Turmeric

Turmeric is another spice that you’ll see the health benefits of spoken about everywhere. Curcumin is the yellow pigment that gives turmeric it’s colour and is the active ingredient that is so good for us. 

Turmeric is super anti-inflammatory! It’s an anti oxidant, it lowers cholesterol and it protects the liver from toxins. Most importantly, it boosts the immune system so is a huge preventative of disease.

Equally, turmeric promotes weight loss (and is great for diabetes) and is what I call a beautifying skin tonic - specifically reducing acne and for brightening the skin.

Turmeric improves ligament flexibility and helps with aches and pains, including joint swelling in rheumatoid arthritis. It’s warming and bitter and improves protein digestion and reduces menstrual pain. It also helps dissolve tumours and cysts, including ovarian cysts in PCOS, uterine fibroids and gallstones! 

One of its many benefits again seems to be that it causes us to undergo fewer DNA mutations (ie helps decrease cancer risk). It also forces existing cancer cells to kill themselves (quite amazing really)! This is especially helpful for decreasing colorectal cancer risk (since the turmeric you eat directly hits the colon cells as little of it as actually absorbed into the bloodstream). 

Turmeric also decreases risk for lung and brain diseases, helps decrease recovery time after surgery, treat autoimmune conditions including IBD, Inflammatory Bowel Disease (ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease) and rheumatoid arthritis - eating turmeric root is especially good for inflammatory conditions. 

Important tip: to bring out the Curcumin in turmeric you should eat it with black pepper (the piperine in pepper helps us absorb curcumin) and some form of fat (eg with olive oil, or on eggs, coconut oil etc).

Tip: If you mistakenly get turmeric on your clothes (it’s bright yellow) - put that piece of clothing into some sunlight for an hour or so and the uv light will make the stain disappear ! 

Caution - in large quantities turmeric may cause stomach upset for some people.