Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Livin, Svetlana Konnikova [classic fiction .TXT] 📗

carrot or birch juice. Enjoy eating melon and salads with grated red beets, almonds, and garlic or cabbage with carrots, apple, and onions. Make your own dressing for salads. It is very easy. Just mix ½ cup of first cold pressed extra virgin olive oil with ½

cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Allergies are so common that even the term allergy is frequently used informally in everyday speech. I have overheard people saying to each other,

“Oh, leave me alone! Stop it! You talk too much! I have become allergic to you.” One day perhaps these statements will be included in a dictionary of colloquial expressions.

When suffering from allergies, try the following unique folk remedy to cleanse your body internally. This method will help you build a strong defense against allergic irritants.

r 1. Cleansing Maid, Mama’s recipe. Cut two lemons into small cubes. Mince five to six cloves of fresh garlic. Place lemon and garlic into a one-quart jar. Add two tablespoons of honey and fill with boiling water. Let steep until cool and then refrigerate. It wil turn a golden amber color with a pleasant taste and lemon aroma. Take one tablespoon three times a day.

r 2. Make horsetail tea. This herb can be purchased in packages in a health-food store. Place one pack of horsetail tea in a cup and add boiling water to fil . Let steep for three to five minutes and drink warm. Drink once every day for 7 to 14 days. Take a twoweek break and repeat the treatment. A Sickness of the 21st Century @ 87

What is an allergy?

Swiss doctor H. C. A. Vogel wrote in his manual of traditional and complementary medicine that an allergy is a hypersensitivity to a certain kind or variety of different substances. A particular hypersensitivity, he contends, may cause such drastic reactions that it may seem as though the patient has been poisoned.

People with physical hypersensitivity to the environment in which they live are surrounded by allergens—chemical substances; microbes; and the products of their activity, food products, plant pollen, animal proteins, and fats. For instance, some people can become ill if they have ingested only a small amount of egg that is contained in the food they eat. Others eat beans or bread, pastry, or muffins made with wheat flour, or fruit salad with oranges, or any canned food and become critically ill.

Seafood restaurants today are very popular among people who are dieting or concerned with weight gain and cholesterol levels. However I know people who have become ill after eating crabs, lobster, and shellfish while maintaining a normal level of cholesterol. At least their belief that fish contains good cholesterol paid off, and I mean the fish, not shellfish.

Though sad to say, we can count on hundreds of different irritants today that provoke allergic reactions. The following are just some of many: Industrial: mineral oils, paints, turpentine, nickel, chrome, formalin, urea, and others. Reaction: skin disorders. Everyday chemicals: lacquers and synthetic colors, detergents and cleansing liquids, cosmetics: soaps, creams, powder, lipstick, eye makeup, hair colorings, shampoos, hair sprays, and nail colors.

Everyday animals: domestic animals (dogs, cats), wool clothing, feathers, usually the dander that penetrates our organism in the form of dust. Chemical and animal irritants usually give us respiratory sicknesses such as catarrh, sinus irritation, cough, rhinitis, and asthma (shortness of breath).

Medical: antibiotics, aspirin (salicylates), various medical drugs, artificial vitamins with preservatives.

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Food products: eggs, shellfish, beef, cow’s milk, honey, wheat and rye bread, canned foods, citrus fruits (oranges), blueberries, strawberries, nuts, mushrooms, tomatoes, chocolate, artificial colors or flavors, preservatives, chemical solvents, starch, gluten, yeast. Peanut or tree allergies affect approximately three million Americans a year and cause the most severe food-induced allergic reactions. Any food can turn from a nourishing friend into an allergen/invader. Usually food allergies appear with a break in the order of the normal functions of the stomach/digestive system. Symptoms can include vomiting, diarrhea, and fever. Floral: flowers, trees, blossoming herbs and grass pollen, essential oils of some plants such as primulas (primrose), tropical plants, hay dust, fungi, daffodils and tiger lilies (which are fragrant in the evening), rhubarb and roses (thorns), and floral smells. Ailments: allergy cold (catarrh, sinus); conjunctivitis; blurry, tearful eyes.

Service machines: home, car and office air conditioners. Although air conditioners provide us with coolness in hot weather, we get processed air instead of the fresh air we need to ventilate our lungs and respiratory system and to supply oxygen to our brain cells. Ailments: allergy cold (catarrh or sinus), sore throat, swollen glands, irritated eyes, common tiredness, head congestion, headache, and asthma.

Natural: sunlight, warmth, hot, or cold could be irritants too, especial y in tropical climates. These irritants “sponsor” our body in forming certain substances that become al ergens. Ailments: al ergy cold, blurry eyes, fatigue, loss of energy, “hot head,” headache, skin rash, loss of appetite, and a bitter taste in the mouth. Street, house, and bookshelf dust: Ailments: asthma and all under Natural.

Smoking: at least 80 different chemicals and metals. Ailments: all of the above.

A Sickness of the 21st Century @ 89

What factors lead to developing an allergy?

General disorders of normal functions include:

^ immune system, which fights an uninvited invader by producing irritation, mucus,