Archive for Grandmother’s Wisdom
Healing Broths
Posted by: | CommentsWhen we are sick, we need a good healing broth that feeds us without making us digest much to get it into our body. It is a good idea to make one or more of these in advance and have them in the freezer ready to go. I recommend letting them defrost in a bowl of hot water or on the counter and heating them up in a pot rather than using a microwave. Just in case there is a chance the microwave does change or reduce the healing qualities of the broth, don’t use it.
I use the old bones I have saved in the freezer from roasts, turkey and chicken carcasses, and other good bones. I try to get organic or at least humanely raised meats to use. For this purpose, maybe you can at least get good bones from the healthiest sources you can find. Using the best veggies and ingredients obviously will be the best for you when you and/or your family is sick, however some broth is better than none! You are looking for rich, condensed, unprocessed nutrition to feed you at a cellular level.
Put your bones and even some veggies in a roasting pan in a low oven (250 degrees) for a few hours or until they are nicely browned and NOT scorched or BURNED! Add water or broth at the end to loosen up the lovely browned bits on the bottom of the roasting pan. Get out your biggest soup pot/stock pot and transfer everything from the roasting pan to the pot, cleaning out all the wonderful stuck bits with the liquid. Crack or break as many bones as you can since you want the marrow in the broth. Place on the stove burner.
Thoroughly wash some veggies of choice (carrots, potatoes, etc), an onion, and some garlic cloves. Roughly chop them and add to the pot. Throw in a handful of fresh parsley, a couple of bay leaves, some pepper corns, and other similar broths if you have any. Just cover the bones and veggies with water and after it has come to a boil, skim all the foam off (if any) and throw it away. Cover the pot and reduce the heat to very low. Simmer the pot of bones and veggies for a few hours until the bones are falling apart and the meat is falling off of them. I actually use a potato masher during the cooking process to help get all the goodness out of the bones and meat.
When it is well cooked, place a large colander over another pot or heatproof bowl and with a slotted spoon, or strainer, scoop the bones and veggies into it to drain. Do not pour directly or it will splash hot broth on you. When you have all the big bits out, drain the broth you gathered back into the soup pot. Throw away the bones and bits in the colander after you have pushed on them to remove as much broth as possible. Now you need to strain all the small bits out of the broth by pouring the broth through a fine strainer or placing some cheese cloth or an old tea towel in the colander and pouring it through. When you place it in a container or two and put it in the refrigerator it should jelly completely. This tells you it is full of protein. This is a very good healing broth and can be eaten as is or vegetables can be added at will.
For vegetarians who eat butter and eggs, use butter to roast some veggies, and use good tomatoes as a broth base. If you use fermented soy products, make sure they are organic or at least non GMO. Tomato broth will jelly all by itself when it is made with heirloom varieties, which is how we made tomato consume. There is nothing like having some (even small) amount of animal protein to help re-energize the body. (See Sally Fallon’s book “Nourishing Traditions” for more info on this.)
You can also make a ‘white’ broth by not roasting anything. It’s just not as rich tasting.
What Grandmother Knew About Colds & Flu
Posted by: | CommentsWe are experiencing one of the most serious widespread flu and cold seasons we have had in a long time. Colds have been holding on for weeks and the flu is totally debilitating. I have had that awful cold; family and friends are suffering with really profound flu symptoms. So I’ve been having many ask me what I do for each. Remembering what my Mother did puts me in touch with my Grandmother as well. Seems like these ways of handling colds and flu might be helpful to others, so here goes.
Colds and flu are different. So the very first thing is to take one of the homeopathic flu remedies since homeopathic remedies have been proven to lessen or stop flu when nothing else does. The remedy that is the most common is Oscillococinum (ah-sill-oh-co-sin-um). Don’t wait until you decide if it is the flu or a cold or it will be too late. Just take it! If it is a cold, the effects will also be lessened by taking a homeopathic medicine.
Remember the old expression “Feed a cold; starve a fever”? This is not really the whole expression as I understand it. It was “If you feed a cold, you’ll have to starve a fever.” So change your eating habits as soon as the first symptoms appear. For a cold, eat lightly of very healthy foods more often. Focus on broths with rice and a few veggies like winter squash and greens; pure juices with no added sugar (or worse yet artificial sweeteners); honey; herbal teas or green tea with ginseng and honey; and half your body weight in ounces of water to help flush out the germs. If there is a mucus build up, eliminate all dairy and wheat as these will increase the mucus secretions. [Yeah, I know it’s hard, just try it anyway. You can do anything for a week, right?]
The other supporters for your healing process are good for both colds and flu. I use zinc lozenges with vitamin C and/or echinacea and elderberry; fresh citrus fruits; traditional healing teas for the symptoms present; homeopathics that also address your symptoms; and a Neti pot with the special sea salt that doesn’t hurt your nose and sinuses. If you don’t use a Neti pot, use a saline spray; I particularly like the one with Xylitol. Rest, rest, rest even if you have to just let everything go, and use a hot or cold vaporizer next to your bed! Other good additions to this regime are garlic capsules 4x/day (600 mg per dose), high B 100 mg sustained release, and emergen-C.
For the flu, you have to be even more aware that you must take care of yourself!!! If the Oscillococinum didn’t nip it in the bud, get the homeopathic from Boiron (the blue tube) called influenzinum. It’s for the effects of flu or flu like symptoms, and it really works! Now is the time to fast. That means get containers of organic broths or have someone make good hardy broth (recipe in next blog), and don’t give your body anything it has to digest until you are good and truly hungry with stomach rumblings! Honey, herb teas, broths, barley water, and water!A liquid fast is a better way to put it. Consume as much as you want, as often as you want to. You won’t be hungry until your body is ready for actual food. Then have a really ripe banana, add rice and greens to the soup, have a boiled egg, eat live cultured products (yogurt, kefir, kombucha that say active, live culture on it) and stay away from processed foods, refined foods, and especially refined sugar! Want sweets? Have honey and pure maple syrup, pure fruit juices and coconut water. Refined sugar is known to suppress your immune system by up to 90% for 4 hours after you eat it. That lets the germs regain their foothold and can lead to a relapse.
Last, but not least, STAY HOME! No one else wants it, you will just prolong the agony, and it will be much more dangerous and costly for you to go out. Sleep all day except when you are drinking, peeing, or clearing out your head. Stay warm! And get someone to support you in this process. Yes, you do need help!
** One last thing – the differences between Western medicines and herbs, and homeopathic medicines is this (in terms of taking them): take the homeopathic medicine every 30 minutes until the symptoms diminish or are gone; then take them a couple of times a day or as soon as a symptom returns. With Western Medicines, follow what the prescription or pharmacist says. If this includes antibiotics, take lots of probiotics! **
Send me your other remedies and suggestions so we can post them here also. Thanks and be well!
New Year, New Life – Really? Really!
Posted by: | CommentsGrandmothers know that when change lands squarely in your lap, it is time to accept it, adjust to it, and keep going. Now I don’t suggest that this is without some moaning and groaning, mumbling and whining. In fact I highly recommend some amount of whinging to clear that from your system. I have to love where I am to be there, so when I am ‘told’ it all must go, I’m not going to stuff it! It is hard to move on! So allowing the normal emotions to flow through me is the only way to get on with it for me.
This 2012 thing came at me in December with a will of its own. I ended last year with a bang – not a whimper! I learned that the lovely couple that owns the home I’ve been living in for the last 5 years wants to move in – for understandable reasons. So I’m packing. Then I learned that my email had been hacked and most of my email addresses are gone, my contact lists are gone, and my UrbanForager.co website had been taken over by a phishing scam. So it is closed for now. That pretty much sums it up. Oh yes, and since I had to have a new engine put in my car, it is not the same vehicle at all any more. Good car, but I don’t love it like I used to.
So I have given up my attachment to my car, my home, and whether or not I am an online presence at the moment. What I also know is that when it gets this messy, I look for the Hand of God/dess. Nothing else makes sense to me. What is Creator up to this time, I wonder? So I consult my personal Oracles and find there is no information at this time…Blank Rune, standstill, wait and see…hummmmm.
Taking one step at a time, I am packing as if I will be putting everything in storage. I am getting myself ready for some ‘walk-about’ time. I am sorting and letting go of all that does not serve me now and all that does not bring me Joy. Those are my prime questions for all that I have: Does it bring me joy? Does it serve me NOW? And finally – Do I want to take care of it any longer?
This is an interesting project. I have decided to let go of all the things that are ‘everyday’ and pull out all of the ‘Good Stuff’ I have been saving for…??? The translucent German china that breaks so easily? I’m eating on it until it’s gone. The crocheted placemats Grandmother made when my parents were young marrieds? On the table now to get worn out. You get the idea. Enough saving anything already! My children and Grandchildren get to hear the stories of these things now by being around me as I use them. They won’t know why I have it if it is in a box!
Some I will give away with the story of them attached. Some I will sell if no one wants them. I wish to be free of the ‘saving for…’ syndrome once and for all. It is NOW and they are here, so I will use them or pass them on. This goes for the books as well. I know where to get more, if I remember I want them again. Some I am reading fast, then putting them in the yard sale boxes. I will have no more than 3 or 4 boxes left, and ones I can lift I might add! Cooking and preserving books; plant, bird, and nature books; a few reading books; and some odds and ends like that. I am finding when I pick up a book that I loved and can’t get beyond the first page or two, out it goes.
An interesting idea is that I have shifted so much during the past year or so these books and things wind up being so Last Century, so Last Millennium that they no longer have anything current to say to me! I am climbing out of the sandbox and all the toys I used to love are now no longer interesting except in an historical way. I have neither the time, the energy, or the where-with-all to continue carting around that sort of history. <SIGH> What history I need is in me. This other stuff is really not relevant any more.
So off I go… Keep tuned and I will share some dreams for the future I do have in the next blog! Happy New Year!!
