green smoothies, free apples, strep throat, antibiotics
Locals, if you’re near Lindon / North Orem, there are boxes of free apples in the “Share the Bounty” hut near my house: just south of Center St. on 400 E. (just on the Orem side). They’re not pretty (so they’re probably unsprayed) so the owner clearly could not sell these apples, but they taste good. I’m washing a sinkful right now to quarter, put in baggies, and use in GS through the winter. My freezers are crammed with baggies of garden greens, peaches, apples and pears!
My GS today was persimmons (from Costco), fresh ginger, lemon peel, and cinnamon (with bananas and berries, plus spinach, and garden kale/collards/chard still managing to survive the frost), really really yummy. My kids just got home from school and are commenting that they love it.
Costco today: stocked up on whole-wheat spaghetti and Rice Dream. Those “multi-grain” crackers they’re sampling are junk: the first ingredient is white flour, and there’s refined oil too. “Feel good” food, not truly nutritious.
I read in today’s paper that they’re finding that women who took two types of antibiotics, sulfa drugs (Thiosulfil Forte and Bactrim) and urinary germicides (Furadantin and Macrobid) during pregnancy have higher rates of birth defects. This is the first major research on antibiotic use and pregnancy–even though docs have been prescribing antibiotics to pregnant women at will for decades.
Craig was diagnosed with strep this morning. I had strep many times as a child and ALWAYS my mom put me on an antibiotic, and I’d just get it again. My immune system was decimated until I addressed it with nutrition starting in my late 20′s.
The last time I had strep was 15 years ago, and I was pregnant with my second child. I refused to take the antibiotic. Instead I took goldenseal, an herb that kills viruses and bacteria without harming the healthy bacteria in the gut (like antibiotics do) that you need in your fight against the constant onslaught of contact with bad bacteria. I got well quickly and never got strep again, nor any other bacterial infection.
Anyway, I am getting Vitamin D3 for Craig and his kids when he finishes the round of antibiotics he decided to take. I will make him some kefir too. (He not only got sick after the flu vaccine, his son got pneumonia, and now he had this coughing thing immediately followed by strep. He’s been sick 3x in the few weeks since getting that shot.)
It takes about 30 days of exposure to good probiotics to replenish the healthy flora in your body after antibiotic use. You can take probiotics, or eat kefir/yogurt (not the kind with sugar added, please), or both.
I got after my mom the other day – 1/2 kidding and 1/2 serious. She was awesome as a mom. She never took us to a Dr. for an illness, never got us shots, and treated any infection with home remedies, herbs, etc. I remember having an eye infection as a kid, and she mixed this green salve paste, put it on my eye and put a patch on it and I had to sleep all night like that …, it felt disgusting and smelled funny, but it got better! And no medicine! She read all the books on natural healing remedies. We never had an antibiotic for anything. Ear infections? She’d warm up a spoonfull of pure olive oil and drip it in our ear then stuff it with a cotton swab – cures it quick! Chicken pox? I had to take a bath in herb tea and oats, it went away fast! She’d have us go into the fields and pick flowers and plants that she would dry and make herb teas with, etc… I was getting after her recently, because I’ve been working hard lately to learn many of the things she practiced – but she didn’t share all her knowledge with us growing up! I could have been learning the why’s of all the things she did when I was a child, but now at 39, I’m having to figure it all out myself. At least her example has instilled in me, a desire to learn how to take care of my family in a different way other than the Dr.s teach …. but I try to teach my kids ‘why’ I do what I do, and why we eat this, and not that… ect. I guess if people don’t know any other way, and haven’t been taught, they are going to listen to the Dr.s advice.
http://www.medicalvoices.org/en/vaccination/articles/protecting-yourself-against-swine-flu.html
Just found out about this site today….. maybe this is why so many of us are not getting the vaccines!
Made me think of this post… I read here then went over to the medicalvoices.org site…. interesting!
My OB gave me the go around about not taking the shot… NO way are any of us going to.
I’m glad you posted that about antibiotics. My friend’s son just got strep and we were over there just before they found out. So I’m hoping it doesn’t affect me. But if it does, then I know what to do! It seems like everyone is so sick this season!
I have a friend whose son has asthma and he gets croup pretty easily. Quite a few people have come to me for advice on how to feed their kids more healthy foods. They are excited about it, but I don’t quite feel I’m on their level because my kids have been SO great to adapt to our food lifestyle. They have just not been picky at all. So I told my friend to get her son off dairy. She doesn’t know how she’ll do that because he drinks chocolate milk every day. I told her to find another drink that is good for him to replace it with, even if it’s not related to chocolate milk. Does anyone else have any advice for picky eaters? She really wants to change, but doesn’t know exactly how to transition. She says they will not drink green smoothies and they love macaroni and cheese.
there’s a new coconut kefir out that you can buy (I still want to learn to make my own to make it cheaper and healthier) but until then—I found it at good earth in american fork—just thought I’d let those know who have a milk allergy.
my son supposedly has “folliculitis” and I am putting anti-biotic oiintment on it against my better judgement–I didn’t know what else to use (and coconut oil didn’t seem to be helping?) any ideas?!!! (I decided to use the ointment to try and avoid having to end up using an internal anti-biotic.
Tiffany,
I would tell your friend that she needs to change her habits first, then get the kids to go along. When I started drinking green smoothies, my kids wouldn’t drink them because they were green, so I made sure that I used spinach which doesn’t taste very green, and always berries to make it red, and a big scoop of orange juice concentrate in it. That was what I offered for breakfast and if they didn’t like it, they could wait till lunch. They started liking them, then I slowly introduced them greener and greener to them. I still put the OJ in them, but they will drink green ones now and even with other greens besides spinach.
As for the mac and cheese. Does she do it out of a box? My kids like it too, but I refuse to make it out of a box. You can actually make it healthy. Use whole wheat pasta, butter, whole wheat flour, almond milk, onion, garlic, paprika, and a little cheddar to make it orange for the sauce (sorry I just dump it in till it works, so I don’t have a recipe). My kids accept it now because it’s the only way they get mac and cheese anymore.
I think the big thing is to not make the transition all at once. That’s why I like the 12 step program because it baby steps you through it. There is nothing more stressful than doing a total overhaul on how you do food in your home. You tend to get frustrated and give up on it because you can’t deal with all the complaining from your family
I have found green smoothies to be the key in this because once they are drinking them, they start craving better things.
do dice or blanch or do anything to your fruits and vegies before you freeze them?
gargle with peroxide for strep throat, it works. and robyn, i think maybe your boyfriend might need another flu shot, huh?
Melanie, no dicing–too much effort when your BlendTec / VitaMix is going to make quick work of it later. No blanching–kills enzymes.
Beverly, I think I have finally talked him out of any more flu shots. We’ll see. He’s been sick three times since getting the H1N1 vaccine. We will talk more on this blog soon about how vaccines may seriously compromise the immune system.
I know this is an old post but I am desperately looking for a cough syrup alternative. My sugar free kid is pre asthmatic and gets these awful colds with nothing but coughing. Hubby came home with yucky cough syrup from the the store that I made him take back. I can buy something at the health food store and hope it works but I am wondering what I can make that would work that he would actually take.
thanks I am desperate. I have to relieve his symptoms and prove to hubby I know what I am doing
Andrea, we have a cough & cold homeopathic in the GreenSmoothieGirl.com store.