364: Spice Spice Baby with Kanchan Koya

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. We want to pay attention to our kids' health. And I think adding things like spices, which have these polyphenols and these beneficial compounds, sometimes things that can really aid with digestion, like cumin, and kids' digestive systems are maturing and they need some support, can be another really great way to just give them some help while also expanding their flavor palette. This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel.

0:59Kanchan Koya will forever change how you look at your spice drawer. The chef, author, podcast host, and nutrition coach has a PhD in biomedical sciences from Harvard Medical School, which she uses to champion the science-backed benefits of ancient spices. We invited her into the studio for a truly fascinating conversation, answering our many, many questions about the health claims around spices, like what is inflammation actually, Plus how to cook with even more spices. Find out now.

1:36Kanchan Koya, this is Taste. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me. So I have to know, what have you eaten today and what spices were in it? Okay, so I had a hodgepodge kind of early brunchy situation. and there were spices. It was egg, like a boiled egg, some spinach, some avocado and chocolate covered almonds and strawberries. And the spices that were on my eggs, which are pretty much every day the same. It's this blend called Everything Indian that I actually co-created with this amazing spice brand, La Boite. Not trying to plug the brand, but it does have, It's kind of like everything bagel seasoning, but with an Indian twist.

2:22So it has fennel seed and nigella seed and coriander and salt and pepper and garlic. It's, I don't know, savory and nutty and kind of a little bit herbaceous. I throw it on everything. It sounds really great. It sounds like it would be really good on avocado toast or something that needs a seedy sprinkle going on. Totally. Well, I'm so happy to have you in the studio today because I just get to ask you a ton of questions about spices and health and wellness, which is, I think, really fun for somebody in the food industry because there's so many claims, I think, and also a lack of information that's in the space.

2:54And so it's kind of a dream to just chat things through with you. And I guess to start, I'm wondering if you could just kind of say simply, like, what is the health impact and the benefit of incorporating spices into cooking? So spices are really some of the most concentrated sources of antioxidants and polyphenols, which is just fancy speak for like compounds that come from the plant kingdom that have beneficial effects in our bodies. So a lot of foods have benefits, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts and seeds. We all know that that's the good stuff we should be eating more off. But spices are special because they're really concentrated sources of those antioxidants.

3:33You know, thousands of years ago, kind of our ancestors knew that. And unfortunately, a lot of wars were waged and conquests were kind of undertaken to monopolize the spice trade. But really, it's because even a small amount of spice packs like a pretty powerful punch when it comes to these compounds that can have really beneficial effects at like a cellular level. Yeah, I think it's really interesting to talk about because I think one of the other things that happened with certainly like the industrialization and globalization of the spice trade is kind of removing the fact that spices come from plants for people.

4:07I think that when you go to the grocery store and you see everything that's a powder that's in a jar, it's hard to remember that that is not the way that it initially is out there. And that maybe I think is a factor why people don't necessarily think of spices when they think about superfoods, heavy air quotes on that word, by the way. Not a fan of superfoods either because I think so many things are superfoods and the overall dietary pattern is really important versus any single food, but you're so right. We are kind of removed from where spices really come from. And, you know, they are essentially by definition, like the dried bark or root or seed or fruit of a plant.

4:45So the plant piece often gets forgotten. Definitely. And I'm curious, you know, in your own kind of background, like in your work in science and medicine and all of these things, did you have like a quote unquote gateway spice that kind of fascinated you and made you want to study this more? Yes. So very cliched and predictable, but turmeric, which is the golden spice that is in every golden latte now. And honestly, not the golden latte I had growing up in India. So I grew up in India for 18 years and my grandma would often concoct a haldi dood, it's called, like golden milk. That was pretty intense and hard for most children to, you know, really stomach, but it was like the cure-all for everything.

5:27So I grew up kind of skeptical that that was really legit and rolled my eyes at a lot of that ancient Ayurvedic wisdom until I went to graduate school at Harvard Medical School and started studying molecular cancer biology. And I've told this story several times, but my lab began to look at the impact of natural products on breast cancer. And one of the products we were looking at was actually the bioactive compound in turmeric called curcumin. And it was a total full circle aha moment for me. And I was like, okay, I'm going to apologize to the ancestors for rolling my eyes because this ancient wisdom has some legitimacy as per modern science.

6:08And I think that was my gateway into this idea that spices can really be the starting point in a conversation around food as preventative medicine, food for health, and also just like a really fun way to do exciting things in the kitchen. Definitely. And you mentioned this word bioactive. And I think that that is really interesting to talk about with spices and especially with turmeric. Can you maybe explain for a listener who doesn't know that word, like what that means and specifically like when it comes to turmeric, how maybe adding black pepper to a latte is like impacting that? Yeah. So bioactive just means it has some biological activity at a cellular level in humans, which is of interest to us, but also in other animal models.

6:50And so the compound in turmeric, curcumin has been studied for so many different effects, some in cell lines. And, you know, in vitro, we say in biology, like just looking at the effect of a compound in like a petri dish, which is interesting, but maybe not the most relevant when it comes to like the full human being. But we also have studies now on humans looking at the impact of say turmeric on arthritis and inflammation and pain. So with spices, specifically turmeric, and also some other spices, how you ingest the spice, how you cook with the spice does matter in terms of something we call bioavailability of that bioactive.

7:28So curcumin in turmeric seems to be activated by heat and fat. And if you think about traditional cultures that have used turmeric for centuries, like in India and other countries, turmeric is often used in powder dried form, but it is bloomed using a culinary term in a fat source like ghee or oil. It's never really added raw to like a smoothie, which always makes me cringe a little. I get it. You want the benefits. But honestly, the way to really extract the benefits and to make that compound more bioavailable so that it's absorbed by the body instead of just rapidly excreted is to use some of those traditional cooking techniques.

8:11So heating turmeric in a fat source with, you know, whatever your favorite, like olive oil, avocado oil, ghee, whatever your fat, and then pairing it with black pepper. Even a pinch of pepper can really enhance the bioavailability of the curcumin. And most times when we cook with spices, we don't use a single spice. We often use combinations of spices. So, you know, adding turmeric to a curry powder blend would be so natural. But now we know we have to be intentional about it if we are trying to really enhance those health benefits. And the black pepper, I think, is interesting because we're talking about golden milk as this trend.

8:45I think certainly a couple of years ago, it felt like every restaurant in America was doing that and that often black pepper wouldn't be a part of that. And I think it's really interesting to be talking about, well, if you're doing this for a health reason and that isn't included, then it's not really working in that way. And if you're looking at the way the spice has been traditionally used, that actually is within it all along. Yeah. So you can also imagine having a golden milk at your favorite cafe with an avocado toast that has black pepper on it. So you don't necessarily have to put it in the golden milk if that's too offensive to your taste buds.

9:18It just has to be in your stomach at the same time. Yeah. Okay. Like obviously that makes sense, but that blows my mind to hear that because I think like for some reason, maybe because if it was medicine, I would think I had to be like eating it at the same time. But I guess as long as it's just in your digestive system, your body can pull everything out. That's really cool. and also it's interesting because from a flavor perspective when you're blooming a spice in oil or fat you're also just kind of unlocking all those additional flavors and it's so much more nuanced than before so it seems that to me like flavor and health are actually going hand in hand in a lot of these ways yeah i couldn't agree more um i think this is really the perfect example where the two worlds meet because so often we think that we have to make a trade-off when it comes to health versus flavor we're on the sort of new year's resolution healthy eating train, and we're compromising on joy and flavor.

10:08But I think spices are just a beautiful reminder that the two can coexist. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I wanted to ask you about another kind of health claim around spices, because I feel like I hear the word anti-inflammatory a lot. And I don't actually know what that means. Can you enlighten me? Yeah, just like a 101 on inflammation really quick, right? So we need inflammation in the right place at the right time. Like for wound healing, if we have a viral infection, the flu, whatever, COVID, we want an inflammatory response that's targeted and then shuts off when the job is done. What's happening in our modern environment for a multitude of reasons is we are seeing something called systemic chronic inflammation.

10:50So systemic means all over the body, chronic means chronic and inflammation. And this is not great because it's almost like a fire that was meant to do something very focused now becomes sort of continuous, low running like a wildfire. And of course, there's damage associated with that. And many studies suggest that that systemic chronic inflammation is kind of at the root of a lot of our modern day diseases. So keeping that systemic chronic inflammation in check is of interest. And we do have evidence that diet and lifestyle can play a role. And spices do indeed have a lot of these bioactive compounds like curcumin or cinnamaldehyde and cinnamon that seem to be affecting this inflammatory process at a cellular level, at a molecular level.

11:38And for a long time, to be honest with you, we had to rely on these test tube studies. So we had to look at all these studies that had thrown a bunch of different spice derived compounds on cell lines and looked at inflammation there. And we had to extrapolate and say, okay, well, if it's doing this in a cell line, it must do this in the body. But we didn't really have data, except a couple of years ago, we've had some really interesting data around the impact of spices in culinary amounts, really important, on controlling inflammation in a human being. That was super exciting for me as someone really passionate about this whole message.

12:15Big day. Yeah. So I mean, basically, this group at Penn State found that you can take a traditional burger, you know, just like a regular American hamburger, and you can either spice it up with a blend or not. And it's a tablespoon of a spice blend. So anyone who cooks with spices will agree that's not a ton of spices. It's a very manageable amount, something that you would throw into a soup, a curry, a stew, whatever. A tablespoon of this spice blend that had a lot of spices actually lowered markers of inflammation right after that meal versus the burger that didn't have the spice blend. So to me, that is really exciting because what it says is we can change some of these inflammatory processes in real time using culinary amounts of spices.

13:00And I would argue probably that that burger with the spices was tastier. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it depends on the spices. I guess if it was a cinnamon burger, that maybe wouldn't be my favorite. But when we're talking about culinary amounts, I think I would imagine that a lot of listeners of this podcast are using spices in their cooking in general, just because that's delicious. And that's where there's a lot of flavor. But if you are going to be encouraging people to be incorporating more spices for health, we've talked about turmeric, I would imagine that would be a recommendation. But are there any other ones that you kind of start out with as like your heavy hitters?

13:33Yeah, I often talk about like three to five spices that I think are just really accessible in a global modern kitchen, regardless of what you're making. So turmeric's one, always paired with black pepper, like we said. I love the paprika family because it's just so versatile. You can roast potatoes or cauliflower or, you know, put it in eggs and a frittata and shakshuka. I mean, really the list is endless. And paprika has some of these anti-inflammatory compounds that are related to the compounds in chili peppers called capsaicin. So you can do spicy chili peppers, which I love, or you can do the sweeter paprika, which still has some of the benefits.

14:10The other one that I really, really love for people to use is sumac. So it's something I didn't grow up with because I'm from India and it's really a spice that's pretty prevalent in the Middle East. But it's just so easy to sprinkle on literally everything like avocado toast, sunny side up eggs, your salad, hummus, baba ganoush, like some chicken, salmon. I do it on fruit a lot. Like I eat a lot of citrus in the winter. And I think that because sumac is has such a fruity flavor, it really like pairs well with grapefruit or something. Yeah, I actually haven't done that. I love that. Let me know something new.

14:43Yeah, we do. Actually, that's interesting, because we do in India a lot of salt and chili on fruit, we feel like the salt extract, like brings out the sweetness. But sumac is just an easy one, because you can always you can literally use it like you would pepper, like just have it out there with your salt and pepper shaker and just put it on things for that citrusy vibe. Yeah. I mean, I grew up in LA, so the chili salt on fruit to me comes from like all the Mexican street carts with fruit. But I think anyone that's dressing up their fruit with something is like, I have to try it. It's so fun. Yeah.

15:15And sumac is like purple, buried. So anytime you see that color purple in nature, you know you're getting these beneficial antioxidants called anthocyanins, which are proving to be really beneficial for brain health, cardiovascular health, inflammation. So just like a win-win. So like a pomegranate, maybe it would be another example of that? Yeah, exactly. Eggplant with the skin on, blueberries, you know. Cool. And I think maybe there was one more spice you were going to mention? Yeah, cinnamon. So I think it's something we love in the holiday season. And I always like to challenge people to A, think about it year round and B, use it in savory dishes.

15:53So you talked about the cinnamon burger, which could be a little suspect, but like taco meat seasoned with like smoked paprika and cinnamon and cumin and some chili powder is delicious. Cinnamon is actually an integral part of a lot of savory blends like garam masala in India has cinnamon. So just think outside the box. There's a study that came out this week looking at cinnamon and its impact on blood sugar in pre-diabetics. And the equivalent of two teaspoons of cinnamon a day seemed to bring down glucose levels, blood sugar levels, which is really cool. So yeah, again, win-win. Yeah, I love that.

16:26And I think when I said cinnamon burger, maybe I wasn't, I was thinking about only cinnamon as an ingredient, but I totally agree with you that it adds such nice nuance to savory things. Certainly like also even like adding chocolate as a flavor and like kind of that balance that's going on. I think that's really fun. Yeah. Like a chili with like all of the savory, like cumin, chili, but then also some cinnamon and chocolate, I think would be really fun. Really good. So I have to know, like what is your spice organization situation like in your pantry? I would imagine that there's a lot going on.

16:56Yeah, my husband would be like, oh my gosh, we have way too many drawers devoted to spices in my house. So, you know, I try to be mindful of a couple of things. So spices, if you think about them, are these sort of living, breathing, plant-derived compounds. So they have a shelf life in that they don't necessarily go bad, like they won't make you sick, but they lose their luster over time. And like many plant-derived things, they interact with the elements. So heat and light, moisture. So my rule of thumb is if you are storing spices well, you should put them in airtight containers away from heat and light.

17:34It's very tempting to have them in that drawer right next to the stove or the oven. I try to move it one drawer further away so it's not like super hot all the time. I like to keep it in the drawer, not out on the shelf, just so it's not constantly interacting with light. And then, you know, if you open your spice and it smells like nothing, it's probably lost a lot of those volatile aromatic compounds where a lot of the benefits and the flavor lies. So you can try to wake up a spice by dry roasting it or blooming it, or you can just toss that batch and get a fresh batch. Also, if you buy a pre-ground spice at the supermarket, know that it's been sitting on that shelf for a while.

18:13So if you really want that freshness of flavor and potentially the health benefits, you want to buy the spice whole, like whole coriander seeds, and then grind them in batches and use that up within three months. I know for some people that can seem like a huge hurdle, like, OK, really, you're telling me to add all these spices. Now you're telling me to buy them whole and grind them fresh like it's too much. So I get it. Buy whatever form you're going to use. That's a great starting point, but it is good to be mindful that they do deteriorate over time in terms of their sort of pizzazz. Yeah, I think it's important to keep in mind.

18:48And I like the suggestion that you can be buying whole and then grinding in batches because I find that when I am buying like whole cardamom or something and then I'm breaking it down for use, I always just do as much as I need. But I guess if I'm bringing out my mortar and pestle anyways, I might as well give myself at least a couple of weeks of runway or something. Yeah, or just invest in a really inexpensive like spice grinder. Mine is just a coffee grinder that I use for spices, like 20 bucks on whatever online. And I grind my spices in it, put it in a glass jar, it lasts me like three months.

19:19And really, once you do that, you'll see the difference like in the flavor. It's like night and day. Yeah, I think that's probably the most encouraging thing that will make you want to do it again is if you make something that tastes so delicious out of it. But yeah, for the foodie audience, definitely. That's the biggest motivation. Definitely. So I want to talk to you about your book, Spice Spice Baby, which is not just a very cute book name, but also kind of like a call to action that people should be putting spices in their baby food. Can you maybe explain like why that? Obviously, we know that spices are good for everybody and babies are also human.

19:52But when it comes to baby food specifically, like how can that be optimized? So we have so much evidence now that exposing baby's palates when they're young to a wide variety of flavors is just a really sure shot way to build like adventurous eaters. Every kid will get there at their own pace. So I'm not going to guarantee that if you give your kid like cumin and their avocado lentil puree, they're going to be the most adventurous eater by age three. And the reason I say that is because I have two kids, 11 and seven, and they're very different in terms of their personality towards new foods. But there is evidence to suggest that the more we expose them to flavors and variety, the more open they're going to be over time.

20:34So that's one. Second, we want to pay attention to our kids' health. And I think adding things like spices, which have these polyphenols and these beneficial compounds, sometimes things that can really aid with digestion, like cumin and kids' digestive systems are maturing and they need some support, like babies especially, can be another really great way to just give them some help while also expanding their flavor palette. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And I would imagine that there was a big reaction when that book came out, because maybe not everybody, especially here in America, was adding spice to their baby food before.

21:07Yeah. So when I became a mom and I started to give my six-month-old at the time, you know, pear with cardamom and sweet potato with clove. Yum. A lot of my mom friends were intrigued and also a little bit nervous. Like, oh, is this just because you're Indian. Like, I don't know if this is really the best way to approach it. And my pediatrician here in New York City was like, oh, I love that you're doing that because there's really no scientific basis to giving kids bland food. We've somehow decided that if we dumb down their food, they will eat it more. But actually, all we're doing is telling them that food doesn't have to be flavorful.

21:45And if you look at tons of cultures around the world, basically babies eat what the grownups eat, maybe with a little bit less salt and like the spicy spices. But yeah, there's every reason to expose them to all the flavors early on. Yeah. I mean, it makes a lot of sense that if you're trying to avoid raising a generation of picky eaters, that teaching them that food can be delicious from the jump is probably the best way to go about it. I feel like sometimes when there's someone who is afraid to try something new, I think that they must have had a lot of like negative experiences with foods they didn't like growing up because to me, I'm like, well, everything that I eat, this could be my new favorite food.

22:19I don't want to miss out on that. Yeah. And I mean, as a mom, again, like I just want to say you can do everything right and still have like a kid who is going through a fussy phase. So don't be hard on yourself. But over time, like kids model what their parents do. They see you cooking with these ingredients and loving them and enjoying them, get them in the kitchen, grinding some cinnamon or cardamom or popping those seeds out. I mean, it all adds up over time to more adventurous eating. Definitely. And you mentioned a spice blend a little bit earlier. I'm curious, do you have any favorite brands that you look for when you're buying spices?

22:53Yeah. So I definitely look for quality. I look for organic when possible. If I can, I go for single origin. So there's a few brands I love. I'll plug the brand that I collaborated with on a spice box. It's called La Boite and they are here in New York City. And Lior is an incredible spice master and the blends we created are really next level. I also love some of the single origin spice companies that are really changing the game like Diaspora and Burlap and Barrel. You can really tell the difference when a spice comes from like a single origin farm versus, you know, mass produced. I mean, again, going back to the foodie incentive just changes the way it flavors your food.

23:34And I would argue, even though those studies haven't been done, that there are more health benefits in the higher quality, more thoughtfully sourced spices. Yeah, that was going to be my next question because I would imagine that would be true also. And I could see another thing that would be beneficial being that these brands are really labeling like this is the date of harvest and you know how long it's been on the shelf, how fresh it is. And I think sometimes when you're buying from the bigger spice brands in the grocery store, you kind of have no clue any of those things. Yeah. Yeah. And you really have to be careful about one other thing with sort of big brand spices or just mass produced spices or even spices that come from these no-name spice markets, which I love and are so beautiful.

24:13But heavy metal contamination is a real challenge with spices. And so I like that some of these newer brands are very transparent with their certificates of analysis and they'll show you like what the heavy metal content is in a spice. I mean, everything has some heavy metals, like your rice has arsenic, you know, but you want it. Keeps going. Keep going. I mean, rice has arsenic. It's in the water supply. But, you know, you can wash it out. You can cook it a certain way. So to reduce the arsenic, you can buy like white basmati rice, which has less arsenic, all that sort of stuff. But the point is that you want the heavy metal level to be below the threshold of what's acceptable.

24:50So I like that some of these newer brands are much more conscientious about being transparent about that. Yeah, I mean, I didn't even know that was a thing until now. So clearly the transparency has not always been there. And when you say heavy metals, you mean like actual metals from the earth that are getting into these ground spices? Just is it because of how they're being harvested or what's the connection there? It's thought to be in the soil, in the water supply, industrial waste, you know, hard to really escape. But again, our bodies can detoxify heavy metals. Like if we are healthy and we have good like liver and kidney function and all that, and We sweat once in a while, but you don't want too much because then that can start to build over time, especially in kids.