Turmeric Health Benefits and Uses

Hello friends Heidi here from Rain Country. God is good all the time and I'm here today for another herb profile and today it's going to be about turmeric and yes there are two r's in turmeric it's just that I pronounce the u with the long u sound so it makes it hard to hear that first r but it's there I'm trying to say it and however you say it I don't care let's get down to this great herb because it has a lot of wonderful benefits and it is one that you'll hear often when I'm putting together my lists of natural remedies for specific things so I'll be linking to two different playlists down below one is a series on natural remedies for dot dot dot which would be you know diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, skin health, digestive health, lung health and so on I have a whole bunch of them out there and this is one of the most mentioned herbs that I come across when I'm pulling together this information so now I'm going to be talking about just all the great benefits of this herb by itself so that playlist that full series is one I've been working on for over six years and that's where I break down individual herbs and spices and talk about their benefits and uses so I'll be putting both those playlists down below if you'd like to look through there I still have many more topics to go into both of these I don't think I'll ever get to all of them but just be patient I'm still working on it so let's talk a little bit about what the turmeric is and turmeric is a perennial plant and is found mostly in parts of Asia and India which is why in the countries from those areas it is a not just a common culinary spice but commonly used as medicine and what a lot of people may not realize but I look specifically into this because I was curious is that even though the rhizome the root is the part that's used most commonly all parts of the plant can be used and that includes the leaves and the flowers so just so you know that and come to find out curcumin which is the active compound in turmeric which is where a lot of the medicinal properties are derived from are also found in the leaves so besides the curcuminoids some of the nutrients you'll also find in turmeric are manganese potassium magnesium vitamin b6 and iron oh and also almost forgot to mention a turmeric is in the ginger family which makes sense because ginger is another one of those roots that you'll find most common in a lot of the lists that I put together for natural remedies in fact right in here these particular capsules are a combination of ginger turmeric and black pepper but I don't always combine black pepper with my turmeric I'll talk about that more in a bit so first let's talk about the many benefits of turmeric and that is that it is a natural anti-inflammatory and analgesic which makes it that's what these are right here makes it great for a pain remedy and one of the main ways it works is bringing down inflammation to help reduce pain helps prevent cancer and fight cancer because of its high antioxidant properties it's really good for digestive health and that also includes IBS it is great for brain health it helps to improve memory and even builds new neurons in the brain as such that would mean it would be good at helping to prevent and treat other cognitive issues such as Alzheimer's and dementia it's good for helping with joint and muscle health and that does include arthritis or any other types of ailments of the joints and the muscles and tendons and ligaments is very helpful with depression and anxiety it is also anti-aging which usually goes hand in hand with antioxidant properties it is also antiviral so this could be one you're including in whatever antiviral blends you're making it's helpful at preventing and treating diabetes it is helpful in ladies dealing with PMS and even I would assume menopause I can't remember if I listed it off in the menopause video but I probably did but usually if it's if something's helpful with PMS it's also helpful at dealing with menopausal symptoms it does help balance cholesterol even though cholesterol is necessary and I don't think we should be trying to reduce our cholesterol because our body needs it especially our brains it is at least something that can help bring balance if that's what you're looking for it's really beneficial to the liver at helping to detoxify the body it's great at treating acne now this can be done topically which I personally would never do but that is also taking it internally as well it's helpful at preventing heart disease and reducing the risk of clots and here was a new one to me that I was really excited to read about and that is it's very good for eye health especially anything that is a degenerative eye issue so taking that turmeric every day can be helpful at that and then of course it also aids in weight loss so now let's talk a little bit about the ways that you can use turmeric and I'll also talk about how I use it because I not want to put it in a lot of things because of its very strong color everything it touches it turns this color be it your countertop your face your cutting boards whatever it is so while I do use turmeric I usually use it there's a couple of recipes I'll use it in now and then but usually it's capsule form for me you can tincture it if you want if you're going to do that I'd recommend going with some dried turmeric slices rather than a powder because it's going to be easier to strain that off you can encapsulate it some real popular ways that people like to use it is in tea or in making what's called a golden milk where they take milk and they add turmeric to it I've yet to try that and maybe I will someday I'm not a milk drinker myself though I do like to drink nut milk from time to time I just have never been one to like drinking dairy milk but if I get an odd craving usually it's for something like molasses in milk and then I think the next time I do that I have that craving I'm going to try putting a little bit of turmeric in there and see what I think about that the great thing about turmeric is that because of its kind of subtle spicy flavor it's not super strong but it's got the kind of flavor like nutmeg for instance that can go well with both savory and sweet dishes so you don't always have to use it in savory things you can actually use it with sweet dishes as well and I have included it in from time to time in my I've added it to my seasoned salt recipe from time to time just a little bit and I'll link to my most recent video on the seasoned salt as well as the jet field latte I don't remember if in either one of those particular videos I mentioned adding the turmeric but just consider that something you can add to those and then the one I like to use it most in is making something like a macaroni and cheese especially if I'm using an uncolored cheddar because that's what white cheddar is it is simply cheddar that has not had the colorings added and they're usually natural colorings not always but usually but if I want that color then using something like turmeric in there is a good option to to kind of get more of that orangey color in there and I have actually made back when we were getting goat raw goat milk on a regular basis from our friend a few years back like every week we'd get a gallon and sometimes it was just far more than we could use up then I made a bunch of farm cheese but made each one a little bit different as you can see in this photo and then the yellowish one you see that's when I added turmeric to and they were all excellent so I do have a video on that that I'll link back to it like I say it's several years old because we haven't been able to get that milk in a long time now and then some people do like adding it to smoothies and by the way anyone who likes to use turmeric on a regular basis and you have your own special recipes and things you use it and go ahead and share some ideas with us down below so other people since I have more limited ideas because I don't like to use it a lot of things because of the color I'm sure a lot of you will have a lot of other great ideas so anyway the let's talk about the turmeric or the curcumin and its bioavailability within the body so I do have a video I did several years ago about this that I'll link to down below because I list off all the different things you can do with turmeric that don't have to be black pepper to make it bioavailable there's all kinds of different fruits vegetables are ways that you can prepare it that will do the same thing as the piperine in your black pepper will do so I did in this case for these particular ones go ahead and mix some black pepper in there you only need a little bit really but this also has ginger which really makes the black pepper somewhat unnecessary but because I was trying to make a real powerful pain anti-inflammatory remedy here which is does work pretty good I did decide to go ahead and add a little bit of that in there now the turmeric capsules you'll see here are just turmeric I didn't add anything to that and so just understand that even just cooking your turmeric just heating it or mixing it with any kind of healthy fat can have the same effect as mixing it with black pepper because not everyone can have black pepper and that might not be the option corsetin is a flavonoid that you can combine it with that will make it more bioavailable and that's found in so many fruits and vegetables again I list off a whole bunch of them in that video so I don't worry so much about that and what I've been doing to help heal up my knee if you've been watching any of my more recent videos because I did damage the anterior cruciate ligament in my knee the ACL and it's it's not super bad but bad enough I'm trying to get it to heal up and so one of the things I've been doing is taking some turmeric daily along with some other herbs and gelatin and so on that's really good for helping to build up ligament reduce pain and inflammation so that's what I'm doing there and I just wanted to bring that up about the you know the whole thing with do you really need black pepper no you don't you can and yes it's helpful but there's so many other things you can do if you can't have black pepper just don't want to use black pepper whatever the case may be anyway again please share with us your ideas down below how you like to use turmeric what's your favorite ways do you use it in a powder form like I do because that's the way I buy it which by the way right now anthony's is carrying it they have a pretty good price on organic turmeric and so I've been anthony's is one of my two main go-tos now when it comes to buying organic herbs and spices that I don't already grow oh and by the way as far as growing a lot of people have great success growing it in pots if you live in a warm enough climate you can successfully grow it in pots and there's you can find online lots of pictures of people growing turmeric in pots and and it leaves out it flowers and the flowers are so beautiful and if I was to ever find and get it to grow I would be using those flowers and salad for sure and then finding ways to use the leaves in in things that I cook that I don't want to turn gold so that the leaves would be a good option in that case and don't forget to check out my links to the herbs playlist and the natural remedies playlist so you can learn more about other herbs and other ways to help bring natural healing to your body all right well thanks for watching take care and god bless