Sunday, April 5, 2009

Turmeric = Taste + Health.


India is well-known for it's diverse food. Indian food is very speedily becoming favourite all over the world. Just like diversity in religion,language and people there is diversity in food. Indian people use lot of spices in their daily cooking. This spices gives the food nice odour,colour and taste. Now the researches have also found the benefits of this spices. In addition to give yummy flavour this spices are really help full to the health. West is also now realizing this fact.
One of the important ingredient in the Indian food is curry powder which consists of turmeric. It is a yellow color powder used for mainly giving a nice colour and odour in food. Apart from this the turmeric also has some interesting benefits.
Wondering what can turmeric do?
1. Anti-oxidant:- The active ingredient in turmeric is curcumin.
Recent studies shows that curcumin has ability to prevent the oxidative damage to heart cells, blood vessels,kidney cells and liver cells. This means that use of turmeric can actually help you live longer.
2. Wound healing:- In India turmeric is used as home remedy for wounds since many decades. It shows wonderful effects in healing the wounds. It is now approved by the medical science too. Curcumin accelerates the healing process.
3. Cancer Prevention:- Animal models have demonstrated a protective effect of curcumin for a wide range of cancers including colorectal, stomach, skin, oral and liver.
4. Throat infection:- Many people in India use turmeric for throat infection. I myself have tried it and it really works. Whenever I get cold I mix turmeric with jaggery and ghee and make small balls and eat this small yellow balls at regular intervals. You can also mix it in luke warm milk and drink it. If you don't mind the taste then eat a spoon of turmeric. This surely helps in reducing the throat pain.
Thus you can say that Indian food is indeed good!!