The Benefits Of Turmeric?

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Indonesia was once called “Spice Island” by Portuguese explorer in the 15th century (Schelander, Hsu, & Brown, 2000). Indonesia was known to have been using spices and herbs through many centuries for their life sustainability. Spices and herbs are one of the oldest Indonesian heritage that still commonly used in modern days for health benefit, medicine, and food additive. However, “kunyit” or commonly called turmeric, has been considered as one of the greatest healing herbs among other herbs (Ravindran, Babu, & Sivaraman, 2007. p, 1). Therefore, synthetic drugs should be replace by turmeric-based drugs if possible.
Turmeric is a common name for Curcuma longa; a species of plant from the ginger family (Zingiberaceae). Turmeric grows in tropical …show more content…

Due to it orange-yellow color properties in the rhizomes, turmeric create a strong influenced the culture life and food in Southeast Asia region before knowing the health benefit of turmeric (Ravindran et al., 2007, p. 1). In Indonesia ancient civilization, turmeric was used for cosmetic, especially for noble society. According to Qhuang (2013), they used turmeric as a traditional scrub called “lulur” (traditional Javanese body scrub) for their beauty and skin appearance. He describes that scrubbing their body with turmeric lulur is believed to give a golden-glow healthy skin, cure inflammation cause by insects, and mitigate allergies. Moreover, he said it is believed by ancient society to ward off bad luck and magical hexes. In some region, turmeric has been used for wedding culture by giving turmeric lulur treatment to bride and groom one day before the feast. In India turmeric was used to dye clothes (cotton, silk, and wool) (Ravindran et al., 2007, …show more content…

2). However, the main active constituents that responsible for the coloring in turmeric is curcumin and other two pigments that accompanying curcumin which are demehtoxycurcumin and demethoxy curcumin as proposed by Srinivasan (1953, p. 448) in his observation on the constituents of coloring matter in turmeric, sample of turmeric were extracted to column of chromatography and the resolved fractions were analyzed through absorption characteristics, physical properties, and color-forming chemical

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