Ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) is a flowering plant in the family Zingiberaceae whose rhizome, ginger root or simply ginger, is widely used as a spice or a folk medicine.
It is a herbaceous perennial which grows annual stems about a meter tall bearing narrow green leaves and yellow flowers. Ginger is indigenous to south China, and was spread eventually to the Spice Islands, other parts of Asia and subsequently to West Africa and the Caribbean. Ginger was exported to Europe via India in the first century AD as a result of the lucrative spice trade. India is now the largest producer of ginger.
Other members of the family Zingiberaceae include turmeric, cardamom, and galangal. The distantly related dicots in the genus Asarum are commonly called wild ginger because of their similar taste.
Ginger Etymology
The origin of “ginger” is from the mid-14th century, from Old English gingifer, from Medieval Latin gingiber, from Latin zingiberi, from Greek zingiberis, from Prakrit (Middle Indic) singabera, from Sanskrit srngaveram, from srngam “horn” + vera- “body”, from the shape of its root. But this may be Sanskrit folk etymology, and the word may be from an ancient Dravidian name that also produced the Tamil and Malayalam name for the spice, inchi-ver, from inchi “root.” cf. gin (v.). The word apparently was readopted in Middle English from Old French gingibre (modern French gingembre).
Ginger produces clusters of white and pink flower buds that bloom into yellow flowers. Because of its aesthetic appeal and the adaptation of the plant to warm climates, ginger is often used as landscaping around subtropical homes. It is a perennial reed-like plant with annual leafy stems, about a meter (3 to 4 feet) tall. Traditionally, the rhizome is gathered when the stalk withers; it is immediately scalded, or washed and scraped, to kill it and prevent sprouting. The fragrant perisperm of Zingiberaceae is used as sweetmeats by Bantu, also as a condiment and sialogogue.
Ginger Production
Starting in 1585, Jamaican ginger was the first oriental spice cultivated in the New World and imported back to Europe. In 2012, India, with over 33% of the global production, now leads in growing ginger, replacing China, now in second position (about 20%), followed by Nepal (about 12%), Nigeria and Thailand (each about 7%) and Indonesia (about 5%).
Ginger Uses
Ginger produces a hot, fragrant kitchen spice.[9] Young ginger rhizomes are juicy and fleshy with a very mild taste. They are often pickled in vinegar or sherry as a snack or cooked as an ingredient in many dishes. They can be steeped in boiling water to make ginger tisane, to which honey is often added; sliced orange or lemon fruit may be added. Ginger can be made into candy, or ginger wine, which has been made commercially since 1740.
Mature ginger rhizomes are fibrous and nearly dry. The juice from ginger roots is often used as a spice in Indian recipes and is a common ingredient of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and many South Asian cuisines for flavoring dishes such as seafood, meat, and vegetarian dishes.
Fresh ginger can be substituted for ground ginger at a ratio of six to one, although the flavors of fresh and dried ginger are somewhat different. Powdered dry ginger root is typically used as a flavoring for recipes such as gingerbread, cookies, crackers and cakes, ginger ale, and ginger beer.
Candied ginger, or crystallized ginger, is the root cooked in sugar until soft, and is a type of confectionery. Fresh ginger may be peeled before eating. For longer-term storage, the ginger can be placed in a plastic bag and refrigerated or frozen.
Ginger Composition and Safety
In a typical spice serving amount of one US tablespoon or 5 g, ginger powder provides negligible content of essential nutrients, with the exception of the dietary mineral manganese, which is present in the Daily Value amount of 79%.
If consumed in reasonable quantities, ginger has few negative side effects. It is on the FDA’s “generally recognized as safe” list, though it does interact with some medications, including the anticoagulant drug warfarin.
Allergic reactions to ginger generally result in a rash. Although generally recognized as safe, ginger can cause heartburn, bloating, gas, belching, or nausea, particularly if taken in powdered form. Unchewed fresh ginger may result in intestinal blockage, and individuals who have had ulcers, inflammatory bowel disease, or blocked intestines may react badly to large quantities of fresh ginger. It can also adversely affect individuals with gallstones. There are suggestions that ginger may affect blood pressure, clotting, and heart rhythms.
Ginger products of Chinese origin found in Taiwan contained ginger contaminated with diisobutyl phthalate, causing some 80,000 nutritional supplement capsules made with imported ginger powder to be seized by the Public Health Department of Taiwan in June 2011.
Medicinal Use and Ginger Research
According to the American Cancer Society, ginger has been promoted as a cancer treatment “to keep tumors from developing,” but “available scientific evidence does not support this.” They add: “Recent preliminary results in animals show some effect in slowing or preventing tumor growth. While these results are not well understood, they deserve further study. Still, it is too early in the research process to say whether ginger will have the same effect in humans.” In limited studies, ginger was found to be more effective than placebo for treating nausea caused by seasickness, morning sickness, and chemotherapy, although it was not found superior to placebo for pre-emptively treating postoperative nausea. Some studies advise against taking ginger during pregnancy, suggesting that ginger is mutagenic, though some other studies have reported antimutagenic effects. Chemistry
The Essential Oil of Ginger
The characteristic odor and flavor of ginger is caused by a mixture of zingerone, shogaols, and gingerols, volatile oils that compose one to three percent of the weight of fresh ginger. In laboratory animals, the gingerols increase the motility of the gastrointestinal tract and have analgesic, sedative, antipyretic, and antibacterial properties.
Ginger contains up to 3% of a fragrant essential oil whose main constituents are sesquiterpenoids, with (−)-zingiberene as the main component. Smaller amounts of other sesquiterpenoids (β-sesquiphellandrene, bisabolene, and farnesene) and a small monoterpenoid fraction (β-phelladrene, cineol, and citral) have also been identified.
The pungent taste of ginger is due to nonvolatile phenylpropanoid-derived compounds, particularly gingerols and shogaols, which form from gingerols when ginger is dried or cooked. Zingerone is also produced from gingerols during this process; this compound is less pungent and has a spicy-sweet aroma.Ginger is a minor chemical irritant and, because of this, was used as a horse suppository by pre-World War I mounted regiments for feaguing. Ginger has a sialagogue action, stimulating the production of saliva, which makes swallowing easier.
Ginger Folk Medicine
One traditional medical form of ginger historically was called ‘Jamaica ginger’; it was classified as a stimulant and carminative and used frequently for dyspepsia, gastroparesis, slow motility symptoms, constipation, and colic. It was also frequently employed to disguise the taste of medicines. Ginger studies are inconclusive about the effects of using ginger for nausea or pain associated with various ailments. Side effects, mostly associated with consuming powdered ginger, are gas, bloating, heartburn and nausea. One clinical trial showed ginger to be no better than a placebo or ibuprofen for treatment of osteoarthritis.
Similar ingredients Myoga (Zingiber mioga Roscoe) appears in Japanese cuisine; the flower buds are the part eaten.
Another plant in the Zingiberaceae family, galangal, is used for similar purposes as ginger in Thai cuisine. Galangal is also called Thai ginger, fingerroot (Boesenbergia rotunda), Chinese ginger, or the Thai krachai.
A dicotyledonous native species of eastern North America, Asarum canadense, is also known as “wild ginger”, and its root has similar aromatic properties, but it is not related to true ginger. The plant contains aristolochic acid, a carcinogenic compound. The United States Food and Drug Administration warns that consumption of aristolochic acid-containing products is associated with “permanent kidney damage, sometimes resulting in kidney failure that has required kidney dialysis or kidney transplantation. In addition, some patients have developed certain types of cancers, most often occurring in the urinary tract.”