Cinnamon as we know it is the inner bark of the cinnamon tree and has had so many different usages during thousands and thousands of years. They were even used it in ancient Egypt to embalm mummies with. Now to some of the health benefits of cinnamon, and there are quite a few.
A compound in cinnamon called cinnamaldehyde gives cinnamon its flavor and odor. Cinnamaldehyde in cinnamon helps prevent blood-clotting, which can help to prevent stroke, peripheral arterial and coronary artery diseases.
Cinnamon spice has the 7th highest antioxidant strength of all the food sources in nature and is therefor really good at handling our free radicals. It scores 131.500 on the ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) scale. In comparison wild blueberries has 14.000 ORAC score and dark chocolate has 21.000 ORAC score. So, cinnamon is a REAL free radical fighter, but what we need to remember is, that we eat it in very small amounts. For the antioxidants I would be better of eating 100 g. of dark chocolate than 10 g. of cinnamon BUT I wouldn´t get the fat and sugar, that I would get when eating a lot of chocolate.
The spice contains health benefiting essential oils such as eugenol, also called the oil of cloves, that has a pleasant, sweet aromatic fragrance to it. Eugenol has got local anesthetic and antiseptic properties, and is therefore employed in dental and gum treatment procedures.
Cinnamon slows the rate at which the stomach empties after meals, reducing the rise in blood sugar after eating, and it may also significantly help people with type 2 diabetes improve their ability to respond to insulin, and thereby normalizing their blood sugar levels.
A study from 2003 showed, that in humans with type 2 diabetes, was found to reduce blood sugar levels (18-29%), triglycerides (23-30%), LDL (bad) cholesterol (7-27%), and total cholesterol (12-26%) in 3 groups who were given only 1, 3, or 6 grams of cinnamon daily. So, you do not have to complete the cinnamon challenge and eat a whole tablespoon to get an effect.
Cinnamon is a natural anti-microbial, anti-biotic, anti-fungal, and anti-viral agent. The immune-boosting abilities of cinnamon are found in cinnamon’s essential oils. Cinnamon oils also have protective abilities against various bacteria which can cause negative symptoms in the digestive tract, on the surface of the skin, and can lead to colds or the flu.
Cinnamon is shown to protect against bacteria living in the oral microflora that could cause things like bad breath and tooth decay and can therefore with success be used in chewing gum.
It has been shown that your brain functions can be boosted, and your cognitive processing enhanced just by smelling cinnamon. How cool is that!
Cinnamon is a good source of both calcium and fiber which is an excellent combination, as they both can bind to bile salts and help them be removed from the body, so they can´t do any harm to colon cells and thereby help to reduce the risk of colon cancer.
My favorite way to eat cinnamon is on my favorite snacks. Apple pieces with a lot of cinnamon, tossed in a little bag and let to set for minimum an hour in the fridge which makes them sweeter. You can take them to school or work and they will be delicious hours later and not oxidized and boring at all!
I am also crazy about chai latte and this way you do not only get your cinnamon but also other spices like ginger, cardamom, cloves and nutmeg and it is SO good on a cold winters evening.
Advertisements Share this:
