If you’re like many households, you may already have a jar of this extremely healthy food in your pantry or on a shelf, just waiting to be used. Spicy, bright, sweet, and briny all at the same time, pickled ginger is the amazing health food you may have shoved behind the soy sauce or abandoned in some remote corner of a bottom cabinet.
What you may not know is that this flowing plant from China is one of the healthiest spices in the world, and pickling it doesn’t drain ginger of its health benefits. Loaded with nutrients, pickled ginger has major mental and physical health benefits. Below are 6 health benefits of pickled ginger which you can reap by regularly incorporating it into your diet. These benefits are supported by scientific research on this magic spice.
6 Proven Health Benefits of Pickled Ginger
1. It Contains Gingerol, Which has Powerful Medicinal Components
Ginger contains gingerol, giving it the power to aid in overall digestive health. It helps reduce stomach acidity, decrease the back-up of food in the stomach, and the gingerol also gives it powerful medicinal and antioxidant properties.
2. It Treats Nausea
Ginger has a long history of being highly effective against nausea. It has been used as an agent to fight seasickness for hundreds of years, used to stop nausea and vomiting after surgery or in chemotherapy patients, and it has been found to be most effective in treating morning sickness in pregnant women.
3. Helps Fight Symptoms of Osteoarthritis
Ginger, pickled or otherwise, has an anti-inflammatory effect when included naturally as part of your diet. One of the most hindering side effects of osteoarthritis is joint pain and stiffness, due to joint degeneration throughout the body. A controlled study found that ginger’s anti-inflammatory properties helped reduced some degree of pain and stiffness in people suffering from osteoarthritis. This was the result when it was applied as a topical solution.
4. Relieves Sore Muscles and Pain
Even if you don’t have osteoarthritis, pickled ginger has been found to be effective in reducing muscle pain associated with everyday exercises. Ginger’s anti-inflammatory properties have been proven in a scientific study to help combat sore muscles just by eating 2 grams of ginger a day for about 10 days.
5. It’s Loaded with Probiotics
Pickled ginger is a fermented health food that is full of “good” bacteria that has a multitude of health benefits. These are called probiotics and they promote overall digestive health, higher gastrointestinal functioning, intestinal balance, and a lower risk of colon cancer. The longer ginger has been pickled, the higher the level of probiotics.
6. Low in Calories, Low in Sodium
Finally, pickled ginger is absolutely loaded with flavor that has both sweet and salty components. It can be used to season many various dishes without adding to the calorie or sodium content an unhealthy degree. One tablespoon of pickled ginger has just around 10 calories and is enough to provide adequate flavor for most dishes. A tablespoon of pickled finger also contains around 60-215 milligrams of sodium, which will also be jam-packed with enough flavor to season most dishes that call for a salty touch. Compare with soy sauce that contains around 1,100 milligrams of sodium per tablespoon.
Conclusion: Health Benefits of Pickled Ginger, the Wonder Food You Didn’t Know You Were Missing
It isn’t surprising that ginger and pickled ginger have such a wide variety of natural health benefits. Finger has been used for thousands of years as a powerful medicinal herb and all-natural treatment for over a hundred common ailments. Ginger and pickled ginger are also touted for its preventative effects that help keep people who include it as part of their regular diet in top health.
Recently studies have found evidence for the effectiveness of pickled ginger and fresh ginger’s ability to work as an anticancer agent, a full-body antioxidant with a special focus on the digestive system, anti-inflammatory agent with a focus on bone health, anti-nausea compound, and battler of morning sickness. It may be time to find some creative ways to take advantage of the health benefits of pickled ginger and make it a regular staple of your diet!
