When next you have to prepare a pot of meat soup, you should use spices. Whether it is the garlic, onion, curry, thyme or even local bean seed, spices have medicinal and culinary uses.

Since the earliest references to medicinal and culinary plants, spices have been used by man for the treatment of various diseases, including cancer and digestive problems. For instance, garlic has been used for the treatment of digestive disorders, infestation with worms and renal disorders, as well as helping mothers during difficult childbirth.

Also, studies have shown that garlic has beneficial effects in controlling high blood cholesterol levels in animals. A recent study found out that raw garlic was more beneficial than cooked garlic in reducing blood lipids and sugar levels.

Additionally, ginger has been shown to improve asthma and both ginger and turmeric have been found to be helpful in lowering blood cholesterol level. Curcumin, an extract of turmeric, which curry powder is largely composed of, has received lots of modern scientific attention and its effect on diseases and maladies is dramatic. Also known as turmeric, curry is thought to have numerous beneficial health effects, including protecting against Alzheimer’s disease.

Although in Nigeria, spices are seldom consumed as a single flavouring, but rather as part of complex dishes, experts found that the benefits of combining different spices in one’s food far outweigh the use of single flavours.

Researchers working to determine the effect of including mixtures of curry, garlic and ginger powder in the diet of normal albino rats on some blood and biochemical parameters found that judicious use of these spices may be beneficial in the maintenance of weight, as evidenced by the non significant changes in weight at all levels of supplementation.

This was a study entitled “Dietary Supplement containing mixture of raw curry, garlic and ginger powder exerts both hypoglycaemic and hypolipidaemic effect.”The 2008 study carried out by Emmanuel Ike Ugwuja; Nicholas Chukwuka Ugwu and Augustine N. Nwibo from the Department of Chemical Pathology, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, was published by The Internet Journal of Alternative Medicine.

The researchers stated that the blood cholesterol and sugar lowering effects of spice mixture observed in the present study was consistent with previous studies.

According to them, “Although the exact mechanism through which spices mixture improve food intake without significantly affecting body weight is not clear, inadequate food/nutrient intakes and infections have been identified as factors militating against growth and development.”

Spices will do more than just enhance the taste of beef. They may also cut down on the risk of cancer by reducing the cancer-causing substances called heterocyclic amines (HCAs) that they may contain.

HCAs are the carcinogenic compounds that are produced when beef are barbecued, grilled, boiled or fried. Consuming HCAs through meat increases risk factors for colorectal, stomach, lung, pancreatic, mammary and prostate cancers.

Researchers studying ways of reducing heterocyclic amines (HCAs) in red meat found out that certain spices containing natural antioxidants would reduce HCA levels by 40 per cent when applied to beef during cooking.

The spices investigated are cumin, coriander seeds, galangal, fingerroot, rosemary and turmeric. The last three were found to have the highest levels of antioxidant activity toward inhibiting the formation of HCAs, with rosemary as the most effective.

Consumers can take advantage of the spices by integrating them into their cooking regimen such spices as onions too. Its judicious intake in daily food intake, experts found,  is very good for diabetics.

However, in order for an onion-rich diet to effectively support insulin production, such a diet must be a low fat one.

The researchers pointed out in the study published in the journal, Annual Nutrition Metabolism, that higher dietary fat may impair the antidiabetic effects of dietary onion intake as has been previously reported.”

Locust bean is one common cooking condiment that is being phased out on tables of the educated. Hardly is this cooking condiment given its right of place on the family table again despite its many health benefits for all ages.

While the young ones need it for good eye sight, the older ones need it to drive away hypertension and related diseases like stroke and diabetes.

Although to many, the fermented locust bean is merely for adding taste, science has also corroborated its many nutritional and medicinal values.

For example, when the entire seeds and decorticated, fermented seeds were tried out in rats to find out whether it actually has any impact on controlling blood pressure, the results obtained with both preparations found that adequate doses of the two helped to decrease arterial blood pressure. In fact, the diastolic blood pressure measurement enjoyed more reduction than even the systolic blood pressure.

Importantly, the Dakar Medical Journal in which the study was published, has it that the effect of fermented locust seeds was much more than that due to the entire seeds in decreasing blood pressure in hypertensive persons than in those with normal blood pressure, meaning that  regular consumption of it can both reduce elevated blood pressure and prevent it in those with the medical problem.

Similarly, the possible use of fermented locust bean seed in controlling diabetes and cholesterol level in rats was also confirmed by Prof. A.A. Odetola; Dr. O.A. Akinloye; C, Egunjobi; W.A. Adekunle and A.O. Ayoola in the latest edition of the journal, Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology.

Using the water and alcoholic extracts of African locust bean on experimental animals, they found, for example, that a dietary supplementation with the extract (6g per kg of the plant extract administered orally for four weeks), ameliorated the alloxan-induced diabetes in a manner comparable with that of the reference antidiabetic drug, glibenclamide.

Water and alcoholic extracts of the fermented locust bean elicited 69.2 per cent and 64.4 per cent reductions, respectively in fasting blood sugar level compared with 70.4 per cent in 0.01mg per cent 150g glibenclamide – treated rats. Glibenclamide is a drug for controlling blood sugar level in diabetics.

In addition, high levels of HDL, the good cholesterol and low LDL, the bad cholesterol, were observed in animals treated with the water extract of locust bean, a pattern similar to that seen in normal control.

The scientists concluded based on the study that while both the water and alcoholic extracts of fermented seeds of African locust beans exact a blood sugar lowering effect, only its water extract can ameliorate the loss of body weight usually associated with diabetes.

Like other herbs and spices, the assumed health benefits of nutmeg for everything, from stomach cramps to a cure for the plague, have been many and varied, but substantially unproven. Even so, there is evidence that nutmeg does have health benefits. Studies show that it can help to lower blood pressure and soothe a stomach ache as well as stop diarrhoea and, (in low doses) help to detoxify the body. So, when next you are cooking, remember to add plenty of spices, whether the local ones like fermented locust bean seed and ogiri or the borrowed spices from other cultures like curry and nutmeg.

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