Super Foods Blog

Ginger The Natural Super Food

The fragrant, aromatic and pungent ginger root is really a rhizome that grows wild in the moist tropical jungles of India and southeastern Asia from where it has originated. Today, it is also grown commercially in some subtropical areas. Ginger has long been used in cooking and medicine, both in India and China. It has been used for all sorts of ailments both historically for over four thousand years and even today. In Europe, its antiseptic properties with its high sulphur content made it a popular antidote for the plague.

Indians, Chinese and Japanese have used ginger widely in all sorts of medicinal brews and decoctions for a whole range of ailments. It may well be its medicinal properties that made its way into cooking over the years. Ginger is available fresh, dried, canned, ground and pickled in vinegar. The Romans introduced ginger to northern Europe, where it became one of the popular spices in medieval cooking and till today it is used in traditional biscuits, cakes and sweet dishes. With ethnic eating influencing the eating habits of today’s society, ginger’s rich, aromatic, pungent, warm flavor in curries and stir fries has made it a household word.

Ginger has both stimulating and antiseptic properties which make it increase circulation, relieve colds, coughs, chills and fevers in addition to combating flu. Studies are being carried out on its properties to remedy and reduce heart disease. Traditional medicine has a great many uses for ginger - from healing stomach upsets and diarrhea to nausea, arthritis and colic. Villagers in India still use ginger for anything from giddiness, colds and fever to preventing tetanus at childbirth and nausea during pregnancy. The actual mechanism or active components responsible are not known and are still being studied by researchers all over the world.

Many frequent travelers use and truly believe that ginger can prevent motion sickness as well as or better than common drugs used for that purpose. While these claims are being investigated scientifically, chewing a bit of ginger or eating it in a dish before a flight or sail can’t hurt anyone. Ginger and ginger products are available today as extracts, capsules, oils and tinctures. Ginger has become so popular world wide in Indian, Chinese and other Asian cooking that many grocery stores and supermarkets sell them fresh year round.

For over four thousand years, Chinese, Indians, south Asians and Arabs have been cooking with ginger. The Europeans were introduced to it by the Romans and today it is used in cooking all over the world. Western chefs have begun to use it in imaginative ways in western dishes and deserts. It is so versatile that it can be used in vegetables, meat, fish or sweet dishes. It is truly worth using this fragrant, medicinal herb not only for its great taste and aroma but its added medicinal properties.

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