Adding garlic and ginger to your diet will improve your gut health.
- Garlic is a prebiotic food in raw form and is therefore excellent food for the gut bacteria.
- Garlic boosts your immune system, and is known as “Nature’s penicillin”.
- Ginger is an anti-inflammatory and also boosts your immune system.
- Ginger is a well studied digestive aide, improving digestion and decreasing indigestion.
A great way to enjoy both ginger and garlic is in a dressing or marinade.
Asian Ginger Dressing
This dressing is great on a salad, especially salads with cabbage. It is also a delicious marinade for steak, chicken, shrimp, tofu or fish or as a sauce over stir fry.
Ingredients:
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoons fresh ginger root
- 3/4 cup olive oil
- 1/3 cup rice vinegar
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 1/4 cup water
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
- In a sealable container or mason jar, combine all ingredients.
- Cover the jar with a tight fitting lid, and shake well.
- Remove the lid and heat jar in the microwave for 1 minute to dissolve the honey.
- Let cool and shake well before serving.
- Store covered in the refrigerator.
Garlic and ginger can both be challenging to prepare.
One of my favorite cooking tips is from Geoffrey Zakarian, a chef and judge on Chopped on the Food Network:
Use the edge of a spoon to scrape the skin from fresh ginger root to expose the edible part.
One of my favorite kitchen tools is a microplane.
Instead of getting smelly garlic fingers from mincing or trying to chop stringy ginger root, I prefer to use a microplane.
Grating fresh ginger and garlic on a microplane results in a paste, which easily incorporates into dressings, sauces and marinades.
Garlic and ginger improve your gut health by providing prebiotic food to your gut bacteria and improving immune function and digestion.
I hope you feel encouraged to add these foods to your diet. Please reach out with any questions or for further suggestions or recipes. I always love to hear from you!