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I took my son to his homeschool PE class today. Quite literally two-thirds of the class was absent due to sickness, or being afraid to expose themselves to sicknesses. It seems each year the germs get worse and worse. But there is no reason to fear. Arm yourself with this powerful medicine:
Coconut Oil!
It sounds strange, but this healthy oil is a powerhouse. It fights viruses, bacteria, and even yeasts/fungus (think candida, or athlete’s foot, etc.).
As I mentioned here, Hippocrates (460BC – 377BC) said, “Let food be thy medicine, thy medicine shall be thy food.” Apparently the Chinese have this same philosophy, too.
Coconut oil is food, but it is a powerful medicine. We take it at the first sign of a cold or flu and in our experience it has drastically cut down on recovery time, sometimes in less than 24 hours. In the past I have been down with the flu 10-14 days, and nothing natural I tried was working (before finding coconut oil). I used to take massive doses of vitamin C (now I know that will only work with infection, whereas most issues are viral), I tried oscillococcinum, echinacea, goldenseal, and another herbal tincture that slips my mind right now. None of them ever worked (for me, they may work for some, but not for me).
Click on these articles to read more about coconut oil:
‘Tis the Season – How I Beat the Flu with Coconut Oil
Coconut Oil – How to Take It and Where To Buy It
This post is part of Natural Cures Blog Carnival on HartkeisOnline.com. Go check it out to learn about more natural remedies for colds and flu.
The UPS man came by the other day. Here’s what he brought me:
From VitaminShoppe.com -
KAL Nutritional Yeast Tablets – a food source of vitamin B. Bs are beneficial for lots of reasons, but for me they reduce stress, keep me from being as irritable (my kids appreciate that), and keep me upbeat. You can read more about nutritional yeast here.
Concentrace Minerals – minerals are vital to health. I add a few drops of this to each glass of water I drink. It makes my water taste so good. Click here to read a primer on minerals.
Magnesium Capsules – I started taking these after researching adrenal fatigue. I’m still taking them to be proactive. The above mineral primer includes information on Magnesium.
Garden of Life Primal Defense Ultra – fabulous probiotic! You really get what you pay for. I decided to save a little a while back and bought a cheaper brand. They did not do for me what these do. When I was still dealing with dermatitis, and after I used up all the cheap probiotics, I ordered these. After taking one pill I noticed a difference in my hand. I don’t even think we fully understand the role of probiotics in our body. They aid digestion and help with intestinal issues, but beyond that, many, many issues are rooted in intestinal health. When our gut is out of whack, the rest of our body is. Probiotics help heal your gut. Dr. McBride has discovered that autism and even dyslexia are rooted in gut health. Click here for a great article about probiotics.
Maca Capsules – I have heard great things about this herb. Click here to read more. I have heard that it is great for your adrenals and even though I have been healed, I want to be proactive and prevent future flare-ups. I have been extra tired lately and am hoping these will give me energy. I have been taking them four days now and am feeling pretty great. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence. I’ll have to see if it lasts. Click here to read one woman’s experience with maca and click here for more information.
Papaya Chewable Enzyme Tablets – I take an enzyme supplement because a few months ago I had a few episodes of intense intestinal discomfort. It happened three times and was horrible. They would last about an hour, but then I was still weak for a while afterwards. My husband discovered years ago that enzymes cured his IBS, so I figured they would help me for whatever this issue was. I bought these chewable ones for the kids. My son has had a few of those episodes like I had in his little life. So he is really the one I bought them for. (On a side note, as I write this I am thinking that I do not recall him having any stomach aches while I gave him coconut oil regularly. I haven’t been giving him any the last couple months and he has had two stomach aches. I am going to start giving it to him consistently again.) You can read about enzymes here.
From Green Pastures –
Blue Ice Cod Liver Oil – this is the best source of vitamins A and D you can get. Amazingly, this cod liver oil doesn’t taste bad and I’m not just saying that. :) Since I have been taking cod liver oil, I have noticed that I don’t ever really get sick and when I do, it’s incredibly mild and doesn’t even slow me down. Cod liver oil is a preventative measure and coconut oil is for fighting sickness when it hits (among other things). Read more about cod liver oil here.
Virgin Coconut Oil (for friends, I still have about a gallon) – You can read about my experience with coconut oil here.
Hippocrates (460BC – 377BC) said, “Let food be thy medicine, thy medicine shall be thy food.” I really try to keep in line with this. However, our modern food supply is very, very deficient, supplements are sometimes needed. The best supplements to buy are those that are from food. Not just natural, but an actual food item, like the yeast tablets and cod liver oil. These are called superfoods. They are food items that are packed with nutrition. As always, remember My Motto. This holds true for vitamins. If it is a chemical version of a vitamin, our bodies won’t absorb it. If it is a compound taken from food, it still isn’t very good, it’s missing all the other parts. The best is in it’s whole food form, with all of its cofactors and such present. There are things that scientists still haven’t even discovered about vitamins, but God knows just what your body needs.
I mentioned in my Money Matters article that I save money by using frugal personal care products, but they also happen to be all natural. I have a big list, so I have decided to split this into a few different posts.
Deodorant
I switched to natural deodorant many years ago (I think about five). I love it and it is VERY economical. I have been using the crystal rock deodorant. It is a natural mineral salt that works by killing the bacteria that cause odor. It is not an antiperspirant, but it’s not really healthy to block a natural function anyway. Most deodorants contain aluminum, a known carcinogen (hello–breast cancer!) and is linked to Alzheimer’s. The crystal, however, does not contain any chemicals. It is great because it doesn’t stain clothing, isn’t sticky, and doesn’t cake up like typical deodorants. They are so economical because they last forever! The website says it will last up to one year, but I have one I bought a little over four years ago! (It was about $6.00.) You will find this deodorant in health food stores and online. I like vitaminshoppe.com.
Read more about the benefits of the crystal deodorant here.
Stay tuned for more on my personal care products. I have alternatives for toothpaste, facial cleanser, facial moisturizer, eye makeup remover, lip balm, hand and body moisturizer, shampoo, and conditioner.
The more I use coconut oil, the more I learn of its wonderful benefits. You can read about my results with the flu and coconut oil here. I used to take it only if we felt a cold or the flu coming on, but I have discovered other uses.
My daughter broke out with a patch of eczema and I had just read Gut & Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride (GAPS), so I gave her coconut oil for it. Dr. Campbell-McBride explains in her book how many, many issues are a result of an imbalance of bacteria in our gut. Coconut oil will kill harmful yeast, bacteria, and viruses in our gut. And most recently I learned that it helps ward off certain parasites, too. I gave my daughter the coconut oil daily for a couple of weeks and the patch disappeared. (It was the size of my palm.)
This summer, just a few days before my son was to leave for camp he had an outbreak of eczema all over both legs. It was the worst outbreak he had had in years, it itched so bad he was scratching through the night without even realizing it. My thought was that I couldn’t send him to camp like that! I gave him a half-teaspoon dose, three times a day, for three days. By the second day the itching had stopped and by the third day it was almost completely healed. I stopped the doses at three days since he really doesn’t care for coconut oil and the eczema kept healing, it didn’t come back.
In GAPS, Dr. Campbell-McBride also linked seasonal allergies with gut imbalance so I started taking a daily dose of coconut oil and drinking a lot more raw milk (great source of probiotics). My seasonal allergies were relieved by about 90% this year. That was awesome!
A Spoonful of Coconut Oil
How To Take It
Some people put coconut oil in hot liquid, like tea, to drink it down. I am not sure what temperature would negate its health benefits. Hot liquid to drink is probably fine, but I’m not so sure the anti-viral, bacteria, and fungal properties are kept when we cook with the oil. It is a healthy oil to cook with, but I try to get some raw oil in my family, as well.
When I gave it to my daughter for her eczema I would put a dollop (semi-solid) on her first bite of banana at breakfast. I have mixed it with honey for my son, but he didn’t like that. Now I barely warm it to liquefy it and put it in a medicine dropper for him. I take a spoonful of it in its semi-solid state (see above pic) with a drop of honey on top. For some reason the honey makes it go down, without that it’s not so easy. J
I cook my popcorn in coconut oil and also use it to sauté onions for my marinara. I don’t cook with it as much as some people. I am frugal and butter is cheaper and still very healthy. But for some dishes, butter will burn; so then I will use coconut oil. I also put some in my yogurt smoothies. I have started putting it on my kid’s peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. I just spread a thin layer on one slice of bread, spread on the jelly and the peanut butter and voila!—they don’t even know it’s there! This way they are getting a little bit every day.
I like to buy my coconut oil from www.greenpasture.org. It is quality oil at a great price! (I’m not paid to say that. J)
Here is an article I found that lists in detail all the wonderful benefits of coconut oil.
Here is another article by the same blogger about all the ways you can use coconut oil.
When I first picked up Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon (as I mentioned in My Food Journey) I just read through the nutrition information, I didn’t really pay much attention to the recipes. Quite frankly, a lot of them looked odd to me, leaving things out on the counter for days to ferment and such. Kombucha was one of those things—this weird drink that you could only make if you had a special “mushroom”.
Well, as I also mentioned in My Food Journey, I grew a lot while I was a member of the discussingNT Yahoo Group. A support group really is a great thing! People there were talking about kombucha all the time. One day someone mentioned they were giving away the mushrooms, really called SCOBYs. So, about a year ago, I sent this kind lady some postage and she sent me a starter. I have been making the drink ever since.
I don’t drink soda (maybe once a year at a restaurant), almost never drink coffee, and rarely drink hot tea. I enjoy my raw milk daily, but mostly drink water. Kombucha is a nice alternative drink I can enjoy that is healthy at the same time. To me, the drink tastes appley and tangy. Sometimes it has some carbonation. (You can actually work on increasing the carbonation, but I don’t bother.) Some say it tastes like apple cider vinegar, I would say it is reminiscent, yet not quite so sour. Others say it has a wine taste. You have the ability to make it as sweet or sour as you like, but the longer you let it ferment, the less sugar/carbs it has in it.
What is kombucha? (I say kom BOOK a, but there is debate on the pronunciation.) It is sweetened tea that has been allowed to ferment. This is where it is going to sound weird, we know sugar isn’t good for us, BUT the SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast) feed on the sugar and the caffeine in the tea and produce glucuronic acid. (The end product tastes nothing like sweet tea.) I use a mixture of black tea and green tea to make mine. (Only organic to avoid fluoride and other toxins.) The acid lightens the tannins of the tea, also, so it is a lighter color. Besides the glucuronic acid, Kombucha contains B vitamins, protein, and probiotics.
Your liver normally produces this glucuronic acid to neutralize toxins, but in today’s world we are overloaded with toxins so drinking Kombucha can boost our liver’s detox ability. Because this drink is clearing your system of toxins you need to start out with a small amount each day and slowly increase. When I started drinking it I would feel a very slight headache in the forehead and a slight neck ache and aches in my kidney area (it flushes through the kidneys). (I have a theory that it was flushing the lymph system also, since I had neck muscle aches.) These side effects never lasted very long and they weren’t at all severe, just slight. They did last for a couple months, though. I almost thought that maybe the drink wasn’t agreeing with me and was about to stop, but then the side effects stopped, the sign that the toxins were gone. Some don’t have any side effects whatsoever, though. Perhaps I was quite toxic!
You can read about the wonders of Kombucha on the Internet or in books. I checked out a couple at my local library. One in particular makes it sound like a cure-all. Perhaps if you are in severely poor health you will find that Kombucha does wonders. For me I wouldn’t say it’s a cure-all, but then, I wasn’t in severely poor health, either. I feel more energy when I drink it (maybe the B vitamins) and I feel it releases a bit of water retention. When I eat carbs I hold water, but the Kombucha seems to balance that out for me. Some believe that by eating certain foods our bodies become too acidic, but others don’t. The people that do go along with this theory tell us that animal protein makes us acidic, but veggies alkalinize us, carbs (like bread, pasta, cereal) make us too acidic, but acidic foods like citrus fruit, vinegar, pickles, sauerkraut, and plain yogurt will alkalinize us. Kombucha fits into this category of foods that are acidic, but in our bodies they bring us back into balance. I don’t know if this theory is right or not, but I do know that I feel better when I drink Kombucha. On a side note, when I watched King Corn I learned that the modern treatment of cattle is very poor—they are kept in small quarters, not allowed to graze on their natural diet of grass, but are fed corn/soy feed. The result is that these cows die early from acidosis. Hmmm—cows eating refined carbs, rather than grass (our version of veggies), and their systems become too acidic? Perhaps the acid/alkaline theory is correct. Whether it is or whether it isn’t, guess what? The foods that keep us in balance are whole foods that aren’t processed! If God created it….
I will add that I believe you can have too much of a good thing. There are some that say there are no limits with Kombucha, there are others that say the limit should be 8 ounces a day. I worked myself up to quite a bit a day, around 20 to 24 ounces. I have been dealing with, what I feel is, a mineral deficiency ever since I gave birth to my 3 year old and I noticed the symptoms return when I was consuming this high amount of Kombucha. I have backed off to an average of 8 ounces a day and am fine. I really hope this won’t scare anyone off. I had these same symptoms if I drank too much water daily, too. I feel that too many years of whole grains (not properly prepared), sugar, and distilled water stripped my system of minerals.
If you would like to learn more about this unusual drink, click on these links.
Gunther Frank – lots of info here
(You don’t have to make quite as large batches as him, though.)
If you would like to try making your own, let me know and I will get you a free starter. (If you’re out of state, I will ask that you cover postage.)
Any questions, just let me know.
The flu season is upon us again. You know the signs – the chills, achy muscles, stuffy nose and sore throat. I am hearing reports of people all around me that have coughs and sinus infections and some are turning into pneumonia even! Why is it that the flu is such a bad bug these days? It seems that when I was a kid, the flu was a 24-hour ordeal. I actually don’t remember being sick much as a kid, we were pretty healthy, we had fresh salmon, moose, and caribou meat, no hormones or chemicals there, and almost exclusively ate whole grains. Anyway, the last few years have been a different story for me. I rejected many of the healthy foods I grew up on for about 12 years and have only returned to healthy eating in the last 5. So I think my immune system was depleted. Plus after having 2 kids and nursing, I’m sure any nutrients reserves I once had were now gone. That doesn’t explain why the rest of my family has been getting sick, though. When the flu has hit the last couple of years, it lasts almost 2 weeks! That’s per person mind you.
Why is this? Perhaps those germs are mutating. All the germicides, antibiotics, vaccines, and hand sanitizers in use are only making these germs stronger. One example is MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant strain of Staph. On the flip side of the coin is the fact that our immune systems only get weaker with less exposure to germs. So if we are spending all our time killing these germs, we can’t build up any immunity. We need exposure to germs to build resistance to them. There is a time and place for sanitizing every surface in sight; a hospital for instance, doesn’t want to risk all it’s patients to every germ that people are bringing in. But our homes and our own bodies are another matter. All those antibacterial soaps, sanitizing wipes, and hand sanitizer gels carry a double-edged sword.
Well, I’ve had enough! God does not want us to live like this. He created many wonderful antidotes.
Here is what happened to us February of last year. My 1½ year-old daughter, then my husband, then myself, and finally my 7 year-old son all caught the flu, a few days apart from each other. When I came down with it something I had been recently reading came to mind. In Eat Fat, Lose Fat, Dr. Enig tells of the many benefits of coconut oil – one of them being that it is antiviral! Well, I had some in the cupboard because I already knew it was a healthy cooking fat, so I took a spoonful. Long story short, I took a few spoonfuls over the next 24 hours and dramatically cut the effects of the flu bug short for myself! Then when my son woke up feeling sick I immediately reached for the coconut oil and gave him a dose. He slept all morning and by lunch was feeling better. I gave him some more and by bedtime he was practically 100%! He went from feverish and delirious (he sat up out of his fever nap and was talking nonsense about my ficus tree) to sitting at the table with the family for dinner in less than 12 hours.
So you tell me, was it the coconut oil or just coincidence? My daughter had the flu for 12 days, my husband for 10 (he suffered through with Advil everyday), I had it for 48 hours and my son only for 24 (at most)! So you decide. This is not a case where my son’s immune system and mine were stronger than my daughter’s and husband’s. The year before I had the worst bought of flu of my life; it lasted 2 whole weeks and included a sinus infection and ear infection.
So this year I decided to take a more proactive approach. The kids and I started taking Cod Liver Oil; vitamin A really boosts the immune system and it’s probably the vitamin we are most lacking in our modern diet. We also started drinking Kombucha Tea in the fall; this is a fermented drink that naturally cleanses the liver of toxins. This winter I have cut back on sugar as sugar really impairs your immune system. A bug recently tried to take hold, but we fought it off. My son had a slight cold that was over before he had much time to complain. A sore throat tried to get me, but I pulled out the coconut oil again and resolved it within 24 hours.
One thing I have noticed while trying these natural remedies is that the bug may try to creep back. It was a Saturday when I started feeling the sore throat and by Sunday afternoon I was 100%, but on Wednesday I started feeling slightly icky again. I took some more coconut oil, I wasn’t going to wait and see if this was real or not. In a couple hours I felt great. Then on Friday it tried one more time, I woke up with sinus congestion and could tell it was trying to be a sinus infection. Once again I pulled out the coconut oil and later in the day I ate a couple cloves of pickled garlic because garlic is a natural antibiotic. By bedtime I was 100%, but I think the true testimony is that on all three of these days I mentioned, I never felt that bad. I never felt bad enough to stop my normal routine, never had to rest; these germs did not disrupt my life!
I give glory to God for all the wonderful remedies He created! What is so exciting to me is that God created these things before there was ever any sickness in the world. He knows the end from the beginning. He knew before He created the earth and all that is in it that Adam would choose to rebel and let sin enter into the world. When sin entered in, so did death, sickness, disease and decay. But as a Christian you don’t have to suffer with sickness and disease. Jesus bore our sicknesses on Himself at the cross (Isaiah 53:5 and I Peter 2:24). Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). He came and died so that we could have eternal life (Romans 6:23 and John 3:16). If you are saved then your spirit has been born-again, but your body has not; sicknesses can still try to attack you, but doesn’t have to keep you down! Our bodies will one day die because the law of decay in the earth has yet to be abolished, but while we are here on the earth, we don’t have to suffer through sicknesses, we can have a prosperous and healthy life! (3 John 2) God created things like coconuts, codfish, garlic, lavender, and cows, to name a few; these things are natural sources of potent vitamins and have anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal properties.
So when you choose supplements to keep your body healthy or choose remedies to fight off germs, keep my motto in mind – If God created it, it is good for you; if man has adulterated it, it is bad for you.
Scientists are trying to wrap their brains around these natural substances, but if they don’t have God in the picture, they come up with a less than perfect product, a drug that has undesirable side effects. They try to isolate these substances and duplicate them and make chemical versions, but none are going to work like God’s own medicines and vitamins that He created, present in the foods God meant for them to be in.
To do further research, check out these links:
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