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Turmeric (), or Curcuma longa (), is a flowering plant in the ginger family Zingiberaceae. It is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia that requires temperatures between and high annual rainfall to thrive. Plants are gathered each year for their , some for propagation in the following season and some for consumption or .
The rhizomes can be used fresh, but they are often boiled in water and dried, after which they are ground into a deep orange-yellow shelf-stable spice powder commonly used as a coloring and flavoring agent in many , especially for Curry (curry powder). Turmeric powder has a warm, bitter, black pepper-like flavor and earthy, mustard plant-like aroma.
Although long used in Ayurvedic medicine, there is no high-quality clinical evidence that consuming turmeric or the principal turmeric constituent, curcumin, is effective for treating any disease. Curcumin, a bright yellow chemical produced by the turmeric plant, is approved as a food additive by the World Health Organization, European Parliament, and United States Food and Drug Administration. Turmeric and its extract curcumin are generally safe but have recently been linked, especially in high-bioavailability forms, to rare cases of Immune disorder acute liver injury that typically resolve after stopping use, though severe outcomes can occur if use continues.
In India, it spread with Hinduism and Buddhism, as the yellow dye is used to color the robes of monks and priests. (2025). 9780415927468, Routledge. ISBN 9780415927468
In Island Southeast Asia, there is linguistic and circumstantial evidence of the ancient use of turmeric among the Austronesian peoples soon after dispersal from Taiwan (starting ), before contact with India. In Indonesia and the Philippines, turmeric was used for food, dyeing textiles, medicine, as well as body painting. It was commonly an important ingredient in various animistic rituals. Kikusawa and Reid (2007) have concluded that *kunij, the oldest reconstructed Proto-Malayo-Polynesian form for "turmeric" in the Austronesian languages, is primarily associated with the importance of its use as a dye. Other members of the genus Curcuma native to Southeast Asia (like Curcuma zedoaria) were also used for food and spice, but not as dyes.
Turmeric (along with Curcuma zedoaria) was also spread with the Lapita people of the Austronesian expansion into Oceania. Turmeric can only be propagated with rhizomes, thus its pre-contact distribution into the Pacific Islands can only be via human introduction. The populations in Micronesia, Island Melanesia, and Polynesia (including as far as Hawaii and Easter Island) use turmeric widely for both food and dye before European contact. (2025). 9789027292940, John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027292940 In Micronesia, it was an important trade item in the sawei maritime exchange between Yap and further in the Caroline Islands, where it couldn't grow. In some smaller islands, the dye was extracted from the leaves, since the rhizomes remained too small in sandy soils. It was also carried by the Austronesian migrations to Madagascar.
Turmeric was found in Farmana, dating to between 2600 and 2200 BCE, and in a merchant's tomb in Megiddo, Israel, dating from the second millennium BCE. It was noted as a dye plant in the ' Cuneiform medical texts from Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh from 7th century BCE. In Medieval Europe, turmeric was called "Indian saffron."
The leaves are alternate and arranged in two rows. They are divided into leaf sheath, petiole, and leaf blade. From the leaf sheaths, a false stem is formed. The petiole is long. The simple leaf blades are usually long and rarely up to . They have a width of and are oblong to elliptical, narrowing at the tip.
The hermaphrodite flowers are zygomorphic and threefold. The three are long, fused, and white, and have fluffy hairs; the three Sepal teeth are unequal. The three bright-yellow are fused into a corolla tube up to long. The three corolla lobes have a length of and are triangular with soft-spiny upper ends. While the average corolla lobe is larger than the two lateral, only the median stamen of the inner circle is fertile. The dust bag is spurred at its base. All other stamens are converted to . The outer staminodes are shorter than the labellum. The labellum is yellowish, with a yellow ribbon in its center and it is obovate, with a length from . Three carpels are under a constant, trilobed ovary adherent, which is sparsely hairy. The fruit capsule opens with three compartments.
In East Asia, the flowering time is usually in August. Terminally on the false stem is an inflorescence stem, long, containing many flowers. The are light green and ovate to oblong with a blunt upper end with a length of .
Phytochemistry components of turmeric include , a class including numerous curcuminoids, such as curcumin, demethoxycurcumin, and bisdemethoxycurcumin. Curcumin constitutes an average of 3.14% by weight of assayed commercial samples of turmeric powder; curry powder contains much less (an average of 0.29%). Some 34 essential oils are present in turmeric, among which turmerone, germacrone, atlantone, and zingiberene are major constituents.
Turmeric is used widely as a spice in South Asian and Middle Eastern cooking. Various Iranian cuisine khoresh recipes begin with onions Caramelization in oil and turmeric. The Moroccan cuisine spice mix ras el hanout typically includes turmeric. In South Africa, turmeric is used to give boiled white rice a golden color, known as geelrys (yellow rice) traditionally served with bobotie. In Vietnamese cuisine, turmeric powder is used to color and enhance the flavors of certain dishes, such as bánh xèo, bánh khọt, and mì Quảng. The staple Cambodian curry paste, kroeung, used in many dishes, including fish amok, typically contains fresh turmeric. In Indonesia, turmeric leaves are used for Minang or Padang cuisine curry base of Sumatra, such as rendang, sate padang, and many other varieties. In the Philippines, turmeric is used in the preparation and cooking of kuning, Satay, and some variants of Philippine adobo. In Thailand, fresh turmeric rhizomes are used widely in many dishes, in particular in the southern Thai cuisine, such as yellow curry and turmeric soup. Turmeric is used in a hot drink called "turmeric latte" or "golden milk" that is made with milk, frequently coconut milk. The turmeric milk drink known as haldī dūdh ( haldī हलदी means turmeric in Hindi) is a traditional Indian recipe. Sold in the US and UK, the drink known as "golden milk" uses nondairy milk and sweetener, and sometimes black pepper after the traditional recipe (which may also use ghee).
Turmeric is approved for use as a food color, assigned the code E number. The oleoresin is used for oil-containing products.
In combination with annatto (E160b), turmeric has been used to color numerous food products. Turmeric is used to give a yellow color to some prepared mustards, canned chicken , and other foodsoften as a much cheaper replacement for saffron.
Turmeric grows wild in the forests of South and Southeast Asia, where it is collected for use in classical Indian medicine (Siddha or Ayurveda). In Eastern India, the plant is used as one of the nine components of along with young plantain or banana plant, taro leaves, barley (), Aegle marmelos (), pomegranate (), Saraca indica, ( Arum), or , and rice paddy. The Haldi ceremony called in Bengal (literally "yellow on the body") is a ceremony observed during wedding celebrations of people of Indian culture all throughout the Indian subcontinent.
In Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, as a part of the Tamil–Telugu marriage ritual, a dried turmeric tuber tied with a string is used to create a Thali necklace. In western and coastal India, during weddings of the Marathi people and Konkani people, Kannada people Brahmins, turmeric tubers are tied with strings by the couple to their wrists during a ceremony, Kankana Bandhana.
Turmeric makes a poor fabric dye, as it is not Colour fastness, but is commonly used in Indian clothing, such as and Buddhist monks' robes. During the late Edo period (1603–1867), turmeric was used to dilute or substitute more expensive safflower dyestuff in the production of . Friedrich Ratzel reported in The History of Mankind during 1896, that in Micronesia, turmeric powder was applied for embellishment of body, clothing, utensils, and ceremonial uses. Native Hawaiians who introduced it to Hawaii () make a bright yellow dye out of it.
Lead chromate, a bright yellow chemical compound, was found as an adulterant of turmeric in Bangladesh, where turmeric is used commonly in foods and the contamination levels were up to 500 times higher than the national limit. Researchers identified a chain of sources adulterating the turmeric with lead chromate: from farmers to merchants selling low-grade turmeric roots to "polishers" who added lead chromate for yellow color enhancement, to for market distribution, all unaware of the potential consequences of lead toxicity.
Another common adulterant in turmeric, metanil yellow (also known as acid yellow 36), is considered by the Great Britain Food Standards Agency as an illegal dye for use in foods.
Turmeric supplements are associated with rare but potentially serious liver injuries, particularly in genetically susceptible individuals.
Inflorescence, flower, and fruit
At the top of the inflorescence, stem bracts are present on which no flowers occur; these are white to green and sometimes tinged reddish-purple, and the upper ends are tapered.
Phytochemistry
Turmeric powder is about 60–70% carbohydrates, 6–13% water, 6–8% protein, 5–10% fat, 3–7% dietary minerals, 3–7% , 2–7% dietary fiber, and 1–6% . The golden yellow color of turmeric is due to curcumin.
Uses
Culinary
Turmeric is one of the key ingredients in many Asian dishes, imparting a mustard-like, earthy aroma and pungent, slightly bitter flavor to foods. It is used mostly in savory dishes, but also is used in some sweet dishes, such as the Lebanese cake sfouf. In India, turmeric leaf is used to prepare special sweet dishes, patoleo, by layering rice flour and coconut-jaggery mixture on the leaf, then closing and steaming it in a special utensil ( chondrõ). Most turmeric is used in the form of rhizome powder to impart a golden yellow color. It is used in many products such as canned beverages, baked products, dairy products, ice cream, yogurt, yellow cakes, orange juice, biscuits, popcorn, cereals and sauces. It is a principal ingredient in curry powders. Although typically used in its dried, powdered form, turmeric also is used fresh, like ginger.
NIIR Board of Consultants & Engineers (2025). 9788178330389, Asia Pacific Business Press. . ISBN 9788178330389
Traditional uses
In 2019, the European Medicines Agency concluded that turmeric herbal teas, or other forms taken by mouth, on the basis of their long-standing traditional use, could be used to relieve mild digestive problems, such as feelings of fullness and flatulence.
(2025). 9788179911006, Popular Prakashan. ISBN 9788179911006 In many Hindu communities, turmeric paste is applied to the bride and groom as part of pre-wedding festivities known as the haldi ceremony.
Indicator
Turmeric paper, also called curcuma paper or in German literature, Curcumapapier, is paper steeped in a tincture of turmeric and allowed to dry. It is used in chemical analysis as an pH indicator for acidity and alkalinity. (2025). 9781420006322, Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781420006322 The paper is yellow in acidic and and turns brown to reddish-brown in alkaline solutions, with transition between pH of 7.4 and 9.2.
Adulteration
As turmeric and other spices are commonly sold by weight, the potential exists for powders of toxic, cheaper agents with a similar color to be added, such as lead(II,IV) oxide ("red lead"). These additives give turmeric an orange-red color instead of its native gold-yellow, and such conditions led the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue import alerts from 2013 to 2019 on turmeric originating in India and Bangladesh. Imported into the United States in 2014 were approximately of turmeric, some of which was used for food coloring, traditional medicine, or dietary supplement. Lead detection in turmeric products led to product recall across the United States, Canada, Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom through 2016.
Medical research
Turmeric and curcumin have been studied in various, low-quality , with no good evidence of an anti-disease effect or health benefit. There is no scientific evidence that curcumin reduces inflammation, . There is weak evidence that turmeric extracts may relieve symptoms of knee osteoarthritis and lower muscle pain following physical exercise.
See also
External links
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