You get more than just a flavor enhancer when you add a pinch of black pepper to any recipe. This spice is top-notch and brings a number of health benefits while providing flavor to your food. Adding black pepper to your food may help with weight loss, help with colds and coughs, help promote weight loss, treat skin trouble and boost metabolism. There are some risks inherent, which means moderation should be used.
Is Black Pepper Bad for You?
NO, actually, black pepper is beneficial for health. Black pepper can help with nasal congestion, asthma, sinus trouble and weight loss. It can help reduce cancer risk, as well as liver and heart ailments. Consider the following benefits:
Digestion Improvements
Getting black pepper in your diet raises hydrochloric acid secretions which improves digestion. This can help prevent constipation, colic, and diarrhea. The pepper can prevent intestinal gas, and promote urination and sweating. This helps to remove toxins and cleanses the body of foreign bodies, as well as excess water. Uric acid, fat, excess water, and urea is passed in urine. Urine is composed of 4% fat. Healthy digestion is essential for weight loss, and improves your body’s overall function, preventing gastrointestinal problems. Black pepper is carminative, therefore helps to pass gas from the body in a downward motion, which is much healthier than in an upward motion, which causes problems with the chest cavity, and all your vital organs.
Losing Weight
Is black pepper bad for you? No. Peppercorn outer layers help with the breakdown of fat cells. This means that peppery food can help aid weight loss. Broken down fat cells can be processed and applied to enzymatic reactions and other processes, instead of being stored as fat.
Skin Care
Black pepper has been shown to help with vitiligo, a skin disease causing some areas to become white. London researchers found the piperine in pepper stimulates skin to create melanocyte pigments. Skin cancer risk from over exposure to ultraviolet radiation is reduced with increased use of pepper.
Respiratory Relief
There are some tonics for treating coughs and colds that have pepper added to them. Pepper can provide sinusitis and nasal congestion relief. The expectorant properties help break up phlegm and mucus depositions of the respiratory tract. Black pepper has a natural irritating quality that can promote sneezing, therefore loosening and ridding the body of elements. It can also induce coughing which can help you expel infection and recover from illness.
Antioxidant Potential
There are antioxidants in black pepper that help to repair or prevent free radical damage, aiding in cancer prevention, as well as helping to promote healthy cardiovascular systems and levers. Cellular metabolism produces free radicals as a by-product and they attack healthy cells causing mutations into cancerous cells. Antioxidants are essential to neutralizing these terrible compounds, helping to prevent you from getting sick, and neutralizes premature age spots, wrinkles, memory loss and mascular degeneration. So is black pepper bad for you? No.
Antibacterial Properties
Black pepper has an antibacterial property that helps fight insect bites and fights infections. When added to the diet it can help to keep your arteries clean by acting as fiber does, and taking excess cholesterol from artery walls. This helps reduce atherosclerosis, which is largely responsible for stroke and heart attack.
Bioavailability Improvements
Black pepper can help to maximize the efficiency with which we digest food by transporting the benefits of herbs and nutrients throughout the body. Adding it to food not only adds flavor, but helps with the nutrient absorption and accessibility.
Cognitive Function Improvements
One of the components in black pepper is piperine, which has been shown to help with cognitive malfunction and memory impairment. This organic compound appears to stimulate some important chemical pathways in the brain. Early research suggests pepper can aid Alzheimer’s patients and those with dementia, along with other age-related or cognition malfunctions related to free radical-related problems.
Peptic Ulcer Treatment
Is black pepper bad for you? No. There are studies that show black pepper to have a positive effect on peptic ulcers and gastric mucosal damage because of its anti-inflammatory properties and antioxidants.
Asthma Benefits
Pepper can be used with benefits for respiratory conditions because of its expectorant properties and anti-inflammatory properties.
Further Benefits
Using fresh ground pepper at home is better than getting it already powdered. Though whole peppercorns can stay fresh indefinitely, fresh ground powder only stays fresh for about three months. Add a pinch to meals to help improve taste, aid your digestion and improve overall well-being and health.
Possible Risks of Black Pepper
Black pepper has piperine like red pepper has capsaicin. Both are the main substances behind the hot flavor and spice associated with them they also affect the nerve receptors similarly. Piperine may not have the zip that its chili cousin has, but those who are allergic or overly sensitive may feel a sensation of pain instead of hot and spicy.
You should avoid breathing black pepper in or getting it in your eyes. It has been shown to have some poor interactions with medications. It can affect how the liver breaks pharmaceuticals down. It could lead to an increased occurrence of side effects. Medicines that are noted to interact are fexofenadine (Allegra), ketoconazole (Nizoral), and oyastatin (Meyacor). Any of these medications may interact so consult a physician before significantly increasing black pepper in your diet.
Tips for Adding Black Pepper to Your Diet
When black pepper evaporates, it loses its aroma and flavor. Piperine can also become tasteless by reacting with light. It is best to store your dried peppercorns in a pepper mill, or airtight container. Keep this in a cool, dark area of the kitchen. You should grind immediately before eating to get the best flavor.
The easiest way to get black pepper in the diet is to sprinkle on meals as you eat. This may mean you add a shake or two to soups and stews, casseroles, beans and eggs. Add pepper closer to the end of cooking, as the benefits break down when heated overly long. Some people even add it to vanilla-flavored ice creams and yogurts. This unusual combo makes for a unique taste.