Spices are seeds, fruits, roots, barks, and other parts of plants or plant substances used in cooking foods. Some of the spices are used for other purposes such as in making body creams, hair creams, pomades, herbal medicines etc. In foods, spices are mostly used by people as flavourings and colourants. Most local and continental foods are made with one or two or even more spices. This underscores the importance of spices. Use of spices in foods is almost inevitable. Hundreds of spices exist in its natural forms while some are formulated and packaged by food processors for easier accessibility to people and also to extend the shelve life of those ones that are perishable with time.
Millions of people world wide use spices in foods just to improve the taste, flavor and colour. Little did they know about the nutritional and health benefits of those spices. Although some local spices has enjoyed an age-long use as cure for some diseases and diseases symptoms such as flu, soar throat, cough, etc. from people of rural Communities in different countries of the world. Countries like China, India, and most African countries have long history of using local spices and herbs for curing diseases. Some wildly known spices are: ginger, garlic, cloves, peppers, cinnamon, Thyme, Rosemary, nutmeg, tumeric, curriander etc. In the eastern part of Nigeria, there are some locally formulated spices used in making local delicacies such as Ogiri, okpei, ehuru etc.
Spices are very essential in our diets owing to it’s nutrientional composition and health benefits. The series of compounds that spices naturally contain play a number of roles in improving the body’s nutritional and health status. The nutritional and health benefits of spices are listed below.
1. ANTI-INFLAMMATORY PROPERTIES; Series of studies has shown that most spices contain chemical compounds that help to fight against the inflammation of any parts of the body by toxins, Bacteria infections, viral infections, etc.
2. SPICES CONTAIN A LOT OF VITAMINS AND MINERALS: The rich vitamin and mineral content of spices can not be overemphasized. Most spices are naturally endowed with different vitamins such as the B-vitamins, Vitamin C and Vitamin E (Tocopherol) . Minerals includes both Macro and micro minerals such as potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, iodine, sulphur, iron, zinc, etc. All these vitamins and minerals plays very significant roles in our body system.
3. ANTI-BACTERIAL PROPERTIES; A lot of spices contains different chemical compounds that fight against the growth and multiplication of bacteria in our foods and body. For example, Garlic contains a very strong anti-bacterial compound known as Allicin. Allicin inhibits the growth and multiplication of bacteria in our foods. This implies that cooked foods containing garlic is less likely to sour fast as a result of the activities of spoilage Bacteria in such food. But pls note, that this is dependent on the temperature and time of storage. Also, Thyme contains Thymol which posseses similar anti microbial properties.
4. ANTI-OXIDANT PROPERTIES; Spices are rich in Phytochemicals and these compounds play significant roles inhibiting several oxidative processes in our body system which mostly results in the inflammation of parts of our body. Some of these Phytochemicals scarvenges for, and trap free Radicals in our body which causes. these inflammations and body toxicity.
5. IMMUNE SYSTEM BOOSTING PROPERTIES; Several studies has shown that a lot of spices contain various beneficial compounds that help to flush dead cells and boost the immune system so as to be up and active all the time to fight against bacterial, fungal and viral symptoms and diseases in the body system. This is the more reason why some people use spices such as Ginger, garlic, Rosemary etc. as tea.
6. REDUCTION IN BLOOD SUGAR, FATS AND CHOLESTEROLS LEVEL IN THE BODY SYSTEM. Spices such as garlic, Rosemary and Thyme contains chemical compounds that helps to reduce the blood sugar, fats and Cholesterol level. The presence of some phytochemicals in these spices in foods reduce the absorption simple sugars, fats and Cholesterol from carbohydrates and fatty food diets. Some Diabetic patients are often advised by doctors to increase the intake of spicy based tea to reduce their blood sugar levels.
7. ENHANCEMENT OF TASTE, FLAVOUR AND AROMA IN FOODS. Each of the roots, tubers and herbs which some I had mentioned earlier possess distinct compounds which impact taste, flavour and Aroma to foods when they are used to cook. For instance, it’s quite easy to detect foods that have been spiced with ginger, garlic, curry leave/powder, or nutmeg.
Spices are very important for a nutritional and healthy lifestyle, but then many of them contains a number of anti nutrients which inhibits the absorption of some other essential nutrients. For example, some leafy spices contain Phytic acid which inhibits the absorption of zinc as an essential micro nutrient in the body system. Although many of the anti nutrients are heat labile and as such are easily denatured during cooking.
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