Can spices improve your health?

Kanchan Koya grew up in a house filled with wonderful fragrances from the spices simmering on her grandmother’s stove. In India, it was a common belief that spices were more than just pleasant tastes. Ancient wisdom said they had medicinal properties, and it was common for household medicine cabinets to store dried spices, not pills.

Kanchan grew up to become a molecular biologist, studying in the US at Harvard Medical School. When her lab began to investigate turmeric’s healing properties, the ancient wisdom from her childhood met the scientific inquiry of her adult life - beginning a lifelong obsession with the health benefits of spice. 

In today’s episode, Kanchan and regular guest Tim Spector help us understand whether there is any scientific evidence to support the health benefits of spices, the easiest way to add spice to our diet, and which ones to choose.

• Kanchan Koya is the founder of SpiceSpiceBaby and The Radical Vitality Podcast with a Ph.D. in Biomedicine from Harvard University and training from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition.
• Tim Spector is a co-founder at ZOE and one of the top 100 most cited scientists in the world.

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If you want to uncover the right foods for your body, head to joinzoe.com/podcast and get 10% off your personalised nutrition program.

Timecodes:

00:00 - Intro

00:10 - Topic introduction

01:19 - Quickfire questions

02:17 - What is a spice

04:23 - How did Kanchan’s passion for spices begin?

06:56 - What do we know about how spices affect our health?

12:16 - The latest science on spices

17:07 - Which spices are best?

24:46 - How to start using spices?

27:56 - Hacks to start using spices for the best health benefits possible

30:55 - Quality of spices 

35:45 - Storage of spices

36:53 - Summary

37:53 - Goodbyes

38:47 - Outro

Episode transcripts are available here.

Read ZOE’s PREDICT Studies here.

Know more about the 5 spices you should embrace here.

Follow Kanchan: https://www.instagram.com/chiefspicemama

Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/

This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.