The Best Herbs and Spices for Colds and Flus – Plus a “Secret Weapon”

 Herbalism, Natural Health  7 Responses »
Nov 202011
 

The Best Herbs and Spices for Colds and Flus @ Common Sense Homesteading

This is the final post in our “Cold and Flu” series.  One could go on almost indefinitely with healing options, as our bodies are very complex and a great many things influence our immune response, but I think this series represents some of the best “tools” available for boosting your immune system.

This post discusses how herbs, spices, traditional remedies and your kitchen sink can help boost your immune system and protect you from colds and flus.

Herbal Antibiotics for Colds and Flus

You are probably aware (hopefully) that most colds and flus are not caused by bacteria, they are caused by viruses.  Therefor, standard antibiotics are useless as a remedy for colds and flus.  There are now anti-viral medications, but they are most effective if administered early on, and may have some side effects.  Plus, who really wants to schlep into the ER when you feel lousy and your immune system is already compromised?  Secondary infections are often more dangerous than the original virus.

It turns out that many common herbs are not only antibacterial but also antiviral, and have minimal to no side effects.  In the book Herbal Antibiotics, Stephen Harrod Buhner presents his top choices for cold and flu fighting herbs, including echinacea, wormwood root, balsam root, boneset, red root, licorice, sage, garlic and honey.  (While not technically an herb, honey is often used in herbal medicine and so is included in the book.)  Complete dosing instructions and contraindications are given in the text.  I highly recommend the book, as it gives not only practical information on herbal use, but an overview of the history of antibiotics and how antibiotic resistance spreads.  Technically, he includes both herbs and spices in his arsenal, as various plant parts are used.

An example of the easy to use recipes that Stephen provides is The Best Cold and Flu Tea, which contains:

2 teaspoons sage
juice of one lemon (or one teaspoon lemon balm herb)
Pinch cayanne pepper
1 tablespoon (15 ml) honey

To prepare the tea, pour one cup boiling water over sage and allow to steep for 10 minutes.  Strain out herbs, ad remaining ingredients, and drink hot.

 

Mountain Rose Herbs. A herbs, health and harmony c
Mountain Rose Herbs has an excellent stock of organic herbs and spices.

Best Herbs and Spices for Colds and Flus

One of my favorite remedies for cold and flu season is a big batch of chicken soup. Chicken contains an amino acid called cysteine, which can thin the mucus in your lungs and make it easier to expel.  Proper soup often includes an assortment of herbs and spices, many of which have healing properties.  The Weston A Price Foundation website states:

Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily—not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons–stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain.

I always include bay leaf in my soups, which is anti-bacterial and anti-fungal.  Parsley is loaded with vitamins and minerals, and can act as a stomach soother.  Sage is another herb that is popular with poultry, and is also anti-bacterial and anti-viral.  Fresh sage is best when available because many of the beneficial compounds are concentrated in the oil.  Celery, too, has a long history of medicinal use.

Other spices that are commonly used in holiday cooking that help boost your immune system are cinnamon, nutmeg, rosemary and cloves.

Rule of thumb:  strongly scented and flavored herbs and spices come with strong oils that can add flavor, improve your health and often extend the life of your food. 

Put some extra cinnamon or nutmeg in your eggnog.   Be generous with the spices in your pumpkin pie or scones.  Throw some extra sage in the stuffing.  Make a rosemary vinaigrette for your salads.  Experiment with the flavors.  Regular use over time will help boost your immune system.

Copper faucets are antibacterial

How Can Your Sink Fight Germs?

While frequent hand washing is an obvious answer (please skip the anti-microbial soaps – plain soap and water acts as a surfactant to lift germs away without breeding superbugs), your sink may help keep you healthy in another way – if you use copper faucets.  A recent study in Europe demonstrates:

Under normal daily conditions the level of multi-resistant Staphylococci Aureus (MRSA) bacteria decreased by a third, and their resettlement on copper door handles and switches decreased considerably.

In our home, we have copper handles on all the cabinets, and copper faucet in the kitchen and brass door handles (brass is typically 63% copper and 37% zinc).  Not as much copper as in the study, but we’re not coping with MRSA.

Copper drawer handle

If you’ve found this post useful, please share it with your friends.

You may also enjoy the other posts in the series:

Preparing for Cold and Flu Season:  Step 1 – Probiotics
Coping with Stomach Flu Symptoms (Why the BRAT diet may not be your best choice)
Preparing for Cold and Flu Season with Essential Oils
The Best Vitamins and Minerals for Fighting Colds and Flus

and the related post:

Elderberries:  How to Make Syrups and Jellies

This post has been linked to Fat Tuesday and Homestead Barn Hop #38.

 

How to Make a Salve with Infused Oils

 Herbalism, Natural Health, Wildcrafting  16 Responses »
Sep 122011
 

In summer 2009 I posted about my first experiments with common plantain in Grandma Called it “Medicine Leaf” and Real Healing Potions.  Plantain is a common lawn and garden weed.  It has many medicinal properties, which are listed in the previous post, along with instructions for making an oil infusion.  The leaves themselves can be applied directly to the skin, but for ease of use and long term storage, I infuse them in olive oil. (If you don’t have fresh herbs available, you may infuse a high quality dry herb like those from Mountain Rose Herbs or other medicinal herb suppliers.  Fresh is best, but sometimes you need to get creative.)

Oils are great for covering large areas (like when you get covered in mosquito bites or sunburned), but sometimes an ointment or salve is more convenient (for instance, to treat a single bite, or apply to hemorrhoids, or to pack in your purse – no spills!).  Once you have an herbal infused oil, making an ointment is quite simple.  The following instructions are based on Herbal Healing Wise by Susun Weed.

First, drain the plant material out of your oil.  I use my Norpro Jelly Strainer.

For each one ounce/30 ml of infused oil, measure out one tablespoon/15 ml of grated or granular beeswax.  Place the infused oil in a small pot, add the beeswax.  Frontier has some very ease to use beeswax pellets.  They pack together more tightly than grated wax, so you should use a scant tablespoon (my first batch was on the thick side).  Here’s a photo of the pellets.  Note:  once my pellets are gone, I think I’ll be getting some wafers from Mountain Rose Herbs, as they are less refined.

Place the pan on very low heat.  Susun suggests a candle flame, but that didn’t seem very practical.  I set the burner on my gas stove to its lowest setting.

Stir constantly until the beeswax is totally melted.  This rarely takes more than a minute or two.  I blinked and the pellets were gone. Pour the liquid into your ointment jar and allow it to cool and solidify.  I ordered both one ounce and two once containers from Frontier.  The one once containers were plastic with flip tops, the 2 ounce were glass with metal caps.  Below is all the finished salve and the extra bottles of oil I kept as oil.  I reuse old extract jars, but I also purchased some glass jars from Frontier.  I sold some of these at the farmers market last year and also gave some as gifts.  It was a terribly wet year and the mosquitoes were out in full force, so the salve was pretty popular.

If you find the consistency of your salve to be too hard, remelt it and add more infused oil.  If it is too soft, remelt and add more beeswax.  I made up labels with a picture of my grandmother on them, and named it Grandma Catherine’s Medicine Leaf Healing Salve.  I hope she’d approve.

Mountain Rose Herbs. A herbs, health and harmony c
This post has been added to Simple Lives Thursday and
Show Me What You Got #46.

Weekly Weeder #6 – Queen Anne’s Lace

 Herbalism, Wildcrafting  2 Responses »
Aug 102011
 

Today’s featured weed is Queen Anne’s Lace, Daucus Carota

Queen Anne’s lace is also known as Wild Carrot, Bird’s Nest Weed, Bee’s Nest, Devils Plague, garden carrot, Bird’s Nest Root, Lace Flower, Rantipole, Herbe a dinde and Yarkuki.

The World Carrot Museum states that the name “‘Herbe a dinde’ derives from its use as a feed for young turkeys – dinde.”  (Personally, I’d never heard of that name before.  Maybe it’s a UK thing?)   The Woodrow Wilson Foundation Leadership Programs for Teachers cites the origin of the name as follows:  “Queen Anne’s Lace is said to have been named after Queen Anne of England, an expert lace maker.  When she pricked her finger with a needle, a single drop of blood fell into the lace, thus the dark purple floret in the center of the flower.”
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Protect Yourself from Salmonella and E Coli Naturally

 Natural Health  11 Responses »
Aug 052011
 
Photo credit:  AP

Are you wondering when the next massive round of food-borne illness will occur?

36 million pounds of salmonella tainted ground turkey in the United States, a new, deadly strain of E. coli in Europe that killed 49 people, the massive salmonella tainted peanut butter recall of 2009 – with an industrialized food system that can potentially spread pathogens to every corner of the globe, you never know when you’ll be exposed to toxic bacteria in your food.  There are ways you can help protect yourself from salmonella and e coli naturally.

Know Your Pathogens

E coli (Escherichia coli) and Salmonella bacteria are commonly found in the digestive systems of humans and animals.  E coli 157:H7 bacteria is perfectly healthy and safe, as are many other strains.  The term “Salmonella” is used to cover roughly 2,000 similar types of bacteria, which vary in degrees of potential illness.  So why do some people get sick when exposed harmful bacteria, while other do not?

 

“It is not the germ that causes disease but the terrain in which the germ is found.”

The Biological Terrain Theory versus the Germ Theory of disease is more fully explained at The Health Advantage, but basically it amounts to a belief that a susceptible body falls ills while a healthy body can resist illness, even when exposed to pathogens.  I have seen the effectiveness of this theory demonstrated within my own family.  We don’t get sick very often, and when we do, it’s generally fairly minor.

If you have a digestive system that is populated by healthy bacteria, it becomes inhospitable to harmful bacteria.  The article “What Are Probiotics” states:

  • Probiotics reduce the levels of harmful bacteria such as E.Coli and Salmonella by producing metabolic end-products that inhibit or antagonize them. These compounds include hydrogen peroxide, lactic and acetic acids. **
  • Inhibiting levels of microbial pathogens: L. Acidophilus may inhibit pathogens by lowering the pH in the intestines. The production of organic acids effectively lowers intestinal pH to a level that is beneficial to good bacteria and destructive to pathogens.
  • Protecting the immune system. Some research ( see link at right) shows that L. Bulgaricus and L. Casei are the truly effective strains for this function.
  • Preventing establishment of harmful fungus and parasites: L. Acidophilus and B. Bifidus aggressively attach themselves to the walls of the colon. In doing so, they may inhibit Candida albicans, bacteria and the parasite Giardia lamblia.
  • Lowering levels of toxic by-products: Harmful bacteria can produce toxins, such as indole, skatole, and methane because of their metabolic reaction to certain foods. Reducing their numbers may lower toxin levels in the colon.

The meat industry is starting to take note of this, and introducing probiotics to chickens and pigs to reduce the incidence of salmonella.

Introduce Probiotics Before You Become Ill

While I always consume probiotics during illness, maximum resistance to food-borne illness results from continually consuming live culture foods. Indeed, some studies have shown that introducing certain probiotics after salmonella has already infected the body does not improve healing.

What Do I Do If I’m Already Sick?

***If you are experiencing severe pain or other complications, pleas consult your healthcare practitioner.  I am not a doctor, I am only sharing what works for me and my family.

If you have stomach flu type symptoms and are not sure if your illness is viral or bacterial in nature, you may want to consult my post:  Coping With Stomach Flu Symptoms.

If you know that you are facing a bacterial illness, the book Herbal Antibiotics recommends the following:

Herbs for E. Coli treatment – Goldenseal, garlic, eucalyptus, cryptolepsis, juniper, acacia, sage, ginger, grapefuit seed extract

Herbs for Salmonella treatment -  Garlic, eucalyptus, wormwood, juniper, goldenseal, sage, ginger, acacia, grapefruit seed extract, Terminalia spp., Punica spp.

“Honey outperforms antibiotics”

(by Alternative Medicine Digest)

Researchers attending the First World Wound Healing Congress in Melbourne, Australia, learned that honey has outperformed conventional antibiotics in treating burns and infected caesarean sections. Honey can eradicate Salmonella, E. Coli and Helicobacter Pylori and even kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria including the hospital superbug MRSA. Not all types of honey work though. The most effective ones are manuka honey from New Zealand and jelly bush honey from Australia. It is believed that these varieties release hydrogen peroxide, which is deadly to microbes. Dr. Peter Molan of the University of Waikato in New Zealand has found that swallowing a teaspoon of manuka honey on an empty stomach will eradicate the bacteria H. pylori, which causes most stomach ulcers. – New Scientist

*Note:  I recently purchased a jar of manuka honey to have on hand for medicinal purposes after effectively treating a burn on my husband’s hand with honey.  When I felt a sore throat coming on, I held about a teaspoon of the manuka honey in my mouth until it dissolved each day for two days.  The sore throat disappeared.

General Guidelines for Avoiding Salmonella

Salmonella.org gives the following USDA recommendations for avoiding salmonella:

  • Wash Hands and Surfaces Often
  • Wash your hands, cutting boards, dishes etc with hot soapy water before handling food.
  • Separate raw meat, poultry, and seafood from other foods in your refrigerator.
  • Cook to Proper Temperatures
  • Refrigerate Promptly

I also prefer wood cutting boards over plastic, as they are naturally antibacterial.

For a full product list of recalled turkey products, visit CBS News.

If you found this post useful, please considering sharing it.

Chicory – Weekly Weeder #5

 Herbalism, Wildcrafting  14 Responses »
Aug 032011
 
chickory 02

Today’s featured weed is chicory, Chicorium intybus.

Chicory is also known as Blue Sailor, Ragged Sailor, Coffeeweed, Cornflower, Succory, Wild Succory, Garden Endive, Wild Chicory, and Blue Dandelion.

chicory 01

Chicory is a perennial plant that has a basal rosette with long, toothed leaves similar to a dandelion (thus the name “blue dandelion”).  When it flowers, it shoots up a long stem with multiple blossoms that open one at a time and last only one day. (See “Wildflowers of Wisconsin” for more detailed identification information.) Around here, they grow in large clumps and are very common along country roads, combining with birdsfoot trefoil to paint the countryside with bold swaths of blue and yellow.  According to WeedAlert.com, Chicory is found throughout the United States, except in Florida.

The flowers don’t smell like much.  My great niece and I went out to smell them this morning, and she said, “It smells like barnyard”.  Yes, perhaps a bit, but the odor is faint.  You probably don’t want to let these go to seed in large numbers in areas where you frequent.  They produce hooked seeds that latch onto clothing, somewhat like burdock burrs, but these seeds are oblong, flat and about 1/4 inch long.  I once let a large patch of them go to seed on our rock wall at our old place (the flowers were so beautiful!), and what a mess that was.

The plant is non-native to North America.  It was brought over by European settlers to be used as a coffee substitute.  The roots are dried, roasted and ground, and then brewed like coffee.  I good family friend who recently passed away, Mike Jacisin, used to be a regular chicory “coffee” consumer.  Mike was one of my early wildcrafting inspirations.  Chicory leaves are also edible and rich in nutrients, like dandelion leaves, but very bitter.  Not surprisingly, chicory does provide a nectar source for bees, but it produces a yellow, bitter honey.  Chicory can also be used as a forage crop, and is very high in vitamins and minerals.

How to Make Chicory Coffee

Hoodoo Hill provides directions for making chicory coffee.  (I haven’t yet tried this, maybe this fall.)

Harvest roots (preferably in fall when they are at their largest).

Rinse off excess dirt and scrub thoroughly

Chop into roughly 1/2 – 1 inch pieces

Toast in the oven at 350ºF 1 hour, or until dark brown, brittle and aromatic, stirring occasionally.

Grind in a spice grinder or blender and use like regular coffee, approximately 1½ tsp per cup of water.

Medicinal Uses of Chicory

Gardens Ablaze gives the following directions for medicinal use of chicory.  Please visit their site for instructions on how to make chicory tea and herbal capsules.

Chicory teas taken internally are believed to be effective in treating jaundice and liver problems. Additionally, as with many other herbs, a tea made from roots or leaves appears to be useful for those with digestive problems.

Save a little tea and try dipping a cotton ball into it for a refreshing and soothing eye wash. You can also add a spoonful or two of honey to thicken and use as syrup for a mild laxative for kids. For long-term use, try drying and pulverizing Chicory leaves into a powder for use in capsule form. Please see How to Make Herbal Capsules for more information.

For external use, bruise fresh Chicory leaves and apply to areas affected by gout, skin eruptions, swellings, skin inflammations, and rheumatism.

Thanks so much for stopping by to visit.  Remember, only you can prevent forest fires, and only you can save the “weeds”.  Please share this post if you’ve enjoyed it.

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