The famous Northern Song Dynasty literary figure and epicure, Su Dongpo, recorded an interesting anecdote in his "Dongpo Miscellany" about how consuming ginger regularly can lead to a long and healthy life.
When Su Dongpo was serving as the governor of Hangzhou, one day he visited Jingci Temple and had an audience with the abbot. The abbot was over 80 years old, yet his hair was white as a crane's, his face like a child's, and his spirit was vigorous, which greatly surprised Su Dongpo. He asked the abbot what miraculous secret he used to achieve such longevity. The abbot smiled and said to Su Dongpo, "For over forty years, I have been taking slices of fresh ginger with its skin on, swallowed with warm water every day."
In fact, the idea that ginger can promote longevity and well-being was not the abbot's original discovery. As early as the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the great Confucian master, Confucius, had already recognized ginger's anti-aging properties. He believed: "Ginger can clear the mind and expel impurities. One should not be without ginger in their food, but should not eat too much of it." This meant that he ate ginger year-round but in moderation—only a few slices after each meal. In that era, fraught with war and displacement, Confucius lived to be 73, a fact closely related to his emphasis on consuming ginger.
The anti-aging function of ginger has been confirmed by modern pharmacological experiments. Modern medical research shows that during the course of life activities, the human body produces harmful organic substances—oxygen free radicals—such as superoxide anion radicals and hydroxyl radicals, while performing normal metabolic functions. These are atoms or molecules with unpaired electrons, possessing very active chemical properties and strong attacking power. They can attack unsaturated fatty acids on cell membranes, causing peroxidation reactions and producing harmful substances—lipid peroxides. These peroxides generally cannot be expelled by the cells. Unsaturated lipid peroxides can also produce various free radicals, which are highly active and can also cause proteins in the body to become free radicals. When oxidized by free radicals, unsaturated lipid peroxides form lipofuscin pigment. The deposition of this pigment on the skin is what people call age spots. Oxygen free radicals can also damage nucleic acids, proteins, and enzymes in the body, triggering a series of destructive chain reactions in cells, leading to gene mutations, cancer, and cellular aging. This is the main reason why oxygen free radicals induce peroxidation reactions, promoting cancer and aging in the body.
The active components in ginger can prevent the peroxidation of fatty foods, thereby slowing down their rate of oxidative spoilage. After being absorbed and digested in the body, the gingerol in ginger produces an anti-aging antioxidant enzyme—superoxide dismutase—which inhibits the formation of lipid peroxides and lipofuscin pigment (age spots) in the body, thus delaying the onset of aging. Therefore, the folk saying, "Three slices of ginger in the morning are better than a bowl of ginseng soup," is indeed scientifically sound.