Pepper

The next time you relegate black pepper to the back of your shelf, think twice. The humble spice holds more benefits than you’d imagine. It belongs to the Piperaceae family, and is processed in different ways to yield different kinds of peppers. For instance, the cooked and dried unripe fruit is black pepper, the green pepper is from the dried and unripe fruit, and white pepper are the seeds from the ripened fruit of the plant.

While pepper originally belongs to South India, it’s grown in other tropical countries as well. It’s played a vital role in history, and has been considered as an important spice from time immemorial. In ancient Greece, it was also used as currency. In later years, it became pivotal in the spice trade across the world.