"Ginseng Improves And Enhances Fooling Around..."

"It's Given To Horses To Improve Their Performance And Endurance..."

Some suspect that the original Chinese Ginseng which came from Manchuria can no longer be found.

Please check this site for clinical trials, efficiency, safety, etc...

Ginsenosides are the active ingredient in this herb and are fat soluable. This may explain why it takes so long for the herb to kick in.

The export of the wild root from America to the Orient began in the early 1700s. In 1773 the sloop "Hingham" sailed from Boston to China with 55 tons of the herb on board. The first shipment of the herb to China after the American Revolution is reported to have been made by John Jacob Astor from New York in 1782. The root from that shipment was said to have been sold for three dollars a pound. As in Asia, wild American roots became scarce. Its cultivation began in the 19th Century with much of the plant being grown in Wisconsin and Ohio. It has been reported that nearly 21,000 tons of American roots have been exported between 1821 and 1983. Baranov, A. 1966. Recent advances in our knowledge of morphology, cultivation and uses of the root. Economic Botany. Vol. 20, pp. 403-406.

American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius, L.) is a perennial herb native to the deciduous forests of the eastern United States.

Wild root once thrived along most of the nation's eastern seaboard, from Maine to Alabama and west to Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. It still grows wild, but it was over-harvested in the mid-1970s and was subsequently defined as an endangered species. Currently, 18 states issue licenses to export it.

In Wisconsin and several other states where the root is cultivated, a permit is not required to export artificially propagated the root.

The root was one of the earliest marketable herbs to be harvested in this country.

Wild root was one of Minnesota's first major exports. In 1860, more than 120 tons of dried roots were shipped from the state to China.

American root is similar to Asian root, Panax ginseng, L., which grows wild in Northern Manchuria and has been harvested there for thousands of years.

The root is prized in the Orient for its purported curative properties. Based on an ancient Chinese legend, early emperors proclaimed it a panacea to be ingested or used in lotions and soaps. The genus name, Panax, is derived from the Greek "panakeia," which means universal remedy. The term "ginseng" is derived from the Chinese term "jen-shen," which means "in the image of a man." Those roots shaped like the human body are considered highly desirable. In particular, old roots (some may be nearly a century old) are prized because their longevity is claimed to be transferred to the person who consumes them.

The root is reputed to lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels, protect against stress, enhance strength and promote relaxation. Koreans have fed the root to race horses to enhance their performance on the track. Although some European and Asian studies appear to support some of these claims, American researchers remain skeptical. The root is not a drug and should not be taken as such. It is classified by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a "generally recognized safe food" (GRAS).

The root became a domesticated crop in the late 1800s. Attempts to produce the crop in Wisconsin in the late 1870s failed due to disease. In 1904, the four Fromm brothers from the Wisconsin township of Hamburg, near Wausau, transplanted 100 wild ginseng plants from nearby forests onto a plot of their land and carefully duplicated the natural growth conditions. The perseverance of these early root growers and the ideal growth conditions in Marathon County have made it the ginseng capital of the United States, producing approximately 10% of the world's supply of ginseng root. More than 90% of the cultivated herbs grown in the United States is grown in Wisconsin, and 90 to 95% of Wisconsin-grown root is produced in Marathon County.

The root can be a profitable crop, but it requires an enormous commitment of time, money and labor for successful commercial production. The root beds in Wisconsin are usually cultivated for three years before harvest, unless disease problems mandate earlier harvest.

It is estimated that Wisconsin grew 3,000 to 5,000 acres of the root in 1990, and sales of the root earned almost $70 million for farmers in Marathon County. Most of Wisconsin's ginseng growers cultivate no more than one acre of the crop annually. Most of the nation's ginseng crop is exported to Hong Kong, where it enters duty-free. Much is then redistributed to other locations in the Far East.

White Ginseng is regular, non-heated root.

When the regular root is heated, however, it is called Red Ginseng. The heating can be done with steam or dried in the sun.

Red ginseng stimulates sexual desire and has anti-cancer benefits.

Red ginseng-root showed a very promising effect on impotence during a double-blind study. Hong B, Ji YH, Hong JH, Nam KY, Ahn TY. (2002). "A double-blind crossover study evaluating the efficacy of korean red ginseng in patients with erectile dysfunction: a preliminary report". Journal of Urology 168 (5): 20–21.

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