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January/February 2008 Alternative Health
Thai Cuisine as Medicine

by Ed Smith

Ed Smith

In Thailand, a simple meal can contain foods and spices that can prevent and heal disease. Filled with fresh ingredients, Thai cuisine uses many medicinal herbs and spices that can heal a wide range of ailments, from digestive problems to skin cancer.

When dining in Thailand, you can choose from a vast array of foods and dishes. You can buy Pad Thai noodles from a street vendor or pick up Tom Kah soup from one of the thousands of small restaurants that line the streets and sois (alleys) of Bangkok. Sitting down at a communal table, you can embellish your healing meal with things like fresh gotu kola leaves and hot chili peppers that sit in the center of the table for all to share.

Gotu Kola

Gotu kola contains compounds that help build collagen and connective tissue, and aid the rapid healing of injuries like cuts, burns or even a broken leg. By maximizing the regeneration of the original functioning tissue, gotu kola minimizes the replacement by scar tissue. By protecting skin tissue from oxidation and inflammation, gotu kola can minimize the deterioration of aging skin.

Hot Chili Peppers

Thai food wouldn't be Thai food without pungent chili peppers. The Thai claim that hot peppers cool the body by bringing blood to the surface of the body, which helps disperse heat from the inner body. Hot peppers stimulate the appetite and good digestion, and harmonize the various flavors in a dish.

Galanga

Fresh galanga root, a cousin of ginger, is a key spice in Thai food and is much more flavorful than the dried root. It's the pungent and aromatic spice that gives Tom Yam soup its distinctive signature flavor. In Thai folk medicine, galanga is used externally to treat skin cancer, and modern science has proven it's immune boosting and anti-cancer properties. 

Baby Ginger

The Thai don't let their ginger roots grow big -- they prefer them smaller, tender and succulent. It's much sweeter and more flavorful that way. Baby ginger (or pink ginger) is excellent for digestion and is the best anti-nauseate I know - especially for car or sea sickness. 

Lemon Grass

The Thai cut off the green top and only use the more succulent lower part of lemon grass. This pleasantly aromatic and mildly pungent spice improves digestion and relieves nausea, and its aromatic oils have antiviral properties that are used in Thai folk medicine. The Thai simmer lemon grass into a delicious tea to treat things like nausea or a feverish child.

Cilantro

If the cilantro plant goes to seed, you get the spice coriander seed, which has a very different taste than cilantro herb. Both cilantro and coriander are great for intestinal gas, upset stomach and improving digestion. Recent research shows that cilantro herb can be used to remove heavy metals from the body, and is now being recommended to those having mercury fillings removed from their teeth. Cilantro inhibits mercury and lead from depositing into the bone and other tissues.

Papaya

While the Thai love the ripe papaya fruit, they also enjoy the green, unripe fruit as the base for their notoriously spicy Som Tom salad. Green papayas contain an enzyme-rich substance called papain, which is used in meat tenderizers and in digestive enzyme tablets. Papain is also used in dry cleaning to remove blood and other protein stains, and in breweries as a haze-eliminating agent to give a clear, sparkling look to beer.

Coconut

The Thai use a lot of coconut in their dishes and deserts. Coconut water was used in the South Pacific during World War II by American and Japanese doctors as a replacement for plasma injections because the water is both sterile and isotonic. I love to drink the fresh coconut water sold by street vendors as a delicious drink to replace the electrolytes lost during the sweaty hot season.

Pineapple

Pineapple is often used in Thai cooked dishes and is readily available as chilled fresh fruit from street vendors. The center stem of pineapple is rich in a group of enzymes called bromelain which has similar uses to papaya's papain. It is especially useful as an anti-inflammatory and to minimize adhesions.

Lime

Besides loving their flavor, I also carry limes when traveling in Thailand as part of my medicine kit. They can be rubbed on mosquito bites to relieve itch, and used to disinfect wounds. Lime juice drinks are excellent during fevers because the metabolism of lime's high levels of citric acid help to alkalize the blood.

Tamarind

Tamarind trees are a legume and the fruits are actually a very large pea. The flavorful meat of the fruit is high in citric acid and vitamin C and is used to give a delicious tart flavor to Thai curries and sauces. Tamarind has been used to prevent and treat scurvy. In ample doses it can act a very mild-acting laxative that moistens, cools and disinfects the bowels, and their regular use can prevent constipation.

Ed Smith, popularly know in the herb world as "Herbal Ed" has been working as a medical herbalist for 30 years and is the founder and co-owner of Herb Pharm, an organic herb farm and herbal products company located in southern Oregon. Ed has traveled extensively throughout Thailand for 25 years and resides there about half the year. Visit www.herb-pharm.com and www.herbaled.org.