With the weather changing, it’s crazy to say, but it is time to start planning that home apothecary prep!! Some things we just keep on hand for loose leaf teas. Some though we will be keeping on hand to have ready for the first sign of anyone being sick. There are different herbal remedies that you can use through out the winter and these are the staple items that you will see most people talk about for the winter months. So let’s talk about what we personally keep on hand!
Elderberry syrup is probably our one big go to remedy that we keep in the house all winter long. This is something you can easily mix up on your own in your house or you can easily outsource it. If you choose to outsource your elderberry syrup, I recommend trying to keep with a local source as they will most likely use locally sourced items to make it. The biggest thing you want is for the honey in elderberry syrup to be local as local honey to you is one of the best healing elements. Local honey helps you to be exposed to your local allergens in a small dose and it helps you build your immune system to the local pollens around your house. When making this on your own, I do also recommend you use local honey in this as well. Look on the label for it to say the location it was made in and make sure it is close to your home. Now the benefits of Elderberry Syrup:
-May help with seasonal allergy symptoms
-May soother sore throats
-may help to loosen and excrete mucous
-Rich Source of B Vitamins
Garlic Fermented in Honey is another great tool to have made ahead of time for when you have head colds and sore throats. This is something that you will want to do about a month in advance. So starting this right now would be best or if you take your kids to public school, you may want to start this back in July. I would honestly recommend you start the more natural remedies in July for public school settings. For us homeschoolers, we can get away with waiting until closer to the fall months to make these items as we are not exposed as much. Thankfully Elderberry is something that you can quick fix and start taking right away. Then you and switch to adding this into the mix for when you actually feel the head cold and sore throat come on.
Fire Cider is another wonderful concoction made of many ingredients that you need to let sit for a few weeks before you can use it. There are a few different varying recipes so with this I won’t go too crazy far into this one as each recipe has different benefits because of the ingredients added into the mix. But it is also another wonderful treatment for when you are already feeling sick and need to kick the chest cold, sore throat and head cold. This one will take about a month for you to mix everything together and then let it sit to do its job. Follow your recipes directions for how often you may need to lightly shake the jar.
Homemade Cough Drops are another wonderful addition into the mix. Now I am going to be honest and say, I have not made these myself. I have see them in passing but these are not something that I actually have a huge knowledge in. So I am just adding this as an idea for you all to try out and see if they work for your family. I personally would like to try them out myself but that just hasn’t happened just yet.
Loose Leaf Tea is going to be the best tool possible. Did you know at the first site of illness, especially with colds, you should drink at 5-7 cups of tea in a day to help push the illness out of your system. Essentially you are trying to flush the illness before it can take a hold on your system. So if you can get the tea in first, that will be the best course of action. If you can not or maybe the tea didn’t push it out of your system, then you can still drink the tea but lower it to 3-5 cups a day. One of our favorite combinations of loose leaf tea for the kids when they are starting a head cold or sore throat would have to be elderberries, mint and lemon balm. Then we sweeten it with local honey. Now not everyone is a hot tea lover in our house, so I will also make this and cool it down to an iced tea temperature so the kids will guzzle it at that point. It doesn’t always work but it does best for my son to actually drink the tea. I will say obviously working with kids to take the more natural remedy can be a tad difficult. For our house my kids struggle to drink the recommended amount of tea in a day and then get confused as to why they still feel off. It does actually help heal them faster and not allow them to have such a massive reaction but it would flow through them better if they took the recommended dose. Now like I said, we are working with kids, so I can’t complain if my kids are going to actually take some of the tea!!!!
Homemade Chicken Broth is another wonderful addition to have on hand. Now you can make this ahead of time and can it or you could save chicken frames and veggies in a bag in the freezer and pull out when you need to get the nutrients. The chicken broth and veggies will help provide nutrients to your body while also not making your body work too hard on processing food while it is also trying to use its energy to fight the sickness. You are helping your body use its energy to fight the illness and not on digestion. This can also aid in your body kicking the sickness faster than it may have originally done so. If you can not make your own or you don’t feel good enough to do so, you can go to the store and buy a nice quality chicken broth too. Do what is going to work best for you. Don’t push your body too far!
REST!!!! I can not stress this enough, Rest!!!! You need to take the time to rest your body when you can. I know we need to keep going with life and yes I fully get that but we also need the rest. So maybe you go to work and do your shift. Then we can come home and rest up and relax some. You don’t have to push non-stop during those times. The faster you rest the faster you can get back to every day life. I’m going to use a saying that I heard and now live by. “You are just pushing yourself faster to get to your next sickness.” Now mine was talking about my chronic illness but this one we can change to an every day sickness.
Wow, did I tell you enough information in this blog post?!?! I mean we could honestly go into more information too and there are actually a lot more ideas to add to your plate too but I think this is a good start. I am noticing that I can spew out a lot of information but there is a point where too much information is an issue. So let’s leave it at that. Now I do plan to make some of these for my family so I will be starting another new blog post category. Not fully sure the name of it yet but we are going to cover recipes on household cleaners and some recipes like this on what we like to make for illness! New information and recipes are on their way!!!