Changes in the Eastern weather!
Well now that the weather is changing to that cool wet damp time of the year here in the eastern USA, it's time to think about preventing colds, flu, and stuffy heads.
Mom always made warm apple cider with a cinnamin stick. That really warmed us to our toes. I really loved it when mom made home made apple pies...a 9 X 12 pan, which was deep dish back then. She would serve it piping hot with milk poured over it. It was cooled down just enough to eat it. It was great being a kid back then! Mom would also make her home made chicken and rice soup. I believe the kettle was about 15 quarts...or so it seemed like that to me at the time. We had soup for a week. But it did keep us from getting a cold or the flu.
It seems like all the old wives tales about remedies were correct...I learned that in nursing school,(way back when).
So call mom if you need a remedy for anything, I'm sure she will be happy to tell you one.
About that stuffy head...Mom always had us stand near the stove while she cooked so that we would inhale the moisture from the soup. Yes, we had soups of all kinds. When she wasn't cooking soup she would have a vaporizer with vicks steaming in our room.
Helen 9/12/06
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Vicks
I heart Vicks to this day. My mom would rub it on my chest and then pin an old clean diaper around my neck. I have no idea if it did anything or not, but that smell still means comfort to me.
Lynn Siprelle, Editor
Keeping warm and well rested
Keeping warm and well rested will also help you fight off the bugs better. Remember the warm pototoes in the coat pockets of the Wilder kids on the way to school in the winter? Loved that one.
My mom also followed the "keep the body warm inside and out" preventative measures during cooler weather on the age old principle that getting too cold gives you a cold. We'd have malt-o-meal in the mornings on school days and she'd make her Apple-Raisin-Cinnamon-Oatmeal on Saturday mornings, a huge batch, which is still my favorite breakfast food.
My Grandmother and mother would have us put our heads over a pan of steaming water with Vicks or Mentholatum in it and a towel over our heads to clear our noses. I don't recommend this with little ones, I couldn't bear the steam when I was in early elementary but by junior high I could handle it.
My stepdad's parents were old timers and when you started to get sick you put hot salt or rice packs on the head and drank hot rum toddies. A lot of old timers in the midwest swore by the recuperative powers of likker. I'm not sure why they worked, but the hot cocktails often did. Mom refused to dose us in this manner for some reason, go figure.
Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally
Warding off winter ills
At the first sign of a respiratory woe, I start drinking echinacea tea by the gallon. I also swallow whole cloves of raw garlic - that's a Dr. Andrew Weil trick. I swear by these interventions.
Sleep
I seem to have gone straight from Singapore rhinitis to a head cold back in the UK. All I want to do is sleep for hours. Sleep and plenty of fluids are some of the most basics ways of fighting these bugs if you can. Most of the rest will just ease the symptoms, though when the symptoms make you feel like you're dying that's usually not a bad thing! Changes in weather seem to trigger problems like this. We still have temperatures of over 20C (about 70F aparently) but the mornings are much colder. Since we spent all of last year's Autumn and Winter with one bug after another (result of moving continents ad starting new school) I was hoping things would be better this year. Apparently having a trip back to SG at the end of August wasn't a good idea though!
for symptom easing we use Vick at night and an antihistamine in the morning to make it through the day without sneezing non-stop. Liquid Lemsip is so much better than tablet form too, or honey and lemon with soluble paracetamol works, a dash of glycerin if you have a sore throat. There must be as many cold remedies out there as there are people, if not more!
vitamins and handwashing are the best preventives of course...
Kerri.
the mad translator strikes again
Most regulars know this already, but for U.S. lurkers:
Lemsip=(more or less) Theraflu
paracetamol=acetaminophen
Keeping warm is good advice
You know, I think I read some researchers had found that people really do become more susceptible to colds when they get chilled, so that advice to stay warm makes a lot of sense.
Brava!
I love it when modern science catches up to our fore mothers' folk wisdom. I always figured your body got stressed by getting to cold and when stressed it's unable to fight off infections as well. But the constricted blood vessels makes sense, too.
Bundle up everyone!
On a tangent, Target has 75% wool socks for $4.99, the cheapest I've seen anywhere. Stock up before the North Wind roars down! I turned my mom onto the wool socks when she was visiting during a very cold, damp spring. They make a huge difference and are indescribably more cosy than cotton. They make my feet feel happy.
Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally
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