How to use Herbs and Spices in your Kitchen

Let's talk about herbs and spices used in cooking and Ayurveda. In an Indian household or kitchen, you will find turmeric, kasuri methi (fenugreek leaves), cumin, garam masala, and chili powder. In addition, they may also have cayenne, nutmeg, sage, rosemary, and star anise. And, most of us Indians love Italian food so we do keep thyme, oregano, basil, and I personally love to use sage.

Difference between Herb and Spice

From a Western herbalist perspective, usually, when we use the word herbs, we mean the fresh part of the plant. For example, fresh leaves, flowers, etc. 

When we say spice we mean a dried part. For example, a dried stem, steed, dried fruit, dried leaves, or flowers.  Of course, we do the same in Ayurveda- we use both fresh herbs and dried spices, however, we also have another category of salts, minerals, milk, ghee, etc--so we don't use the word herb. We use Dravya. Dravya means therapeutic substance. Hence I call the herbalism in Ayurveda--DRAVYOLOGY. (refer to my blog or podcast on dravyology here)

Access to Herbs

I believe if you are an herbalist or a holistic health practitioner, you should use and teach yourself about the local herbs that grow easily around you. Otherwise, by remaining a puritan there are many challenges to access fresh herbs. If we are importing all our herbs and spices from India or another country consider how the travel will affect the shelf life and efficacy of different herbs and leaves.

Difference between Ayurvedic and Western Herbs

Unlike its western counterpart Ayurveda just doesn't look at the effect of an herb or a spice. We consider the six tastes, energetic properties like virya (heating or cooling the body), vipaka (metabolic effect), guna (qualities), and ultimate effect and more. Digestion is complicated and the efficacy of herbs depends on a persons digestive strength, their age, the herb dosages effect on doshas or bodily constitution.

How to use Herbs and spices?

With things that are very, very fragrant, like rosemary or thyme, even oregano, you can make oils with them. That means you can heat up the oil just a little bit, warm it up, not heat it up, warm it up, add fresh rosemary or fresh sage to it. So it's a small amount of oil and lots of, enough to cover all the herbs, and leave it for maybe a week. And then sieve out the rosemary or herbs, the dry herbs.

So the resultant oil is a fragrant oil. And then you cook in that oil. You don't put the actual herb in the food. Because if you get sage or rosemary in the food, it's, it doesn't, it's not nice. So that's one way of doing it. All right. So have we covered everything?

In the Indian region of Tamil Nadu, they cook with neem leaf also. I had a Tamil friend who taught me. But you need fresh leaves for that. You know the one I'm talking about, Krithiga? There's a little fried neem that they do. So I've done that. Okay, that's a lot. I use all of this on a regular basis except thyme and neem. I don't have access to fresh neem leaves since last year because I gave my neem tree to one of the students I also had a Bilwa tree that I used to oh yeah I use banana leaves also because we have like six banana trees so we used leaves for steaming and stuff like that yeah Krithiga the neem in even in They do the little fried, fried neem leaves with like as a chutney on the side with, you know.

Oregano, when you use ajwain, ajwain is the same as oregano seeds. You know that, right? They're in the same family. So oregano seeds are okay. Ajwain seeds are okay. Thyme, I don't use because I don't have access to fresh thyme.

if you've yourself grown it and dried it, then it's okay to use it for up to a few months. But if you're buying it from the store and it's been in your kitchen cabinet, just throw it away.

 bay leaf will, as long as bay leaf will retain, because it's a very thick leaf, it will retain some of its prana for a longer time. Also, Yeah, it does retain piranha as long as it's been put in a tight container or vacuum sealed or not exposed to light. So what happens is you have leaves, flowers, roots. You have, let me see who all are here. Okay. You have stem, root. So leaves, especially small leaves, will lose their efficacy. And then of course, I forgot the seeds.

You have to use fresh leaves, except if the leaves are big and fat, then they can last. Then you have fresh flowers. Sometimes, for example, we'll use an agacacia flower, and so on. Then you have fruits. Some, for example, black pepper is a fruit, or white pepper is a fruit. So then that's the third. Then you have your stem. Then you have your seeds and roots. So roots of which, ginger root will stay much, much, much longer in terms of shelf life.

fresh turmeric root or ginger root will stay. So we usually, we have to buy everything in a seed form. Seed form can stay for up to one year, easy. And it retains prana. You know, we had done the class about prana. That applies to herbs and it applies to food. So then there's a stem. Fruits, flowers, and leaves retain the prana least, with the exception of giant leaves. Another exception of a giant leaf would be Paan, paan leaf. I don't know what the English for paan is. You know, have you had paan?

So that paan, I can't, tambul, it's called in Sanskrit. It's used for issues and ulcers in the mouth and so on. And it has some other digestive properties. And even though it's a leaf, but it's a giant leaf and it will stay longer even if, like I got fresh paan once from Indian store and I dried it. And I used one of them and then I dried it and put it in a airtight container and I forgot about it. And I found it after one year. And I opened it, it still was not as potent, but it was potent enough because giant leaf, you know?

But also I had dried it myself. So I quickly gave it away to some students so they could use it. I think I gave some to Rajita also. She's not here. Who is here interested in doing all this herbology? Just doing Ayurveda?

so you have two cardamoms you have green cardamoms and black cardamoms So in this taste, what is the taste of cardamom doesn't matter. What is the virya is more important because we are using it as a herb, not as a food. Then the third is karma is action. What does it do? So, and when we study AC 108, we study Ayurvedic herbology, you will be required to study rasavirya, karma vipagbhi of all the herbs that are part of this today I'm just telling you that's it all you need to remember is the action for example if something is heating it will the action is it will have a pacifying action on vatakafa if something is cooling it will have a pacifying action on pitta yeah Vipaka?

The usage of ginger in cooking and Ayurveda was also discussed, with participants sharing their personal methods of incorporating ginger into their daily routines. Narayana Ayurveda led a comprehensive discussion on the diverse applications of ginger in Ayurveda, including its potential interactions with prescription medications like warfarin and the caution required for individuals on blood thinners. The conversation also touched on the cultural and personal considerations in recommending ginger-based remedies.