Herbs For Cold & Flu Season
***Disclosure - I am not a doctor and I do not claim to be. The information in this post and on this website is for education purposes only and is to express our own personal experience. If you are sick please seek professional medical care immediately. ***That’s it! The gloves are off pal! Time to break out all the herbs for cold and flu season. I’m telling you this has been one of the worst cold and flu seasons I’ve seen in a long time. What gives? It hasn’t even been a real winter here in the north!
I will say this - typically our family follows a health protocol that prevents us from catching most things in the first place - but we’ve let that slide, and it shows! In the past year we’ve dealt with Strep Throat A, Impetigo, Scarlett Fever, Allergies and Whooping Cough and more! Ahhh! (You can read about how we kicked Strep here) Time to re-up our commitment to our health. Typically I teach a class called Herbal Basics: Cold & Flu on my farm, but I think this information is needed so I’m going to give it to you in blog form for FREE so we can break the sickness cycle together!
My kids are homeschooled, but participate in several activities such as martial arts, dance and various other classes - not to mention birthday parties, hang outs with friends and church. Germ fest! This year the sicknesses just keep going and going. Everyone seems to be sharing. How nice. Hahaha. I think for simplicity sake I will just share the information with you just like I would in my classroom. (You can pretend you are there with me)
Herbal make and take class
So grab a cup of your favorite herbal tea and let’s get right into it. I am drinking a vinegar, elderberry syrup concoction, making a giant batch of “Auntie Esther’s Special Iced Tea” (more on that later) and making a batch of elderberry syrup. My kitchen smells amazing… except for the lingering scent of “Anti Plague Remedy” (yes this is actually what it's called hahaha") hanging in the air. Brutal.
I am a certified herbalist leaning more towards being a community herbalist - which basically means I focus more on the daily practicality of using herbs rather than so much of the science and chemistry behind it. I took much of my herbal training through Dr. Christophers School of Natural Healing, but I’ve found that the best teacher has been life experience and just using herbs. Much of what I’m going to say here is what we’ve found works best in our family. One of my favorite things about herbs is their wide versatility. Herbs are as unique as the people using them. I encourage you to use this post as a launching point for you to find your own favorites.
Who is responsible for your health?
Many of us grew up being taught that when you are sick you go to the doctor and “he” gives you medicine and you go home and get better. In this system the doctor is solely responsible for your health and you are technically powerless. There is nothing that you can personally do to get better besides wait and take the meds. This system is based on the germ theory. You get a germ, it makes you sick, your body fights it with medicine the end. Well that just didn’t sit well with me. I won’t go into all of my personal evidence against this system, (I will save that for my students) but I will say that I truly believe we are responsible for our own health. I will prove it to you. Our body is a full scale ecosystem. It thrives when it is provided the right elements.
Have you ever noticed those families that just seem to always be sick? For the sake of curiosity and herbalism I’ve paid close attention to the habits of different families. Which ones get sick more often? Which ones don’t. What are the habits of these families? What elements are they providing their bodies? I’ve paid close attention to my own family. When do we tend to get sick? What are the signs leading up to it? This was a bit easier when I was changing diapers but it is still possible to notice small changes in older children. Sleep habits, eating habits, the eyes, the way they act are all little indicators. What I’ve noticed is that when our diet is full of products rather than real foods we get sick more often. This is especially true during cold and flu season. I recently saw an instagram post questioning the name cold and flu season saying perhaps we should just call it sugar poisoning season - but I digress. (We will dive into that another day)
Most people would agree that regular exercises, “healthy eating”, proper sleep and water all help keep our bodies in good working order. That if we do these things we won’t get sick, but I know lots of people who do pretty good in these areas and still get sick often. So what gives? Well, first off what is a healthy diet anyway? There are so many diets out there that it makes your head spin just trying to figure them all out. How much water? Regular exercise?
Good news! All those herbal courses I took paid off big time by teaching me a ton about nutrition and our body and how they work together to create an ecosystem that is so strong germs don’t much matter any more. It really just comes down to how our body systems are operating. The systems of elimination are the skin, respiratory, urinary, blood stream and digestive systems. These all work hard to carry excess foods, toxins, waste etc out of our body. If these systems are clogged then the body tries to remove the waste through a different system. If that is clogged it tries yet another and so on and so forth. The body prefers to use the digestive tract primarily so it is vital to keep this functioning properly. Dr. Christopher said that constipation is the main cause of disease.
So if this is true and it is up to us to keep our bodies ecosystem in good working order then our health is actually our own responsibility. Let that sink in.
What is a Healthy Diet Anyway?
Dr. Christopher had some very strong opinions on this. The diet he created and stuck to is called The Mucusless Diet. I’ve personally found this to be a bit too strict in our culture to maintain on a regular basis and it doesn’t really fit into a homesteaders lifestyle. Essentially the muculess diet is: Fresh fruits, vegetables, presoaked, low heated whole grains, nuts and seeds AND THAT IS ALL. Nothing else. For us we found we needed to add in meat, eggs and raw dairy products at the very least. An excellent book on the why behind this decision is Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. It’s not just about the ingredients but also the way they are prepared. We’ve lost much of this knowledge over the years as a civilization, but homesteading is slowly reintroducing these skills.
So what does all of this have to do with Herb for cold and flu season? Well, herbs when used in their whole state are just foods. Many of them can be used on a daily basis, for example most of us know that basil, oregano, dill, garlic and onions are all common foods, but did you know that these are also powerful herbs that the body can use to heal itself? Herbs like raspberry leaf, lavender, stinging nettle and chamomile might sound a bit more exotic, but they are not. They can all be used in cooking and can be grown in most climates just as easily as the other culinary herbs I mentioned. When we choose the foods that we eat carefully and thoughtfully we can create a well functioning ecosystem that is fully capable of combatting just about anything. The body is an amazing thing. If we put into our body less processed products and more real live foods our bodies do the work for us.
What Are Real Foods?
Good question. We are defining real foods as herbs, fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds that were grown in healthy live soil full of nutrients. Meats that were taken from animals that grew up on lush green pastures with the love and care that they deserve. As Joel Salatin puts it - in a way that embraces the piggyness of pigs etc. Raw dairy products and honey. Old fashioned, no sprays, no chemicals. Just the natural way food was intended to be grown and eaten. This of course is a simplification of the full definition but it’s good enough to provide us with something of a foundation to built on.
What Can We Do During Cold And Flu Season?
Stick to real foods
Cut out the processed sugar and alcohol!
Keep the bowls moving - prune juice is helpful for this!
Drink bone broth, water and herbal teas daily
Herbal aids: Auntie Esther’s Special Iced Tea (recipe below), echinacea tincture or calendula tincture, Vitamin C - rose hips, cayenne tincture, oranges; ACV (apple cider vinegar), elderberry syrup (link below) and fire cider (link below), garlic and raw local honey.
Fast & Cleanse
Get outside
Move your body
All of these things used together can help strengthen our bodies ability to heal itself. I personally find it comforting that I can do something to keep my body going strong. I don’t have to be at the whim of illnesses. Our bodies must cleanse themselves and sometimes it uses sickness to do the job. The other option is to slow down our intake, fast occasionally and let our bodies catch up. Remember it’s all about creating a strong and healthy ecosystem.
Elderflower & Peppermint Tea (recipe inside our online course; Elderberry:Natures Medicine Chest)
Here are some links to my personal recipes if you’d like to make herbal remedies or learn more about how you can use herbs in your home. If you are interested in going deeper into the subject of Herbs for cold and flu season please contact our office and let’s get a class on the calendar.
Auntie Esthers Special Iced Tea
3 Parts Dried raspberry leaf, 1 part dried nettles, 1/2 part peppermint, 1/2 part spearmint. Mix all herbs together and store in a glass jar. Take 1 tsp dried herb mix to 1 cup freshly boiled water. Steep covered for 5-10 mins. Strain. Add honey to taste and enjoy hot or iced. (Up to 1 quart daily)
OR Try Farmhouse Teas, Farmers Wife Raspberry Leaf tea. Excellent flavor and already mixed for you.
Elderberry: Natures Medicine Chest: An online course dedicated to teaching you everything you need to know about growing, harvesting, making syrup from and all things Elderberry.
Fire Cider: Farmhouse Teas makes this easy with their dump and go mix!
I hope this post find you well and that you’ve managed to avoid the sickness so far! Feel free to share this with anyone you think would benefit. Let’s finish this cold and flu season strong!
Learn & grow,
-Esther
