Pepper Need to spice up your life? Spices not only add a distinctive flavour to food they also have fantastic health benefits.

Pepper: Is an irritant, yet this annoying characteristic is a plus for those suffering from coughs with thick mucus. The irritating property of pepper stimulates circulation and the flow of mucus. Place 1 teaspoon black pepper into a cup and sweeten things up with the addition of 1 tablespoon honey. Fill with boiling water, let steep for 10 to 15 minutes, stir, and sip.

Tyme . It's time to try thyme when the mucous membranes are stuffed, the head aches, and the body is hot with fever. Wonderfully fragrant, thyme delights the senses (if you can smell when you're sick) and works as a powerful expectorant and antiseptic, thanks to its constituent oil, thymol. By cupping your hands around a mug of thyme tea and breathing in the steam, the thymol sets to work through your upper respiratory tract, loosening mucus and inhibiting bacteria from settling down to stay. Make thyme tea in a snap by adding 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves to 1 cup boiling water. Let steep for five minutes while inhaling the steam. Strain the tea, sweeten with honey (to taste), and slowly sip.

Cardimon/elachi: This sweet seed often added to desserts gives one sweet breath and clears the airways. Added to curries, desserts and dals it expels mucus and reduces gassy indigestion. Taken with ginger, cardamom stimulates the appetite and reduces nausea. To strengthen the respiratory system and eliminate coughs try this traditional chai tea. To 4 cups of boiling water add 5 bruised cardamom pods, 2 cinnamon sticks, 2 peppercorns, 4 slices ginger root and 2 basil leaves. Reduce to two cups, strain, cool and drink with honey.

Cloves: Indians believe a clove a day keeps a sore throat away. As well as stimulating the taste buds with its spicy pungency, clove’s antiseptic action soothes sore throats and coughs. For this try a pinch of clove with 1 tsp of honey three times a day or inhale the steam of 7 cloves in 5 cups boiled water. For toothache a few drops of clove oil on a cotton ball placed over the tooth is an effective painkiller.

Perhaps the most popular spice in Ayurvedic cooking, cumin has a rich flavour and a wealth of medicinal properties. Both the black and brown cumin help to relieve gas, period pain and diarrhoea. If you’ve ever been offered a spice mix after an Indian meal, chances are it included cumin seeds. To boost digestion make your own mix by combining 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 tsp fennel seeds, 1/4 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp sugar and a pinch of salt. Chew about 1/2 tsp after a meal. A tea made from 1/2tsp seeds and 2 cups of boiling water reduced to one cup gives colicky children and adult’s relief. To disguise the taste it can be mixed with peppermint tea.