Inflammation is a natural response of the body to injury or infection, but chronic inflammation can lead to various health problems. One way to combat inflammation is through diet, specifically by incorporating spices with anti-inflammatory properties into your meals.
Today we will share four (4) spices that can help fight inflammation and explore how to incorporate these spices into your diet to reap their anti-inflammatory benefits. We also provide a delicious and nutritious recipe for an anti-inflammatory spiced smoothie that incorporates all four spices, and offer tips for adjusting the recipe to suit your taste preferences.
Join us as we uncover the power of anti-inflammatory spices and how they can help promote a healthier body and mind.
[01:25] What Exactly is Turmeric
[03:09] Turmeric for Pain
[07:54] Turmeric vs Ginger
[11:15] Cinnamon’s Anti-inflammatory Properties.
[15:40] Why Garlic is Good For Heart Disease?
[16:54] Oxidative Stress: The Root Cause of Major Illnesses
[21:26] The Anti-inflammatory Spice Smoothie
LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
+ Anti-inflammation Smoothie Recipe: https://brownwomenwellness.com/blogs/health-tips/anti-inflammatory-spiced-smoothie-recipe
+ Download the living inflammation-free food and pantry Guide https://bit.ly/Pantryguide
+ @inflammationfree on Instagram
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Oh, this is gonna be a fun one here today Aaqila we don’t talk about the top four spices in your life, how you can use them to help you incorporate it to Lower the inflammation in your body. I mean, the stuff that you guys already gone in your home. And these fours for if you don’t have it, it’s easy to get. That’s what we got to talk about and when we come back what those top four spices are and tell you how to use them too. We’ll be right back.
0:35
Hey brown beauties Welcome to live in inflammation free with me andretta Robison, your functional nutrition health coach and I’m Akela Harvey, we are Your mother daughter hosts bringing two different generations together bi weekly to give you easy actionable steps to help reduce your body of chronic inflammation.
0:57
Well, Aaqila, we’re gonna talk about the four spices. Let’s do a drumroll Can we do a drumroll.
1:07
Okay, all right. Let’s start with number one. Can you guess what the top, number one spice to help you get rid of inflammation is? you’ve probably been hearing about it. But we’re gonna tip we’re gonna break it down to you today. Aaqila, what is it? turmeric. Turmeric! is that my Oprah voice? you get a tumeric, you get a tumeric. Okay.
1:37
Okay, what exactly is tumeric? So Tumeric is a perennial plant, a perennial, excuse me, perennial perennial excuze me perennial plant that belongs to the ginger families, right so is a commonly used spice colouring agent in like India, Middle Eastern Southeast Asian cooking. Yes. And just break it right there. But you know, have you ever gone to one of those restaurants? One of the Middle Eastern restaurants and if you noticed how their food is yellow and I didn’t know that it was because of this
2:11
It was because of the spices, turmeric, because if you ever look at Tumeric so turmeric looks like, if you’ve ever seen a ginger plant, they look almost the same.
2:23
Exactly, it’s like orange yellow. And so what they do is and you find it as like dried, it’s like a fine powder. And you take that and you can use it in your dishes and it has and if it takes them
2:35
If tasted by itself as like a really taste kinda bitter. It’s got a warm kind of bitter taste, but it’s used in curries and soups and sauces. But what makes Tumeric work and be anti inflammatory? Is that an ingredient a compound this in it called
2:55
called curcumin curcumin, yes, okay, it works by blocking the activity of certain enzymes in your body that promote inflammation. Let me tell you something.
3:11
So you know, I’m a woman of a certain age.
3:15
Got to say, and I started noticing when I would wake up in the morning, I would always have these aches and pains and I go, what is going wrong, man? Now I’m like, What is this?
3:29
And I’m one of those people that swing out the bed. I don’t I don’t I’m not a person that get up first. Slowly out a bit. I swing out. Okay.
3:39
I’ll do that as of late.
3:41
That’s what I’m trying to tell you. So I’ve noticed that I was you know, getting out of bed a little slower and I went okay, this ain’t working for me. So what I did was I started taking tumeric and appeal form. I take mine a little small pill form to them a day. Now I’m gonna tell you something. It doesn’t work overnight. This is not an aspirin. Right? This is not y’all out there. Don’t be run around. I did it one more time. Okay. People tend to think it’s supposed to work right away. It is not an ask for it does take time because it’s natural for it to actually get into your bloodstream. So for me, I started noticing a difference after a really a real difference after three months. I did notice a difference after a few weeks but after a few months, it just totally went away. I mean, my pain went away and and I know is to Tumeric now, before we get into other ways in which you can consume Tumeric when it comes to the pill form, do you have recommendations or what people should look out for us as far as the type but there’s so many different red pills out there and they all made the same and that’s a good question because Tumeric is cheap, y’all. So if y’all out there, I’m gonna tell you somebody’s really cheap. If you look at it in the store, if you see it for real, you’d be like, Oh my god, I must be overpaying because the first time that I got some Tumeric pills, they were extremely high. And what I found when I saw it loose, I was like, Wait a minute. Tumeric is like shouldn’t kosher appeal should be no more than two cents if that it’s really, really inexpensive. Okay, so but you know, you got these fancy people out there that’s taking tumeric and making it sound like it’s, you know, more than one will actually yeah, where in effect, it’s just a little and they say it’s better and powerful. And believe it or not, the powder form actually gets into the bloodstream a lot faster. Now of course. A little black pepper you probably have heard this, a little black pepper activates Tumeric to get into the bloodstream faster. Okay, so you may find companies that are promoting toward with a little black pepper and again, black pepper is not that expensive either. So don’t over dollar pay. That’s my point. I know they charge and they’re charging you for the fancy packaging, putting in all of that we put in term records to February Yes. But you can also use it on your food. You don’t by the way, don’t take much to record people won’t ask me a lot how much? I have a teaspoon. That’s all you need per day. Okay, a half a teaspoon and you can put that in your curry dishes. You can sprinkle it over your rice.
6:18
Yeah, you can put it in smoothies. I like to make golden milk at night. That’s another thing by the way. We talked about sleep
6:21
golden milk at night that’s another thing by the way, we talked about sleeping up at least the words right out of my mouth. golden milk will have you over here dose it especially if you mix it with a little almond milk and a little honey and spice and they sell golden milk, golden milk pack in a powder and hopefully helpful stores at Whole Foods. And we here at Golden milk is really just a powder of Tumeric in February, cinnamon and whatever else they put in it right and you add your milk source. Yes, exactly. And then you can also put it in your salad dressings, you know, because, again, it’s a lot of ways it gives a little burst of flavor. So it’s a lot of ways to incorporate Tumeric Tumeric is one of those things if you’re not doing it every day, find a way to incorporate Tumeric in your life because it is anti inflammatory. It is the number one anti inflammatory spice out there. Oh, also before we move on Tumeric can stain any in every day. So you need to be careful. Ask me how I know I have ruined so many good things that I did not want to because I just underestimated the power of that.
7:32
orange color. Yeah. So just be careful if you want to work locally even saying your fingers in yellow.
7:41
So just be mindful of that. All right, so much for that. So that’s number one. And number two is tumors causing tumor kava causes because of it’s called Ginger.
7:54
Yes, ginger, you guys number two something about they both look alike. If you’ve ever been to a Whole Foods store. In the little bins you’ll see the actual Tumeric the root of a turmeric and then you will download herbs you may see the root of the ginger they look identical and the same family they have the same family so so the root issues again I love ginger son that ginger has a better taste to it to me that turmeric is a little spicy, you know or spicy? Yeah, and a sweet dependent and you could do it and here’s another thing I just found out ginger is actually more effective in the dried powdered ginger Yes, I did not know that I’m actually fake allergic to ginger believe it I really mess with the allergy tests. Oh no. Oh no. Well, oh no sweat. Well, Ginger is used for as muddy as hell. I mean, I mean, the soothsayer is we’re using ginger and turmeric back in the day.
8:54
And I made Ginger has been studied a lot for us anti inflammatory, it’s an antioxidant. It also has anti nausea, nausea property. So so if you feel like you know you’re about to throw up or anything like that or you have stomach issues ginger will cure that bad boy now and it’s been used in a lot of different ways. Especially as a seasoning I use mine. I usually throw in my smoothie or throw a little lava ginger in my smoothie but now that I found out about dry ginger, I’ve been using dry ginger because I can hold dry ginger. You look you don’t have to clean it. Because the thing about it when you buy ginger and Tumeric you look at it and say is it clean? Yeah.
9:37
Because you know it’s out there lose ester and you get home and I’d be looking at it going now how do I clean it up and everywhere? Yeah, how do I clean it? Because you know typically you’re supposed to leave the skin on. You don’t have to take ice. I didn’t know that. In the beginning. I used to pull it off.
9:52
And the skin pulled it off was so tedious. I stopped using it. Then I found out oh no you’re supposed to leave the skin on. You just gotta soak the whole thing and vinegar. Well I just use a little salt water or I take a little vinegar and some baking soda and just soak it for a minute but here’s the other thing I found about ginger in there in the raw form and Tumeric you only clean what you use if you try to clean the whole thing before you use it. It will dry up on you. So you have to only clean a little piece so that was another thing I was like well she looked is gonna be give me some powder and call it a day to have a peach ginger smoothie.
10:30
For sure. So good. Actually shout out to Chef Aki because I got it from her but it is a delicious for the last year where you can please share cutter okay, so it’s often used to I use ginger in my stir fries I just started doing that is really good. And I love me some gingerbread cookies I decided to hate on growing up and then is a farm like animals like I love messages hope but anyway, but you can also you know make a ginger tea like he was just said you know, but it’s just good for some natural remedies. So again, that is a super spice ginger is the super spicy anti inflammatory that also helps you with call centers. You got to call Yes, thank you little ginger. Okay. All right, let’s go. Number three. Number three is cinnamon. Now, you know there’s many types of different types of sentiments. I did not know that either. Yeah, I used to think cinnamon was cinnamon. No, no, no, no because we used to buy you know, you know we Biden who has stolen Yeah, you
11:35
know that
11:38
all does not taste the same. And so cinnamon is very anti inflammatory, and it’s due to his high level of antioxidants. in it. Every type of Cinnamon has antioxidants in it. So no matter what you get, as long as it’s cinnamon, you’re going to be getting the properties that you need. Antioxidants are compounds that can neutralize harmful free radicals that are in your body and that contributes to inflammation and damage your cells and your tissues and just no point no stuff. Cinnamon I remember this is you probably don’t know anything about this but years ago. Maybe at this point. 810 years ago, there was a thing called the cinnamon challenge. Have you ever heard Oh, so young Kay, shout out to you Gen Z years millennial did it by basically you would take ginger and its powder form and a teaspoon or tablespoon and he was just eating just eat it just take the powder into dumping him out. Why? Because boredom because why would I do that but really what why I caught all the reactions that people would create because you can’t follow powdered cinnamon and cinnamon. So people started gagging.
12:51
Spicy, burning spicy chip. I can’t even put some ice. I take a little cinnamon and put it on my tooth brush because and I do that I used to I’m started burning Assad.
13:05
So I can’t I cannot imagine making a video but absolutely. But I say I just say you don’t need a lot of cinnamon in order to equities a habitat. I have a teaspoon and limitate some else cinnamon is great for people with high blood pressure. Yes diabetes. Those two things right there was a sugar Oh my god.
13:29
I mean arthritis. Yes, it’s because it’s anti inflammatory so it so again, you gotta find a way to get sentiment in your life. If you make smoothies just put a couple shakes of powder cinnamon cinnamon in there, especially if you don’t like the taste of cinnamon. You don’t need a lot like we said so just a couple shakes and it won’t overpower the smoothie. Too much more and then now you got to sell them and taste. Okay, now let me just break it down. Y’all know y’all y’all know y’all putting cinnamon on them yams. Okay.
13:58
Okay, you know cinnamon is great.
14:03
I made cinnamon on them. Yeah, um, so that’s how we was getting them.
14:07
Probably on it Daniel Brown.
14:11
Exactly. But you know, that’s what we do with cinema. But yeah, there are different types of cinema. So when you get out there and you started scoring it, you’d be surprised. I was shocked at the number of types of cinema there was do not use what’s the brand that we talked about the little cheap brands cinnamon, the dollar $1. So it’s application name.
14:34
It’s a real basic sentiment. You kind of want to step your cinnamon game because not not all cinemas are made same but they all carry kind of the same properties. But if you can get a more quality cinnamon, you can kind of get to those results faster. And if you just do like a cheaper brand of cinnamon, that’s just my two cents. Okay. Now the last one is just one that I think we all can relate to this one, but again, you got it in your kitchen. Did you know how expensive it was people don’t know what tasted what is a kilo Garlic Garlic. Yeah, girl okay. No joke. Okay, let me tell you some before we get into the nitty gritty of it. I was told that if you so let’s say you have a heart condition or you have anything heart related burn, congestive arteries, whatever now, matter of fact, he’s put that out there right now. Do not sue me. But I was told by a health guru that if you really wanted to like change your heart health, you eat garlic, hold. Oh, yeah. Roasted I’m none of that. No, somebody that does. Get off the ticket, fill it out, pop it and eat like at least five times as close to start shooting and start to clear the plaque.
15:50
It also cleared a room because people smell your comments don’t clear you Oh, it’s easy to eat. I know that for you. She will be dressed like garlic as she walked up to you before she can even get up to your clothes you can like
16:12
find out you know she would just sit down because you’re trying to figure out where’s this coming from? Because nobody was eating. But I will say this and she said it cured her heart. Let me say if you have heart disease, yeah, research it and if you decide to do it, who cares? If you smell like garlic you want to live what you want to your enemy. Well here’s the other thing about girl what works so well. It has this compound in it called hours. It has all these inflammatory properties in it and it’s high in antioxidants. So also garlic is good for oxidative stress. On the body. So I think oxidative stress is one of the reasons that a lot of people have the issues that they have. People don’t realize how stress and oxidative stress works on your blood vessels in case you want to know what oxidative stress is. So you want to reduce the oxidative stress in your body and garlic is really really good for that. Yeah. So what we’re gonna do today oh, sorry, sorry. Yeah. And if you’re cooking with garlic, don’t overcook your garlic. Yes, yes, yes. Because what you do is you suck at all.
17:26
And actually you’re starting to become a becomes rancid in the pan. If you overcook it, there is art to cooking garlic. So a lot of times and I see we do this a lot. So you know, I know I went to culinary school. So I know a couple of things. A lot of times people will put garlic straight into the pan with some oil and then they put everything else in and then the garlic has burned. You needed to do with the if you’re going to be stopped sweating out onions and all that put in there first and put garlic. You only need to sweat garlic for maybe a minute or two at the very most Josephina try to encounter roasting type of situation and then put all your other ingredients or put garlic and last and let that do what it does. You don’t necessarily need to be burning your garlic to get the flavor.
18:15
Offering you garlic. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Now, you know I told you I think I’ve said this on all the episodes I take my garlic now and I put it in my new to my Vitamix and I thought cut it up real fine. Put it into my barley, the garlic, listen to me very carefully. I cut my garlic, add just a little bit of water to it. You know so as I’m putting in blending it, then I take it and I put it in a small ice cube tray and I freeze it but anytime I want to cook and use garlic or you’re making a estivo I’m making a garlic pate or whatever you want to call it get to freezing it in my little ice cube thing and then all I do is just pop out when I want to use garlic and my soups and stuff like that. I just pop out a couple of them. Can I make a suggestion? Yeah, instead of water you should do oil because water waters down. I’m trying to cut back on all
19:15
you should put other herbs if you go and do all that. Marry wow now you get families saying I get fancy with it now. So but anyway so that’s how I use garlic because I want to put I use garlic for every Apple garlic and everything just so y’all know I love Oh and do you have a preference on buy fresh garlic versus container garlic has already cut five. So here so here’s my take on garlic. You know there are going thieves out there. You know garlic be Yeah, I’d say yes, they’re on I mean in other words, they smuggle garlic into just like they do and some of the garlic that’s on the shelf is not real garlic I swear. Let me tell you how you can tell. Smell it. If you cannot smell that garlic you gotta fake garlic. Wait a minute, so there’s fake garlic, okay, just like olive oil is fake. Yeah.
20:09
So if you if you cannot smell that garlic is not real Garwin is it? Oh no some that they grew from a hybrid? I didn’t know absolutely. And so what I do now even with my spices so when I buy a garlic spices I hope well you guys doing studying of his diet get my calls are no no no no no I got mine for Thrive Market Thrive my Thrive Market. I’ll send it to you in a pouch at time you open up pouch a girl a woman just takes over because you know it’s real girl. Yeah, so that’s what I’m saying you know if you open it up and you don’t smell no girl yeah, I got I got today yours Oh.
20:54
So today I don’t think we’re gonna wrap this up. We’re giving you two ways to use all four spices okay to recipe to recipe. We got a spiced lentil soup recipe that we will have on our website that you’ll be able to download and it uses all four of the spices that we just talked about, along with some lentils and you’re gonna get some vegetable broth and crush up some tomatoes.
21:22
You’re gonna put the garlic and the ginger and tumeric and it’s like, okay, you also have a anti inflammatory spice smoothie. Yeah. Yeah, it’s not a sexy name, but it tastes good and it gets the job done. Yeah. And includes pineapples and almond milk or any kind of non dairy milk and a banana. You just have some ginger Tumeric cinnamon and if you want to get fancy with it, put it put it put a call with garlic and man now listen, if you’re like me like I don’t know why bad because I’m just kind of like out. If you don’t go over with the garlic and you add honey or sweetener. You won’t really taste the garlic and then and then eventually you’ll be like, Okay, I want the properties and you’ll just put the garlic in and so if you have to work your way into putting garlic in your smoothie because I understand that. That’s okay. It’s fine. You’re still getting all your other ingredients, you know all your other spices, but at some point it’s going to pull a novel garlic in and see what happens. So let me tell you a quick story. My husband asked me for smoothing. So you want smoothing? I know he knew was smoothies or you see me make one every day as his flavor but anyway, he wanted a smoothie. So I said let me test this smoothie recipe out. So I use this one on him just yesterday actually. And I put there and with the garlic. He drank that thing so fast. I don’t even remember I said did you? I mean when I’m mixing I know he was pulling over and you’re sick and I was like he said it was good that he had strawberries to use. So you can play around with fruit, but he drank the thing so fast. I don’t even think he realized I think he thought he was drinking.
22:54
It’s just like a child. You gotta have the medicine. Yeah, and
23:02
that smoothie is packed with anti inflammatory spices. It’s gonna give you five or it’s gonna give you a beat and it makes a great nutritious breakfast this is your breakfast this morning reached for the smoothie instead of normal thing you guys you know bacon, pancakes and all that stuff. Yeah, you all stuff is giving you inflammation. It’s just trial based anti inflammatory smoothie. Again, we will have it on our website and you will be in the show notes in the show notes. Well, we I think in the show notes gonna take you to the website, but anyway, you’ll be able to download this and try it. Let us know how you like it.
23:39
Okay, well that wraps up today’s episode please make sure to follow us everywhere. Brown women wellness on Instagram, Facebook, we have a new community that we are working on. Very soon we’ll be releasing it to the public. It’s been a labor of love has been taking us a little while. But we want to make sure that the community is beneficial to all that who wants to join and so we want to give you a little bit more of a safer space than Facebook groups where we can kind of be ourselves or have our offerings there and just have fun. You know, literally a community full of women who are looking to do better about their health and their wellness. So follow us from wellness everywhere. You can find us, email us if you have a question if you want to talk about something in particular info at Brown me wellness COMM And we will see you in two weeks. Bye.
24:33
Thank you for listening to live information free sponsored by brown women wellness. If you want to know more about us and our podcast check us out over on our website at Brown women wellness.com or living inflammation free.com Join our Facebook group at living inflammation free and coming soon our brown the wellness community group and remember we are not doctors and any information shared by us is not medical advice. Please always call doctors advice and don’t forget to rate and review our podcast and let us know what you loved about this week’s episode. And please subscribe to wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Don’t forget to find us across all social platforms at Brown wellness or and living green. As always show notes with links to what we talked about today and this week’s episode will be in the description box top
Transcribed by https://otter.ai