Summary
Sheila Dillon takes a journey into the culinary use, history and the latest medical findings about turmeric.
Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a member of the ginger family of plants - and its rhizome, the part mainly used in cooking, has a deep orange-golden colour that marks it out. Responsible for this distinctive hue is the bioactive compound, curcumin. Turmeric - and curcumin - have attracted a lot of attention in recent years, and much has been claimed about medicinal properties. In India, where most turmeric is still grown, turmeric - or haldi - has long been revered and widely used both as an essential savoury food ingredient and as a medicine, with the golden rhizome being particularly valued within the ancient medical system of Ayurveda.
Sheila investigates the health claims about turmeric and curcumin, talking to Dr Michael Mosley - former GP and presenter of BBC Two's Trust Me I'm A Doctor, about his team's recent research findings. Sheila also hears about an article published last month in British Medical Journal Case Reports, and speaks to its co-author Professor Jamie Cavenagh, a leading expert on blood cancer - and one of his patients Dieneke Ferguson, who turned to curcumin after all conventional treatment for her cancer was stopped. Also featuring in the programme are cook and food writer Monisha Bharadwaj - author of The Indian Cookery Course, Susie Emmett - radio producer who went to Andhra Pradesh, India, on the turmeric trail, as well as Dr Stephen Harris, Druce Curator of the Herbaria at Oxford University.
Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.
Transcript
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| 0:35.0 | Hello, you've downloaded a podcast of BBC Radio 4's The Food Program. |
| 0:42.0 | Welcome to our world, cooking to culture, politics to pleasure. We hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:50.0 | We're surrounded by palm trees. We have cocoa, we have bananas, we have macadamias. |
| 0:57.0 | We're in a glass house somewhere in Oxford on the hunt for a food plant. |
| 1:01.0 | Here we are, this is Kokumaumber longer, which is commonly known as |
| 1:05.4 | turmeric, and it's a close relative of ginger. |
| 1:09.5 | The leaves are pale green and the plants smaller than most of the others around it, but the part that interests |
| 1:14.4 | us lies just out of sight. |
| 1:16.7 | When we move underground, what we see is a horizontal underground stone which is called a rhizome. |
| 1:21.4 | And this nobly ginger-like rhizome is the subject of our program today. |
| 1:26.0 | It's a food reserve for the plant. |
| 1:28.0 | If we were to then break that rhizome open, |
| 1:31.0 | then what we would find is that it's bright orange inside. |
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