A friend of mine introduced me to this cool Indian herb called asafoetida (pronounced as-fi-TI-da). It’s cool because you can use it in food preparation in place of onion and garlic.
I avoid onion and garlic as much as I can because it gives me a funny belly, a yucky taste in my mouth that usually lasts about a day, and it increases the heat in my body so I often get redness and inflammation in my skin after eating it.
It’s unfortunate because I know how healing both onion and garlic can be to the body. I wrote an article about garlic over a year ago now and it’s an article that’s referred to a lot from the readers of this blog. Check it out if you want to learn more about why I don’t like to eat garlic - Is Garlic A Friend Or Foe For Your Skin?
Either way I’m going to keep avoiding it because it doesn’t feel right in my body and I don’t like how it makes my skin look.
So if you’re in the same boat as me and don’t like eating onion and garlic, then get your hands on some asafoetida. It’s an Indian herb so you’re most likely to find it at an Indian grocery store. If you can’t find it at any of your local grocery stores then you can buy it online.
Asafoetida comes in a powdered form so you use it just like any other powdered spice or herb. Apparently it has a really bad smell before it’s cooked which I actually didn’t notice at all when my friend was showing me so I can’t comment on that. We were making up some raw food together so we added it to a dip type thing that was uncooked and it didn’t have a strong flavor but still tasted good. You’re supposed to use it in cooking because it really brings out the flavor.
When I was researching asafoetida last night I came across a heap of information about the healing properties of the spice which is just awesome. I don’t particularly like using any food or flavoring that doesn’t provide any nutrients so this was like the icing on the cake.
Apparently asafoetida has been used as a medicine in India and China for a long time. In Indian it’s most commonly known to help reduce flatulence which is a bit weird but hey, at least you won’t have to worry about THAT problem. It’s also known to help heal respiratory disorders, influenza, toothache, impotency, and is great for women after child birth. It also helps balance out the vata dosha. I think I may have found one of my most favorite herbs of all time!!
Fran Kerr is the founding editor of High on Health. To cure your acne, sign up to Fran's FREE acne cure mini-course or download her latest how to guide, Eat Away Your Acne.
10 responses ↓
I think it’s great that this spice could help to reduce THAT problem. One of my friends who is vegan/rawfoodie often developed the gas problem. She ended up eliminating some of her favorite veggies from her diet.
Since her body was reacting that way, those veggies are not that good for her anyways, but hey! they are her favorite veggies! Thanks Fran for the great info!
Its also in a remedy I am using for my teethridge problems. It tastes so much like garlic, I was stunned that it wasn’t
Anita indicated that this tastes like garlic. What do other people think of the taste? I cook with garlic regularly but would not change an onion taste for a garlic flavor. Is it somewhere in between or firmly at the garlic end of the spectrum?
I could not believe my luck and the timing when I read this Fran. I am about to start an elimination diet to help with the diagnosis of fructose malabsorbtion. I am intolerant to gluten and dairy and despite eating a diet strictly free of these I have still been getting bad tummy probs and feel tired all the time.. I was sick of it and tried a 100% raw diet eating lots of fresh fruits and vegies and the symptoms only got worse. As fructose intolerance is associated with coeliac disease which I have, I think I nailed have finally nailed the corprat. I am seeing a dietition next week for supervision with the diet but from some internet research I was devastated to find that fructose is in most of my favourite fruits, and fructins, which are also not absorbed and to be avoided, are present in some vegetables, brown rice and ONION and GARLIC! I was so upset about the now limited diet that I cried upon reading this information. I love cooking and these are upon my favourite flavours to use in savoury food so I was so stoked to read your article this morn and find out there is an alternative that I may be able to use! (i’ll run it by the dietition).
Sorry about the long winded story but I thought it may be useful to some of your readers who are trying to nut out any food intolerances. It is not very well known but a quick google search can give a bit of basic information and symptoms which may match up with their own. Thanks again for the article!
Where do you buy it fran?
How uncanny! I’ve been looking into it myself recently..
One thing to check for those unable to tolerate gluten - some of the containers say ‘compounded’, and often that means with wheat, as the herb is ground up (similar to wheat-based anti-caking agents, etc.). The labelling laws in India are not like here in Aus, so sometimes it’s hard to tell (I tried emailing manufacturers, but they just said they “didn’t think so…” - unfortunately not convincing enough for my tummy!).
It’s common name is ‘hing’ powder, if anyone’s having trouble finding it.. and it usually comes in a little (often yellow) plastic tub the size of something like one of those tiny jam jars.
Careful not to overdo it when cooking though, heating really brings out the potent flavour!
ps.
Apparently Hing/Asafoetida is used by devotees of Krishna in place of onions & garlic because these are not offerable to Krishna.. so there you go!
Asafoetida is on my kitchen table:)
It seems to me that nowdays word ‘allergy’ is overused. Any time one has a rush or something like that he or she immediatley become ‘allergic’ to smth. Is it always the case?
OK, here is a short story:
One morning I had a large plate of cultured cabbage (in Russia and Korea it is a popular dish) and … in a hour I had a terrible headache and I vomitted for 3 times, sorry about such a detail. I had an immediate break out, alas.
So, was I allergic to cultured cabbage? No, I was not. What happened to me then? Here is the answer: cultured vegetables are very good for digestion, especially for rebalancing good microflora in the colon. Cultured cabbage (and its brine especially) is a wonderful antiparasite product, so I had it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach … and killed a huge number of bad bacteria and parasites that released a lot of toxins. All of that led to my headache and break out. Remember that onion and garlic are good antiparasites products (as well as asafoetida, known as tape worms’ enemy) that kill inner parasites and lead to break outs!
Ang - At All Indian Foods on Balaclava Street down the road from me, I bought you one!
It does really smell bad before it’s cooked
The first thing I’d like to say is that the world would be a little better perhaps if none of us were too embarrassed to talk about having gas or diarrhea or constipation. Now having studied Ayurveda for a few years I see many of our major health problems would be resolved if we took an open, honest look at our human functioning. We eat, sleep, work, have sex, poo, pee and all these things. All of us. Lets talk about it - at lease when needed - without embarsement.
Hing - Asafetida - is also known as “smells like shit.” It is excellent for Vata people who should avoid garlic and onion. Interestingly these same people may not be able to take a raw food diet. For me the best health is zero raw. Maybe 10% in Summer.
Be well, be balance, build community
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