Spice up your taste buds with a variety of spices in your diet!

Spicy Facts

Spice up your taste buds with a variety of  spices in your diet!

Spices not only just excite your taste buds but are composed of phyto-nutrients, essential oils, antioxidants, minerals and vitamins. They have been in use since ancient times for their anti-inflammatory and carminative properties. The Arab and European explorers, who spread them from their place of origin to the rest of the world  immensely broadened their use and popularity.

Spices can be categorized botanically according to their source of plant part as follows:

• Leaves of aromatic plants: Examples include bay leaf, rosemary, thyme, etc.

• Fruits or seeds: Examples include fennel, nutmeg, coriander, fenugreek, mustard, and black pepper etc.

• Roots or bulbs: Examples include garlic, turmeric, ginger, etc.

• Bark: Cinnamon, Cassia, etc.

Culinary uses of spices

Spices can be aromatic or pungent in flavour and peppery or slightly bitter in taste. In order to keep their fragrance and flavour intact, they are generally added in recipes at the end of cooking since prolonged cooking results in evaporation of much of their essential oils.

• Spices can be used to season soups and barbecue sauces or in pickling and as a main ingredient in a variety of curry powders.

• Spices along with some seasonal herbs can be used to enhance the flavour and taste of vegetable, chicken, fish and meat dishes.

• Some spices like cloves, cardamom, coriander and cinnamon can be used to flavour drinks.

Five facts about Health Connection Wholefoods’ Spices

Spices add a strong flavour to food and can help to reduce the amount of salt needed, without compromising flavour. Here are a few fun facts about our spices:

1.    All of our spices are non-irradiated.
2.    Cinnamon powder, turmeric powder, fennel seeds and fenugreek seeds
are very high  in antioxidants and have anti-inflammatory benefits.
3.    Our Cinnamon Powder is produced from the Ceylon species.
4.    Cinnamon and turmeric powder can be added to smoothies or hot drinks and used in
baking bread, muffins and cakes.
5.    Fennel tea can help relieve bloating and stomach cramps.