Instead of just food, they add flavour to life itself :) Nutmeg is even better, doing both at once (as noted in the article). Jokes aside, reading that article

Instead of just food, they add flavour to life itself :) Nutmeg is even better, doing both at once (as noted in the article). Jokes aside, reading that article with all the examples of the scarcity and cost of spices it brought to my mind the modern day trade of various drugs.