If you’ve been exposed to the floods, or you’re stranded at home due to the flooding, and you’re feeling under the weather, or you have no access to medicine / pharmacies, here are some things that may help your body at least until you have access to a pharmacy or doctor. Hopefully you already have one or more of these items in your household.
Above all, remember that a positive attitude and good humor constitute a strong psychological defense and can also help your body through this stressful time. Stay safe and dry, everyone!
Please let me know if you have any corrections/additions. Thanks!
I’ll continue updating this post based on your feedback. Feel free to reblog/share!
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Garlic - Antibiotic— strong. Take orally, but not on an empty stomach.
Cane Vinegar / Cider Vinegar / White Vinegar - Antibiotic, antiseptic. Helps with sore throat / phlegm; disinfects minor wounds. Drink with water + wild honey, or gargle with water, or apply topically (use a diluted solution of 1 part water + 1 part vinegar). Cane or cider vinegar is preferable.
Virgin Coconut Oil - Antifungal, antibacterial. Effective on rashes, minor wounds and burns, and other skin problems. Apply topically. You may also swallow small amounts of VCO as a nutritious food supplement.
Wild Honey - Antibiotic. Take orally or apply topically. May be used in combination with herbs or vinegar.
Ginger - Antibiotic. Soothes sore throat and fever. Drink as tea.
Warm Water + Salt - Antibacterial. Helps relieve sore throat / phlegm / cold / cough. Gargle. Saline solution is 1/2 teaspoon salt to a glass of water.
Warm Water + Calamansi (or lemon, dalandan, lime) - Vitamin C. Helps with sore throat / phlegm. Generally soothing, too. Drink liberally.
Tawa Tawa - This common local “weed” can be brewed into tea to battle dengue effectively. Read my cousin’s personal story for details.
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When you’re able to, you should take probiotics (such as organic plain yogurt) to repopulate the good microflora in your system after taking antibiotics (including natural ones— garlic is especially powerful).
I’ve used most of these remedies myself even when I have access to medicine. I can personally attest to their effectivity, and I believe that traditional natural remedies are generally safer to use because we’ve been using them for generations. (Coconut water is even used as dextrose in situations when medical supplies are scarce!) I actually rarely buy anything at the pharmacy these days, but then again, I’m lucky enough not to face extreme / emergency situations such as floods.
I believe the body has ways of healing itself, helped along by these natural remedies, especially with a history of good healthy lifestyle and diet habits.
However, please remember that severe, stubborn, urgent cases of disease or injury should be addressed with professional medical attention.
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Leptospirosis and doxycycline have been getting a lot of press. Please use medicine wisely. Doxycycline is a PRESCRIPTION drug with risks to children, pregnant women, etc. Please read and share this informative blog entry about the proper use of doxycycline.
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Sources & additional information:
http://honeyonmylips.tumblr.com/post/9990626223/cure-for-dengue-tawa-tawa
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=612536&publicationSubCategoryId=67
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/health/28real.html?_r=1
http://www.livestrong.com/article/62136-types-natural-antibiotics/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/556171-apple-cider-vinegar-antibiotics/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/489317-how-much-garlic-equals-an-antibiotic/
http://voices.yahoo.com/garlic-as-antibiotic-four-mistakes-avoid-3714732.html?cat=5
http://www.livestrong.com/article/320227-how-to-use-coconut-oil-for-infection/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/387156-what-can-i-use-coconut-oil-for/
http://voices.yahoo.com/six-natural-antibiotics-11526794.html?cat=25
http://www.ehow.com/how_4422453_use-vinegar-first-aid.html
http://www.pureinsideout.com/natural-benefits-of-vinegar.html
http://www.vinegarbook.net/Medical_Uses_for_Vinegar.shtml
Home remedies for dogs and cats
Safe Drinking Water Guidelines
Red Cross Emergency Kit Guidelines
Relief Centers Organized By Location
Google Crisis Response to 2012 Philippines Flood
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People in the South (Alabang, BF, etc.) who want to help out, follow @alabangbulletin and @SouthSnippets for nearby relief center info, here are a few:
CCF Alabang and B1G South accepting donations. Biggest needs: toiletries, medicines, USABLE clothing, blankets, banig, no cook food like biscuits and tetrapacks. Ground Flr, CCF Alabang Bdlg, Prime St., Madrigal Business Park, Alabang, Muntinlupa. Contact 09178866645 (chris) or 09189267392 (francis). Volunteers needed starting tomorrow August 8.
Anthony Sayuno (09189089720) is setting up a relief goods base at 155 Apitong St. Ayala Alabang Vill starting tomorrow August 8, donations and volunteers are welcome.
St. James The Great Parish, Woodrose School, and De La Salle Zobel School, all in Ayala Alabang Village, also accepting donations. Gawad Kalinga to set up at SM Southmall tomorrow August 8 to receive donations.
Reduce calories and sugar from ice cream by SHARING with your beloved! :p Food is not just nutritional, it’s also emotional. I know that ice cream from industrial farm milk and refined sugar and that cone from refined flour are nutritionally deficient, but this was still the best ice cream I’ve ever had. :)
Of course— I don’t do this every day! And for homemade ice cream I refer you to the excellent paleo ice cream recipe over at the Bulletproof diet: butter egg vanilla goodness that’s like Arce Dairy mantecado but better! We don’t have an ice cream machine so we actually just drink that stuff straight up when we make it. :D
Also I just wanted to show you guys that I’m far from perfect when it comes to adhering to ideal healthy food. It’s a work in progress and I’m not going to condemn anyone for indulging in junk food. I’ll just work to raise awareness and hopefully we can change gov’t. and big business policies to create a food climate that is more conducive to eating healthy. :)
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“Perhaps people think the nutrients just magically reappear or are inexhaustible.” — Gary Kline remarking on the finite nature of soil minerals, and how people take this important resource for granted
“‘The more you know, the more you don’t know.’ A sobering reminder that, upon closer examination, reveals a joyful celebration of this vast and beautiful universe filled with mystery, which is what keeps scientists, theologians, philosophers, explorers, lovers, artists, parents, teachers, and children rapt with curiosity and wonder.” — Feanne
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Anonymous asked: Wow! This is a well-researched answer. Thank you so much. Yes, heard about healthy grassfed meats. Thanks! Thanks!
Thanks for the inquiry! :) I should add that strict paleolithic diets don’t recommend milk consumption at all, they only recommend butter (because it’s pure butterfat). I haven’t really looked into the reason behind this, but as Weston Price research states, milk is a culturally traditional food in many parts of the world. As long as it is prepared and consumed the traditional way (grassfed cows; raw milk) then we should be able to get the same benefits our ancestors got from milk. :)
“Humans can’t actually digest meat: it rots in the colon.”
“Meat takes 4-7 days to digest, because it has to rot in your stomach first.”
J. Stanton corrects these ideas by explaining that plants are actually very difficult to digest due to their tough cellulose walls. That’s why ruminant animals (grass-eaters such as cows) have four stomachs and a lot of bacteria friends to help them digest the stuff.
Here’s an excerpt:
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Most of the edible part of a plant is cellulose, a polysaccharide (i.e. a very long chain of sugars) that is very difficult to break down. In fact, no digestive enzyme, in any animal, is capable of breaking down cellulose! So the only way that any animal can fully digest plants is for its gut bacteria to break down cellulose, and its intestines absorb the waste products.
Ruminants, including cattle, bison, deer, antelope, goats, and other red meat, have a special “extra stomach” called the rumen. They chew and swallow grass and leaves into the rumen, ferment it some, barf it back up again, chew it some more (called “chewing the cud”), and swallow it again, where it is digested a second time. Hindgut fermenters, like horses, have an extra-long gut. And rabbits run their food through twice: they eat their own poop in order to get more food value out of the plant matter they eat.
Humans, in contrast, don’t have gut bacteria that can digest cellulose. That is why we can’t eat grass at all, why there is so little caloric value for us in vegetables, and why we call cellulose “insoluble fiber”: it comes straight out the back end.
This fact alone proves that humans, while omnivores, are primarily carnivorous: we have a limited ability to digest some plant matter (starches and disaccharides) in order to get through bad times, but we cannot extract meaningful amounts of energy from the cellulose that forms the majority of edible plant matter, as true herbivores can. We can only eat fruits, nuts, tubers, and seeds (which we call ‘grains’ and ‘beans’)—and seeds are only edible to us after laborious grinding, soaking, and cooking, because unlike the birds and rodents adapted to eat them, they’re poisonous to humans in their natural state.
Anonymous asked: I am very curious with number 4 on low fat. I am a low fat milk drinker for decades. Is it something bad?
Thanks for your question!
Two things:
1. Question the idea that fat is bad for you.
2. Understand how most dairy is produced.
I understand that mainstream media and gov’t nutrition recommendations have persuaded us to believe that fat is the enemy (since around the 70’s and 80’s), hence the advent of all these low fat or fat free products in the market (and we replaced the fat with refined grains and sugar). This is in stark contrast with the traditional high-fat diets of our ancestors / primitive cultures all over the world. You can watch the video of Dr. Robert Lustig’s 2009 lecture, Sugar: The Bitter Truth to check on the science behind the new— or rather, rediscovered— idea that it’s sugar (fructose) that causes LDL (the artery-clogging kind of fat), leptin dysfunction (the hormone that tells us we’re full already), insulin dysfunction, and all related problems (heart disease, obesity, etc.).
Fatty foods are not the problem. In fact, we have to eat mostly fat in order to achieve optimum health. This Weston Price article explains how our body needs fat to help us absorb nutrients. You can also check out their basic dietary guidelines that recommend whole, natural foods— grassfed animal products and organic fruits and veggies; grains prepared in traditional ways such as soaking and fermentation. Note the caveat: the fat has to be from happy healthy naturally-raised (grassfed or “pastured”) animals. Fat is where both nutrients and toxins get concentrated, therefore eat fat from healthy animals and avoid fat from unhealthy animals.
Milk (and also butter) is actually really good for you precisely because of its high fat, nutrient-dense qualities. The problem is with the way most dairy farms are run today. How can the milk be healthy if it’s coming from unhealthy, unhappy animals, who are fed GMO grains (grown with synthetic pesticides and fertilizer) and pumped full of hormones and antibiotics all for the sake of producing large quantities of milk at the lowest cost? Actually, the cost is really high but it’s not charged to the big agri businesses— it’s charged to us in the form of public health and environmental costs. You can watch this quick cartoon about it:
The Meatrix is the story we tell ourselves about where our meat and milk products come from.
You can read Is Soda Pop Or Milk Healthier? to get a comprehensive historical background— the political and economic factors— on how the milk industry ended up the way it is today.
I would recommend raw, grassfed, full cream milk for optimum nutrition. It’s not available at the supermarket, but you can order from Down To Earth or Holy Carabao (they deliver, but raw milk is not always available). If you want to buy from the supermarket, I recommend the brands Mr. Moo’s (carabao milk), Hacienda Macalauan, and Holly’s Milk. I’ve checked out their farm practices online and they at least seem better than the big industrial dairy farms. Carabaos in general are raised in the traditional way, eating grass. Hacienda Macalauan says their milk is hormone and antibiotic free. Holly’s Milk says their cows are at least partially grassfed. I’ve actually created a customized Google map to map my sources for sustainable goods in Metro Manila, including my sources for dairy. :)
If a person poisoned my food, air, or water, they would go to jail. Why can’t we stop companies who poison the Earth’s food, air, and water?