Fake Cinnamon

As a history lover, I have read about countries fighting each other, invading lands, and developing friendships just for a certain spice. Nope, not gold, not diamond but a spice which we all know as the mighty cinnamon. We are not the only people who were mesmerized by that irresistible relaxing aroma and mildly sweet and delicate flavor because Greeks to Romans all considered cinnamon as a gift from gods where archeologists found Cinnamon in ancient Egypt pyramids. I would take days to describe the history of cinnamon, so we have done our best in []. Though it seems surprising once I smelled my cinnamon scent I lost all doubts. 

Keep all the flavors aside, thousands of research and experiments proved that cinnamon is some sort of a magic potion that cures diabetes, heart diseases, cancers while increasing metabolism. That’s why Sri Lankans who use cinnamon in every meal are considered to be one of the healthiest nations globally. Therefore I went straight to the market, bought fresh cinnamon, and started adding it to all the dishes. However to my surprise, neither the taste nor the texture matched with the descriptions about the cinnamon. Being a bit of a detective I wanted to dig deep rather than saying, “verbose bloggers”.  The findings shocked me to death, as  I found out all of our life we are fooled. Despite the real cinnamon, we are using a fake variety which is used as a rat poison. While globally peoples are infecting and governments are imposing laws against fake cinnamon, the marketplaces are filled with the fake version standing above the true one. Then you may ask what is this fake cinnamon?

What is this fake cinnamon?

Fake cinnamon is ‘Cinnamomum cassia’, called Chinese cinnamon or Cassia which deceives all the cinnamon lovers meanwhile dragging us to the liver and kidney damages through a high proportion of coumarin. Coumarin is considered to be a highly toxic compound that may damage the liver and kidney, causing cancers while dysfunctioning the nerve system. You may hear Saigon, Korintje, Indonesia cinnamon, Vietnamese Cinnamon, and cassia, these are varieties of poisonous Chinese cinnamon that will take you to death step by step. The horror is that the majority of the cinnamon market is represented by this fake version or versions. 

In our lifetime we have seen copying, duplicating, and deluding but this is a far more critical stage. We are being deceived into a false toxic compound where it has triumphed the true cinnamon. Seeing the huge demand for cinnamon and a lower amount of supply,  vendors in China, Vietnam, and Indonesia have filled the market with their own variety. The worst part is users have immensely misguided where they identify the smell, flavor, and rough texture of the Cassia as the way actual cinnamon should be. 

The real problem

Lora White is a friendly nanny who was chilled with abundant cinnamon rolls, tea, and cokes as well as the health benefits of cinnamon that are read at popular health blogs. Therefore she bought a cheap cinnamon pack from a nearby supermarket and started using that in every meal thinking she has won the battle against her diabetes. But little did she know, a week later her daughter Jenifer found Lora lying down in the kitchen fainted. Quickly she was admitted to the hospital out of nowhere she was recognized with serious liver damage. Do you know the root cause? It was our lovely CINNAMON. And this is the real problem with the fake cinnamon.

Fake cinnamon or any variety of cassia is contained with coumarin, a highly toxic chemical that is used as a rat poison. The special flavor and the scent of cassia or in other words fake cinnamon has resulted from the coumarin. That gives you a general measure of how much of a coumarin contained in cassia, and to be exact one teaspoon of fake cinnamon would contain about 12-18mg of coumarin where an average man could tolerate only 6mg on a daily basis with minimum side- effects. Possibly a cinnamon lover goes way beyond one tablespoon and the impact is highly catastrophic. The following table illustrates the effect by age category.