Recipe
Nutmeg milk for bedtime
- Herb:
- Nutmeg Myristica fragrans
- Method:
- Culinary use
- Plant part:
- Fruit
About 10 minBeginnerRecipe science profile
Procedure
- Heat 250 ml of milk or oat drink to just below boiling.
- Grate in a pinch of nutmeg — a quarter teaspoon at most — and a pinch of cinnamon.
- Warm for a minute, stirring, take off the heat and sweeten with honey once below 40 °C.
- Drink warm about an hour before bed; as an evening ritual, not as a medicine.
Extraction
- Herb:
- 1 pinch (no more than a quarter teaspoon, about 0.3 g) of freshly grated nutmeg per 250 ml of milk
- Solvent:
- warm milk with a little fat; nutmeg essential oil is fat-soluble
- Shelf life:
- drink warm
- Target compounds:
- essential oil (sabinene, myristicin, elemicin) is released by grating and heat; the dose is culinary, not medicinal
Notes
A kitchen recipe — nutmeg is a spice, not a sedative. A pinch is safe; a teaspoon and more brings on nausea, palpitations and hallucinations (myristicin). Do not raise the dose 'for better sleep' and do not give to small children.
Why it works
Nutmeg's scent comes from an oil with sabinene, pinene and the phenylpropanoids myristicin and elemicin, which disperse well in the warm fat of milk. The folk reputation of nutmeg 'for sleep' has no clinical backing — the only documented effect of higher doses is poisoning: the Illinois Poison Center review (Ehrenpreis et al. 2014) logged 32 cases in ten years, half of them unintentional in children, with vomiting, tachycardia and hallucinations. A culinary pinch is safe precisely because it is a hundred times smaller.
Literature
- Ehrenpreis JE, DesLauriers C, Lank P, Armstrong PK, Leikin JB (2014): Nutmeg Poisonings: A Retrospective Review of 10 Years Experience from the Illinois Poison Center, 2001–2011. Journal of Medical Toxicology 10(2):148–151 — 32 poisonings over 10 years; half were unintentional, most of those in children under 13.
Related
Nutmeg — Herb card
Culinary use — Processing method detail