You are concerned about environmental issues, health issues, and human rights. The tsunami of information blasted at you has left you bewildered. When the problems of the world are so huge, what can one person do?

With one small step in your own backyard, with little expense and just as much effort as you can fit into your busy lifestyle, you can reduce your environmental impact, improve your health, and develop vital skills for the future—you can grow your own organic food.

A few years ago, almost all agriculture was organic without anyone actually naming it as such. In the early part of the twentieth century, corporate interests began to flood the food market with various petrochemicals to improve the yield of crops. And make no mistake, the yields did improve. Improved yields meant improved profits, and big business took food production away from the local and individual.

From the 1930s on, people such as Rudolf Steiner became concerned about the costs associated with chemically enhanced growing, and not just the financial ones. More often than not, such people were labelled as freaks and primitives. Indeed, here in New Zealand, one of the first organic chain stores was named Cranks as a kind of joke against that impression. In the last few years, as environmental concerns have grown, organic growing has become more mainstream. Although it is still only a part of the world’s food production, it is an increasing portion.

It is encouraging that those with a vested interest in the technological approach to food production are beginning to speak the same language as the organic growers. Even Monsanto’s website is littered with references to being sustainable. Now I’m not holding up Monsanto as a light of good practice, but they do recognise that there is a valid argument. As far back as 1999, Robert Shapiro, then CEO of Monsanto, said “The commercial industrial technologies that are used in agriculture today to feed the world… are not inherently sustainable.”

My own journey towards organic growing began with my health. I had problems with my digestion and realised that I needed to eat healthier. Buying lots of fruit and vegetables from the local supermarket was my first idea. However, I soon realised that much of the produce had little or no taste, although it looked great and stayed “fresh” for quite a while. As a young man, I had worked on chemically dependant farms in several countries, so I knew how much fertiliser and pesticide could be forced into food, especially food grown for export, which needs to stay on the shelf for a long time.

I began to yearn for the taste of the tomatoes my dad grew when I was a kid, so I started to buy organic produce. But these days I have three kids of my own and I just can’t afford to pay premium prices for everything we eat. Growing some of my own food became the only option.

Some people could have other reasons for choosing to grow their own organic food. They may feel they do not want to contribute to an economic system that exploits both people and the environment; they know the use of enormous amounts of oil-based products to bring food to the table is completely unsustainable. Likely some are concerned with the toxic effects of the chemicals with which much of our food is laced. Some may just want a measure of independence in an increasingly dependant world.

Many people today are ready to make an effort to reduce their impact on the planet. If the scenarios of global warming and peak oil are correct, we are in for a century of huge change. It is unlikely we can rely on governments to solve our future problems. As individuals, we need to take responsibility for ourselves. What could be more responsible than learning the basic skills of producing food?

There is one thing that people who grow their own food using organic methods rarely mention, though it is as important as any of the health, environmental or socio-political reasons. It’s fun! There is a deep satisfaction in watching your kids fancy a snack, then wander out to the strawberry plants to help themselves. Serving up a fresh salad to your friends and being told that your lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and onions are delicious makes you smile. If you have prepared the soil, planted the seed, fought the slugs in hand to slime combat, and lovingly watered and fed your salad, you’ve earned a real sense of achievement.

We live in a world of increasing stress. Putting your hands in the soil helps. As modern busy people, we have lost appreciation for a simple pleasure our ancestors took for granted.

It’s not always easy to produce food. Pests, weeds, climate, and time constraints all conspire to defeat us. However, when problems are overcome, the satisfaction is that much greater. If something is hard won, we appreciate it more.

A packet of heritage seeds costs just a few dollars. From that packet you will be able to grow a decent crop and collect seeds for the future. Every year the garden costs less.

Eating better and cheaper food while reducing your carbon footprint makes you feel good. When you think in terms of “food yards” instead of “food miles,” the environment benefits. Whether you have a few acres where you can become self-sufficient, a backyard which can supply the taste of fresh produce in season, or just a window box for a few herbs, we can all grow some of our food organically. Give it a go. You’ll enjoy it and so will the planet.

As Americans, we have become greatly out of touch with our food sources in the past 50 or so years. There aren’t many of us who have had the experience of eating freshly harvested vegetables we grew on our own.

There are a few books I read that got me thinking about this. One book was Plenty by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon. The book is about the couple and their story of eating a 100-mile diet. Nearly everything they ate for an entire year was grown or raised within 100 miles of their home.

One thing they mentioned that stood out to me most was that, on average, our food travels from farm to plate about 1,500 – 2,000 miles. That’s insane.

The other book that got me thinking about food this way was Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. He said Americans spend only about 10% of their annual income on food.

That number seems frighteningly low. Food is what fuels our minds and bodies, yet we are cheap and skimp with what we put into them. People care more about the grade of fuel that they put into their cars than their bodies.

At this point you may be thinking what I just wrote makes sense, but how does one start?

Last spring, I was in the same boat. Then I just decided to start my own organic veggie garden with no experience and few costs. I can hear you now, “I have no space. I don’t have any experience. It’s too expensive.”

To that I say, “neither did I”. Living as I do on the 4th floor of an eight-story apartment building in New York City, it took a bit of creativity to start my urban gardening project. I now have a fire escape gardenand a backyard vegetable garden at my grandmother’s in Brooklyn.

Up until I started these gardens, I had zero experience in gardening, too. I just kind of experimented to see what would happen. You know what happened? I got some fresh homegrown veggies. No degrees. No books read. I just did it.

Now I’m not expecting all of you to start a garden as big as mine, but I am hoping that my success will inspire you to start and grow your organic vegetable garden.

The possibilities of what and where to start are endless. You can start a small veggie or herb garden in your windowsill. Do you have a balcony? Plant out there. Are you feeling a bit more adventurous? Do you have the space? Plant a small garden in your back or front yard.

Wherever you decide to start your garden, there is one thing that you can be sure of: not only will the veggies be fresh, but you will  know exactly from where they came. You’ll also know and appreciate what happened to them while they were being grown.

So starting your own organic vegetable garden is definitely possible and makes sense. What better time to start than right now? It’s the only time you’ve got.

If you are still hesitant to grow your own food but you still want to get more involved in knowing where your food comes from, I’d recommend joining your local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) or food co-op. These will help put you in touch with the local farmers and get whatever food-growing questions you have answered by the sources.

So you have decided to make a change in your lifestyle and start growing some or all of your own vegetables and fruit. Some careful planning now will save you money and effort in the future.

Many new gardeners begin in the springtime with a hiss and a roar. They plants lots of seeds and seedlings and enthusiastically set to weeding, hoeing, and digging.

The first time a garden is weeded the sense of achievement is palpable. New gardeners know they are getting more fit and their aching muscles are helping to improve their health. By the third weeding, caring for the garden has become another chore. Many give up. By harvest time, their weed choked beds and tiny harvest convince them they just don’t have a green thumb and perhaps growing food just isn’t for them.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

With a little planning, anyone can enjoy growing at least some of their own food. Planning a garden can be divided into three categories: where, what, and how much.

Where?

For some reason many people seem to find the sight of their vegetables to be less than aesthetically pleasing. We have been conditioned to believe ideal beauty is a “clean” lawn surrounded by geometric beds of perfect flowers, no matter how unproductive and ultimately pointless it is. Too often vegetable beds are stuck up at the end of the yard, away from the house and the water supply. These gardens are usually ignored, infested with weeds, and full of slugs, spiders, and snails.
To make the most out of your garden you need to position it with three things in mind: sun, water, and access.

Plants need at least six hours of sun per day; many types will need more than that. Watch your garden and work out which areas get the most sun. Many houses are built to take advantage of the sun so that the best place for your garden may well be right next to the house. This is ideal as you will then have a close supply of water for your plants. You’ll find weeding is much easier. Just stop and remove a couple of weeds each time you pass by and you won’t even notice the aches and pains. And come harvest time, you will spot the ripe fruits before the birds do.

What?

I grew zucchini in my first year of gardening. I realised about halfway through the summer as the first fruits were coming ripe that no-one else in the family would eat them. The compost pile did very well that year. A little planning would have saved me the wasted effort. Have a look at what vegetables and fruit your family eats regularly. In terms of saving money, it may well be that your favourites will be cheapest in the shops at the same time as you harvest at home. Never mind. Home grown will always taste better.

If you are a complete beginner, start with the easier plants. Carrots, radishes, tomatoes and potatoes do well for many beginners. Of course, it will depend on your climate. If there is a little bit of shade, lettuces and salad greens will probably be good for you. You have to realise, though, that for most of us gardening is not an exact science. You will go through a bit of trial and error before you get things right for your patch. It is probably best to concentrate on doing a few things well at first rather than spreading yourself too thin and growing lots of things poorly. Build your skill set one step at a time.

How Much?

This part of the planning can be further divided into two parts: how much food do I want to grow, and how much time can I spend in the garden? If your lifestyle is frantically busy and you really don’t think that you can commit too much time to your garden, it may be best to grow a few herbs and maybe a tomato plant or two in pots.

I am a firm believer in the nudge form of change when it comes to lifestyles. So, if you are too busy to run a full garden, start small. Those few pots will almost certainly grow into more and more. Gardening is like that—it’s addictive. If you try to make huge changes all at once, you are less likely to succeed. A few herbs and a tomato this year, some salad greens next year to go with them. Make the changes small and you can live with them more easily. Set yourself smart goals for each year.

How much produce you actually grow is a little more complicated. It is likely that you will have at least one crop that does much better than expected and provides quite a surplus of food. Once you have been through every recipe for cooking and preserving and find that you still have some left, it’s time to appreciate the community of gardeners. Give some away to friends and family. The fine flavour of home grown food may wellencourage them to take up growing their own, too. Swap some with other gardeners. Don’t forget to swap your tales of success and failure too. Most gardeners love a good chat over the fence.

Look at your garden. What do you eat? How much can you grow? How much time do you have? Plan for your success.

Further Reading:

• DIY Solutions for the Garden
• How to Start a Vegetable Garden – How to Grow Vegetables
• 5 Natural Pest Remedies for Your Garden
• Medicinal Herb Garden – What To Grow and How To Keep It Growing All Winter
• Ten Great Gardening Tips
• How to Make Your Own Compost Tea

Eating Eden

We are hungry. Not just for calories; it goes much deeper than that. The hunger is for nourishment. We want the satisfaction of eating and assurance that what we’re putting in our mouths is safe, life enhancing, and vital.

We’re scared too—with good reason. There is too much cancer; too many people with heart problems, immunity problems, teeth problems, and weight issues; too many people living into old age without quality of life. We try to keep up with the latest buzz, but it’s no use. There’s always something new. The wonders of olive oil. Soy saves the day. Red wine is good for you. The Atkins’ diet is good for you, and tomato sauce cures prostrate cancer. It’s enough to make anyone go on a wild eating binge.

Food and diet marketers are having a field day with our ignorance. Adding to the confusion, scientists contradict one another every other month. But maybe we’re depending on science a little too much. After all, there are certain things that need no proof.

The truth is, we know how to eat to be nourished, vital, and alive. Imagine conducting an extensive, expensive study to prove what gorillas should eat. Ridiculous isn’t it? They know how to eat: wild and raw. Yes, they know how to eat and so do we. It’s not a diet filled with pizza, Coke, and ice cream.

Is eating a raw vegan diet the latest craze or the original diet? We have all heard about fashion models and movie stars adopting a raw food diet to keep their skin glowing, eyes sparkling, and their bodies svelte, but can it actually be healthy for us in the long run?

Yes. Through my 30 years of experience in helping others transition to a raw vegan diet, not only does eating this way maintain health, eating raw vegan can bring immediate transformation and balance to the tired, overweight, depressed, and ill.

Let’s break this down. RAW= uncooked food. VEGAN= foods that belong to the plant queendom. So basically you are eating things that grow on trees, stems, vines, bushes, and the ground in their raw, original, unadulterated state.

Here are the facts: cooked food is dead. When food is heated above 118 degrees, the enzymes die. Food enzymes are important little machines that break down food into its finest components so it can be metabolized and used by our systems. When enzymes are no longer viable in our foods, the body has to work much harder to process meals. This is why folks feel sleepy after lunch and often get that mid-afternoon slump that only a candy bar (or granola bar) and a cup of Joe will combat. Sound familiar?

Vitamins are fertilizers for our cells, organs, and brain. Eating a diet of primarily cooked, micro-waved, processed, packaged, and canned foods leaves us deficient in these vital substances, paving the way for compromised systems, foggy minds, depressed attitudes, and the slow slippery slope of degenerative disease.
Most folks expect a downward health spiral as they age. This expectation is completely and utterly avoidable if eating a “living” diet.

The Garden of Eating

Raw veganism is the diet of the Garden of Eden. The plants and seeds were given as our food and as far as I know, Adam and Eve were not slaving over some hot coals. It was paradise right? They just plucked the food from where it grew and were supremely nourished.

Wild and Original

All wild animals eat a raw diet. They eat unpackaged, unprocessed, uncooked food. When we look at our domestic pets, most are eating canned or packaged food exclusively. Many of them are suffering from the same diseases humans do—they are lethargic, overweight, arthritic, and suffering from tumors and cancer.
Our original diet was raw. We are designed to eat that way.

The foods available to prehistoric human foragers grew naturally, without cultivation, and included nuts, leafy vegetables, beans, fruits, flowers, gums, fungi, stems, and other similar items. These have been primate staples for tens of millions of years.

Humans share more than 98 percent of their genetic material with one particular primate…the Bonobos.

Bonobos are small apes. Like humans, they have individual facial characteristics, reach sexual maturity around 12-13 years old and are know to live well past 40 years. (They also “French kiss”, the only ape known to do so) The bonobo has a brain that is large both in absolute terms as well as relative to its body size. It does well on problem-solving tasks in laboratory settings and has also shown the ability to engage in symbolic communication. Tool use in the wild has not been observed, but captives have been reported to construct ropes to swing from; to wipe themselves with leaves; and to use sticks to probe, rake, and even pole-vault over water!!!

They live peacefully in forest communities. There are many striking similarities to humans, except for the “peaceful” part.

Fruits make up the majority of the bonobo’s diet, but they also enjoy leaves, pith, flowers, bark, seeds, honey, and fungi as well as small invertebrates such as worms and caterpillars. The main feeding activity, in the morning, is usually concentrated on fruits.

If our closest cousin in DNA eats primarily raw vegan, shouldn’t we? If you consider the human digestive tract, we are specifically designed for fruits, veggies, nuts, and grains.

The human digestive tract is so long that if it were stretched vertically to its capacity, it would measure an astounding 30 feet in length (about the width of a tennis court), more than 5 times the length of an average adult. A dog’s digestive tract is only half as long compared to its body length.

Human digestion begins in the mouth with thorough chewing, mixing with digestive juices (saliva). We have broad teeth with which to do this.

Carnivores on the other hand have sharp “canine’ teeth to tear their food. They gulp it down without much chewing. Because their digestive tracts are much shorter, the meat stays in their body for less time.

Because our digestive tracts are so long, (for better nutrient absorption) complete elimination can take many days. When you put partially chewed meat (WHO chews 30 times until it’s slurry?) in a hot environment for many many hours/days…. it ferments, rots, and well, stinks! Our bodies become cesspools. Disease follows.

Living Food

When we eat raw, the food is screaming with available nutrients and that nebulous, forgotten ingredient “energy”. Living foods simply have more energy. The yogis call this prana or life force. This energy is sun energy. Through the miracle of photosynthesis, plants transfer the life-giving power of the sun to us through their green blood, chlorophyll, and phyto-nutrients.

The more life force we put into our bodies, the more vibrant we are. Fresh picked organic apple? High in prana. Packaged energy bar of questionable age? Low prana. It’s quite simple. When we eat cooked, processed, and packaged food, the prana is severely diminished and we suffer. Over a period of time, the body becomes diseased. “We are what we eat” is a true statement.

Pleasure Tax

When you put a sprout into the ground, in time, you get a plant. When you put cooked food into the ground, you get a moldy mess. This is what happens in our bodies. I know this from personal experience.

I have basically eaten raw since the 70s. Sometimes I eat cooked foods, when I am out with friends or at a dinner party. When I stray, I pay. My body reacts immediately. I call this the “pleasure tax”. I pay with gas, stinky armpits, pimples, headaches, lethargy, PMS, and tightened joints. Many folks are so gunked up they no longer notice their body’s responses to foods and just chalk it up to “normal” aches and pains and problems.

Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine said “let food be thy medicine. Simple words, profound truth.

Let us also address the environmental impact and waste created by a conventional American diet. One pound of meat requires 2500 gallons of water to produce, while a pound of beans requires 25 gals. Large swaths of rainforest are cut down to graze cows. Since rainforest soil is notoriously shallow and poor, these “pastures” lose their vitality in a few years and are left fallow, while new swaths are destroyed. This is not the best use of the “lungs of the planet”. Some predict the Amazon will turn to savanna if this frightening trend continues.

Eating raw and un-package reduces kitchen waste to a minimum. I take out my kitchen garbage once/twice a month. We compost all of our food scraps and have practically zero packaging. I use minimum energy in creating my meals: no fuel for cooking, a few seconds using the blender or the food processor Eating raw vegan truly is the green diet.

A good way to hop on the raw path is to add more raw to your diet. Breakfast is simple, do like the bonobos and eat fruit.
Loaded with moisture, nutrients, fiber and natural sugars, it’s a great refreshing energetic food to begin the day. Choose a variety of fresh fruits in season, add a banana and a little water and whirl in the blender. No powders or dairy needed for the best smoothie ever!

A massive salad for lunch with avocado, deep green leafy veggies, tomatoes, carrots and olives…with a simple dressing of olive oil and lemon juice will stick with you through the afternoon without the 3pm slump. Snacks can be almonds, seeds, fruit. Eat a normal dinner and you are at 66% raw! This is a great way to start.

Experiment with all raw days or weekends. Notice how you feel. Most lose unwanted weight effortlessly, sleep better, digest better, eliminate better, and think better. Raw food is simple.

Make food choices as if your life depended on it. It does.

Why do we use pills to remove or diminish the effects of disease when we can prevent many diseases in the first place? Why are we spending so much money on prescription medicine but penny-pinching on organic food?

Life is about enjoying each day to the fullest, with loads of energy, hundreds of smiles, and belly laughter. Yes, belly laughter. It is about appreciating the food that helps us grow, the bodies given to us, the work we were meant to do, and the people who surround us with care and thoughtfulness. Nothing affects us more than food, stress, relationships, career, and the lack of appreciation for ourselves.

Stress, unhealthy foods, and destructive diets spurred by the never ending desire to be skinny, no matter the consequences, are literally killing us.

PILLS

American obesity and eating disorders are becoming epidemic. These problems are “treated” with diet pills endorsed by celebrities who have little to no knowledge or experience with regard to what is appropriate for a person to do with their diet and their body. So many young women look up to celebrities as role models and want to be as “sexy,” as “beautiful,” as “wanted” as them.

The latest quick fix is the Quick Trim Diet, with the Kardashian ladies as the camera-friendly “hot ladies.” Quick Trim claims to cleanse the body. The marketing focuses on the sexuality, the body, the sensuality, the salacious voice, and the total image that is meant to pull in both men and women. But doesn’t it matter what is in the product? Preservatives, artificial flavoring and fructose can’t “cleanse the body.” There is never a mention of the personal trainers who were hired or the healthy diet that helped them lose weight. Instead, the impression is that the pills alone did the job. And the celebrity women promote it every chance they get. After backlash about the TV commercials being too sexual, the posters started popping up! The Quick Trim products are not even FDA evaluated or approved, yet young and old and everyone in between rarely look at that as a reason NOT to try it. Once again, people will try anything quick and easy to help them look like a celebrity!

Helping young children and teenagers love their bodies and grow up with healthy habits is the start to fighting back against diet pills.

FOOD

When it comes to eating food from the grocery shelves, eating “USDA Organic” foods is the best choice; 95% or more of the ingredients are organic. However, foods labeled “organic” (other than produce) have to be only 70% organic, so don’t think that organic label means no pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, flavorings, or artificial colors.

Everything is about profit when it should be about keeping Americans healthy. As an American consumer, you choose what is on the shelves at the supermarkets. Business works by demand, so let’s demand clean, antibiotic-free food! Americans spend more on healthcare costs than almost every other country, but we’re also one of the least healthy and most overweight. Companies pay higher insurance rates because their employees are so often visiting the doctor’s offices and taking prescription medicines. But when food is free of additives, people aren’t ingesting chemicals that break down in the body, making them sick with acute health issues and serious lifelong diseases. Prevention through a truly healthy, organic diet is key to health.

STRESS

When it comes to stress, everyone knows we should try to keep our levels down. No one helps you do that unless you pay a professional to help you for the hour. Even then, what happens when you go back home, back to reality? Well, the latest study on yoga shows that besides helping lower stress levels, it also helps with weight loss and maintenance. People who practice yoga seem to be more in tune with the mind/body cross and treat their bodies well. Weight loss and less stress? Come on over to yoga!

Remembering what’s important in life and living in the present will also keep stress levels down. Whatever happened in the past is history, and whatever is meant to be in the future will be. The book, The Four Agreements, also tells us that learning not to take things personally helps us to live easier and happier lives.

When someone criticizes your hair, or your body, or something you’re wearing or doing, do you take it to heart or let it go as quickly as it was said? See what happens the next time that situation occurs. If you take it personally, make a mental note and try not to let that happen the next go around. When you don’t take things personally, they don’t weigh on your mind. It’s all about how YOU feel about yourself, and what YOU know about yourself that matters.

It’s also about your attitude. Do you want to be sick or do you want to be healthy? While your diet has to be right for optimum energy levels, you also have to have the right mentality to exercise your body to “marathon mode.” When people say they cured themselves with spiritual practices and by eating a healthy diet, they aren’t making it up!

Decrease stress, increase energy and zest for life, become happier and healthier, and learn to love your body.

Sources:

• http://www.qtdiet.com
• What do your food labels really mean? ‘Free-range,’ ‘natural,’ ‘non-toxic,’ and other myths
• Yoga for Weight Loss
• The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz
• Staying Healthy in an Unhealthy World by Dr. Eliot Hudes and Dr. Michael Muffs

“Variety is the very spice of life,” wrote William Cowper. And certainly, ever since the spice wars launched numerous ships in search of these valuable commodities, our appetite for them has never ceased.

It was the search for spice that led to the voyages of Marco Polo, Vasco De Gamma, and Columbus. From the Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, and Elizabethan England to modern day, the heady scents and aromas of spices have been associated with mystery, sensuality, aphrodisiacs, panaceas, wealth and luxury, the exotic, and the unknown.

The reason for the high demand of spices such as nutmeg, cloves, mace, and cinnamon was the belief that they provided protection against many ailments, including the plague. Now science has proven there is some truth to the healing powers of spices.

Black Pepper

Black Pepper helps the stomach produce hydrochloric acid to aid in digestion. It can also help to reduce flatulence by diminishing the amount of gas in the intestinal tract. It is a good source of antioxidants. Piperine, in black pepper, has been shown to help fight cancer in recent studies published in the journal, Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.

Cloves

Cloves have long been known for their anesthetic qualities and have been used by many dentists for toothache. Clove oil is also found in many sore throat sprays. It has excellent anti-inflammatory properties in the form of eugenol, the main component in cloves. Eugenol has been studied for its effect on joint inflammation, digestive tract cancers, and prevents damage from toxic environmental pollutants. Cloves contain a variety of flavenoids that make it a good antioxidant and antibacterial.

Nutmeg

Nutmeg contains many essential oils with a host of health benefits; it is used as an anti-fungal, anti-depressant, and anti-oxidant. It helps aid digestion and relieves gas. It is rich in B-complex vitamins and flavenoids and is also claimed to have aphrodisiac properties.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon has unique healing abilities found in its essential oils. Cinnamaldehyde helps with anti-clotting of the blood by inhibiting the release of arachidonic acid, an inflammatory fatty acid. It has anti-microbial properties, which help to stop the growth of bacteria and fungi, including Candida. A study published in the International Journal of Food Microbiologyshowed that the addition of a few drops of cinnamon essential oil to 100ml of refrigerated carrot broth inhibited the growth of some food borne pathogens for 60 days.

Cinnamon is good for controlling blood sugar as it slows the rate at which the stomach empties after meals. There are compounds in cinnamon that stimulate insulin receptors and inhibit an enzyme that inactivates them, which can help type 2 diabetes sufferers with their ability to respond to insulin. Diabetes Care published an article in which tests have shown daily ingestion of cinnamon can reduce blood sugar levels by 20-30% depending on the quantity taken. As an antioxidant, it is more powerful than other spices, with the exception of mint (not that mint is a spice).

Cinnamon has been shown in numerous tests to improve brain function and cognitive processes. This applies even to just smelling cinnamon or chewing cinnamon gum.

Known for its warming properties, one of the best known natural preventions of colds and flu is a mixture hot water, ginger, cinnamon, and lemon—found in some of the oldest recordings of Chinese medicine, nearly 4000 yrs old.

Allspice

Known to be an anti-inflammatory, it is warming and soothing and has anti-flatulent properties. As with black pepper, it increases digestion by stimulating gastro-intestinal secretions. It is also an antiseptic and has anesthetic properties. The outer coating of the berries is the most beneficial.

Turmeric

Arguably the best, but probably one of the least used spices. There really is no end to the benefits of turmeric, mainly due to the effects of curcumin (the pigment that gives turmeric its bright yellow colour), which is proving to be “medicinal gold.” Chinese and Indian medicines have long used turmeric to alleviate a host of ailments including flatulence, jaundice, menstrual difficulties, hemorrhages, toothache, chest pain, and colic. It has been shown to be as effective an anti-inflammatory as hydrocortisone, phenylbutazone, and Motrin. Unlike these drugs, it has no toxic effects such as ulcers, decreased white blood cell count, and intestinal bleeding. In rheumatoid arthritis sufferers it has shown to help with easing morning stiffness, lengthened walking time, and reducing joint swelling.

Curcumin, along with piperine in pepper, has been shown to help fight cancer, as noted in a recent article in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. Frequent use of turmeric has been show to lower rates of breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer. When combined with onions, it is particularly effective against colon cancer. When taken with vegetables of the brassica family (cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, sprouts, kale, and turnips), it is effective against prostate cancer. In India, prostate cancer is rare amongst men. This has been attributed to a diet rich in brassicas and turmeric. Studies by Prof. Moolky Nagabhushan from Loyola University Medical Centre in Chicago have shown that curcumin can help mitigate factors that contribute to leukemia in children.

Curcumin improves liver function by helping produce detoxifying enzymes. Again, due to the high levels of turmeric use, elderly Indians have very low rates of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. Experimental research has shown that curcumin does slow Alzheimer’s in mice and also suggests that it may block the progression of multiple sclerosis.

The medieval and old wives tales of  yesteryear may not have been too far from the truth. Spices really are beneficial against a wide variety of ailments. Moreover, they have a psychological effect—the wonderful tastes, scents, and aromas stimulate memories.

Buying, Storing, and Using Spices

When buying and storing spices, stick to small quantities and use them quickly, within a month or two. They lose their flavor and colour fairly quickly, so keep them in airtight jars and store them in a cool dark place. Use them to scent your home by adding a few drops of essential oil, like cinnamon, to an oil burner. Or try taping a vanilla pod to the back of a radiator. As it warms up, it will give off a wonderful smell. When having a barbeque, burn some rosemary twigs. Or take an old trick from open plan restaurant kitchens and scorch some rosemary or thyme twigs for a bright fresh scent.

MJ’s Herbals sent us their line of Herbal Salves to try. We love them! All of the ingredients are natural (most organic) and they work very well. Their line includes:

• Lavender E Salve – headaches, stress, cuts, scrapes, rashes, blemishes, tissue repair (vitamin E)
• Breast Balm – strengthens breast tissue, activates immune system and lymphatic system, softens scars over time.
• First Aid Salve – antiseptic, antibacterial, cuts, scraps, cracked lips, burns, rashes.
• Arnica Salve – bruises, overworked sore muscles, tendon injuries and sprains.
• Calendula Salve – slow healing wounds, skin ulcers, irritated skin (ideal for baby skin).

MJ’s Herbals should be in everyone’s medicine cabinet. www.mjsherbals.com