[CAUT] FW: Prevent Swine Flu - Good Advice

[Jeff Tanner]

I actually showed up at a house a couple weeks ago, and the mom answered the door and said, "oh, I forgot you were coming. All three of my daughters are home sick and have been tested positive for swine flu."  I said, "do you mind if we reschedule?"  Wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been 30 miles away, but I was quite content to miss earning money that afternoon. It would have been nice to have known before I drove over there, and I could have spent what was a gorgeous afternoon on the golf course or something.

So, if ginger has antiviral capacity, then might adding fresh ginger to soy sauce with wasabe and dipping an hors d'oeuvre of rice and seafood be considered a good elixir?

(sushi bar, here I come!)

Jeff
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Susan Kline 
  To: caut at ptg.org 
  Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2009 12:53 PM
  Subject: Re: [CAUT] FW: Prevent Swine Flu - Good Advice


  At 09:25 AM 10/31/2009, Jeff wrote:

    According to this USC experiment, hand washing with soap is the single most effective thing you can do to prevent the flu, and it didn't matter whether you use hot or cold water.
     
    And, don't tune in homes where the virus is active.

  Very good advice. If swine flu becomes active in one's own area, would it be a good idea to phone customers and find out if anyone is ill before coming to tune? and reschedule as needed? 

  As with using caution in what chemicals to use in a customer's home, and about vacuuming around customers who are allergic to animal dander, being sure that one isn't bringing a virus into a customer's home (from a previous tuning) seems like a professional courtesy. 

  For what it's worth, ginger has antiviral activity. I used to catch a lot of joshing because I would recommend ginger-lemon tea at the first sign of a sniffle or cough. Then one day my mother sent me a newspaper clipping. It said a French study had shown that ginger kills cold virus on contact, in vitro. Suddenly she treated my ginger obsession with a lot more respect. I've used ginger tea to abort colds for years. It is best to use it early, and to get some rest as well. 

  Basic recipe: take a piece of fresh ginger about as big as your thumb, and slice thinly. No need to peel it. Dump it into a saucepan with some water and set to simmer. Take a fresh lemon -- only fresh lemon and ginger work -- scrub it off under the faucet, then slice in half at the equator. Squeeze half into the saucepan, then take the squeezed part and chop roughly, peel and all, and dump it in. The peel contains bioflavonoids, which help Vitamin C to work. Let simmer for a few minutes, then strain off a mugful with a slotted spoon. If you have a sore throat you can add some honey. 

  Keep the pot on the stove, heat turned off, and add more water. Heat again later. After a few reheats, it will be more ginger than lemon, and you can squeeze, chop, and add the other half of the lemon. Fresh limes work just as well. After about 24 hours, you can toss it and make up a fresh batch, though often one batch is all you'll need. 

  If I end up catching the cold or flu anyway, I keep a mug of ginger tea beside my bed, and if I wake up at night, I gargle with a little and then swallow it. If congested, I dip two fingers into the mug, and then sniff the tea into my nose, where it burns just a little, but often thins the mucus enough to gently blow some out. Then I sniff a little more, and go back to sleep. Blowing one's nose hard shoves gunk into one's ears, but if sniffing a little salt water (or ginger tea) gets the mucus thin enough to get out, it helps a lot. That article from India talked about using "neti pots", which is the same idea, only more so. I've tried it with salt water, but find it uncomfortable. 

  Garlic is good, too. So is cayenne pepper. It's no mistake that curry powder and kim chee and other foreign cuisines combine garlic, ginger, and cayenne, all three. 

  YMMV, of course ........ 

  Susan Kline 

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