Ginger is a nickname for turmeric, turmeric and ginger difference is mainly reflected in the medicinal source and flavor attribution, efficacy and precautions in these three aspects.
1. medicinal source and flavor attribution: turmeric for the ginger plant turmeric dry rhizome, taste pungent, bitter, warm, to the liver, spleen meridian; ginger for the ginger plant ginger fresh rhizome. Taste pungent, slightly warm, to the lung, spleen, stomach meridian.
2. Efficacy: Turmeric can break the blood and move qi, and relieve menstruation and pain. It is used for chest pain, chest paralysis, heart pain, dysmenorrhea, obstruction of menstruation, obstruction in the abdomen, rheumatism, shoulder and arm pain, swelling and pain.
Ginger can relieve the surface of cold (to remove cold from the surface of the muscle), warm and stop vomiting (to warm the spleen and stomach to treat vomiting caused by gastric cold), resolve phlegm and relieve cough, and detoxify fish and crab. It is used in treating wind-cold, cold stomach and vomiting, coughing with cold phlegm, fish and crab poisoning.
3. Precautions: Turmeric is cautioned for pregnant women; ginger helps fire and injures yin, so it is not to be taken by those who have heat and yin deficiency.
Turmeric and ginger are both Chinese herbs, if you need to take it is recommended to follow the doctor’s advice.