Have you ever seen these types of ginger in China? What are their main benefits and effects? How do you tell them apart? 80% of people definitely don't know!

Ginger generally serves as a seasoning in daily life, but China has many varieties of ginger. Below we introduce the main benefits and effects of four kinds of ginger: common ginger, sand ginger, Jerusalem artichoke, and shell ginger, and how to distinguish them in daily life. The details are organized as follows:

1. Common ginger

Common ginger is the one we know best in daily life; it is the fresh rhizome of a perennial herb in the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, genus Zingiber. It can infuse its pungent taste and distinctive aroma into dishes, making them fresh and delicious with a light fragrance. Because its flavor is clean and spicy, it only disperses the off-odors of food without making the food taste spicy, so it is suitable as a flavor corrective for meat and fish dishes, and is also used in making cakes and candies, such as gingerbread and ginger candy.

1. Benefits and effects of common ginger

(1.1) Cooling, refreshing, and improving appetite:

This is because ginger contains oily volatile oils such as gingerol, zingiberene, phellandrene, citral, and aromatic compounds. It also contains gingerols, resins, starch, and fiber. If you eat a few slices of ginger with a meal, it will improve your appetite; ginger also has a relieving or pain-relieving effect on stomach problems. For pain, vomiting, acid regurgitation, and hunger sensations caused by gastritis and gastric or duodenal ulcers, drinking water decocted with 50 grams of ginger can quickly eliminate the symptoms.

2. Antibacterial, disease-preventing, and treating enteritis:

Dried ginger powder can relieve symptoms of motion sickness such as headache, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting, with an effective rate of about 90%, and the effect can last for more than 4 hours. Folk remedies use eating ginger to prevent car sickness and seasickness, and some apply ginger slices to the Neiguan acupoint, which has a clear anti-motion-sickness effect.

(1.3) Appetizing, strengthening the spleen, preventing heatstroke, and providing emergency relief:

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that ginger can “communicate with the spirits”, that is, refresh the mind. When someone suffers heatstroke in summer and faints unconscious, pouring a cup of ginger juice into the mouth can quickly bring the patient around. For general summer heat with dizziness, palpitations, chest tightness, and nausea, eating some ginger soup is very beneficial.

2. Sand ginger

Sand ginger is the rhizome of the ginger-family plant Kaempferia galanga. People often confuse sand ginger and common ginger most easily. Both sand ginger and common ginger have a pungent taste, but sand ginger is milder than common ginger, and sand ginger not only removes fishiness but also enhances freshness and aroma, which common ginger does not do. Sand ginger is especially suitable for cooking all kinds of meat ingredients, and can also be used to prepare marinade or as an ingredient in “five-spice powder”.

1. Benefits and effects of sand ginger

(1.1) Promoting qi flow and relieving pain. Traditional Chinese medicine often says that when there is free flow, there is no pain; when there is pain, there is no free flow. This tells us that when the flow of qi in the body is not smooth, the body feels pain. Sand ginger happens to have the effect of regulating qi, making the flow of qi in the body smooth and thereby relieving pain.

(1.2) Strengthening the spleen and harmonizing the stomach. Sand ginger's unique aroma and pungent flavor can promote saliva secretion, improve appetite, and play a role in strengthening the spleen and harmonizing the stomach. Therefore, people with poor appetite can eat it regularly.

(1.3) Promoting digestion. Sand ginger has a certain stimulating effect on the stomach and intestines, can accelerate gastrointestinal movement, and relieve symptoms of food stagnation and indigestion.

(1.4) Treating stomach cold and cold pain in the chest and abdomen. Sand ginger is mild in nature and has a warming-center effect, and can be used to treat cold conditions such as stomach cold and alternating cold and heat in the chest and abdomen.

(1.5) Treating toothache. Grind sand ginger and musk into powder, mix them, rub the mixture on the painful area of the tooth, then rinse the mouth with clear water, and persist for a period of time; this can have a toothache-treating effect.

3. Jerusalem artichoke

Jerusalem artichoke is a perennial root herbaceous plant in the sunflower genus of the Asteraceae family, commonly known as guizi ginger. It originated in North America and was introduced to China via Europe. Guizi ginger is a highly adaptable plant; many farmers plant it and it needs no management at all, yet can be harvested for many years. Most people pickle guizi ginger into pickles to eat. Guizi ginger can also be used to make inulin and alcohol, and inulin is also a good medicine in medicine for treating diabetes, as well as a valuable industrial raw material.

1. Benefits and effects of Jerusalem artichoke

(1.1) Pain-relieving benefits and effects

Jerusalem artichoke can be eaten together with other ingredients as a condiment, which makes it indeed seem very similar to common ginger. Jerusalem artichoke's pain-relieving effect is used to make sedatives; Jerusalem artichoke takes effect quickly and can act directly on our pain nerves, so friends who often suffer from headaches and similar problems are certainly no strangers to Jerusalem artichoke.

(1.2) Blood-pressure-lowering benefits and effects

Jerusalem artichoke can not only treat neuropathic pain problems, but can also calm and stabilize blood pressure, helping us regulate qi and benefit the liver and activate blood circulation. Smooth arteries can help us stabilize blood pressure, and combined with Jerusalem artichoke's pain-relieving effect, it is very suitable for treating problems such as angina.

(1.3) Eye-brightening benefits and effects

We mentioned above that Jerusalem artichoke can act on the nerves, so Jerusalem artichoke can to a certain extent balance and improve our nerves, such as vision or memory, so it is not hard to find Jerusalem artichoke among the ingredients of some health products.

4. Shell ginger

Shell ginger is a perennial herbaceous plant in the Alpinia genus of the ginger family. It is a plant with very high ornamental value, so people use it as an ornamental plant.

1. Benefits and effects of shell ginger

(1.1) Anti-ulcer effect

Gastric gavage of shell ginger water decoction has varying degrees of inhibitory effect on experimental gastric ulcers in rats of the pylorus-ligated type, stress type, and reserpine type, but its effect on indomethacin (antiflogistic) type gastric ulcers is not obvious. It can increase gastric juice and pepsin activity, lower total acidity and free acidity, and has a brief contracting and exciting effect on isolated gastric strips, then turns to inhibition, reducing gastric tension and antagonizing gastric contraction caused by acetylcholine.

(1.2) Antibacterial effect

In in vitro tests, the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of shell ginger decoction against Yersinia enterocolitica and Morganella morganii was 1/160 (moderate antibacterial strength), and the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) was 1/80 (low bactericidal strength); against Shigella flexneri, the inhibitory and bactericidal effects were 1/40 and 1/10 respectively, belonging to low-level effectiveness; against enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, it showed no inhibitory or bactericidal effect.