word of caution here: nutmeg oil is potent stuff, so don’t use more than the stated dose, and don’t use it if you have an aggravated pitta condition. Anything that pungent in taste increases symptoms of heat in the body.

In India, nutmeg’s used for impotency and premature ejaculation; it’s applied to the penis as an oil, and then betel leaves are tied around the penis. What a cure!