Each week Alex, Fair Food‘s grocery buyer, sends me a note about the new things we’re getting into the webstore (which BTW you can always find here – New Products). Anyway this week Alex noted beside newly the arrived Black Seed Oil , “This cures everything but death!” Now Alex is not normally prone to overstating things so her claim for the miraculous healing power of Black Seed Oil intrigued me.
I’ve heard of Black Cumin, Black Sesame and Blackstrap Molasses but I’ve never heard of Black Seed Oil. So I went searching and learned that Alex’s quote is actually attributed to the prophet Mohammed who apparently was a big fan. Anyway the black seeds are from the nigella sativa plant, part of the buttercup family and are also known as fennel flower, nutmeg flower, black caraway and Roman coriander (that’s it in the pic above). Predictably a Google search on Black Seed Oil’s benefits will tell you it will heal everything from brain tumors to baldness and help you lose weight to boot. It’s also widely reported to have been found in the tomb of the Egyptian Pharoah Tutankhamun. A fact that has been jumped on enthusiastically by Black Seed Oil marketers, although I’m not sure this is the best recommendation being that the unfortunate young King Tut was plagued by malaria and numerous other afflications and died at the tender age of 18.
Going down the peer reviewed path Black Seed Oil has been studied a lot, mainly because it’s full of thymoquinone (aka TQ) which has cancer-fighting and anti-inflammatory properties. This article in the US National Library of Medicine
referenced 98 studies and went on forever listing all the good things reserachers have to say about Black Seed Oil. By the end of it my brain was fried but my initial sceptiscim of the good prophet’s via Alex’s claim had turned into curiousity – perhaps I’ll lose weight and grow my hair back as well. Anyway if you’re curious about Black Seed Oil do your research and if you’d like to try some you’ll find it here in our webshop.
referenced 98 studies and went on forever listing all the good things reserachers have to say about Black Seed Oil. By the end of it my brain was fried but my initial sceptiscim of the good prophet’s via Alex’s claim had turned into curiousity – perhaps I’ll lose weight and grow my hair back as well. Anyway if you’re curious about Black Seed Oil do your research and if you’d like to try some you’ll find it here in our webshop.
A final note; As always please be aware that like Dr Google him or herself, neither Alex, the prophet Mohammed nor I are qualified medical practitioners and as such you should seek the advice of a trusted professional when it comes to your health.
