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

r4. Drink one cup of potato juice to neutralize acidity in the stomach.

r5. Make mint drops. This medicine wil have the same effect as potato juice, but in addition it wil disinfect and warm the internal organs. It wil help eliminate heartburn and relieve stomach gas. Mince one tablespoon of mint leaves. Combine in a glass jar with ½ cup 90 percent alcohol (vodka). Cover and steep overnight, shaking it periodical y. Filter and add one tablespoon mint oil. Take five drops of mint tincture twice daily.

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r6. Take three to five drops of mint tincture (see #5) on a sugar cube or dissolve the mint tincture in one tablespoon boiled water. I remember that we always had two vital vials in our domestic pharmacy, one prepared by Grandma or Mama, both of whom

preferred to make the remedies themselves rather than buy them in a drugstore. Mint drops were always “friendly” natural medicines and good aids in healing the diseases I mentioned above. r 7. Try to clean the blood and improve your digestion by paying close attention to the food you eat. Learn to balance a healthy diet of fish, eggs, cheese, and vegetables, especial y radishes, cucumbers, green peas, and walnuts, which contain phosphorus. Phosphorus is a main component of cerebral substance and its quantity decreases with strenuous brain work. We have to replenish our body with this mineral to safeguard against Alzheimer’s disease and strokes.

If you are bothered by excess stomach acidity, try the following people’s medicines. They are simple but reliable and effective natural methods. r 8. Make Aurica Drink to balance stomach acids. Mix two tablespoons minced calendula (pot marigold) flowers and two tablespoons minced blackberry leaves. Add one quart boiling water and let steep in preheated but cooling oven overnight. Filter in the morning. Drink three cups daily. This simple people’s remedy is a favorite of mine and very effective. Aurica Drink is also a tonic for energy in recovery from il ness.

r 9. Mix one tablespoon sage, one tablespoon peppermint, and ½

teaspoon cinnamon. Combine al herbs in a china bowl with 4½ cups boiling water. Steep for 20 minutes. Drink ½ cup of this medicinal drink daily for two weeks to treat stomach acidity. Repeat the same course after six months.

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r 10. Take systematicaly 600 mg to 1,200 mg. calcium daily. Calcium is a necessary addition to the diet not only for healthy bones but also to ensure proper functioning of the liver, pancreas, tonsils, and endocrine and other glands supplying hormones to the blood, tissues, and cel s.

r11. Make a habit of drinking chamomile or peppermint tea on an empty stomach in the mornings. Combine one teaspoon of the herbs in #8 or #9 in a glass jar with one cup boiling water and steep for 15 minutes. Drink once in the morning.

When I was a little girl, Mama would prepare for me before bed a glass of fresh warm milk from our cow. To the milk she would add a teaspoon of honey—nothing more. This simple remedy gave me a sound sleep filled with colorful dreams. I called them “sleepy movies” and they were full of happy events and noble actions.

r 12. Drink a glass of fresh warm milk with one teaspoon of honey before you go to bed and you’l have a sound sleep.

However, if you want to have energy, do what Hippocrates widely advised more than 2,400 years ago: “Let food be thy medicine.” His food therapy principle is incorporated into plant therapy. Through the modern conception and use of this idea, body sicknesses have been miraculously corrected. Dr. Ann Wigmore, founder of the Hippocrates Health Institute, now worldwide in scope, wrote in her book, Be Your Own Doctor (Let Living Food Be Your Medicine): “Through long and careful observation of myself and others, I found that when we give our bodies the rich nourishment they need from living foods, and, when we work in close harmony with Nature’s laws, Nature’s boundless healing power will always be there to assist us.”

r 13. Nourish yourself and make buckwheat kasha with sour cream, plain yogurt, or warm milk in the morning, at lunch, or at 178 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

dinner, but no later than 6:00 p. m. It’l give you a light living food fil ed with vitamins.

Although not very popular in the United States, buckwheat has been used as a food by Europeans for centuries. It is also grown in northern America but has not yet gained much recognition and popularity among American consumers. Buckwheat becomes a superior salad lettuce when it is grown for seven days.

The Russian word for buckwheat is grechikha. Let’s assume that the ancient Slavs adopted buckwheat from Greeks who lived since olden times on the shores of the Black Sea. This plant was widely cultivated in Russia and other European countries from the fifteenth century, but in the United States it is used primarily as food for cattle and a cereal grain. Buckwheat’s nutritional value is unprecedented. It is rich in iron, calcium, phosphorous, copper, boron, iodine, and other minerals.

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