Is Ginger Keto Friendly?

Your life need not be tasteless in order to follow keto diet. Ginger can be used for adding a spice many sweet, salty and chilli spiced dishes and drinks. And the good news is, ginger is keto friendly.

Answer to the question “what makes ginger keto friendly” lies in its ultra strong taste. Due to its strong taste you only need a 5 to 10 grams of ginger to spice up your dish or drink. This characteristic makes ginger keto friendly despite it containing 18g carbs per 100grams of the ginger root.

If your food lacks the taste, add ginger to it without worrying about the effects. Here we have explained some facts about ginger and the reasons behind what make ginger keto friendly.

What makes ginger keto friendly?

Its strong and desirable taste may make you wonder if ginger is keto friendly or not. The answer is yes, ginger is keto friendly and you can use the flavours of this magic spice while being on ketogenic diet. There is no need to worry about your body being thrown out of ketosis.

Flavouring your dishes with ginger spares you from adding needless sugar and salt to your dishes without adding noticeable carbs or calories to it. This is what makes ginger keto friendly. Ginger is low on calories and carbs and also is able to replace keto non friendly ingredients from your food.

Ginger adds great taste without adding significant calories or carbs to your food. It makes easy to stick to keto diet. It also helps you in fighting the adverse bodily response to the keto diet.

How much carbs does ginger contain?

Fresh raw ginger is about 79% water. Among other contains, carbs are 18%. That mean, 100 grams of fresh ginger contains 18 grams of carbs. But as we discussed, we don’t consume 100 grams of ginger in a serving. Our drinks might have about one teaspoon of ginger and food dishes can be flavoured with maximum a tablespoon full of fresh ginger. One average teaspoon contains about half gram carbs while an average tablespoon contains up to one gram carbs.

Considering the quantity of ginger you need to consume per day to add flavours and reap its benefits, you can say it adds negligible amount of carbs to your diets. You should be consuming around 2 grams of ginger a day, that makes the carbs quantity non-significant.

Does ginger add up in calorie count?

Fresh ginger is mostly water and very low on carbs thus the calorie count is also low. 100 grams of ginger contains only 80 calories. In one serving considering you add one maximum tablespoon of fresh ginger, you will consume not more than 5 calories.

If you see by percentage dried ginger may contain high percentage of carbs and in turn calories than that of fresh ginger. But the quantity of dried ginger needed for the similar flavour would be even lesser.

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Nutrition data for fresh ginger root

According to US department of agriculture, 100 grams of ginger root contains approximate 79 grams of water. The other nutritional elements held in the fresh ginger are shown in following table.

Along with this, fresh ginger is also a source of minerals and vitamins. Following tables contain vitamin contains of ginger. The table also shows that how much percentage of daily requirement of the body it can fulfil. This data is for fresh ginger, dried ginger contains negligible quantity of essential vitamins and minerals, the exception being the manganese. 100 grams of dried ginger contains manganese equal to more than 70% daily bodily requirement.

Vitamins in Ginger

Minerals in Ginger

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Ginger and keto diet

Ginger will help you enhance the benefits of keto diet. Along with being low on carbs, following other properties of it is what makes ginger keto friendly.

• When you enter keto diet, you suddenly deprive your body from carbs and electrolytes. To this your body may respond with flu like symptoms. This is often called as keto flu. Ginger is best home remedy for such symptoms like nausea, vomiting and dizziness.
• Ginger can help you stop yourself from overeating. It will enhance thermogenesis and induce satiety. Any type of diet is not only about choosing among the type food to eat, but also about choosing the right portions. Ginger helps you be on healthy keto diet by stopping you from overeating.
• With its ability to reduce hunger and induce satiety and the anti-oxidant properties ginger helps in weight loss.

How much ginger is enough?

• To reap the optimum benefits, one should consume anything between half a gram to two grams of ginger per day. A small piece of fresh ginger root every day is enough to help you get through keto diet.
• Higher consumption of ginger than recommended may lead to the side effects like stomach discomfort, throat irritation etc.

Include ginger in your keto diet

You don’t need to make any drastic change to include ginger in your keto diet. As it can add up in many edible things as a flavour, it is easy to add ginger in your keto diet. Here are some of the ways you can include ginger in your diet.

• The tummy friendly ginger tea

After the radical change you have brought to your diet by introducing keto diet, depriving your body of carbs and electrolytes, your body may respond in many ways. One of which is upset stomach. For such unwanted incidents, you can have ginger tea or ginger turmeric tea. It will relieve upset stomach and also will make you feel energised.

You can add lemon to this tea for better taste. Some people add honey or liquid stevia to sweeten it. Even if you are used to keto diet, having ginger tea will help you ease up the tension on your digestive system.

• Marinating the meat

Adding crushed ginger to your meat marinating preparation will not only help you consume the desired amount of daily ginger dosage but also enhance taste of meat dish.

The marinade can be made using yogurt, crushed or grated ginger, lemon, turmeric, salts and some other spices.

• Keto shakes

Ginger can enhance the taste of all the keto shakes. You can directly add ginger to the shakes. Or if you only wish to add the aroma to the water based shakes, then you can you can boil the ginger pieces in the water and use that water to prepare keto shakes.

Alternate medicinal uses of ginger

Ginger is used in different forms in order to treat ailments without traditional medicine or with home remedies.               

• Ginger tea naturally eases the stomach by reducing acid production. Ginger tea can be made with or without adding milk and sweetener
• Ginger lemon tea made with honey as sweetener is supposed to help with cold, flu and blocked nose.
• Ginger has anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties
• Ginger drinks help to reduce possibility of cramps
• Ginger tea or ginger juices helps reduce pain caused due to migraines and headaches.
• It has blood thinning properties, reduces chances of blood clotting
• It helps regulate insulin response thus helps in keeping your sugar levels in control

What exactly is ginger?

The root of a flowering plant whose technical name is Zingiber Officinale is called ginger root or ginger. It belongs to turmeric and cardamom family.

For years ginger has been used as spice in cooking and also used in substitute medicine. Ginger is believed to possess many health medicines and hence is used as an ingredient in health tonics.

In India sliced or grated ginger root is essential element on everyday tea. The intense aroma and spicy taste of ginger enhances the regular tea to whole new level.

If ate as part of your balanced diet ginger is also helpful in making your digestive system run smoothly. Instead of going for concentrated pills or extracts, it is advised to eat ginger in its natural form.

The journey from origin to now

It is said that the ginger originated in southeast Asia and it was domesticated by Austronesians. The domesticated ginger was used to be cultivated along with turmeric. It has found its way to our modern dishes through hundreds of years of change and adaptation from being used for rituals or being consumed directly to the modern day use as flavouring spice.

Ginger plant is basically a flowering plant with light yellow and purple shade flowers. Ancient southeast Asians initially used to use the leaves of the plant for cooking and as medicine.

It has been introduced to India and other cultures by Austronesians about five thousand years ago.

Uses in food

Ginger is used and flavour in many drinks and dishes. With its majestic aroma and exotic taste, it adds value to every food item it has been introduced to.

Ginger can be used to flavour many vegetarian, as well as non-vegetarian dishes. When you are following strict diets like keto diet, where there is a limitation on flavours and spices to be used, the keto friendly ginger comes handy.

Being low in cholesterol and sodium, it can be used in hospital food too, it is safe to be consumed by heart patients too.

Are there any side effects of over use?

Too much of anything is bad. Same goes true for ginger. Consuming high quantity of ginger might increase your bleeding tendency. You may experience abdominal discomfort and diarrhoea due to over consumption of ginger.

Ginger may also react with some of your regular or herbal medication. This reaction may cause in several side effects and also in lowering the desired effects of the medicine.

You ned only small amount of ginger to enjoy its aroma and flavour which enables it to add almost no carbs to your diet. At the same time, it also helps you in fighting keto flu symptoms, that what makes ginger keto friendly.

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