Refilling my salt & pepper gnomes earlier made me realize how much pepper I actually go through when cooking. Normally I would be alarmed, but pepper though unassuming, packs some serious nutritional benefits within a small space. 2 teaspoons of dried black pepper contains over 10% DV of manganese. It also contains Vitamin K, iron, fiber, copper, with virtually no caloric value. Hooray! If that’s not enough to get you seasoning your breakfast cereal tomorrow, blk pepper has a slew of other health-promoting benefits such as:

• Improving digestion by increasing hydrochloric acid secretion in the stomach
• Diaphoretic and diuretic properties
• Antioxidant & antibacterial effects (especially in the GI tract)

 All that and it makes a boring chicken breast that much better. So, I will continue to liberally turn to thy gnome, and look forward to a peppercorn-crusted fillet on my horizon…