Мы have already written about the benefits of spices more than once, but it will not be superfluous one more time. It’s not that the entire editorial office cannot count food as food without pepper, cardamom, or cloves. But a part of us – just like a part of you – follows the figure, and for the figure, spices are really necessary.
Spices can regulate appetite, accelerate the breakdown of fats, inhibit the activity of fat cells … How can you live without spices!
It turned out that spices do another good deed so that we go to the scales with joy, and not with timidity. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania (USA) found that spice consumption limited the rise in blood insulin levels and triglycerides, which are fats. This means that it will be much more difficult for calories obtained from food to turn into body fat.
The study involved 6 experimental subjects aged 30 to 65 years, overweight. First, they ate food for a week without any seasonings. And in the second week, they ate dishes with rosemary, oregano, cinnamon, turmeric, black pepper, cloves, dry powdered garlic and paprika. Not only did the spices help reduce insulin and triglyceride levels by 21-31% within 30 minutes – 3,5 hours after a meal. Already on the second day, the participants in the experiment showed their lower (compared to the previous week) level even before eating.
Insulin, as you know, is the very hormone that is directly involved in the conversion of carbohydrates into fats: the more it is, the more active the process is. It also interferes with the breakdown of fats. And besides, a sharp rise in the level of insulin in the blood is accompanied by the same sharp decline – which we feel like an attack of hunger. If insulin enters the bloodstream slowly, then subsequently there are less risks in darkening an empty stomach to do stupid things and eat “something wrong.”
Well, as a bonus, fortifying food with spices increases its antioxidant properties by 13%. So we love spices not on a whim, but very, very deservedly.