If you didn’t already know, cinnamon is often used in weight loss recipes.
And the reason for that is because eating cinnamon helps increase insulin sensitivity.
This in turn helps stabilize blood sugar levels and reduce cravings; two very important things needed for long-term weight loss.
Essentially, when you eat food, your pancreas secretes insulin in response to the elevation of sugar in your blood.
Insulin is a hormone that signals your cells to absorb the high sugar content in your blood in order to bring it back to normal levels.
In short, insulin sensitivity is good, while insulin resistance is bad. The better your insulin sensitivity, the more sugar is absorbed by your muscles, which can be used for energy instead of being stored as fat. (1)
Why Do I Need To Boil My Cinnamon?
A big danger from taking too much cinnamon is that it’s been linked with an increase risk of liver damage due to a substance called coumarin.
There are two ways to reduce your exposure to coumarin while using cinnamon for weight loss.
- Avoid cassia cinnamon or chinese cinnamon and use Ceylon cinnamon instead (2,3)
- Boil your cinnamon
If you can’t afford ceylon cinnamon which is more expensive, here’s a simple trick you can use to make cassia cinnamon safer.
- Steep cassia cinnamon in boiling water for 30 minutes.
- Pour the cinnamon-infused water into a cup using a paper coffee filter as a way of extracting the coumarin.
- Let it cool and enjoy!
The active ingredient in cinnamon that is responsible for helping you lose weight is water soluble.
Therefore, pouring the water through a paper coffee filter helps extract the coumarin while letting the good stuff pass through. (4)
sources:
[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14625128
[2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23297571
[3]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22518078
[4]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21462332