Oregano: Zest for Your Dinner and Your Herbal Medicine Chest

Reader Contribution by Lori Osterloh-Hagaman
Published on September 9, 2014
article image

The smell is one of familiar culinary delight. Ah! Oregano! It’s pungent aroma lends zest to sauces, Italian dishes, and tomato products of all kinds. But what of the medicinal qualities of this oft forgotten aromatic?

Oregano is a member of the huge mint family, Lamiaceae. Its name has a base in Greek (they all do, it seems). Oros, meaning mountain, and ganos, meaning joy, are combined to express what the people of the time must have thought of the plant. It is a mountain joy. It can be found cultivated throughout the world. As with many modern “kitchen herbs,” it has a great many varieties. Typically, it typically grows 50 cm tall and has purple leaves around 2 to 3 centimeters in length. The variety I have in my garden grows leaves a bit smaller and more of a deep green, however, that may be due to the climate in which we live. I am still investigating this.

The smell of oregano is distinctive. Thymol, pinene, limonene, carvacrol, ocimene, and caryophyllene all work together to give off that wonderful aroma. It’s flavor is impossible to mistake in Mexican and Italian dishes.

Oregano as Antifungal

A gentlemen approached me once, and request a rather large amount of essential oil of oregano. I had used quite a bit of different oils, but the quantity in which he asked for the oregano oil seemed quite outlandish at the time. Really, it wasn’t. He only asked for five 5 ml bottles, but I was a newbie and no idea why he would need so much at one time. He enlightened me.

Comments (0) Join others in the discussion!
    Online Store Logo
    Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368