The Spices of Life

Spices fit somewhere between herbs and food. They make food look, taste, and smell better and contain medicinal properties as well...

Comprehensive List Of Healthy Spices

Written by | December 9, 2013 |Comments Off

spices

Like fruits and vegetables, many spices are rich in antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and antibacterial compounds.
Used regularly, herbs can help your health in many ways including reduced inflammation, fighting free radicals, aid digestion and circulation, lower blood sugar, boost your immune system, and much more.

Here is a list of perhaps the healthiest spices, what they pair well with, and how they help…

In no particular order


SAGE
Pairs well with: Squashes; parsley; rosemary; thyme; walnuts

May help: Preserve memory, soothe sore throats.

ROSEMARY
Pairs well with: Potatoes; citrus; honey; garlic; onions; chile peppers
May help: Enhance mental focus, fight foodborne bacteria.

TURMERIC

Pairs well with: Garlic; citrus; ingredients in curry powder, such as coriander & cumin
May help: Quell inflammation, inhibit tumors.

CHILE PEPPER

Pairs well with: Ginger; chocolate; beans; beef
May help: Boost metabolism.

GINGER

Pairs well with: Soy sauce; citrus; chile peppers; garlic
May help: Soothe an upset stomach, fight arthritis pain.

CINNAMON

Pairs well with: Cloves; nutmeg; allspice; chocolate; fruit; nuts; hot cereal
May help: Stabilize blood sugar, reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

SAFFRON

Pairs well with: Shellfish, rice, tomatoes, garlic, onion
May help: Boost your mood, relieve symptoms of PMS.

PARSLEY

Pairs well with: lemon zest, mint, garlic, capers, fish, beef
May help: Prevent cancer.

GARLIC

Pairs well with: Spread roasted garlic on crusty bread, sautee it and add to sauces, and use raw in hummus and salad dressing.
May help: fighting illness, ‘poor man’s antibiotic’, help prevent cardiovascular disease, protecting against gastrointestinal and colorectal cancer.

THYME

Pairs well with: Flavor stews and soups. It works well in Caribbean dishes like jerk chicken and in Creole dishes such as blackened fish.
May help: Increase the amount of omega-3 (good) fatty acids present in kidney and brain cells, excellent antioxidant and rich in antibacterial and antispasmodic properties.

CAYENNE PEPPER

Pairs well with: Add a pinch of powdered cayenne to paella, Thai and Mexican dishes, or any dish that needs a kick.
May help: Boosts circulation, fights infections, aids digestion, boost metabolism.

CILANTRO

Pairs well with: Add fresh cilantro to salsa, guacamole, fish or chicken marinades, and Indian and Chinese soups.
May help: Remove toxic metals such as mercury from the body.

BASIL

Pairs well with: In chicken dishes, pastas, pesto, and tomato-and-cheese sandwiches.
May help: Antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties; contains a wealth of nutrients including beta-carotene and magnesium.

CURRY POWDER, CURCUMIN

Pairs well with: Add to curry dishes, to egg or chicken salad, or savory lentil or rice recipes.
May help: Very potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant agent; activates cellular defense mechanisms in genes.

CLOVES

Pairs well with: Drinks and in both sweet and savoury dishes.
May help: With one of the highest levels of antioxidants; relieve bronchitis, asthma, tuberculosis, nausea and diarrhea; tooth and gum pains.

OREGANO

Pairs well with: Egg and cheese dishes; beef, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes.
May help: Guard you against a wide array of infections; inhibit E. coli and some staph infections.

PAPRIKA

Pairs well with: Wide variety including sauces, egg garnish, chicken, Mexican, Mediterranean and Cajun spice blends.
May help: Contribute toward cardiovascular health, as well as cancer prevention; Contains flavonoids that help to neutralize damaging free radicals; Reduce chronic pain and inflammation associated with arthritis.

 

- See more at: http://healthydebates.com/comprehensive-list-healthy-spices/#sthash.AFa34AyL.dpuf

Pigskin Chicken- in your supermarket now!

What would you ever need pigskin in chicken for?

To glue it together, silly!

What's really in supermarket poultry: Chemical sludge. 'Meat glue'. Pig skin. If only water was ALL they pumped into your chicken

• Investigation revealed some chicken breasts on sale are 20 per cent water
• Sold in the aisles of major retailers such as Aldi, Asda and Iceland
• It is not illegal to add water and additives to chicken

By JOANNA BLYTHMAN

PUBLISHED: 19:53 EST, 9 December 2013 | UPDATED: 19:53 EST, 9 December 2013

 
 
 

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After the horsemeat scandal of earlier this year, we now have the chicken fiasco, where major chains have been exposed for selling frozen chicken with shockingly high levels of added water. 

An investigation this week revealed that some chicken breasts on sale in the UK are made up of no less than 20 per cent water. 

What you think is a juicy chicken breast may in fact have been pumped full of water, either mechanically injected or through an industrial process known as tumbling — and what is worse, chemical additives are also added during the procedure.

Additives: What you think is a juicy chicken breast may in fact have been pumped full of water, either mechanically injected or through an industrial process known as tumbling

The study highlighted one case of raw, frozen chicken breasts imported from Brazil into Britain and then sold in our supermarkets. 

While still in Brazil, salt and corn oil were added to the chicken breasts. Once in Britain, the breasts were thawed out and put through the vacuum-tumbling process.

This saw water and chemical additives absorbed into the meat, increasing its weight and giving it a juicier, but wholly unnatural, texture.

The breasts were then re-frozen and sold in the aisles of major retailers such as Aldi, Asda and Iceland.

A curious double standard seems to be in operation here: home cooks are sternly warned never to re-freeze previously frozen meat, unless they have cooked it thoroughly.

 

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But behind the scenes of food manufacturing, frozen meat is being defrosted, pumped up with water and additives, then re-frozen all over again, and consumers are none the wiser.

It is not illegal to add water and additives to chicken, as long as the additions are clearly displayed on the label. But the technical legalities are not the only issue here.

There is also the unfairness of asking the public to pay more for a product than is justified.

Many of us will feel cheated at the thought of having to pay for the added water, which works out at up to £1.54 a kilo. 

What’s more, these tumbled chicken breasts are a symbol of how heavily-industrialised, intensive production now dominates the food chain, robbing the public of the natural flavours and wholesome goodness that we ought to expect from a succulent chicken breast.

What is particularly worrying is that we do not yet know the implications for our health, since there has been no in-depth analysis of the consequences of eating these adulterated meats. 

But it is hardly likely that eating chicken filled with water, salts, oil and additives will prove beneficial.
As the GM controversy continues to demonstrate, working against nature is rarely a good idea. And that is precisely what is being done here.

Normally, when meat is cooked, it loses liquid, but the meat processors are doing precisely the opposite, by actually pumping in fluids containing a cocktail of chemicals.

 "Their art consists of taking a  pig’s ear — sometimes literally — and turning it into a profitable silk purse."

- Joanna Blythman

Though this week’s news has focused on chicken, the technique of adding water and additives is applied to a vast range of produce, including ham, bacon, frankfurters, sausages, turkey rolls, luncheon meat, sandwich fillers and ready meals.

Indeed, almost any low-grade, mass-produced, frozen or  processed meat will have been treated this way.

And it goes beyond meat. Even seafoods such as scallops are regularly soaked in water with phosphates to increase their size — though inevitably much of the taste is lost.

The sheer number of foods that are adulterated in this way attests to the boundless creativity, advanced technology and cost-cutting zeal of the food processors. 

Their art consists of taking a  pig’s ear — sometimes literally — and turning it into a profitable silk purse.

Their central objective is to make the meat or seafood absorb a significant quantity of water. 

The rationale is simple. Water is cheap and easy to source. Meat is much more expensive.

The result of this process is inevitably that the customer ends up paying way over the odds for the water. The controversial process usually begins when the manufacturer acquires his supply of what is called ‘trim’, usually pieces of boned, frozen meat.

His next task is to bulk out the trim by getting it to absorb water and additives. For this to happen, the manufacturer has to create a ‘brine’, a chemical solution that will encourage the meat to retain liquid using binding agents.

These binding agents are usually from five main sources, which can be used separately or mixed together. 

The first is transglutaminase, an enzyme that is essentially a natural glue. Indeed, it is sometimes called ‘meat glue’. The second is from a group collectively known as hydrocolloids, substances that form a gel on contact with water.

These hydrocolloids include carrageenan, which is derived from seaweed, as well as the exotically named locust bean gum — extracted from the seeds of the carob tree — and guar gum, which derives from ground guar beans. 

The third widely-used agent, especially in seafood, is phosphate, which is taken from phosphoric acid and is valued for its ability to make oil adhere to water.

The fourth is fibre, made from a source such as wheat, citrus or cellulose.

And the fifth is protein powder, which is made by extracting collagen from pigs’ skins.

Protein powder comes in several different forms, such as pork pellets and broth powders — made from dehydrated, skimmed chicken stock. There is also a soya protein that tends to be made from genetically modified crops. 

Supermarkets: The breasts were then re-frozen and sold in the aisles of major retailers such as Aldi, Asda and Iceland

Once you know this, none of our mass-produced foodstuffs sound remotely appetising. 

But it gets worse, for the next task is to get the brine into the meat. This can be done in two ways. 

The first is through vacuum- tumbling, the method that has been in the news this week.
The most common approach when it comes to vacuum-tumbling is for the meat to be placed with the brine in a machine that looks like a concrete mixer. The meat is then agitated as the mixer spins, the continual turning accelerating the absorption.

The second method is the injection of the brine straight into the structure of the meat through a series of needles attached to an instrument that looks rather like a steel brush.

One company has boasted that, through the injection method, 100 kilos of meat can be easily bulked up to a weight of 165 kilos with the addition of brine.

It is no wonder that the manufacturers have so eagerly embraced all this tumbling and injecting.
An internal brochure for the industry captures this enthusiasm, explaining that the process ‘transforms worthless cuts of meat with low value into standardised portions with a high added value’.

In promoting this approach, the industry uses overblown language that extols the improvements brought about by the process.

So processed meats are ‘easier to slice’ and feel ‘succulent but firm’. Each mouthful is ‘slightly resistant but juicy’.

Other products are praised for their ‘cohesiveness’, as if that were a quality that the public actually look for in a piece of meat.

‘Mmmm, I really like this chicken breast, it’s so cohesive,’ they imagine us saying as we tuck into our dinner. That just shows how far the manufacturers have departed from reality.

But it is all a huge con. Whatever language the manufacturers use, the public are getting neither value nor taste. This is not the way meat should be eaten.

The ham we find in our petrol station sandwiches has the consistency of a limp handshake and all the flavour of an old tyre precisely because it has been through such a destructively intensive process, pumped up with water and held together by chemical gel.

Those who suffer the most are those who eat in fast food restaurants and big institutions such as schools, hospitals and the British Army, where the needs of mass catering and limited budgets leave the managers vulnerable to the bulk merchants.

Yet our reliance on ‘restructured’ and ‘reformed’ meats and chemical ‘emulsions’ is a false economy.
This is not real, natural meat, but an industrialised meat-like substance.

Eating cheap meat like this is a mug’s game — we may think we are getting a bargain, but we are paying through the nose for water and chemicals that can’t positively do us any good.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2521119/Chemical-sludge-Meat-glue-Pig-skin-If-water-ALL-pumped-chicken.html#ixzz2n7XqMxLa
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Why to Drug Your Children

Are Chicken McNuggets Zombie Food?

If you wanted to turn a human being into a zombie, 

how would you go about doing it? 

You would feed that human 'zombie food', 

since you are what you eat. 

"What is zombie food?", you might ask. 

How about Chicken McNuggets for starters. 

You don't start eating faces right away...

(NaturalNews) More microscopic photos of the "mysterious fibers" found in McDonald's Chicken McNuggets have been released by the Natural News Forensic Food Lab. The forensic microscopy investigation was conducted by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, using clean laboratory protocols.

These new photos, shown below, appear to depict microscopic hairs, fibers or strands of varying colors and shades throughout the McDonald's Chicken McNugget samples. All the following photos were taken at 200X magnification. The hair-like fibers you see here are much smaller than a human hair or animal hair (see comparison below). The Chicken McNuggets were purchased on August 15, 2013 at a McDonald's restaurant in Austin, Texas.

Natural News broke the story yesterday about mysterious fibers found in Chicken McNuggets, and the story has been covered by www.DrudgeReport.com www.InfoWars.com and thousands of other websites across the 'net.

"These microscopic images of strange fibers in Chicken McNuggets do not mean they are unsafe to consume," reiterates Mike Adams, who led the microscopy research project. "But they do raise many questions about the origin of the ingredients used in Chicken McNuggets, and they possibly raise red flags about quality control procedures used in the manufacture of this popular fast food."

There has been a wave of public speculation (see comments, below) about whether these fibers are related to a mysterious condition known as "Morgellon's," which also appears to involve the presence of strange, unexplained fibers in humans. You can see examples of Morgellon's morphology at:
http://www.morgellons-research.org/morgellons/morgellons-morphology.h...

Here are the new images just released by the Natural News Forensic Food Lab, with notations:

This black strand appears to be a multi-fibrous "tangle" of unknown origin:



This is one of the more mysterious fibers we've found. Notice that the semi-transparent fiber appears to have a "sheath" surrounding the center portion of the fiber. This seems to indicate the likelihood of a biological origin:



Here's another black fiber "tangle." We found these frequently as we searched through several Chicken McNuggets:



Here is yet another "tangle" we located:



For comparison, we added a dog hair fiber to this slide so that you can see the size difference. The large brown hair arcing across the entire frame is a dog hair. The much smaller black hair-like fiber is what we found in a Chicken McNugget:



Here is an extreme close-up of a black fiber we managed to remove from a Chicken McNugget. Notice that it appears to be segmented. This may indicate it could be made of biological cells connected end to end:



Here are some additional fibers and hair-like structures we found in McDonald's Chicken McNuggets. All images are at 200X magnification:

















Click here to see more images from the first batch we released when we first broke this story.

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Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/041655_Chicken_McNuggets_strange_fibers_microscope_images.html#ixzz2dqiEkyQd

Zombie Attack at McDonalds (video)

Another zombie attack. What's going on? We have the movies about zombies, such as World War Z, and an occasional outbreak of zombie attacks. Apparently zombies are being produced by a combination of drugs and fast food. 

What are the wires or fibers in Chicken McNuggets? 

Aren't they similar to the fibers in chemtrails? 

Are they programmable too? 

Are zombies being controlled by someone electronically?

Actual female zombie attacks McDonald's drive-thru window, unleashes living dead rampage for Chicken McNuggets
Monday, September 02, 2013 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(See all articles...) Tags: zombie attack, Chicken McNuggets, caught on video 12K 11 (NaturalNews)

I've long warned Natural News readers about the coming wave of real-life zombies who will maraud through the cities, smashing windows, stealing fast food and threatening to eat the faces of whatever unlucky human victims are still around. I never thought this exact scenario would be caught on video at an actual McDonald's restaurant.
 As caught on video, the drive-thru workers of a McDonald's in Toledo were attacked by an actual female zombie who leaped out of her car, clawed through the drive-thru window and began tearing at any living person in sight.
She was screaming about needing "Chicken McNuggets" even though it was 6:30 am and McDonald's doesn't serve McNuggets until their lunch menu opens up. Beating on the glass window and clutching at McDonald's employees, this female zombie uttered a series of phenomenal phrases which are now becoming the stuff of legend across the 'net. (See the video and photos below.)
 
Those phrases include: 
"Unless you're sticking McNuggets into my hands, I don't wanna hear it!" 
 "Don't you ****ing run away from me you fat meatbag, I will end you!" 
 "Don't make me assume my ultimate form, I will ****ing wreck you!" 
 "I'm going to eat your ****ing face and I'm going to digest it and **** it out into the gutter!" 
 "I want my ****ing nuggets!" 
 During her zombie attack, she also emitted numerous screeching sounds including cat-like hisses and animalistic attack noises.

 Zombie feeds on Chicken McNuggets
 Don't you find it fascinating that the No. 1 food choice of this raging zombie is none other than Chicken McNuggets? This is the same fast food delicacy I recently exposed as containing "strange fibers" in a series of microscopy photos taken at the Natural News Forensic Food Laboratory. (See below.)
 Is there some yet-undocumented link between Chicken McNuggets and the living dead? See for yourself. In this photo, you can see the female zombie leaping out of her car and attempting to force her way in through the window: In this next photo, she manages to punch or grab a McDonald's employee: In this snapshot, she threatens to "assume my ultimate form" which I suppose means she's going to transform into a 12-foot combat demon: The McDonald's employees actually keep their cool through the entire attack, trying to shield their faces from the hungry McNuggets zombie just inches away: Here, the McDonald's employees cleverly try to decapitate the zombie with the sliding glass window, which is apparently one of the few ways to effectively kill such a creature:
 Not able to get Chicken McNuggets, the female zombie is more than happy to feast on human faces... as long as she gets some dipping sauce to go with it:
 Unable to acquire either McNuggets or human faces for consumption, the female zombie throws a beer bottle through the window, smashing a hole in it: 

Turmeric, the Cancer Killer

Turmeric, the bright yellow spice used in bean soup recipes and many Indian dishes is a powerful anti-cancer fighter a new study shows. Read the details below. Turmeric must however be used in rather large amounts to get the maximum benefit. More than just a dash here and a dash there. It should be consumed in large quanties in many different dishes. Its rather mild taste does not overpower the tastes of the other foods. Put it on everything!

Major Study Proves Turmeric Kills Cancer

Tuesday, August 20, 2013 

VCU

In a laboratory, preclinical study recently published by the journal Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center researchers combined structural features from anti-nausea drug thalidomide with common kitchen spice turmeric to create hybrid molecules that effectively kill multiple myeloma cells.

Thalidomide was first introduced in the 1950s as an anti-nausea medication to help control morning sickness, but was later taken off the shelves in 1962 because it was found to cause birth defects. In the late 1990's the drug was re-introduced as a stand-alone or combination treatment for multiple myeloma. Turmeric, an ancient spice grown in India and other tropical regions of Asia, has a long history of use in herbal remedies and has recently been studied as a means to prevent and treat cancer, arthritis and Alzheimer's disease. According to the American Cancer Society, laboratory studies have shown that curcumin, an active ingredient in turmeric, interferes with several important molecular pathways and inhibits the formation of cancer-causing enzymes in rodents.

"Although thalidomide disturbs the microenvironment of tumor cells in bone marrow, it disintegrates in the body. Curcumin, also active against cancers, is limited by its poor water solubility. But the combination of thalidomide and curcumin in the hybrid molecules enhances both the cytotoxicity and solubility," says the study's lead researcher Shijun Zhang, assistant professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the VCU School of Pharmacy.

Compared to mixing multiple drugs, creating hybrid molecules can provide certain advantages. "Enhanced potency, reduced risk of developing drug resistance, improved pharmacokinetic properties, reduced cost and improved patient compliance are just a few of those advantages," says another of the study's researchers Steven Grant, M.D., Shirley Carter Olsson and Sture Gordon Olsson Chair in Oncology Research, associate director for translational research, program co-leader of Developmental Therapeutics and Cancer Cell Signaling research member at VCU Massey Cancer Center.

The hybrid molecules of turmeric and thalidomide created more than 15 compounds, each with a different effect. Scientists found that compounds 5 and 7 exhibited superior cell toxicity compared to curcumin alone or the combination of curcumin and thalidomide. Furthermore, the compounds were found to induce significant multiple myeloma cell death.

"Overall, the combination of the spice and the drug was significantly more potent than either individually, suggesting that this hybrid strategy in drug design could lead to novel compounds with improved biological activities," added Grant. "The results also strongly encourage further optimization of compounds 5 and 7 to develop more potent agents as treatment options for multiple myeloma."

Zhang and Grant collaborated on this study with Kai Liu from the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the VCU School of Pharmacy; Jeremy Chojnacki, from the VCU Department of Medicinal Chemistry; Datong Zhang, from the School of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Engineering at Shandong Polytechnic University in Jinan, Shandong; and Yuhong Du and Haian Fu, from the Department of Pharmacology and Emory Chemical Biology Discovery Center at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

The full manuscript of this study is available at:http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2013/ob/c3ob40595h.

Contact: Alaina Farrish
akfarrish@vcu.edu
804-628-4578
Virginia Commonwealth University