Cheapest of Natural Remedies

Well, a friend of mine heard that I was going to start this blog, and she asked me to write about garlic.  No, you heard it right, GARLIC.  I'm not talking about vampires or werewolves, but something much more real.  Nothing stops a family with young children quicker than a virus.  And if you have a large family, (we have 5) a virus can mean a week or more of missed activities, and successive nights greatly lacking in SLEEP for Mom.

For more than 10 years our family has been using the amazing properties of raw garlic to treat viruses, flu, ear infections, and allergies.  When crushed, garlic releases an sulphuric compound called Allicin.  This bad boy kills bacteria equally as well as penicillin, if not better.  But, even more important, it kills viruses, which medicinal antibiotics can't touch, and leaves the good bacteria in our gut untouched, even strengthened.  

We crush a clove of garlic in a garlic crusher and put it on a spoon.  Then we, and our children, will put the garlic in our mouth and quickly flush it down with water, like drinking a shot of tequila.  Be ready with some kind of cracker or bread product to eat, because raw garlic hits the tummy hard for the first few minutes, and then it settles in.  I do NOT recommend taking it on an empty stomach either.  We do this 1-3 times a day when fighting a virus.  It is also an incredible preventative.  Which means that if Mama is taking the garlic while taking care of the sickies in the house, she has a greater chance of skipping by with a mild virus, to none at all!

We have taught all of our kids to take raw garlic when sick, and the older ones are more than willing because they have quickly seen how much better it makes them feel.  Just this past week the 3 yro joined the ranks of the "stinky club".  She learned to take raw garlic for the first time.  (Just a VERY small amount on the tip of her spoon, followed by water, and then a small bit of a candy corn as a reward.)

But, of course this is not easily done for children under 3yrs of age.  So there is another way to get garlic into your body...through your skin!  Your skin is an incredible receptor.  It quickly absorbs what you place on it and delivers it straight into the blood stream.  To administer garlic in this way,  Take 3-6 cloves of garlic and crush it into a pan of 1 cup of water.  Let the garlic sit in the water for 10 minutes to reach full potency.  Then slightly warm the water, WITHOUT cooking the garlic.  Strain the garlic water through a coffee filter and then apply the water to the child's chest with a rag, freshening the water on the rag every few minutes.  This will help the child to fight the virus more effectively.

You can also do the same process with olive oil instead of water.  The "garlic oil" can be rubbed on the soles of the feet, or on the chest to help fight the virus or bacterial infection.  This same garlic oil, when heated can be applied to the inner ear to fight ear infections.  As soon as your child complains of discomfort in the ear, place 2-3 WARM (not cold, and NOT hot) garlic oil drops in the ear and place a cotton ball on the outer edge of the ear to keep oil from running down the child's neck...ooooh YUCK.

Does all this work?  Well, it is a chink in the chain of health that we have been building in our house.  And as a family we have not had a sick visit to the doctor in over 5 years.  So, we think it is pretty handy...and certainly cheap.  It is not uncommon to hear..."honey, will you go to the store and buy some garlic?"  in our house. :)

I encourage you to do a little research on garlic and see for yourself what a wonderful little antibiotic God has given us.