Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives Alternatives and ALCHEMISTS more on Turmeric

I don't know if turmeric is an immune stimulant. But as an Indian who grew up eating food cooked with freshly ground turmeric -- one thing I can say that it surely has some special properties that at least retards bacterial growth in food. If you cook two dishes at the same time with the same ingredients but use turmeric in only one of them and not in the other -- and then leave them in room temperature -- you will see which one goes bad first. The one without the turmeric.

However as for getting full health benefit -- I am not sure if the powdered kind that we buy today are as good as the real thing which looks something like a yellow colored ginger root and then it needs to be soaked and ground before cooking with it. As children we were told to eat the uncooked root directly as medicine first thing in the morning to keep the digestive system and the blood in good shape. But here in the US I have found the whole roots only once in a while in Asian markets.

Due to its lack of availability where I live now, I haven't had a chance to experiment with its anti-inflammation properties. But I have found directly eating ginger root(chewing up a half inch cube or so and drinking it down with water) helps me for several hours. If I had access to fresh turmeric I would have tried that too.

Some more on turmeric if anyone is interested:
http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/mar/hlt-turmeric.htm
http://www.medindia.net/alternativemedicine/index.asp?Choice=Turmeric
http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/traditions/turmeric.html


I still use the powdered form in cooking because I like the taste and hope it does some good also, but don't know how effective that is for helping me with AS.

Sudeshna

Sudesha, interesting. I love Indian food, and lived in India for many years. Have a pile of condiments in my cupboard, including whole tumeric root, dried up now, of course. Got it in the Caribbean.

As soon as my new cooker is installed then I can get rooting out all the goodies, have myself a fest - I can just taste fresh ginger, tumeric, a little chilly, good cardomon, jeera: vegetable curry, finished off with a handfull of fresh chopped coriander/cilantro! Yummy. And don't forget the yogurt

By the way, Coriander is very good to remove heavy metals from the body! Now going to check out those websites you posted. (One of my all-time favourite dishes is dosa, masala dosa with dhai (yogurt): dream on! But it has got to be made properly, using a stone to grind the soaked lentils and the par-boiled rice! No, did not bring my hand grinding stone back with me to England...)

Molly
Keeping on Keeping on (naturally)

Enjoyed reading your post Molly. Where did you live in India? But sadly right now I can only enjoy the talk about Dosa in my imagination. I am trying out the low starch diet right now with not much success. But if that works, which I really really hope is the case -- I will keep all those good stuff like Dosa and Samosa for the next life. Once I am more comfortable with life without these dishes I will probably start making them for my 5 year old son who was adopted from Kerala as an infant and I really want him to develop the taste for those wonderful south Indian dishes. In the meantime I am holding onto fish, coconut and almond based Indian dishes. Hopefully that will help me get through this very difficult transition time switching from rice and lentil based staples to basically life with no staples or so it feels like to me.

More later.

Sudeshna

Hi Sudesha - Thought you must be from South India I lived in India for seven years, three in Bombay and four in Delhi. Many of my friends were South Indians and my fave currys are South Indian - all that tamerind...sigh! Love Carnatic music as well, my fave singer is Madura Mani Ayer - long dead now, was a leper. Superb voice. Went to all the concerts I could get to: fortunately had a friend who was a Carnatic music afficiando. Still have some treasured old 78s. Very precious.

We used to have Sunday morning 'Dosa' parties. I'd be forever grinding the ingrediants. There is one South Indian restaurant in London, whenever I was able I'd pop in for my Masala Dosa fix, with Samba of course Cannot for the life of me remember where it was located now... My fave Samba is the vegetable one with drum-sticks. Oh, those drum-sticks. Memories!

As good as it was, nothing like home cooked. Don't much care for the Iddli or Russum, not a patch on Dosa and Samba - an don't forget the dhai...pref made with buffalo milk, and that milked on one's doorstep - there now, that must date me Don't suppose anyone has the doodh-wallah coming round with his small herd to milk out on one's side porch). Never forget the time when my two dogs (herding animals) decided to make off with the buffalos: rounded them up and down the road they went with the doodh-wallah in fast pursuit, waving his lathi. Oh dear, he was so cross, and rightly so. Days gone-bye now. Sigh.

Molly
Keeping on Keeping on

I've been taking turmeric supplements for quite awhile and I think I finally identified it as the cause of my GI upset. I did read that it can cause ulcers in high doses, I didn't think my doseage was that high.

Well, I'll stay off it for awhile to see if it really is the culprit. Gosh! Maybe this means I can eat nuts and seeds again!

sBrian,
Found this link, thought it was interesting:- http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/10/30/turmeric-arthritis.html

George (no2).

For the NSDers out there,

Iodine testing on Turmeric powder I have at home turned black.

Oded.