A recipe for Happiness – Saffron the yellow bloom

Yellow is a color that lifts our spirits. We see this in SAD (seasonal affected disorder). For many people a lack of sunshine creates a sad and depressing mood. However, I would safely say that for everyone a beautiful sunny day makes us all feel a little happier.

If you want to stimulate your memory and remember something jot it down of yellow paper. That’s because yellow is the most memorable of all the colors. Yellow tends to raise blood pressure and increase pulse rate, but not to the degree of red. It is subtle, energizing, uplifting and can help to lift a sad or depressed mood.

Although saffron tends to increase our physical heart rate and pulse it contains the chemical crocetin which actually lowers high blood pressure. Some people even speculate that the low incidence of heart disease in Spain is due to the nation’s high consumption of saffron.

But can saffron really make you happy? Well it is the world’s most expensive spice. Saffron is the threads from the stigmas of the sativus crocus flower. It takes about 13,125 threads to make one ounce. There are only three stigmas per flower. Saffron is handpicked. That is why it is so expensive.

Although Saffron is used in traditional Persian and Spanish cuisine it also has a magical and medicinal aspect. In fact non-Persians in ancient times feared the use of saffron believing it drugged people and induced sexual promiscuous behavior. However, Cleopatra is said to have bathed in saffron to make love making more pleasurable. The Phoenicians marketed the spice as  a cure for melancholy and Buddhist monks adopted the color of saffron for their robes.

Modern medicine has discovered that saffron has anticancer, anti mutation and antioxidant properties. A tea made from saffron is said to help cure alcoholism and to lift depression.

Saffron is also associated with Eos the goddess of dawn who is said to open the gate to the sun each morning bringing sunlight and joy.

Saffron contains over 150 aromatic oils. It also has many nonvolatile components like carotonoids and lycopene. Actually lycopene is a carotonoid that has anticancer components that are more powerful than Vitamin E.

So if the yellow color of the crocus flower doesn't make you smile the fact that you can uplift your anticancer protection by simply eating the world’s most expensive spice while also uplifting a sad mood and enhances love making sure makes adding saffron to your diet a happy proposition.  

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com