We Americans prefer our food as bland, but researchers from Penn State (link below) were surprised to learn that just by adding culinary spices, such as turmeric, clove, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, ginger, garlic and oregano. paprika and rosemary and ginger, had the immediate effect of lowering triglycerides.

According to cardiologist Ravi Dave of the University of California, Los Angeles, who has reviewed the study, “To me, the biggest advantage [found in the study] is the lowering of triglycerides and the insulin levels [which dropped about 20 percent]…Keeping these levels low can lower the risk of metabolic syndrome — as well as diabetes and heart disease.”

The next step for the Penn State research team is to determine the quantity of spice to add.

For us Americans, we’re not so accustomed to spicing up our meals, but it’s so easy to do. Here are a couple very easy ways:

Steel Cut Oatmeal
Place in pressure cooker 2 cups of oatmeal, approx 1/2 tsp of turmeric, nutmeg and ginger and a tbsp of cinnamon. Pour in enough water so that it raises approximately 1 inch above this mixture.

Bring to a boil until the top pops then simmer for approximately 10 minutes.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Make your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and add to it 1/4 tsp of nutmeg and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. You can even sprinkle with turmeric and ginger.

Cod
I add a tad of turmeric and ginger to almost any dish and generally keep it simple. For example, I’ll dose the fish with lemons, some balsamic vinegar, olive oil, non processed salt and pepper and the spices.

Hope you get the idea that you can add a tad of spice to almost anything. It is typically an acquired taste for most Americans so start out small and build up.

I’d love to hear how this goes for you and if you have any questions or comments.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21697300