The common uses of chamomile are to to treat:

• fever
• restlessness
• sleeplessness
• anxiety
• tummy ache
• pink eye
• skin irritations

Chamomile is prepared as a tea, whether it’s to be used internally or topically.  I use 1 tablespoon per cup of just boiled water.  Let the chamomile teep while covered for about 10 minutes.  Let it cool to a comfortable temperature and drink, or use a clean cloth to apply to skin.  A cooled tea bag can be placed directly on the closed on as a very effective compress in the treatment of pink eye.

No remedy will work if your child won’t take it.  Chamomile has a mild pleasant flavor that my daughter likes.  If your child is not convinced, you can experiment with adding flavors you know they like.  Some kids love lemon, try adding a squeeze, as long as you aren’t using the chamomile for an upset tummy.  You can add a bit of honey (as long as your child is over one year old, check with your doctor).  You can also add juice to your tea, cranberry would be a great addition for urinary tract irritation.

However, not all vinegars are created equally.  Be sure and look for organic, unpasteurized, unfiltered,  apple cider vinegar.  Apple cider vinegar is a fermented food made from apples with at least 4 percent acidity.  All on its own, it’s a yummy elixir of vitamins, minerals and amino acids.

How can we make vinegar even better?  Simple, just add herbs.  Vinegar is a very effective agent used to extract the minerals from herbs.  It works much better than water for this purpose.  I remember doing an “experiment” in science class in elementary school, you probably did it, too.  We put a chicken bone in vinegar and left it for a few weeks.   The bone was like rubber when we took it out.  That’s because the vinegar leached the minerals out of the bone. Guess where they went.  Into the vinegar, of course!  Herbal cider vinegar is a much tastier way to get extra vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin C.

To make an herbal vinegar, fill a jar with fresh, chopped plant material.  Cover the herb with completely with your cider vinegar and close with a non-metalic lid.  You can buy plastic lids that fit canning jars.  The vinegar will react with the metal and cause corrosion and bad taste.  Let your herbal vinegar infuse.  Shake it up a few times a week.  In six weeks your vinegar will be ready to use.  I am almost never successful in leaving it for the full six weeks.  I at least have to taste it sooner!  You can strain it, or just use the “pickled herbs” in salads and greens along with the vinegar.

My favorite herbal vinegar is rose vinegar.  I usually use a combination of wild and domestic roses.  Make sure you don’t use roses that have been sprayed with chemical pesticides.  Collect healthy fresh leaves and flowers, no brown spots or mold.  Roses are high in vitamin C.   I don’t buy vitamin C tablets, I just add my yummy rose vinegar to salads, greens, marinades and more.  You can also take a “dose” by tablespoon, it tastes great.  Skip the chicken bone and try these nutritious herbs/weeds/flowers:

• Lambs Quarters (leaves, seeds)
• Violet (leaves, flowers)
• Dandelion (leaves, flowers, roots)
• Stinging nettles (leaves)
• Wild Onions
• Plantain (leaves, seeds)
• Red Clover (flowers, leaves)

You can, of course, mix and match, and feel free to add “traditional herbs,” such as rosemary, thyme and lavender.  Remember, with aromatics, a little will go a long way in flavoring your vinegar.

Try it, you’ll love it.  It’s so good for you!  Leave a comment with any questions and let me know how your vinegar turns out.

I bought these tomatoes from the woman who grew them, she picked them this morning.

My mother is probably still surprised that I have spent most of my adult life abstaining from meat.  I love fresh vegetables, though it wasn’t always the case, particularly with green beans.  I vividly remember sitting in my chair at the dinner table steadfastly refusing to eat the canned green beans sitting untouched on my plate.  The truth is, you still couldn’t get me to eat tinned green beans, but fresh is wonderful!  I have no problems getting Anja to eat most freshly prepared vegetables.  We’ll be having these for dinner later.

My mother is probably still surprised that I have spent most of my adult life abstaining from meat.  I love fresh vegetables, though it wasn’t always the case, particularly with green beans.  I vividly remember sitting in my chair at the dinner table steadfastly refusing to eat the canned green beans sitting untouched on my plate.  The truth is, you still couldn’t get me to eat tinned green beans, but fresh is wonderful!

And eating healthy doesn’t mean leaving out dessert.  Blackberries are fabulous summer treat.  They are loaded with antioxidants.

I see this problem particularly when I talk to people about health.  They come to me in real life and on the Internet and tell me about some ailment.  I always try and give helpful advice according to the level at which I believe the person is receptive.  More often than not, people immediately tell my why they can’t do what I suggested.  I’ve been pondering this for sometime.  I’ve been trying to keep the focus on myself and wondering how I can frame better health in ways that will be more appealing.

Nobody wants to be sick or in pain.  But sometimes when all I suggest is a little cup of tea, well, that’s too much to ask.  It really doesn’t hurt my feelings if you don’t like my tea.  But I would like to help people feel better.  Let’s keep it simple and take action today!

Here are Three Simple Things You Should Stop Doing Today:

1.  Stop taking Tylenol and other over the counter meds with acetiminiphin.  This stuff is seriously bad for your liver.  Your liver has the very important headlining role of toxin elimination, help it, don’t hurt it.

2.  Stop eating sugar.  It’s linked to so many serious health issues.

3.  Avoid environmental toxins…as best you can.  I admit, this is a broad one.  Eat organic foods when at all possible, avoid toxic household cleaners and don’t use chemical laden person care products (did you know your shampoo has anti-freeze in it?)  Oh yeah, after you stop eating sugar, please stop smoking. 

Any progress that you can make in any one of these areas today, will help.  Just take action.

Sinus congestion can range from annoying to extremely painful.  There are over the counter medications that will alleviate sinus congestion, but I don’t like the side effects and risks.

This is an amazing trick that has never failed to work for me or the people for whom I’ve recommended it.  You need two pans, buckets or other containers suitable for a foot bath.  Fill one with cold water, you can even add a few ice cubes.  Fill the other with hot water, as hot as you can stand to soak in.  Then alternate, start with your feet in the cold bath, for at least two minutes.  Then, move your feet immediately to the hot bath, try for five minutes.  Repeat.  After just a couple of cycles your sinuses will open up and start flowing.

Don’t detatch from your body because it’s not behaving the way you think it should.  Listen to your body.  Many people think that the goal of meditation is to get out of our bodies.  I find that I’m much more aware and conneted with my body when I meditate.  Be present to what your body is telling you.  If you are engaged in physical activity and feel pain, many times a simple adjustment in posture or alignment can alleviate the pain immediately.

In addition to meditation, I have found that dance is a powerful way to connect and be present to my body.  I most often think of dance as a joyful expression, and it is fun and joyful to dance!  But it is a tool you can use to express any emotion, including pain, grief and sorrow.  Too often we don’t have a way to express our deepest emotions, this sets us up for a lifetime of repeated dysfunctional behavior as our subconcious struggles to deal with the stuck emotions. 

Dance is a primal expression, you don’t have to find the right word or person to hear it.  I like to go outside at night (I don’t want to worry about the neighbors watching), with or without music and I just start moving.  Sometimes it’s rythmic, sometimes erratic.  Sometimes there are big movements and sometimes they are so small, I’m barely moving.  I imagine going deep inside and finding whatever is there and letting it out, giving it to the earth.  The Earth is powerful enough to take whatever we are ready to release and neutralize it.  This makes room for healing…and wellness.

First, when I shopped for produce, I avoided the Dirty Dozen:

• Celery
• Peaches
• Strawberries
• Apples
• Domestic blueberries
• Nectarines
• Sweet bell peppers
• Spinach, kale and collard greens
• Cherries
• Potatoes
• Imported grapes
• Lettuce

Additionally, I always avoid non-organic carrots.  In some Asian countries carrots are planted to draw the toxins out of the soil to make it suitable for planting.

So, what can you eat?  These are relatively safe non-organic produce.  You might want to  take note of the thick skins that many of these  have.  You can help guide you when you are limited to choices not on this list.

There aren’t a lot of organic produce choices at Wal-Mart, so we stuck with avocados, mangos, pineapple and watermelon.  I was also pleasantly surprised to find organic peanut butter, which paired with honey and whole grain bread, made Anja’s favorite sandwich.  I also found organic pasta and sauce.

I won’t be passing up the famer’s market to go shopping at the Wal-Mart on Saturday, but we did survive our trip.

Plantain is great first aid for bee stings, mosquito bites, scrapes or any skin irritation.  Plantain will also help draw out splinters.  The easiest way to apply it is to make a spit poultice.  Just pick some leaves (that you are certain aren’t sprayed with chemicals, or pottied on by dogs) and pop them into your mouth and chew.  Put the wet (try to include as much “juice” as you can) onto the affected area.  You can cover with a bandaid if you have one.  It’s amazing how rapidly healing progresses with a little help from plantain.

Tea can be made from plantain leaves and drunk to soothe throat irritation, a nagging cough or urinary tract irritation.

If you look for plantain the next time you have a sting, bite or splinter, just look around and you will surely find her waiting to help.

When it’s small, you can remove the entire plant from unwanted places and eat the chopped leaves and stems as you would any cooked green.  Young leaves can be added to salads.  You can allow other plants to grow and continue to harvest the leaves through fall.  They can get quite large.  I had one that was over 5 feet tall and probably 4 feet wide last year. 

The flavor is very mild and goes well with a variety of foods.  One of my favorites is fried potatoes (really they’re more sauteed, but I’m from Missouri and we call them fried) with onions and lamb’s quarter.  Boil the potatoes a little, you don’t want them to be soft.  Heat an iron skillet (I always try to cook in iron) add butter or olive oil, add diced onion and sliced potatoes.  You’ll be cooking these until they start to get brown.  Add the lamb’s quarter toward the end (cooking time will depend on the age and tenderness of your greens). 

The seeds are also very nutritious.  They can be harvested later in the year.  I like to wait until they dry on the plant.  Use them anywhere you would use flax seed.

You may have noticed that I’ve slipped in a plant most people might not consider an “herb.”  It’s my goal to open up people’s definitions a bit…herb, weed, food…what’s the difference?  The foundation of my herbalism practice is nutrition, this includes the food that I eat and the herbs that I use as supplements.