One of the most commonly used spices is black pepper, and I know it is a staple when I meal prep. But not many know of the benefits that come from adding pepper to your diet. Mainly it is added as an afterthought to make your meal more enjoyable. That is how I started using pepper. I had no idea some of pepper’s key benefits are benefits I look for when choosing what to eat.
Key Benefits
For me the main key benefit of black pepper is it is a diuretic. Pepper promotes sweating and helps with urination, two important tasks of any diuretic to be able to do. So by helping you relieve yourself of waste and sweat, it can help with weight loss. So by using pepper with salt, the salt hydrates and the pepper helps remove the water when it is not needed.
Another benefit of pepper is its help with intestinal gas aka heartburn, by helping prevent the formation of intestinal gas. So you can say between being a diuretic and helping to prevent heartburn, pepper is a great spice to help the digestive process. (1)
For those who take turmeric, pepper enhances the curcumin to help it absorb into your body. The taste of turmeric isn’t the best so anything that helps get the benefits of turmeric into your system is fine by me! Less is more!
Recommended Amount
Now I haven’t been able to find any recommendations on how much pepper you should consume per day or how much is too much. The best I could find was to limit your intake to no more than 1 teaspoon per meal. (2)
As I look at my recipes and meal prep that I do, I think I use a lot less than a teaspoon per meal. I prefer to have enough to knows it is there but not too much that is over powers what I’m eating.
What I prepare I enjoy to eat, and I don’t want one single spice to overpower the taste what I’m eating.
Conclusion
When buying black pepper I encourage you to buy whole peppercorns and use a grinder. Most of the time you can buy whole peppercorns with a built in grinder and grind as needed. I prefer this method for me I think you get more flavor and have to use less. It also ensures that you are getting pepper that hasn’t been altered, with other ingredients. Pepper is one of those spices we all use, and we can easily overlook. Which makes me wonder what other spices we commonly use that have great benefits that we probably are not aware of. Do any come to mind for you?
Please share your comments below. Have more questions on black pepper? Please contact me or start a discussion below, I’m sure others are thinking the same as you, but are waiting on YOU to start the discussion.
