Candied Ginger for Nausea and Vomiting
This lesson’s herbal first aid travel kit addition is candied ginger. While you can buy candied ginger at the grocery store in a pinch, for herbal remedies you’ll want to make your own so that you can control the ingredients.
Ginger is anti-inflammatory, anti-nausea, anti-microbial, and is fast acting for travel sickness, stomach upsets, and digestive complaints. It’s a warm, spicy carminative digestive and like many carminative digestives it’s also antimicrobial for those bugs you can pick up from travelling in a closed airplane cabin with strangers. Ginger is warming and drying so it’s also useful for sore throats, runny noses, and coughs that can come on fast when you are travelling.
Recently we flew to Phoenix, Arizona for a conference. While we were hale and hearty on the trip, by the time we got to bed at the hotel, Mr. Joybilee was feeling off. In the morning he was nauseated and started vomiting. I went looking for ginger candies at the hotel shop. No luck. They had Dimenhydrinate (aka. Gravol™) but no ginger. Studies show that ginger is as effective as over the counter drugs like Dimenhydrinate for travel sickness and flu, to prevent nausea and vomiting. And it helps without causing drowsiness or dehydration. I was chiding myself for leaving this remedy at home.
Never again will I leave home without my herbal first aid kit. In fact this incident was one of my motivations for making sure you, had the recipes that I use in my herbal travel first aid kit, before you go on your summer vacation. Nobody should spend their vacation leaning over a toilet.
You can make this candied ginger recipe while you are doing something else in the kitchen. You’ll need to watch the pan to make sure it doesn’t boil over or burn, but once the ginger and syrup is in the pan, it doesn’t need your full attention. Make a salad or get your vegetables prepared for dinner while you let this simmer. The color will be golden brown when it is ready.
Download the printable recipe by clicking the link below
Candied ginger recipe
Here’s how to make candied ginger for your travel first aid kit.
Store candied ginger in a tin like an altoids tin for easy access while travelling. Since the honey is boiled in this recipe it is safe for children of all ages who are eating solid food.Although very young children might prefer it in tea rather than the spicy candy.
Time: about 30 minutes plus time to dry.
Yield: 30 pieces candied ginger
Ingredients:
½ cup organic ginger, peeled and sliced
¼ cup organic sugar
1 tablespoon of honey
½ cup of water
Directions:
You can use regular white sugar for this recipe, but regular sugar is made from GMO sugar beets, so I prefer organic sugar which is made from organically grown sugar cane.You can also use maple sugar or coconut sugar in the place of the organic sugar in equal portions. I haven’t tried this recipe with just honey in the place of the sugar.
Peel the ginger using the edge of a spoon. It makes peeling the paper thin skin easy and lets you keep more of the ginger. Using a fine, sharp knife cut the ginger as thinly as possible. 1/8th inch slices are perfect. The ginger will lose some mass, so your final ginger candy will be thinner.
In a small saucepan mix the sugar, honey and water. Add the peeled ginger. Simmer the ginger with the syrup. Stir to completely coat the ginger. Once the syrup begins to boil rapidly don’t stir it. Allow the liquid to boil off until the syrup has been mostly absorbed by the ginger. Stir as little as possible, only enough to keep the ginger from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
This is the tricky part. Don’t let the sugar caramelize. If the sugar begins to burn remove the pan from the heat. Let the burner cool down slightly. Replace the pan on the burner and continue cooking until the syrup is mostly absorbed by the ginger. At this stage the ginger will crystalize if you stir it while it’s hot. You want to control the crystallization so stop the process while there is a scant amount of liquid left in the pan. The ginger is ready when you stir the pan and the trail you stir in the bottom of the pan doesn’t fill in immediately with the syrup remaining in the pan. On a candy thermometer the temperature of the syrup will be 290°F. Remove the pan from the burner. Allow the pan to cool slightly and stop bubbling.
Prepare a baking sheet or dehydrator tray by lining with parchment paper. Remove the ginger from the pan using a fork and place it on the dehydrator tray in a single layer. The ginger will be very hot so be careful not to let it touch your skin. Any extra syrup can also be dropped on the dehydrator tray or baking sheet. It will harden into ginger candy. Let the ginger dry completely in a just-warm oven or in a dehydrator until it is dry and hard. The ginger will be hard and brittle when it is done. Cool to room temperature.
If the candies seem sticky, roll in maple sugar or more organic sugar. Stickiness can vary depending on the relative humidity when you make these.
Package candied ginger in a tin lined with parchment paper, for ease of travel. Any additional ginger candle can also be packaged and used as ginger candy. For medicinal use the pieces of ginger are better than the candy alone.
To use
Ginger candy or candied ginger: Suck or chew for travel sickness.
Ginger tea: Add a piece of candied ginger or ginger candy to a hot cup of tea. Let it steep covered for 5 minutes before drinking the tea.
Candied ginger helps with nausea, vomiting, coughs, colds, sore throat, and indigestion. It’s a powerful herbal remedy in a small, convenient package.
Hint: You can add more ginger to this recipe without increasing the sugar, honey, and water.This is a time tested folk recipe and the proportions are not exact.