Oooh, that is something I did not consider. When you heat something up, you are also denaturing the proteins.
My main thinking was that homemade stuff is better than store-bought stuff, I did not look up the medicinal properties affected by heat. So here's what I have come up with:
I found an article discussing the
benefits of ginger tea, a general article by WebMD about
uses and benefits of ginger, and one article by ScienceDaily giving a brief overview of
a study about ginger conducted with raw ginger, heated ginger, and a placebo for control.
From what I can gather from the articles, I do not think too many of the properties would be lost since the articles indicate that the heated-ginger and raw ginger both helped fight inflammation and pain. Also, the articles noted that people gain benefits from drinking ginger tea which is a heated beverage made with boiling water. I cannot say whether the proteins were denatured or not: that was not discussed in any of the articles. I can make a good guess that whatever chemicals and/or proteins in the ginger that existed before heating still exist in some beneficial form that humans can take up after being exposed to 212 degrees Fahrenheit (
temperature of boiling water). Also, another thing to note is that water boils at a temperature higher than the
FDA recommended pasteurization temperatures.
Tea is typically, at least when I drink tea, in a mug. So, if they had servings like this of the tea to get benefits, a whole bottle of ginger beer, like one of those old glass coca-cola bottles, should be enough.
There was an interesting article about a man who drank beer in a particular habit that he established a colony of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a species of yeast) in his gut, creating what is called
auto-brewery syndrome. He was making alcohol inside his own body. That is from beer, a different form of carbohydrates than what people usually think of.
There is a lot of information to sift through; I hope you don't mind if I just I just direct you to some things to look at.
Explore Yeast is a website dedicated to everything about yeast.
Dr.Chutkan gave a presentation about the
human microbiome.
There are also some very good TED talks about the microbiome:
Now the carb thing goes into the huge carbs vs fat vs paleo vs all these other things about eating. My only recommendation is eat and drink what your body tells you in moderation. Your body knows what it wants to eat. I think doing some research on how carbs and yeast and the basic interactions of biological molecules would be a good place to start.
I hope at least the beginning of my answer was helpful. Don't get me wrong, the reading and learning from doing research online is quite fun, but, it is time consuming. Yeah, sigh, I have stuff to do this holiday, too. Tell me what you learn and find out, I would like to hear what conclusions you come to.
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