Experience The Benefits of Ginger

Learn how to take advantage of the incredible benefits of ginger by adding it to your smoothie recipes… and adding that extra “kick” to your green drinks!

I first learned about the benefits of ginger when I was traveling in Morocco with my travel companion who’s a superfood expert. I got a horrible stomachache from eating a few too many kabobs in the open-air market (one of the experiences that turned me off of eating meat and led me to a vegetarian diet).

After we got back to our base in Madrid, he introduced me to making a simple ginger tea to help ease stomachache symptoms, and it really worked…although my first experience with the potency of raw ginger like that was definitely a shocker! I have to say I didn’t like it at first, it was just too strong for me.

You may have already heard about this, but in the form of ginger ale, a popular processed drink. But did you know that raw, fresh ginger is so much more effective and healthy, and that it has incredible nutrition benefits besides easing stomachaches?

Health Benefits of Ginger

Ginger is an herb that people have been using as a natural remedy for centuries by different societies around the world.

The healing properties of ginger have found to include the following:

Ease Stomachaches and Nausea, including those caused by stomach flu, food poisoning, travelling, motion sickness, morning sickness and more.
Natural Anti-Inflammatory, helping to improve circulation and relieve pain caused by arthritis, tendinitis, and more.
Prevent cold and flu and relieve its symptoms.
Studies have shown that ginger can even combat cancer cells, including ovarian cancer and colon cancer.
Relieve Heartburn without using expensive chemicals or drugs.
Migraine Relief
Menstrual Cramp Relief

The list above is just a sample of the various healing properties that have been discovered in ginger.

So my friend was right when he said that ginger was one of the most important herbs for your help, and that I should start incorporating it more into my diet.

Since then I’ve tried ginger in various juices, including some delicious gingerade at a vegan restaurant in San Francisco. I’ve also incorporated fresh ginger into my cooking (not the powdered kind which has long lost its nutritional potency). Ginger has a lot of great uses, including…

Benefits of Ginger in Smoothies

I first learned about adding ginger to smoothies in Victoria Boutenko’s amazing book Green Smoothie Revolution. She includes it as one of the possible add-ons to take your green smoothies to the “advanced” level.

I say “advanced,” because adding ginger to your green smoothies is not something you want to do if you are just getting started. Your taste buds are still getting used to drinking greens mixed with fruit. But once your used to that, it’s a great way to give your smoothies an extra kick and take advantage of the benefits of ginger with a healthy ginger drink.

Since reading that book, the idea of adding green smoothies has been in the back of my mind. I just never got around to it. That’s probably because I usually make my smoothies first thing in the morning, like at 6 am, and I simply don’t have the time, patience or willpower to chop up little pieces of ginger at that hour.

My First Green Smoothie With Ginger

Finally, today I gave ginger in smoothies a try…and I loved it! This is the green smoothie recipe with ginger that I made today.

Like I said, I have no desire to chop up ginger at 6 o’clock in the morning. But Saturday afternoon? That’s a different story.

This ended up being the perfect winter smoothie recipe for a relaxing Saturday afternoon. It was a perfect detox cure after doing some major damage in the morning, eating all sweets in sight as part of my weekly “Cheat Day” from the healthy diet I have been following. Sometimes your stomach needs a little extra tender loving care after all the junk food you put in it, right?

I wasn’t sure how it would turn out with the addition of ginger…but it turned out that it really gave my smoothie an extra something.

Here is the recipe I used…

Ginger Smoothie Recipe

1 banana

5 fresh blackberries

About 1 cup of water

About 1 tbsp of fresh ginger, chopped*

A few full kale leaves, broken into small pieces

1 tablespoon chia seeds

5 or 6 ice cubes

I add the ingredients to the blender in the order listed above. Since I currently do not have a high-powered blender, I use this step-by-step blending process to get the right texture. If you have a Vita Mix, Blendtec or Ninja just add all at once and blend faster :)

*For the ginger, what I did was take a chunk of ginger root that I had bought at the store. I cut off about one-inch from the end, peeled it with the knife and chopped it into tiny pieces. Then I tossed them in the blender.

The result? About 3 cups of delicious green smoothie. It ends up less sweet than usual as it doesn’t have too much fruit. The good news is it has less sugar as a result (even natural sugar)…and it still has a strong flavor thanks to the ginger!

It’s funny, because right before making the smoothie, my boyfriend and I each took a bite of the fresh organic kale he had just bought. We noticed it doesn’t taste very well on its own like that, and it’s very tough and hard to chew. But once it was in the smoothie, it went down so easily and tasted absolutely delightful!

Kale has a lot of nutrition benefits of its own, but it’s extremely hard to take advantage of them on their own, without breaking it down and mixing with flavorful ingredients like the ones in this recipe.

Tips:

Don’t go overboard with the ginger especially when you’re first starting out. Start small, and add from there as your taste buds allow.
Organic is best whenever possible for all the ingredients listed above. I like to buy organic produce at Mother’s Market or at the farmer’s market when possible.
Don’t be surprised if you can’t stand the taste of ginger the first time or two. It takes a little while to get used to. I know at first I hated fresh ginger, but now I find myself craving it!
This makes a great winter smoothie as the flavors are darker, sharper and more intense, perfect for clearing your mind and focusing on all those to-dos to complete as you prepare for the holidays.

Of course, you can add a little bit of ginger to pretty much ANY of the green smoothie recipes on this website, or any others that you invent on your own, and I’m sure it would turn out fantastic. So don’t stop with this one recipe! Use it as a springboard to start a new ginger smoothie habit :)

Also, I wouldn’t recommend adding it to any chocolate-based smoothies of any sort, such as protein shakes, or to yogurt-based fruit shakes. The flavors just don’t mix well. You can’t experience the benefits of ginger if it tastes so bad you can’t stand the taste of the drink!

To truly enjoy the benefits of ginger nutrition in your frozen drinks, stick with adding fresh ginger to your green smoothie detox smoothies, especially those that use water as a liquid base and minimal conflicting ingredients.

And of course, if you have a story about learning to love the benefits of ginger, using ginger in your smoothies, or a ginger smoothie recipe you’d like to share, please do so in the Comment Box below!

Here are some other green smoothie recipes that would taste great with the addition of a little ginger…

Green Strawberry Apple Smoothie Recipe

Green Banana Peach Smoothie Recipe

Simple Strawberry Banana Green Smoothie Recipe

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