Even a spring cold can sometimes produce a troublesome cough. Nobody wants to be wakened in the middle of the night with a cough. It isn’t pleasant, either, to be coughing through a concert or church service. Can you calm a cough with a piece of crystallized ginger?
Quiet a Cough with Crystallized Ginger:
Q. I was very excited to read about using crystallized ginger as a cough remedy. I had a sore throat and ate a piece of the candied ginger. Not only did my sore throat go away, the relief lasted for almost four hours. It also worked well for the cough that came later on in the cold, quieting it for more than three hours.
I now keep some candied ginger in my purse and next to my bed. No more sugary cough drops for me!
Why Ginger Works:
A. Ginger, known scientifically as Zingiber officinale, has been used for centuries to calm coughs as well as to settle digestive distress. Ginger tea and crystallized ginger are both effective.
Scientists recently worked out which water-soluble compounds are responsible for fighting coughs (Bera et al, Phytotherapy Research, Jan., 2016). The relevant compound is a branched glucan that worked well to reduce experimentally-induced coughs in guinea pigs. The investigators concluded that this water-soluble agent can control coughing without the risk of addiction.
While crystallized ginger may be more appealing than sugary cough drops, it also contains a fair amount of sugar. The guinea pigs in the study cited above were given 25 mg/kg or 50 mg/kg. This works out to approximately 1.5 to 3.25 grams of candied ginger for a person who weighs around 140 pounds.
Learn More:
If you find spices and their healing powers as fascinating as we do, you might want to read our book, Spice Up Your Health: How Everyday Herbs & Spices Can Lengthen & Strengthen Your Life. It’s chock-full of practical recommendations as well as scientific citations about how herbs and spices bolster health.
