Aug 062012
 

This is a Traditional Chinese Medicine recipe for cough, with or without phlegm: Pear and Rock Sugar Elixir recipe. It tastes great, is very easy to make and you will even think you just had a dessert that is good for you!! It is basically poaching a pear and making yourself a nice, little cough syrup.

It is traditionally made with Apricot Kernels, or Xing Ren, but almonds can make this recipe easily accessible to anyone. And if you want the Chinese medicinal for more effect, Xing Ren is always available in my office at a very reasonable cost.

More ideas for variations to this recipe:
– Apple juice (organic, unfiltered) could be used instead of the sugar and water.
– Cinnamon and/or cloves and/or ginger could be added if one has a ‘cold’ cough (clear, watery, or white phlegm, or other symptoms of cold, such as chills, no sore throat).

Aug 062012
 

Here are recommendations for Cleansing and Detoxifying from Air Pollution (that I wrote back in the summer of 2008 when our area was surrounded by forest fires for weeks).

Forest fires are very common in the summer in our area of the Sierra Nevada foothills, so we are again being exposed to heavy amounts of smoke in the air in August 2012… here’s More Natural Medicine Recommendations for Smoke Exposure.

Also see my Pear and Rock Sugar Elixir recipe for soothing the lungs and taming a cough (with or without phlegm).