Ep432 - Kanchan Koya | Food and Spices as Medicine
Mar 26, 2024
auto_awesome
Chef and nutrition coach Kanchan Koya discusses the benefits of ancient spices and their role in promoting holistic health. She explores the use of cinnamon beyond holidays, diverse recipes in her cookbook, and the importance of spice variety for health benefits. Kanchan's podcast and cookbook offer tangible wellness tips integrating science with ancient wisdom.
Spices like turmeric offer potent health benefits as preventative medicine.
Incorporating a variety of spices in daily meals enhances well-being and provides diverse flavors.
Deep dives
Spices as Preventative Medicine
Chef Kanchan Koya emphasizes the health benefits of spices and holistic lifestyle changes as effective preventative medicine. Drawing from her cultural roots in India and her scientific background, she highlights the significance of incorporating spices like turmeric for their potent health-enhancing properties. This approach aims to promote wellness and vitality while integrating ancient wisdom with modern science.
Importance of Spices in Diet
Kanchan Koya discusses how spices, often underestimated, offer concentrated sources of antioxidants and beneficial plant-derived compounds. She dispels the misconception that all spices are spicy, emphasizing that they bring diverse flavors like floral and earthy notes. By incorporating spices into daily meals, individuals can enhance their health and well-being through flavorful and nutritious food choices.
Practical Tips for Cooking with Spices
Kanchan Koya encourages mindful and intuitive eating to reconnect with one's inner wisdom for nourishment. She recommends starting with familiar spices like black pepper and gradually expanding to include a variety of health-enhancing spices in everyday cooking. By breaking the notion that spices are intimidating, she suggests experimenting with versatile spices such as turmeric, cinnamon, and others to create new flavor profiles and enjoy the benefits of diverse spice consumption.
Chef, nutrition coach and former molecular biologist Kanchan Koya visits Google to discuss her cookbook “Spice Spice Baby” and her podcast “Radical Vitality”, where she uses science-backed evidence to encourage the use of food, spices and holistic lifestyle changes as our best preventative medicine.
Kanchan Koya is a chef, author, podcast host and nutrition coach, specializing in championing the science-backed benefits of ancient spices to help people live a more vibrant, healthy and joyful life. After a stint in the Biopharma industry, Kanchan decided to leverage her expertise in science and love of food to create Spice Spice Baby, a platform dedicated to highlighting food as medicine and the benefits of spices from a science perspective.
Kanchan is also the host and co-producer of the podcast “Radical Vitality,” offering tangible tips and tools for increased wellness and vitality while also integrating cutting-edge science with ancient wisdom.