By Mary Harvey
Editor’s note: Mary and her husband Richard are newcomers to our area. Having chatted with her briefly, I asked that she write a monthly column, which we are calling ‘Food for Thought.’
We are right in the middle of Holiday Season. We started with Halloween, moved on to Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and then many of us end up with the Big Bang of “the flu season.”
Many years ago my husband and I noticed our backs went out every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We barely made it to New Year’s Eve (our wedding day), and I was quite sick with the flu.
Have you ever wondered why half your work place get the flu and half don’t? It’s because half the group has a strong immune system and half don’t. Science has proven that after consuming sugar, alcohol, even too much fruit, your white blood cells actually go to sleep. They stop moving around in our blood and cease grabbing bacteria and viruses that make us sick.
After three months of consuming sugar (Oct – Dec) our immune cells are not functioning properly. Then, opportunistic bacteria and viruses take over. Here comes the flu with fever (your body’s response to kill germs), a runny nose (your body trying to detox), aches and pains (from inflammation), depression and low energy. We’ve eaten our way to the flu.
So what’s the solution? If it’s too late and you’ve gone over the Holiday food cliff, the time has come for some self care:
A) Hot epsom salt and baking soda baths. (1 qt. Epsom salts to 1 medium box of baking soda and soak for 1/2 hr. before bed.) It will relax you and help to alkalize your body (critters don’t like an alkaline environment)
B) Take Grandma’s secret remedy.– half to full teaspoon baking soda in one cup hot water with lemon before bed. Drink lots of clean high PH Water. Two quarts a day is good. Better yet if you can cut down on your consumption and eat the way our grandparents did: Use whole grains(sprouted is better) (Einkorn is an ancient grain and is very low gluten) for baking.
C) Use Almond and coconut flours; raw honey and pure Stevia; molasses (NO FRUCTOSE OR CORN SYRUP)
D) Serve mixed organic nuts and dried figs, dates, apricots. Use interesting fresh fruit arrangements. I found some interesting fruits at Harris Teeter In New Bern. Dragon Fruit. Kiwi’s, Chirimoya’s. Think Veggie plates and dips.
E) Go on line and order sugar-free chocolate; or, if you want to experiment, buy Cacao powder and mix together with melted coconut butter. Be creative: add shredded coconut, chopped dried fruit, kosher or Celtic salt, nuts, cayenne pepper, and stevia. Put it in the freezer and serve frozen. You You can buy chocolate molds on line. The Einkorn sprouted flour mentioned above can be purchased at Amazon or at other online places. Be a healthy Grinch this year, serving healthy treats for the Holiday!
