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Ginger · Zingiber officinale
Photo: (c) Greg III Espera, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY · via iNaturalist
Herbs & Plants
Ginger
Zingiber officinale
Ginger doesn't grow wild anywhere on earth. Every piece in every shop descends from roots people have replanted for thousands of years.
Benefits
Eases morning sickness, motion sickness and the sickness that follows an operation.
Brings down the cramping pain of a period.
It works gradually rather than the moment you take it.
The long-term measure improves; the day-to-day reading doesn't move.
A ginger rinse brings down plaque and the redness that comes with it.
What It Is Known For
Ginger has been taken at the first sign of a cold for thousands of years, but nothing has ever tested whether it shortens one.
Across 27 trials the average loss was 1.52 kg, and the people who pooled those trials rated their own confidence in that figure as low.
Ginger extract takes the edge off a worn joint, by about as much as acetaminophen. More people stopped taking it than stopped taking the placebo.
Nothing has ever tested this in a person, and there is nothing here that could be measured.
Ginger is good for sickness, but nothing shows it helps heartburn, and large amounts can bring it on.
The pickled ginger beside sushi clears the mouth and does nothing to the worms in the fish — freezing is what kills those, and pickling has been shown not to.
Key Active Compounds
The main compound in fresh ginger.
Forms when ginger is dried or heated, and is sharper and warmer.
Forms when ginger is cooked, and is the mellow, sweet one.
Traditionally Used
A few slices of young ginger, cut thin and pickled in sweetened vinegar, eaten between pieces of sushi to clear the mouth before the next one.
How to Take It / Use It
Grate a thumb-sized piece of fresh root, steep it in hot water for 10 minutes, and sip it slowly.
Grate a thumb-sized piece of fresh root, steep it in hot water for 10 minutes, and drink it two or three times a day, starting the day before the period is due.
20 g of dried ginger steeped in a liter of water for fifteen minutes. Swill 10 ml around the mouth for thirty seconds, three times a day after meals.
Take ginger extract, morning and evening, with food. Tea and kitchen powder are not what was tried. Give it a few weeks before judging it.
Why It Works
Ginger speeds food through the stomach, which is what settles the queasy feeling.
Cautions
Ginger slows blood clotting, so keep to food amounts if you take blood-thinning medicine.
Large amounts can cause heartburn and an upset stomach.
Never treat ginger as protection against the parasites in raw fish — freezing is the only thing that kills them.
Where It Comes From
Ginger is thought to have been domesticated in India. Roman traders bought it from African plantations two thousand years ago, and it reached European markets by the thirteenth century. Spanish and Portuguese ships took it to Jamaica and Mexico in the fifteen hundreds.
How We Choose It
We check every product so you don't have to. A ginger only makes our list if:
- Fresh root, or dried ginger with nothing added.
- Tea must be ginger and nothing else. Most supermarket ginger tea is mostly lemongrass, lemon peel or licorice root, with ginger low on the list.
- No essential oil. Distillation leaves the working compounds behind in the plant.
- No crystallized ginger. It works, but it's ginger plus a lot of sugar.
- Sold as an extract, standing next to the root. What helps a worn joint was tried as extract and only as extract, and this page says which product each benefit belongs to. A jar of powder is not a weaker version of the same thing.
- The label states how much gingerol is in it. A number means somebody measured it. No number means nobody looked.
- Standardized, and the label says so. That means every batch is made to hit the same strength, so the second bottle matches the first.
- Third-party test results published. A company that pays an outside lab puts the certificate where you can read it. One that doesn't, doesn't.
- One ingredient, plus a carrier if it names one. Ginger extract and at most a named oil to carry it. Nothing else in the list.
- Nothing added to push absorption. Piperine, phytosome, “high absorption” — anything folded in to force more through makes it stronger than the plant.
- Capsules, not tablets. Pressing needs binders and fillers, so a tablet is never only the extract.
If no product meets these standards, we don't list one. No exceptions for affiliates.
See our picks
Sources4
- Cleveland Clinic. Ginger health benefits. Health essentials
- University of Oxford, Plants 400. Zingiber officinale. Profile
- Britannica. Ginger. Encyclopaedia
- Oxford University Plants 400. Zingiber officinale. Encyclopedia