There’s a superfood in your kitchen hiding in plain sight. The common black pepper is actually a pain-fighting superfood with a wide range of nutritional benefits. Here’s what black pepper does for you and tips for drawing the spiciest kick from your pepper.
What Eating Black Pepper Does For Your Health
1. Reduce your pain
I write a great deal on the importance of antioxidants from food in fighting pain. If you’re dealing with chronic pain, spice up your diet with black pepper. Peppercorns boost your immune system with powerful antioxidants such as carotenes and lycopenes. In addition, they also give you vitamin A and C. The combination helps you eliminate free radicals and reduce inflammation.
2. Strengthen your bones and heal wounds quicker
Peppercorns are a good source of manganese, a crucial element in developing healthy bones. Each teaspoon of peppercorns provides 21% of the daily manganese intake for females. Have a scrape from a fall? Manganese helps you develop collagen, a crucial element for healing wounds.
3. Lose weight
Black pepper will literally help you burn fat. Black pepper is thermogenic, which means it has the ability increase your metabolism. The manganese in black pepper also acts as a start button, activating the enzymes that boost your metabolism. Piperine, the volatile oil in peppercorns, also suppresses the growth of new fat cells.
4. Beauty benefits
Exfoliate your pores with black pepper. Add some ground black pepper to your facial scrub. The coarse quality of ground pepper will help rubbing off dead skin and leave you feeling like you just stepped out of the spa.
5. Boost your digestion
Piperine acts as a messenger that tells your stomach to produce greater amounts of hydrochloric acid. That acid is a component of your digestive juices that break down food, preventing undigested food from causing diarrhea, constipation, and acidity.
How to Use More Black Pepper
The servers at your favorite Italian joint know what they’re doing. Take a leaf from their book and grind pepper onto your plate just before eating. This keeps the piperine, the volatile oil that gives pepper its kick, intact to give you maximum benefit. Piperine evaporates if left in open air or when exposed to prolonged cooking.
If you don’t have one, do yourself a favor and pick up a pepper grinder and a bag of peppercorns. You can store the whole peppercorns in your cupboard for years.
Chew on this
There’s no spice more versatile than black pepper. I use my pepper grinder at least twice a day. Ground some pepper over your sandwich, give your salads a spicy punch, or add it to your weekday curry. Add black pepper to your food, spice up your diet, and boost your health.
