Theoretically the food is the same, one is dryed and grinded, the other is whole but both presumably have the same nutrients except for water (except for those nutrients lost in the drying process but one could presumably negate the nutrient loss by drying carefully or consuming more of it).
For example, whole ginger vs ginger powder in tea.
Does it make a difference if the whole ginger or the grounded ginger in powder form would be consumed? Or is there no difference? (Provided that the ginger is consumed in both examples, not just the tea water)
The same question applies not only to ginger but to all foods and food powders in general.
Yes it makes a difference. Whether it’s a good or bad difference depends. Generally for food the more processed the worse it is. So like fruit is very healthy but juice is really bad for you even though it’s the “same” stuff just in different form.
Some canned/frozen food is better and some is worse.
When it comes to spices having it ground up means you can have more, which may be good. But you may also lose some stuff in the drying.
There are so many factors and so much we don’t know it’s hard to say whether powder ginger or fresh ginger is better.
I would look to see what people traditionally do. But when it comes to “tea” you have Indian tea which has a variety of dried spices including ginger in it. But you can also have a simpler tea with whole ginger in it. So that doesn’t help.
So I guess it just comes down to just have what you like more. Maybe have indian tea with powdered ginger and then have fresh ginger in your food.
Subtle physiologic changes, ranging from chewing can impact a whole lot of things across the body, hard to quantify though.
Example: Chewing and neuronal growth in mice: “Mastication is a behavior that is closely related with CNS activities. Chewing causes regional increases in cerebral blood flow and neuronal activity in the human brain (7,8). By contrast, it has been shown that reduced mastication and occlusal disharmony impair spatial memory and promote the degeneration of hippocampal neurons (9,10). We, as well as others, have also previously demonstrated that reducing mastication by feeding mice a soft diet inhibits the survival of newly generated neurons in the DG (11,12). “
https://www.spandidos-publications.com/10.3892/ijmm.2012.1217
Excellent question that I have also wondered about. Sorry I have no answers, but I would also be curious whether turning a food into a powder destroys the enzymes, and if so, whether that is important to the overall nutritional profile.