Healthy Herbs & Spices - A Focus on Peppercorn

In this episode, we discuss using herbs and spices for our health and see how easy it is to incorporate them into our everyday diets. They shouldn’t be forgotten just because we add them to our food in small quantities. We particularly focus on peppercorn that can be used within cooking and used as a condiment. 

Transcript

Welcome to Sano Health Bursts. I’m Heather Richards Nutritional Therapist, Director of Nutrition at Sano and nutrition lead for the College of Medicine. Sano Health Bursts are short, informative, practical sessions discussing food, nutrition and lifestyle, helping you live a healthier life.

Today we’re going to discuss using herbs and spices for our health and see how easy it is to incorporate them into our everyday diets. They shouldn’t be forgotten just because we add them to our food in small quantities. When used consistently as part of a varied diet they not only add flavour to dishes but contribute valuable health benefits.

Even though many studies demonstrating therapeutic health benefits are performed on extracts, in other words on specific compounds within a herb or spice and often in high quantities, that doesn’t make using them within our cooking any less important. 

Herbs and spices contain small amounts of vitamins and minerals as well as phytonutrients. Phytonutrients, or phytochemicals as we sometimes call them, are compounds within plants that give them their colour, taste and smell. They ensure the survival of the plants by providing protection against predators and microbes encouraging pollination. Many phytonutrients have been studied for their health benefits to humans.

Black pepper is a really good example of an everyday spice that has been used for centuries to flavour our food and used for thousands of years in Ayurvedic medicine. Being a condiment it is incredibly easy to include within our everyday diets. 

Spices can come from different parts of the plant such as rhizomes, the underground branches of ginger and turmeric or the bulbs of garlic. Also used are stems like cinnamon, seeds like cumin, flowers like clove, leaves like bay and fruits. Peppercorns are the dried fruits of the Piper nigrum plant. 

Peppercorn contains manganese, vitamin K and iron and a high concentration of phytonutrients. The compound within peppercorn that has been widely studied for its health benefits is piperine. 

Studies show that piperine has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, neurological, digestive, cardiovascular and anti-microbial benefits. 

Although the studies are performed on animals they demonstrate piperine can improve digestion and intestinal gas as well as provide support to the gut microbiome. Cholesterol levels have been shown to be lowered, circulation improved and the brain protected. Improved memory and the formation of amyloid plaques which are associated with Alzheimer's disease have been shown to be decreased with piperine. 

However not to be forgotten is the indispensable benefit of piperine in that it can increase the absorption of nutrients such as calcium, selenium, curcumin and epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG for short. EGCG is the compound within green tea that has powerful antioxidant benefits. This in itself warrants using peppercorn as a condiment. 

Curcumin is the phytonutrient found with turmeric that gives it its bright yellow colour. Curcumin has been well studied for its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits making it invaluable for most health concerns, given that some element of inflammation and oxidative damage is almost always present. Think about diabetes, cardiovascular disease, joint inflammation etc. 

Turmeric is however also useful for its blood-thinning and cholesterol-reducing actions as well as its benefit within the brain. Apart from helping protect the brain and neurons from oxidative damage, turmeric has been shown to increase a protein called brain derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF for short. BDNF is involved in the plasticity of the brain and promotes new neuron growth. It’s no surprise then that turmeric has been shown to boost mood and memory as well as help with Dementia, Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, Multiple Sclerosis and Huntington’s Disease.  

Despite this wide variety of health benefits turmeric itself is poorly absorbed, yet in the presence of piperine, absorption is increased by 2000%. Hence including peppercorn within your cooking and as a condiment can have multiple health benefits. I have used the example of turmeric because it is widely studied. With so many health benefits and an increased absorption rate with piperine, why wouldn’t you add pepper to your dishes?

There is a difference between the types of peppercorns you can purchase and the levels of bioactive compounds they contain. Black peppercorn has the highest amount of piperine, with green being slightly lower and pink relatively insignificant. 

The difference between the colour of the peppercorns is due to when the berries are picked and how they are preserved. The berries are picked before they are ripe and dried leaving them to darken, retaining their aromatic outer layer to produce black peppercorns. These are more firey than green peppercorns that are picked earlier and not left to dry but preserved. Pink peppercorns are where the berries are picked already ripened.  

So in summary black peppercorn provides the fieriest taste and the highest levels of piperine. Once the peppercorns are ground their bioactive compounds begin to break down with exposure to the air. Therefore to retain the health benefits and flavour buy black peppercorns and grind them as you need them, either within your cooking or as a condiment. 

There are many herbs and spices that you can incorporate into your daily cooking with a wide range of health benefits. For example, cinnamon, chilli, clove and rosemary can all support blood sugar balancing. Fennel, cardamon, ginger, peppercorn, rosemary and peppermint can support digestion.

In this short podcast, I’m not going to go into them in detail, we can cover individual health areas and individual herbs and spices in future podcasts. The overall message today is to think of herbs and spices as being a staple in your kitchen and use a wide variety of them to obtain a wide variety of health benefits. 

Even though you may be using them in small quantities everything adds up. In addition, your food will taste delicious with the inclusion of a variety of flavours. So don’t forget to include herbs and spices and remember the black peppercorn as a condiment!

I hope you enjoyed this episode of Sano Health Bursts. If you want to learn more then subscribe to this podcast,  to our newsletter, read our blogs, join our webinars or study with us. Visit our website www.sanolife.co.uk or email us at learn@sanolife.co.uk to find out more and enrol on our courses. Start improving your health today and put the tips I have given you into practice. Mens sana in corpore sano. A healthy mind in a healthy body.