Tumeric vs. Curry Powder… what’s the difference?
The natural medicine world has been praising the powerful healing benefits of tumeric in the past few years because it has healing benefits like:
Anticancer
Anti aging/anti wrinkles
Anti inflammatory
It has also shown promise for:
Alzheimers disease
Parkinsons disease
Heart disease & stroke
Liver disease
Problem skin (acne)
In other words, tumeric has a cornucopia of healing potential because of it very powerful active ingredient CURCUMIN.
Curcumin is rich in antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties which, as you can see from the benefits above, can protect and improve the health of multiple organs of the body.
You can easily find for purchase supplements of turmeric and curcumin in your local pharmacy or health food store.
I’ve been seeing a lot of confusion about Tumeric and CURRY because they look the same.
What’s the difference?
Simple. The word “CURRY” is used for a combination of spices which includes tumeric. Tumeric is what gives curry powder it’s yellow color. Using a CURRY spice helps simplify cooking by eliminating the creative process of figuring out which spice combination to use and how much of each to use.
Spices found in curry powder can include many other healing spices like coriander, cumin, fenugreek and black pepper.
But beware of curry powder- it is NOT a rich source of curcumin because the amount of tumeric used can vary.
Another thing to be aware of… curry powder has nothing to do with the SPICE called curry which is derived from the curry leaf. The curry leaf has NO CURCUMIN, so don’t be fooled.
You can find many cooking recipes online that include tumeric. Recipes like Tumeric-Tahini Dressing, Honey Tumeric Pork or my favorite, Tumeric-Ginger Butternut Squash Soup. The cooking magazine, Bon Apetite even has a feature article from November 2017 that has 49 recipes using tumeric. You can see them all here: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/slideshow/turmeric-recipes
I found one very interesting recipe using tumeric face mask. As I mentioned above, tumeric has been known to help with anti aging and acne. A word of caution: tumeric stains the skin yellow, so I would suggest that you NOT use this face mask before a big presentation or night out.
Anti Wrinkle Face Mask
1/2 cup garbanzo (chickpea) flour*
1 1/2 Tablespoon tumeric
cooking oil (olive oil, coconut oil, grapeseed oil, etc)
water
1.) Mix the garbanzo flour and tumeric in a container with a tight fitting lid. Store in a dry place.
For the mask:
1.) Mix 1 Tablespoon of the above spice mixture in a small dish with about 5 drops of oil.
2.) Add enough water to make a paste (it should be the consistency of cake batter)
3.) With your hair pulled back, away from your face, apply the mixture on your face & neck, staying away from the eyes.
4.) Leave on for 15 minutes or until completely dry
5.) Wash off the mask in the shower
* Bob’s Red Mill makes garbanzo chickpea flour. I find this at my local grocery store but you can always order it online from Amazon HERE
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