Kanchan Koya grew up in a house filled with wonderful fragrances from the spices simmering on her grandmother’s stove. In India, it was a common belief that spices were more than just pleasant tastes. Ancient wisdom said they had medicinal properties, and it was common for household medicine cabinets to store dried spices, not pills.
Kanchan grew up to become a molecular biologist, studying in the US at Harvard Medical School. When her lab began to investigate turmeric’s healing properties, the ancient wisdom from her childhood met the scientific inquiry of her adult life - beginning a lifelong obsession with the health benefits of spice.
In today’s episode, Kanchan and regular guest Tim Spector help us understand whether there is any scientific evidence to support the health benefits of spices, the easiest way to add spice to our diet, and which ones to choose.
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Kanchan Koya is the founder of SpiceSpiceBaby and The Radical Vitality Podcast with a Ph.D. in Biomedicine from Harvard University and training from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition.
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Tim Spector is a co-founder at ZOE and one of the top 100 most cited scientists in the world.
Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide
Timecodes:
00:00 - Intro
00:10 - Topic introduction
01:19 - Quickfire questions
02:17 - What is a spice
04:23 - How did Kanchan’s passion for spices begin?
06:56 - What do we know about how spices affect our health?
12:16 - The latest science on spices
17:07 - Which spices are best?
24:46 - How to start using spices?
27:56 - Hacks to start using spices for the best health benefits possible
30:55 - Quality of spices
35:45 - Storage of spices
36:53 - Summary
37:53 - Goodbyes
38:47 - Outro
Episode transcripts are available here.
Read ZOE’s PREDICT Studies here.
Know more about the 5 spices you should embrace here.
Follow Kanchan: https://www.instagram.com/chiefspicemama
Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/
This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.
