Caryn Hartglass, Seasoned Wisdom – Herbs, Spices and Seeds

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Caryn Hartglass, Seasoned Wisdom – Herbs, Spices and Seeds
Caryn goes into detail about all the herbs, spices and seeds used in her daily food preparation.

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Caryn Hartglass talks about the song Phidyle by Henri Duparc, which she recorded that includes poetry about the lovely fragrances of herbs. It can be heard at https://responsibleeatingandliving.com/Music/Phidyle.mp3.

Phidylé

French source: Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle
L’herbe est molle au sommeil sous les frais peupliers,
Aux pentes des sources moussues,
Qui, dans les prés en fleur germant par mille issues,
Se perdent sous les noirs halliers.

Repose, ô Phidylé! Midi sur les feuillages
Rayonne, et t’invite au sommeil.
Par le trèfle et le thym, seules, en plein soleil,
Chantent les abeilles volages.

Un chaud parfum circule au détour des sentiers,
La rouge fleur des blés s’incline,
Et les oiseaux, rasant de l’aile la colline,
Cherchent l’ombre des églantiers.

Mais, quand l’Astre, incliné sur sa courbe éclatante,
Verra ses ardeurs s’apaiser,
Que ton plus beau sourire et ton meilleur baiser
Me récompensent de l’attente!

English translation © Richard Stokes
The grass is soft for sleep beneath the cool poplars
On the banks of the mossy springs
That flow in flowering meadows from a thousand sources,
And vanish beneath dark thickets.

Rest, O Phidylé! Noon on the leaves
Is gleaming, inviting you to sleep.
By the clover and thyme, alone, in the bright sunlight,
The fickle bees are humming.

A warm fragrance floats about the winding paths,
The red flowers of the cornfield droop;
And the birds, skimming the hillside with their wings,
Seek the shade of the eglantine.

But when the sun, low on its dazzling curve,
Sees its brilliance wane,
Let your loveliest smile and finest kiss
Reward me to for my waiting!

TRANSCRIPT

Hi everybody, I’m Karen Hart Glass. Hey, how are you doing today? It’s time for It’s All About Food! And today, we’re going to dive into the world of herb spices and seeds. Not just because I love them for their flavor.

And you’ve probably heard that they also pack a punch when it comes to nutrition. In my current food journey as an SOS-free vegan, meaning I’m avoiding salt, oil and sugar. I’m always looking for flavor, flavor opportunities.

Now, the first thing I have to say is I really appreciate very simple foods. And I think when you eat this way without the salt and the oil and the sugar that are kind of numbing your taste buds in some ways, like oil. I know it just coats your tongue and I don’t know how you can taste anything after that.

There are just a number of herbs and spices and seeds that I really enjoy using in different combinations or just by themselves. Sometimes I crave one or the other. And I’m always discovering.

I’m discovering brands that I prefer. I’m discovering methods of preparing a spice. And so I thought I would share a little of that with you today.

So I said we’re going to be talking about seeds, herbs, spices. And that includes peppers and paprika and cozy spices, all kinds of different things you can add to your food that elevate their flavor. But they’re also good for you.

But also just like, oh, just like everything. All things that are good for you, they all come with caveats, right? So we want to pay attention to where we’re getting our spices, maybe do a little research before we buy from a certain company we haven’t bought from before. And we’ll get into that a little bit too.

The first things I wanted to share are about onion and garlic. Now I use fresh onion and fresh garlic all the time. But I also like to use a dry onion and a dry garlic.

And I’m saying dry like right now on purpose. Because for a long time, I bought powdered onion and powdered garlic. I always buy organic and I typically buy in bulk.

I like to buy in bulk and herbs and spices are not something you really want to get too much of if you’re not consuming a lot of them, obviously, because you want them to be relatively fresh tasting. I do like to buy a lot of my herbs and spices in one pound bags. I use a lot.

The onion and garlic typically come around in smaller bags, maybe eight ounces and have to check. And one of the challenges I had with the onion powder was it was always getting sticky and drying and becoming hard as a rock. So I tended to open the bag, put it in a small, very small container, use a little bit at a time and try and keep the other bag that I opened that came in really free of air and well sealed so that it wouldn’t dry out.

It was still a challenge. But recently I’ve discovered granulated onion. Have you used granulated onion powder? It’s a little chunkier.

But what I love about it is the way they make it, the taste is sweet and delicious. And the fragrance, it’s like, you know, when you’re sauteing onions, you’re caramelizing onions, it just fills the kitchen with this wonderful aroma. That’s granulated onion powder.

The onion powder that’s really fine tends to be bitter. Now I have not done extensive testing on onion powder and granulated onion powder. Basically, I’ve just tried one brand of the granulated onion powder and I’ve been using onion powder of all kinds of brands for a very long time.

This one brand that I bought recently, I really notice a tremendous difference. Have you ever noticed the difference between granulated and powdered onion? And I know, I could make my own. Have you ever done that? I mean, basically you just chop up some onion and you dehydrate it and then you grind it or chop it into the consistency you want.

But right now I’m going to stick with the granulated onion that I’ve got and I’ve totally fallen in love with. And I feel the same way about garlic. Now, some time ago, I had heard about granulated raw garlic.

I mentioned it on the program before and I mentioned it because I’m on this continuous search for different ways to lower my cholesterol without taking a statin. And I might sprinkle a little conversation about my frustrating journey with high cholesterol in this program. But I had heard that raw garlic might help.

But that’s a really challenging thing to do to put intense raw garlic on everything you eat every day and live in this world and socialize with people. But I discovered this keen raw garlic gets an organic granulated garlic and they tell you on the website, you could make it yourself if you want to. I haven’t gotten there yet.

But I’m enjoying using bears. And although I’m not using it as something to lower my cholesterol with, it’s just part of my overall plan to include foods that have some properties that can lower LDL, some very modestly, some very hardly noticeable and some more significantly. And raw garlic is one of those that’s supposed to help.

But what I discovered was I just enjoy it. I enjoy sprinkling some of this raw granulated garlic on my food. And what’s great about it is just like any flavor, not everybody is going to agree on how much of it they want.

I’m someone who doesn’t like salt. But if you like salt, you could take the same food that I’m eating and add salt to it. And everybody’s happy.

And some people like more salt. And some people like less salt. And some people like pepper.

And some people like all different kinds of flavors. And maybe some people don’t like raw garlic. So it’s just a nice thing to have on the table.

Instead of a salt shaker, you have a granulated garlic shaker. And that’s what I’ve been doing with it. And I really love it.

So you may know that I make big quantities of soup every week. I like to have a bean soup on hand for when I don’t feel like cooking or when I need a quick lunch or something. And it’s really great to have these big jars of soup made by me to my specifications in the refrigerator.

And sometimes they’re not as flavorful as I would like or in the mood for. And then, you know, just like, sometimes I’ll do actually 30 twists from the shaker of this ground, of this granulated raw garlic. And it really perks things up.

So that’s something I really, really enjoy. And to get into the next item I want to talk about, I’m always encouraging people to use what they have in their home. You’ve probably heard the story.

I’ve probably said it here on this program or other people have said it. But often when people get on a health journey or they want to eat better, they’ll buy the foods they want. They put them in the refrigerator and then they don’t eat them and they go bad.

Or you might have different condiments or different items in the refrigerator that last a really long time. And they’ve been in your refrigerator for a really, really long time. Those things should go bye bye.

I’m constantly doing inventory and making sure everything gets used and used in a delicious way. But that everything gets used and recycled. So nothing’s old.

And that’s true with spices to herbs and spices. Although I will admit, I buy most herbs and spices in one pound bags organic. I put them in little containers and I’ll get into the containers in a minute because that’s partially what prompted the idea to do this particular podcast.

I keep them in a large box in a cool dark pantry. And all of the bags, once I’ve opened them and put a small amount in my containers that are going in the kitchen, I squeeze out the air, really seal them up well and keep them in this dark box in this cool closet so that they last a really long time. And they do.

I have some herbs and spices that are a few years old and they’re still good tasting. But the point is to use them and I will admit I bought some large quantities of herbs that I realized I wasn’t using. So I started to use them.

And one of them was celery seeds. I don’t know why I bought them initially. Maybe they were supposed to go in a combination of some kind of spice mix.

I’m not really sure. But I just forgot about them. What do you do with celery seeds? Well, I learned a few things about them not too long ago.

One is I decided since I’m making soup, I might as well throw them into the soup. I like putting seeds in soup. You don’t ultimately feel them or feel the crunchiness of them once they’ve been cooked in a soup.

A lot of the smaller seeds will soften and they just add a really nice dimension to the soup flavor. And since I like celery, I thought why not try celery seeds? And of course, if you look up what’s in celery seeds and if you look up what’s in any herb or spice or seed, you find that they’re nutritional powerhouses. So celery seeds have compounds in them like celery called thaloids.

Thaloids. I’m butchering this word modestly reduced cholesterol. So that’s where the bell went off in my head.

Ding, ding, ding. Another item I could put in my food that might help knock down that LDL a little. And I also like to use fennel seeds and caraway seeds.

They also have benefits. They can support hard health and maybe have lipid lowering effects, but really, really weak. But every little bit of flavor, I want it to bring something positive to my palate and to my body.

Celery seeds are described having a warm, slightly bitter, earthy flavor. And of course, like many herbs and spices are rich in antioxidants and they can help reduce inflammation, support digestion. You hear that about a lot of herbs and spices and seeds.

They can help lower blood pressure, reduce water retention, manage blood sugar level, and support bone health due to their rich nutrient profile. But you don’t want to do too much of anything. And what I want to do is have a big selection of foods, of course, plant foods that are colorful and bring all of these wonderful heart healthy, body healthy profiles to the dish, whatever I’m making.

So celery seeds are going in my soup. And while we’re on the subject of seeds in soup, I mentioned fennel and caraway seeds. And I love them both, not too much, just enough.

But the fennel seeds or the caraway seeds give a really interesting dimension to the broth. Now I’m never looking for animal flavors. I’m never looking for flavors to taste like meat.

But I have noticed in some Asian brats, like a pho, for example, it has a depth that they use often in their veggie beef broth. And it’s fennel. And fennel is often used in sausage, right? So it’s an interesting flavor that’s often used with our meat recipes that I don’t use.

But I like to bring them to my soup and other things. And then occasionally, it depends on what kind of soup I’m making. But caraway seeds are also very nice, nutty, earthy with a hit of and that similar kind of anise licorice-like flavor that comes in fennel seeds.

So just think about throwing some seeds in your soup. You know, when you buy a bouillon cube, did you ever think of reading the ingredients and seeing the whole mix of things that they add in addition to salt? Now, of course, you can get some bouillon cubes that don’t have salt in them. But I think I started learning by reading the ingredients in a bouillon cube and saying, wait, I have all of these herbs and spices.

I can just throw them in and do it myself. And now in my new salt-free world, this is where I’ve landed just lots of different herbs and spices, but you have to be careful because too much of anything may not be good for numerous reasons. The first reason flavor, because I’m talking about flavor, but also too much of one herb or spice can impart some of the things we might be concerned about, like letting cadmium.

And maybe I’ll get to that in a bit. And that’s why you might want to try to start with a blend, a ready-made blend to see if you like the mix. And then you can experiment on your own.

I enjoy it very much. Have you ever noticed when you go for a walk on a warm day, the sun is out and the sun is shining down on all of the green things that are growing wherever you are? Hopefully you’re walking in an area that has green plants and trees and isn’t all cement. But getting a little poetic, when I lived in the south of France and I used to go for walks in fields or woods that had walking paths, I would love to just breathe because there was time, T-H-Y-M-E.

There was the herb time growing everywhere. Oh, did it smell so delicious. So as you walked, you were lifted by that lovely perfume of that fresh herb time.

And of course, it would be hard to resist not picking a little bit and bringing some home for a tea. Time tea is really quite lovely and popular in Europe. And it’s no wonder it’s because it just grows everywhere, at least where I was in the south of France.

And then there’s also those big bushes of rosemary that are growing. And I would like to just pinch off a bit and breathe it in and smell my fingers just so lovely. And then the lavender, now I’m not pushing flowers a lot in food, but just a little bit of lavender, like in the Evda Provence mix, is really quite low.

And then walking in California, for example, I would always notice the fragrance of dill and fennel. And I love that smell of the sun baking down on wild growing dill and wild growing fennel. Basically anywhere in the warm weather, when you’re walking in a field, you can smell those plants that are kind of lightly baking, and their aromas are coming out.

It’s just so delicious. And these fragrances have even inspired artists, so many of them. One of my favorites is the song Fidile by the French composer Henri Dupas.

I remember when I first started learning it and singing it, and I was living in the south of France, I really related to the poetry. I will just read to you a piece of the song translated in English. Rest, O’Fidile, noon on the leaves is gleaming, inviting you to sleep by the clover and time alone in the bright sunlight.

The fickle bees are humming a warm fragrance floats about the winding paths. It’s these fragrances that we are meant to enjoy, either walking in a field or in the woods, breathing in, and then of course we can’t do that all the time, but when we’re home and we’re preparing a meal, whenever I open a jar of herbs or spices, the first thing I do is breathe in and inhale the fragrance. Now, I do that for a number of reasons.

One is I want to make sure that it’s fresh and ready to use and still good to use, but also just to take in that moment, I do it with my teas as well before I prepare a tea, but it kind of brings me to another place. It’s just a few seconds, a quiet meditation to bring the body into a warm, nurturing, relaxing, fragrant space, and you could do that any time. And I know many people don’t have the time to cook or don’t know how to cook or don’t want to cook or don’t like to cook, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I’m always encouraging to find that time, find that space, and one of the moments that I really enjoy about preparing food or even just preparing my tea is this fragrant moment to breathe it in and journey to the place where it came from.

Marjoram and savory, summer savory, were two herbs that I wasn’t used to using and I bought two one pound bags, organic of them when I started buying herbs in bulk. And at some point, I was panicking because I had this obsession of using things and not letting them sit and rot, and I thought I’ve got to start using them. Well, I’ve discovered that they’re both really quite light and sweet and pleasant.

The description for Marjoram is mild, sweet, floral, similar to oregano but gentler because oregano can really pack a pungent flavor, right? And oregano can be slightly bitter but not Marjoram. And savory is also kind of mild like that, but it’s slightly minty, it’s kind of a little peppery, and they both of course come with health promoting properties. Marjoram has vitamin Z and C and anti-inflammatory compounds and savory has known for its antibacterial properties and supports respiratory health.

And just a brief clarification, I’m talking about summer savory, which is an annual herb and as I said it has a sweet peppery flavor. I don’t have winter savory, maybe you like that better, it’s a perennial herb with a bolder earthier taste, but what I like about the savory and the Marjoram, the summer savory is this gentleness, this gentle sweetness, and I’m finding in soups that I like to have dimension, and I like to have a sweet background, not that it’s a sweet flavor, but just the sweetness that goes with all of the other complexities and layers, and Marjoram and savory will do that. Now many of us of course find comfort in flavors that we were brought up with, and dill is that kind of herb for me because it was often used to flavor the traditional Jewish chicken soups that I was familiar with.

Now I don’t make chicken soup obviously, but I do love adding dill in my soups, it just gives to me that comfort, especially in in a brothy kind of soup. I love to have that dill background along with granulated onion and granulated garlic and maybe some other spices. Dill can be described having a fresh grassy flavor with a hint of anise, that licorice flavor again, and of course it has vitamin C and supports digestion and a whole host of other positive benefits.

I love dill. I also love sage, of course I use it during Thanksgiving, I love it with root vegetables like potatoes, sage butter can be really yummy, now of course I’m not eating a dairy butter and I’ve also given up vegan butters because they’re oil based, but I have been experimenting with a nut butter with sage in it that can be fun to use, but I’m still working on that on that pairing of what I like to pair that sage flavor with, but I’m thinking I want to get more sage in my life. Do you have a lot of sage in your life? Sage is a member of the mint family and it has a strong flavor so you don’t typically want to use a lot and you know a lot of other herbs are in this same family, oregano, rosemary, basil and thyme, I love all of those.

And it’s high in vitamin K, it has minerals like magnesium, zinc and copper, but there are studies that are showing all kinds of benefits. One thing that caught my eye, there was one study that found drinking tea from sage, both raised antioxidant defenses and lowered drumroll please, lowered LDL or bad cholesterol, people in this study who drank two cups of sage tea every day saw these benefits as well as an increase in good cholesterol levels. Now two cups of sage tea can be a lot and there are caution about consuming too much of sage or too much of any herb.

I don’t think two cups is considered too much from what I’ve seen in the cautions, but still there are so many teas one can drink in a day and I love drinking tea and so many different teas bring benefit especially for what I’m looking for lowering LDL. So right now I’m drinking a poor tea which is supposed to help in lowering LDL, but there are so many other teas, the sage tea for example. The list is endless and if I was working on drinking them all every day I’d just float away and so with all the minerals and electrolytes in my body they would just be washed away.

So I can’t do everything everywhere all at once as the title goes, but it’s wonderful to have variety and as I mentioned before I want to bring to my cup or my plate the nutrients that will benefit me and do it in a delicious and diverse way. So sage tea might be another beverage that I include. Sage just has so many different benefits from using it as a mouthwash because it has antimicrobial effects that aid in killing plaque.

Sage has estrogen-like properties okay for some the alarm may go off our estrogen-like properties. We always talk about soy and it’s estrogen-like properties, but it’s a plant not a human estrogen in soy so we don’t have to worry because all the data shows that soy is helpful and brings benefit and that these plant-like estrogens can kick in when we need estrogen help and back off when we don’t. I haven’t studied the estrogen-like properties of sage, but it has been chose to ease symptoms like hot flashes and excessive sweating.

So some people like to take a sage supplement and that’s another way to get the benefit of all these different herbs and spices is to get them in a concentrated amount in a supplement. Personally I’m looking for getting the benefits of all of these things in food because I think when we’re taking them as food we’re not getting concentrated amounts that may bring benefit but could also be toxic so we have to really consider a balance and then there’s basil. Do I have to pick a favorite? It might be basil.

I have a little tiny garden on our terrace. I’m growing basil. I’m growing cilantro.

This year the output has not been great which is disappointing. I would really love to have tons and tons and tons of these herbs growing but it’s just not happening but I do have fresh basil and I love it. Love it.

Love it. But I also love dried basil when I can’t have fresh basil or when it’s more suitable in different recipes and I buy it by the pound organic and it is so yummy. If I’m just doing a quick stir fry for example and I don’t want to think about it too much I throw in a good amount of dried basil.

Now it’s probably because I associate basil with pesto. Pesto that traditionally has not only garlic and olive oil but parmesan cheese. I haven’t had a pesto with parmesan cheese in almost 40 years but somehow I taste it.

I taste this cheesy flavor and I use the basil but it’s not a cheesy flavor. It’s a basil flavor that I associate with pesto that used to have cheese in it. Are you with me on this? Whatever it is I find it really delicious and it’s a strong flavor but a pleasant flavor at least for me.

I just love basil. I love all of these fresh herbs just a little bit sprinkled in to my salad. I don’t typically add them to the dressing.

I just like to throw in small pieces of the leaves into the salad. It kind of gives a nice surprise in different bites when you’re having the salad where oh all of a sudden you get a little dill moment or you get a little basil moment and that makes the salad itself interesting in every bite because every bite is not the same. Just one moment for tarragon.

I don’t like tarragon. I want to apologize to tarragon who are saying that I don’t enjoy its flavor but it’s it’s got a bitter sweet flavor. I don’t know how to describe it.

It just doesn’t work for me. Now sometimes a little bit of tarragon mixed in with a blend like ebb to provolence is fine but when it’s definitely tarragon flavored it doesn’t work for me and that’s another important point I think a little bit of different flavors can create a wonderful flavor. Some flavors that you think you don’t like but might appear in a small amount with a blend can be wonderful.

So don’t rule that out if you see an ingredient that you know you don’t like unless it’s cilantro because we know that some people have a gene that makes cilantro’s flavor really offensive. Happily I don’t have that gene. I love cilantro and we grow a little bit on our terrace like I said before it’s not as abundant as I would have liked but I really enjoy it and it always goes in our guacamole.

And a moment about fresh herbs which I haven’t talked about.

I don’t like to waste. You’ve heard me say that before and when I’m preparing fresh parsley or basil or cilantro, there are all those stems. And you can choose to either chop those stems up really, really, really, really, really, really fine.

I mean, really fine. And include them in whatever you’re making, a pesto or guacamole with the cilantro. Or you chop them up also kind of diced and add them to your soup.

Sometimes I like to add the stems of cilantro and not chop them up too much so that they’re kind of stringy. And it’s like a noodle almost, so you can play around with that. But don’t waste them.

There’s so much flavor nutrition in the stems of all the plants that we like to eat. Okay, let’s move on to the red, orangey, yellowy, lovely, dried spices. I mentioned the colors here because I love going to markets that have an open-air selection of spices in large.

Barrels or baskets. I don’t see them very often in the United States. They do appear here and there.

I think the first time I saw one of these was when I was visiting Israel in 1988. And I was at one of these beautiful markets and the spices there were just amazing and so colorful and so fragrant. Temerics got in a lot of press.

There are more and more studies that show how helpful it is. It has wonderful properties, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-cancer. When I was going through my cancer journey in 2006 and I went to the block center outside of Chicago, one of the nutraceuticals that I was taking was curcumin.

I took a lot. And what’s interesting while thinking about this, getting ready for the show, is that we have since learned that curcumin is better absorbed when we consume it with a fat and or black pepper. And now there are supplements that come with the black pepper added to the turmeric or the curcumin, which is isolated from the turmeric.

And I just wonder, all that curcumin I was taking back in 2006, was it a placebo? Was it working? Was I absorbing it? Was I needing to take more of it because I wasn’t taking it with these other things that enable its absorption? I don’t know. Do you? Just fun things to think about. Things that we think are healthy in the past and then we learn maybe not so or maybe could be consumed in a different way.

It’s interesting. But turmeric is a great spice. Again, another one you don’t want to overdo when you’re cooking because it can be bitter.

I like it in soups, of course. My weekly soups, I always sprinkle some turmeric in there. And then it’s nice as a tea.

I like to take ginger, ginger powder or fresh ginger with turmeric powder or fresh turmeric if you can find it in your market. And I like to make a tea of that. It does not have to be sweetened, but sometimes those flavors are a little too intense and bitter, so you may want to sweeten it with whatever sweetener is in your kitchen toolbox.

And what I mean by that is some people are using sugars and maple syrups and honeys and agaves. My go-to sweetener is a homemade date paste or a homemade apricot paste, which we make from dried apricots. And they’re all quite yummy.

There’s cumin and cardamom and coriander. I love them all. I’m a particular fan of cardamom with its sweet floral citrusy flavor.

I like to use it along with coriander, which also is kind of citrusy and sweet. I like to put them in a mix with garbanzo bean flour when I’m making a crepe or some kind of flat bread with garbanzo bean flour. I find that when you pair these flavors with the bean flour, it takes away the beanie flavor.

Because sometimes you don’t want to have a beanie flavor in a bread-like product. And garbanzo bean flour is just one of the most magic things on the planet. But I find it’s better when I add certain spices to it to give it a delicious flavor.

And then there are some of the spicier spices, but ones that come with a little heat. I want to talk a little bit about chili powder. Chili powder can be smoky, spicy, complex.

Sometimes it comes as a blend. And I always try and find the chili powder that is not a blend. It’s just made from a particular chili.

It’s not always easy to do, but I buy it. And most recently I was looking for a dark rose chili powder. And I bought one, but it was spicier than I was expecting.

But something you have to keep in mind, and this is what motivated this particular podcast, was the bugs. And I’ve mentioned bugs before, but I believe I bought some chili powder not too long ago that had some little bugs in it, the kind that multiply. But the kind that bury themselves in your red spices.

And when I found it, it was disturbing. Now I know there’s plenty of dead bugs in our food. That’s just the world we live in.

And it’s okay. I know that there are rules that say you can have a certain amount of dried cockroach in your cocoa powder. Sounds disgusting, right? But bugs are everywhere, and we need them.

I love insects. I don’t want to put them down, but I don’t want them crawling alive in my little boxes of spices. So I got rid of it, but it made me reevaluate how I’m storing my spices.

So you may remember years ago, we decided to buy these tin boxes that had a cover that sealed seemingly well, and we’ve been using them for a very long time. And I’ve enjoyed them, but we have recently upgraded. Some of the problems with these tin containers, they were not good to wash.

I didn’t want to get them wet, especially the covers because the covers were about a half inch thick and not solid inside. So I think water could get into them and then it would be really hard to dry. And I never felt like I could get them clean if I wanted to clean them or change what I was going to use them for.

So that was one problem. I also don’t think the seal was as good as it could be because the bugs from the chili powder got into a few other boxes. Oh, that was so distressing when I discovered that.

So new procedures. One is, whenever I order a bag of herbs or spices, they’re going to go right away in the freezer for a week. And if there are any bugs or any larvae or anything lifelike in there, a week in the freezer will take care of that.

And that way they won’t continue. And then I’ll be able to put it in my little jars and store it afterwards. So what I did this time is we got rid of all the tin containers, recycled them, of course.

And I put all of the herbs and spices that we had in our pantry. I put them all in the freezer and I kept them there for a week and made sure they would be good to go when I wanted to use them again. And then we ordered a different kind of storage container.

We got glass jars that have a lovely silicon seal and a lever where you can close it shut, clamp it shut. And I put all the herbs and spices in there. What I love about this upgrade is I can see all of my colorful spices.

Now we keep them, this is important, we keep them in an area that doesn’t get sunlight. So it’s not getting the light which can degrade them faster. And they’re not near the heat.

This is something that really drives me nutty. I’ll watch a food show occasionally. And sometimes I see the person’s spice rack right next to the oven.

It can either be above or right next to it, but in a place where heat goes. And I always recommend to never, never, never keep your herbs and spices near a heat source. Because they’re not going to keep their freshness, they’re going to degrade.

So we keep all our herbs and spices way, way, way away from the heat source. And they stay fresh a very, very long time. So I’m excited about our new upgrade because I can see all of the herbs and spices.

I can see the colors, it’s really a joyful little space. Plus the silicon seals came in different colors. So each jar has a little accent, it’s either blue or green or pink or orange.

I forget what all the colors are, but they’re different. And maybe it’s obvious. But you can buy spices in the store in smaller quantities and they come in plastic containers.

I don’t recommend that. Now some do come in glass and that’s better because we don’t really want to keep our food in plastic. And if we do use plastic, it should be for a very short time.

Or maybe in a very cold environment where the plastic is less likely to degrade and get into your food. But these red spices aside from the potential for bugs, they have so much flavor. You may not like the heat, but there are some peppers that have less heat than others, but still a lot of flavor.

I love smoked paprika. It’s sweet, smoky and a very mild heat. And it comes with great nutrition, vitamin A, carotenoids.

I love using smoked paprika. In recipes that traditionally might have a meat in it like a ham, like a split pea soup. As I mentioned before, I associate flavors of herbs and spices with foods that I was brought up with, basil and parmesan.

I taste a cheesy flavor in the parmesan because it’s either there or I somehow have been wired to think it’s there. And the dill brings certain feelings and flavors to me. Tarragon, unfortunately, in a negative way makes me think of chicken.

The smoked flavor in paprika, however, doesn’t make me feel like I’m eating pork. So I can’t explain it, but I like the smoky flavor that paprika brings to a split pea soup. And we use it in many, many different things.

Moving on to the warming spices. Can we talk about cinnamon for a minute? So you may see these blog posts or here are their podcasts talk about cinnamon. And many of them say you really need to buy Ceylon versus Cassia.

So there are a number of different types of cinnamon and they come from different locations. The big concern is that the Cassia type has a high level of cumarin, which, if you eat a lot of it, can be problematic. And Ceylon cinnamon is considered safe or due to its low cumarin levels.

But there’s many cinnamons out there and if you’re not reading the label, you don’t know what you’re getting. And if it doesn’t say, it’s very likely Cassia. Now, I don’t know if Cassia is going to be a problem for people and I probably have consumed a lot of the Cassia type cinnamon.

It’s only if you have certain health issues and you consume a lot of it. One teaspoon of cinnamon weighs about 2.6 grams. And I’ve read that Cassia cinnamon is possibly unsafe when taking a dose is larger than 6 grams daily for a long period of time.

So just keep that in mind. Are you consuming a teaspoon of cinnamon from an unknown source every day? Maybe you are. I’m not.

If I consume cinnamon, it’s a sprinkle or maybe a half a teaspoon per serving. I’m not concerned about it. That being said, I have Ceylon cinnamon, but variety is a spice of life, right? And Ceylon cinnamon tends to have a thinner, more delicate flavor, whereas the Cassia cinnamon has a strong spicy pungent flavor.

Maybe you would enjoy that sometimes. Just something to think about, something to keep in mind. The Ceylon cinnamon is either shown as Ceylon cinnamon or cinnamon verum, cinnamon verum verum on the packaging.

I’ve talked about ginger a little bit. I can’t say enough about it. I love fresh ginger.

I love it in smoothies. I love it mixed with apples when I’m making an apple sauce. I love it in tea.

I love it in my green juice. Sometimes I like a shot of ginger or ginger tea. Ginger is a great thing.

And if you don’t care for it, you don’t have to have it. But it brings a lot of good nutrition and sports digestion, anti-inflammatory. And it’s warming because it’s so spicy.

I also like cloves. And cloves are fun because if you have an oral health issue, certainly you should go to your dentist and take care of it. But in the short term, it could be beneficial to have a little clove tea or chew on an actual clove.

And it can help minimize the effects if there’s a looming infection or something like that. But if you have a problem, please see your dentist. And then there’s nutmeg and mace.

Mace doesn’t get the press. It deserves. Now we love nutmeg.

We tend to keep the dry seed of the nutmeg and grind it as needed. Then it’s fresher. A long time ago, I found a recipe for carrot cake and it called for mace.

I didn’t know what mace was. The only mace I was familiar with was the spray that you would use in self-defense against an attacker. So sure, I’m coming for him.

But I found mace and I bought it and I love it. And I have this personal rule that that’s the only spice that goes in my carrot cake. I love nutmeg, but mace.

It comes from the same place, the nutmeg tree. And inside the fruit is a hard pit, the nutmeg seed. And surrounding the seed is a bright red lacy covering called the arrow.

And when dried, this arrow becomes mace. While the seed inside is ground into nutmeg. So they have similar flavors.

Nutmeg is warm, sweetie, nutty. Mace is a little more delicate, a little spicier. And maybe have a little hint of pepper.

If you like nutmeg and you haven’t tried mace, that might be something you might like. So as I continue on my journey, lower cholesterol, I just want to give you an update. It’s been a little over a year since I started the SOS free regime.

Eating vegan, of course, whole foods, but not eating salt, oil, and sugar. I’ve reported this before. I really enjoy eating this way.

I know my body loves it. And I know that I look better and feel better. And it’s a funny thing.

When I tell people to go vegan, I tell them, you never know how good you can feel until you do this. And that’s true. But to keep elevating the way you feel, that’s at some.

And I feel eating this way does that elevates your sense of wellness. But the truth is, even with this SOS free diet and losing 12 to 13 pounds and adding certain supplements in my life, Dr. Furman’s LDL biotech, which I take six capsules a day. The recommended dose is two early in the day and two later in the day.

And I take three at each sitting, which he recommended for those of us trying to significantly reduce our LDL. I also added Citrus Bergamot, and I’m trying to consume more raw garlic in terms of the granulated garlic, these little things that are supposed to help reduce LDL and total cholesterol. I’m drinking all the TUs that have very positive properties.

Sadly, my LDL has only dropped a little bit. Now, it was originally never higher than 150. And I may have brought it down to about 130 range, even 140, depending on the day of the test.

It’s dropped a little bit. If my LDL was higher than 150, I would be more concerned. Fortunately, it’s not.

And so I’m going to continue on this path. I do not want to take a statin. I know too many people that have tried statins and have issues with them.

I don’t want to take one. Who knows where I’ll be in the future. What’s interesting is I’ve collected my blood results since the 90s.

Well, I have one data point from the late 90s and the rest are from the last 20, 25 years. And I did have normal cholesterol when I was younger. So what’s going on? What’s going on in my body as I age? That’s causing the higher LDL.

I’m trying to address this as best I can with diet and lifestyle. And so when it comes to flavoring my food, I just want to review the ones that I found that show evidence of reducing cholesterol, either significantly or modestly. Celery seeds modestly reduce cholesterol.

Fennel seeds limited, but they do other good things. And caraway seeds as well. Very, very, very early research suggests possible lipid lowering effects, but not as strong as others.

And then the herbs oregano sage. Sage is really interesting with being able to reduce LDL cholesterol and raise HDL. I want to work on that one a little bit.

And all the friends, thyme, margery, dill, basil, tarragon, savory, direct, cholesterol-lowering, evidence is weaker, but generally supportive of cardiovascular health. And then there’s garlic, the raw garlic, commodities lower total in LDL cholesterol, especially when used consistently. So careful when you talk to me.

And similar to garlic is the onion granulated. Can support cholesterol reduction, turmeric, cumin, coriander, cardamom, a little weaker, but also can support lipid health. And peppers and paprika.

Capsaicin, the compound that makes them spicy has been shown to lower cholesterol in some studies. And then there’s ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and meth. The most promising are garlic, turmeric, cumin, coriander, chili, peppers, ginger, cinnamon, sage.

Right, so I’m going to keep using them. Maybe add a little more, have a little more flavor in my foods. And variety is the spice of life, right? Spice, spice, and herbs, and seeds, and delicious plant foods.

Now the caveat here, just briefly, all foods have their story, and we’re finding more and more that our soils are contaminated or have too much of something in certain areas. And there have been studies coming out that certain foods have higher levels of lead and cadmium. And this is true of some herbs and spices.

Companies that sell herbs and spices, some of them will have information on their website and they’ll talk about their methods of testing that they meet federal levels or they may go beyond, or they don’t mention it at all. And that’s something that you’ll want to look into when buying your herbs and spices. Consumer reports came out with an article, high-lived levels in cinnamon powders and spice mixtures, which was concerning.

But I remember when they came out with an article on the lead and cadmium in cocoa. And talking to the owner of Pasha Chocolate, who I’ve interviewed numerous times, was explaining to me privately how the article on cocoa, for example, didn’t really evaluate things fairly. And he and other companies have since increased their methods of checking their products for lead and cadmium at the source and in their products, some are more transparent than others.

One of the things I take from all of this is variety is good. And too much of anything can be problematic. I don’t want to panic.

I don’t want to create worry around my food. I want to make smart choices. But we live on a polluted, toxic planet, folks.

We just have to do the best we can. And know that when we’re choosing foods that are high in nutrients, they will help our body remove the toxins that we may take in. When we’re eating a diet that is not helpful, we’re overloading the body unnecessarily with toxins and the body can be overwhelmed and not be able to effectively remove the toxins, remove the materials that aren’t good for us.

So ideally, we consume the foods that are high in nutrients, that are health promoting, and if they come with things that aren’t good for us, our body can effectively remove them. In addition to that, I always think it’s so important when we eat to have positive thoughts in our head. It could be in the form of a prayer.

It could be in the form of a mindful thought process before we eat or drink that we want to take in the good things that we’re grateful for what we’re receiving from so many places because our food goes through such an incredible journey, every ingredient all around the world. There’s so much energy that comes in every morsel of food, not just caloric energy, but a kind of spiritual energy that we want to acknowledge that and be grateful for it. And as we’re eating, let our body know, let our 30 trillion, 50 trillion cells, whatever we’ve got in there, to know that they should take what’s good and let the rest go.

So that’s what I’m going to leave you with today. Just some flavorful messages on herbs, spices, seeds. I mentioned earlier the song by DuPont called Fidele.

It’s a song I recorded a long time ago and I love singing it, and I’m going to include it as a link in this post should you want to listen to it. I recommend listening to it and opening maybe a container of herb deprovence or thyme, breathing it in and imagining being in this lovely, relaxing, fragrant place. I’m Karen Hartgloss, you’ve been listening to It’s All About Food.

Thank you so much for joining me. Thank everyone at Progressive Radio Network for making this program possible. Have a delicious week, everyone.

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