Inflammation

Inflammation is the body's natural defence against injury, infection or irritation. The problem arises when it becomes chronic and low-grade, smouldering in the body over months and years, driven by diet, stress, lack of sleep and inactivity.

Plants and herbs that help

Turmeric + black pepper, Curcumin has documented anti-inflammatory effects, and the piperine in pepper markedly increases absorption.
Ginger, Synergistic with turmeric (roughly a 5:2 ratio); measurable reduction in inflammatory markers.
Garlic, The sulphur compounds have shown anti-inflammatory effects.
Fermented vegetables, Support a healthy microbiome, which dampens chronic inflammation.

Recipes

Drink

Ginger-turmeric shot

This is the hardest thirty seconds of your day, and then it is over. Fresh turmeric and fresh ginger, blended with lemon and a pinch of pepper. It is sharp, earthy and slightly too much, and that is exactly why you feel it all the way down. Fresh turmeric beats ground if you can get it. It looks like a small orange ginger and stains everything it touches. Wear gloves, unless you want yellow fingers until Friday.

10 minutesEasy

Drink

Golden milk

Golden milk is an Indian evening ritual more than it is medicine, and that is part of why it works. You stand in the kitchen, stir a pan, and drink it warm while the house settles. The most important thing in the recipe is the part that looks most trivial: the pinch of black pepper. Turmeric is barely absorbed on its own, but with pepper the absorption rises dramatically. Without the pepper it is a yellow milk. The fat in the milk does the same. Curcumin is fat-soluble, so a full-fat milk works better than a skimmed one.

10 minutesEasy

Other

Fermented pointed cabbage with garlic

This is the recipe I always come back to. Pointed cabbage instead of white, because it is more tender and ferments faster, two fat cloves of garlic, and salt by weight. There is only one thing you need to be precise about, and that is the salt. Two per cent of the cabbage''s weight. Not a teaspoon, not a splash, but weighed. Too little salt and the cabbage rots instead of fermenting. Too much, and the bacteria you are after cannot work. The maths is easy: weigh the cabbage after shredding, multiply by 0.02. 800 grams of cabbage gives 16 grams of salt. The rest takes care of itself. You just have to keep the cabbage under its own liquid.

25 minutesEasy

The content here is general knowledge and folk herbal lore, not medical treatment. In illness, pregnancy, breastfeeding or alongside medication: always talk to your doctor first.