Peppercorns: A Love Story

So often we opt for salt to add that little extra seasoning when really we are overlooking the healthier and more flavorful option - Pepper! Peppercorn, piper nigrum, is the most traded spice on the planet and starts out as a lovely flowering vine producing little green fruits that when cultivated and dried become our humble peppercorn.

The black pepper we fill our shakers with is the result of a fully matured and dried peppercorn that is pulverized and sold in little tin boxes. That black dust that makes us sneeze has health properties that enhance digestion by breaking down proteins, kill bad bacteria living in your digestive tract, and that serve as a solid antioxidant.

A frequent question is what the difference between powdered pepper, course ground pepper and grind-your-own peppercorn pepper. The easy and universal answer is, the more processed a spice (or anything really), the more you lose potency and health benefits. Opting for a peppercorn grinder will serve you well.

You may even find a peppercorn mix with black, green, red, pink peppercorns. Here’s the difference, black peppercorns are cultivated and dried, white and green peppercorns are harvested unripe and not dried, red peppercorns are at the other end of the spectrum and are over-ripened on the vine and dried, while pink peppercorns, well they’re not peppercorns at all, they are berries from a shrub that give you a bit of a different taste.

Reach for the pepper grinder, in addition to helping reduce your salt intake, you’ll get a boost of antioxidants, and stimulation of gastric juices to aid in digestion. Grind on!