As I sit through another rainy day in WV. I am dreaming of warm and sunny days. All this rain and chilly weather is playing havoc on my joints. I have been seeing a lot of research on natural anti-inflammatory agents. One that keep popping up was turmeric. What does turmeric have to do with Barbados? Fish cakes are served at elegant cocktail parties and rustic rum shops throughout the Caribbean, the latter being three or four times the size of the former. As health conscious as we are all trying to be, hot fish cakes passed around at a gathering go like smoke in the wind. They are also popular as a take-away item, with the tell-tale grease stains seeping through the little brown paper bags they are often sold in. The sauce is the best part of the treat. The secret ingredient is turmeric. Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a culinary spice that spans cultures - it is a major ingredient in Indian curries, and makes American mustard yellow. But evidence is accumulating that this brightly colored relative of ginger is a promising disease-preventive agent as well, probably due largely to its anti-inflammatory action.
When examining the research, turmeric benefits go beyond that of these 10 drugs:
- Anti-inflammatory drugs
- Anti-depressants (Prozac)
- Chemotherapy
- Anti-coagulants (Aspirin)
- Pain killers
- Diabetes drugs (Metformin)
- Arthritis medications
- Inflammatory bowel disease drugs
- Cholesterol drugs (Lipitor)
- Steroids
So moral to the story is: I need to be Barbados eating fish cakes!