More About Turmeric

From the Shangri-La Diet forums:

I’ve begun taking turmeric and it’s been a miracle. I used to be really into rock climbing and this really messed up the big toe in my right foot. (Wearing shoes 2.5 sizes too small and bearing all my body weight on my toe joints will do that, apparently.) The podiatrist said it was arthritic in nature and that the only thing that would stop it was to stop climbing. So I did. One year later, the pain had lessened, but it still hurt, and I couldn’t start running again.

Last week, on a humbug, I tried turmeric. I made some vile anti-inflammatory spice concoction and managed to get a few tablespoons of it down. It probably would have ended there because it was so freaking disgusting, but I noticed later that day that my toe pain had diminished to a dim sensation that was barely uncomfortable. Desperate to come up with a non-disgusting means of taking my new “medicine,” I settled on mixing turmeric, cayenne, and yellow mustard into a paste. It tastes like grainy, spicy mustard and I take about a tablespoon in the morning and a tablespoon at night. I’m also trying to take some fenugreek, cinnamon, and cardamom. I mix the fenugreek with my green tea, allow it to steep and expand between brewings, and then eat the seeds once they get soft. The cinnamon and cardamom are pleasant enough, so I just chew on them. (I use mexican cinnamon, probably 1/3 to 1/2 stick per day.

Vile Spice Mixture = VSM. James Lind tried a VSM in his famous scurvy experiment; it had no effect.

The Wonders of Turmeric.

Thanks to Heidi.