An Anti-Inflammatory Drink with Fresh Turmeric Root
I just made a turmeric milk recipe using fresh turmeric. Turmeric is anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, reduces blood sugar, helps with arthritis, pain, infections, viruses, candida and is even a food preservative; this is just of the benefits. This recipe tastes even better than using turmeric powder because fresh turmeric isn't as bitter.
The main active ingredient in turmeric is curcumin and to make it more bio-available, you need 3 things: heat, fat and black pepper. Examples of fats you can use are coconut milk and olive oil, but I prefer to make a drink coconut milk, rather than a shot with olive oil.
The amount of black pepper needed to make it effective is very little and if you're worried about the taste, the cinnamon and cardamom pretty much takes over, giving it a nice, spicy flavor. Ceylon cinnamon is considered to have more health potential than cassia cinnamon.
You can peel and grate the turmeric root as you would with ginger. If you've got gloves, use them to protect your hands. Fresh turmeric will stain like dried turmeric can. As you can see in the photos, my hands turned yellow. Not really a big deal, but I let it dry on my fingers and my keyboard got stained.
This recipe is a bit of extra work, so I threw the rest of the turmeric root in a small food processor and stored it in the refrigerator to use later.
INGREDIENTS
2 inch fresh turmeric root
6 ounces coconut milk
2 teaspoons honey
2 sprinkles of cinnamon, preferably Ceylon
1 sprinkle of cardamom
2 sprinkles of black pepper
DIRECTIONS
Cut off the root ends. Slice the sides, making a long rectangle.
Peel off any remaining skin on the corner edges using a spoon.
Using a grater, grate the root down, or process in a small food processor.
In a small pot, heat the coconut milk& turmeric root just until the milk edges bubble a little.
Remove from heat and add in the rest of the ingredients.