Warms, stimulates and carries healing to where it is needed.

Description

Ginger is a perennial of wihch the rhizome is the best known part. Rhizome has a pungent taste.

The stems come annually and die down in the cold weather, though have persisted all Winter over recent years here in Gawler. They’re not really stems but are called ‘pseudostems’ and are composed of the rolled bases of leaves and can reach over to 1 metre tall. Narrow leaves alternately branch from the stem. The leaves similar to but narrower than Turmeric. Purple tinged white/yellow flowers grow in a gorgeous inflorescence that arises directly from the rhizome.

Zingiber officinale has spread through cultivation but doesn’t occur in the wild.   Rhizome buds and shoots leaves at the beginning of the warmer weather. New roots come after budding (if you are propagating). In early Summer, leave spikes shoot up, dying down in mid-Winter (though, with the new climate, even in South Australia’s, they are remaining green all year).   After the first year, and every year after the leaves shoot, flowers form on a spike, growing directly from the rhizome. In some species, the flowers are aromatic, especially at night.  

Ginger likes very well drained soil and a lot of water but doesn’t like the water sitting around.   No fertilizer is needed in the first month if propagating from cuttings. Loves sunlight but not the direct South Australian full Summer heat. Ginger likes 20-35 degrees C for optimal growth.

Using Ginger Medicinally

Keywords – warming, dispersing, moving, relaxing

In one workshop, I tried to make a key property of Ginger more memorable by joking that even though it can be very heating, Ginger is a potent anti-inflammatory. You had to be there. But joking aside, Ginger is, indeed a potent anti-inflammatory. The shogaols in the herb inhibit inflammatory pathways (including NF-kB and COX-2, the darlings of many a conversation with anti-vaxxers) and inhibit the release of nitrites and prostaglandins and also suppress cytokines (also beloved by anti-vaxxers during Covid times), each of which trigger the inflammation response.

There are many healing constituents in Ginger but so far, I’ve only researched three deeply (gingerols, shogaols and zingerone) so focus a lot on these in this page. As I learn more about the others, I’ll add more info, so keep coming back!

Ginger is best known for its gentle warming property and has a special affinity for the stomach. It is a well-known carminative and has been used for millennia to calm upset stomach, relieving the  alleviate nausea. It is particularly well known for preventing and otherwise relieving the nausea of motion sickness. Fresh Ginger is by far the best for this purpose, though Ginger in any form will help.

It has another wonderful property, and one that I often combine a little Ginger into other tinctures to utilise its ‘prokinetic’ effect – it helps move other herbal constituents to where they are most needed so that the tissues and cells can better utilise them. It’s analgesic properties make it an extra useful additive to many remedies for aches and pains, cramps and soreness.

The warming character of Ginger also makes it an excellent diaphoretic. Using it internally, in almost any form, can help to induce a sweat. Just what’s needed in colds and flu. Because it is quite gentle,  like to use it in cases of supressed fevers, where it can add just the little extra warmth that is needed to help the fever break out and thus help the body heal itself naturally. Ginger also has antimicrobial properties so can help in a cold type cold.

Ginger is also beneficial to our poor, often overworked livers. It can help increase the secretion of bile and otherwise protect liver cells.

The key constituents (gingerols, shogaols and zingerone) cross the blood/brain barrier and show neuroprotective effects by reducing inflammation and protecting against ischemic (restriction of blood flow) damage in the brain (shogaols), improve the growth and survival of neurons (gingerols and zingerone). Zingerone has also been found to protect against dopaminergic neuron loss such as is seen in Alzheimer’s.

Another class of uses for the constituents in Ginger is that of cancer remedies. Shogaols have been found to be great at inducing apoptosis (a flashy name for death) in cancer cells. Gingerols can stop the cancer cells from proliferating and zingerone has been found to stop the migration of and invasion of cancer cells. Cancers that I’ve found listed as being affected by these constituents are colon, prostate and lung, though there could be many more.

Preparing and using Ginger at home

Fresh and dried Ginger rhizome have different properties in TCM, varying in their heat levels, with fresh Ginger being warming while dried Ginger is heating and drying. The difference is fascinating – WARNING! CHEMISTRY AHEAD!

Dehydration converts much of the gingerol in fresh Ginger into shogaol,. which provide strong thermal warmth, drive peripheral blood flow, and clear mucus build-up from the respiratory tract. These shogaols are also more bioavailable, meaning your body absorbs them more easily. Shogaols have a higher Scoville rating (the rating that tells you how hot a chilli is), providing a sharper, more intense bite.

Ginger is often boiled (decocted) and this improves the effectiveness of the herb in some areas. Boiling ginger converts gingerols into shogaols better than drying and a quick, warming tea has some effect as well because shogaols are water soluble to a good degree (gingerols are only mildly water soluble). To maximise extraction, steep your brew for 20 minutes or so to make sure that you get some of the gingerols at least). If you do use hot water to extract your Ginger’s constituents, make sure that you keep your pot or cup covered, else you will lose the zingiberene, a component of the volatile oil that gives Ginger it’s characteristic aroma.

There’s another constituent in the mix as well – zingerone. Zingerone is the reason that when you’ve cooked Ginger for a long while (3 hours +) and/or at higher temperatures (125 degrees C for example), its taste becomes sweeter and it loses its bite (think of baking Gingerbread). Some even notice a vanilla-like note to it. Zingerone is formed by the break down of shogaols over time and temperature.

On a very interesting note, gingerols can be dehydrated in our gut after eating Ginger and converted into shogaols and zingerone. Ain’t the human body wonderful?!

Externally, Ginger can be used in an infused oil, with the gingerols and shogaols being oil soluble, so if you infuse dried Ginger, you will get a more medicinally potent infusion than you would fresh. The oil is particularly good when combined with Mugwort because both are prokinetics and help deliver the benefits of other herbs to where they are most needed. Adding a little Ginger to other herbal remedies can help their metabolism and effectiveness and I like to add two drops of Ginger or Black Pepper tincture to other remedies for just this purpose, both herbs have this benefit in common.

Ginger makes a potent tincture with a very strong taste. You only need a little, so I will often add a couple of drops to bottles of tinctures of other herbs to boost their effectiveness.

Many people dislike the strong taste of dried Ginger, so it is available in pill or capsule form.

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Other herb pages on Ligaya Garden

We cover a lot of ground on many herb related topics here on our website. There are whole pages devoted to different topics as well as frequent posts. Some of the links are –

Garden Herbs

Wild Herbs

Making Remedies

Mushroom medicine

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