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Page 42
| When I first made the garlic-ginger syrup, I seasoned it with tobasco sauce and left it buried in the ground for four months, a variation on the guru's recipe. Something definitely happened to change the ingredients; fermentation and the passage of time produced a stunning blend of flavors. In fact, my husband used it to season his stir-fried rice. When a friend had a cold that wouldn't go away, complete with a hacking cough that left his throat raw, we gave him an 8-ounce bottle. Taking a swig every half hour, he finished the bottle in one night. By morning, his cold had disappeared without a trace. Even his sore throat felt fine. Warning: the garlic odor is overwhelming, but when you really want to feel better, that doesn't matter. |
| If you don't have four months or even 17 days to spare, you can get relief from the same ingredients in other ways. The fresh juices of garlic and ginger combined with honey and cayenne will help chase away just about any viral infection, and so will garlic in foods, ginger in tea and cayenne pepper capsules. Ginger and cayenne are warming, stimulant herbs. They work well in combination with other herbs and can be added to any treatment involving capsules, tinctures and/or teas. |
| For additional cough relief suggestions, see pages 4344. |
| To treat the sinus congestion that accompanies colds and flu, see the instructions for nasal rinsing, facial steam treatments and ginger fomentations on pages 47, 48 and 58. |
| To relieve a sore throat, see page 49. |
| To treat chest congestion, see the directions for making a mustard plaster and mustard bath on page 77. You can also combine congestion-clearing essential oils with a carrier oil such as olive or almond oil to make a soothing chest balm. Peppermint, eucalyptus, tea tree, wintergreen, cinnamon and clove oils all work well for this purpose. Be sure to dilute these essential oils in a carrier oil before applying them to the skin, for full strength oils can cause irritation or blisters. |
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