7 Reasons To Use Ginger- Garlic Paste In Your Cooking
anjala farahath .
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With all its indigenous ingredients and tongue-tingling flavors, Indian cuisine is a beautiful mélange of herbs and spices. The one ingredient that has earned itself a comfortable spot in the list of absolute Indian kitchen staples is the Ginger- Garlic paste. No prizes for guessing what it is. The ginger-garlic paste is exactly what the name suggests— a blend of ginger and garlic. Either in the form of a paste or fresh chunks, most of the Indian cooking sees the use of ginger and garlic as indispensable.
The easiest way to prepare ginger-garlic paste is to pound equal proportions of the two ingredients in a mortar with a pestle. If you want an easier way to get this paste done, then all you need to do is pop them together in a mixer and blend it to according to your preferred consistency. Additionally, you can spice up the mixture by adding some green chilies, lime juice, and salt. Whats more is, you shoot two birds with one stone— ginger-garlic paste not only makes your food tasty, it’s also a powerhouse of multiple health benefits.
If you don’t already swear by the usage of this game-changing ingredient, here’s a list of reasons that will surely get you on the bandwagon:
1. Cures Common Cold
Don’t we all hate catching a cold? What if we said a clove of garlic could knock your cold away? The powerful combo of ginger’s soothing and sedative qualities, coupled with garlic’s antimicrobial and antiviral properties works as a perfect remedy for a cold. While ginger soothes your itchy throat, garlic helps in eliminating the virus. This is why gnawing at a couple of garlic cloves or making yourself a hot cup of ginger tea eases your discomfort when ailing from flu.
2. Reverse Your Aging Clock
We’ll ever be grateful to those who point us in the direction of the fountain of youth, won’t we? Alas! That’s not going to happen, so let’s delve into our kitchen and slow down our days of wrinkles and gray hair. Garlic is the Holy Grail that can prevent the onset of aging and the associated chronic ailments. Among the array of benefits, it increases immunity, prevents arthritis, cataract formation, and rejuvenates skin (and look at us spending all our monies on those Botox treatments). Its counterpart, ginger isn’t far behind. For centuries together, ginger has found its use in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine and is also great to tackle osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis
3. Checks Blood Pressure And Cholesterol
Unfortunately, more and more people are falling under the brackets of high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. While medicines can check your BP and balance your cholesterol, they also make you addicted to them. Ginger-garlic paste has properties that can bring down the levels of cholesterol and BP greatly. The calcium deposits of ginger, and the vitamin C, a slew of enzymes, and minerals such as sulfur and selenium, definitely play a role. The tiny clove of garlic can be instrumental in bettering your cardiac health, by improving the blood circulation, thinning the blood, and lowering cholesterol.
4. Keeps Cancer At Bay
According to American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, garlic consumption can prevent cancer (1). Garlic blocks the growth if cancer cells effectively, and ginger is known for its miraculous ability to shrink tumors. Studies show that ginger can cure prostate cancer and in fact, can be more effective than the drugs (2). We are beginning to think that ginger and garlic are really underrated
5. Your Remedy To Indigestion
If your tummy gives you a hard time digesting the food or often leaves you looking bloated and feeling sick, head straight to the kitchen and get your hands on some ginger-garlic paste. The two magic ingredients infuse anti-inflammatory properties in the paste that can aid digestion and can prevent issues of the gastrointestinal tract— constipation, bloating, gastritis, belching, etc.
6. Pain Reliever and Inflammation Controller
We don’t intend to sound primitive or archaic, but ginger has great analgesic properties that can replace your anti-inflammatory medicines like aspirin and ibuprofen. Using a warm ginger compressor can soothe pain in minutes. Garlic, on the other hand, can be taken orally to treat inflammation and reduce pain. Placing a garlic clove on an aching tooth does wonders to relieve the pain.
7. Boost Your Metabolism
The ginger-garlic paste is a great detoxifying agent. It flushes out toxins like sweeping the floor clean, leaving you feeling rejuvenated and healthy.
With its weight loss fighting properties, ginger renders the fat out of your body and suppresses your appetite, thereby reducing unnecessary binge eating. Garlic and ginger effectively break down cholesterol into bile acids and secrete adrenalin. In simple words, it burns calories and scales down your numbers on the weighing scale.
We could go on with the benefits of ginger and garlic, but we will let you step in and take charge of these marvelous natural ingredients that are an essential part of Indian cooking. Ginger-garlic pastes does much more than making your food tasty. But, before incorporating it into your diet, make sure you aren’t allergic to these root vegetables.
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