Did you know your old spices can save your life?
Mmmyeah. No. Not that kinda old spice. I mean the neglected add-ins patiently waiting around in the back of your kitchen cabinet like sad unused toys?
I sure didn’t know. But I have been unknowingly adding in at least some of the major players. Since most of my daytime diet is plain fruit and stuff, a nice warm, comforting bowl of homemade soup is my fave at night. I dump in some fresh-whatever and flavor up my stew of vegetables drowned in their own blood with what’s in my cabinet. Typically my favorite additives include onion, garlic and herbs, a bit of sesame oil, and maybe some hot-sauce. But as I get bored, I’m always looking to new options. So, I just may have to try re-introducing some of these items whose health benefits are being championed so I can stave off a prolonged disease-y death for the second half of my life. Which is coming up. Some of these cabinet warriors that work as natch preventable cure alls are already in my cabinet. Others, I’ll be trying for the first time during my next Wegman’s adventure.
(It’s funny ’cause he’s dead now either way.)
While I’m there, I might pick up some Cinnamon. This one’s getting some good press as it was recently shown to reverse Parkinson’s in mice. After working for years with a Parkinson’s patient at my old P.T. job, I’m totes on board for preventing this terrible disease. Loaded with antioxidants, it also helps with type 2 diabetes, lowers blood pressure, and increases insulin sensitivity. You don’t have to do much convincing my tongue, either (giggity?) because I grew up on this stuff – adding it to everything from already sweetened confections to tea with honey. I dunno why I ever stopped buying it, honestly.
Wait – if I buy the type with lots of sugar in it, does it still help?
(It’s funny ’cause it’s false.)
Then there’s turmeric, which I seem to be hearing a lot about lately. A buddy of mine adds it into smoothies and salads and now there seem to be increasing reports about its health benefits. Even though it looks like that weird thing Pan puts under her dying mom’s bed and feeds milk in between her labyrinth dwelling, it may help do exactly what homegirl was trying to accomplish: fight disease. (That is what she was trying to do, right?) It’s proven itself enough in preventing Alzheimer’s and also by slowing cancer enough to be considered a good supplement to chemotherapy. Plus, it suppresses the pathway for growth of things like head and neck cancers. Yes, I’d like the life option that doesn’t end with cancer in my head. Or neck. *Add to the list I always end up leaving at home.*
Another cancer slayer has a sweet name you might hear in a fairy story about the 1800’s: Rosemary.
Deemed super effective in reducing carcinogenic compounds, it’s also an antibacterial and antifungal. So if you’re getting sick or catch snatch rash of the cheesey taco variety, mayhaps this’ll be a good way to avoid the compounded discomfort on top of bottom discomfort when you hafta wait in line with a box o’ vagisil?
If not, there’s always a silver lining.
Thyme oil also inhibits bacterial growth so much that marinating poultry in it helps increase its shelf life. What’s more – it also reduces inflammation. So if you’re suddenly having a pizza face episode outta nowhere and don’t like using those benzoyl creams that make you look like Harvey Dent, thyme’s on your side.
And on your side for pain is ginger. You may have used ginger for an upset tummy or as a nice side for your Fukushima sushi, but did you know it can also assuage arthritic aches? Or even just after-exercise-it-hurts-because-I-don’t-work-out-enough-and-my-body’s-in-shock kinda aches? A couple grams in a capsule is suggested daily, but I think I’d rather just eat it. Why not? Because, much like tumeric, it also looks like something that might come to life and cry when I start cutting it.
That’s why.
For other sorts of pains, though, there’s peppers.
Ah, man. I wish chile peppers loved my stomach as much as my tongue loves them. Spicy stuff’s my fave, but I end up with the supreme bummer that is wicked heartburn when I eat more than a bite or two of red peppers. Thus, I’m putting my tummy through rehab until it learns this food is capable of reducing pain causing neurotransmitters (and allegedly scale numbers, too). Honestly, I just like the way it tastes – likely an association thing of being a kid and eating garbage pizza (is any pizza not garbage?) which was fun because 1. it was savory and 2. we ordered it on nights when the parents yelled at us the least: Friday.
On that note, I’ve gotta grocery list to construct so I can still do this when I’m like 90:
“But, Ashley, you can’t even do that now.”
Irrelevant!
I will magically age-reverse and last forever, like a well kept china doll.
Even if it takes all the herb aisles in town.