Cayenne

Red hot cayenne pepper is a wonderful herb of many uses. It was the favorite herb of John Christopher, the Mormon herbalist whose formulas and mixtures fill the shelves of herb stores countrywide.

There are many, many kinds of red-hot-peppers in the world but cayenne is the only one used routinely as medicine. African Bird Pepper is 'hotter' than cayenne but its medicine is less than the "Real Thing".

A short note about cayenne's 'hot' flavor - sometimes called pungent. It has been my experience over the last twenty years that if a person really needs the medicine, the taste of cayenne gets really HOT. More need - more hot! After twenty years of gobbling cayenne, I ceased to need it and the hot taste dwindled away to nothing. The stuff began to taste sweet! Surprise! Surprise! NO hot! Just sweet.

Every meal should have one dish with cayenne in it. Small but present. Start with very small amounts: just a tiny sprinkle. Increase over time until you think you could eat hot tamales in Mexico City.

The part I like most about cayenne is its ability to flush the lymphatic system clean. For example: If you have a sinus headache or congestion in the nose, sprinkle a little of it on you palm. Lick it off. Do not swallow. Do not dring water for several minutes. The snot will clear out of your nose and the sinus congestion will vanish! The lymph system will flush itself into the large intestine where it belongs. For myself, I eat a little salsa every day to make sure my lymph does not get sludgey. The peppers are usually jalapeno, not cayenne, but they get the job done. This use is not mentioned in my favorite herbal but it works anyhow.

Another of my favorite uses is to pull out splinters. It is easy, works very well and is also not mentioned in my herbal.

To remove a splinter, get a 'band aid' and open it up. Find a plantain leaf in your yard and chew up a bit of the leaf making a wad of moosh about the size of a small bean. Put the chewed moosh on the gauze pad of the band aid. Sprinkle a bit of cayenne on the moosh. Put the band aid over the splinter hole, moosh on the hole. After a day or two the body will expel the splinter onto the band aid.

Once upon a time, I removed a splinter an inch and a quarter into the center of my palm. The cayenne-plantain mix pulled it out in four days. That was the biggest splinter I ever tried.

Psyllium seed is from a plantain herb and works just as well. Use spit to moisten the seeds.

This method of removing splinters is friendly to little kids who scream holler and wiggle if you try to remove the splinter with a needle.

Cayenne is also sprinkled on cuts and wounds to help them heal, though any herb called 'woundwort' will do it too.

There are many other medicinal uses for cayenne which can be used simply by putting it in the food. One of these is coronary deficiency with angina and another is sore-throat-flu prevention during epidemics.

This herb is best used in the kitchen on a daily basis for the prevention of disease. As with all kitchen herbs, put it in just before serving because herbs effectiveness is lost if they are cooked very much. The smell (aroma) that comes up after the herbs are added is literally 'aromatherapy' and needs to be available to everyone, not just the cooks. Besides, an aromatic dish always draws comments like "Ooooh, doesnt that smell good!!" from the crowd.

Cayenne used on a regular basis keeps parasitic worms out of the body, roundworms in particular. Since roundworms are a major infestation of humans in warm and damp climates, cayenne is a major medicinal herb the world over. My cat taught me this lesson and now gets wormed periodically with cayenne - cats love the stuff.

(Written: February '07)