A Natural, Tasty Solution to Bad Breath
Dear Natural Health Solutions Reader,
In the world of health maladies, bad breath is far from the most serious challenge. But it’s not exactly trivial, either.
As I’ve written elsewhere, face-to-face communication is fundamental to health and happiness — and funky exhalations can definitely put a damper on any intimate exchange.
The solution I’m about to offer is far better than what you can find in the modern marketplace. Artificially flavored and colored mouthwashes, gum, and lozenges are expensive, inconvenient, and unhealthy and often just taste nasty. Even “natural” mints are typically highly sugared.
Fortunately, as usual, traditional societies figured out a better way long ago.
It’s chewing cardamom seeds.
Chewing about 10 of these tiny, tasty cardamom seeds immediately cancels bad breath.
You can also purchase whole pods online and remove seeds just before eating. Some people claim fresh-hulled seeds taste fresher; I notice little difference.
Cardamom is both a perennial plant native to India and the name of a spice made from its seeds. Traditional peoples throughout the subcontinent chew it after a meal. Research indicates it banishes bad breath and fights the bacteria that cause cavities.1
And its health virtues aren’t confined to the mouth.
The Queen of All Spices
As a 2012 article in Biochemistry and Analytical Biochemistry put it:
Studies have implicated cardamom’s potential therapeutic value as an inhibitor of human platelet aggregation, and it has anti-hypertensive, gastroprotective, anti-cancer and anti-diabetic properties… Cardamom has antioxidant properties and can increase levels of glutathione and antioxidant enzymes in the body.2
In other words, cardamom helps prevent blood clots, lower blood pressure, protect the stomach’s lining, and lower risks of cancer and diabetes. And the fact that it raises glutathione levels is highly significant, as this simple molecule (consisting of the amino acids glycine, glutamine, and cysteine) is rightly termed the body’s master antioxidant.
No wonder it is traditionally termed the “queen of all spices” in India.
But How Does It Taste?
The flavor of chewed cardamom seeds is difficult to describe — it has a minty “note,” along with a vaguely metallic “bite” somewhere between cinnamon and cilantro. As you chew the seeds, these flavors give way to a pleasant, mineralized bitterness that calls to mind the aftertaste of a smooth martini — which makes sense, as cardamom is a key in ingredient in gin.
Both the whole green pods — which are easily peeled by hand — and hull-free seeds are available online (the latter is known as “decorticated cardamom”). I suggest buying organic versions.
In our house, we keep the seeds in a ceramic dish on the kitchen counter. It takes only a second to extract a pinch — from five–10 seeds, the number in a couple of peeled pods — and chew them. You can actually feel your odiferous breath retreating.
And a delightful, social aspect of using cardamom this way is that rather than leaving the dinner party to use mouthwash, a communal dish of cardamom becomes a refreshing “last course” for everyone, and a lively topic of conversation as well. In our experience, virtually every dinner guest who tries this traditional remedy likes it and vows to buy some for home use.
The post-meal ritual of a pinch of cardamom is one more wonderful way to detach from the modern, dysfunctional food-and-medicine system based on expensive, synthetic, and possibly dangerous ingredients. I assure you these little seeds work better than any mouthwash you’ve ever used.
Soon after adopting the habit, you’ll find that no meal feels complete with that final pinch of cardamom.
Sincerely,
Brad Lemley
Editor, Natural Health Solutions
Citations
- Sharma R. Cardamom comfort. Dent Res J (Isfahan). 2012
- Using of Coffee and Cardamom Mixture to Ameliorate Oxidative Stress Induced in y-irradiated Rats. Biochemistry & Analytical Biochemistry. 2012
