China Agriculture View

Ginger is a well-known spice grown mainly in India, Jamaica and China. Ginger has long been used as a medicinal plant and is cited in ancient Indian, Chinese, Arabic, Greek and Roman sources.It takes its name from the Sanskrit word stringa-vera, which means “with a body like a horn”, as in antlers.

The common usage of ginger is spice for dish. There are several ways of cooking method in China. And the ginger is an important spice for dish. But this is just a role for ginger, what about other functions of ginger?

In Chinese herbal medicine, Sheng-jiang, or fresh ginger, is considered to have very different properties than Gan-jiang, or dried ginger. Gan-jiang is useful for “cold” pain of the stomach and abdomen, diarrhea due to “cold” in the abdomen, cough, and rheumatism, among other uses.

Additionally, fresh ginger is considered in Chinese herbal medicine to have a moderating or detoxifying effect on other more harsh herbs.

Ginger has long been reputed as an antiemetic. The lack of consistency found in some studies of ginger is also found with anti-nausea drugs, arising in part from difficulties measuring subjective symptoms like nausea.

A recent study published in Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine concluded that ginger protects the gastric mucosa from stress-induced mucosal lesions and inhibits gastric acid secretion, due in part to inhibiting growth of h. pylori as well as offering anti-oxidant protection against gastric damage. This seems to clearly confirm the popular use of ginger in Ayurvedic, eastern, and folk medicine traditions for its medicinal properties.