Easy DIY Cold And Flu Remedy Honey and Ginger

Make this super simple honey and ginger remedy BEFORE cold and flu hits your home.

Organic Ginger Honey

Ginger is well known for treating upper respiratory tract infections, bronchitis, and cough and colds and honey will sooth a sore throat, calm inflamed membranes and ease a cough. Both ginger and honey are great immune system builders and provide extra energy, and both have antioxidant and anti-bacterial properties.

Keep this herbal honey on the table and take a teaspoon a day to not only ward off 

colds but also helps improve digestion and decrease inflammation in the body.

And you only need 2 ingredients! Ginger and Honey!

I use organic ginger and local raw honey because I like to know what I'm eating and also to get the most nutritional value possible but use whatever you have available to you. 

You can also use powdered ginger if that's all you have access to. 

For powdered use 1 tablespoon of ginger to 1 cup of honey.

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This is a great tip I learned for peeling ginger, use a spoon to gently scrape away the outer skin. It saves a lot more of the ginger too.

Next you can grate the ginger with a grater but I don't like how it gets all stringy so I'm going to coarsely chop then chop into finer pieces in the food processor

 I filled the jar I'm using about 2/3 full of ginger to leave room for the honey

then add the honey by spoonfuls until the jar is full

and there's your finished herbal honey

Herbal honey's are very stable because of the honey and can stay out of the refrigerator for up to 1 year. Make sure you leave this out where you know you'll see it so you remember to use it!

If you don't have time to make this honey you can purchase some here:

Ginger Honey

If you do get a cold or flu use a teaspoon of this honey in a cup of hot water with lemon as needed to cut duration of illness and speed recovery. The ginger and lemon will also help break a fever.

You can also add cinnamon to your ginger honey for added health benefits and flavor.

Cinnamon also helps build immunity, sends cold's packing and improves digestion.

For 1 cup of herbal honey add 2 tablespoons of cinnamon.

Cinnamon ginger honey is great on toast and hot cereal, and makes a nice tea.

Caution: Do not give honey to infants under 1 year. 

Disclaimer-All health care information is for educational purposes only. Please consult a health care practitioner or physician regarding products and recommendations from this site. The products shown, recommended or sold here are not intended as a cure, treatment or to diagnose any disease. If adverse reaction occurs to any product discontinue use and consult a physician immediately.

DIY Trader Joe's Lavender Dryer Bags

Tutorial For DIY Trader Joe's Lavender Dryer Bags

Love the scent of Lavender on your linens?

These dryer bags are too easy and inexpensive not to make yourself, plus I will show you how to enhance the scent by adding essential oils to your dryer bags.

      

      What you need:

• Lavender flowers dried
• t-sac Tea Bags
• Flat Iron

     You can get the Lavender and Tea bags from any health food store

Open the empty tea bag and put in 1+1/2 teaspoons of lavender flowers

Next fold down the flap and seal with a hot flat iron being careful not to burn yourself.

I have a mini flat iron that is perfect for this!

Now you can add a few drops of your favorite essential oils to mix with the lavender scent.

Just drop a few drops right onto the bag before putting in the dryer.

Some of my favorites are:

• Lavender with Orange and Vanilla
• Lavender with Peppermint
• Lavender, Tea Tree and Eucalyptus (for smelly dog blankets)

Plus they Make great gifts, just tie with a ribbon!

Keep finished bags in a zip lock bag to keep them fresh and put in the 

laundry room so you don't forget to use them!

Health Benefits of Fermented foods

Have you tried fermented foods? If you're not sure you probably have without knowing it.

Today there are a lot of popular drinks and pills like "Kombucha" and "probiotics" and we've all heard that yoghurt is good for our digestion but when you start talking about billions of lactobacillus even I get a bit lost.

But fermenting foods is nothing new, our ancestors have been doing this form of food preservation for centuries, think miso and sauerkraut.
Science is just finding out how healthy these foods are for us, also how they help our bodies digest and absorb nutrients, add essential vitamins, nutrients, and amino acids to foods while removing toxins.

                                   

"The fermentation doesn't just preserve the foods they make them rich in healthy microbes"

I used to have a lot of problems with my digestion before understanding and noticing the link between what I'm putting into my body and how my body is reacting. I knew little about food allergies, sensitivities and healthy gut flora.

Gut flora might sound kinda weird but really they are the tiny microbes living in our stomach lining and digestive tract, they are considered the "healthy" bacteria. This healthy bacteria is essential for a balanced hormone production, healthy immune function, and can even help prevent depression. 

  

The balance of "good" bacteria to "bad" bacteria ratio is very important and should be in the range of about 80% "good" to 20% "bad" but sadly in our North American diets is is often the opposite!

This unbalance is also due to our Health Care culture of over-prescribing antibiotics, which kill all bacteria, the good, the bad and the ugly!

For more information on healthy gut flora click here fermented and cultured

If you suffer from regular heartburn and indigestion you may want to start doing some research into how fermented foods can help.
Water Kefir Grains

I started using water kefir grains a few years ago and noticed the health and digestion benefits soon after; less indigestion, gas and bloating, more energy and even better complexion!

Making your own kefir grain drinks is very simple and since they grow when you use them you can give the surplus away and get all your friends to try it too. You can also get milk kefir grains but use the water grains if you are lactose intolerant like me.

 There might be an online site near you where you can get kefir grains for free locally. Here is a free site for the San Francisco/Bay Area  Kefir Grains

And if you're really interested in trying to make your own fermented foods 

check out this site Wild Fermentation

They have tonnes of recipes and information to get you started.

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This super easy to make elixer aids digestion and is good to use where there is gas, bloating, and discomfort after eating. 

Mix equal parts honey with apple cider vinegar in a container with a tight fitting lid, keep refrigerated or it will ferment and turn to alcohol.

 Take one tablespoon of elixer before meals, make sure to shake mixture before taking each time as it may separate.

This powerful "Oxymel", it's called, helps digest fats, 

carbs and protein and helps revitalize the metabolism.

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Another great way to get healthy fermented food into your diet is with a

sourdough bread starter, and yes you can make them gluten free!

Sourdough starters can be used to make your own pancakes, 

bread, muffins and add some air and spring to your baked goods. 

This recipe for a gluten free started uses a mixture of gf flours but you can make a starter with any one of these flours, you don't have to use them all.

Gluten Free Starter

Now you have some information on healthy flora and hopefully some inspiration on making your own fermentations or at least working some more fermented foods into your life.

When you use less energy digesting you can use more energy thinking and creating!

Lemonade with Ginger, Sage, Echinacea

Stay healthy during cold and flu season with this delicious lemonade elixer. Make your own according to taste and available ingredients. I make a big pitcher of this juice and drink daily to keep up immunity during the cold season or when I'm feeling run down. Lemons, Sage and Honey are especially soothing for sore throats. 

What you will Need:

-10 Lemons 

-2 Tblsp Echinacea (dried)

-2 Tblsp White Sage fresh or dried

-2 Tbl Ginger fresh sliced

-8 tblsp Raw Honey (to taste)

-10 cups distilled water

Measure 2 cups of distilled water and pour into saucepan, next add Echinacea, Sage and Ginger. Simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes being careful not to let mixture get to a rolling boil.

Strain the mixture into a heat safe container, next add 6 tblsp of the honey to the hot herbal mix and stir until dissolved.

Next squeeze or press 8-10 medium sized lemons into a glass pitcher (I like mine quite lemony), add 8 cups of distilled water and 1 cup of the herbal honey mixture. Chill and taste.

At this point you can add more lemons to make it more sour and if you like it sweeter add more honey. I find it easiest to add honey to hot water to dissolve first. Use 1 tblsp to 1/2 cup of water and add in increments according to taste.

I also like my juice with lots of ginger and add another tblsp of fresh sliced ginger to stay in the pitcher, it generally stays on the bottom. This doesn't last long in my house!