Spice Up Your New Year with Cloves

When I think of holiday drinks I often imagine the taste of creamy eggnog in a glass cup with Christmas cookies by my side, my mind sees a mug of hot chocolate topped with a mound of whipped cream  next to the decorated tree, and my nose remembers the clove-studded orange floating in a sea of warm apple cider creating an appropriately festive and kid-friendly treat. Cloves have a strong scent and spicy flavor and can add a little more to your dishes than just a delight for your senses.

Native to Indonesia, cloves are the dried flower buds of the Myrtaceae tree family and used in dishes from pumpkin pie to curry. The clove tree is an evergreen with large green leaves and red clusters of flowers. The name clove, comes from the French word for nail—clou—because the dried buds once harvested, physically resemble tiny brown nails.

Besides developing rich flavors in cooking, Ayurvedic Indian medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) have long used cloves as alternative treatments for a variety of symptoms. For example, the essential oil made from cloves is used as a painkiller in dentistry as well as aromatherapy for stress and stimulation for digestive problems when it can be applied as topical oil directly onto the affected skin. The Chinese believe that cloves are able to fortify the kidneys providing warmth and protection throughout the body. Cloves are used in TCM as a morning sickness cure along with ginseng, or to curb vomiting or diarrhea due to other illnesses. Due to the anti-inflammatory qualities of cloves, they have been proved beneficial to digestive track illnesses. The clove and clove oil are also used for sensitive skin symptoms, burns and hormonal skin afflictions like acne. Clove oil is essential as a topical antiseptic because it lessens infection and can draw parasites out of the body, common as a detoxifying agent, fresh cloves are the most potent form of medicine and should be used with caution.

Ayurvedic herbalists use cloves around the world in tea for helping ease stomach discomfort and the taste probably helps too. Sore and tight muscles often use the help of clove oil in order to warm up the skin and joints. Cloves are also taken for ailing bowels, as a stimulant for nerves, and for healthy liver functions.

Published in Prostaglandins Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, researchers studied the antioxidant properties in a number of spices: garlic, onion, ginger, mint, cinnamon, pepper, and cloves. Garlic came in last on the scale and cloves came in first with the most antioxidant activity reported.

Cloves can be found whole at specialty stores, in oil form at nutritional shops or health food stores, and in its most popular form found at grocery stores, ground into a fine powder. Besides being used in dental emergencies as a topical painkiller, cloves have been known for their prevention of bad breath. Ancient cultures rubbed whole clove buds onto their gums as a way to keep their breath fresh. Current technology was able to isolate the active ingredient, eugenol, to be used as an anesthetic. Many folk remedies use cloves as quick home remedies. 

Cloves seem to be great in age old household remedies from an upset stomach to morning sickness to persistent acne and because they are used in a lot of recipes nowadays the benefits of cloves could be helping during ingestion without anyone being aware of them. Every December I look forward to the traditions built along the way. Besides eggnog, whiskey, and spiced apple cider being nostalgic beverages that help me enjoy the festivities, cloves are also commonly used as studs on the outside of a spiral ham during a traditional Christmas feast, alleviating the need for added sugar glazes due to the power of the clove.