Spring Cleaning

Happy It’s-not-winter-anymore!

We have now entered the days where anything could happen. Cool and sunny, hot and sunny, cool and cloudy, rainy, hail, wind, snow, or any combination of them all. 

Some days are, as my mom calls it “Summer in the sun and winter in the shade.” You never know what you are going to get, but the sun is out longer and the grass is getting greener. All exciting things, especially if you have a moment or two to stop and watch it.

Some people this time of year get the spring cleaning bug. 

I, fortunately, am not one of those people. The thought of dust rags, scrubbing floors with Murphy’s Oil Soap, and defrosting refrigerators exhausts me. 

But there is more than one kind of Spring Cleaning!

There is an internal spring cleaning. Folks back in the day (I love that term, it can cover any time period, from when you were a kid all the way back to when Queen Elizabeth the First was a kid). Anyway, back in the day, people called it a spring tonic. 

And you know what it was…strawberries!

Now strawberries were not the only kind of spring tonic. There were many kinds, just like now there are many kinds of toothpastes, soaps, and shampoos. But they all pretty much do the same thing… make you squeaky clean on the outside. 

But what about your insides?

Up until recently it never occurred to me that I had to take any measures to spring clean my innards. I mean, how often does one look inside, and give a long whistle at the cobwebs, and dust collected there? We don’t have dust inside, so we shouldn’t have to worry about cleaning in there, right? Wrong, and I'll tell you why. Thanks for asking.

When we eat food, there are three main ways our body uses it. WARNING…These are strictly my categories and by no way endorsed by any actual Food or Drug authorized personnel, your family doctor, pharmacist, workout trainer, grocer, or even the little girl riding her bike down the street.

Stuff our bodies use for energy.

Our bodies are efficient biochemical furnaces. Don’t believe me? Touch your forehead. Is it warm? Point proved. The food that our bodies’ use to burn up are; Sugars (quickly), Proteins (medium), and Fats (slowly). Fats are also needed for things like making the membranes that surround a cell and forms a selective barrier, but that’s beside the point.

Stuff that our bodies rebuild with.

I like to imagine that our body is like a factory. Bricks and bricks, hallways and corridors, offices, workers, entrance, and exit, even a garbage chute (guess where that is, hehe). Now while it may have taken 9 months to do the majority of the building, anyone who owns a home knows regular maintenance is needed. 

That is task of the vitamins and minerals for our bodies. Sure it doesn’t seem like we need a lot especially compared to the calories needed to keep that furnace running. 

But when things start falling apart, like a cold hits or some other infection, that’s when we need more vitamins and minerals. Just like you’d need more mortar for a crumbling brick wall. More nails for shingles falling off, and more paint to cover up that hideous color that was on the walls when you moved in.

Stuff our bodies don’t know what to do with.

Our bodies truly are amazing. They can take a breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Break it down, sort it, store it for future use, send it where it’s needed now, convert it into other stuff for long term waiting, and a whole symphony of other things. Completely without our active knowledge and participation! 

Really, we are just driving to work, or sleeping though class, or even doing some dreaded Spring cleaning.

It is a cruel fact of our modern world that there is stuff that we put in our bodies that isn’t food. To the eye, it may look like food, but our very intelligent bodies find out it isn’t. I’m talking preservatives, additives, and other hard to pronounce words on ingredient lists.

 I didn’t think about this too much until I saw evidence of it this winter. I got a bread maker, and so then promptly made a loaf of bread! About a week later, the bread that I hadn’t eaten that was sitting on the counter started to look like my middle school science experiment. Fuzzy!

Oooooh! So that’s how long it takes uncovered bread without preservatives to go bad!

I sometimes feel surprised at myself for realizing things as an adult that I felt I should have known long before now. 

I also have hamburger buns in my kitchen, purchased in January for sloppy joe night. They have not gotten fuzzy yet. I can’t help but wonder, what kind of ultra strong preservatives are in there that is keeping it that way? Stuff to make it look harmless and still edible, these many weeks later, but stuff that my body wouldn’t know what to do with. 

Now all my long-living food has me a bit suspicious.

While preservatives may prolong the shelf life of food, it is completely unknown, and useless, to our bodies. It actually can be a detriment. 

Our bodies can’t burn it like a fuel, it can’t rebuild with it. So a lot of the time it leaves it laying around, untouched. And this unusable stuff gets shoved around and collects in our bellies, thighs, and the jiggly part of our arms. Right, girls?

 

This is where tonics come in. More modern people, like the ones born in this century, call it cleanses. Same idea.

The purpose is to sweep out the stuff that the body can’t use. Right down the garbage chute. 

Strawberries are good for that. Makes sense, to use a spring food as a spring tonic. 

Not only do strawberries have cleaning properties, but they are also a great way to get easy to digest vitamins and minerals back into your diet. Especially important when you were only eating preserved food all winter, or nutritionally devoid food, like the people now-a-days.

But wait!

Here is our modern problem. Before you rush out and buy up little plastic cases of strawberries. There is something you should know. 

Modern farming methods, which include using the spray-on stuff to keep insects, fungus, and basically anything that isn’t people from eating the strawberries, gets coated on strawberries heavily. 

And because we eat the whole fruit and not just the inside, like watermelon, or wash the outside, like apples. We end up gobbling up all that noxious stuff that’s on the skin and has seeped into the strawberry. 

Ironic really, as you are eating strawberries to cleanse yourself, you are also depositing a fresh batch of foreign contaminants that your body has no idea how to use.

If I may humbly suggest, please try and buy farmer’s market strawberries. Ask if they have been treated with insecticides. They won’t be as big, but at least you’ll know everything you are eating, or better yet, your body will know everything it’s eating. 

I once read a Native American legend about strawberries. This is my variation of what I read. If you are familiar with the original, let me know, I will post it. 

Great Lakes Natives called them “Heart berries.”

There was once a medicine man whose heart wizened and shrunk in selfishness. He grew to love the praise he received for healing more than the simple good act of bringing wholeness to a person. He started to purposely make people sick, just so he had the chance to heal them, earn their praise and rewards. He did this for some time. 

            Now the Great Spirit looked at him one day, and saw how small and shriveled his heart had become with corruption. So the Great Spirit picked up the medicine man and spun him around with great force, until the man cried out in terror, promising that he would change his ways. It was then the Spirit released him, but not before the man’s shriveled heart flew out onto the ground, and started growing into the heartberries (strawberries) that we know today.

 It served as a reminder to be generous of spirit, and never let your heart grow shriveled and greedy.

 

One last thing. 

Strawberries aren’t the only good part of the plant. The leaves, when drank as an herbal tea help with blood flow to the extremities. It’s even been used in cases of frostbite to encourage blood flow and warmth to the affected areas. 

This I haven’t tested yet. I’m not quite brave enough to stick my hand into a frozen lake for a half hour, all in the name of scientific herbal testing. But it’s something I am happy I know about when I go hiking or camping in the spring and fall. You too, I hope.

The leaves are not the green bits at the top of the berry, but rather the three leaves with jagged edges that stays with the plant when the berries are harvested.

Crushed strawberries (the fruit) work wonders on sunburns, just like aloe.

And so, my friend, until next week, may you take care of yourself, happily.

What's that smell? The bold smell of Health

Garlic. 

That smelly, white, knobbly thing sitting on your kitchen counter in the jar with holes in it. 

It is powerful.

I must confess, this is an herb that I did not start in love with. It's been a very cool, distant acquaintance, and it took a while to become pretty good friends. 

The main reason why I avoided this herb was because I could not figure out how to peel them. 

Really, had no idea. 

I am not telling you this as a way of boasting that a literate, driver's license, intelligent girl got bested by a cousin of the onion, leek, and chive.

It's embarrassing. 

I'm telling you to encourage how far a person can come by trying it out. Baby steps. 

So for us novices, you peel garlic by pulling off the easy to pull off papery white stuff, then lay it on its side. Push on it with the flat of a butter knife, until you hear the pop. The dry, papery stuff that peels easily away is the shell. The garlic itself is usually moist.

If you already knew how to do that, then you started ahead of me in Garlic 101.

Fresh uncooked, recently crushed garlic has a near magical, although smelly, quality.

What is it you ask?

It is antibacterial and antiviral.

The thing that gives it that distinct smell, called Allicin, is the same stuff that kills bacteria and viruses, as well as gives yeast, fungi, and even parasites a hard time.

Booyah! Alexander Flemming, you founder of penicillin, bringer of antibiotics to the masses. We already had antibiotics hidden in your wife's herb garden! 

Garlic, when taken raw is a spectacular kick-in-the-face to any invading bug that may want to take over you body. I've read about many people who take it daily, for that as well as general health, like;

-Reduces bad cholesterol

-Raises good cholesterol

-Lowers blood pressure

-Decreases risk of heart attack

-Regulates blood sugar levels

-Effective in lung ailments like bronchitis, asthma, and emphysema.

-Reduces H. pylori, the bacteria that causes ulcers and can lead to stomach cancer.

- Prods the immune system to seek and destroy malignant cancer cells.

-Kills parasites (we Americans like to think they don't exist anymore, but they still do. Roughly 4 million Americans are walking around with parasites. Especially if you've been to a third world country, or are a child.)

There have also been some wacky benefits, such as people claim they feel good emotionally, and arthritic people notice less joint pain.

Now here's the real problem. How do you consume a clove of garlic?

Maybe you've tried eating one on a dare. I wouldn't have.

After learning about it’s healing qualities, I tried eating it once raw when I was coming down with a cold. To me, eating a clove of garlic is comparable to taking a swig of Tabasco sauce. Painful and not something I want to do on a daily basis. 

Fortunately a friend of mine taught me an easier way. 

Garlic Shots (non alcoholic)

One medium to small clove of garlic.

Spoon

Peanut butter. ( I love these kind of recipes! Simple.)

Fill about half the spoon with peanut butter.

Place clove of garlic on spoon, it’ll be stuck onto the peanut butter

Insert into mouth, chew.

(Rocket science, right?)

It will be a little bit of a kick, but trust me. It'll be nothing like taking it pure.

Or better yet, you try it both ways and tell me which you like better. 

The healing properties of garlic are able to go into almost every major system of your body. That's why your breath smells like garlic some time after you eat it. 'Cuz it went from your digestive tract, through your liver, into your bloodstream, and even into your respiratory system. Then it'll travel on your blood to your muscles, bones, and other organs. And last get flushed out through your bladder and urinary tract. It's a total sweep!

This has now become part of my regime whenever I feel that start of a cold or flu coming on.

As well as beefing up on vitamins. I am very happy to see how many cold and flu prevention medicines are out there that is packed with vitamins and minerals. It's almost like people are realizing this thing really works! Woohoo!

Now raw garlic gives you the most benefit. But pre-peeled garlic still has tons of good stuff for you, especially with the heart and cholesterol arenas. Even cooked garlic still helps. It just doesn't have the antibacterial/antiviral power any more. Garlic oil doesn’t really do anything.

The only thing I have found that contains garlic and is not good for you is Chili Cheese covered French fries sprinkled lightly with garlic salt. But this is not definitive. I may have to eat them again to verify. You know, for science's sake. I’ll let you know how it turns out the second time, and the third, and the fourth too.

Now if you are absolutely not able to eat garlic raw. No worries. Make yourself a garlic foot bath. Heat up some water about 15 minutes before your favorite show. Mince fresh garlic and stick it into the warm water. Then watch your show while soaking your toesies.

If anyone asks, you are taking your medicine. So no, you can not change the diaper, find something that's lost, make someone else food, or get them a drink. In fact, they should get you something to drink. With a straw. And a little umbrella too, please.

If you want proof that you can absorb nutrients through your feet, make yourself a garlic footbath. Then a half hour later, have someone smell your breath. Really, try it!

I did this with an 80 something year old lady I helped cared for who had diabetes and a list of medicines she had to take as long as my arm. She was having swelling in her feet, ankles, and lower leg.

I searched for herbs that would get necessary nutrients into her body that also wouldn’t interfere with any of her medications, and that she wouldn’t have to eat/consume. She was a picky eater, and coffee drinker.

So I made her a foot bath, gave it twice a week, that had fresh garlic and other nutrition-filled herbs in it. She steeped only 5 to 10 minutes or so. But after about 5 weeks of this along with massaging her legs and reflexology. Her swelling started going down!

Was it all me and only me who caused the swelling to go down. Heck no!

Did I maybe give her body the stuff it needed to heal herself and help to remove some blocks? Yeah, I hope so.

I sure did not hurt her, which is why I love herbs. They can cause so much good, without the negative side effects.

Garlic is another amazingly safe herb. The worse thing that can happen is a stomach ache if taken in copious amounts I’m talking snacking them like potato chips.

My favorite quote for the maximum does of garlic is “Use as much as your friends can tolerate”

I’ve only had two friend comment when I smell like garlic.

We as Americans are incredibly self conscious about the way we smell. So much so that we shower so we don’t smell like our bodies, then put on deodorant that smells not like our bodies, then puts on clothes that smells not like our bodies, then sprays a dash pf perfume that smells not like our bodies, as we chomp on the peppermint gum that smells not like our bodies. A bit paranoid, maybe?

So when they said I smelled of garlic, my panic ‘I SMELL!!!’ button went off.  Loud!

Both had no negative thing to say, except that it made them hungry and think of food.

So go ahead, buck the crowd. Eat that garlic (and maybe that peppermint after) and let that little clove of amazing free inside your body.

May you take care of yourself happily!

Apples in my coffee cup

Happy Daylight Savings Time!

You know I love getting that extra hour to sleep in the fall...almost as much as I hate losing that hour in the spring.

Monday, the first day back to work after the time change, I woke groggy, sleep deprived, and for all intents and purposes- a zombie until roughly around noon. Tuesday wasn't much better.

For all of us 6-7am risers. After months of waking up first in winter darkness. Then slowly, each day waking to a little more sunlight, and a little more hope. All the sudden we are now plunged back into the cruel world of dark mornings. As we begrudgingly rise from our warm beds and in a whine wonder why we have to wake up when even the sun gets to keep sleeping.

If you wake up before 6am, you have my deepest sympathy.
If you wake up after, and can still make it on time to your work or school, then I want your job.


So how do you wake up when it's hard to get up. How, oh how?

There are the usual you can reach for, Coffee, mocha, energy drinks, black or green tea, even 5 hour energy. The unfortunate thing about this is that all these contain caffeine.

Now in the grand spectrum of human vices, caffeine ranks much closer to stealing the last cookie out of the cookie jar, rather than Hitler's atrocities.

But caffeine is still addictive. Something that your body can function just fine without, but once it develops that dependency, it's about as much fun to break as voluntarily pulling your own teeth.

So are there any alternatives? You ask, like a damsel in distress on the streets of comic book New York as (name villain here) comes stomping down the way to wreak havoc and gleeful destruction.

In comes herbs in the form of...apples!

Yup, that's right folk. Flying around the corner, here to save the day are Apples!

And all this time you thought it was just a fruit!

I was told that apples are a natural source of caffeine, roughly equal to a small cup of coffee. I've tried this, and have felt a natural uplifting, an alertness, and increase in energy after chomping down the fruit. All the things coffee is supposed to do, but for some reason in me, the caffeine in coffee sends me bouncing off walls like the Tasmanian Devil.

Apples, for me, has the positives of caffeine, without turning me into a three-foot tall tornado that can't speak syllables without throwing slobber against the far wall.

What else are apples good for? Well, I'm glad you asked!

Let's start in your mouth.

• While chewing the apple, it's like a natural toothbrush for your teeth, clearing away the gunk, and polishing those pearly whites. (good for after lunch, it's a caffeine pick-me-up as well as floss)

• You are also putting a bunch of minerals and vitamins in your body. Especially good if you are anemic, or going to donate blood soon. I always have to make sure I eat iron-rich foods before I give blood, because my natural iron levels (like many ladies) are fairly low.
• There are certain substances within apples that helps prevent inflammations, good if you are prone to asthma attacks or heart disease, it'll discourage your airways (or blood vessels) from sealing up under stress. Warning: This being said, please do not shove an apple in someone's mouth if they are having an asthma attack. For some reason I feel that would make it worse. 
• There are antioxidants in apples that like to kick the butts of any possible cancer inside of us. 

Apples have both soluble, and insoluble fiber. Which are like janitors. We've all been in messy, neglected places that could use a good cleaning (bathrooms at gas stations, younger brothers bedrooms, dorm rooms). A cleaning of all the gunk lying around would do wonders. This is the also true for our insides too.

• The soluble fiber gets into your bloodstream and scrubs it up. Can you say, "Adios, Heart Attack!" It can also help reign in blood sugar levels from spiking or falling, as well as lower blood cholesterol levels. Oatmeal does this too.
• The insoluble fiber does the same for your small and large intestines. Scrub, Scrub.

Yes, I know this is not the most appealing thing to think about, but there is one very important positive thing that comes from talking about our gut, and the stuff that moves through it.
The more (and the more regular) that stuff comes out of you...the skinnier you become! Come on, get the benefit of a flatter belly without the sit-ups!
Am I saying that you'll look like a supermodel if you eat an apple a day...no.
But it will help in the ongoing war of the expanding belly syndrome.

Oh, and there are also other good things that can occur too in your gut, like helps prevent hemorrhoids, and diverticulitis- which is a word to make doctors sound important that means your gut gets pooched out where it shouldn't, and guess what that pouch if full of. Ewww!

That's just from eating regular old apples raw!

What about if you start doing those goofy things that herbalists like to do, like turning it into tea and such?

Well, homemade stewed fruit (applesauce) is great at helping patch up diarrhea in children. You must use the full fruit though, apple juice won't have the same effect because so much of the good stuff has been strained out and replaced with sugar. (Story of our lives)

Homemade juice can be mixed with a little olive oil, for cleaning and healing cuts and scrapes.

Sour apples work as a diuretic (makes you pee more when you are bloated). It also helps with Urinary Tract Infections. Break out some peanut butter (or caramel) and dig in! That is a great reason to have one as a snack!

Make a strong tea of a raw apple to ease Rheumatic pains (help for the very old), Colic (the very young), and Feverish Colds (those of us stuck in the middle of cold and flu season).

I'm going to admit, I'm just as astounded as you. Now I like tea, but it never occurred to me that you can make a tea of apples!
But I guess if spas can have their luxury cucumber water. What's stopping me from heating it up a little and trying it for myself? I know what my morning tea will be tomorrow! Huzzah for new experiences!

So embrace the everyday herbs around us, like apples. Hiding in plain sight, as average Clark Kents of the world, when in fact they are such a super food when they take off their black rimmed glasses.

Now, like any drug advertisement, I should mention the negative side effects of this dangerous, untested psuedo-medical drug called apples.
If taken in copious amounts, apples may cause-Farting. 
Yup, pretty much the worst thing that can happen is you start to become musical...on the wrong end. If you are concerned about this, please do not eat a dozen apples before a first date, or interview.

Happy Herb-ing!

Dry Cough

Happy Day All!

Congratulations, we have survived another month! February did it's best to hold us in its frost bitten fingers, but even with the extra day, we persevered and have burst into March, like a lion!

Some of us may be carrying around the battle wounds from this winter. Namely dry coughs, the last remnant of a long ago cold that came. And don't they lone to come when it is most inconvenient?That cold that plugged your ears the day of your big presentation. So the whole time you feel like you are talking with your head inside a tin can, asking "Is that really how my voice sounds?"

Or maybe your cold plugged up your nose when you needed to breathe. For example, while running after your car that you accidentally left in neutral then pushed ever so slightly as you were shoveling off snow and  are now chasing as it glides smoothly and steadily into a deep snow bank.

Thup.

(That is the sound of a car running into a snow bank, for all you non-onamonapia people).

Yup I'm talkin about that cold, that gave you achy muscles, or a throat left red raw, or a sinus headache that made you seriously consider cutting off your face. I'm not kidding. Pain makes us think crazy things.

But you have vanquished the cold, the flu, whatever the enemy was. Just like you have vanquished February and are now striding confidently forward, day by day, to daffodils, and tulips, and who knows, maybe even sweet strawberries fresh off the vine!

But your not-too-long-gone enemy left you one last parting gift.
A dry cough, that scratches against the dry air, and although it's not bad, you just can't shake it.

You wonder what it is, since you don't still have the cold...yet it's not being healthy either. You have a distant memory of some time before cold and gray skies when you didn't cough one or two dry coughs for no apparent reason. Was that called healthy?

You wonder, "Is this the last of the cold, and I haven't really gotten over it? Then aghast, you realize if this is true then you've been suffering from this blasted cold for the last two months!

Do you want yourself back, cough free?

In comes a solution, Clover Cough Syrup!

This ain't your mama's cough syrup.
Actually it's more like your great-great grandmama's cough syrup.

This can be made from stuff gathered from your backyard and pantry.
Ready for the ingredients? OK, don't blink.

Clover flowers
Honey
Water.

You blinked!

Amazing, right? Even simpler is how this is done. It is essentially strong tea with honey.

This was one of the first concoctions I made with herbs. I gave it to my mother's friend who had a cold three weeks before, and just couldn't shake her pesky left over dry cough. She said the cough syrup got rid of it within days.
And that she was delighted to have her healthy self back.

Ok, so to make this stuff you take about 2 cups of water and bring it just up to a boil, add roughly the same amount of clover flower heads (dried or fresh, rinsed). You want it so the flowers are mostly submerged.

Boil lightly for up to 10 minutes. Stirring ocassionally. You are looking for the water to change color. It'll turn a tannish color. You will also smell the sweetness of the clover.

Now strain the clover out by dumping the clovery water ino a bowl covered by a clean cloth. The cloth with grab the clover flowers, while the tea, or infusion seeps right through. Squeeze the cloth to get all that good liqid out.

Now add the honey.It's the same proportion of honey as the water you have. If you have one cup of liquid, then add one cup of honey. If you have three cups of liquid, add three cups of honey. You get the idea.
Stir until the two are blended. You may want to do this over a low to heat on the stove, to help the honey to dissolve in the infusion (fancy term for strong tea)

Cool the mixture, and keep in a sealed container in the fridge for up to one month.

Congrats, you have just made really really sweet tea!

Now what does this stuff actually do?

The honey is soothing to your harassed and stressed throat. Not to mention honey is also astringent, which means it likes pulling the water out of things. So it'll coat your throat, giving a protective barrier, but also if any nasty little germs may happen to be lingering there, the honey will smother them too, and then suck all the liquid out of its little one celled body. (insert evil laughter here) And bacteria in that way are not that different from us. It needs water to survive, and without it, the little sickness causing bug now is pushing daisies.

The clover is a longer term soothing agent, and will love your sore throat back to health long after the honey wears away.

Other uses for clover flowers include crushing fresh flowers and putting them on insect bites and stings.
Tinctures are good for psoriasis and eczema
Compresses are good for arthritic pains and gout.

And my favorite, in the 1930's they became popular as an anticancer remedy! And in some parts of the world it is still prescribed for breast, ovarian, and lymphatic cancer sufferers.

Want more info on how to make, or how to get the other forms of Clover, either dried, tincture, or compress, just leave a comment.

Oh, and thank you kindly Penelope Ody, and your book the Complete Medical Herbal for the info.