Family · Health

Nature’s Powers: The Five Best Natural Medicines

Natural Medicines

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In a world where synthetic drugs dominate the pharmaceutical industry, many people are turning to natural medicines for their health concerns. Mother Nature has bestowed upon us a treasure trove of medicinal plants and substances that have been used for centuries to alleviate ailments and promote overall well-being. In this blog post, we will explore five of the best natural medicines, including the remarkable colloidal silver.

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Closer to Nature · Health

Safe, Natural Remedies For Common Ailments

When we get sick, our first instinct is to go to the doctor for advice. We trust that they have the skills and medications to correct whatever is wrong with us. 

Unfortunately, though, that’s not always the case. Many people wind up going to a local defective drugs and devices attorney because their physician prescribes them medication that actually harms their bodies. 

So what’s the solution? For many, it’s choosing safe, natural remedies instead. It turns out that there are already proven compounds out there in nature that can address the symptoms and causes of most diseases. What’s more, because they’re mostly just regular foods and herbs, they’re almost always safe (so long as you consume them in small quantities). 

Let’s take a look at some natural remedies for common health issues. 

Lavender For Anxiety

Natural remedies

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If you have anxiety, physicians will usually prescribe you drugs that change your brain’s chemistry. These can work in the short-term, but they’re a quick fix and don’t actually deal with the underlying issue. What’s more, some of them are unsafe or even addictive, making it possible to develop dependencies. 

Fortunately, lavender is not like this. This purple flower is natural and emits a scent which helps to calm the mind considerably. People who take lavender regularly report feeling happier and healthier as a result. Just pop some drops of essential oil in your diffuser or bring freshly cut lavender into your home. 

Ginger For Nausea

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Do you ever feel a little nauseous? If so, you might want to try ginger. 

Ginger is a bit of a superstar in the wellness field. Research suggests that it can do everything from protect our DNA to reduce migraines. It also contains compounds that help to soothe the receptors in the gut that cause nausea. 

If ginger doesn’t work, you can also try peppermint. Again, this herb helps to settle the stomach and improve the muscle tone of the bowel walls. 

Apple Cider Vinegar For Acid Reflux

Acid reflux occurs when stomach acid leaks out of the top of the stomach and begins to damage the surrounding esophagus. Long-term, it can lead to some nasty conditions, including Barrett’s disease and cancer.

Acid reflux is mostly the result of poor diet. If you eat too much sugar, meat and fat, and not enough fiber, your stomach acids will bubble over, causing you pain. 

To deal with this, you can use apple cider vinegar. It stimulates the digestive juices, preparing them for the food that you are about to eat. By itself, it doesn’t taste good, but it is extremely effective. 

Prunes For Constipation

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Prunes contain a special type of fiber called metamucil. When eaten as part of a whole prune, this fiber bulks up in the gut, providing it with a greater surface area on which to push. This, in turns, makes it easier to move stools out of the colon, helping you go to the bathroom. 

Just sprinkle six to ten dried prunes on your breakfast in the morning and then wait for the magic to happen. 

Cooking and Recipes · Slow Cooker

Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef

The beauty of slow cooking is that it’s often cheaper cuts of meat which respond really well to “low and slow”, which means that we can enjoy healthy, protein-rich meals without having to spend a fortune. I’m still using the slow cooker, on average, about 2-3 times a week so as well as saving on the actual meals, the cost of cooking is lower too as it’s much cheaper to run a slow cooker, even for 8 hours, than a conventional cooker.

Today’s experiment is Mongolian Beef; I’ve seen a few different recipes for this around the internet and they all call for brown sugar (a whole cup of it, no less…), which is something that Husband and I are trying to avoid at the moment, so as with the Pulled Pork, I replaced the sugar with erythritol to get the sweetness without adding sugar, although you can also use a little agave nectar. Find the best ones at Monica’s Health Mag.

Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef

Here’s how I made it:

Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef
Recipe Type: Slow Cooker
Cuisine: Asian
Author: Jayne Crammond
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6
A slow cooked beef dish with ginger, garlic and carrots.
Ingredients
  • 800g diced beef
  • 2 tablespoons of Olive Oil
  • 3/4 cup soy sauce
  • 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
  • 1 tablespoon minced garlic
  • 1 tablespoon minced ginger
  • 3/4 cup water
  • 1 cup erythritol
  • 1/4 cup corn flour
  • 2 grated carrots
  • 3 spring onions, chopped
Instructions
  1. Place the beef into a ziplock bag with the corn flour and shake to completely coat the meat
  2. Place the meat in the slow cooker with the oil, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, chilli flakes, water and sweetener
  3. Cook on low for 6 hours
  4. Add the grated carrots half an hour before serving
  5. Serve with egg noodles or a side of your choice and garnish with the chopped spring onions

This is exactly my kind of slow cooker recipe – aside from a minimal amount of prep, it really is a kind of “chuck it all in and wait” dish, which makes it perfect for busy days. It’s really cold here today so getting through the door after a chilly school run and smelling our beef cooking away was truly dreamy!

I’ve never tried it with the brown sugar instead of the sweetener, so I can’t compare, but I have to say it was absolutely delicious, even without the sugar and I certainly wouldn’t ever bother making it the original way. The meat was incredibly tender after being cooked for so long and the depth of flavour was really impressive for such a simple recipe. The girls and Husband really loved it and overall, it was pretty cheap to make, if you’ve got a few basics in the store cupboard. This will definitely be one that we add to our regular dinners.

Have you tried Mongolian Beef? Let me know what you think!

Anger · Art · Beauty

Red Hot or Ginger Minger?

My friend Aly has got a bit of a thing for ginger men. I suppose you could say that I have too, given the fact that I’m married to one, but the other day she posted a link to a site called Red Hot. Red Hot is the brainchild of a guy called Thomas Knight, who’s photographed a whole bunch of good-looking red-headed males and is exhibiting them in a London gallery this year as part of a campaign which is associated with the Anti-Bullying Alliance.

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Most people are aware of the stigma which seems to be attached to red-headedness, and as someone who grew up with a ginger Dad and a ginger best friend during High School, it always left me entirely bemused. I could never quite add up, in my head, what could be supposedly so negative someone’s hair colour, but the fact that the Anti-Bullying Alliance are involved just shows how deeply the stigma runs. As a mother to a red-headed child, it’s quite scary, if I’m honest.

Sausage is a pretty girl with a shock of bright red curls (and her best friend at school is ginger, too. In fact there are 4 of them in her class!) and she’s constantly complimented on her beautiful hair. In fact, she’s been know to (sometimes rather obliquely!) announce it at random, to strangers, as if they might not have noticed; “I have ginger hair!”, she’ll proudly say. It’s genuinely painful to me that, one day, that pride herself and her uniqueness might be stripped away by thoughtless bullies who don’t have the imagination to come up with a better insult.

I was under the, perhaps slightly naive, impression that the whole anti-ginger thing was dead and buried. The likes of Damien Lewis, Emma Stone, Julianne Moore, Karen Gillan and Christina Hendricks have done wonders for making the world see how beautiful red hair is (even if some of them do come out of a bottle!) and it seemed to me that such narrow-minded nonsense was long-gone, but if the Red Hot guys are anything to go by, with their PR assault on the UK, then there’s still a long way to go before the insults are completely forgotten.

It was in the news this year that many sperm banks have stopped taking donations from red-headed men altogether because nobody wanted them. So, a woman is so desperate to conceive a baby that she’ll use a donor, but only if that baby has less of a chance of coming out ginger? Madness!

The thing that baffles me the most is that I completely fail to see what it is that’s wrong with red hair? Where I live (and I’m assuming in other parts of the UK, too) there’s a huge trend for girls trying to dye their hair red at the moment. It never looks as nice as natural ginger and you can see it’s fake from the stratosphere, but the intention for redness is there. Perhaps I’m biased because the two people I love most in the world are redheads, but to me it’s gorgeous. I know taste is wholly subjective, but I simply cannot see what is so objectionable about ginger hair that makes people act so appallingly to others.

So, come on people, tell me what it is that’s so bad about red hair? And if you can’t, I suggest you think twice before you make a ‘funny’ comment next time. Let’s change our stupid, pre-programmed bullshit and actually think about what we’re saying and how we’re treating a whole bunch of people. You wouldn’t comment on someone’s race/weight/sexuality in that way…would you?