Do you shake turmeric atop your food? If not, you should. I’ve added it to my meals for years, because it helps our bodies fight infections and cancer. It’s great for the gut. It helps prevent heart disease and soothes arthritis. (See University of Maryland Medical Center) It performs these miracles because it contains curcumin, a health-enhancing superstar.
There’s more. For those of us who want to stay sharp in our later years, it’s especially important, because using turmeric is an easy and effective way to ensure optimal cognitive function (i.e, it helps your brain be fresh and perky.) It keeps a particular ‘bad protein’ at bay (Apo E4, if you want to look it up) and it enhances memory (by increasing the levels of BDNF – for more info , here’s an easy-to-read book by Dr. Oz: You: Staying Young)
A friend discovered its health benefits just a couple of weeks ago, and excitedly shared. I felt guilty. She could have been reaping the benefits as long as I have, if I’d just talked to her. I had a similar experience a couple of months ago, when another friend called me, excited about organic gardening. “I bought this book, and it tells how to do it!” he said.
In 1977, I first tilled, sowed and harvested my own garden. I was an organic gardener before it was a ‘thing‘, because it would never have occurred to me to put chemicals on plants I was going to eat. Instead, I paid attention to companion gardening, to soil composition, to the nutrient needs of each type of vegetable, and they thrived. Always have. (I still have a 1983 Mother Earth News special publication about gardening, and I refer to its section on soil preparation with every new garden I create.)
Again, I felt guilty. I would have been happy to share the how-to’s, if I’d known he didn’t know.
After fifty-five years of living as a curious, passionate and experience-oriented person, I’ve amassed a pretty good repertoire of skills. I’ve raised goats, heated with wood, hung clothes (including TWO sets of cloth diapers – at the same time) both summer and winter (didn’t have an electric dryer for the first 10 years of adulthood), built garages and bedrooms, remodeled kitchens and bathrooms. I can sew and quilt. Can and dry food. I’m a good cook whose off-the-top-of-the-head recipes include protein-balanced vegan fare and delicious meals to accommodate any food allergies. I can cure the worst diaper rash using all-natural remedies, and put the most colicky baby to sleep.
I like to camp and bike and hike. I’m interested in astro-physics and M-theory. Literature. Art. Music. Baseball. I’ve visited holy Iona Island, read the works of the mystics, and consider myself a serious spiritual seeker. And we haven’t even begun to talk about professions…
How am I supposed to share all of that? The last thing I want to do is be one of those alarming know-it-alls who broad-spread unwanted information and advice. On the other hand, I want to be available as a resource to my friends.
I guess that’s why I’m writing this blog. To share. To grow and to learn. To connect.
So. Turmeric. Get it. Use it. And next time, I’ll talk about other nutritional superstars. Which you can read or not read. But at least, I’ll have shared!
Seeking My Best Self 
[…] In addition, ingesting green tea and rosemary helps reduce iron absorption. Also helpful is turmeric. An iron chelator, it helps remove iron from the body. Here’s a earlier post about the wonders of tumeric: Tumeric, Gardens, and not being a Know-It-All. […]