Some knowledge of ginseng products:
For long time, ginseng was considered a very precious medicine with almost magical properties. Even if someone was dying, one of the sons or daughters would pour some ginseng into the mouth of the patient to hopefully keep them alive for a few more hours, or even days.
During war time, Vietnamese soldiers and officers in war zones received pieces of ginseng to use as a "pep pill", giving them strength while passing the highlands.
It is said that South Korean football-players kept a piece of ginseng in their mouth while playing and it helped bring victory to the country considered as the founder of the magical root.
Due to the various substances found inside the ginseng root, it has been used as a medicine to enhance the body's strength, helping the body fight against old-age, cancer, low-blooded pressure, reducing blood-sugar-levels, strengthening the body's immune system, curing sore throats, etc. Especially, ginseng is able to help restore bodily, functions and regain strength and in reality, loss of energy and weakness have been the first symptoms of coming illness.
Market for ginseng
The magical effects of ginseng are well known, but few people fully understand ginseng 's properties and limitations, and in many cases mistakes were unavoidable. People see a wide range of ginseng products in various forms such as roots, slices, liquid, and of courses, ginseng wine, tea, candies, and pills.
Consumers see high priced Korean or American ginseng products and deem them to be the best, while the Chinese ginseng has been coming into the country in a great quantity, but with a lower price.
Vietnamese ginseng products have not been sold in roots or slices, but in processed form, made by centrally managed companies such as Central pharmaceutical factories No24, No26,
or local pharmaceutical firms in Phu Khanh, Quang Nam, Da Nang, District 5 of HCM City, etc. Other processed ginseng products such as liquuid ginseng , wine, pill, and tea were
made from K.5 ginseng plants. Vietnamese made ginseng products have been welcome in both domestic and foreign markets.
However, foreign-made products are often favored by consumers. Old-time scientist Le Qui Don wrote in his famous books, Van Dai Loai Ngu, about ginseng "traders brought ginseng roots from China, at first it was valued at 80 piastres per 100 grams then it increased to 120 piastres per 100 grams (1 piastre could buy 10 kilograms of rice). Rich people rushed to
buy it. I said that it was a waste of money". It is difficult to judge the quality of ginseng from the roots, and even more difficult to judge the processed product itself. A saying was that "even people who have generations of experience in ginseng do not know how ginseng works exactly. It's a puzzle".
It is encouraging that in Vietnam, domestic pharmaceutical products have been increasing in popularity.
The Vietnamese ginseng plant
For more than two years the region of Bo Trach in Quang Binh province was recognized an area for cultivating ginseng . The quality of Vietnamese ginseng has been rated as highly as
those from the northern countries. Bo Trach ginseng tastes sweet, it helped restore strength to people suffering from serious illness.
In 1973, Vietnamese pharmaceutical experts discovered a different sort of ginseng root, called the Panax, growing at a height of 1,800m in the mountainous Kontum province. Several
years later other medical experts found ginseng plants growing naturally in 108 places at heights ranging from 1,800m to 2,000m in the Highlands of Truong Son. So far, more than 50
studies have been conducted on Vietnamese ginseng plants.
According to scientists working in the Vietnamese Ginseng Center, Korean ginseng products control the world market because they were fully studied long time before and are often
used in comparison in the study of Vietnamese ginseng roots.
From the Vietnamese K5 ginseng root, people extracted 35 substances of which 13 substances also were founded in the Korean ginseng 3 substances were in the Japanese ginseng , 2 were in the Chinese ginseng and 3 were not founded in any world ginseng . Those amino acids found in the K.S Vietnamese ginseng plant have been very similar to those found in Korean ginseng . Those anti- septic substances in the Vietnamese ginseng are higher quantity compared with all the other countries ginseng and they are specially used to cure sore
throats.
World experts have fully studied 19 Panax ginseng plants, the Vietnamese one has been the 20th plans, and among those studied, only three other plants such as the American, the
Chinese and Vietnam's K5 ginseng are considered to have the same use as the Korean ginseng and presently only those four ginseng plants have been classified as authentic, other
ginseng are considered as imitation.
Some advice from scientists
Firstly consumers should not have bias that expensive ginseng means high quality. Test results showed that imported ginseng have amino acid content of around 1 to 1.6 percent while the Vietnamese ginseng root has a content from 12 to 16 percent.
SOURCE : Vietnam Economic News
1997. 02.
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