Adding flavor and aroma to cooking is often done with the use of various seeds, extracts, leaves, and other culinary components that may be fresh or preserved. It’s a common practice to add some kick to your cooking. How do you do that? Well, the answer’s simple – spices!

By definition, spices are seeds, roots, fruits, buds, and other vegetable substances that are used to add more flavor, color, and aroma to food. These spices also serve as preservatives to extend the food’s shelf life. Because spices and herbs are often confused together, a lot of people mistakenly interchange the terms. You have to understand that herbs are leafy and green vegetables that are often used as garnish to dishes that add flavor, aroma, and color – somewhat similar to spices, right? But the thing is that spices aren’t green and leafy vegetables.

What makes spices so special is that they contain an amazing anti-microbial property. This means that these roots, seeds, fruits, etc. have the ability to fight off germs naturally and through an organic means without having to suffer the various side effects of chemical medications that are sold commercially. Spices have the ability to fight infection and that’s also why spices are used in a variety of meat dishes because fresh meat is very prone to getting spoiled.

Spices may be used for a variety of reasons – as medicine, for religious rituals, as a part of cultural festivals, as aroma for perfumes, and as flavoring for food. This makes spices as a part of our daily lives, never missing from our cultures and our kitchens. It’s quite hard to go on with our lives without the use of spices, lacking a deep sense of flavor – both idealistically and realistically.

Many years ago, spices were considered to be one of the rarest and most valuable resources in the world. Used in trade worldwide, spices were praised and relished by those in nobility and those living as commoners. This movement united the two distinct classes as spices were used in their everyday lives and were later embedded into various cultures all over the world. And what’s surprising is that spices still remain to be one of the most important resources in the world, getting tons of imports and exports worldwide with trading of spices continuing for many centuries already.

The medicinal values of spices are considered to be exponential, even back in the ancient times. Back then, various spices were used to treat a number of diseases, both physically and spiritually. Spices were often burnt as incense or as scented smokes to drive away evil spirits and cure a person’s illness. As the science of medicine moved towards modernization, spices were still used as treatment for diseases as they are incorporated in oils, perfumes, teas, and a lot more. And it’s because of these health benefits that spices are still used in medicine today.

While spices have powerful benefits towards our health, they can easily be bought in stores and in supermarkets. If you want to know more about the various benefits of spices, this book might just be the thing for you.

In this book, you’ll be learning the best spices and how to use them, how to get them, and the different health benefits that they can give you. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to use spices and how amazing their benefits are. So let’s get it on!