GINGER – the king of spices

In my previous post I've talked about activated almonds, which became a lovely snack of my family. But today I would like to tell more about ginger. Of course, we often see it in the supermarkets, but we leave it there because we don't know much about it.  In fact, its lack of beauty is compensated by heaps of health benefits. So, ginger, who are you?
 
Ginger is an oldest spice which appeared 2,000 years ago in India and Southeast Asia, later it conquered Europe and Russia. Yeah, this spice was actively used in baking of Russian gingerbread and made famous Tula region. Here you can read more on how we enjoyed gingerbread cookies and played with icing.
 
Ginger's essential oils create its special spicy flavor which provides body with a warming effect and helps to get rid of toxins.  On top of that, ginger speeds up metabolism and boosts immune system so the body gets activated. If you eat ginger regularly then the possibility of catching a cold or flu becomes extremely small. It's proven personally, guys. I used to get sick 3-4 times during fall-winter-spring period, also in August I «loved» to lay in my bed with a sore throat for a week. But when I included ginger into my diet last year, my sickness habbit disappeared. Well, to be honest once I've got a cold which was over in 2 days because I was constantly drinking a warm ginger drink, which made me sweat like crazy. But in 2 days I was back to normal life, which never happened before - that was probably the shortest cold I'd ever had. And since then, I advise all my friends this simple yet effective method to fight against cold.
 

 
Recipe of my ginger drink is pretty easy: I slice 0.5-1cm of pealed ginger root into my thermo bottle, squeeze a 1/4 lemon and pour boiling water. Sometimes I add turmeric and/or cinnamon. And then I drink it with honey. 
 
This ginger drink helps not only when I get cold but also during my periods – it calms down freaked hormones and decreases spasms. I swear!
 
You have also probably noticed that at sushi places they bring pickled ginger along with your favorite rolls. There is a certain reason for that – since eating raw seafood can be risky in terms of picking up parasites, ginger has antibacterial effect, so has wasabi, which is naturally anthelminthic. So if eat raw fish, then you'd better eat ginger and wasabi with it.
 
Along with that I've recently learned that ginger does not lower your blood pressure (as I thought for couple of years) – it stabilizes it. If you have a low blood pressure, then you surely drink tons of coffee or black tea?! If so, then try to add a bit of dried ginger powder into your favorite drink and increase dosage slowly. As soon as you feel that you've adapted to ginger and that it doesn't negatively impact your pressure, then go to the next level - replace the powder with a fresh ginger (and again, start with small dosages). Blood pressure fluctuations should be reduced.
 
Me myself suffered with a low blood pressure for a long time and, therefore, I drank a lot of strong black tea all the time.  However, after falling in love with ginger I forgot about these problems (and only recently I've understood what exactly helped me).
 
 When you buy ginger make sure that the roots are dry, smooth, firm and without mold or dark spots.
 
 Store fresh ginger in the frigde.
 
 In order to get used to ginger, begin with adding it into your soups in the very beginning of cooking. In this case, all nutritional values will still be there but ginger flavor won't be that strong – it would also normalize your digestion system and help to get rid of harmful bacteria or parasites.   
 
To sum up: Use ginger during the first half of the day, otherwise its tonic effect won't let you go to bed and instead of dreaming you would have to count Mississippi. Gluhwein is an exception though! 

 

P.S. For those, who prefer stronger drinks, I propose to try gluhwein – besides its relaxing effect, it would give great benefits to your body during wintertime. But don’t drink to much – be responsible!
 

 

DYI Gluhwein: Pour red wine into a bowl, add ginger, 2 cinnamon sticks, clover (add anis, if you want). Squeeze in 2 oranges and add ½ of  a sliced apple. You can also add cane sugar of honey, if you want. Heat the wine (but don't let it boil) and stir from time to time. Pour the gluhwein in your favorite mug and enjoy delicious flavor of herbs and spices.