Ginger Root - My Super Food

The bottom line? Fresh, raw gingerroot is a superfood you should add to your daily diet for numerous health benefits. Please share if you love it too!

About 4 years ago when I jumped from the corporate world to entrepreneurship, we went from being under a very inexpensive (to us), cushy corporate health care plan to purchasing one ourselves. Who knew they were so expensive! Whew. Two, I had always had paid sick days with every previous job/career. What a lovely perk that truly was! Now if I’m sick, I don’t make any money. I like being financially comfortable, so sick days became “We Just Can’t Have Those, Thank You Very Much.” My goal became keeping us healthy. No sick days! Let’s make money!

A friend, also an entrepreneur, touted one day he had not been sick in over 15 years. Baloney, I thought. He owned a nail salon and worked in it daily as one of the nail techs, constantly in contact with other people. How was that possible?! He said he drank a tonic every morning of honey, apple cider vinegar, gingerroot, and fresh lemon juice. He spouted off the benefits of each ingredient, of which I cannot remember. But I went home and researched each ingredient, pinpointing gingerroot as one of the most beneficial. I found out it is a powerful anti-inflammatory and significantly boosts our immune system. So, we added it to our daily diets in one way or another.

So that’s the background of how it got into our lives, and now I’ll share my own outstanding experiences with it.

1. Illness -- No, I have not been sick since I’ve started eating it daily. Even I am not impressed by that mere fact, even though we survived the most recent flu outbreak unscathed (our daughter goes to a public school too!). The next thing showed me just how powerful it really is.

A month or so ago I stopped having our morning smoothies, which meant I also wasn’t having my gingerroot. I felt myself coming down with the flu. My entire body started to ache in different spots, my lymph nodes felt swollen, and I just wanted to rest. ALERT! ALERT! Crap. What was I going to do? I couldn’t afford being down for a week! And then that meant hubby might get sick, which meant even more income loss, etc. I immediately alerted my family to let them know so they too could take precautions against me. That night I made myself a smoothie with some sort of fruit along with a 2-inch chunk of gingerroot. I ached all night despite that but had one in the morning too along with my breakfast. Mid-morning, I didn’t feel as bad. That night I had another smoothie with a big chunk of gingerroot (my family followed the same, even if I could only get my daughter to drink a few gulps – good enough). The next morning, I felt normal. NORMAL! I was and still am amazed. It happened again last weekend when I began to feel ill, although it only took my body about 9 hours of rest and 2 smoothies to recover this time.  So it seems to help even if I'm already coming down with something.  Isn't that incredible?

2. Stomach ailments – if your stomach hurts, eat a chunk of raw ginger. Nauseous? The same. Heartburn? The same. Simply feel bloated after eating something (which is a sign your body is rejecting it, by the way)? Eat a chunk of raw ginger. And follow it with a glass of water. That will help settle whatever is ailing your tummy.

Side note -- To give it to kids, blend with fruit in a smoothie or chop it into small pieces and marinate in maple syrup, agave nectar, etc. Believe it or not, when we first started eating raw gingerroot, we encourage our then 3-year-old to eat it raw as well. We did the second technique – chopped it and mixed it with honey. We let her know it was going to be spicy, but it was SO good for her (and we compared it to her eating her favorite fruit at the time – it would make her so strong and big!). She bought our propaganda and bravely chewed, swallowed, and cheered afterwards. So, our 6-year-old loves gingerroot now in recipes and will eat it raw, when needed, to cure a stomach problem or for general health (like when one of us is getting sick). She had perfect attendance last year in kindergarten, by the way, of which she is extremely proud. (Side note to the side note - we are not parents that push their kids to go to school even if they’re sick. I detest that behavior as it’s very selfishly motivated and harms nearly every other family connected to that classroom. We highly encourage rest whenever needed, as that is a foundation of good health.)

3. Inflammatory food – if I eat a food my body finds inflammatory, like dairy or wheat, I eat a piece of gingerroot when I get home. It doesn’t eliminate all the negative effects I’ll feel from the dairy or wheat, but it significantly reduces it.

The bottom line? Fresh, raw gingerroot is a superfood you should add to your daily diet for numerous health benefits. Please share if you love it too!