Vibrant Moms

My computer is still down so I’m sorry I can’t post more often - I miss being here daily!  We’re going to call another computer expert in since the first one can’t figure out what’s wrong. 

I got my most recent order of herbs, and I got something new this time (well, actually I always get something new :)) that we’re putting to use today - I ordered kosher capsules and a capsule ‘machine’ to make filling them easy.  These are already lending themselves to more uses than I expected!

I got the capsules to make using powdered herbs easy, basically the food herbs that are hard to take in large enough amounts when using as more than casual spicing.  But after getting it, I realized that we could use them for the powdered vitamin C (sodium ascorbate) that we use - until now we mixed it into juice but I use pretty massive doses when the kids are under the weather and they don’t  love taking it.  They don’t hate it, either, but finding a more pleasant way that works for everyone seemed to be a good idea.  And when dd14 started to fill them, she asked me if she should add some bioflavonoids to the mix.  (I bought the powdered bioflavonoids last year because it was the only form I found them kosher, but it is nasty tasting.  So none of us ever use it, even though you’re supposed to take the sodium ascorbate with it to maximize absorption.)  I thought that was a great idea, so now the kids have made over 300 capsules of this vitamin C mix - they used 4 parts sodium ascorbate to 1 part bioflavonoids.  Each capsule is about 500 mg and easy to take.

The next capsules they prepared today were: ginger, tumeric, and cinnamon.  Dd14 has an extra bone in her foot that is causing her pain when walking, and I’ve been taking her to the podiatrist every 3 weeks since she got back from camp this summer.  He has been trying low intervention ways to deal with the issue, but at the last visit he said the inflammation is interfering.  He prescribed a local anti-inflammatory patch, but my insurance wouldn’t cover it and I’m not so sure I want to use it anyway.  (It would be over $200 every couple of weeks, if I do choose to try it.)  Dh asked him why he doesn’t just tell dd to stay off her feet for a week, and the doc said that wasn’t realistic.  I couldn’t believe I didn’t think of anything so obvious!  Instead I started researching natural anti-inflammatories.  Some of those are tumeric and ginger, and she’ll start taking the capsules today.  I think that this will take longer than the medical patch, but I’m more comfortable with it and so is she.  And of course we’re encouraging her to stay off her foot as much as possible.  Hopefully this two pronged approach will be helpful.

Since I know someone is going to ask, I got the capsules from Mountain Rose Herbs - a bag of 1000 was $23 (I got size 00), and the capsule filling machine was $13.  You  can buy less, but this size bag was a good idea - my dd9 (her birthday is today :)) told me that if each of us has 2 vitamin c capsules a day, all that they prepared will last us just a month. 

Avivah

I posted this the day before the hacking situation and didn’t initially realize this post was lost when the system went down.  Though I said that I wouldn’t repost anything, I’m reposting this because I think it’s a valuable thing to have on hand.

These are notes that I made for myself that I’m sharing.  I’m obviously not a health care practitioner and like all that I post about, this is what I would do if I found myself with a family member dehydrated to help them. 

Here are several versions, basically all the same idea:

Homemade Oral Rehydration Solution

1) 1/2 t. salt, 2 T. honey/ sugar, 1/4 t. potassium chloride; 1/2 t. trisodium citrate (can be replaced by baking soda), 1 quart clean water

2) 3 T. sugar/honey, 1 t. salt, 1 quart water

3) 8 t. sugar/honey, 1 t. salt,  1 quart water

Here are signs of dehydration: weakness, headache, fainting, dryness of mouth, decreased saliva, lack of/decreased urine that is dark and highly concentrated, sunken eyes, loss of skin elasticity, low blood pressure (especially upon sitting up or standing), fast pulse when laying down or sitting up.

If you suspect dehydration is developing, administer the rehydration solution by mouth.  If the patient is too ill to drink, give drop by drop, work up to a teaspoon if possible.  Don’t stop until patient can keep down one quart.

How much solution is needed?  Adults and large children should drink at least three quarts of oral rehydration solution a day until well.  Each feeding: for a child under 2 - between 1/4 - 1/2 large cup; for older children - between 1/2 - 1 large cup.

If the  child vomits, wait ten minutes and then begin again.  Feed slowly, small sips at a time by teaspoon.  The body will retain some fluids and salts needed even though there is vomiting.  Extra liquids should be given until diarrhea stops. 

Hopefully none of you will need this, but as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, this was very helpful to me when my dd8 got dehydrated on Shabbos and started repeatedly throwing up. 

Avivah

In the beginning of the summer, I shared how we made a salve for poison ivy.  That worked well, but we discovered one problem with it - since we used coconut oil as the base for it, it became liquid at the summer temps.  Then when we put it in the fridge, it would be hard as a rock when we took it out.  We managed with this, and the salve was great.  But one day when it was in it’s liquified state, someone knocked the open container over and it all spilled out.  And that was the end of that salve. :(

So I wanted to make another salve, but decided to improve upon what we did last time - namely to improve the consistency and make it less greasy.  I decided to base this recipe on the ingredient list of the all purpose salve that I bought last year.   Going along with the premise that the first ingredients listed are used more heavily, I weighted the herbs I included accordingly. The basic formula for a salve that I used is 3 T. herbs, 2 c. of oil, and 1 1/2 oz beeswax. (Note - in my opinion this isn’t enough beeswax.)

I chose the following herbs: comfrey - 1 oz, plantain - 1 oz., echinacea leaves -.5 oz., yarrow  - .5 oz, and a few olive leaves thrown in for kicks.  :)  I made four times the recipe above.  I simmered the herbs in oil for a couple of hours, then strained them out.  That gives you herbal infused oil.  Then you mix the beeswax into the infused oil.  I used pastilles (tiny little beeswax balls) that I bought for this purpose. 

(A little off topic, but I ended up buying a huge amount of beeswax - I was going to buy a pound but saw that after shipping, it was $15.  And for $35 I was able to buy eight pounds including shipping from a different site - I had a frugal struggle with myself, trying to decide if it was better to spend less money or to get substantially more for my money - and now I  have enough beeswax for the rest of my life.  I think I’ll have to find a new hobby to use it up or my greatgrandchildren will be making herbal salves to take home with them when they visit me!)

The beeswax didn’t mix in well the first time I melted it - it melted but solidified in a layer on top of the oil.  When the pot with all its ingredients were remelted, it mixed in nicely - I don’t know why it needed a second melting.  After the mixture cools, you can decide if it’s the consistency you like.  If it’s too loose, add some more wax; if it’s too thick, add some more oil.  I wanted it a little firmer so I added about another 3/4 cup of pastilles (it was late and I didn’t feel like measuring it exactly), and remelted the whole batch another two times so it could be mixed in.  At the end I also added the last little bit of an aromatherapy oil mix that I’ve had around for about ten years from my doula days. 

This morning my ds16 put all of the salve into jars - we now have about eight cups of salve.  (After he put it into the jars, he told me he thinks we should add a little more beeswax to make it firmer.  I told him that suggestion would have been more useful before he put everything in jars!  But it can be remelted and the wax added if I want to do that.)  I ordered different sized tins to package this in, but they haven’t yet arrived, which is why it’s all been transferred to glass jars.   I made a very large amount because I want to give this as gifts for Chanuka, but the basic recipe above will give you a nice amount.  It’s the kind of salve that most people would find valuable to have around, and to buy a 4 oz can of a similar salve would be about $17.  Using that as a baseline price, ds16 calculated the retail value for what we made to be $271!  It was a fraction of that to make it ourselves.

We tried it out first thing today - our cat got a bad cut on his foot sometime during the early morning, deep enough to see the bone.  So dd8 doctored him up (yes, my eight year old daughter does what I’m too squeamish to do :)).  He licked off the first salve she applied, and kicked off the strip of cotton that she tried to tie it on with, but she applied another thick layer and he left it on.  Even though he was clearly in pain, he seemed to appreciate her putting it on.  This should significantly accelerate the healing.

This salve is good for all kinds of cuts, abrasions, bug bites, itching, and diaper rash.  Good for kids, adults, or even pets.  Very useful stuff!

Avivah

At the end of last week a couple of the kids pulled up the tomato plants (at my request) and picked all the green tomatoes.  So because I didn’t want them to go to waste, last night I made six quarts of pickled green tomatoes and 2.5 quarts of green tomato salsa.  I bought a few large bags of organic red corn chips last week that will go nicely with the salsa for a yom tov snack.  And the kids tasted the pickled tomatoes tonight and gave them a thumbs up.

Then yesterday my wonderful children put the sukka together, and I asked them to plant some seeds for me - but they went on to plant a bunch more than that!  They planted swiss chard, spinach, mache, lettuces, turnips, beets, rutabagas, and snow peas.  Since we all got so much done yesterday, I decided to treat everyone to a trip to the science center this morning, where we spent several hours and had a great time!

>>Your blog is wonderful and so helpful. I was looking to place my first order at Mountain Rose Herbs (perhaps tomorrow) and I recall you wrote somewhere that your midwife had a special mixture of herbs she told you to take postpartum to avoid the discomfort (pain) after the birth. Is there any chance I could have the “recipe” and how it’s prepared/taken?<<

As far as the recipe for minimizing afterbirth cramping, it’s a brew of Chinese herbs that this herbalist created for her clients.  I’d also love to know the recipe, but it seems to be a trade secret! 

>>Besides elderberry, is there anything else you advise getting or having on hand for general purposes?<<

What kind of herbs will be most useful will depend on what you foresee needing them for.  I started off using herbs by taking a blend of several for pregnancy and then I added on as they appealed to me.  I can’t claim that I was incredibly systematic about it - I got the herbs that seemed to have properties I felt would be valuable.  But it’s worked out pretty well since I’ve had on hand the herbs I’ve needed for the most part.  I have a couple I haven’t really done much with yet, though.  Before making an order, it’s best to have some idea of what it does as well as how you plan to use it.

The easiest to include in your collection are the food herbs, like cinnamon, mustard, ginger, cayenne, garlic, tumeric - I get those in the grocery store in the largest containers I can fine.  I have several I’ve harvested from my garden or yard - burdock (blood purifier), plantain (skin issues), fennel (digestive aid), and sage (colds).   Then when I bought herbs, I got several that are natural antibiotics - echinacea, yarrow, and olive leaf.  Comfrey is for contact healing of cuts - I think it’s a must have.  I have pau d’arco for yeast issues (never used this but it seemed like a good thing!), spearmint for digestion, mullein and lobelia for upper respiratory infections.  Then there are herbs like chamomile for calming. 

So the question is, what do you see as being the issues you want to deal with?  If for example, I had restless sleepers or issues of depression, I’d need different herbs than what I have.  I decided this winter to prepare remedies to address the following: flu, colds, upper respiratory distress, ear pain, cough syrup, digestive issues, and a basic first aid salve.  So I’ve made  elderberry syrup (colds and flus) and tonight finished the , echinacea glycerite (colds).  I plan to make ginger syrup for sore stomachs or indigestion (in addition to having fennel and spearmint, as well as peppermint oil), mullein oil for ear pain (this is something we rarely experience - I’m not even sure why I’m preparing it except it seems to be worth having just in case) and am astragulus and wormwood for a couple of other remedies.  I have a first aid salve simmering on the stove right now, my own creation. :)  I’m also planning to make a muscle cream and got arnica flowers and St. John’s wort for that.

So for me at this stage (remember, I’m relatively new herbal healing), the most important herbs would be: echinacea root and leaves, elderberries, mullein, lobelia, comfrey, yarrow, plantain, and licorice root.  For anything else I think I could manage with whatever is in my spice cabinet, garlic, apple cider vinegar, and good nutrition!  

Avivah

Last night I made my first batch of elderberry syrup.  It is filled with antioxidants and is good for preventing colds or treating them, depending when you take it.  I bought dried elderberries online, but if you are able to pick them fresh locally, all the better!  Here’s how simple it is to make:

Elderberry syrup

• 1/2 c. dried elderberries (or 1 c. fresh)
• 1 cinnamon stick (optional)
• 3 c. water
• 1 c. honey

Put the berries in a pot and cover with water.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cover.  Let simmer for 30 - 45 minutes.  Mash the berries with a potato masher, and strain through a fine strainer.  Add honey while liquid is hot, stir, and bottle.  Keep in the fridge - should last 2 - 3 months when refrigerated.

I made four times this recipe and I ended up with three full quarts plus one 16 oz honey jar. I forgot to mash the berries, but since they were dried to start with, I think this was probably less important than when using fresh berries.  I added the cinnamon sticks because they taste good, but also because cinnamon kills bacteria and is great for fighting infections.   I used crystallized honey that was sitting around not being used because the kids said it doesn’t taste as good when it’s crystallized.

Here’s a breakdown of the cost to make it: I bought the dried elderberries for 7.95 lb, and used 2/3 of that (wanted to save some to tincture), so the berries were $5.30.  I used three cups of honey, and if I figured the cost correctly, each cup was $3.33 cup.  That seems high to me (I thought I paid about 2.50 per cup, less when I recently bought small 16 oz containers for 1.99 each), but I based it on googling how many cups of honey are in a gallon (supposedly nine); I buy a gallon/twelve pound container for $30.  So the honey was $10.  I’ll add in .14 for the cinnamon sticks, since I got a container that had thirteen sticks in it for .88 so each stick rounds up to .07.  The total for 12.5 cups of elderberry syrup came out to 15.44.  

When you consider 4 fl. oz of Sambucol costs around $12.99, or to use their cheaper price for a larger bottle, 7.8 oz is $21.99, that’s a real bargain! Elderberry syrup from Mountain Rose Herbs is similarly priced with a 4 oz bottle being $13.25.  To put it further into perspective, 4 oz is about a quarter of a cup and 8 oz is half a cup - so I’m getting about thirty five times as much for the same price (my price for 1/4 c. is .31; 1/2 c. is .62).

Because this has a limited shelf life and I don’t want to use up my fridge space hosting three quart sized jars for months, for immediate use I kept one quart plus the little honey jar, and canned the other two quarts so I can keep them on a shelf out of the fridge.

This can be given when a child is showing signs of the cold or a flu, a tablespoon every hour or two, or you can give them a teaspoon each morning as a general immune strengthener.  This could easily be added to tea or (if you let the water boil down more so the final result is thicker) poured on top of pancakes or waffles.  Getting kids to have some of this isn’t hard at all.  This morning we gave the younger kids who aren’t fasting a teaspoon each, and a minute after ds3 got his spoonful, he came back holding out a cup and asked for a cupful!

Avivah

Last week a couple of people asked me what I’m doing to prepare for the upcoming flu season, particularly regarding swine flu.  The first thing I told them is, I’m absolutely not getting a shot for it!  

I try to operate from a proactive and holistic perspective, so while shots (particularly these for the swine flu, which are highly experimental and untested - and in the last wave of swine flu, more people died from the shot than the flu) aren’t anything I would recommend for anyone, there are a few things that I’m planning to do.  Most of these are things to prepare for any kind of winter sickness, not just the flu.

Firstly, I’d like to can up a bunch of chicken broth so I can quickly pull some off the shelf and have a sniffly child eating it within a few minutes.

Next, I just noticed that I have almost no vitamin C powder left.  I can’t believe that it’s all finished since I bought four pounds less than a year ago.  But I’ll order another 2.2 pounds of sodium ascorbate from Bronson Lab.   

Next, I’m going to order some dried elderberries so I can make elderberry syrup.  Elderberry is the thing to have for the flu - it’s a key ingredient in preparations like Sambucol.  (The Latin name of elderberry is Sambucus nigra - you see where Sambucol gets its name, right?)  I tried to order some a few months ago but they were sold out at the place I get my herbs, so I’ll get some with my next order.

Next, I’m going to make an echinacea glycerite.  Echinacea is an infection fighter and a natural antibiotic.  I want to make a glycerite versus a tincture since a tincture uses alcohol, while a glycerite uses glycerine; the alcohol tincture isn’t as appealing for kids as the sweet glycerites.  (This isn’t for the flu, because of the cytokine storm issue.) 

I also plan to buy kosher glycerin capsules and a capping tool so I can fill my own capsules.  There are several powdered spices that I buy in the food section in a large container, knowing that they are helpful medicinally, too.  Some of these include: ginger, cinnamon, tumeric, and garlic.  It’s not practical to eat a large amount of them, but if I can put them into capsules, it would be easy to give a child feeling queasy, for example, a ginger pill.

We already have a stock of vitamin D, which is effective in small amounts as a flu preventative, and in extremely high amounts, is a curative.  We aren’t taking it daily at this point.  We got this specifically with swine flu in mind. 

There’s a homeopathic remedy called oscillococcinum for the flu - the local health food store didn’t have any when I checked in the spring, but it looks like I can order it online.  Another item I’d like to have on hand. 

Something I did for my personal health today was to start a lobelia glycerite and a mullein glycerite brewing.  Last winter I shared how some doses of mullein and lobelia tea ended my asthma symptoms.  But since the camping trip a week ago, they suddenly resurfaced and I’m having a hard time breathing throughout the day and particularly at night.  Hopefully this will help.  (I’d appreciate any prayers coming this way - Avivah bas Feigel Rochel - I’m getting pretty worn down by the effort of breathing.)

Since most people who die of the flu actually die of dehydration, I have several recipes in my notebook for homemade rehydration formulas.  This came in handy a few weeks ago when dd8 was playing all Shabbos long but not drinking much, and suddenly began vomiting repeatedly.  She couldn’t keep any liquid down, but the rehydration formula was great and I was very glad I had it since it saved us a trip to the emergency room. 

A suggestion in an entirely different direction is to stay out of public areas as much as possible.  Another suggestion along these lines is to have enough basic food supplies on hand so that if you get sick, you won’t need to run to the store.

As I wrote last year on the topic of boosting immune function for kids, try to keep white sugar and processed foods out of your diets as much as possible, since they bring down your immunity.  While eating a good diet doesn’t guarantee an absence of illness, the better your diet is, the healthier you’ll be.  

 Avivah

A couple of days ago I was at the local kosher supermarket and was very pleasantly surprised to find that they have a new offering - grass fed raw cow’s milk cheddar cheese!  After looking at the price, I went back and forth with myself for a few minutes as to if I should buy some, because it was very expensive - 12.99 lb! 

On one hand, it was waaaay more than I usually pay for cheese.  On the other hand, this is the kind of cheese I really would want my family to eat.  Additionally, I want to support products like these so the management realizes there’s a market for them and brings in more of them.  So though my budget doesn’t allow for me to totally start buying this in place of the regular cheese we use, I decided to buy a couple of small packages to show my support.

If you’re interested in finding out about it, the name of the company is 5 Spoke Creamery (www.5spokecreamery.com).

Avivah

>>I have a question about dfifferent brands of coconut oil and their taste.  I went to my local health food store and they had a couple of brands of coconut oil (either expeller pressed, virgin or extra-virgin).  I asked one of the sales people about the flavor and she said they are all pretty coconut flavored.  I want to make both sweet and savory foods and I cannot imagine coconut flavor going over well in a Italian or Mediterranean dish :).  Can you help with a brand that will fit that need?  I can buy a jar of the other kind for sweet foods and for skin care, etc. <<

This just goes to show that just because someone works in a health food store, they won’t necessarily have accurate knowledge of all products!  Extra virgin is the best quality and will definitely have a coconut flavor.  If it’s expeller pressed, it’s odorless and flavorless.  I use expeller pressed for most of my baking and cooking, when I don’t want a coconut flavor. 

There are apparently differences between the flavors of extra virgin coconut oils, but I’m not very sensitive to the differences.  I’m currently using Golden Barrel expeller pressed and Mountain Herbs extra virgin coconut oil, and am satisfied with them both. I’ve also used Spectrum and Omega extra virgin, and they were also both good.  If anyone would like to share their experience or preferences for certain coconut oils, please do in the comment section below - others considering using and learning about coconut oil will find it helpful!

Avivah

I did something new this week!  Okay, so that’s not so unusual, but it’s still the first time I did it! 

About two or three years ago, I soaked, sprouted, and then dehydrated the wheat in the oven.  Oh my gosh, that was so laborious and I wasn’t happy with the end product after all of that time and effort at all.  So much so that I still have some of that wheat that has yet to be used, and not because I haven’t used much wheat.  Actually, at the rate I use wheat, I’ve gone through a number of fifty pound bags since then.  Because I felt it was a lot of energy to spend on something that didn’t give me much satisfaction or seem worthwhile, I resolved to spend my scads of excess time doing something more useful.  Until this week.

Thanks to a comment made here regarding soaking nuts back when I said it hadn’t been successful for me, I tried it again at that time and then used the dehydrator to dehydrate them.  Well, that made all the difference -  the results were great and I’ve soaked and dehydrated nuts successfully a number of times since then.

Remembering that, I thought that maybe using the dehydrator to dry the sprouted wheat would work, since it was the dehydrating aspect that didn’t work well for me.  I soaked a large amount of wheat and within a day, thanks to the warm weather and my non air conditioned indoor climate, the sprouts were visible.  I was surprised at how much wheat I was able to fit on the nine trays of the dehydrator - everything I had soaked fit easily.  The wheat dried in much less time than I expected, too.  When I got the dehydrator, I never expected it to come in handy in all the ways that it has - and if I was willing to use it for meat or dairy foods, I’d really be able to expand on the possibilities!

My reason for soaking the wheat is this: there are two ways to use flour that neutralizes the phytic acid. One is by soaking the flour, the other is by sprouting the wheat.  Until now, I’ve been soaking the flour.  But sometimes I don’t remember to soak the flour for something the night before, and it would be very time efficient to be able to prepare a lot of sprouted wheat in advance, so that I’d have it ready when I needed it.  Then all I’d have to do is grind it up right when I wanted to use some.

In the past, the sprouted wheat had a different consistency than regular wheat, so I don’t think this is something that will give me the same results in baking that I’m used to.  However, for quick breads, muffins, pancakes - that’s mostly what I soak the flour for - I think it should work pretty well.  I’ll be trying it the next couple of weeks and seeing how it works out.

Avivah

>>Do you think that if I’m drinking 3/4 to 1 gal. of water a day, I’m drinking enough to provide for my newborn?<<

This is just my personal opinion but it sounds fine to me.  For years I’ve heard the recommendation to drink 8 cups of water a day, but I think a better recommendation is to drink half of your body weight in ounces.  Meaning, if you’re 120 pounds, drink at least 60 oz.  There are sixteen cups/ 128 oz in a gallon, so you sound like you’re doing great! 

If a person lives where it’s hot, is very active, or is nursing, they’ll need to increase the amount they drink. And for the immediate days before a fast, it’s also a good idea to increase your daily water intake. 

Avivah