Put a Little Spice in Your Life!

   While reading articles on spices, I came across interesting information on how certain herbs and spices fight cancer.  This was interesting to me because on May 24th I celebrated my 5 year "cancerversary." (5 years cancer-free!) There were several sites making lots of claims. One website, The Cancer Project, seemed to me to be pretty credible.  In it's "Ask An Expert" section, it talked about garlic, onions, turmeric, and ginger.  I had seen garlic, turmeric, and ginger mentioned in other articles.  

   According to the answer for a question about the health benefits in garlic,  "The protective chemicals in garlic and onions appear to block carcinogens from reaching their targets, destroy cancer cells, and suppress tumor growth." One of the quantifiers was that if you cooked the garlic it lost this property. This can be reduced by crushing the garlic and letting it stand for 10 minutes before cooking.  Check out the link on Herbs and Spices at The Cancer Project for more info.

     Face it, eating the same old thing everyday is not fun or motivating when it comes to trying to eat healthy.  Adding spices to your foods can help you feel more satisfied with your meals.  Something as simple as sprinkling cinnamon on apple slices, chopping up jalapenos to add to low-fat sour cream to use as a dip, or using a baked garlic clove to spread on bread (instead of butter) can put a little spice in your meal.  A couple of good articles to check out for lots of spicy suggestions are "Spice Up Sandwiches"  and "Get Saucy."
   So if "variety's the very spice of life that gives it all its flavor" (William Cowper), then the variety of spices is what helps keep life healthy!