Dear Friends,
After listening to endless news reports about the flu and how you, your children and the elderly need to get vaccinated to be protected this season, I have given up wondering why they lie to us. I know that the safety and effectiveness of the flu vaccine has not been established in those under 18 or over 65, that there have been NO studies that adequately demonstrate the flu vaccine will decrease your risk of getting the flu. Plus flu vaccines are not tested for mutagenicity, carcinogenic potentiality or fertility impairment. How do I know this? I’ve read the vaccine insert that plainly states this. I have accepted that our reporters are no longer truth-seeking journalists of yesteryear. The majority are talking heads towing their corporate line. “Presstitutes” if you will. Therefore I will continue my practice of fighting flu with herbs.
Well, now that I got that off my chest…(cleansing breath)… let’s talk about real ways to stay healthy this flu season. Let’s start with good things you can do. It can’t be said enough that a good diet is paramount! You will not stay healthy very long if you live on fast food. So choose your food wisely and eat a balanced diet of home cooked meals rich in vegetables and quality protein. Prepackaged “convenience” foods are prepared from low quality foods loaded with questionable ingredients and toxic chemicals that can gunk up our lymphatic system.
Fighting Flu with Herbs: The Planet's Gift to Us
Our bodies are in-tuned with herbs since they have been our food and medicine since time immemorial. I think it’s wise to use a blend of herbs that balance and nourish the immune system and cleanse the lymphatic system. I make one such blend called Endocrine Strengthener; I formulated this tincture originally for autoimmune diseases but it has proven to be especially effective for preventing colds and flu.
One example: my Mom once was hospitalized during a terrible flu outbreak. Luckily her doctor prescribed Endocrine Strengthener for her so she received it regularly with her meds. While everyone (including the hospital staff) was dropping like flies from the flu, Mom remained flu-free, much to the amazement of the hospital staff.
Ginger and turmeric are two wonderful herbs. Turmeric is an anti-inflammatory with anti-tumor properties that prevents and dissolves gallstones. It has a mild flavor so you can add it to many dishes as long as you don’t mind the rich yellow color. Therefore, turmeric works very well for yellow rice, chicken coating or chicken soup.
Ginger is a delightful herb with warming properties that stimulates the lymphatic system and settles the stomach. I always keep fresh ginger on hand.
This is my number one way of fighting the flu with herbs: At the first sign of a sniffle I slice the ginger root and place it in a Thermos with boiling water. If you drink ½ cup every waking hour for 24 hours, nine times out of ten you will ward off the encroaching illness. You can use the sliced ginger 3 times by refilling it with boiling water.
Eat more fermented foods to add healthy bacteria to your digestive tract. Digestion is very important to health; when you don’t digest properly you can’t eliminate all toxins. Try adding fermented foods to your diet. Kefir contains ten times more healthy bacteria than yogurt, making it an excellent choice to repopulate your gut. Kombucha tea is served cold and it has a mild apple cider vinegar taste. Some other fermented foods to try are kimchi, fresh sauerkraut, tempeh, miso soup, and naturally fermented apple cider vinegar.
A DIY Tip:
Make your own natural anti-viral herbal extract. To do so, save your organic citrus rinds in a jar of vodka or rum. There should always be enough alcohol to cover the rinds. Once it has set for 4-6 weeks, it is ready for use. At the first sign of cold or flu illness, take 2-4 teaspoons 3 times a day. This works better than any over the counter drug. To use, follow THP dosing instructions.
As an added benefit, this mixture can be kept in your cabinet for ten years.
Salt
There is much talk about salt these days and much of it is negative. The truth is that salt is very important to young athletes or anyone who sweats a lot. Most salt that we consume today is refined salt in which all of the trace minerals have been removed during processing. Be careful when choosing table salt. Check for additives, especially, Sodium silicoaluminate. This form of silica (quartz) is akin to ground glass. It gets into your blood stream and scratches the inside of your arteries causing little wounds. Your body reacts by patching these little wounds with cholesterol to protect the integrity of your arteries.
Unrefined salt (in many varieties from many parts of the world) is loaded with trace minerals that are essential to heart health and counterbalance the ill effects of refined salt. My favorite is Himalayan pink salt with 84 trace minerals. Use unrefined salt and use it guilt free.
Water is the most elemental of all things you can do for your health yet city water can be polluted with chlorine and fluoride. Fluoride can be a combination of up to 350 toxic chemicals and NO, fluoride does not prevent cavities but it does increase the risk of bone cancer. Why don’t we hear this more often? I refer you to the first paragraph…. If you have city water, be sure to get a system that filters out fluoride and use the filtered water for everything you ingest including boiling pasta. I avoid bottled water, as it leaches chemicals from the plastic bottle. If you use fluoridated toothpaste make sure you rinse well with water or a non-fluoridated mouthwash. And please don’t let toddlers or young children use fluoridated toothpaste. Did you know that if an adult swallows a pea-sized morsel of toothpaste they should call poison control? It is a heavy metal and just imagine how easy it would be for a young child to swallow that amount. So once you have a good source of water, be sure to drink enough since your body doesn’t function well in a dehydrated state.
Avoid GMOs
Avoid all GMO (genetically modified organism) and GE (genetically engineered) foods. These are not hybrids; they insert genes from other species. To learn more, read my article on GMOs. Many countries have banned GMOs yet in America we don’t even list them on the label. But here is the short version: if you eat corn, soy, cottonseed oil, canola oil, tomatoes (from the store), sugar beets or non-organic milk there’s a 90% chance they are GMOs. So please educate yourself in this area. Also limit your intake of white flour and refined sugar.
Give your body what it needs and it will serve you well. Start to train yourself to think differently about your health. We are trained to take aspirin (or whatever) for pain. But if you think about it we don’t get arthritis because we have an aspirin deficiency! Every illness is either a deficiency or toxicity. So be your own detective and as my father always said, “Question Everything”
“Over 700,000 Americans die each year at the hands of government-sanctioned medicine, while the FDA and other government agencies pretend to protect the public by harassing those who offer safe alternatives.”
~ Gary Null, PhD~
Love and Light, Lori
