Making Your Own Supplements

Tricia has been doing some research on taking supplements of garlic, cayenne pepper as well as other herbs to treat different health issues.  She found that taking supplements of these items can really help certain infirmities.

Webmd.com states that "Garlic is used for many conditions related to the heart and blood system. These conditions include high blood pressure, low blood pressure, high cholesterol, inherited high cholesterol, coronary heart disease, heart attack, reduced blood flow due to narrowed arteries, and "hardening of the arteries" (atherosclerosis)."

It states that Cayenne Pepper or "Capsicum is used for various problems with digestion including upset stomach, intestinal gas, stomach pain, diarrhea, and cramps. It is also used for conditions of the heart and blood vessels including poor circulation, excessive blood clotting, high cholesterol, and preventing heart disease."

She found that in order to take these supplements, you can either buy the supplements in capsule form, OR you can make the capsules yourself.  She chose the latter and found "The Capsule Machine" and paid about $15 bucks for this contraption that converts some things that you already have in your spice cabinet into supplement capsules.

You also have to purchase the capsules as well.  You can see some of them below. You simply open the empty capsules up...

And put each empty piece in each side of the capsule machine.  You can make 24 capsules at a time.

Then you simply pour the contents of the desired supplement ingredient into the capsule on half of the Capsule Machine.  In this case, she's making Garlic capsules.

You sweep back and forth to ensure that each capsule half is filled to capacity.

Then there is an attachment with pegs on one side the correspond to each hole.  You press the pegs down into the holes and it packs the contents of the supplement down tightly.

Once that is done, you place the other side of the capsule machine that has the other half of the empty capsules in it on top of the other side, pressing it down.  This couples the capsules together.

Then you simply push the capsules out, yielding 24 Garlic capsules!  We made a few batches and stored them in containers to keep them air-tight and dry.

So I was thinking that in addition to using the garlic and cayenne capsules for health benefits, perhaps it would be a good idea to use them for seasoning.  We haven't tried it yet, but my idea is to stab holes in beef roasts and insert the capsule that we made deep into the roasts.  During cooking, the gelatin or vegetable based capsules would release the garlic and red pepper to provide good seasoning.