Susan Smith Jones, PhD

This booklet includes a free CD interview with Susan, almost 60 minutes in length, with a popular radio talk show host. During this lively and often humorous interview, they discuss some of Susan's favorite natural remedies, including the best superfoods, healing herbs, colorful spices, and other lifestyle choices that not only tickle your taste buds, but also help heal your body, accelerate fat loss, increase energy, reverse aging, improve heart health, prevent disease, and promote optimal wellness in body, mind, and spirit.

To Order:

To order copies of this booklet/CD combo, or any of Susan’s other popular natural remedy booklets that you will find in these pages, please call toll-free: 800-523-9971 (within U.S. and Canada) or 215-632-6100 (outside U.S. and Canada), both EST between 8:30am - 5:00pm, Monday through Friday. For more information, visit: www.SusansRemedies.com

Ask how you can receive a copy of this booklet FREE.

Introduction to Culinary Herbs: Discover the Healing Secrets in Your Spice Rack

It could be said that the history of the modern world was written in the pursuit of spices. The desire of Europeans and Arabs for these exotic flavorings, nearly all of which originated in Asia, sowed the seeds of modern globalization. 

The Egyptians were the first to initiate the spice trade, importing cassia and cinnamon from China and South East Asia as far back as 1550 B.C. For hundreds of years, Arab merchants sustained a monopoly over the delivery of spices as valuable as gold from the Orient to Europe. When the fall of the Roman Empire in A.D. 641 severed spice trade routes along the Silk Road between India and the Mediterranean, powerful Western European nations scrambled to find a maritime shortcut. This lust for spices motivated Columbus to set sail for the New World in the 15^th Century and led the British, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese to compete heatedly for control of newly discovered spice lands in the Americas. 

You may be wondering, what was all the fuss about? Today, with a cornucopia of spices readily available at our local grocery stores, it’s hard to imagine a time when spices were a scarce luxury only the very wealthy could afford.  Surely, throughout the history of the spice trade, spices were prized for the unparalleled depth of flavoring they lent to food. They were also imbued with metaphysical value. Egyptians used aromatic spices in the embalming process to ward off evil, while European Christians thought exotic plants such as cinnamon were scents of paradise.

But perhaps most importantly, the curative potential of spices was recognized from the earliest of times. Ancient Egyptian physicians used spices for medicinal purposes. In ancient Greece, Hippocrates – the father of modern medicine – wrote treatises on the healing properties of such spices as saffron, cinnamon, thyme, mint, and marjoram.

In the present, science is affirming that all this historical fuss over spices wasn’t for nothing. Recent studies have shown that spices have antioxidant, antimicrobial and inflammatory properties. Furthermore, spices may aid in the prevention and treatment of a host of diseases both minor and serious, ranging from the discomfort of colds and flu to arthritis and heart disease. 

In reaching for the remedies from the spice rack, not the medicine cabinet, we not only can avoid many of the unfavorable side effects of pharmaceuticals, but we can also reconnect with our natural environment and with the traditions of our ancestors.

My own grandmother, Fritzie, taught me how to take care of my body from head to toe, inside and out, using only natural remedies. Because of her wisdom, I have never had to take medication in my life. My entire pantry is filled with natural remedies that I use personally and in my private practice.

So what exactly is a spice? Spices are often linked with their close companions, herbs, but there are important distinctions to be made between the two:

While herbs are typically the leaves of plants, spices originate from a plant’s aromatic parts, including the root (e.g. ginger), the bark (e.g. cinnamon), the flower (e.g. saffron), the berries (e.g. peppercorn), and the seed (e.g. cumin). Herbs are at their most potent and flavorful when fresh, but most spices gain their flavor and healing properties in the drying process, when naturally occurring enzymes are activated. Fortunately, that means you can keep a selection of spices at your fingertips year round.

In this booklet, my desire is to open my curative kitchen to you, giving you a spice-by-spice guide to medicinal uses. In addition to imparting the insight of my grandmother, I’ll also be discussing scientific studies that confirm the efficacy of spices to treat specific conditions.

And let’s not forget that spices offer a sensual journey for our taste buds! Though I am a vegan, I will include suggestions for using spices in both vegetable and animal dishes to fit any lifestyle. Finally, I’ll be answering some of your most frequently asked questions about the safe and effective use of spice-based remedies.