Gingerbread

As a follow-up to my post on resistant starch, with its possible unpleasant side effects, let me offer ginger.

Among its many attributes, ginger (Zingiber officinale) has been shown to:

• Improve digestion. (A great gas-expeller.)
  
• Reduce nausea. Great for motion sickness, pregnancy, or the queasiness associated with flu.
  
• Relieve pain (anti-inflammatory). It has a analgesic effect; like Merck's recently recalled Vioxx^TM it can inhibit the COX-2 enzyme.¹
  
• Reduce fever.
  
• Quench free radicals (antioxidant).
  
• And best of all, make great gingerbread!

I used my recipe for Squash Squares, substituting canned pumpkin for the squash and increasing the amount of freshly grated ginger root to 3 tablespoons. (You can't beat a microplane rasp for grating ginger.)

~~~~~~¹ Biological Basis for the Use of Botanicals in Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Review