Health Desk

Clove: The wonder spice!

This tiny little spice has many curative properties. Traditionally cloves are used as a table spice and mixed with chillies, cinnamon, turmeric and other spices in the preparation of curry powder.

They are also used to flavour paan. Clove oil is used in the manufacture of perfumes, soaps, bath salts and as a flavouring agent in medicine and dentistry. Cloves help stimulate sluggish circulation and thereby promote digestion and metabolism. In Chinese medicine, it is used for vomiting, indigestion and other related problems. If you are feeling stressed then, boil some water with basil leaves, mint leaves and clove. Then you can use this water for black tea. Add little bit of honey to it. This will help you ease tension.

Toothache

The use of a clove in toothache decreases pain. It also helps to decrease infection due to its antiseptic properties. Clove oil, applied to a cavity in a decayed tooth, also relieves toothache.

Digestive disorders

Cloves promote enzymatic flow and boost digestive functioning. They are used in various forms of gastric irritability and dyspepsia. Licking the powder of fried cloves mixed with honey is effective in controlling vomiting. The anesthetic action of clove helps in dealing with stomach pain and stops vomiting.

Coughs

Chewing a clove with a crystal of common salt eases expectoration, relieves the irritation in the throat . Chewing a burnt clove is also an effective medicine for coughs.

BDST: 1100 HRS, JULY 06, 2012
Edited by: Tania Afrin, Newsroom Editor