Natural Medicine- Diet and Herbs

I have been studying and using natural medicines and healing foods for over 15 years now. Essential oils seem to be the thing that everyone is into right now - and I do have essential oils and use them, but since that does seem to be the big thing I wanted to focus on some of the other areas of natural medicine. I'll also include a list of books that I reference frequently and would recommend. 

The field is God's medicine cabinet. From thyme to lavender to burdock root to golden seal - almost everything we could need is there for us. I have used golden seal with much success for food poisoning and nausea; red raspberry leaves for menstrual cramps; echinacea, chamomile and mint for colds - and the list goes on. We drink a lot of herbal teas at our house. Of course there is Bigelow and Celestial Seasonings, but if you want a healing herbal, short of making it yourself, my favorite brand is Alvita.  

But a person's health is only as good as the daily diet they have. This takes us into healing foods - a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I don't think many people really consider the healing abilities that common foods have. By and large the American diet is high in fat and bland. This robs us of many much needed chemical compounds. Many of our family's dinners are based on the healing quality of the ingredients they contain. Spices in particular are high in healing properties. We use garlic like it is sugar at our house. Garlic, onions, hot peppers, black pepper, salsa, chili powder - these are the kings of the kitchen. 

Some may say that's well and good, but how do you get children or husbands to eat this stuff? All I can say is, I'm not sure. My husband was all ready into spicy stuff when we met, so I didn't have to do much convincing there. Onions he was never really into, though - and he rarely used black pepper. Now he asks for onions and he uses more black pepper than I do. I'm not sure when or how that change occurred. I guess I just made enough things with onions and black pepper that he realized how great they were. 

As for children I have an almost three year old and a seven month old. My toddler is the farthest thing from a picky eater - he eats everything! And he has our love for spice. He is the only two year old that I know of that will eat raw onions and regularly asks for more garlic powder on his food. So I can't be much help there - sorry. What I will say is that if you are not used to spices you need to start out slow. You need to give yourself a good year or two of gradual increases to get your system used to it. 

Just this week I have had to make an onion poultice for my seven month old, who has a chest cough that hasn't wanted to go away with the vaporizer and rest. After two days of the onion poultice and an air diffusion of chopped onion, garlic powder and cayenne his cough is much better.

Well, I could go on, but I'm sure I talked too much already.

Here is a list of some of my favorite herbal and medicinal books:

Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine by Andrew Chevallier

Foods that Heal by Dr. Bernard Jensen

Herbal Antibiotics by Stephen Harrod Buhner

Foods that Heal by Maureen Kennedy Salaman

Healing Spices by Bharat B. Aggarwal, PhD.

Back to Eden by Jethro Kloss

Diana Sutton