But Dr. Manoj Jain, a local infectious disease specialist and the author of two cookbooks about his native Indian cuisine, remembers it being used medicinally in his childhood.

"I recall my grandmother would give us turmeric in milk," he said. "We would also put it on wounds."

Smart grandma. Recent studies suggest that curcumin, the agent that gives the spice its color, is an anti-inflammatory comparable to hydrocortisone.

"There are all kinds of things we could use in our everyday life to improve our health," Jain said. "And our grandparents did it all the time."

Today, practitioners of Western medicine are taking a hard look at their Eastern counterparts and at age-old medicinal cures not too far removed from Granny's poultices and tonics.

The latest in a succession of foods promising health benefits are spices. Add old standbys like red wine, blueberries, olive oil and nuts to the list of good-for-you edibles and eating for health starts to sound more like a treat than a chore.

According to numerous studies, spices can lower cholesterol, regulate blood sugar, protect us from cancer, even keep dementia at bay.

Looks like the early spice traders, who valued some spices

above gold, were on to something. Considering that the amount of money we spend on drugs to combat disease is in the stratosphere of the billions, learning to like a new spice sounds like a good idea.

When customers come in Penzeys Spices at Carrefour and tell owner Michael Moore they don't know how to cook with spices, he's ready.

"I say 'Do you know how to cook chicken?' Well, we can make chicken taste different seven days a week," he said.

Want to ward off a cold? Try seasoning the chicken with cayenne pepper, which contains a megadose of vitamin C.

Need to regulate your blood sugar or lower your cholesterol? A savory blend with cinnamon (no, it's not just for toast and buns) might be just the ticket.

According to "SuperFoods HealthStyle" by Dr. Steven G. Pratt, one study showed that patients with type II diabetes who ingested a half teaspoon of cinnamon daily for 40 days saw an 18 to 29 percent reduction in their fasting glucose levels and a decrease in total cholesterol by 12 to 26 percent.

Furthermore, the essential oils in cinnamon show promise as an antibacterial and anti-fungal, and just smelling it can be a pick- me-up.

Before you dismiss this as some kind of naturalistic hooey, consider that cinnamon is the bark of a tree - and that aspirin was developed from the salicin found in the bark and leaves of the willow tree.

Or that herbal teas are commonly used to soothe upset stomachs , jangled nerves and stuffy noses. And that Eastern medicine, with an emphasis on natural healing including the prescription of herbs and spices, is widely practiced outside the United States and gaining a following here.

This doesn't mean you can set aside your insulin syringe in favor of cinnamon-laced hot chocolate.

"It's OK to use these spices and foods, but we must not use them in place of antibiotics or other Western medicines," Jain said.

A complementary approach, in other words.

The term spice is often generically used, but spices are officially the dried seed, root, fruit or bark of a plant. Herbs are the leafy green part of a plant. Sometimes herbs and spices come from the same plant - cilantro is the green part of the plant coriandrum sativum and coriander is the seed (but they taste different and are not interchangeable in a recipe).

Pepper is the most popular spice in the world - salt is a mineral, not a spice. The kind of pepper you put in a mill or a shaker comes from peppercorns, which are berries. Pratt reports that eating food sprinkled with black pepper while drinking green tea boosts the absorption of a cancer-fighting flavonoid the tea contains.