Old Wives’ Tales and Your Health

While people laughed about that story is “just one of the old” we now know that chicken soup actually helps relieve cold symptoms. While the broth soothes the throat and acts as a “comfort food”, which also helps to open sinus tract that can breathe easier.

What about the cod liver oil? Children and adults alike were afraid to seize him and mom was outdated and silly. But now, most health professionals say the benefits of fish oil are many. We know better now that is wrapped in a small pill that decreases rapidly.

I’m not so sure about these next two, but time will tell. Perhaps older women will again be proved right.

When my grandmother was a child goes to a school room in one country the late 1890’s, most of his classmates were of Italian descent. Since the Italians liked to cook with garlic, garlic smelled children winter most of the time, but the smell was stronger. Their mothers usually put a clove or two of garlic into a string and hung around the neck to prevent colds.

In other geographic locations, the Italian community uses a different cure: asafetida. It is, apparently, an herb with a strong onion flavor. You may not be raised here, so use garlic.

One might suppose that perhaps the reason why people wearing garlic or asafoetida was not sick because they had limited contact with other people who might be sick. Nobody wanted to go near them because it smelled so strong! But that probably was not the reason.

We laugh when we think about it, but now researchers say that eating garlic can help build the body’s immune system – to fight against colds and flu! It can also help reduce blood pressure. I think the old were not so dumb after all!

My grandmother hated the smell of garlic, the rest of his life. In his mind, aroma mingled with the smell of dirty children in dirt wool coats drying the wood stove in one room school house. (Yes, almost all children were dirty in those days … those were the days of a washtub in the kitchen is filled to the bathroom on Saturday night. There is no daily showers in the 1890s!)

Another, I just read last night, sounds even more preposterous, but you never know.

Few of us alive today remember the flu epidemic of 1919. 40 million people died and nobody could understand why some families were destroyed, while others, like my grandmother, she was well and able to help care for the sick. Some who were affected by the hermits of age were living alone in the mountains where they had no contact with other people. Why get it?

The story I read speaks of a country doctor who stopped by a farm where everyone was okay. The “old woman” in the house said she had taken precautions against the flu – that kept the United Nations bowls peeled onion in the rooms.

The theory was that attracted onions and “caught” the flu virus, keeping it away from family. Supposedly, the doctor took one of the onions and examined under a microscope and found that this is true. (Could do that in 1919?)

I wonder if future studies actually show that onions avoid mistakes of the flu. We know that onions are one of the most versatile foods in the health of nature – the granting of protection from many diseases. They also contain antibacterial compounds and anti-inflammatory, it could actually help protect against colds and flu.

However, peel the onion of the United Nations as the “trap of influenza viruses” in the house sounds a little wild. I think probably the “old woman” also feeds her family a lot of onions.

But in the meantime, why not try? The onions are nice. A variety of red, white and yellow in a bowl with some autumn leaves make a nice decoration.