ottawa foodies

Your help is very much appreciated.

Ashley Not sure if this is convenient for you but I usually get my cinnamon sticks at Market Organics in the Byward Market. I have generally been happy with the freshness of their spices.

Any grocery store seems to have them both

zymurgist Agreed. But the cinnamon sticks/powder at the grocery stores aren't very flavourful IMHO. Hence the recommendation for Market Organics. Nasa Food Centre in Chinatown might also be a good place to try.

I just found out that most of what I have been buying as cinnamon sticks is actually cassia. Here is a link that explains the difference.
cassiacinnamon.com/
I am going to look for REAL cinnamon sticks from now on.

If you can find Saigon or Viet cinnamon, buy it... has the most intense, deep flavour. What you'll find at most Indian stores is probably cassia.

Think I recall seeing real cinnamon at Grace In The Kitchen on Bank.

The big bottle of ground cinnamon that Costco sells just happens to be Saigon Cinnamon. Worthwhile if you use quite a lot.

Thanks to you all for the quick reply.

FF, which section in Costco? This will save me time.

My friend forwarded me an email about using honey and cinnamon as an effective drink to cure Arthritis. I then forwarded to all my friends. One friend tried it and told me that he has no more pain in his joints after taking the honey/cinnamon mixture.

Here is how to use it:
One cup of hot water with 2 tablespoons of honey and one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder. When taken daily (morning and night), even chronic arthritis can be cured within a week (out of the 200 people so treated, practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain within a month according to research conducted at Copenhagen University).

Mexican cinnamon is "true" cinnamon, not cassia--you can get it at Mercado Latino.

I keep both cassia and cinnamon in my kitchen. I use cassia in Indian cooking and most baked goods, where I find its assertive sweet/hot flavour (think red-hot cinnamon heart candies) work well. I use cinnamon in most savoury dishes (esp. Mexican ones) and some baked goods (e.g., Linzertorte)--it has a milder, woody, more complex flavour.

ashley, that is a very dubious claim "practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain within a month". what does practically 73 patients mean?

anyway, it certain won't hurt you to eat honey and cinnamon and will probably taste delicious. look for some local honey and not chinese honey. i am not sure whether it is real cinnamon or not, but the sticks at herb & spice on wellington are really nice and big. i find their flavour much nicer than grocery store ones and they are much bigger.

Beware of any medical claims associated with cinnamon. Also, I remember reading something about cinnamon being toxic in large amounts (I'm pretty sure 1 teaspoon per day would count as a large amount).

Ashley, the cinnamon is in the Costco spice section! ;-) In Kanata, that's next to the pharmacy area.

Well, almost anything is toxic in large enough amounts. Drinking 6 liters of water in an hour would most probably kill you.

Cinnamon is not particularly toxic. A few spoonfulls is certainly not an issue for most people. I am pretty sure of that, as I've eaten many cinnamon sticks (tasty light snack if you really really like cinnamon...)

The spice you may be thinking of is nutmeg. It supposedly contains an hallucinogenic substance and eating the equivalent of a single nut could have dangerous effects. I've never tested it myself.

But I might try this honey cinnamon drink... not for medical reasons, just because it sounds tasty ;-)

Mark_Ottawa, thanks for the clarification on the differences in flavours. I had only recently (this winter) discovered that what I’ve been using for most of my life is most probably cassia and not cinnamon. Now, I want to taste the “real” thing.

Isabelle, the wikipedia page on coumarin (en.wikipedia.org) suggests that a daily intake of 1 teaspoon of Cassia cinnamon may be too much! The odd snack of a cinnamon stick is probably fine. I'll have to try that! :-)

I see. Interesting read, thanks.

That's the big difference between lethal dosage and recommanded daily intake.

Eating a teaspoon of cassia cinnamon every day might eventually have some negative impacts on health. Maybe after weeks or months.

The LD50 dose for is not too scary though... quick maths tells me eating over 6kg of the spice in one sitting is likely to kill me. Of course, it is just plain impossible to eat that much spice, so I'm not worried.

Surprising to see that may wine has the same "mildly toxic" compound. It's usually drunk once a year though, so the daily intake is not likely to become an issue for anyone.

As always, it seems that it is better for your health not to eat/drink the same thing every single day. It would get boring anyway ;-p

There is Chinese honey?
really? I have never seen that. I'm going to look for it..not to buy but want to read the packaging.

I have seen honey from south america a lot that is cheap.

Usually I buy local or Canadian honey.
But I did try some honey from France that came from different regions.

You're not likely to find China on the label--there was an article recently about many honeys being mislabeled and China dumping honey, especially in the US. It's a cause for concern, as they use antibiotics and there are residues in the honey. I can't find the article right now, but will look for it.

Chinese honey is blended with Canadian honey. China is the world's largest honey producer. China has been previously accused of selling compromised honey and honey laundering. There is a lot of info available out there, but Globe and Mail recently ran a story:

www.theglobeandmail.com

"Rarely will a jar of honey say “Made in China.” Instead, Chinese honey sold in North America is more likely to be stamped as Indonesian, Malaysian or Taiwanese, due to a growing multimillion dollar laundering system designed to keep the endless supply of cheap and often contaminated Chinese honey moving into the U.S., where tariffs have been implemented to staunch the flow and protect its own struggling industry. "

I found my Saigon Cinnamon at Homesense (!) Got a half litre bottle of it for about $5-6

I finally managed to read the info from the link provided by blubarry. It really helps me to understand the difference between Cassia (also known as Saigon Cinnamon) and Cinnamon (also known as Real or Sweet Cinnamon).

Cassia is mostly grown in Vietnam, China, Indonesia and Cinnamon is grown in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

See this link for more details on how to identify between Cassia and Cinnamon:
cassiacinnamon.com

I bought the Saigon Cinnamon powder from Costco (only $2.79 for a big bottle). I think it will take me a long time before I can finish it (may be few years)! As FF mentioned, Cassia could be Toxic since the level of coumarin in Cassia is higher than those in Ceylon cinnamon. Therefore, I am not going to use a large amount (even 1 teaspoon). I will just sprinkle a bit and mix with honey.

I gave some to my husband and he said it tastes terrible. I tried it and found it ok.

Interesting to know about the cinnamon vs. cassia bark.
That is an interesting website.

I will go out and look for some Ceylon Cinnamon soon,I just have powdered Mccormick's cinnamon here.

For honey I usually buy what they sell at the farmer's market's on Bank st or the Hull farmer's market.
I also bought some honey from France that was from the different regions-I think the brand was Ruche de Gue, but no idea where to buy that now.

Thanks Fresh Foodie. I bought the huge bottle of Vietnamese cinnamon at Costco for $2.97. Today I used it to glaze some bacon and the flavor was quite nice.

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