Kalpna Woolf - Spice diet : spice up slim down

SPICE UP SLIM DOWN

KALPNA WOOLF

For my Dad,
to whom I owe so much, who came to this country to give us all a better life and was so proud of his children. He loved to buy fresh fruit and vegetables for us to eat every day and taught me so much about good food, health, sharing and love.

Spices are powerhouses of flavour and health with the crucial benefit of being calorie and fat free. Spice Diet is a simple and healthy way to enjoy tasty food whilst also maintaining good health. This is not an invented contemporary fad; it has a strong foundation in centuries old knowledge and traditions. Spice Diet reveals the secrets of one of the oldest and most valued, mystically powerful food sources known to mankind, and shows how spices can have a dramatic impact on our health, lifestyle and well-being.

Spice Diet guarantees weight loss whilst allowing you to enjoy flavourful food at every meal. Western tastes are ever more receptive to spices: from traditional (cloves, cinnamon, fennel); Indian (chilli, garam masala, turmeric, coriander) and Mexican (smoked chipotle chillies); to Chinese (Szechuan, Five spice, star anise) and Middle Eastern spices (Sumac, Zaatar, Ras el-Hanout). Yet we still know very little about their history and ability to improve our diets. This book unlocks their magic, fusing traditional spice secrets with simple, modern recipes.

I was brought up eating Indian spices and home-cooked food. However, when I moved away from home, I moved away from my food roots too and was tempted by the growing proliferation of fast food. Instant food availability and the addictive effect of high fat, high salt, sugars and colours. I soon began to feel and look tired and began to put on weight. Even when I cut down on calories and felt I was eating less, I was still hungry and not managing my weight well.

Over the years I began to learn more about food and the effects of it on our health, energy levels and our weight. I realised that I wanted to eat healthily and feel full; to enjoy my food and to have a good relationship with it. But I didnt want to eat bland, flavourless and often insipid-looking diet foods. I wanted to eat food with lots of flavour, to enjoy dishes from around the world, and share foods with my family. I discovered that when I balanced spices with healthy food my weight reduced and then stayed down.

Spice Diet is very much the story of the food journey I have travelled: from my roots growing up in a traditional Indian family in London; to university where, whilst studying Russian, I lived in Soviet Russia; returning home to learn how to cook traditional British dishes; and travelling since to experience cuisines first hand in Iran, China, Italy and then Thailand, Morocco, Mexico, the Mediterranean, the Far East and West Africa.

I still use spices every day I love the tastes, flavours and the good feeling I get from just cooking a meal with them. Seeing the rich colour when I add turmeric to a dish, I am instantly transported to the bustling alleys of Old Delhi where turmeric powder is piled high in large sacks. Spices are sumptuous in colour, taste and history, evoking wonderful journeys across deserts, land and sea, to countries where they are so valuable they have been used as legal tender.

Spice are relished not only for their taste, but also because they come with stories of their health powers from one generation to another. My family and many Indian people I know, use remedies made from spices still for many ailments and strength. If anyone in my family has a bad tummy, everyone rushes for the carom seeds which are then mixed with a sprinkling of salt and swallowed down with a little warm water: a remedy going as far back as my great, great, grandmother.

As well as these family anecdotes, we now see scientific research confirming the health properties of spices. Turmeric has been used as an anti-inflammatory for years in Ayurvedic medicine and now scientific research shows that an active compound in turmeric, curcumin, could help reduce inflammation.

Cooking with spices really doesnt have to be intimidating or difficult. In Spice Diet I hope to demystify this and show how easily spices can be incorporated into our daily eating habits whilst capitalising on all those benefits to our health and well-being. That really is the magic allure of spices.