Know your onions!

Onions are well known for their medicinal values. It is one of the foods suggested along with garlic to keep us free of heart problems.  It has also been traditionally used to help with colds, chest infections and ear ache. A common cure for bronchitis in the old days was to cut a large, raw, Spanish onion into quarters, and put under the bed of the sufferer. It was remembered as a very effective treatment.It could also be a used to treat earache,  an onion cut in half, applied to the ears, and kept in place with a scarf. For a cough medicine, a raw  onion, sliced was covered with brown sugar and left to stand over night. The liquid that it produced was an effect cough medicine.

There are many people in the 70s who can remember such treatments, and they vouched for their effectiveness, in the days before free health care, or when their parents could not afford the patient medicine. As with many cures that have been thought of as ‘old wife’s tales’ research has provided the validity of the original claims, and much more.

The onion is rich in Quercetin. The main source is to be found in the part of the onion that is usually thrown away both at home and in the manufacture of ready meals. That part is the papery outer skin. It is worth reading the results of tests carried out by the European Journal of Biochemistry 2003. The findings suggest the benefits are:-

• Protection from aging, vascular disease,
• Protection from certain forms of cancer, prostate, ovary, breast, colon and gastric cells.
• Quercetin is also anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic and antioxidant.

Studies are on going as to the wonderful properties the onion skin has.
James A. Duke,Ph.D. the American herbalist, in his book The Green Pharmacy, extols the virtues of the onion for preventing cataracts and heart disease, for treating allergies, asthma, burns, colds, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, HIV infection, inflammatory bowel disease, insect bites, pneumonia, scabies, tuberculosis, varicose veins and yeast infections. There are three things in this impressive list that is a major cause for concern for older folk, they are high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

Dr. Duke recommends a soup using the onions in a novel way, and that it to use the entire onion, cut into quarters, and cooked with the other ingredients.   Before serving, the onion pieces are removed and the outer skin discarded at that point.

Another possible way of using this valuable source of Quercetin is to make your own tincture.  Herbalists today use this method of extracting the goodness out of plant material, and that is to take about 4 ounces (120 grams) of the onion skins, put into an air tight jar with 1 pint (half a litre) of vodka.  This should be kept in a warm place and shaken twice a day for two weeks.  The liquid should be strained off through muslin, and the remaining plant material squeezed to get every last drop. This should be poured into,  and stored  in a dark bottle. Label, name and date it so that it is not confused with anything else. Smaller quantities can be made if it is only for your own consumption, and as you are using onions in your own kitchen.

To take the tincture use a little water, and add 15 drops of it. It could also be taken in a vegetable juice, mixed with carrots, peppers, beet root;  basically what ever you fancy that is good for your health.



We are all living through tough financial times at the moment. The credit crunch, higher mortgages, soaring food prices are all putting great pressures on nearly all of us. Don’t we just hope that we could close our eyes, make a wish, and open them again to find all our money worries gone, or that we might be lucky on the lottery or horses? Life isn’t that simple, there would probably be something else to worry about.

So what do we do? We worry, we lose sleep, we make ourselves ill. Do we seek the doctors help, maybe a pill would make the problem easier to bear?

The answer lies with ourselves. We need to stay focused, stay positive, think clearly and don’t allow the bad feelings to get us down, because the negative feelings will contribute to poor health, and the last thing we need is to be sick too.

If you are not familiar with Bach Flower Remedies then what I am going to suggest will seem highly improbable. Dr. Edward Bach was a highly respected Harley Street doctor who realised that emotional worries can lead to illness. He set about discovering a series of remedies from plants that will quite simply change our perceptions of things, change the way we see things.

The problem will not go away, but we are better equipped to deal with the issues. The best known of the remedies is Rescue Remedy, the bottle of drops for emergences. He spent many years perfecting his treatments until he found 38 remedies from different plants to help cope with 38 negative feelings. Dr Bach was working in the 1920′s, and was very much ahead of his time as now we do know that there are links with stress and problems like high blood pressure and cancer.

If you are burdened with worries just now, take a moment to think about how you feel. Are you angry, resentful, can’t sleep for the unwanted thoughts that assail you, worried about your family, shocked?

Often when we get into this sort of state we become what is known as depressed. Have you ever suffered from this? My own experience of this is the feeling of being trapped inside a bubble of misery, being aware of the world going on around yourself, but being unable to connect to anyone or anything, it is horrid. A trip to the doctor might have seemed the answer, but recent reports suggest that some medications work no better than a placebo. Also, they will not help you solve the problem. You might feel happier, but eventually when you have to come off the medication the problem will still loom large.

Here are a list of the drops that might be helpful for the problems.

Star of Bethlehem for shock
Holly for anger
Willow for resentment
White Chestnut for unwanted thoughts especially at night
Gorse for hopelessness and despair
Sweet Chestnut for anguish

That is just some of the negative feelings.
What might you need to make positive feelings once the negatives have been banished?

Larch for confidence
Elm to help when overwhelmed by responsibility
Walnut for protection

These are just a few suggestions. Leaflets are available from health food shops about the drops, you can also find the details on their website. They are not too expensive, as Doctor Bach hoped that they would be there for all who needed then, and that people could recognise themselves what they needed to regain a positive state of mind again.

When we are positive about things, and dispelled the swirl of emotions that surround a problem, we can take a good look at the monster that we face.

With a clear head we can tackle the issues.