CINNAMON – WHAT PROPERTIES DOES IT HAVE?
Cinnamon is one of my favorite spices. Personally, I love adding it to coffee or making cinnamon rolls out of it. Cinnamon is used in cooking, but also in cosmetics and medicine. It has antibacterial, antiviral and anti-inflammatory and many others effects. This spice is made from dried cinnamon bark. It’s brown and tastes sweet and a little bit spicy. It’s one of the basic spices used in natural medicine, and its properties are mentioned in the herbal book from 2800 BC. In my work, I’d like to describe some of these properties.
As I said, it has antiviral and antibacterial properties. It can be used as a natural antibiotic in the treatment of diseases such as colds and flu. It deletes Salmonella bacteria from our body, which unexpectedly can be found in raw meat. Cinnamon oil fights respiratory infection and parasites such as lice, ticks and mosquitoes.
According to research by scientists from the University of California, cinnamon can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Scientists from the Rush University Medical Center in the US have discovered that cinnamon reverses the changes in the brain of people suffering from Perkinson’s disease. It also improves blood flow to the brain and all organs, which make memory and concentration better.
Too much of this spice is very toxic. You can safely eat about 6 grams a day, which is about 1.5 teaspoons. The famous dietician Zofia Poems on her Instagram explained why too much cinnamon is dangerous for our body. Most people have ceylon cinnamon in their kitchens, and as it turns out from a woman’s research, this kind won’t hurt us. Important here is the issue of coumarin, which is not too much in this type of cinnamon. Other varieties have higher values of coumarin, which is toxic to the liver. You can consume no more than 01 mg/kg per day.
Cinnamon can also be dangerous for pregnant women. They especially should be reasonable, some people even think that pregnant women should completely eliminate this spice from their diet. It can hurt not only the woman, but also the baby. In the third trimester, it can even lead to miscarriage.
As I said at the beginning, cinnamon is used in cosmetics. It is used, for example, in the production of body oils, toothpaste, creams and washing gels. It helps in the fight against acne, prevents tooth decay, and combined with peeling cleanses the skin.
Weronika Wojnowska (3a)
