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According to a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, adding cinnamon to your diet can cool your stomach by up to two degrees. "The results of the study, which used pigs, seemed to show that cinnamon maintained the integrity of the stomach wall," said study co-lead author Prof. Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. "When pigs feed at room temperature, carbon dioxide gas increases in their stomach." "Cinnamon in their food reduces this gas by decreasing the secretion of gastric acid and pepsin from the stomach walls, which in turn cools the pigs' stomachs during digestion,"...

The team compiled a database of plant remains extracted from Bronze and Iron Ages sites in the southern Levant, both Philistine and non-Philistine... The species they brought are all cultivars that had not been seen in Israel previously... edible parts of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) which originates in western Europe; the sycamore tree (Ficus sycomorus), whose fruits are known to be cultivated in the eastern Mediterranean, especially Egypt, and whose presence in Israel as a locally grown tree is first attested to in the Iron Age by the presence of its fruit; and finally, cumin (Cuminum cyminum), a spice...

Curcumin, an ingredient in the curry spice turmeric, may help prevent heart failure. That's according to two new studies done on rats, not people. In both studies, researchers gave curcumin to rats. The rats then got surgery or drugs designed to put them at risk of heart failure. The rats that got curcumin showed more resistance to heart failure and inflammation than comparison groups of rats that didn't get curcumin. Also, in one of the studies, the researchers saw signs that curcumin treatment reversed heart enlargement. The other study didn't include that experiment. Together, the studies suggest that curcumin short-circuited...

Tuesday, BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- It's the most talked about conflict in the world -- but the food remains a mystery. Despite decades of attention to the Mideast, Palestinian cooking is all but unknown to a world more familiar with images of angry Palestinians with AK-47s than chefs creating delicate salads or carefully roasted stuffed pigeon. "We do have (Palestinian) fighters," said Fadi Kattan, organizer of the Second Palestinian Culinary Competition, a recent effort to raise the profile of the region's cuisine. "But we also have other things that make us Palestinian." One reason so little is known about those...

Curry-derived Molecules Might Be Too Spicy For Colorectal Cancers ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2007) — Curcumin, the yellowish component of turmeric that gives curry its flavor, has long been noted for its potential anti-cancer properties. Researchers from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, report on an apparent improvement upon nature: two molecular analogues of curcumin that demonstrate even greater tumor suppressive properties. The team presented their findings from the first test of these molecules in a mouse model of colorectal cancer November 5 at the American Association for Cancer Research Centennial Conference on Translational Cancer Medicine.Fresh turmeric roots. Curcumin, the yellowish component...

Ladies, if you love your man, give him cauliflower curry with a side of kale for dinner. It may stave off prostate cancer, according to research released yesterday by Rutgers University. Though they don't often make the favorite menus of most men, cauliflower and kale -- along with cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, watercress and turnips -- contain a chemical that is a significant cancer-preventive.

AMMAN, Jordan - Islamic militants planned to detonate an explosion that would have sent a cloud of toxic chemicals across Jordan, causing death, blindness and sickness, a chemical expert testified in a military court Wednesday. Col. Najeh al-Azam was giving evidence in the trial of 13 men who are alleged to have planned what would have been the world's first chemical attack by the al-Qaida terror group. The accused include al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, Abu-Musab Al-Zarqawi, and three other fugitives who are being tried in absentia. Jordanian security services foiled the plot in April last year. Jordanian officials say that...