Black pepper helps us get more out of our food!

I have often said that if you are not much of a spice guru and can only handle 1 spice at home, make it black pepper and use it often. As a lifelong student of health and a farmer of many healing herbs and spices I have rotating favorites. It’s hard to keep just one when there are so many to love for so many reasons. But I have to admit, black pepper never leaves my top 3.  This is because not only does it bring so much aroma and flavor to every meal, is under appreciated by many (until you have tried freshly ground pepper corns from Cinco Ramas), ubiquitous in many tables around the world but also because it also holds many secrets and has played a huge role in history. For me it’s mostly the flavor and aroma though to be honest.

Black pepper is one of the most famous flavors in the world. Used in every continent if not country on earth. In North America nearly every restaurant and home include a salt and pepper shaker set on the dinner table.

Did you know that for centuries India produced nearly all the world’s supply? And that Cristóbal Colón (aka Christopher Columbus) “sailed the ocean blue” on a mission to find a more secure trade route to India for this precious and valuable spice?  Did you know that black pepper was found in the tombs of the pharaohs left there over 2,500 years before Christ? Or that when the Visigoths sacked Rome, they demanded 3,000 lbs of Black Pepper (in addition to gold and silver) as ransom? Or that during the Middle Ages, pepper corns were worth more than silver in weight? 

Well as it turns out, our good buddy Cris mistakenly “found India” right here in what we now call the Americas. Infect he went to his grave believing this beautiful land mass and people was actually the land of many spices and that he’d found the new trade route for Spain and the rest of Europe to use moving forward. Unfortunately for him, he did not find black pepper here, since he was not actually in India, but did find and leave many many other things we live around every day.  Imagine that we speak Spanish here today thanks to black pepper. That’s a pretty big role in history, I’d say.

So, what was all the hubbub about? Well, it has been known that black pepper was a powerful medicine for as long as humans have known that plants could heal, aka all of history.  I have not found the answer yet to how but somehow the ancient Egyptians even knew to combine black pepper with turmeric as the two were found mixed together there in the tombs.  This is interesting as it demonstrates the long distant trading relationship between India and Egypt and that they clearly understood the value of the medicine it holds even back in those times.

In modern times black pepper has been studied for its medicinal properties in thousands of laboratories around the world.  It has become well known to be a critical catalyst to help our bodies absorb many nutrients and even pharmaceutical medications.  

Piperine, the most renowned and powerful chemical, sometimes known as active ingredient, in black pepper, is known to increase the activity of the enzyme responsible for the permeability of intestinal cells. This is how our nutrients get from our food to the rest of our body parts. Piperine also alters the environment in the intestines to make it conducive to absorption of drugs and nutrients. “It is absorbed rapidly across the intestinal barrier, and it forms complexes with drugs enabling rapid absorption.” And “It even changes the microscopic structure of the intestinal wall to facilitate better absorption.” 

Can you believe it can do all that? Wow! The way chemicals in plants communicate with our cells fascinates me to no end. Sorry if this is not your jam.  I remain completely riveted.

You see, our bodies were built to require certain ingredients to live and to thrive but were also built to have many complexities like symbiotic relationships with microbes (yes, living things that live their entire lives in or on our bodies and we NEED them to live) and require us to combine foods in order retrieve and protect us from ingredients in the same foods we eat. We were built with biodiversity in mind. Black pepper works to help us absorb and use oil soluble nutrients like curcumin in turmeric, vitamins A, D, E and K, and many more. 

“It has been shown that piperine can dramatically increase absorption of selenium, vitamin B, vitamin C, coenzyme Q10 [1] and beta-carotene, [2]. Piperine also increases the bioavailability of herbal and conventional drugs such as resveratrol and curcumin [12].”

It has also been shown to amplify the effects of medicinal herbs and fungi from ashwagandha to reishi mushrooms boosting their medicinal effects too.

Amazing, right?

I haven’t even mentioned yet that it itself contains many substances which are responsible for some important biological activities: antioxidant, antimicrobial, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antipyretic, hepatoprotective, bio-enhancing and enzyme inhibitory activities. And full of calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, manganese, copper and vitamin A, E, B1, B2, B5, B6, K and tons more. 

So, as I often say, if you only have 1 spice in the house, make it black pepper and use it often because it compounds the effects of literally everything else you eat. It’s like a delicious booster shot for everything you eat and drink!