Make your own pumpkin spice
One of the earliest recorded recipes for "Pumpion Pye" comes from "The Compleat Cook," published in 1671. It calls for "about a half a pound of Pumpion," chopped with several herbs, flavored with "Cinamon (sic), Nutmeg, Pepper and six cloves," and mixed with 16 eggs and apples. That's a big, spicy pie!
These days, pumpkin spice mixtures are so popular that they're the driving force behind best-selling beverages - pumpkin spice lattes - available at McDonald's, Starbucks, etc. Starbucks' pumpkin spice latte sales jumped 234 percent from 2008 to 2012, and from 2003 to 2015 they sold 200 million of them!
What's making those lattes so fetching? Well, the flavor actually comes from a bunch of artificial flavors and bad-for-you sugars. Each barista pump of the pumpkin syrup that goes in your drink (there are about eight) adds 50 calories of sugar, with a few from makes-you-age-faster saturated fat in whipped cream.
We have a better idea: Make your own pumpkin spice mixture! You'll get the delicious flavor and all the health benefits of a slimmed-down version of the original Pumpion Pye.
Our Compleat Recipe: Mix a tablespoon of nutmeg (anti-inflammatory properties) and cardamom, a teaspoon of allspice and cloves, 2 tablespoons of ginger (aids digestion and helps relieve pain) and 1/4 cup of cinnamon (contains polyphenols that helps reduce insulin resistance, lower levels of bad LDL cholesterol and even prevent some cancers), all ground. Add to your coffee. Your body and your skin deserve to get and look younger, not older, this time of year.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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