This is actually a false assumption, though, since spices – which we deliberately add to our food to make it taste better – are some of the most powerful medicinal plants around. Some of the earliest folk remedies in ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine involved spices of one kind or another, and as it turns out, the old wives’ tales might actually have a grain of truth to them: spices are powerful medicines, and free of many of the side effects that make prescription medicines so dangerous.
These all-natural therapies have great benefits when they’re concentrated in pill form, but even better, some of them actually work even in the small amounts you’d ordinarily sprinkle on your food. Without even walking into a health-food store, take a look at what ordinary flavorings can do for you:
Blood Sugar Control
A quick overview of blood sugar when you eat a food containing carbohydrates, your body uses those carbs for fuel, especially for your muscles (that’s why athletes generally need more carbs than the rest of us). Insulin is the hormone that opens the door into the muscles, and lets the carbohydrates in. In a metabolically healthy person, this will result in a predictable pattern after a carbohydrate-rich meal: a temporary increase in blood sugar, and then a decrease as all that sugar leaves the blood and enters the muscles instead.
These all-natural therapies have great benefits when they’re concentrated in pill form, but even better, some of them actually work even in the small amounts you’d ordinarily sprinkle on your food. Without even walking into a health-food store, take a look at what ordinary flavorings can do for you:
Blood Sugar Control
A quick overview of blood sugar when you eat a food containing carbohydrates, your body uses those carbs for fuel, especially for your muscles (that’s why athletes generally need more carbs than the rest of us). Insulin is the hormone that opens the door into the muscles, and lets the carbohydrates in. In a metabolically healthy person, this will result in a predictable pattern after a carbohydrate-rich meal: a temporary increase in blood sugar, and then a decrease as all that sugar leaves the blood and enters the muscles instead.
