Native to southeast Asia, ginger is now cultivated in the US (including Hawaii), India, China, the West Indies, and other tropical regions. Ginger root is a tender creeping perennial from the tropics that grows to about four feet high, producing thick, aromatic, fibrous, knotty, buff-coloured tuberous rhizomes. The stems are erect and annual with long, narrow, lance-shaped leaves. The plant can produce stalks of sterile, fragrant, white or yellow flowers. The root of the Chinese ginger does not separate as easily from the skin as does the Jamaican variety. The rhizome is unearthed when the plant is about ten months old. Ginger has an ancient history as a culinary and as a medicinal herb, and has been used in the West for at least 3,000 years. Ginger was well-known to the Greeks and Romans, who used it extensively. Arabian traders took it to India and the Red Sea. By the 11th century CE, it was a common trade article from the East to Europe. Ginger is mentioned by Confucius (551-478 BCE), and in the Quran.
Medieval Europe thought it came from the Garden of Eden.
Chinese and Ayurvedic practitioners have relied on ginger for at least 3,000 years for its anti-inflammatory properties, and have used it as a â€œcarrierâ€ herb, one that enables other herbs to be more effective in the body.
Jamaicans and early American settlers made beer from it; today, natural ginger ales made with fresh ginger are available as a digestive tonic. These should not be confused with most commercial brands of ginger ale as these contain so little ginger that they are nothing more than sweetened soft drinks with no medicinal value.
The benefits of ginger are many and well known: It might help treating upset stomach and support digestion, heals infections, it is an aid in respiratory issues, reduces inflammation, strengthens heart because it contains high level of antioxidants, it used as a natural aphrodisiac, it relieves anxiety and alleviates muscle and menstrual pain and it also improves liver function. Because of its powerful, antioxidant essential oils, a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry measured its effectiveness in the treatment of alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is significantly associated with hepatic cirrhosis and liver Cancer.
NCBI website Ethnopharmacologic investigation of ginger (Zingiber officinale).