Who wouldn’t dream of a powerful tonic, a cup of wellbeing ready to soothe you and boost your immune response, in a warm and comforting way? Well, fret no more, Golden Milk is exactly what you are looking for.
Golden Milk is a traditional Indian recipe, prepared using turmeric and other spices to create a pleasurable warm drink, able to boost your wellbeing through its powerful anti-inflammatory effects! And what better that preparing it yourself, putting some good old intention in your work? Read on to discover why Golden Milk is such a great ally in your wellbeing routine.
Why Golden Milk?
In the Ayurveda tradition, Golden Milk has been used to help our body heal from issues such as breathing problems, joint pain, fatigue, digestive issues, and more.
As anticipated above, Turmeric contains curcumin, which is a substance well known for its anti-inflammatory effect, plus the curcuminoid has a great anti-oxidant action (So it helps killing free radicals, responsible for the ageing processes in our body). Furthermore, later studies have highlighted an antiviral effect of curcumin, and a good protection activity on the liver, and generally on the digestive functions. Modern research also suggests that turmeric is a potent antioxidant being studied for its antimicrobial and anticancer effects.
Not all about Turmeric
The other spices have all an important role as well in the powerful golden milk:
Ginger is well known for its antioxidant and anti-viral properties, and Cinnamon share these properties, plus adding its anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial actions.
Golden Milk Recipe
The traditional recipe contains full fat milk, and note that the fats are the important bit: they make the fat-soluble nutrients contained in turmeric available to our body. The black pepper has a similar function too: making the curcumin (the active principle in turmeric) more bio-available.
The good thing is that firstly, the milk can be easily replaced by another vegetable fat, coconut oil, in this case. Secondly, we can use a non-dairy drink from soy, almond, coconut, rice or oat. (I personally prefer oat, as I find it the lighter and with the most agreeable flavour.) In this way we get a vegan recipe that is even healthier and with less caloric apport!
First: Golden Milk Paste
The easiest way to benefit from Golden Milk, instead of preparing it from scratch every time you need it, is to prepare a paste with all the ingredient, that you can store safely in the fridge for 2/3 weeks. You can then use a spoonful to prepare your golden milk easily, each time you need a cup!
Ingredients for the Golden Milk paste
40g Turmeric powder
2 teaspoonful of Ginger powder
2 tsp Cinnamon powder
1 tsp of Black Peppercorn
You can add a bit of Clove and Nutmeg to add to the taste
15 ml of melted Coconut oil
40/60ml of Agave syrup or Maple syrup (that goes with your wanted level of sweetness!)
30/60ml of hot water
Preparation
Mix together all the spices until you have a homogenous mix
and then slowly add the melted coconut oil, thoroughly incorporating it in the spices mix. At this point add the syrup of your choice, and a little bit of water, as needed to obtain a well-mixed paste.
Transfer the paste to an air tight container and store it in the fridge. Then anytime you want to prepare your golden milk drink…
Golden Milk Preparation
Ingredients
1 ½ tsp of golden milk paste
1 cup of the vegetable drink of your choice
Preparation
Well… Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. To prepare a cup of Golden Milk, just take a spoonful of your golden Milk paste, and make it melt in the vegetable drink of your choice. I love oat drink, but also coconut and almond drink will do well.
Get out your favourite cup, serve yourself the brew and then sit comfortably and enjoy!
Whether to enjoy a good night sleep, to warm you up and help you avoid any seasonal illness, or to boost your immunity during the changing season, golden milk is the right answer.
Have you ever tried it before?
Let me know in the comments!
Looking for further info on immune system boost? Read my posts on Antioxidants, and this one on Adaptogens herbs too!
Images Credit
Title Image and image 1: source Pixabay
All other images are my own.