Hard to believe it, but it’s all true!
Saffron is the single most expensive spice on the planet. A single gram of the stuff will run you nearly $7, while the high quality stuff costs over $8 per gram. When you see just how little a gram of the spice is, you’ll be amazed that anyone would pay that much!
But saffron is an amazing spice in its own right. It is one of the healthiest spices around, offering benefits like cancer-fighting properties, antioxidants to kill off free radicals, detoxification, improving your digestion, and boosting your cardiovascular health.
Saffron has been around for millennia, and it has been put to some pretty interesting uses! Here are a few saffron uses you never expected:
- Dyeing clothes — Southern Europeans would grow the crocus flower, and harvest it for its coloring abilities rather than its spice. It has long been used to give clothing a vibrant orange color, a color that cannot be achieved using any other natural dye.
- Marking status –– Indian women have historically used saffron as a way to mark themselves as higher caste. They would make a paste from the saffron and dab it onto their foreheads, giving them that permanent dot (the dye would soak into their skin) that indicated their caste.
- Making coffee –– In Saudi Arabia, for the coffee to be considered truly “Arabic”, it must contain threads of saffron mixed in, along with cardamom.
- Cooking –– We all know that saffron is the primary spice in Spanish Paella, but it is used in many other dishes. In India, saffron is used in both savory and sweet dishes–used to spice meat, prepare rice, bake sweets, and even lend flavor to ice cream. Saffron is used by Northern Italians in the preparation of their renowned risotto, and the Swedish use it to bake a special bread eaten on St. Lucile’s Day.
- Perfume –– Since the days of Ancient Greece, saffron has been used as a perfume. It was used by the Romans to perfume their baths, and the courtesans and high class prostitutes of Ancient Greece used it as a perfume.
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- Coloring hair — During the reign of Henry VIII, saffron was a popular hair dye among the ladies of the court. So many of them used the spice to color their hair that the king forbade its use. He feared that their use would deprive his table of the spice.
- Medicine –– The Moors of Northern Africa prized saffron for its medicinal purposes, using it in many of their remedies and elixirs. Thanks to its anesthetic properties, it is a highly useful spice, with medicinal benefits that extend far beyond the digestive tract. Ancient Romans would also sleep with a pillow stuffed with saffron, supposedly meant to cure all manner of ailments.
- Cosmetic — Queen Cleopatra of Egypt was known to have used saffron as a cosmetic.
- Drug –– The Minoans of Crete would use saffron to make a narcotic tea, which they would drink and get a “high”. The infusion of saffron was highly sought after, and highly expensive!
- Sex drive boost –– Both the Greeks and Persians viewed saffron as an aphrodisiac, and would take it in order to boost their sex drive. Thanks to the cardiovascular benefits of the spice, it can be a good way to stimulate blood flow to the sex organs–thereby increasing your libido.
All pretty amazing uses for this spice, which is so rare and so hard to harvest!
