Health Benefits Of Hawaiian Ginger
With its many health benefits and unique flavor, it’s no wonder ginger is revered throughout the world as a useful herb in traditional medicine and a loved ingredient in myriad styles of cooking.
At Hawaiian Ola we believe that good food is the best medicine, which is why we crafted our new line of sparkling noni juice flavors with ingredients, such as ginger, that not only taste great but also impart real health benefits to our drinkers.
Ginger’s History & Origins
The health benefits of ginger have been documented scientifically and in traditional folk medicine for around 2000 years. The first references to ginger as a healing herb seem to emerge from where the original plant is endemic in Southern China. Leading up to present day, ginger has been traded, adapted, and spread to most all equatorial regions (where ginger likes to grow) and is now widely used for both food and remedy everywhere.
Essential Benefits Of Ginger
• Settling An Uneasy Stomach
• Diminishing Nausea Including Motion Sickness
• Relief From Throat And Nasal Congestion
• Sooth Soreness And Overall Joint Pain
Understanding Ginger’s Benefits
One of the things that makes ginger so interesting both to western medicine and traditional folk healers is the wide variety of benefits that are reported to come from ginger. Ginger has been shown to be effective in everything from relieving an upset tummy to slowing down cancer cells in vitro and the truth is, we still know very little about how all of ginger’s benefits work.
The reason for this has to with ginger’s complex chemical makeup. Ginger contains an unusually wide variety of biologically active ingredients, which has made it difficult for researchers to isolate and understand each of them independently and how they might be working together.
What We Know About Ginger
We know that at least some of ginger’s most common health benefits can be linked to a group of three oils (zingerone, shogaols and gingerols), which together account for about 3% of ginger’s raw weight.
Flavor Chemistry
Shogaols and especially gingerols make up most of what people taste and experience as ginger’s distinct, spicy flavor. Zingerone, which is formed when shogaols and gingerols are heated or dried, has a uniquely sweet taste and aroma.
For Nausea And Stomach Relief
Gingerols are thought to play an important role in Ginger’s effects on nausea and overall digestive health. Reasons for this have been linked to gingerols’ ability to increase motility (or stimulate) critical areas of the digestive tract as well as gingerols’ natural antibacterial qualities. We also know that ginger triggers an increase in saliva production, which can help with swallowing and overall healthy food processing.
Joint And Pain Relief
For thousands of years healers and herbalists reported the benefits of using ginger for soreness and pain relief. It wasn’t until recently, however, that researchers working with animals uncovered a possible explanation for these benefits. The findings show that gingerols are not only anti-inflammatory, they also have analgesic and sedative properties, too.
Taste, Health, & Responsible Farming
Using Organic Hawaiian Ginger in our new sparkling noni juice flavor was a great opportunity for us to share the unique taste and health benefits of Hawaiian ginger with our drinkers. But taste and health are only half the story. What makes Hawaiian ginger really exciting for us is the impact it has for Hawaiian farmers and our mission.
Voting With Your Purchase
Our ginger is responsibly grown on a small organic farm in Kauai. This means that it is raised without any pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, or GMO’s. By using responsibly grown ginger in our beverages, our aim is to give drinkers an easy way to support farmers who grow good Hawaiian ingredients every time they purchase one of our cans.
Enjoy Your Ginger
Whether you’re buying ginger powder for tea, raw roots to cook with, or you’re looking for acool ginger drink to settle your tummy on a hot day, look for organic Hawaiian ginger. Your purchase will not only help support responsible Hawaiian farmers, it also supports the environment that we all share. Learn more about our mission at: The Hawaiian Ola Idea. Now, go enjoy some rhizomes!
A Note About Ginger Safety
Taking Ginger is not recommended for people using certain heart medications or blood thinners. Some women are also advised not to take ginger during pregnancy. Certain individuals may also be allergic; an allergic reaction will typically present as red around the face and swelling of the throat. For these reasons, we recommend talking to your doctor or trusted health adviser before taking ginger.
Sources:
- http://www.livestrong.com/article/187139-what-are-the-active-ingredients-in-ginger-root/
- Rhode, J.; Fogoros, S.; Zick, S.; Wahl, H.; Griffith, K. A.; Huang, J.; Liu, J. R. (2007). “Ginger inhibits cell growth and modulates angiogenic factors in ovarian cancer cells”. BMC Complementary & Alternative Medicine 7: 44. doi:10.1186/1472-6882-7-44. PMC 2241638. PMID 18096028.
- Kim, J. S.; et al., Sa Im; Park, Hye Won; Yang, Jae Heon; Shin, Tae-Yong; Kim, Youn-Chul; Baek, Nam-In; Kim, Sung-Hoon et al. (2008). “Cytotoxic components from the dried rhizomes of Zingiber officinale Roscoe”. Archives of Pharmacal Research 31 (4): 415–418. doi:10.1007/s12272-001-1172-y. PMID 18449496.
- Choudhury, D.; et al., Amlan; Bhattacharya, Abhijit; Chakrabarti, Gopal (2010). “Aqueous extract of ginger shows antiproliferative activity through disruption of microtubule network of cancer cells”. Food Chem Toxicol. 48 (10): 2872–2880. doi:10.1016/j.fct.2010.07.020.
- http://www.drugs.com/mtm/ginger.html
- McGee, Harold (2004). On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (2nd ed.). New York: Scribner. pp. 425–426. ISBN 0-684-80001-2.
- Wood, George B. (1867). “Class IX. Sialagogues”. A Treatise On Therapeutics, And Pharmacology Or Materia Medica: Volume 2. J. B. Lippincott & Co. Retrieved 2 March 2013.
- http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=72