Benefits of pepper

Benefits of pepper

Dark pepper or black pepper stimulates the taste buds in your mouth in the sense it enhances your appetite for food. It also facilitates the absorption of proteins and other nutrients of food by your body. Studies have found that pepper has amazing cancer prevention  and antibacterial properties.

Pepper is used when seasoning meat. Pepper is used when packing meat also, as pepper has the ability to work as a food preservative. A long time ago, when there were no chemicals to preserve meat, hunter gatherers have used pepper to keep their meat for a considerable length of time. This does not mean that pepper is capable of preserving food for a long time, but by using pepper they have been able to keep meat for about a month or two.

Today we use pepper in our soups meat and fish. Pepper is a good home remedy for nasal blockage, Pepper can also keep ants and other bugs away from your food.

Cardamom

Cardamom

 

Cardamom is a spice that is mostly grown in the Middle East, North Africa and Scandinavia. There are three sorts of cardamom; green cardamom, dark cardamom and Madagascar cardamom. Because there is a great demand for cardamom the price of cardamom is always high. Sometimes it becomes the most expensive spice in Sri Lanka. It is best to purchase cardamom with the skin. when the skin is removed they lose their flavor and smell. Dried cardamom has less flavor than the fresh ones. Therefore the demand for green or fresh cardamom is higher. Cardamom has a sweet taste and a smell similar to mint. There is no season for cardamom. They are accessible year-round. 

There is a belief among some Sri Lankans. And this is just a belief, that if you swallow one cardamom bud, you will have to drink at least 6 cups of water to cool your body. They say so because some think that this spice is very hot and spicy. So you need water to cool your body. But there is no scientific basis to this belief.