Tag Archives: colds

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.

2 last thoughts on Garlic

I came across these articles and wanted to share them with you as we close out our week on garlic. The first article is titled How Garlic Can Save Your Life from greenmedinfo blog. Here is the opening paragraph.

Research on garlic indicates that it may provide an ideal low-cost and safe alternative to drugs and vaccines in reducing the three most common causes of death in the world.

In a world mesmerized by the false promises of pharmaceutical industry marketing copy, as well as inundated with aggressively marketed dietary supplements, many of which are manufactured by the same companies making a killing off patented chemicals (Bayer owns One A Day, Pfizer owns Centrum), it is reassuring to know that the kitchen pantry will never fail us…

The second article from whydontyoutrythis.com is on a delicious sounding soup made with 52 cloves of garlic! I haven’t made it yet but if you get to it before I do please let me know how it is! Here is the opening paragraph…

Forget the flu shot. A soup based on more than 50 cloves of garlic, onions, thyme and lemon will destroy almost any virus that enters its path including colds, flu and even norovirus.

As we sneeze and cough our way through these dark months of contagious nasties, garlic is being hailed for its powers to halt viruses in their tracks. It has gained its reputation as a virus buster thanks to one of its chemical constituents, allicin.

A recent and significant finding from Washington State University shows that garlic is 100 times more effective than two popular antibiotics at fighting disease causing bacteria commonly responsible for foodborne illness. Read More on…

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TERMS OF USE:
Medical & Health Information

Any information on this website is not meant to diagnose, prescribe, cure, or treat any illness or disease: it has not been evaluated by the FDA. Neither are the products mentioned on this website meant to do the same: they have been evaluated by the FDA. Information here is strictly for informational and educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Please seek a qualified health professional of your choice when making health choices for yourself or any member of your family – pets included. By proceeding to read articles / posts, look at pictures, watch videos, contact Sarah Canga, and listen to audios you agree and accept these terms.

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!

Sarah Canga

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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TERMS OF USE:
Medical & Health Information

Any information on this website is not meant to diagnose, prescribe, cure, or treat any illness or disease: it has not been evaluated by the FDA. Neither are the products mentioned on this website meant to do the same: they have been evaluated by the FDA. Information here is strictly for informational and educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Please seek a qualified health professional of your choice when making health choices for yourself or any member of your family – pets included. By proceeding to read articles / posts, look at pictures, watch videos, contact Sarah Canga, and listen to audios you agree and accept these terms.

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.

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TERMS OF USE:
Medical & Health Information

Any information on this website is not meant to diagnose, prescribe, cure, or treat any illness or disease: it has not been evaluated by the FDA. Neither are the products mentioned on this website meant to do the same: they have been evaluated by the FDA. Information here is strictly for informational and educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Please seek a qualified health professional of your choice when making health choices for yourself or any member of your family – pets included. By proceeding to read articles / posts, look at pictures, watch videos, contact Sarah Canga, and listen to audios you agree and accept these terms.

Natural Medicine Cabinet Essential: RC

Keeping with our theme this week of allergies and lung health today’s Natural Medicine Cabinet Essential is the essential oil blend RC.

 

RC contains  Eucalyptus globulus leaf oil, myrtle, pine, spruce, marjoram, eucalyptus radiata, eucalyptus citriodora, lavender, cypress, tsuga, and peppermint.

When I think of RC I think of congestion. Back in the days when I was doing straight massage therapy I always dropped a RC on the face cradle while clients were face down so they wouldn’t get plugged up. When I would have them turn over I would massage some RC around the sinuses (either side of nose, around cheek bones and across forehead) and let them know the oil would help open their sinuses and 9 times out of 10 they would tell me it already had! If a cold comes through our house I will even put a drop of RC on my pillow case so I’m breathing it in all night.

According to the Essential Oils Desk Reference RC offers relief from colds, bronchitis, sore throats, sinusitis, coughs and respiratory congestion. It can also decongest sinus passages, combats lung infections and relieves allergy symptoms.

How to use:

Diffuse/humidify, inhale directly from bottle, apply on chest, neck, throat, or over sinus area. Use as a hot compress. Put 4-8 drops on cotton balls and place in vents at home or in your car.

Especially for sinus and lung congestion:

Add RC, Raven, dorado azul or eucalyptus blue to a bowl of hot, steaming water. Place a towel over your head and inhale the steam. Combine with Raven  (alternating morning and night) with Thieves to enhance effects.

***RC is recommended to dilute 1 part essential oil to 1 part vegetable oil (coconut, olive etc) if skin sensitivity use vegetable oil to dilute NOT water

What else can you do with RC? 

Studies have shown that RC can also help with bone spurs! There are several people that have come to NAP that can attest to RC helping their bone spurs. Massage it right into the area!

Need to order some RC? You can buy here or send me a message and I will help you set up your account.

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TERMS OF USE:
Medical & Health Information

Any information on this website is not meant to diagnose, prescribe, cure, or treat any illness or disease: it has not been evaluated by the FDA. Neither are the products mentioned on this website meant to do the same: they have been evaluated by the FDA. Information here is strictly for informational and educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Please seek a qualified health professional of your choice when making health choices for yourself or any member of your family – pets included. By proceeding to read articles / posts, look at pictures, watch videos, contact Sarah Canga, and listen to audios you agree and accept these terms.

What is Vita Flex Acupuncture

Vita Flex Acupuncture is a new treatment offered at NAP. Consider it a flu shot alternative!

Acupuncture has been shown to have higher concentrations of white blood cells at the acu-point sites. Stimulating these points with an acupuncture needle or pressure gives a natural boost to your immune system.

Vita Flex means “vitality through the senses” and is a specialized foot massage. In this treatment 9 Young Living therapeutic grade essential oils are massaged into the spinal vita flex points of the feet to gently detox the system on a cellular level. These 9 oils (basil, thyme, oregano, cypress, marjoram, wintergreen, peppermint, aroma seiz, and valor) support both the respiratory and immune systems. These oils have antibacterial and antiviral properties.

After the oils are massaged into your feet, enjoy an immune boosting acupuncture treatment and continue to inhale the benefits of the oils applied. This treatment will continue to work in your body for up to 7 days.

Now until September 30th bring in a friend or family member that is new to NAP and get 2 vita flex acupuncture treatments for the price of one! *offer good for new patients only