The good and the bad of harvesting Tumeric

Kind of falling behind on the blog posts again but a few weeks ago the healthy tumeric plants wilted up and kind of fell over which meant that they were ready for harvest.  Tumeric is a root plant so they were all dug up and the nodules or rhizomes as they are called were harvested.

Quite a few were harvested so about 20 of them were re-planted in pots for next year.  The others were washed and then boiled for about 15 minutes to remove any harmful bacteria.  The next step is to cut the tumeric into small pieces and place into the dehydrator.  After about 24 hours the tumeric is dry enough to turn to powder.  We used the same technique we used when we converted the dried Moringa to a powdered form which is to place it into the nutra bullet and powderize it with the milling blade.

So far so good except for one thing.  All that touches tumeric gets stained a yellow color.  The stain is permanent too.   Our cutting board, the nutra bullet plastic cup and even the dehydrator trays were stained.  All in all it was quite a bit of work for a jar of pure powdered tumeric but a good learning experience too.

Turmeric is the spice that gives curry its yellow color.  There are many health benefits to eating tumeric.  Curcumin is the main active ingredient in turmeric.  It has powerful anti-inflammatory effects and is a very strong antioxidant.  However it is not absorbed into the bloodstream easily so many mix black pepper with it which enhances absorption by 2000%. 

For more information about the health benefits of tumeric read this article.