Dill

The Essentials

Dill is Persian medicine's quiet workhorse. It's paired with cool, heavy foods — fava, yogurt, fish — to make them easier to digest.

Match the part to the purpose. The seed is the stronger digestive. The leaf is the gentler culinary herb.

Add it at the end of cooking, since sustained heat destroys the volatile aroma. It's also a mild galactagogue, useful for nursing mothers when paired with fennel.

Dill, or shevid, runs through Persian cooking, from baghali polo (dill-fava rice) to mast-o-khiar yogurt salad. Its essential oils (the concentrated aromatic oil of the plant) gently help digestion and freshen your breath.

What Else to Know

Known to botanists as Anethum graveolens.

Healthy aging depends on a calm, efficient gut. Dill's carminative (traditionally used to settle gas and bloating) essential oils ease the gas and bloating that become more common with age, and its flavonoids (a family of protective plant compounds) add an antioxidant boost — all from a kitchen herb that needs no supplements.