Health Benefits of Cooking with Herbs

If you want to change a very ordinary meal into something exceptional then cooking with herbs is a cheap and easy way of doing so. Not only can herbs enhance your meals but they have well known healing qualities. This gives you the best of both worlds. Delicious tasting food with added health benefits.

Herbs contain valuable vitamins, minerals and antioxidants just like all fruits and vegetables. What antioxidants do is to help neutralise the damaging free radicals in our bodies. Free radicals are dangerous molecules that can destroy cells in our bodies. This damage can lead to the onset of certain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease as well as causing premature aging as they cause tissue damage.

Free radicals are caused by environmental pollutants such as cigarette smoking, herbicides, excessive exercise, stress, radiation and car exhaust fumes. They are very unstable and like to bond with other molecules. Antioxidants, which are present in many foods, are molecules that prevent these harmful free radicals from damaging healthy tissue.

We come into contact of at least some of these free radicals in our normal day to day lives. As there are far too many for our bodies to cope with we need to ensure that we take enough antioxidants to counter activate the effects of the free radicals.

Antioxidants are found in fresh foods like vegetables and fruits, in particular in Vitamin A, E, and beta-carotene and they stop free radicals from causing enormous damage. This is one of the reasons why there is so much publicity about eating five portions of fruits and vegetables a day.

The best way to get antioxidants is from a healthy balanced diet rather than from vitamin supplements. This is because the body can absorb them easily. As antioxidants work in different areas of the body it is advisable to eat as wide a range of them as possible.

As well as eating a wide range of fruits and vegetables in as many different colors as possible e.g. red and green grapes, another source is from herbs.

Try adding some of the following to your meals:

Thyme - because it improves the immune system.

Sage - improves digestion, eases lung congestion and helps calm the nerves thus easing stress.

Rosemary - stimulates the liver into eliminating toxins from the body and improves circulation.

Eating a wide variety of herbs is just as important as eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. When eaten as part of a balanced diet they will help prevent some of these diseases and play a vital role in our overall health.