Cinnamon: Warming Winter Spice for Good Health

Think chocolate is a winter comfort and healing food? Wait until you hear about cinnamon. This agreeable spice is not just about adding zing to cookies anymore. Cinnamon is valued as one of the world's most important spices, and recent discoveries have uncovered a host of its healing uses.

For spice and medicine use, cinnamon trees are cultivated on plantations in tropical regions, including Indonesia, which is where Yogi gets its high quality cinnamon. The outer bark of new shoots is stripped, leaving the inner bark, which is the harvested spice. The strips of dried bark curl up into the familiar sticks, or "quills."

Cinnamon use dates back thousands of years. Egyptians added it to their embalming mixtures around 500 B.C. Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans utilized it as a spice, perfume, and medicine. By the seventeenth century, Europeans regarded cinnamon as a culinary spice and nineteenth century Western doctors recommended cinnamon as a valuable digestive remedy.

For culinary purposes, cinnamon bark is a warming spice that figures prominently in the cuisines of North Africa and the Middle East. It goes well in cold, sweet dishes like fruit juice and cooked grains (think cereal).

Cookie bakers smell attractive. A double-blind study of aromas found that the smell of baked cinnamon buns had the greatest aphrodisiac effect on men. In the follow-up study, the odor that was the most, er, attractive to men was, surprisingly, a combination of lavender and cinnamon-rich pumpkin pie.

The list of healthy uses for cinnamon is a long one. Here are a few:
• Menstrual cramps. Cinnamon is largely known for being a muscle relaxant. It's my favorite remedy for this condition.
• Killing bacteria. Cinnamon can preserve foods, and prevent infections.
• Controlling blood sugar levels in diabetics. A dose of 1/8 to 1/4 tsp of ground cinnamon per meal for diabetic patients may help to regulate their blood sugar levels. It's easy to get that much in as a delicious tea.
• Controlling inflammation. People who eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables have high blood levels of salicylic acid, the anti-inflammatory ingredient in aspirin, and generally have a lower incidence of heart disease and cancer. Cinnamon has one of the highest concentrations of salicylic acid.
• This herb traditionally excels in treating flu. It supports immune functions and cuts mucus.

This one is really a winner. Do you guys have any other healing uses to mention? How about favorite cinnamon recipes?