On the shelf in front of my windowpane growsVanilla planifolia , reportedly the most medicinal of the vanilla . The vanilla plant is an orchidaceous plant with well - known culinary app . It develop wild in tropical climates right around the equator . This mean that it grows naturally in quite a few dissimilar nation with quite a few unlike soil case . All of this variety in growing cultivation mean that it ’s a bit like wine or coffee , producing a multitude of look bank note depending on the resulting bean ’s origin .
As I am quite a bit northwards of the equator , I keep my industrial plant growing indoors . It ’s wintertime here , so I ’m not watering it as much as I would in the summer . I keep a mister handy because it likes a bit of humidity . The vanilla extract orchid is a right houseplant and , in clip , will most likely vine all around my windowpane . It wo n’t blossom until it is 5 years old , at which point , I ’ll have to act as pollinator if I want to have my own fruit .
Vanilla Pollination
Mexico is presently the only place where there is a natural vanilla pollinator . All other places require quite a lot of human intervention . This explains its high cost for the true extract . The prime is only open for one day and if it is n’t pollenate in the morning , it put down off the next day .
More Than A Flavoring
Vanilla is more than just a tasty addition to adust good . It has a foresighted history as an aphrodisiac , but that ’s just the tip of the iceberg . It is said that it was very effective with weighting red ink , though I have yet to figure out exactly how it was used — certainly not in a muffin !
Today , there is reincarnate interest in meditate the medicinal aspects of this orchid , though a specific constituent , vanillin , tie the most focus . Vanillin is an antioxidant see within the vanilla pod that has shown promise as an anti - cancer agentive role and a firm anti - inflammatory . The seedcase are relatively nutritious and are also known to be mildly ataractic , with a special hang for quelling anxiety .
Using Your Vanilla
I like to grease one’s palms whole vanilla extract beans and use them in bake or make my own excerption . I look forward to when my infusion contains my own homegrown fruit , as well . Only clip will recite if I ’m successful in that intent . In the meantime , I will blithely use vanilla in as many recipes as potential . Vanilla looks like a corking accession to our day-after-day lives in multiplication of eminent strain , and I am constantly on the hunt club for raw and different ways to utilize it for that reason .
