Almost Cold Cure

I came down with a cold last week that just wouldn’t budge. Liposomal vitamin C several times a day was helping but the chest pains and clogged throat weren’t letting up.

Looking through our website I found Wendyl’s blog about her “almost cold cure” – a strong shot of turmeric, lemon, and honey taken four times a day. It worked! This is from Wendyl’s post in 2013.

“Having confidently written about the health benefits of turmeric several times I had the opportunity to test it out when I came down with a horrible cold. It had everything going for it: sore throat, blinding headache, stuffed up nose, sore chest and fever.

So I sent Paul off to Sandringham to get a couple of handfuls of root turmeric, juiced them up and downed 1 tbsp of juice mixed with a little warm water, 1 tsp raw Manuka honey and the juice of a lemon four times a day. I also added 1000mg Vitamin C three times a day and three echinacea, olive root, garlic and zinc tablets three times a day.

By Monday I was pretty good, so I think the regimen helped reduce the severity of the symptoms, although my voice was very husky and on Tuesday I had to give a talk to the Glen Eden Garden Club. I took a Thermos of hot water, lemon, honey and a chopped-up turmeric root and got through it no trouble.

I thoroughly recommend this treatment if you come down with a cold.”

This week I also heard from Yajna, who told me she had used turmeric to treat a growth on her eight-year-old son’s foot:

“I took him to the doctor about 3 months ago and she didn’t know what is was. She said to come back if it kept getting bigger. Which it did, it grew and grew to about the size of my little finger nail and very raised. I thought I may as well try your turmeric recipe on it. So I mixed up a tiny smear of coconut oil and about a quarter of a teaspoon of turmeric. I piled that on the thing then stuck a plaster on it. I did that twice a day for about a week, then it was once a day for a week, then I got lazy and did it every couple of days. Magically the thing was shrinking before our eyes, amazing. Now it is totally gone, which is great because my son said it was a bit painful and it didn’t look very nice either.”

Christina buys her root turmeric at Takapuna market and shared this recipe:

“Using 1-2cm of peeled and quartered turmeric along with about an inch of ginger in the bottom of a mug, pour over recently boiled water. Sometimes adding lemon juice as well after a few minutes. (Just boiled water depletes the Vitamin C in the lemon juice so add this a bit later.) Steep for a few minutes, remove the turmeric and ginger pieces with a slotted tea spoon and I swear this is the most amazing health tonic. Six-year-old Max was coming down with a cold yesterday – he had an extra strong brew of this turmeric tea before bed and bounced off to school this morning feeling better.”

Turmeric root can also be purchased at most Indian supermarkets and organic stores.