A new study claims that cinnamon, a spice found in just about every cabinet in the United States, may actually help your quest to shed those unwanted pounds. The study, published in the journal Metabolism, found that essential oil that gives cinnamon its flavor known as cinnamaldehyde can increase metabolism, speeding up the burning of fat cells.

Cinnamaldehyde takes direct action on fat cells known as adipocytes, causing them to burn energy through thermogenesis. The study showed that when human cells were treated with cinnamaldehyde, metabolic regulatory proteins Ucp1 and Fgf21 showed an increase in activity.

So the next time you’re enjoyed a bowl of cereal or a piece of toast, maybe sprinkle a dash of cinnamon on it. While it’s not a replacement for healthy eating and exercise, cinnamon may be a nice little boost to your dieting efforts, the study suggests.

“Scientists were finding that this compound affected metabolism,” said Jun Wu, research assistant professor at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute. “So we wanted to figure out how—what pathway might be involved, what it looked like in mice and what it looked like in human cells.”