Flu-Fighting Tools
Ginger (the herb)
Purchase several bottles of ginger, the cooking herb, and begin to add it to your food. Pick it up as an organic powder for cooking. Also, pick up ginger in capsules (again, find it in an organic form). Ginger distinctly provides aid for any stomach condition, nervousness or sea sickness, travel sickness, morning sickness, and it is a powerful tool for digestion and cleansing the intestines and colon. Ginger also aids other herbs. Any other herb taken with ginger works better than alone. Ginger strengthens the immune system. I have found ginger to be helpful in fighting the common cold, but it seems to be even more effective against the flu (ginger does not seem to aid in respiratory illness, but in intestinal or stomach maladies). But pick up the common spice ginger, now, to aid in fighting the flu: Seek out ginger at your nearest health food store, and get a good pure organic capsule version.
Further Study - Ginger Links:
Oregano (the herb)
Purchase several bottles of oregano, the cooking herb, and begin to add it to your food. Pick it up as an organic spice for cooking. Also, pick up oregano, especially "oil of oregano" in capsules (again, find it in an organic form). Oregano oil is both an anti-fungal and anti-viral, and also kills parasites in the intestinal tract. There is a very powerful, concentrated version of oregano oil, called Oreganol, which only requires one tiny drop beneath the tongue (it can make you smell kind of bad, similar to garlic, although people generally describe you as emitting the scent of "pencil shavings"). Oreganol is powerful, but very expensive, even the tiniest bottles can cost you over $40. I suggest a daily dosage, taken as a vitamin supplement, of the inexpensive oregano oil (but have a bottle of Oreganol on hand, the high-potency version, in case of severe illness — it can even be used as a topical oil for external skin conditions).
Further Study - Oregano Links:
Green Tea
Hydrate the body with Green Tea as opposed to plain water, or "energy drinks." It has been proven in studies that Green Tea opposes the flu virus. Green Tea has proven to be a muscular inhibitor to the flu virus, and to fight the virus when it is present.
Further Study - Green Tea Links:
Vaporizer
Obtain several of the cheap Vicks (hot steam) vaporizers and fire these babies up. Hot steam shooting near you while you sleep is important. Beginning just prior to flu season, or NOW with the unseasonal H1N1 Swine Flu oinking at your door, have the vaporizers vaporizing because flu viruses do not appreciate humidity; much more prefering dryness, and cold. Do not give the flu virus what it wants.
Further Study - Vaporizer Links:
Grapefruit Seed Extract
Grapefruit Seed Extract is another powerful, potent, and most importantly natural product to aid in battling viruses and bacterias. I personally have been using this product for several years; I know trusted people who swear by GSE and have treated a variety of illnesses successfully. Also, see Agrisept-L.
Further Study - GSE Links:
Apple Cider Vinegar
This is amazing stuff, truly (but you need the natural kind, not the cheapo stuff that is merely white vinegar with the addition of a drop or two of apple juice). I heartily recommend the Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar (their Liquid Aminos are great, as well), and feel it actually did cure the arthritis just first rearing its ugly head in my knuckles and in one arm, and while it did not cure my asthma, it DID drive it deep down where I seldom experience any flare-ups, and am completely off any expensive and destructive asthma medications. My wife has broken one foot two times, and the only pain remedy she has ever used has been apple cider vinegar (about two tablespoons added to her water bottle), and she only ever uses this remedy when she begins to experience the pain in her foot (the doctors feel that arthritis is unavoidable in such a damaged foot).
The best method of delivery is by adding apple cider vinegar to your water, but it can also be added to tea (and in the Winter, it is absolutely wonderful added to Hot Spiced Apple Cider, cooked in a crockpot with real sticks of cinnamon and a spiraled orange, and lots of cloves, with perhaps three tablespoons of apple cider vinegar added to a gallon of oranic apple cider, this drink not only tastes great in a festive way, but it is a wonderful shield against the flu and the ever-stalking rhino virus), and even taken in capsule form (although I haven't found this to be as beneficial, but with some positive effect).
Further Study - Apple Cider Vinegar Links:
The Nasal Flush
One inexpensive tool you must obtain is the NeilMed Sinus Rinse Allergy & Sinus Kit. Seriously, for $12.99 (I've now seen it at Wal-mart for under $10.00) you can't go wrong. For my whole life, beginning when I was under a year of age, my body has been susceptible to the common cold, the rhino virus (possibly it has something to do with the Cyrano-like proportions of my schnoz, my proboscis), but I have tried everything under the sun, and have found that nothing is new (including ginger; however, ginger was the first ever thing that aided me in battling the common cold, but I did somehow come down with some debilitating colds even while consuming ginger, even while SNORTING ginger, which I do not recommend). But a friend suggested I try the nasal flush and even upon first usage I knew this was a powerful tool, and have since combatted back cold after cold (in about six months only one cold has burst through the nasal flush barrier, but that cold only survived about 3 days, compared to the two or three weeks that cold usually bombard me). Even the MayoClinic recommends the nasal flush. I highly recommend you incorporate this into your fight against both cold and flu (as the nose is the main entryway for both cold and flu).
I have tried the supplied solution mixtures (comprised of salt and baking soda) and prefer to use pure, organic sea salt. You might wish to start out much milder, but I generally fight a cold (when it shows itself in its first symptoms) with three bottles of flush, with a teaspoon of sea salt for each bottle (and always use boiled water, only after it has cooled of course, or use pure water, purified water,or specially filtered water — you don't want to be running the chlorine through your nasal passages that permeates tap water, yes it kills germs, but it is better if it doesn't kill you as well).
It is important to keep your mouth open when you irrigate your nasal passages, and breathe out slowly. Your first tries will be weird, and not too pleasant, but with some usage, perhaps after a week of using the nasal flush, it actually becomes enjoyable, and clears out your nose better than any Kleenex ever did, and the salt water is extremely healing.
I use the nasal flush bottle whenever my nose feels stuffy, and when the rhino virus begins to rear its ugly head, I might flush three or four times throughout the day (and while in the throes of a bad cold, I have found that using warmer water with more sea salt is highly effective). Carolena has found that the nasal flush is the best defense against allergies, and with one flush she can obtain peace for an entire day, without her eyes turning red and watering due to pollen influx. My children have also gotten used to doing the nasal flush (with the aid of Mama or Papa) and even 5-year-old Wolfy has come to enjoy the flush (it took several gentle, and I repeat gentle, attempts, before he actually smiled, so there were some sessions with some tears) 6-year-old Dirklan has had no problems and from the beginning enjoyed the nasal flush. Bronte, eight years old, generally feels some pressure in her ears that she does not like, but has also come to enjoy the nasal flush. Of course, it depends on the the children and their particular mood of the day, because somedays I might say the word "flush" and they instantly burst into simultaneous tears, while on another day they jump up and down and demand to be first.
If any ear sensitivity occurs, lower your head (as the Olympic swimmers generally do) down near your knees, and gently squeeze the nostrils as you gently expel your breath through your nose, slowly turning your head in a tilt roll from right to left, releasing air for five to seven seconds from each nostril, by turns. Gently, gently. Do not boom out a foghorn blast from your nose. This is all about relieving pressure in your nasal passages and ear canal. I have found that if you flush the water gently and slowly up through your nose, there is absolutely no sensitivity in the ears. It does take some practice. (But don't give up on your first try. Work at it. Practice.)
You don't have to flush your nose every day. Just do it when your nose starts bothering you and when Kleenex just can't pull off the feat. Or when you feel like you're getting a cold. Plus, you'll feel much better after you flush, so you just might start flushing every day, but you don't have to. It is a great tool to have when the flu starts spreading out of control. Then you might wish to flush three times a day.
Further Study - Nasal Flush Links:
The Gut Bomb
Recently I was seized by some intestinal bug, and it was nasty and slammed me flat onto my back for two days, and about the only coherent thought I could express was: "No. Okay, no. No. Okay, that's about it. No." But on the third day, with the fever gone, with my guts still tender and communicating imminent attacks by Montezuma and friends, I finally was able to think: "Oh, yeah, that's right. Ginger and Oregano."
I stumbled downstairs and took four ginger capsules, swallowed them with water, then took four oregano oil capsules. Within two hours all tenderness in my guts was gone. It would take a whole day more to feel 100 percent, but the "gut bomb" (as I first thought of it) really did blow the illness out of me.
One week later my wife fell ill with the same bug, and since I was able to think clearly I immediately gave her the "gut bomb" (as she is half my size I only gave her two ginger capsules and two oregano oil capsules) and within four hours she was feeling better and by the next day she was up and around (so at half the dose she was able to miss two thirds of the illness that I experienced).
It works. And I suffered this illness just days prior to the Swine Flu breakout in Mexico. Coincidence?
Don't believe me. You have absolutely no reason why you should believe me. But what I ask of you is that you purchase the oregano oil and ginger, both in capsules and in cooking spice form, and just keep them on hand in case of a massive breakout of a super pandemic.
At the most you might be investing $50 (a little more if you invest in the Oreganol), and as nothing else works, you might try this remedy. Also, read my experience with coincidence that led me to "discovering" ginger. I still don't know quite what to think about coincidence (is it really "hints" from God to get our attention?), but I do know that it led me to "ginger" as a very real medicine, one that works, and is almost free it is so cheap, and can be purchased literally anywhere at any time (stock up).
Sambucus
Black Elderberry. A flu-fighting cough syrup that is all natural (at least search and find the all-natural variety at your closest health food store). Boost the immune system with a virus/bacteria-battler, actually proven in clinical tests to fight influenza.
Further Study - Sambucus Links:
Tofu Noodle Soup
Flu Fighter Soup. This is an extremely delicious and healthful soup, much better for you than the highly touted "chicken noodle soup." This is a perfect dish for someone to eat while convalescing after an extreme battle with the flu, with almost all of my favorite ingredients. It is also a great, soothing medicine for anyone experiencing the first hints of flu or cold symptoms. This tofu noodle soup is very similar to the "Flu Tonic" recipe below, only it is not quite so severe. This is a more gentle tonic, a soothing soup. And kids love it. If you served this to someone who didn't know any better, they would be convinced they were eating chicken noodle soup, only they'd exclaim that this stuff "Tastes MUCH better!"
Ingredients:
Organic Fettucine pasta - 16 oz
Instant Vegetarian Soup/Broth Base (4 tablespoons)
Extra Firm Organic Tofu - 19 oz diced into small cubes
Sweet Onion - 1 whole onion diced small
Celery - 4 stalks diced very small
Garlic Cloves (8 or more individual cloves, chopped or whole)
Nutritional Yeast (4 tablespoons)
Olive Oil (4 tablespoons)
Ginger spice (2 tablespoons)
Oregano spice (2 tablespoons)
Garlic Spice (1 tablespoon)
Cook in a huge pot, feeds 5 with leftovers for freezing or refrigeration. If you love slurping your noodles, then stick all the noodles straight out of the pot of water and allow them to go soft as the water comes to a boil (if you don't enjoy slurping up your noodles, then break the fettucine sticks into halves while dry), add the finely diced tofu pieces (I cut the end off the tofu block in thin slices, several times and stack the slices, then cut down the length of the stacked slices cutting them into three long slices, and then cut these crossways, making many tiny cubes of tofu, for comparison purposes, each block would be about half the size of an American dime, and twice as thick). Some people like to marinade and sautee the tofu separately. Don't bother, add the tofu to the pot of water, add 4 tablespoons of olive oil, and allow the pot to come to a boil, and immediately turn the heat down to medium or a little lower. Stir often. Add finely diced sweet onion, Instant Vegetarian Soup/Broth Base, finely diced celery, garlic cloves (the small individual pieces found inside a head of garlic, if you are not a big fan of garlic, then only add 3-4 cloves, but I suggest adding 12 or more), add in Ginger spice (powder) and Oregano spice (grated, dried) and Garlic spice (either powder or kernels). After about 10 minutes of occasionally stirring, halve the heat again (so if you start out boiling the water at 10, then havle that after boiling to 5, now put it down to about 2.5), low, and allow to cook for about 30 minutes, occasionally stirring. At about the time you remove the soup from the heat, stir in the 4 tablespoons of nutritional yeast. Check the water level, as the noodles, tofu and garlic absorb water. Add water if necessary.
Ginger-Oregano-Garlic "Flu Tonic"
This is the recipe for a healthy, organic, all-natural concentrated "tonic," to add to green tea. Obtain your ingredients, organic if possible, at any natural food store or health food store.
Ingredients:
Ginger Root (1 pound)
Oregano Leaves (4 ounces)
Head of Garlic, skins and all (4-5)
Ginger Spice (powdered, 4 tablespoons)
Oregano Spice (dried, 4 tablespoons)
Garlic Spice (kernels or powder, 2 tablespoons)
Red Onions (2)
Dice and chop the ginger, oregano and garlic thoroughly, and add to a crockpot (slow cooker) with thoroughly boiled water (or purified water, filtered). Cook this all day (12 hours). At the end of the day allow the thickened "stew" to cool. Strain the liquid (expelling as much as possible from the ginger, oregano and garlic "dregs") using a ladle or soup spoon into a gallon-size glass bottle (apple cider bottle, wine jug, etc., after thoroughly sterilizing and cleansing). You should be able to fill about half the bottle with the liquid expressed from the cooked solids. Fill the remainder of the bottle with purified water, or, add boiling water to the expressed "waste" in the crockpot, and then extract additional tonic and fill the remainder of the bottle this way. Refrigerate. (Note: the "waste" or dregs remaining in the crockpot can be saved to add to stews, or it can be dried for an aromatic potpourri, or it can be shoved down the garbage disposal to cleanse that seldom cleansed place! Careful as these dregs are powerfully aromatic.)
This is a condensed "essence of ginger, oregano, and garlic." It is a strong, spicy beverage that can be added to green tea, soup, or stew. At the first signs of illness, anything seeming flu related, brew a cup of green tea and add half a cup of the Flu Tonic to the green tea, and add honey and pure lemon juice (the honey and lemon juice are optional, but both have powerful curative properties independently). You can also heat the Flu Tonic by itself and drink it straight, but caution, as it packs some wallop.
Sauerkraut
Not only tasty, but chiefly healthy cabbage, there is some evidence that sauerkraut can take on the bird flu, and by association, swine flu as well. Plus, sauerkraut is cheap, and can be "snuck" inside many dishes (not all children are crazy about sour cabbage, although as a child I loved it, with baked beans and hot dogs). At the first sign of flu, heat up the sauerkraut. Stock up on sauerkraut.
Further Study - Sauerkraut Links:
Probiotics
The acidophilus culture, as found in most popular yogurts. I especially recommend SIlk Soy Yogurt, as the soy will do you probably as much good as the yogurt itself. Keep your body flush with the friendly bacteria. Many medicines wipe out the friendly bacterias that are natural to our digestive system, and these healthy, friendly bacteria are key factors in the immune system. It is important to keep the environment, your body, friendly to these friendly helpers. You can also find, at your friendly neighborhood health-food store, little bottles of inexpensive juices that are quite tasty, full of "Probiotics," with which you can supplement your body every day by taking a teaspoonful, in a very helpful way you are sending in reinforcements to aid your immune troops.
Further Study - Probiotic Links:
Studies are showing more and more the importance of Vitamin D, for overall health, as well as for the immune system. It is important to note that Calcium and Vitamin D are interdependent, that for Vitamin D to work, it must be accompanied by Calcium, and vice versa. Sunlight is the best way to kick off the Vitamin D process in your body by converting cholesterol into Vitamin D, and there is a very real balance between your body being harmed by negative rays from the sun, and your body reacting to those rays and producing Vitamin D. Your skin is a natural Vitamin D producer, but unfortunately it takes several hours in full sunshine to produce what your body really needs (some experts claim half an hour will do it, others claim a full day, most several hours, and being naked helps), and most people don't even spend one half-hour a day in the sun. Sunblock is an inhibitor to not only cancer, but to healthy Vitamin D production as well.
Further Study - Vitamin D Links:
Vitamin C
Everyone has heard about Vitamin C, how it is good for you, and this is so universal a knowledge that it is almost stupid for me to list it here, and yet people seem to forget how important Vitamin C is in the immune system. In these dangerous times, not only should you be quaffing large amounts of orange juice, tomato juice, grapefruit juice, but you should be eating large amounts of fruits and vegetables. These are the best ways to get your needed Vitamin C. Yes, DO stock yourself up with Emergen-C as well as Airborne (note, Airborne now adds Ginger!). Vitamin C does not cure the flu, but it certainly is a very useful vitamin for overall immune system health. Having a glass of Emergen-C or Airborne is probably a good idea if you are going to be in a situation where you will be surrounded by a lot of people; however, using it daily might not be such a good idea, as the body very well could begin to build up a resistance to the formula. On a daily basis, stick with the fruits and fruit juices and vegetables and vegetable juices.
Further Study - Vitamin C Links:
Zinc
As a flu preventive, make sure you are getting enough Zinc in your diet. It is good to ensure that your are getting your Zinc alongside Vitamin C and D,, as well as such herbs as Elderberry (Sambucus). For children, there are plenty of attractive "zinc suckers," and what kid can resist a sucker (I, as well, am a sucker for suckers).
Further Study - Zinc Links:
Nutritional Yeast
Nutritional Yeast has a rather confusing and unattractive name. Who in the world wants YEAST on their food, in their food? Who in the world wants to get a yeast infection? But that's the problem, it has a bad name, it a great and wonderful food that it tasty and so full of folic acid and B Vitamins that any woman who becomes pregnant should start adding Nutritional Yeast to almost everything they eat. It is not an active "yeast," the kind of thing that makes bread rise. It is produced for no other reason than NUTRITION. My family calls it "Nutritional Beast," because it finds its way into almost everything we cook (and adding it to popcorn is heavenly, spray the popcorn with Bragg's Liquid Aminos and then sprinkle the Nutritional Beast over the aminos, shake the popcorn, and add another layer of popcorn, spray it, sprinkle it, shake it, and you won't believe the treat).
What other food substance can provide you with your body's daily requirement in these numbers: Vitamin B1 640%, Vitamin B2 560%, Vitamin B3 280%, Vitamin B6 480%, Folic Acid 60%, Vitamin B12 130%, Selenium 30%, and Zinc 20%, and if those types of numbers don't convince you, try this: TASTE! Nutritional Beast tastes great, mixed in soups, sprinkled on anything you are cooking, vegetables, even on yogurt! Trust me. You owe yourself the taste of Nutritional Beast (does that sound worse than Nutritional Yeast?). Add this wonder food to your daily diet, for overall health and well-being.
Further Study - Nutritional Beast Links:
Onions, onions the magical flu food
Onions are rich in sulfides, sulfoxides and thiosulfinates which have antimicrobial properties, and are full of Vitamin C and provide healthy fiber. In short, onions are good for you. Add raw onions to salads, including yellow sweet onions and bioflavonoid-rich red onions, and extra-acidic white onions, or boil them into onion soups. Onions are delicious and healthy and one of the best defenses against influenza-induced asthmatic complications.
There very well could be truth in the folklore that in 1918-1919 farm folk sliced onions and distributed plates of the sulfur-producing vegetables throughout their homes, and perhaps this induced miasma is not a complementary atmosphere for influenza virus. And most likely the farmer folk would not have understood how it was happening, this miraculous curative, only that it was happening, and the phenomenon was real.
Try it yourself. Place plates of sliced onions around your house. It is not hard to guess what happens. And it is not an expensive experiment. Your house very soon smells like onions. Studies have proven that humidity inhibits the flu, as airborne travel is influenza's primary route of infection. The combination of sliced onions and hot-steam vaporizers could prove to be a very inexpensive way of inhibiting the passage and transfer of the h1n1 Swine Flu virus.
Try this with your hot-steam vaporizer. In the small dish beneath the steam spout, where normally you would tuck a wad of Vicks Vaporub, instead pack in several pieces of diced onion. Stack them up, ensuring that the steam touches the diced onions. In the morning, you will discover that the diced onions, plump and juicy the night before, are now with the depletion of the water stored in the hot-steam vaporizer, tiny, shirveled dry bits that look more like clipped fingernails than any form of vegetable.
Further Study - Onion Links:
Agrisept-L
Very similar to Grapefruit Seed Extract (GSE), but enhanced with GSE as well as extracts from the seeds of lemon, tangerine, orange and lime. Citrus benefits including Vitamin C, bioflavonids, antioxidants, with antibacterrial and antiviral properties. Use to purify water, gargle for sore throat, clean fruits and vegetables, add to humidifiers to kill algae, fight yeast infection and even treat skin conditions such as poison ivy, athlete's foot and skin and nail fungus. Also, see GSE.
Further Study - Agrisept-L Links:
Influenza Navigation:
