Black Pepper vs White pepper
Pepper is a significant spice that is used to enhance the flavor of food and also helps in the preservation of food. Scientifically known as Piper nigrum is also called the “King of Spices”. The name “pepper” originated from the Sanskrit word Pippali which means berry. Pepper is widely used for culinary and medicinal purposes as an immune enhancer, treatment against gastrointestinal disorders, fever, pain, flu, colds, asthma, chronic indigestion, gastric ailments, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant. Pepper is of two types namely Black pepper and White pepper due to their time of harvest and processing techniques. The following article is about black pepper versus white pepper.
What is the difference between black pepper and white pepper?
White pepper is basically a ripe fruit and black pepper is unripe fruit. White pepper is made by removing the pulp of ripe fruit while the black pepper is obtained by drying unripe fruit until a wrinkled formed with pulp. Black pepper has a strong flavor due to the presence of alkaloid piperine, volatile oil, and oleoresins (1).
| Features | Black pepper | White pepper |
| Type | Unripe fruit until a wrinkled formed with pulp. | Ripe fruits whose pulp is removed. |
| Common name | Peppermint, black pepper, peppercorn, and black gold | Milagu, Madagascar pepper, Guyue, and Baichuan
|
| Flavor | Strong flavor due to piperine, volatile oil, and oleoresins | Mild flavor, sweet and aromatic |
| Essential oil | Black pepper has more essential oil | Comparatively less essential oil. |
| Cost | Less expensive due to a simple process | More expensive due to its complicated process of cleaning and preparation. |
| Self-life | Due to the whole dried unripe fruit, this pepper does not decay easily. | White pepper decayed and loses its flavor very quickly. |
| Culinary uses | Added in salads, omelets, fruits, and other types of cheese and egg dishes. | Used in fish, meat, instant noodles, soups, mashed potatoes, sauces, sandwiches, salad dressing, and mayonnaise. |
| Medicinal uses | Lower blood pressure, Antioxidant properties, Treat arthritis, circulation, enhance immunity, treat respiratory problems |
It may treat inflammatory diseases, cognitive impairment, diarrhea, and cerebral ischemia injury. |
Black pepper health vs white pepper health benefits
| Health issues | Black pepper | White pepper |
| Possible Anti-cancer properties | It helps in controlling the progression of tumor growth due to compounds like piperine, piperamides. | White pepper may also have anticancer properties but its effectiveness is less than that of black pepper as the piperine and piperamide content is less than that of black pepper. |
| May control Blood pressure | It lowers the blood pressure and has a vasodilator effect (2) | Due to piperine, white pepper also possesses the property of lowering blood pressure (3) |
| Insecticidal properties | Due to a good amount of piperine black pepper has insecticidal properties (4). | White pepper does not have strong insecticidal properties. |
| Mosquito repellents | Piperine obtained from black pepper contains larvicidal activity against dengue, Zika, and chikungunya vectors (5). | It also does not have strong mosquito-repellent properties. |
| Improves digestion | Black pepper also helps in improving digestion. | Piperine stimulates the release of pancreatic and digestive enzymes (6) and also helps to shorten the transit time of food in the gastrointestinal tract (7). |
| Hypertension | Black pepper helps in reducing hypertension. | No such reports are there. |
| Relief pain | Black pepper contains a rich amount of piperine which acts as an analgesic agent and increases nociceptive, therefore, reducing pain sensitivity. Thus, black pepper shows a wonderful effect on its analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities. | No such reports are there for white pepper. Although it is also effective in pain in comparison to black pepper, it is less efficient because of the lesser amount of peperine in it. |
Related Articles
Black Pepper Health Benefits – Click Here
White Pepper Health Benefits – Click Here