Spices as Ayurvedic Medicines

Spices are essential in the kitchen to make tasty food. However, several spices also work as powerful Ayurvedic medicines, treating various problems in a 100% natural way.

Picture of Ayurvedic spices on a board. There are powerful medicines in nature that can be used to treat various conditions of the body and mind.
Picture by Zahrin Lukman at Unsplash

Saffron spice as medicine

Saffron is an amazing spice, used in many cuisines around the world to make food delicious. Also, it is a powerful Ayurvedic medicine and spice.

Grinding sandalwood with saffron and applying its paste on the forehead provides coolness, peace, and energy to the head, eyes, and brain, stops bleeding from the nose, and relieves headaches.

If the baby has a cold, beat 1-2 petals of saffron and mix it in one spoon of milk, and give it to the baby in the morning and evening. Make a paste of saffron, nutmeg, and clove (in water) and apply the paste to the forehead, nose, chest, and back at night before sleeping.

To destroy worms, put saffron and camphor in half a teaspoon each and mix it in one spoon of milk and give it to the child for 2-3 days.

To treat diarrhea, put 1-2 petals of saffron and drip 2-3 drops of water on it, make a slurry and take it three times a day. Grind nutmeg, mango kernel, dry ginger, and bach an equal number of times with water on a separate stone and mix this paste with saffron. Mix it in one spoonful of water and give it to the baby. Give it morning and evening.

Turmeric (Kurkuma)

If there are worms in the stomach, taking 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder every morning on an empty stomach with fresh water for a week can kill the worms. If you want, you can also add some salt to this mixture. This will also be beneficial.

To remove facial spots, grind turmeric and black sesame in equal quantity and make a paste and apply on the face. Applying turmeric-milk paste brightens the complexion of the skin and makes your face look nourished.

Keep a small lump of turmeric in your mouth and suck it when you have cough. Cough does not arise from this. To remove unwanted hair from the skin, make a paste by mixing turmeric powder with lukewarm coconut oil. Massage this paste on the parts of your body you want. It keeps the skin soft and removes the unwanted body hair gradually.

Apply turmeric powder, almond powder, and curd on the affected area if the skin is scorched or stained due to sunburn. This improves the complexion of the skin and also cures stained skin due to sunburn. It acts like a sunscreen lotion in a way. If there are blisters in the mouth, gargle with turmeric powder mixed with lukewarm water.

Watch the video below from our Ayurveda expert on how to use turmeric and its benefits.

Turmeric is a powerful ayurvedic medicine and a great spice to make your food delicious!

Nutmeg: aromatic and healthy

Nutmeg is an incredibly aromatic and delicious spice and is also a powerful Ayurvedic medicine.

Although nutmeg is useful in winter, its medicinal importance has been considered in Ayurveda throughout the year. It is analgesic, carminative and anthelmintic. Useful for the neurological institute. Being a liver activator and digestible, it is useful for the digestive system.

It is useful in treating conditions like insomnia, cough, shortness of breath, hiccups, premature ejaculation, and impotence. Its powder and oil are used.

Impotence

Mixing ground nutmeg with milk and drinking it thrice a week help to cure impotence. It also increases sexual power. In addition, its powder and oil are used to treat premature ejaculation.

Skin spots

Rub nutmeg with water on the stone and prepare a paste. Applying this paste on the eyelids and around the eyes increases eyesight, and removes spots on the skin of the face. Apply the paste continuously for a few days.

Milk Digestion for babies

If after weaning the baby does not digest milk well, mix one part milk with half part water and boil a nutmeg in it. Cool this milk a little and give it warm, with a spoon to the baby, this milk will be digested by the baby.

Joint pain

Pain in the joints of the body is a symptom of arthritis. In addition to rheumatism, massage with nutmeg and mustard oil gives relief in bruises, sprains, and chronic inflammation. Its massage brings heat to the body, brings agility, and removes disorders in the form of sweat.

Abdominal pain

If you are experiencing a normal stomach ache, take 2-3 drops of nutmeg oil with sugar or a glass of water for immediate relief. Likewise, in case of toothache, dipping a cotton swab in nutmeg oil and holding it in the tooth-molar cavity relieves the pain. This oil makes that organ unconscious for a short time and the pain stops.

Peppermint

Peppermint is a delicious spice and a powerful Ayurvedic medicine.

Practical ways to use mint extract as a medicine for Ayurveda

Practical ways to use mint juice as a medicine for Ayurveda

Onion

If the ear is flowing, there is pain or swelling in it, then cooking onion and linseed juice and putting two drops in the ear several times gives relief.

If you suffer a burn, immediately apply crushed onion to the affected area.

When bitten by a venomous insect such as burrs, centipedes, and scorpions, crushing an onion and applying the paste to the bite can help with the poison. When bitten by a cat or dog, put onion and mint juice in a copper utensil and apply it over the affected area until you see a doctor.

If someone has become unconscious due to hysteria or mental trauma, then to bring him to consciousness, smell the crushed onion, it makes them conscious immediately.

To get rid of bladder stones, add sugar to onion juice and make a syrup and take it regularly, it can help break the stone. While doing this treatment, do not eat tomatoes, whole moong, and rice. At last, eat cucumber and drink plenty of water.

Drinking a cup of onion juice can considerably reduce the effect of intoxication.

Garlic as Ayurvedic medicine

Chewing 2-3 cloves of raw garlic daily and eating it increases sexual power and our body’s power to fight disease. In addition, it is beneficial for the eyes as it cleans the lens of our eyes.

Garlic is also beneficial for those who are very sexually active, as there is no feeling of tiredness despite excessive sex. In addition, the nervous system remains healthy with its use. Regular use of garlic also leads to healthy sperm production.

Include garlic in food, it brings many benefits and makes food delicious, it is a powerful spice that acts as an Ayurvedic medicine.

Mustard

Mustard is an important part of Indian cuisine, its oil and seeds have been part of Indian cuisine for centuries. In addition, the leaves are very beneficial and the oil is also great for massages.

How to use Mustard oil as an Ayurvedic medicine

Mustard oil massage improves blood circulation, strengthens muscles and improves skin texture. Children can also be massaged with mustard plasters. Also, mustard oil is antibacterial.

Mustard oil contains oleic and linoleic acids, which are beneficial fatty acids for hair, nourishing hair roots. Massage this oil twice a week into the roots to reduce hair loss.

Rubbing mustard oil on the teeth and gums makes them strong. It is also beneficial for pyorrhea patients.

Apart from this, it also gives a lot of benefits for colds, headaches, and body pain.

The properties of allyl isothiocyanate present in mustard oil work as the best cure for skin diseases. Also, it prevents the growth of fungus anywhere on the body.

Mustard strengthens immunity. It also provides the body with heat, eating mustard in cold weather helps not to feel cold.

If you do not feel hungry, then start cooking your food in mustard oil, which can increase your appetite.

Mustard oil contains Vitamin E. Applying it on the skin protects against the ultraviolet rays of the sun.

Massaging with mustard oil can also help to cure arthritis and joint pain. Arthritis patients should massage mustard oil mixed with camphor, it will be beneficial.

Eating mustard oil also slightly reduces the risk of coronary heart disease.

If you have dry skin, massage mustard oil into your feet and hands before bathing. This nourishes the skin, making it hydrated.

Grind mustard seeds and apply this paste on the swollen areas, it can help to cure any kind of swelling. Also, eating this paste slowly with honey treats phlegm and cough.

Basil as Ayurvedic medicine

Whenever the Tulsi tree has a lot of flowers i.e. Manjiri, they should be picked when they are ripe, otherwise, ants and insects get attached to the Tulsi tree and destroy it. Save these cooked manjiris. Separate and collect the black seeds.

Premature Ejaculation, impotence and deficiency of Semen: Taking 5 grams of basil seeds daily with warm milk at night helps to cure the problem and increases sexual power.

Irregularity in Menstruation: Taking 5 grams of basil seeds with water or milk in the morning and evening from the day menstruation comes to the day the menstruation lasts can help regulate menstruation.

Tulsi leaves are of hot effect but the vegetable is cool. If we mix basil seeds with some rose petals and drink it in milk or lassi, it gives a lot of coolness in summer. Apart from this, it also treats digestive problems.

Ginger: an incredible spice

Ginger is attributed to several healing properties. It is said to help with headaches and stomach pains, have an anti-inflammatory effect, and even keep blood sugar stable. But what can the sharp root do? And how do which substances work?

Ginger Ayurvedic medicinal properties

Ginger not only brings a special taste and burning heat to food but is now also widely used as a natural remedy. In Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda, the special root has been used for healing for 5000 years. Both the fresh variant and the powder from the tubers have numerous health-promoting properties. The ingredients from the natural medicinal plant should, for example, promote digestion, stimulate circulation and be antibacterial. Likewise, the hot decoction of ginger slices should help with colds and even activate fat burning in the body. It’s a powerful spice and Ayurvedic medicine

How do ginger substances work?

However, it was unclear which ginger substance leads to which reactions in the body. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich have now discovered how ginger-pungent substances activate the immune system. To do this, they investigated the effect of ginger tea made from 50 -100 grams of fresh, peeled, and crushed ginger tubers and boiling water. The researchers let the drink steep for 15 minutes and then sifted it off.

It was already known from a previous study that the consumption of ginger tea causes various pungent substances from the tuber, above all the so-called 6-gingerol, to enter the blood directly. The substance is the main sharpener of ginger. The pungent substance is known to have its “taste” effect via the so-called TRPV1 receptor, the researchers write in a statement from the university.

The research team led by Gaby Andersen from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology knew that 6-gingerol binds to this particular receptor in nerve cells, which, in addition to heat and pain stimuli, also detects the sharp taste of chili and ginger. During further investigation, the researchers finally discovered that these receptors are also located in two-thirds of the white blood cells of our immune system, the so-called neutrophil granulocytes. These fight invading pathogens and are assigned to the non-specific, innate immune system.

How much ginger do you need?

Further laboratory tests by the research group showed that even a very low concentration of just under 15 micrograms of 6-gingerol per liter of culture medium is sufficient to put the cells on increased alert. The cells stimulated by the ginger pungent substance reacted about 30 percent more strongly to a fake bacterial infection compared to control cells. They responded with various defense-specific mechanisms.

“Thus, at least in the experiment, very low 6-gingerol concentrations are sufficient to influence the activity of immune cells via the TRPV1 receptor. In the blood, such concentrations could theoretically be achieved by consuming a good liter of ginger tea,” Andersen is quoted in the statement. Even if many questions still remain unanswered, the researchers’ study results from the laboratory provide strong scientific evidence that ginger boosts the immune system. In addition, the team can plausibly explain how this happens in the body.

For nausea and arthrosis

A number of previous studies have largely demonstrated other health-promoting effects of ginger. The pungent substances not only activate the body’s defense system, they also help to balance blood sugar, as two publications from 2020 show. Also on the effect on nausea, motion sickness and pregnancy nausea exist the results of several studies that prove the effects of ginger in these cases. For pregnant women, however, it is repeatedly pointed out to use the food in moderation, i.e. no more than 6 grams per day, and to resort to it only in mild forms of nausea and vomiting.

Ginger can also relieve the pain of osteoarthritis patients and thus lead to more mobility. Scientific evidence for this was provided by various research teams. Ginger is also of particular interest because of its effects on nerve cells. There is already scientific evidence that the ingredients in ginger if consumed regularly, could stop cell loss that could occur in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Similar effects are also attributed to saffron, rosemary, cinnamon, and turmeric.

Controversial as a blood thinner

At the same time, however, effects are also attributed to the superfood that has not yet been scientifically proven or not proven. These include blood-thinning properties, the prevention of heart attacks, or a direct effect on weight loss. But no matter why you regularly eat ginger, swallow ginger capsules, or drink ready-made shots or ginger tea, you should be aware that even the popular health enhancer, can be overdosed. Because the sharp ingredients can lead to irritation of the gastric mucosa. This can lead to unpleasant and unwanted side effects such as stomach pain, flatulence, or diarrhea.

There are various details about the maximum amount of daily ginger consumption per day. In any case, you should distinguish whether you use fresh ginger or take it in powder form. A guideline value for the fresh tuber is 50 grams per day, for the dried variant maximum doses between two and five grams are given. But even these could be too much for people with sensitive stomachs, and digestive or bile problems. If you are therefore unsure, you should rather talk to the attending physician about the individual ginger consumption beforehand.

error: Content is protected !!
Ayurveda-Compendium