If you bake a Swedish coffee cake, cookie or sweet rolls or make an Indian dish, you may use cardamom, also spelled cardamon. Most likely, you'll use the green cardamon for the sweets and brown cardamon for the savory side dishes from India. There is also Madagascar cardamon. The three varieties are members of the ginger family called Elettaria, true or green cardamon from India, amomum, which is black/brown/white or red cardamon and aframomum also known as Madagascar cardamom. You find them in different areas of the world. No matter which one you use, you'll still get the health benefits of cardamom, often thought of as the queen of spices.
Cardamom Nutritional Value
Cardamon is a good source of potassium and other minerals such as magnesium and calcium. It also contains copper, manganese and iron. Both iron and copper are requirements to produce healthy red blood cells and potassium helps control blood pressure. It also contains vitamins such as vitamin C, niacin and riboflavin.
While there are many folk remedies involving cardamon, there are also studies that prove specific health benefits of the spice. One study conducted by the Indigenous Drug Research Center at RNT Medical College, India, tested the potential of cardamon on twenty newly diagnosed individuals with stage one hypertension. They gave the individuals 2 doses of 1 1/2 grams of cardamon powder each day for twelve weeks. At the beginning the researchers took blood tests and evaluated the subjects' lipid profile; they took a blood profile to test for fibrinogen, fibrinolysis and the antioxidant level of the blood, in addition to taking blood pressure. They tested the blood every four weeks following. At the end of the study, the group showed no significant change in the fibrogen or lipids but there was a significant decrease in blood pressure and increase in fibrinolysis and the antioxidant levels of the blood.
Cancer Study
India was the home of another study, this one completed at the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute by the Department of Cancer Chemoprevention. It showed that by adding cardamom to the diet of mice, it inhibited the growth of colon cancer cells. In part of the research, they found that it even caused the death of human colon cancer cells.
Cardamon also has a diuretic property and increases the production and hence the output of urine. This factor makes it an excellent alternative to "water pills" often used by those with high blood pressure and may be one reason cardamon lowers blood pressure. It also is beneficial of ridding the body of accumulated toxins.
Prevents Blood Clots
Blood clots form because platelets clump together. This is platelet aggregation and can lead to coronaries, stroke and thrombophlebitis. Another study from India conducted at the Central Food Technological Research Institute showed that cardamom could help reduce platelet aggregation and therefore protect those taking it from the formation of blood clots.
Cardamom and Bad Breath
While not life threatening, bad breath can destroy your social life. In India, the use of cardamon for bad breath is centuries old. It seems to have an antiseptic quality because it's also beneficial for a sore throat and upper respiratory problems as well as treating ulcers in the mouth.
So if you want to help fight high blood pressure, prevent blood clots, detox or stave off colon cancer, you can use a bit of cardamon in your cooking. The worse that could happen is that you'd have fresh clean breath, since there are no apparent side effects from the spice.
