Five Great Herbs to Fight Colds and Flu

A common cold is always lurking somewhere, whether you live in the southern hemisphere with the winter months fast approaching, or in the northern hemisphere where the change of season can bring the occasional “spring cold”.

Five herbs, which are also very common in almost every household, can help a great deal in fighting the onset of a cold and to help get rid of the excess mucus and coughing – the most annoying symptoms of colds!

Garlic

Garlic has long been known for its beneficial action on the immune system. It is very good both for the digestive system and for the lungs and respiratory system. In the past garlic has been used for bronchial infections and tuberculosis. If you don’t like too much the taste of fresh garlic, you can buy it in capsules and it works well. However the best way to use garlic in the case of a cold is to crush a fresh clove, add some fresh grated ginger (see below), pour some boiling water, add some lemon juice and honey and have it as a tea. Taken in this way garlic is also beneficial for the sore throat which often comes with a cold. Garlic also helps in getting rid of the mucus by coughing it up.

Ginger

Ginger has many therapeutic properties. It is probably mostly known as an aid in digestion and as a relief to both morning sickness and motion sickness. It is also widely used as a treatment for muscle spasms and to help blood circulation. The use of ginger is also highly recommended in the treatment of asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory problems and it is also helpful in breaking fevers by warming the body and increasing perspiration.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon, which is generally known for its anti-inflammatory, anti-spasmodic and anti-clotting properties is also highly valued for its warming qualities and therefore effective to provide relief for a cold or a flu. You can use it as a tea mixing it with fresh ginger. High doses of cinnamon can cause a miscarriage, so use it with caution if you are pregnant.

Elder

Elder has strong antiviral properties and it is well known to help destroying intestinal worms. It is also useful in case of rheumatism and diseases of the respiratory system. A tea of elder flowers helps detoxify the body, and therefore is very beneficial for colds, flu and bronchitis. Like ginger, elder is also useful in increasing perspiration, helping in this way to detoxify the body and breaking fevers.

Thyme

Thyme has great antiseptic properties as well as being an expectorant and digestive tonic. It is highly regarded in the relief of respiratory congestion, bronchitis, asthma, cough and sore throat. It can be use as a dry herb to make a tea, or add a few drops of thyme essential oil, together with eucalyptus and peppermint essential oils in an air diffuser to help you breathe easier and give the room a healing and calming scent. As in the case of cinnamon, thyme also should be use with caution if pregnant.

Some might wonder the reason Echinacea is not in the above list. 

Echinacea has been publicized and sold all over the world by natural supplements producers as a prime natural remedy for colds. Then, all of a sudden, in 2003 and then 2005 several scholarly articles revealed the results of studies which proved that Echinacea is not really that effective in the treatment of colds and flu.

The reason for this “discovery” is quite simple. If you look at ancient uses of Echinacea, both in Old Europe as well as among many native American tribes, you will discover that Echinacea has always been used for snake, spider and insect bites which are severely swollen. The highly regarded cleansing and detoxifying properties of Echinacea are in fact extremely effective for blood poisoning. However, this has nothing to do with colds and flu, which is probably the reason why Echinacea didn’t bring any major relief with those ailments.

How to beat cancer with natural remedies

Every year around the world between 2 and 3 million people are diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer, about 132 thousands are diagnosed with a melanoma and the numbers are increasing every year due to the thinning out of the ozone layer.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says that skin cancer amounts to more than 30% of all types of cancers diagnosed every year.

An increasing number of people turns to alternative non-invasive natural therapies to treat cancer. One alternative to deal with skin cancer, but also to get rid of other types of cancers as well, is a black salve, also known as "cansema".

Black Salve is an escharotics, from the greek word which means "to burn", made of a combination of four different herbs (bloodroot, galangal, chaparral and graviola) in a solution of zinc chloride. The resulting paste, which is a very dark brown colour, when put on a spot where cancer cells are present, will go through the layer of skin to reach the cancer cells, kill and enclose the malignant cells in what looks like a black scab. The tissue surrounding the scab may look slightly inflamed with a white circle of pus around the scab. After 7 to 10 days the scab will fall off leaving a clean healthy wound where the cancer was. The wound will then quickly heal and fill up with new healthy cells in a very short time.

The success of Black Salve in treating skin cancer has also been documented in a scholarly article published in November 2001 on the journal Dermatologic Surgery by Brown, Goldstein and Birkby. In the article the three doctors present two cases in which the patients self applied the black salve on a basal cell carcinoma and on a squamous cell carcinoma. After the cancerous scabs fell off an histopathologic analysis of the wounds was conducted and no cancer cells found.


Black Salve has also been successfully used to treat other types of cancers and several testimonials can be found on several webpages, some of which I have listed below:

http://www.blacksalve.info/testimonials.html
http://blacksalveinfo.com/blog/2007/11/black-salve-bloodroot-testimonials-1.html
http://blacksalveinfo.com/testimonialbsc.htm

Warning: The TGA does not approve the sale of the Black Salve for use on people, so this product is For Animal Use Only. However the ingredients and their amount are exactly the same.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for educational purposes only; it should not be used for diagnosis or to guide treatment without the opinion of a health professional. Any reader who is concerned about his/her health should contact a licensed medical professional.

Cobbler's peg: a weedy precious gift from Mother Nature...

Have you noticed how much time we spend weeding the garden from all these "pest" plants that stubbornly keep on popping up regardless of how many sprays and powders and liquids we use in trying to get rid of them?

And, on the other hand, we stubbornly try to grow the plants that WE want and put in the soil fertilizers, growth-helping potions, cow manure and still our little plants still look struggling and not very happy?

Maybe we should stop and ponder... "Are we doing something wrong? Is this patch of land trying to tell me something?"...

The Cobbler's Peg is a perfect example... Probably everyone of us had the experience, some time or another, to get stuck in the black spiky seeds of the Bidens Pilosa (its botanical name) and trying to get rid of them from your jumper or your socks is not exactly my idea of a nice pastime!!

However, the Bidens Pilosa is actually an incredibly potent herb and its therapeutic uses have been widely known by many different cultures in South America and Africa where the Cobbler's Peg is native.

Its leaves, which have a slightly nutty flavour, can be used raw in salads, or dried and used as a tea. The sap of the plant can be used to treat burns, and crushed leaves on a wound are known to speed up blood clotting and healing. The tea is used to treat headache, stomach ulcers and diarrhea.

In recent studies (1990 and 1995) a hot water extract of Bidens Pilosa has shown to inhibit the growth of some tumors and to have some significant anti-leukemic action.

Other important properties of the Cobbler's Peg are antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory...

So, next time you set out to do some gardening, have a good look around and try to find out what weeds are pestering your beautiful garden... it might be a weedy precious gift from Mother Nature!!


If you are just starting to get to know some herbs and their uses, this book is a must! It lists some of the more common plants and it gives very useful suggestions on how to use them, in your cooking or for therapeutic purposes. It is also full of very nice illustrations which makes it really easy for the non-experts to identify quickly a plant...
A little warning: once you start knowing different plants and their properties you will find it really difficult to look at them as "weeds" again!! Happy reading and Happy Herbing!!