Black pepper - Health Benefits

Black pepper - Health Benefits

Pepper corn

Scientific Name: Piper nigrum 
Family: Piperaceae 
Part of Plant Used: Berries 

Origin: India

History: The common peppercorn was once used as currency with landlords receiving a "peppercorn rent" and was also offered to the gods as a sacred offering.Pepper was likely the catalyst of the spice trade.

Known Active Ingredients: Piperine
Black pepper is a flowering vine of family Piperaceae cultivated for it's fruit which is called as berry,pepper corn(dried form).

Health Benefits: Pepper is known to alert the stomach to increase hydrochloric acid production, resulting in improved digestion. Likely owing to its stimulation of hydrochloric acid, which can also aid with heartburn and indigestion, pepper is known as a carminative, a substance that helps prevent formation of intestinal gas. As if this little ball of flavor isn't good enough already, the lowly peppercorn also improves the health of your digestive tract with its antibacterial and antioxidant effects.  And the cherry on top is that the skin of the peppercorn stimulates the breakdown of fat cells.It has been shown that piperine can dramatically increase absorption of selenium, vitamin B, beta-carotene and curcumin as well as other nutrients.The extract is found to have antioxidant properties and also anti carcinogenic.

Pepper is spicy and pungent, but not hot like cayenne.Instead of scorching the mouth and deadening the tastebuds, it stimulates and “wakes them up”. There are also pink peppercorns on the market and mixed into gourmet pepper blends which aren’t really peppercorns. They are from a different plant.Red peppercorns, on the other hand, are truly ripe peppercorns, but are so hard to preserve that they are only widely available freeze-dried.