Secret Ingredient – Part 1

I love food. I like finding new recipes, watching people cook, cooking, eating, and learning about what food does to your body. I love food. If I had my dream job, I’d open a bakery/café and be around food all day.

I also love being healthy and skinny. These loves don’t often mix. It is my goal in life to have my loves co-exist.

My favorite additive to almost any food is cinnamon. Breakfast, lunch or dinner, cinnamon can be that added something that is missing from what could be a fantastic meal.

Go ahead, think about taking a walk in the mall. Cinnabon with their wonderfully fattening cinnamon rolls, or Auntie Annes with the cinnamon sugar pretzels. Yum. Now, lets go to Starbucks and order a Pike Place Grande coffee. Pretty good. Now add a dash of cinnamon and taste. Difference is night and day with just a pinch!

In history, we see cinnamon mentioned in the bible during Moses’ time. That’s believed to be between the 17th-19th centuries BC! Chinese history has cinnamon documented as far back as 2800 BC. Cinnamon is why Columbus ended up in the Americas. I mean, what’s America with apple pie and no cinnamon?

 Why do we love cinnamon so much?? It’s just bark.

Cinnamon, or Cinnamomum verum, is a small evergreen tree native to Sri Lanka. Cinnamon the spice is from the tree’s bark. Cinnamon is harvested by growing the tree for two years and then coppicing it. This is a fancy term for cutting the tree down and leaving the stump. The tree can re-grow from the stump and be re-harvested. Cinnamon is so cool, it’s even Green. From the branches of the tree, the outer bark is scraped off and then beaten to loosen the inner bark. The inner bark is dried for 4-6 hours, and cut into 5-10cm lengths for sale.

Once ingested, cinnamon can do some amazing things for your body. Scientifically, the use of cinnamon to help lower blood glucose levels is most interesting.

Blood glucose is just the amount of glucose circulating in your blood. Glucose is a sugar that your body uses for energy, usually found in carbohydrates. Think breads, pastas, donuts. Typically, your blood glucose levels are fairly level. In the morning they are low, and after eating, they spike. When you have a high blood glucose, your body stores the excess as glycogen, first in your liver, and then in your fat tissue for later use. When you have low blood sugar, like when you are exercising, your body uses your storage tissue for energy. So, if you have high blood glucose levels, such as after eating a foods rich in glucose like any carbohydrate, your body stores more, and your fat tissues get full.
Yikes.

 Enter Cinnamon.

A 1985 study showed that the stomach emptied ~35% slower with cinnamon supplementation as opposed to none. Two benefits. One, you aren’t as hungry as often, and two, you store less glycogen because of a slow and steady level of blood glucose over time.

Scientists have also found that cinnamon can enhance the efficiency of insulin in the body. Your body releases insulin to help lower your blood glucose levels.

Studies have also showed that the supplementation of even as little as 1 gram of cinnamon daily reduced blood sugar, triglycerides, (bad) cholesterol in type 2 diabetes patients.

But, let’s not forget Apollo’s advice. 1. Know thyself. 2. Everything in Moderation.

There is a health risk with cinnamon due to the natural presence of coumarins. Coumarins are toxic when too many are consumed, which has caused scientists to warn those who consume cinnamon at every meal. Since even as little as 1 gram (4 tsp) helped the type 2 diabetes patients in the study, it is best to err on the side of caution and not exceed more than 4 tsp/day. Might I suggest that you don’t literally eat a tsp of cinnamon or you’ll unknowingly take on the cinnamon challenge.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Secret Ingredient where I give you a few of my favorite cinnamon recipies!