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10 Ways to use comfrey, a powerful healing herb

October 14, 2022

Image: 10 Ways to use comfrey, a powerful healing herb

(Natural News) Comfrey, or gum plant, is a medicinal herb that can be used as an astringent, anti-inflammatory or anti-rheumatic agent. It can also be used to treat wounds, bites, stings, rashes and other conditions. Not only does it speed up recovery on the surface level, but it also penetrates into the tissues to speed the healing of sprains, strains and even broken bones.

Comfrey is a nutrient accumulator. The roots of the comfrey plant reach far into the earth to pull up minerals, and it is known to be a good source of calcium, manganese, potassium, vitamin A and vitamin C. (Related: How to grow and use comfrey for gardening and medicine.)

Using comfrey for healing

As Oil

You can boil comfrey in a pan and heat it on low until the oil takes the color of the herbs. This will take about thirty minutes to an hour. You can then strain the herbs and bottle the oil. While it can be stored at room temperature, comfrey oil will last longer when kept in a cool place.

You can apply the oil liberally to aches, pains, and other areas when desired. Use a roller bottle to use the oil without getting your hands messy.

As Decoction

Use 1-3 teaspoons of dried comfrey root for every cup of water. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for up ten to fifteen minutes. Drink this concoction up to three times a day, or gargle it to treat infections, dry mouth, sore throat and bleeding gums.

As tea or water infusion

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Prepper medicine: How to use sage, a versatile healing herb

October 14, 2022

Image: Prepper medicine: How to use sage, a versatile healing herb

(Natural News) Sage is a flavorful herb that’s often used during Thanksgiving to season turkey and homemade stuffing.

The herb may be popular as a culinary seasoning for holiday recipes, but you also need to learn the medicinal uses of sage before SHTF. (h/t to TheSurvivalMom.com)

Sage: A versatile herb for your home garden

Sage belongs to the mint family. While there are many varieties, the one you’re probably most familiar with is the one used for cooking, Salvia officinalis.

Sage is very aromatic and using it gives your dishes an earthy, warm quality. The herb can be used fresh, dry, rubbed, and ground. (Related: 10 Ways to use comfrey, a powerful healing herb.)

While the modern use of sage usually involves savory dishes, sage has been valued for its health benefits for thousands of years.

The ancient Greeks and Chinese used varieties of sage to address different health issues. Native Americans used sage for meditation, protection and relaxation.

Common garden sage, the variety you often use for cooking, is also used for broader health purposes as recently as the late 1800s by early doctors like Physiomedicalists in the United States.

Traditionally, sage has been used to address minor discomforts like bloating and gas after eating a fatty meal to more serious health problems like typhoid fever and tuberculosis.

Sage health benefits

Sage is full of vitamins and minerals. One teaspoon (0.7 grams) of ground sage contains only two calories, 0.1 grams of fat and protein and 0.4 grams of carbs.

The same serving also contains:

  • Vitamin K –10 percent of the reference daily intake (RDI)
  • Iron – 1.1 percent of the RDI
  • Vitamin B6 – 1.1 percent of the RDI
  • Calcium – One percent of the RDI
  • Manganese – One percent of the RDI

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How To Naturally Prepare Your Body For Cold & Flu Season in 4 Easy Steps

September 18, 2020

How To Naturally Prepare Your Body For Cold & Flu Season in 4 Easy Steps

This year, cold and flu season could present all kinds of different issues with preparing your body to fight off illness. But these suggestions could help you naturally fortify your immune system even with everything else that’s going on.

How To Naturally Prepare Your Body For Cold & Flu Season in 4 Easy Steps

Having to plan for COVID around cold and flu season has certainly given us more to be concerned about in the coming months. Now is the best time to begin preparing your body to fight off illness.

In The Coronavirus Handbook, author Tess Pennington outlined some necessary points to keep your immune system as strong as possible during the time of year when you are most susceptible to illness.

It is important to emphasize that herbs cannot cure a highly contagious virus, but they can certainly help boost your immunity. Turning toward natural remedies now will give you the knowledge and skills you need to keep your family well during flu season and in the event of a pandemic flu. 

When you begin feeling that your body is run down, it is time to start actively working to boost the immune system. By doing so, you are fighting off the infection before it overtakes your body, thus, significantly reducing being prone to colds and flu. You can help give your body the edge this winter by trying the following:

  • Herbal tinctures are natural medicines that help with a variety of ailments. You can stimulate your immune system function to help shorten the physical and mental recovery periods of illnesses.
  • Herbal teas that boost and even fortify your immune system during cold and flu season. Finding teas that have bioactive ingredients like echinacea, yarrow, lemon balm, elderberry, and marshmallow help you feel better naturally! Drinking any warm liquid calm our nerves, lower our stress levels, and decrease blood pressure as warmth itself is associated with comfort. 

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Survival medicine 101: Three natural remedies for pain relief, infections and for improving heart health

August 1, 2020

Survival medicine 101: Three natural remedies for pain relief, infections and for improving heart health

Image: Survival medicine 101: Three natural remedies for pain relief, infections and for improving heart health

(Natural News) Herbs and plants make for potent medicines and holistic treatments for a range of ailments, from muscle pain to bacterial infections. These natural remedies also do not cause harmful side effects like drugs and are cost-efficient to boot.

In one of his recent articles published online, prepper and natural medicine proponent Claude Davis shared three of his grandfather’s most potent remedies made using medicinal plants. These remedies succeed despite the failures of modern medication to treat the same health issues, said Davis.

He also noted that each of these remedies performs for a particular purpose. One helps neutralize pain, another combats life-threatening bacterial infections and the last eliminates cholesterol plaque, a major biomarker for heart disease.

Potent natural remedies

The three remedies are made from plants that can be found in abundance throughout the U.S. These plants include Cotyledon tomentosa, Usnea barbata and Crataegus oxyacantha. Read on to learn about the in-depth benefits of and preparation methods used for each one.

Angry bear paw

According to Davis, his grandfather had used this first remedy to either treat hurt soldiers on the battlefield or ease the pain of dying ones. His grandfather had learned it from a Native American healer adept at using medicinal plants and remedies.

It involves using the leaves of bear’s paw (C. tomentosa), a plant endemic to South Africa. Davis’ grandfather ground and boiled the leaves and kept stirring until he had a dark and viscous substance.

He strained it and then left it to simmer for another three to four hours until the substance became darker and thicker. This can then be consumed as is like cough syrup for fast-acting relief from intense pain.

Log man’s mending fur

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The best ideas to turn your homestead into the ultimate edible landscape

March 10, 2019

The best ideas to turn your homestead into the ultimate edible landscape

Image: The best ideas to turn your homestead into the ultimate edible landscape

(Natural News) Homesteaders prioritize self-reliance and the cultivation of organic produce, but this doesn’t mean you can’t make your home garden look pretty. If you want to beautify your property, start a practice called edible landscaping. (h/t to RockinWHomestead.com)

What is edible landscaping?

Edible landscaping represents a different take on how to design and interact with yards and urban green spaces. The practice prioritizes the cultivation of food-producing plants and native perennials, and it helps home gardeners create green space and provide healthy, fresh food to their family.

Replacing even just a fraction of traditional lawns with edible landscapes designed around locally appropriate plants offers various benefits.

These benefits require little to no irrigation or fertilizer and can increase food production potential in cities, as well as attract pollinators and improve ecological diversity.

Flowers for your edible landscape

Edible flowers are a common feature of edible landscapes. But flowering plants aren’t just pretty, they also attract pollinators that can help your fruit-bearing plants thrive. (Related: Edible Landscaping Ideas For Small Spaces.)

Popular options include daisies, lilacs, pansies, and sunflowers.

Edible flowers can also be used for food decorating and subtle flavoring.

Herbs for your edible landscape

Herbs are another staple in edible landscapes. You can plant the following herbs in your yard:

  • Basil and thyme – Basil and thyme are beautiful additions to any garden. Both herbs are fairly easy to grow, and you can use them both as nutritious ingredients in different dishes.
  • Chives – Chives bear beautiful flowers that can add to the aesthetic appeal of your garden. This delicious herb is also the perfect addition to baked potatoes and other savory side dishes.

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Permaculture Kitchen Garden

January 29, 2017

Herb garten

PERMACULTURE KITCHEN GARDEN

Who doesn’t love cooking with fresh herbs? I love cooking with fresh ingredients. Using fresh cut culinary herbs and edible flowers is a really special thing. All growers know that from the time the plant is harvested you start losing flavor and nutrients. It’s important to get fresh-cut herbs if you want the most amazing flavor for you and your family.
Permaculture is such a heartwarming way to grow. You work with nature and then nature helps sustain you. We start at the soil and end eating these great herbs.

I start with these 6 bullet points that keep you on the right track.

• Placement- Permaculture makes things easy and efficient when it’s in an herb garden near the kitchen. The easier it is to collect the herbs, the more often you’ll use them. If you have a kitchen window, put the herb garden there. If you don’t have a kitchen window, as long as it’s easily accessible while you’re cooking, you’ll likely use the fresh produce.

• Soil- Soil is the lifeline that connects your food to you. Love your soil and it will love you back. You want to have the best mulch you can find. If you don’t have good fluffy soil, there are a few things you can do. My first suggestion is a mini hügelkultur. Simply mark out the area you will need for the plants you want to grow. Dig out a 2-3-foot-deep trench, and fill it with tree limbs and sections of cut up logs. Fill the hole back in with the soil, cover with thick mulch, and then plant your herbs. It’s that simple. By the end of summer you will have a jungle of herbs.

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Prepping With Herbs – Tips For Better Health Now And After The Grid Goes Down

March 6, 2016

Prepping With Herbs – Tips For Better Health Now And After The Grid Goes Down

My wife and I have for some time been researching and attempting to approach the issue of medicine in our preparedness. There are several websites that are dedicated to grid down medicine from a preparedness mindset. The information and instruction many of these sites offer are just as important as your water, food, and safety preps. There is the option of ordering medicines in powder form that are produced for exotic fish. No prescription required and available in bulk. This is a great source of antibiotics. I know of doctors who are aware of the dangers that we face in society today that will write prescriptions (non-pain meds) with an extra refill for their patients to put back. If you are one of these people that think this is unethical and illegal, you just go ahead and sign up for Obamacare and wait for the government to come and rescue you and everything will be okay.

The above-mentioned ideas are great and should be implemented into your preps. The encouraging thing that my family faced in looking into medicines is that everyone in our household is currently healthy and not required to take any medication on a regular basis. Those that rely on medicines have to deal with a different set of circumstances. We were also curious about the regular over the counter preventative medicines that we sometimes consume. Medicines for basic ailments such as colds, flu, sore throat, headache, etc… Yes we could just purchase some of these medicines and stock them, but we wanted to get away from anything mass produced by a pharmaceutical company. We are not anti-doctor, but we do avoid any doctors who just want to subscribe multiple pills to take when we get sick.

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An Accidental Trip to the Apothecary

June 8, 2015

An Accidental Trip to the Apothecary 

I confess…..every so often I manufacture an important excuse to get off the mountain. Our household joke is for me to “air out” once a month whether I need it or not lol. Recently it was time once again.

My vital task that morning was to hit the nurseries for final fruit and vegetable flats now that the early planting season was almost over. The recent cold nights had zapped the delicate cantaloupe seedlings I had planted and several red cabbage had succumbed to what I now think was a nitrogen deficiency, sigh. Armed with limited cash so as not to overspend, I set out for a leisurely drive down the mountain.

The drop of elevation from our mountain top homestead is severe enough for my destination to be three weeks ahead of us in the summer growing season. If planned carefully, this is quite an advantage for me. I can transplant more mature plants for a longer productive period of time and thus a superior yield. Quite satisfied with my haul from the last nursery I wanted to visit, I pulled out onto the country road to head back home.

To my surprise there across the street was a small building with a few signs in the window, one of which read “Essential Oils”. My heart skipped a beat as I did a quick U-Turn and pulled into the parking lot. My mouth was probably hanging open in anticipation.

While the locals may be familiar with old-fashioned tried and true remedies passed down for generations, there were no distributors of natural health related items anywhere in this area of the VA/NC border. I have looked. Zilch, nada. Yet here I was parked in front of an interesting establishment with various signs indicating all sorts of goodies lie within.

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