Natural Remedy
Apples should be eaten every day, whenever they are available. The old adage, ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ is a reminder of the efficacy of apples in avoiding illness of many kinds. Apples are rich in Vitamin C and other plant chemicals such as pectin, which benefits the health by soothing mucous membranes and increasing resistance to disease.
Apples contain quercetin which is an anti-cancer component, as well as being helpful for the heart and lungs health. Quercetin , like pectin, has an anti-inflammatory action on the mucous membranes.
Apples are a healing food which have vitamin B17 laetrile in their pips, which is an anti-cancer component.
Apples are good for the teeth. They are a famous preventer or cure for constipation and colitis, and for lowering bad cholesterol in the blood. Apples are helpful for maintaining heart health and in stabilizing blood pressure. They are also thought to prevent alzheimer’s, if they are eaten regularly.
But did you know that the Lungs can benefit from apples? Asthma and bronchitis or persistent coughs can be helped by eating apples. The apple diet is not a ‘stand-alone’ treatment, but it is well worth eating a meal of apples if you have a bout of coughing. Of course, you must visit your doctor or naturopath, homeopath or ayurvedic practitioner if you have a lung problem of any kind. But do consider apples as part of your treatment.
Eating an apple desert such as the one I have listed below, or eating two grated apples raw, can relieve coughing almost immediately. I have noticed benefits to the lungs from eating both raw and cooked apple, but I think that if you have a persistent cough, or wheezing, then the cooked apple eaten warm has more benefit.
I have been using apples, both raw and cooked, to cure a chest complaint which I have had for a while. I think it was pleurisy. The cough was helped immediately I began the apple treatment, and the chest pain disappeared after several weeks of incorporating apple in my daily diet. It seems that my immune system stays strong while I continue to eat apples every day. When I relaxed the apple treatment, as well as the homeopathic, herbal (olive leaf and zinc) and vitamin supplements I have been taking, the cough came back with an inkling of the same chest pain I had had before.
I did see a doctor about this, and had an X-Ray done – just one – to see if there was any cancer on the lung. But the X-Ray showed only hyper-ventilated lungs, and, fortunately, no trace of cancer. The doctor could not help me any more that that, since I did not want to take an antibiotic.
So I pulled out all stops to do a natural cure. The apple treatment is an integral part of the programme I followed, which included various vitamins, herbal remedies, homeopathy, and abstaining from bread and wheat, with very few dairy products or sugar.
Here is a simple but delicious recipe for a stewed apple meal to help a persistent cough.
Recipe for Stewed Apple Dessert:
Grate two large apples with their skins left on. Do not peel the apples. I like granny smiths, but any apple will do.
Put your apples into a saucepan with 2 and a 1/2 cups of water.
Bring to the boil and turn the heat down. Cook gently for 5 minutes.
Turn off the heat.
Add half a cup of dates.
Add 3/4 cup of oatmeal bran, or rolled oats. I prefer the oatmeal bran, as I think it has more nutrients than standard oatmeal.
Stir. Put the lid on the pot and leave on the warm stove with the heat turned off.
Wait for five minutes, then serve. Put either a knob of butter on top of the apple dessert, or a tablespoonful of olive oil.
If you have a sudden attack of coughing, then take the apple desert on its own as a meal. Eat a large bowl of it. Make sure you use some of the pips of the apple in the dessert, as these contain valuable healing nutrients, such as laetrile, or vitamin B17, also known as amygdalin. And do keep the skins on the apple. Healing components such as pectin and potassium have a high concentration in the skin of the apple. So make sure to use that skin. If you grate the apples, then the skin is easy to eat once the apple has cooked.
Thanks for the interesting and helpful article. I always feel like I need at least 2 apples a day just to maintain health.
Have you tried lobelia for lung problems? It’s a Native American plant, and is incredibly healing to the lungs and also antispasmodic. I used it to recover from chronic pneumonia and always keep it around in case I have a relapse. There are also many good chinese traditional herb OTC patent medicines, like Pinellia Tea Pills, which is fantastic for phlegm and asthma.
Loved your article on iodine for hair growth as well. It’s been oddly maligned in the US, and now we have thousands of depressed overweight people who have no idea they’re hypothyroid. If so, they are only prescribed synthroid or antidepressants which is a shame.
Nice to find your blog.
-Elisa
Thanks Elisa. Good to have the feedback, and good to have your herbal tips too. I have heard that Lobelia is useful for lung complaints, but I haven’t actually tried that one myself.
I am totally recovered now, but next bout of flu or bronchitis I get, I will give Lobelia a ‘go’. I found that the olive leaf zinc compound, as well as NZ bush honey, ginger, red paprika, Vitamins C, A, B and D, plus homeopathic remedies all fixed the problem, though it did take a while to get fully better.
My bronchial complaint and chest pain actually coincided with my son getting ill with cancer, which he also had inside his chest. I have just got better since he had his operation two months ago, which I think is interesting. I believe that I vicariously took on some of his ills, and that through my efforts to rid myself of the trouble, I have probably helped him too, in some small way.
Interesting about your comment on all the depressed overweight people with hypothyroid problems in the US. As you say, if only they knew about iodine and the other minerals which they are probably deficient of, then they would not need to take all those antidepressants. It’s so good we are sharing this information – it might just inspire some of these people to explore the alternatives to medication – alternatives which will give them real health back, and not just mask the unpleasant symptoms which often are a sign of deficiency disease.
Thanks again. Much appreciated.
Kind Regards,
Merrilyn.
Wow, you read my mind about many things here. I can see why your lung protocol worked so well, it has some fantastic things in it, and I think nz bush honey must be wonderfully healing. Raw honey is so hard to find here unless you’re a beekeeper. I’ve never heard of red oaorujam though, what is it? Sounds so exotic!
That’s the thing I love about herbal (or just natural) medicine- the fact that you always have so many options. In conventional medicine, there’s always this idea that there must be only one empirical cure for any illness (a chemical drug of course) that invalidates all the other possibilities. The pyramidic Western way of thinking.
I think you are right about your illness being related to your son’s illness- I have read that in some cultures (chinese medicine?) the lungs are connected to the emotion of grief. My preumonias started right when there were a lot of deaths in my life, and continued for about 5 years. I was in the hospital, treated with antibiotics which didn’t cure me, and wound up learning about lobelia when I called a friend who had an old medical encyclopedia from the 1930’s. He looked up pneumonia while I was on the phone & said all the recommendations included lobelia,
I got Nature’s Way lobelia caps and took only 1-2 a day for months until it was gone, and did the same over the years whenever I felt that heaviness in the lungs again. But also I went to a Chinese medicine clinic which has a small pharmacy, and got some great lung formulas there too. You might have some of those in NZ, especially if you have a Chinatown.
Here’s a link for the lobelia- don’t know if they ship to NZ but it’s a pretty major brand here:
http://www.iherb.com/product-reviews/Nature-s-Way-Lobelia-Herb-425-mg-100-Capsules/1910/?p=4&sr=5
That top review is absolutely correct- it’s great for people who want to stop smoking- the American Indians used to smoke it for lung problems, I think it was also called Indian tobacco. It acts as a systemic antispasmodic and seems to help a lot of other herbs work better.
I’m also a big fan of zinc- I think the 3 major “horsemen of the apocalypse” as I call them are: Magnesium, chromium and zinc. They are missing from crops now due to bad soil management in factory farming, and their absence has to be a big part of the obesity “epidemic” here. Chromium picolinate has reversed many cases of diabetes, which is increasingly seen by informed physicians (the minority) now as a chromium deficiency. Magnesium loss is exacerbated by doctors forcing huge doses of calcium on women “for their bones” which is totally ignorant. Our reproductive endocrine glands depend on and use more zinc than any other part of the body.
I’ve heard a lot about olive leaf, oregano oil and colloidal silver for killing viruses, but haven’t tried them yet. Hope your son’s recovery is going well, sounds like it is.
Yes, iodine has had a bizarre smear campaign here, but that’s sadly routine for the most effective natural meds. Drug companies cook up “studies” & scandals to discredit them if they compete with a profitable drug, and are threatening to become popular, and then force supplement companies to add unwarranted warnings to their labels.
Anyway, really nice to meet you, and forgive my lengthy reply!
all my best,
Elisa
Hi Elisa – Thanks so much for sharing all that extra information. What a wonderful letter!
Interesting that you had lung trouble when you had so many deaths in the family. I thought that it was interesting that I ‘took on’ the chest pain etc, etc, even before I knew that my son was sick. I was feeling a deep sorrow from someone close to me – pendulum said it was him – but we didn’t know about his chest tumour until after the operation. This pain was intense at times, and went on for months, well before I finally got the flu – but nothing showed up on X-Rays, and there were no alarming chest noises for the doctor to listen to. ( I don’t go along with X-Rays, but did these just to establish the state of my lungs)
Anyhow – I am fully better now, and I feel sure that he has recovered as well.
I think the experience shows the power of emotional and psychic connections. There is just so much more going on out there in the ether than what we can ever perceive. “Thoughts have Wings”.
Yes – about that bush honey – This is wonderful stuff, if you can get it. I used to have a couple of hives of my own years ago, when my children and I were lucky enough to own our own little house on Waiheke Island. Actually, I first got these two hives when I was living in the city, before we moved to Waiheke – I got away with it because we had a house on a big park, and lived at the end of the street. These bees were marvellous. Well, one hive was marvellous, and used to let me take the honey with barely a little whiff of smoke. The other one was an angry one who wouldn’t let any of us within about 20 feet of it. That was around 20 years ago now, and I haven’t had hives since that time.
So – I was very lucky to be invited to my cousins’ farm recently, down in the Karangahake Gorge area, in a little town called Waikino.
This was a wonderful little holiday for me, with us all going out to a fab restaurant up at ‘The Falls’ to celebrate a friend’s birthday. And the honey – They gave me two big jars of dark honey which I have used every day since coming home. What lovely generous people they are. A week later, I was totally recovered from the last traces of that bronchitis.
Thanks for your reminders about minerals – great stuff for readers to learn from.
Best Wishes,
Merrilyn.