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Health ginger awarded the medicinal plant of the year 2018
Ginger (Zingiber officinale) was named the medicinal plant of the year 2018 by NHV Theophrastus. In its native Asia, ginger has been used medicinally for millennia. It has antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory and analgesic.
Today, there are numerous studies that scientifically confirm the versatility of ginger. So it relieves nausea and vomiting and works as effectively in motion sickness as synthetic drugs. Furthermore, ginger stimulates the intestinal peristalsis, promotes the saliva, gastric juice and bile secretion and prevents bloating after luscious food. Clinical studies have shown that ginger reduces pain and is therefore useful in rheumatic diseases. In addition, antispasmodic and tumor-inhibiting properties were observed. Experience medicine also uses him for colds and cough, menstrual cramps, back pain and migraine.
Ginger stimulates blood circulation and keeps the circulation going. (Image: pilipphoto / fotolia.com) Ginger (Zingiber officinale) is the medicinal plant of the year 2018. In almost every supermarket, this bulbous rhizome is offered for sale. Its renown and popularity grew as Asian restaurants gained a foothold in Europe. "Ginger, on the one hand, gives food an interesting oriental flavor, and on the other hand, it has a proven broad spectrum of action in the medical field," explains Konrad Jungnickel. The alternative practitioner is chairman of the association.
Impressive effects - yesterday and today
Like many medicinal and spice plants, ginger has a long tradition, especially in its native Asia. The Chinese emperor Shenung is said to have mentioned the ginger in his work on medicinal plants "Shen nung pen ts ao king" thousands of years before Christ as strengthening. From the Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC) is reported that he never ate his meals without ginger.
The Greek doctor Dioscorides wrote in the 1st century AD the ginger rolls "warming digestive power". "They stimulate the stomach mildly and are good for the stomach."
Later, Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) ordered a laxative potion to support the treatment of Podagra, which included ginger, Bertram and pepper.
Paracelsus (1493-1541) introduced the ginger into recipes for internal use, e.g. in fever and as a panacea, as well as externally as a patch for fractures and blunt injuries.
Adam Lonitzer (1528-1586) also recommended the ginger for a better digestion: "Wine / Imber and caraway boiled / is good against Wehetun of the stomach and intestines / so come from winds / and makes sure thawing."
Today, there are numerous studies that scientifically confirm the versatility of ginger. So it relieves nausea and vomiting and works as effectively in motion sickness as synthetic drugs. Furthermore, ginger stimulates the intestinal peristalsis, promotes the saliva, gastric juice and bile secretion and prevents bloating after luscious food. Clinical studies have shown that ginger reduces pain and is therefore useful in rheumatic diseases. In addition, antispasmodic and tumor-inhibiting properties were observed.
Experience medicine also uses him for colds and cough, menstrual cramps, back pain and migraine.
The essential oil is not sharp and acts on the physical level skin-friendly, vitalizing and virushemmend on herpes viruses, stabilizing at the mental level and mood-enhancing.
Experience medicine of other countries
Ginger is one of the most important plants in traditional Indian medicine (Ayurveda). It distinguishes between the effects of fresh ginger (e.g., nausea) and dried ginger (e.g., respiratory disease). In an old Indian saying it says that there is no tincture without ginger. He should strengthen the healing ability of other plants.
In Malaysia you fight nausea, dizziness and headache by rubbing your forehead and neck with a fresh slice of ginger. In Indonesia, ginger and boiled rice are crushed and used as a condition to relieve joint pain.
In China, the rhizome is known folk medicine u. a. as a remedy for dropsy, toothache and as an antidote to fungal poisoning. Against diarrhea and hemostasis, Chinese medicine knows the ginger rootstock roasted in hot ash. In addition, the leaves are considered digestive, the stems as a vermifuge.
A remedy for rheumatism is cooked for the nomads of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco powdered ginger in milk. This mixture is taken in the evening before bedtime.
Useful for animals
Ginger is also used to treat animals. With ginger tea or sliced ginger can z. B. in poultry infestation of the intestine can be prevented with parasites.
He is also an excellent painkiller for horses suffering from osteoarthritis. They need a significantly lower dose of ginger per kilogram of body weight than humans, presumably because the anti-inflammatory ingredients are decomposed more slowly in their stomach.
An anecdote of another type of use reports that formerly enterprising horse traders in America are said to have introduced their weakened old horse ginger as a suppository. This should have led them to raise their tail, a sign of youthful fire.
Valuable ingredients
The ginger rootstock contains up to 3% of essential oil, which can be composed very differently depending on the origin. It is found in the secretion cells below the cork layer. Therefore ginger should not be peeled, but the cork should be scraped with a spoon.
In addition, the tuber includes the pungent Gingerol and Shogaol. The latter arises only through storage and drying of the rootstock. Both Scharfstoffe have therapeutically valuable effects. The ingredient Zingeron is formed by further degradation of the Scharfstoffe. He does not taste spicy anymore and points to inferior goods due to overlapping.
Ginger is not only good against numerous health problems and diseases, but also helps with weight loss, as a study shows. (Image: Hetizia / fotolia.com) To dissolve the active ingredients, on the one hand by steam distillation, the essential oil is recovered, the water-insoluble Scharfstoffe not get into the oil. On the other hand, by alcoholic extraction, the ginger oleoresin, a resinous mixture, which combines essential oil and pungent. It is used for flavoring food, in cosmetics and perfumery.
Ginger medicine - self-made
Ginger ready-to-eat preparations are available in the form of capsules, essential oil, in liquid combination preparations or as candied ginger. If you want to be active yourself, you can make ginger medicine yourself: For loss of appetite, flatulence, bloating, nausea and motion sickness help. Ginger tea or tincture.
Tea: Add one teaspoon of powdered drug or fresh grated ginger to 200 ml of hot water. Let it soak for 5 to 10 minutes, covering the vessel so that the essential oil does not escape. Drink ½ hour before eating or before departure.
Tincture: Cut 50 g of ginger into thin slices, make up to the mark with 200 ml of 50% alcohol, extract by shaking daily for 10 to 20 days, strain, place in dark bottles and close well. Take 20 to 30 drops of ginger tincture in a glass of lukewarm water ½ hour before eating or before you travel.
edition
For rheumatic diseases, bruises and muscle tension ginger pad has a soothing effect. Add 3 tablespoons of grated ginger with ½ liter of boiling water. After 5 minutes of pulling in a closed pot, soak a cotton cloth in the infusion, wring and hang it up, cover it with a warm cloth and leave it on the body for about 40 minutes. Then apply a nourishing skin oil to the treated area.
For cramps and muscle or joint pain, a ginger bath or a ginger-rubbing can provide relief:
Bath:
Rub about 50 g of ginger, brew with a liter of boiling water, cover for ¼ hour and then add to the bath water.
rub:
Press out fresh, grated ginger with the help of a garlic press and add 4 times the amount of jojoba or sesame oil to the juice. Shake vigorously before use to mix watery juice and greasy oil. The rub is to be consumed within a few days.
Spice with healing effect
For use as a spice, it pays to test ginger from different sources, because the varieties have different tastes. The ginger from Nigeria is supposed to be the hottest, the one from Australia the mildest. The best suited to the requirements of the pharmacopoeia is Jamaica ginger, but also Australian and Bengal ginger.
As a spice, it can both hearty dishes such as soups, meat and fish dishes, as well as sweet foods such. B. pastries and cakes are added. In the Middle Ages ginger was so popular that the lane of the spice merchants in Basel was named "Imbergasse". Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832) is known to have served tea parties and music evenings alongside fine dishes such as goose liver, caviar and salmon, as well as ginger. Due to its former colonies in East Asia, ginger is found in England in many traditional foods and drinks, eg. B in Gingerbread (gingerbread), in jam, in Worcester sauce or in Ginger Beer.
The sharpness of the ginger has for television chef Alfons Schuhbeck "quite something cheeky and challenging", but this does not exclude that it is still easy to combine with other spices. "Garlic and ginger are the perfect couple in my kitchen," he writes in one of his cookbooks. According to Schuhbeck, this increases the valuable antioxidant effect by 50%.
Other countries - other dishes
By placing them in brine, rice wine or rice vinegar, ginger slices are preserved in China and Japan.
Freshly grated ginger and onion and garlic make a paste, which - shortly fried - used as a basis for sauces in northern India. A snack that can be found on almost every street corner in India, are the "samosas", stuffed dumplings, the u. a. to be spiced vigorously with ginger.
In Morocco ginger refines, for example, the stewed "Tajine", which is prepared in a clay-fired vessel of the same name with lid. It usually consists of mutton and mixed vegetables.
The relationship of the real ginger
Zingiber officinale belongs to the species-rich ginger family (Zingiberaceae). Close Relatives of the Real Ginger are u. a. the spices turmeric (Curcuma longa), cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) and galangal (Alpinia officinarum), as well as tropical ornamental plants such as red ginger (Alpinia purpurata) or yellow butterfly ginger (Hedychium gardnerianum).
A special "ginger garden" was created in the Botanical Garden of Singapore. Over 550 species of the order Zingiberals can be admired here. These include z. B. also banana and pineapple plants or Strelitziengewächse.
The plant
The plant comes from the tropical climate of Asia - where exactly, but is no longer to determine. The assumptions range from India and Sri Lanka over southeast China to the Bismarck archipelago. Ginger needs a high humidity without large temperature fluctuations, moist soil and partial shade. His original wild form seems to be extinct. But overgrown plants are common. Cultivated the spice and medicinal plant in many tropical areas, especially in India and China, but also z. In Queensland Australia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, Jamaica and Peru.
The plant is a perennial with a horizontally creeping, antler-branched rhizome. This is called rhizome and is a thickened shoot axis, which serves the plant as a storage or wintering organ. From this grow about one meter high stems (in tropical areas up to 1.80 meters) with oblong-lanceolate leaves that give the plant a reed-like appearance. The inflorescence, which resembles a cone-like spike, sits on a short leafless shoot. From this, the individual red-yellowish flowers open.
Flowering plants are rare. They can multiply over the formed seeds. However, this vegetation phase to the "adult" plant takes a long time. In commercial cultivation, it is propagated vegetatively by division of the rhizome.
The harvest takes 8 to 10 months. For a delicate, non-fibrous ginger but also earlier - after 5 to 6 months - harvested.
Ginger is well suited for an analgesic compress. (Image: Alice_D / fotolia.com) Cultivation at home is possible
If you want to get your own ginger here in Central Europe, you can do it in a pot in the apartment - in mild winegrowing regions, it can even succeed outdoors. In early spring, you get a fresh rootstock with as many "eyes" as possible, from which the plant later drifts. It is divided into approximately 5 cm pieces (each piece should have at least one eye), placed in a wide pot of permeable garden soil and thinly covered with soil. In order to create a moist, warm climate, the pot can be covered with a cling film until the plant sprouts. The soil should always be moist - waterlogging does not tolerate ginger. A bright, but not too sunny place and as constant a temperature are advantageous. If the foliage begins to wither after about 8 months, the ginger can be harvested. For further culture you can put a piece back into the pot. The rootstock survives winter at 10 to 15 ° C without watering. In 2018, the NHV Theophrastus will publish more about the ginger on the website www.nhv-theophrastus.de and in a brochure.
The NHV Theophrastus is committed to the dissemination of naturopathic ideas in young and old. Since 2003, the association has been selecting a "medicinal plant of the year" annually, which is determined by an independent jury. Forerunners of the ginger include lemon balm, anise and daisies.