Do you use turmeric?
You probably do, especially with all the delicious golden milk recipes out there now.
Even google has a report about the skyrocketing online searches for turmeric!
“I have to say, turmeric is a new kid on the block for me in terms of my herbal studies. “
Sometime about 8 years ago, in my classes, suddenly people started asking all kinds of questions about turmeric.
I thought to myself, “I know a little about this plant, but with the amount of questions coming in, why don’t I know more?”
So I went back to my original Materia Medica book from 1991 when I was studying with Michael Moore at the Southwest school of Botanical Medicine. I studied 400 plants with him.
Guess what? No turmeric in that book.
Next I poured through the notebook of Ayurvedic herbs that I learned from Dr. Ladd in the early 90’s.
Nope, no turmeric there either.
Wow, it was true, I hadn’t forgotten, I really had never learned this plant! Turmeric just had not hit the big time at that point!
For someone starting out their herbal studies right now, that would be absurd, turmeric is front and center!
So again, going back to the olden days…
When I started studying herbalism there weren’t that many herb books and of course people didn’t use the internet to study. So I studied plants by using meditation techniques and tuning into the plants directly and by making medicine.
If I was interested in a plant, I would gather up every recipe I could find and make it. At that time, you couldn’t just download a bunch of information, learning mostly took place by doing, playing around with medicine making techniques and recipes.
Handcrafting and recipes have always been the back bone of my herbal studies.
So, just like any other plant, that’s what I started doing with turmeric.
Turmeric questions still come in all the time. It is so interesting to watch the different herbal trends and how almost overnight a little-known herb can become a household name.
Following the turmeric love train, I wanted to share some of the recipes that I’ve really enjoyed using to learn what even today, feels like a new comer to my herbal world.
Enjoy!
Turmeric Milk Elixir
Kitchen Spice Medicine Tutorial: Turmeric Curried Onions
Turmeric Decongestant Honey 4-minute lesson
Healing Benefits of Turmeric
I started using curcumin almost 20 years ago as an anti inflammatory aid and got amazing results. After a few years, started thinking I was missing out on other potential benefits by not using the whole herb and when I learned how to make tinctures, turmeric was one of the first I tried, with great results. Although all I had at the time was powdered herb so the straining process was interesting! I now make it with fresh turmeric and add black pepper. It’s one of my favorite spices in soups as well. Thanks for sharing recipes!
Hi Kami, for a few years now, I’ve been incorporating turmeric into my diet in a few different ways. Every morning I have porridge(rolled oats) for breakfast. My porridge recipe for 2 is 1/2 cup rolled oats, 2 dessert spoons of chia and flax seeds, heaped teaspoon organic turmeric powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and a little cracked pepper and a dollop of honey. Soak in hot water, then cook. On top to dress, yoghurt, walnuts, prunes/fruit and organic soy milk. I also make a golden paste, 1 cup of turmeric powder, combine with 1/2 cup water to make a paste,… Read more »
Are spices considered herbs???
Hi Barbara, this is a great question.
Herbalists use the word ‘herb’ for all healing plants. So you will hear me call cinnamon an herb, when actually it is a spice. But when it comes to the language of using healing plants, herbalists just get lazy and call all healing plants herbs. (including spices)
Hope that makes sense….