Incredibly popular black pepper often referred as “king of spice” is a popular spice known to the world since ancient times. The peppercorn plant is native to tropical evergreen rain forest of South Indian state, Kerala, from where it spread to rest of the world. The Pepper fruit, also known as peppercorn, is actually a berry obtained from this plant.
Botanically, peppercorn belongs to the family of piperaceae of the genus of piper; and known scientifically as Piper nigrum.   This perennial vine and climber requires supporting tree or pole to grow in height; thus has similar growth characteristics that of beetle leaf plant. It begins to bear small round berries after about three to four years of implantation. Technically, the pepper fruit is a drupe, measuring about 5 mm in diameter, containing single large seed at its centre.
Several colour peppercorns found in the markets are nothing but the same fruit, which picked up from the plant at different stages of maturity and subject to different methods of processing. Generally, the peppercorns are harvested when they are half-matured and just about to turn red. They are then left to dry under the sun light that causes them to shrivel and turns black. Alternatively, green pepper corns are picked while the berries still unripe and green in colour. The white peppercorns are derived when fully ripe berries soaked in brine to remove their dark outer coat, leaving the inner white colour pepper seed.

Black peppers have strong spicy taste that comes to them from volatile oils such as piperine. In ground peppers, these volatile oils may evaporate if kept open to the air for longer periods.

Cubeb or tailed pepper berries are dried unripe fruits of piper cubeba vine that is grown mainly Indonesian rain forest. They appear similar to black peppercorns but have a characteristic stalk which is often interpreted as a "tail". Cubeb berries have distinctive flavour rich in monoterpene essential oil, cubebene.

Health benefits

Peppercorns contain impressive list of plant derived chemical compounds that are known to have disease preventing and health promoting properties. Peppers have been in use since ancient times for its anti-inflammatory, carminative, anti-flatulent properties.

Peppercorns are composed of many health benefiting essential oils such as piperine, an amine alkaloid, which gives strong spicy pungent character to the pepper. It also contains numerous monoterpenes hydrocarbons such as sabinene, pinene, terpenene, limonene, mercene etc that gives aromatic property to the pepper.

The above-mentioned active principles in the pepper may increase the motility of the gastro-intestinal tract as well as increase the digestion power by increasing gastro-intestinal enzyme secretions. It has also been found that piperine can increase absorption of selenium, B-complex vitamins, beta-carotene, as well as other nutrients in the food.

Black peppercorns contain good amount of minerals like potassium, calcium, zinc, manganese, iron, and magnesium. Potassium is an important component of cell and body fluids that helps controlling heart rate and blood pressure. Manganese is used by the body as a co-factor for the antioxidant enzyme, superoxide dismutase. Iron is essential for cellular respiration and blood cell production.

They are also excellent source of many vital B-complex groups of vitamins such as Pyridoxine, riboflavin, thiamin and niacin.

Peppercorns are rich source of many anti-oxidant vitamins such as vitamin-C and vitamin-A. They also rich in flavonoid polyphenolic anti-oxidants like carotenes, cryptoxanthin, zeaxanthin and lycopene. These compounds help body remove harmful free radicals and help protect from cancers and diseases.

Good for the Stomach : Pepper increases the hydrochloric acid secretion in the stomach, thereby facilitating digestion. Proper digestion is essential to avoid diarrhoea, constipation and colic. Pepper also helps to prevent the formation of intestinal gas, and when added to a person’s diet, it can promote sweating and urination, which remove toxins from the body. Sweating removes toxins and cleans out the pores of any foreign bodies that may have lodged there, and it can also remove excess water or accumulation, also known as edema. In terms of urination, you can remove uric acid, urea, excess water, and fat, since 4% of urine is made of fat. For digestion, inducing digestion can help you lose weight and increase the overall functioning of your body and prevent various gastrointestinal conditions and colorectal cancer. Its ability to expel gas is because black pepper is a carminative, which forces gas out of the body in a healthy, downward motion, rather than pressing upwards in a dangerous way and straining the upper chest cavity and vital organs. It also inhibits more gas from forming in the body.

Weight Loss: The outer layer of peppercorn assists in the breakdown of fat cells. Therefore, peppery foods are a good way to help you shed weight naturally. When fat cells are broken down into their component parts, they are easily processed by the body and applied to other, healthier processes and enzymatic reactions, rather than simply sitting on your body and making you look overweight.

Skin Health: Pepper helps to cure Vitiligo, which is a skin disease that causes some areas of skin to lose its normal pigmentation and turn white. According to researchers in London, the piperine content of pepper can stimulate the skin to produce pigment. Topical treatment of piperine combined with ultra violet light therapy is much better than the other harsher, more chemically-based treatments for vitiligo. It also reduces the chances of skin cancer due to excessive ultraviolet radiation.

Respiratory Relief: In Ayurvedic practices, pepper is added to tonics for colds and coughs. Pepper also provides relief from sinusitis and nasal congestion. It has an expectorant property that helps to break up the mucus and phlegm depositions in the respiratory tract, and its natural irritant quality helps you to expel these loosened material through the act of sneezing or coughing, which eliminates the material from the body and helps you to heal from whatever infection or illness caused the deposition in the first place.

Antibacterial Quality: The antibacterial property of black pepper helps to fight against infections and insect bites. Pepper added to the diet helps to keep your arteries clean by acting in a similar way to fibre and scraping excess cholesterol from the walls, thereby helping to reduce atherosclerosis, the condition highly responsible for heart attacks and strokes.

Antioxidant Potential: An antioxidant like pepper can prevent or repair the damage caused by the free radicals and thus help to prevent cancer, cardiovascular diseases and liver problems. Free radicals are the by-products of cellular metabolism that attack healthy cells and cause their DNA to mutate into cancerous cells. Antioxidants like black pepper neutralize these harmful compounds and protect your system from many conditions, even premature aging symptoms like wrinkles, age spots, macular degeneration, and memory loss.

Enhances Bioavailability: Black pepper helps in transporting the benefits of other herbs to different parts of body, maximizing the efficiency of the other health foods that we consume. That is why adding it to foods not only makes them taste delicious, but also helps make those nutrients more available and accessible to our system.

Cognitive Impairment and Neurological Health: Piperine, one of the key components of black pepper, has been shown in numerous studies to reduce memory impairment and cognitive malfunction. Chemical pathways in the brain appear to be stimulated by this organic compound, so early research demonstrates the possibility for pepper to benefit Alzheimer’s patients and those that are suffering from dementia and other age-related or free radical-related malfunctions in cognition.

Peptic Ulcers: A number of studies have shown that black pepper may have beneficial effects on gastric mucosal damage and peptic ulcers, due to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. More research is still being done on this aspect of black pepper health effects.

Asthma and Whooping Cough: Pepper is a good treatment for respiratory conditions like  due to its properties as an expectorant, as well as its strong anti-inflammatory properties.

Other Benefits? : According to Ayurvedic medicine, black pepper also helps to prevent ear-aches and gangrene. It is also good for conditions of hernia, hoarseness and insect bites. It is also commonly used to treat conditions of tooth decay and toothache. In ancient times, pepper was also administered to treat vision problems.

Preparing grounded pepper powder at home is better than buying ready-made pepper powder. However, even home-made powder retains its freshness for only 3 months, while whole peppercorns can keep their freshness indefinitely. Thus, adding a pinch of black pepper to every meal helps to improve both taste and digestion. It also improves your overall health and wellbeing.

A Word of Warning: Pepper may cause sneezing. Patients who have undergone abdominal surgery should not add excessive pepper to their diet because it can have an irritating effect on the intestines. Black pepper should not be taken in high concentrations, and if you show signs of an allergic reaction, discontinue its use and consult a doctor!