What Chinese Home Remedies Should You Keep in Your Kitchen?

There are four things of Chinese medicine I always keep in my kitchen: fresh ginger, green onions, a cake of pu-erh tea, and something for pain relief, a liniment spray or an herbal patch. Each has centuries of use in Chinese medicine behind it, and modern research that explains why it works.

What Chinese home remedies should you keep in your kitchen?

The best ones are the ones you will actually use, on an ordinary Tuesday, the moment you need them. Chinese medicine has a phrase for this: yao shi tong yuan, medicine and food share the same source. Ginger for cold in the belly and cramps, green onion for the first chill of a cold, pu-erh for the gut, and one external remedy for the knocks and strains of daily life.

This is the same terrain-first thinking we teach in Gut Brain Synchrony: change the conditions the body is working in, and the symptoms follow.

Is ginger as effective as ibuprofen?

For menstrual pain, yes. Ginger is one of the most heavily studied herbal medicines of all time, and in controlled human trials it has matched ibuprofen for period cramps.

The volume of research alone is worth knowing. A 2020 systematic review gathered 109 randomized controlled trials of ginger in people, and found consistent support for its effects on nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, inflammation, metabolic syndrome, digestive function and markers of colorectal cancer.^[1]

The head-to-head trials

In a double-blind trial, 150 university students with primary dysmenorrhea were split into three groups. One took 250 mg of ginger rhizome powder four times a day for the first three days of the period; the others took 250 mg of mefenamic acid or 400 mg of ibuprofen on the same schedule. Pain severity, pain relief and satisfaction with treatment were the same across all three groups. The authors concluded that ginger was as effective as mefenamic acid and ibuprofen.^[2]

A crossover trial of 168 students compared ginger with Novafen, a combination painkiller that contains ibuprofen. Average pain in the ginger group fell from 7.60 to 2.97 on a visual pain scale, against 7.12 to 3.10 with the drug, with no statistical difference between them.^[3]

The pooled data say the same thing. A 2024 meta-analysis found ginger clearly more effective than placebo at reducing both the intensity and the duration of period pain, and found no difference between ginger and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for pain intensity.^[4] An earlier meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials pointed to 750 to 2,000 mg of ginger powder during the first three to four days of the cycle.^[5] If cramps are a monthly event in your house, my post on whether bananas are good for period cramps covers the food side of the same problem.

Does ginger help bloating?

Ginger is magic for warming up a bloated tummy when it is burdened by cold. In Chinese medicine, fresh ginger, sheng jiang, is acrid and warm. It warms the middle, the Spleen and Stomach, and disperses cold. The picture it treats is familiar: a belly that feels heavy and distended after cold drinks, raw salads or iced smoothies, with sluggish digestion and maybe a little nausea.

The physiology lines up with that description. In a randomized, double-blind study of 24 healthy volunteers, 1,200 mg of ginger taken an hour before a meal of soup cut the time it took the stomach to empty half its contents from 26.7 minutes to 13.1 minutes, and increased the frequency of contractions in the lower stomach.^[6]

Is green onion good for a cold?

Yes. Green onion is great for when you feel a cold coming on, and it activates your natural killer cells so you recover faster from viruses.

The white part of the scallion, cong bai, is pungent and warm. Its classical job is to release the exterior: to open the surface of the body and push out a cold that has only just arrived, the stage of chills, a stiff neck and a scratchy throat. The old formula Cong Chi Tang is little more than scallion whites and fermented soybean, drunk hot.

Green onion is weird in tea, but you do not have to drink it that way. You can add it to congee or almost any other kind of food. My post on whether congee is good for weight loss explains why congee is such an easy food for a tired digestive system.

What the research shows about natural killer cells

Natural killer cells are the front line of your innate immune system, destroying virus-infected cells before antibodies are ready. Researchers in Japan studied the clear mucus inside the hollow green leaves of the bunching onion, Allium fistulosum. Given by mouth to mice, the mucus increased natural killer cell activity, raised production of interferon-gamma, TNF-alpha and IL-12, and boosted phagocytosis, the process by which immune cells engulf invaders. The authors concluded that eating it can enhance natural immunity.^[7]

A second team isolated a fructan, a type of plant sugar, from a hot-water extract of the green leaves. Taken orally, it inhibited influenza A virus replication in mice and increased their production of neutralizing antibodies against the virus. Its antiviral effect worked through the host immune system rather than by attacking the virus directly.^[8] Green onion gets your own defenses working.

Is pu-erh tea good for digestion?

Pu-erh is not as well known as coffee or other black teas, but it is amazing for gut health. It comes from Yunnan province, made from large-leaf tea that is fermented and aged, often pressed into cakes. Ripe pu-erh is fermented by microbes, which gives it a deep, smooth, earthy taste, like a forest floor after rain.

That fermentation is the point. It produces large pigment molecules called theabrownins, and those reach the gut, where your microbes work on them. In animal studies, ripe pu-erh increased the diversity of the gut microbiota, raised production of short-chain fatty acids, especially butyrate, the main fuel of the cells lining the colon, and enriched beneficial bacteria including Akkermansia and Bifidobacterium.^[9] In Chinese medicine it is the tea for clearing heaviness after rich, greasy meals.

Is pu-erh tea good for cholesterol?

Pu-erh helps your body get rid of the bad kinds of cholesterol, and the most important study on it, published in Nature Communications, shows how. Theabrownin from pu-erh changed the gut microbiota in both mice and humans, suppressing the bacteria that carry an enzyme called bile-salt hydrolase. With those bacteria held back, more bile acids were excreted in the stool, the liver made more bile acids to replace them, and it drew on its cholesterol to do it. The result was lower liver cholesterol and less fat production.^[10]

In rats with high blood lipids, fermented pu-erh lowered triglycerides, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, the bad kind, more effectively than the same leaf before fermentation, and left visibly fewer foam cells on the artery walls.^[11]

What is Zheng Gu Shui used for?

Number four is something for pain relief. Zheng Gu Shui, literally bone-setting water, is a liniment for bumps, bruises, sprains and strains, and I always recommend a spray like Evil Bone Water or an herbal patch like the Ao Yi Pain Relief Patches. For bumps or bruises or sprains or strains, or even the stronger pains of fibromyalgia, I keep these in my kitchen, my car and my office at all times.

Liniments like this come from die da, hit-and-fall medicine, the injury tradition of the martial-arts schools. In Chinese medicine terms, an injury is a place where qi and blood have stopped moving. Bruising, swelling and that hot, throbbing ache are what stagnation looks and feels like. A good trauma liniment moves the blood, reduces swelling and stops pain, so the area can heal instead of staying stuck.

Ao Yi patches, pronounced ow-weee, come from the botanical medicine of the Miao people of Guizhou. They deliver plant medicine through the skin, over the painful spot or over acupuncture points on the channel.

Do herbal pain patches work?

The trials on herbal plasters are encouraging. A systematic review of 22 randomized trials with 2,556 participants looked at a Tibetan herbal plaster for osteoarthritis pain, tested against drugs and injections. Ten of those trials found the herbal plaster more effective at improving pain, stiffness and function than the comparison treatment.^[12]

In a multicenter trial of 240 patients with nerve pain from the neck, a Chinese herbal rubber plaster was compared with a diclofenac patch for up to 21 days. Pain scores fell further at every time point with the herbal plaster, more patients got at least half their pain relieved, and fewer had the pain come back during follow-up.^[13] And for the classic kitchen-cabinet injury, a sprained ankle, a randomized trial of 164 patients found a topical herbal extract at least as effective as diclofenac gel, with results suggesting it may be better.^[14]

How to use these four Chinese kitchen essentials

Frequently asked questions

Is ginger a natural pain reliever?

Yes. For menstrual pain, ginger has performed as well as ibuprofen and mefenamic acid in controlled human trials,^[2] and pooled analyses found no difference between ginger and anti-inflammatory drugs for pain intensity.^[4]

Is green onion good for flu?

Green onion activates the immune cells that deal with viruses. A fructan from its green leaves inhibited influenza A virus replication in mice when taken by mouth and increased antibodies against the virus,^[8] and the leaf mucus raised natural killer cell activity.^[7]

Is pu-erh tea good for weight loss?

In a 12-week double-blind trial, 36 overweight Japanese adults took 333 mg of pu-erh extract before each of their three daily meals. Their body weight, body mass index and waist circumference came down, and CT scans showed significantly less visceral fat than in the placebo group.^[15]

Four simple things, kept within reach, and you have a small Chinese pharmacy in your kitchen.

— Brehan Crawford, L.Ac.

References

1. Anh NH, Kim SJ, Long NP, et al. Ginger on Human Health: A Comprehensive Systematic Review of 109 Randomized Controlled Trials. Nutrients. 2020;12(1):157. doi:10.3390/nu12010157
2. Ozgoli G, Goli M, Moattar F. Comparison of effects of ginger, mefenamic acid, and ibuprofen on pain in women with primary dysmenorrhea. J Altern Complement Med. 2009;15(2):129-132. doi:10.1089/acm.2008.0311
3. Adib Rad H, Basirat Z, Bakouei F, et al. Effect of Ginger and Novafen on menstrual pain: A cross-over trial. Taiwan J Obstet Gynecol. 2018;57(6):806-809. doi:10.1016/j.tjog.2018.10.006
4. Moshfeghinia R, Salmanpour N, Ghoshouni H, et al. Ginger for Pain Management in Primary Dysmenorrhea: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Integr Complement Med. 2024;30(11):1016-1030. doi:10.1089/jicm.2023.0799
5. Daily JW, Zhang X, Kim DS, Park S. Efficacy of Ginger for Alleviating the Symptoms of Primary Dysmenorrhea: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials. Pain Med. 2015;16(12):2243-2255. doi:10.1111/pme.12853
6. Wu KL, Rayner CK, Chuah SK, et al. Effects of ginger on gastric emptying and motility in healthy humans. Eur J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2008;20(5):436-440. doi:10.1097/MEG.0b013e3282f4b224
7. Ueda H, Takeuchi A, Wako T. Activation of immune responses in mice by an oral administration of bunching onion (Allium fistulosum) mucus. Biosci Biotechnol Biochem. 2013;77(9):1809-1813. doi:10.1271/bbb.130084
8. Lee JB, Miyake S, Umetsu R, et al. Anti-influenza A virus effects of fructan from Welsh onion (Allium fistulosum L.). Food Chem. 2012;134(4):2164-2168. doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2012.04.016
9. Zhao S, Wang J, Wang X, et al. Effect of processing methods on the phytochemicals, digestion behaviors, and nutraceutical potential of Yunnan large-leaf tea: A combined in vitro and in vivo study. Food Res Int. 2026;228:118416. doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2026.118416
10. Huang F, Zheng X, Ma X, et al. Theabrownin from Pu-erh tea attenuates hypercholesterolemia via modulation of gut microbiota and bile acid metabolism. Nat Commun. 2019;10(1):4971. doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12896-x
11. Deng X, Hou Y, Zhou H, et al. Hypolipidemic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-atherosclerotic effects of tea before and after microbial fermentation. Food Sci Nutr. 2021;9(2):1160-1170. doi:10.1002/fsn3.2096
12. Chen C, Li SQ, Bao T, et al. A Systematic Review of CheeZheng Pain Relieving Plaster for Musculoskeletal Pain: Implications for Oncology Research and Practice. Integr Cancer Ther. 2020;19:1534735420918933. doi:10.1177/1534735420918933
13. Xie XW, Wang CX, Zhao YL, et al. A multicenter, open-label, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial of Tongluo-Qutong rubber plaster for the treatment of cervical spondylotic radiculopathy. J Back Musculoskelet Rehabil. 2024;37(6):1591-1599. doi:10.3233/BMR-230431
14. Predel HG, Giannetti B, Koll R, Bulitta M, Staiger C. Efficacy of a comfrey root extract ointment in comparison to a diclofenac gel in the treatment of ankle distortions: results of an observer-blind, randomized, multicenter study. Phytomedicine. 2005;12(10):707-714. doi:10.1016/j.phymed.2005.06.001
15. Kubota K, Sumi S, Tojo H, et al. Improvements of mean body mass index and body weight in preobese and overweight Japanese adults with black Chinese tea (Pu-Erh) water extract. Nutr Res. 2011;31(6):421-428. doi:10.1016/j.nutres.2011.05.004