A Tale of Turmeric
You could call it a “superfood”, but it is one of many examples of a whole food with powerful properties, just the way it’s packaged in nature. It is the definition of pleasing to the eye and good for food!
What is turmeric?
Turmeric is a plant with green shoots and tropical-looking leaves. If you were to uproot the plant, you would find roots that appear very similar to ginger root, but slightly more delicate. After all, they belong to the same family. A novice eye may confuse the two, until cracking the rhizome open to find the most brilliant marigold color.
If you’ve ever worked with turmeric, even just the powder, you will not be surprised that it can be used as a beautiful dye. I have a stained Tupperware as a lasting reminder of this fact. It is also a common ingredient in the cuisine of India, where the plant is native.
Health claims
Turmeric has gained eminence in recent years outside its native region, and for good reason. There is an impressive body of scientific literature lauding its ability to compare with or exceed the performance of leading pharmaceuticals in combatting a plethora of serious illnesses, to include cancer, in mere culinary doses.
Here are just a few of these exciting research findings:
Turmeric curcumin outperformed the standard-of-care pharmaceutical treatment for reduction of rheumatoid arthritis disease activity and associated symptoms. A group getting both the drug and the curcumin had fewer adverse reactions than the drug-only group. Check it out.
Turmeric curcumin has been shown to block the mutagenic (propensity to cause DNA mutations) effects of carcinogens (cancer fighting!). Look for yourself.
Turmeric curcumin selectively kills cancer cells by numerous mechanisms. Because it interrupts cancer in more than one way, it limits the cancer’s ability to adapt and develop resistance, a problem with chemotherapy drugs. Learn more.
Daily turmeric consumption had the equivalent effect of up to an hour of daily exercise on endothelial function (the health of blood vessels, directly related to cardiac disease risk) in postmenopausal women. Trust but verify.
These are just a few over 5,000 studies investigating the health promoting effects of this spice.
So then what is curcumin?
You may have noticed that most of these findings reference “turmeric curcumin” rather than just turmeric itself. Curcumin is the pigment that gives the spice its characteristic color. It was first isolated from turmeric in 1815, and its chemical structure was characterized nearly a century later. Curcumin is thought of as the “active component” of turmeric, holding many health benefits in its isolated form, as evidenced by some of the research findings described.
Curcumin illustrates a couple of themes that reverberate throughout the plant kingdom.
First, the colors and the flavors are the health-promoting compounds. This is not only true of the vibrant yellow-orange curcumin of turmeric, but also the anthocyanins that makes blueberries dark blue and the lycopene that makes tomatoes red. You may know some of these compounds as “antioxidants”, but many of them are also antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer. When looking at foods in their natural packaging, we can let colors (and flavors) guide us to good health. We naturally do this in the produce aisle. We are drawn to the reddest peppers and tomatoes. We know from experience that the more colorful ones are the most flavorful, but they also contain the highest concentration of health promoting compounds.
Although the pigment compound curcumin is powerful, as demonstrated by numerous studies, the whole food is better than the isolated “active ingredient”. This is a second, recurring theme among plant foods. In seeking to understand mechanisms at a molecular level, scientists seek to identify and test “active ingredients”, like curcumin. This is a natural part of the scientific process; however, the supplement industry capitalizes on this data, literally. Backed by scientific data, they have established a whole market of turmeric curcumin supplements. They isolate the “active ingredient”, megadose-it, and sell it at a premium without regulations on purity or efficacy. Their audience is a population seeking health, and willing to pay for it. And pay for it they do: the turmeric supplement industry was valued at $511M USD in 2023 and is projected to grow to $767M by 2031 (Global Turmeric Supplements Market Size, Share, and Trends Analysis Report).
Can we just bottle it up?
A common misconception promulgated by this industry is that an isolated megadose of curcumin (or substitute the health-promoting compound du jour) should be even more health-promoting than culinary doses of the whole spice. The problem is that curcumin appears to account for only part of turmeric’s power.
Although research directly comparing curcumin and whole turmeric is limited, there is data to suggest that turmeric itself (yep, just that cheap yellow powder you purchase in the spice aisle of your grocery store) outperforms the isolated curcumin in disrupting cancer in vitro (that is, in an artificial environment). One research study even found that curcumin-free turmeric is as effective, if not more so, than turmeric with curcumin. There is clearly more at play here than just one chemical compound. We need not spend money on supplements; experimenting with new colors and flavors in the kitchen is sufficient.
This is great news for someone like me, who philosophically believes that we shouldn’t need to cheat the system, that real food should be enough, just as it is, in all its health-promoting, disease-fighting, colorful, flavorful goodness. In fact, scientific data, over time, seems to affirm that real food is not just enough, but it is ideal. Turmeric is but one example.
Is turmeric a “superfood”?
There is temptation when confronted with the information above to knight turmeric with the coveted title of “superfood”, and it would certainly fit the definition. Turmeric does appear to be uniquely impressive in fighting disease, and I hope you are inspired to incorporate it into your diet. However, I hope your takeaway is broader than that. This is but one well-studied example of how beautifully real food is designed to nourish us and help us fight disease, while being exceptionally delicious, just as it is. The less we interfere, the better.
“Well-studied” is a key term. One might be led to believe that kiwi fruit is the healthiest fruit, solely because of the sheer number of research papers demonstrating their health promoting effects. It is indeed healthy, but it’s also healthily funded—the New Zealand government financially backs scientific research that supports one of its largest industries. There aren’t often incentives to fund research studies on specific produce.
We don’t have to hop from food to food as they fall in and out of vogue with hot new research studies and trendy headlines. I love to marvel at the specifics, but apply the findings more generally, contextualized within a broader worldview—food is pleasing to the eye and good just as it is in ways we are only beginning to comprehend.
The wisdom of tradition
Another helpful way to contextualize emerging scientific data is to look at how people have historically consumed a food, before all our “knowledge” got in the way. This can help us avoid the temptation to hyper-consume, process, or isolate components of a given food. Within the context of turmeric, daily consumption is on the order of ¼ to 1 teaspoon powdered curry. This can guide us away from choking down a turmeric sludge or gnawing on a turmeric root in the name of fighting cancer. Natural consumption of culinary doses in food is certainly sufficient to harness health-promoting effects.
In looking at how populations have traditionally consumed turmeric, we can glean some additional wisdom to which science has finally caught up. Turmeric is largely consumed as part of curry powder containing multiple different spices, to include black pepper. Black pepper contains a flavor compound called piperine that can boost the bioavailability (i.e. its meaningful presence in the bloodstream) of curcumin by 2000%. This relationship has been specifically studied, however the mechanism (reducing the liver’s ability to clear it) likely exists for other components of food and drugs.
Some will point to the evolutionary genius of developing a taste for natural foods that are health promoting, or the evolutionary wisdom of plants that develop colorful fruit so that animals will eat it and sow their seeds. I see genius and wisdom, but I can’t help but also see a loving, creative God that provides a vast world of colorful, flavorful food to nourish us.
Give it a try!
I find that there is nothing that inspires me more to explore new healthy foods than learning something new. I hope you feel inspired to try to incorporate turmeric into your diet. Here are a few things you can try:
Try a curry
This isn’t a recipe blog, but here is one you can try! There are numerous recipes out there with any type of protein or vegetables you prefer. This is also a great meal to use a recipe as a guide for the sauce and structure and utilize whatever components you have on hand.
Branch out with a tofu scramble
I was a late convert to tofu but have become a huge fan. I hope to elaborate on the tofu topic in a future post, but a tofu scramble is a great way to incorporate both tofu and turmeric for audiences that might be new to both. The turmeric gives the tofu its eggy yellow appearance in this spin on a typical tofu scramble. It is another opportunity to use up whatever vegetables you have on hand. There are a lot of different recipes out there, but I was first exposed to this one from NutritionFacts.org. I like to serve it with avocado and heap it on sourdough toast!
Sip some cozy golden milk or turmeric tea
There are few things I love more than two hands on a steaming mug of a cozy fall beverage, except all year round. Turmeric tea, store-bought or homemade, as well as golden milk or turmeric lattes are great ways to consume this spice.
I like to keep turmeric teabags on hand, and I also enjoy a blend of turmeric and ginger. I have made homemade turmeric tea using the whole root a couple of times (I love the recipe in Shalane Flanagan and Elyse Kopecky’s cookbook, Rise and Run), but I don’t find that I am motivated to go to the extra effort on a regular basis.
If you aren’t familiar with golden milk, it is a blend of turmeric and warm, autumnal spices with a hint of sweetness mixed in a milky base. You may even find it at a trendy coffee shop now and then, but it can be very simple to make at home also. Naturally caffeine-free, you can enjoy it all day long!
Blend it in a smoothie
This is something I have tried recently that may fall under the umbrella of non-traditional uses. I keep some turmeric root in the freezer and add about a quarter inch of the root to smoothies. My smoothies are a bit notorious for being more of a catchall for nutrient dense foods, frequently to the peril of its palatability and much to the chagrin of my husband; however, I find that a little fresh turmeric adds a bit of a punch with more subtle than the ground spice.
Mix up takeout night with Indian food
My husband and I recent spend a few year living in Japan, and ironically enough, we fell in love with Indian food! It became our go-to takeout night. If turmeric and its flavor is unfamiliar to you and you are looking for an easy way to dip your toe, try to find a good Indian restaurant near you. The spice is pervasive in Indian cooking, but particularly anything with the characteristic yellow-orange color will be sure to give you a dose of turmeric.
Hungry to learn more?
NutritionFacts.org is a non-profit dedicated to sharing the latest scientific research on nutrition topics. I love how the videos describe research studies and highlight the strengths and limitations of each. They have a whole section of articles and videos on turmeric, and that library can be found here.
