We are well into Autumn now and with Winter just around the corner. The weather here in Trieste is sunny everyday so far, which is wonderful, but its cold and humid at the same time with a thick cloud of fog coming down the streets every night, giving Trieste a London-esque feeling about it. And of course the flue ! Everybody around me has a flue or a cold, or had fever last weekend, just like me.
I have been searching for ways to fortify my body against the cold and that’s when I stumbled upon Turmeric . Turmeric, with its beautiful golden color, has been known to have potent antioxidant and beneficial properties for years now. It has an earthy scent and mild peppery taste and comes from curcuma, a relative of the ginger root. It is used in Indian cuisine ( in curries) and in ayurvedic medicine, while recent studies have shown that it’s a powerful healer and immune system booster. Turmeric contains bioactive compounds,called curcuminoids ,most important of which is, curcumin. Curcumin has anti- inflamatory, antibacterical and antimicrobial properties and has been used for centuries for the healing of stomach, gut and liver. To get most out of turmerics beneficial properties, is best to combine it with black pepper, which contains piperin that maximizes the absorption of curcumin, thus, all the good!
My favorite way of eating turmeric, apart from curries, which i love, is through making this amazing tea, where I combine all my favorite immune system boosters and its my cup to go when I feel my body a bit low.
Nina’s Super Turmeric Tea:
Ingredients
2 teaspoons of turmeric powder
2 tablespoons of honey
Half teaspoon of ground black pepper
Half teaspoon cinnamon
2 pieces of ginger root or 1 teaspoon of ginger powder
How to make it:
Boil some fresh water and in a cup put the turmeric, pepper, cinnamon. Put in the cup the honey and with a spoon stir until it all becomes a smooth paste. Then add the ginger root and finally the hot water, to make a golden, warm tea.
