Tag Archives: prevention

Fire Cider

I was inspired to give you a short video about ways you can take fire cider this fall but my ancient iPhone didn’t give much volume and you can’t really hear. It made me think- how do you best take in info? Do you prefer a blog post, a video, a podcast? Let me know!

As I was straining off my fire cider this morning it gave me lots of inspiration that I thought I would share with you. Here’s some quick down and dirty bullet points.

take 1 tablespoon a day to keep the sickies away (mix with honey if you prefer)
if you have chills and a fever add some honey and cayenne pepper and take every hour, take a nice hot bath and wrap yourself up in wooly socks and blankets until you sweat the yuck out
use as a marinade
make a “lemonade” to give to your kids, I do 1/2 of a lemon squeezed, 1 teaspoon of honey in 1 cup of warm water to dissolve the honey and a teaspoon of fire cider. You can add extra cold water if your kids don’t like warm drinks. The sweet helps to hide some of the sour of the vinegar.
take the strained off veggies and add to a pot of bones to make stock
add 2 tablespoons to stock when you start cooking to aid in getting more marrow out of the bones
add a tablespoon or 2 to soup right before you eat it for a tangy flavor

What do you think? How do you like your fire cider best?

Natural Medicine Cabinet: Cold and Flu Prevention

Here are 5 important items to have in your natural medicine cabinet during flu season!

Bone Soup

Making your own stock is great preventative medicine and is also great to use medicinally when you are sick as well. From a Chinese Medical standpoint making soup stock from bones is incredibly nourishing to the kidneysand the kidney system is most active during the winter months which is the best time to nourish them. Bone soup is also great if you are suffering from digestive troubles. I made garlic beef stock yesterday with this recipe and added red lentils, carrots, celery, rainbow chard, and broccoli this morning for dinner tonight. An added bonus is the house smells delicious.

Apple Cider Vinegar

‎”Cold Season Prevention & Remedy #3 for Pregnancy or any time – Drink 1 – 2 Tablespoons of RAW-Unfiltered-Organic Apple Cider Vinegar each day. You can mix it in 8 oz of water or apple juice to make it more palatable. This improves your body’s PH balance and strengthens the immune system. Also fends off yeast, speeds healing of infections, soothes a sore throat, and relieves heartburn. We like Bragg brand.” -Mamaste Yoga
Also equally good if you are not pregnant. 🙂 For more info about apple cider vinegar check out here. Whatever brand you choose make sure it has the “mother” in it for optimal results.

Thieves Essential Oil

I know, I talk about this all the time. Thieves essential oil is a blend of cinnamon, clove, eucalyptus, rosemary, and lemon. It was named thieves after the infamous band of apothecaries that would use these herbs and spices to cover their faces when robbing the dead bodies during the black plague. It is 99.9% effective in killing bacteria and other sickies and because its a natural source bacteria can’t mutate to it like anti-bacterial soaps. We diffuse thieves at home and in the office to clean the air and spray thieves on door handles and other surfaces. You can also put a drop of thieves in your water or tea if your feeling run down or have a scratchy throat. Young Living essential oils carries this essential oil blend and you can purchase here. You can learn more about using aromatherapy THIS Saturday in the first part of our 2 part series Introduction to the Everyday Essential Oils collection. Part 2 is Saturday Dec 7th.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D otherwise known as the sunshine vitamin is important for immune health especially for prevention of colds and flus according to recent studies. Living in the Midwest it is really easy to become deficient in Vitamin D in the winter months when its hard to get enough sun light. You want to make sure to get a high quality vitamin D3, this is the most easily absorbed form on vitamin D for our bodies and you also want to make sure you take it with fat because it is a fatt soluble vitamin. I like Innate Choice Vitamin D3 drops because it comes in olive oil. You can order this online or pick it up in the office, Dr. Scott carries it. 🙂 Here is some more good info on Vitamin D too,

Don’t forget that acupuncture is a great preventative tool as well. Studies have shown that acupuncture points carry higher concentrations of white blood cells and when stimulated give a boost to the immune system. You can also use acupuncture for a persistent cough, congestion or the onset or a sore throat. If you have a fever though please stay home and use the natural remedies above.

Natural Medicine Cabinet Essentials: Medicinal Pickled Garlic

I came across this recipe several weeks ago and can’t stop talking about it! This is super easy to make and its delicious. Garlic is the perfect food for the Fall, lung/large intestine time of year.

What you need:

a mason jar, any size you like

enough cloves of garlic to fill your mason jar

apple cider vinegar (bragg’s is best, whatever you choose make sure it has the “mother” in it)

local raw honey

***If you hate peeling garlic as much as I do give this Garlic peeling trick a try, it really works!

Fill your mason jar with cloves of garlic and fill with apple cider vinegar to cover. Place in a warm place for 3 weeks. (if you place your jar in a sunny place the cloves of garlic may turn blue or green. This is normal and the garlic is perfectly fine. I had a batch that turned blue and then turned white again)

After your 3 weeks is up take half of the apple cider vinegar and set aside. You can use this for marinades or salad dressings. I’ve done both. I made a delicious pork tenderloin with this garlic infused apple cider vinegar and it was amazing. I also have used it as an oil and vinegar dressing for salad which was equally wonderful. Yesterday I used some to cook chicken with for a stir fry and the smell was mouth watering yum. Its worth trying this just for the garlic infused marinade!

The other half of your vinegar you can place in a pan and add equal parts local raw honey. Heat just until the honey has blended with the vinegar so as not to kill all the good stuff in your mixture and pour back over your garlic. Set your jar in a dry cool place for another 3-4 weeks and then use as you wish. This should keep for up to 1 year.

The pickling process makes the garlic very easy to eat straight and with less of an intense “garlic breath” after effect. There is also an interesting phenomenon where when you eat one you will crave another. (the same is true for the marinade) Eat one clove a day for your health or 3 cloves a day to ward off a cold.

Let me know what you think!

p.s. If garlic breath is scaring you away from all the great benefits try 1 or 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley after eating garlic or chew on 2 teaspoons of fennel or cardamom seeds.

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Keep the Wind Out: A Fun Twist on Wrapping a Regular Old Scarf

I mentioned this last week on Facebook. Right now the wind is really wreaking havoc, from neck pain to sciatica, Belly’s Palsy, muscle cramps and rashes to sore throats and colds.

In Chinese Medicine when the body becomes depleted it can easily be invaded by wind through the back of the neck. This can cause all sorts of ailments in the body which is why wind is known as the mother of 1,000 diseases.

What to do, what to do.

First don’t sleep with a fan blowing directly on you or next to an open window especially if its breezy.

The days are warm but the mornings and evenings are cool and the temperature can change quick so make sure to dress in layers and wear a scarf or high collar if you are outside and its windy.

I am always a fan of a scarf or pashmina. Here is a fun twist on wrapping a regular old scarf around your neck. Forgive the pictures, they are self portraits done quickly during nap time! 🙂

Start with looping your scarf like you normally do, see below

Next take the center loop and twist it kind of like a figure 8

Now take the outside ends of your scarf and slide them into the lower loop of your figure 8

And here’s what you will end up with, ta-da! A cute scarf that will keep the wind away

Natural Medicine Cabinet Essentials: Thieves

This week let’s focus on keeping the immune system strong. Here is my immune system natural medicine cabinet essential.

What’s in a name? This blend of essential oils is named after thieves after a band of robbers from the black plague. This group of apothecaries couldn’t get into the towns to sell their goods so they would mask their faces in the herbs and spices found in this blend and steal from the dead bodies. The king of France finally caught up with them and promised not to kill them if they gave up their secret of how they could get so close to the plague without getting sick.

Thieves contains: cinnamon, clove, eucalyptus, rosemary, and lemon. These oils are all highly antiviral, antiseptic, antibacterial, and anti-infectious.

From the Essential Oils Desk Reference: Studies conducted at Weber State University during 1997 demonstrated the killing power of these amazing oils against airborne microorganisms. One analysis showed a 90% reduction in the number of gram positive Micrococcus luteus organisms after diffusing for 12 minutes. After 20 minutes of diffusing, the kill rate jumped to 99.3%. Another study against the gram negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed a kill rate of 99.96% after just 12 minutes of diffusion.

How to Use:

Diffuse it! It’s currently diffusing in the treatment space at NAP so make sure to take some nice deep breaths while you get your acupuncture treatments.

Thieves is a great oil to diffuse preventatively or when you start to feel sick. If you don’t have a diffuser put a few drops on a cotton ball and place in air vents at home or in your car.

Place 10 drops into a spray bottle with water and use to spray in the air instead of toxic air fresheners.

Take it with when you travel and sniff on the plane. If you don’t want to take the whole 15ml bottle put a few drops on a cotton ball in a sandwich baggie and take some deep breaths from the bag through out the plane ride.

For a sore throat place a drop or two in a cup of hot water or tea and drink.

For a headache put 1 drop on tongue and push against roof of mouth.

For a pimple place a drop of Thieves in your palm and using index finger massage over blemish.

Young Living has a whole line of Thieves inspired products. I love the household cleaner, tooth paste and mouth wash!

You can order your own Thieves here or pick up a sample of Thieves at the office for $2.