Can you fight The Flu, naturally?

Last Friday morning I woke up feeling like I was swallowing razor blades. I haven't been sick for a year so I was pretty upset! I live a very healthy lifestyle, as you will know if you've read all my posts, and I thought I'd be immune! I guess I shouldn't be ungrateful. A year is pretty good going. I used to get sick a minimum of 4 times a year and ALWAYS with something like tonsillitis or bronchitis or bronchial pneumonia. It was never just a cold and it always lasted at least 3 weeks, often more.

Getting sick is pretty much to expected for anyone. You can't avoid the bugs forever. HOW sick you get will have a lot to do with the strength of your immune system. The fact that I got sick a lot, and badly had a lot to do with my IBS because it does lower your immune system. Stress plays a big roll but it also has to do with the lack of good bacteria in your intestines. I was pretty loaded with stress most of the time. I was living out of a suitcase almost permanently because I was at home probably 4 days out of a month. Travelling like that makes it really difficult to eat properly and 80% of my shows included shows at schools up to Grade 7. It's common knowledge that kids are great little carriers of all manner of bugs so there wasn't much of an escape for me. At the time I was pretty ignorant about health so I would go on a course of antibiotics every time I got sick, nuking what was left of the good bacteria in my intestines and I setting myself up for the next bug again and again.

A year ago, when I decided to go organic, I did it all cold turkey, all at once. I cut out all chemicals and went free range, organic and chemical free within a matter of days. Once I had decided to do it, I just couldn't bring myself to compromise. I'm like that. I'm a virgo. There are NO half measures for me;) I felt a little yucky the first few days, and then I felt wonderful for a few days... and then I got sick. Not just any kind of sick. Oooooh noooo, I got bronchial pneumonia sick.

I felt like death. My first instinct was to turn to every kind of pill, spray and syrup I could find. But I didn't. I couldn't. I'd made a decision and I was sticking to it dammit. I stocked up on herbal teas and a few other homeopathic remedies and waited it out... and waited... and waited. I didn't know I had bronchial pneumonia until I went to a doctor who was actually a specialist. I went for a completely different reason. It's one of those appointments that you book several months in advance and then forget about until you get a call the day before to confirm your appointment. So I paid R900 to find out that I had bronchial pneumonia! I told him I refused to take antibiotics and that I was trying very hard to remain chemical free. He looked at me like I was nuts but he went along with it and prescribed a pump, telling me to rinse my mouth immediately after using it to avoid too much absorption and he gave me some codeine syrup to help me sleep because I was struggling with that due to all the coughing. He also prescribed painkillers but I just told the chemist to give me the pump and the codeine and went home to try and recover again. 3 days later I finally started to feel human again!

It was a tough 4 weeks I can't lie. But I came out at the end of it feeling pretty good about myself. For the first time ever, I didn't take ONE antibiotic. I took panado when I had fevers and then the codeine towards the end and the pump but I stopped taking everything the minute I felt like I was beating it and my tiny little immune system finally kicked in. It just needed a little help this time around, but it finally pulled me through.

My homeopath made a very important point. My body was going through one hell of a healing crisis. The thing with going completely "clean" is that your body starts to go through withdrawals. Have you ever tried to cut coffee, or sugar, or soft drinks out of your life? Your body goes through 3 weeks of hell while it tries to adjust to the lack of stimulants. Headaches, stomach cramps, nausea etc. It feels like you're actually sick. It's not different to an addict going through drug withdrawals. The same happens when you cut chemicals, caffeine, sugar, all processed foods and alcohol out of your life, all at once. My body went into shock I guess. And while it was busy coping with the withdrawal, my immune system was left even more defenseless, and the bug caught me off guard.

So, back to last Friday! I was terrified that the same thing was going to happen to me. I know what happens when I get sick. It's long and drawn out and just awful. And every time I think my body will fight it off alone, it just can't. I was so hopeful that the sore throat would just go away but, the next day, the fevers started and, by Saturday afternoon I felt HORRIBLE. You all know that feeling; achy joints and muscles, splitting headache, feeling weak and dizzy, hot and cold at the same time. I thought my head was going to explode but, I didn't give in and have any conventional medication this time, not even panado (taking that was my mistake last time I was sick but more on that shortly). My fabulous GLM went out and got me some Septoguard, which is a herbal, natural antiobiotic, and I drank herbal teas, did oil-pulling (more on this later!), gargled with salt and used tissue salts. (and this too!) I ate healthy, nutritious meals and got as much rest as possible. Saturday night was just awful. I had a fever all night and was so tempted to take medication just to break it so my head would feel better and I could sleep. In my opinion, there are few things worse than having a fever. They really nuke your body!

I didn't give in and take the pill and here's why: I'm not sure if many people are aware of this, but a fever is actually a good thing. It''s the body's natural way of fighting a bacterial infection. Breaking the fever can actually do more harm than good to you. (unless it goes above 41 degrees then get to a doctor). Anything below 41, but above 37 is very uncomfortable, but good for you, nonetheless. Bugs can survive for a long time in a body with a normal temperature, but not for so long in a body with a raised temperature. The fact that your temperature is raised, means that your immune system is doing what it is meant to do, to fight off the bug. If you can see it through, you stand a much better chance of getting better, sooner. The same applies when you have an inflamed muscle, or a cut that gets really hot and infected. The heat and swelling are good things! Taking a pill, or putting antiseptic cream on, halts the natural healing process.

I've never had the guts to try this, largely because I never KNEW about the above, but also because I hate having a temperature! This time around I was determined to do it. I think GLM thought I was a little nuts. I was in serious pain. My head was unbelievably sore, not to mention the glands, the aches everywhere, the chills. I was miserable. I hardly slept while my body did battle. By Sunday afternoon I was nearing the end of my tether when, all of a sudden, the fever broke all on its own! I started sweating and it was the most welcome feeling ever! The chills disappeared, I could stand without wanting to fall over and my joints stopped aching. From then on, I started to feel like I was healing. It still involved a few days in bed. Don't get me wrong. My sinuses were a mess and then it moved down to my chest BUT, where, usually, this would all happen over the space of a few weeks, it happened over the course of 6 days!! 6 days later I am sitting at my desk feeling a little blocked up, with a bit of a irritating cough, but I am 95% healthy again. It is almost unheard of, for me. I feel stupidly chuffed with myself:)

I think back to things that people have said to me when they've been sick. "Every time I think I'm better, something else starts!" or "I'm on my 2nd course of antibiotics and still can't fight this off!" or "I've been to the doctor 3 times. I don't know what else to do!" I used to say all of those things myself but I have a better understanding of WHY all of those things happen now. Antibiotics are at the root of it all, followed closely by all other flu medications and OTC (over the counter) remedies.

It's a HUGE business, self-treatment. In fact, pharmaceutical companies RELY on the fact that you are going to try and cure yourself first, without the cost of a visit to the doctor, so that they can make lots and lots of money off of you. There are SO many flu remedies on the shelves and one can get pretty confused about which one to take but, at the end of the day, it is really about the one with the best advertising. Let's face it, you've tried pretty much all of them, haven't you? You end up either going for the one you always use, or the one whose advert you just saw most recently, or the one your friend told you was brilliant and they all do pretty much the same thing which is NOT MUCH. I can almost hear some of you saying, "Not true! It works for me!" But here is the thing. How long to do you take that stuff for? A week? 2 weeks? You usually end up finishing the whole bottle or box, don't you? And bottle or box lasts about a week... and flu lasts about a week... Or, it's supposed to. But I bet you are still sick after a week, aren't you?

That stuff is good for suppressing your symptoms and making you feel more human, but it's not going to actually cure you. YOU are going to cure you, over time. But, while you are taking that medication, your body is struggling to raise your temperature so that it can fight the bug and you are telling it, "No way buddy, I am taking pills! I will fight this WITHOUT your help!" And after 2 weeks, when you realise you AREN'T fighting it off with self-doctoring, you finally visit the doctor, who prescribes MORE remedies to suppress symptoms and, my WORST nightmare, antibiotics!

I cannot express how bad these things are for you! Your gut is supposed to have bacteria in it. How else are you going to have any kind of immune system? But antibiotics kill EVERYTHING in your gut; good and bad. They aren't picky. And the crazy thing is, NO antibiotic is going to kill a virus because NOTHING KILLS A VIRUS. If they had invented something that killed a virus, we'd have a cure for HIV/AIDS, but we don't. Antibiotics only kill bacterial infections and flu is a virus, not a bacterial infection so those antibiotics are doing NOTHING. (except for annihilating all your poor, defenceless good bacteria) Excuse all the caps but I can't stress this enough. All you are doing is setting yourself up for another bug later in the year, AND creating superbugs.

Never heard of those? Well, here's the thing about those. Doctors and patients got so excited about antibiotics, that they started handing them out left, right and centre for decades, for any old thing. The little bugs decided to fight back, and now we have bugs on STEROIDS. They have built up an immunity to the antibiotics we currently have and are making them more or less obsolete.

A good way to start reversing that problem is to stop asking your doctor for antibiotics, and stop allowing them to simply give it to you, without a blood test to ensure that it is, in fact, a bacterial infection. The problem with health today is that it HAS become big business. Doctors have to have their patients in and out in about 15 minutes because they have a quota to reach. They aren't going to sit and chat to you about what might be wrong. (I am generalising and I am sure there are doctors out there who take the time, but they are few and far between.) If you go to a medi-centre of some kind, they will go through all the motions and then send you packing with a script and wishy-washy instructions to eat well and drink lots of fluids. I never understood that. The most important instruction is an add-on at the end of the appointment and it really doesn't tell a person anything.

What does "eating well" really mean? And what fluids are the good fluids? Well, you can refer to this post if you want an idea of how to eat healthy, but if you read all my posts from the beginning you'll have a much better understanding of food as a remedy. As far as fluids go, I am such a big believer in the power of tea. But I don't mean just any old tea. I mean organic, herbal teas. There is a herb for every ailment and I take full advantage!

That is an entire post on it's own so I am going to leave you there for now. Remember, tomorrow is The Real Food Friday Feast and you'll want to catch this one! It's the perfect winter warmer-upper and it's great for colds and flu;)

Real Food Friday Feast - Banana Bread

This is the first of many Friday posts, all related to my real food recipe for the week. Why banana bread, you ask? Well, simply because it's my FAVOURITE cake:) I went without it for many years thinking it could only be made with wheat flour and, as an IBS sufferer, I couldn't eat wheat, so that meant no banana bread. It was hard, I can't lie!

At first I played around with a few different flours like spelt flour and rice flour, but I find I battle with most grains, and they tend not to rise very well either, so they weren't really working for me. I always found that the recipes included stuff I'd rather not be eating as well and, as I'm not much of a baker, I really needed a recipe to follow that was tried and tested.

One day, while I was googling (something as common to me as breathing in case you hadn't guessed) I happened upon a link that mentioned grain-free cake. It immediately hooked my interest for obvious reasons! Intrigued, I clicked on the link and discovered a recipe using...

I didn't know it existed either!

Here are some of the benefits of using coconut flour:

• It is rich in protein, fibre and fat which makes it really filling. 
• It is also a good source of lauric acid, a saturated fat thought to support the immune system and the thyroid. Like most healthy fats, lauric acid also promotes good skin health. 
• It is an very good source of manganese which helps you to better utilize many nutrients such as choline and biotin (found in eggs), vitamin C and thiamin. Manganese also supports bone health, nervous system function, thyroid health and helps to maintain optimal blood sugar levels.
• It isn't grain-based, and so, doesn't present many of the issues that accompany grains for people with grain allergies or intolerances, such as myself. 
• It is gluten-free and, while it does contain food phytate, the mineral-binding effects of phytates in coconut are virtually non-existent which means that coconut flour doesn't need to be soaked (but that is something I will cover in another post!)

So, the recipe I found was NOT for banana bread unfortunately but I was undeterred! I now knew what I needed to do. The hunt for coconut flour was ON!

It actually wasn't too hard to find! I am a frequenter of Fruit and Roots in Bryanston and it was the first place I thought of when I headed off on my search. They specialise in all things organic and natural and they also, conveniently, have a 20% off sale every last Thursday of the month. Coconut flour is pricey to be honest. But an upside to it is that you use far less than you would normal flour. For example, if the recipe said you needed 2 cups of normal flour, you'd only need about 1/2 a cup of coconut flour. It's highly absorbent and too much flour will dry out a recipe. The general rule, when baking with coconut flour, is to add extra moisture in the form of eggs or milk or even fruit juice.

I did some more googling and found a few recipes for banana bread and then the experimenting started! Not only was I a coconut flour newbie, but I also needed to figure out a recipe that suited my organic, healthy needs. That meant no refined sugar or vegetable oils or margarine. I also couldn't do cow's milk and I didn't want just normal baking powder because that's full of aluminium. (FYI) I found an aluminium free baking powder at Fruit and Roots again:)

There were a couple of different types but this one was the most affordable.

I tried quite a few different recipes. Most of them ended up coming out very dry and hard and FLAT. They didn't rise at ALL. My wife (we'll call her GLM), angel that she is, dutifully told me every time that it was DELICIOUS, bless her heart;) But I was NOT satisfied. I knew I could do better and wanted it to taste like my mom's banana bread used to taste. There HAD to be a way.

One day, I decided to add a teaspoon of bicarb to the mix and VOILA! The perfect banana bread:) I was overjoyed and, this time, GLM could honestly say that it was delicious;) 

Before I give you the recipe, I need to stipulate that ALL the ingredients used in this are either organic or free range. Oh, and there is only ONE raw honey that I use. It is THE BEST honey in all the world and I buy it by the crate direct from the farmer. I refuse to eat any other. If you would like to order some, please email me: mellowhealth@melanielowe.co.za

Without further ado, here is the recipe: 

Grain-Free Banana Bread with Coconut Flour

4 eggs
2 Tbs honey
1/3 cup salted butter or coconut oil (if not salted butter add ¼ tsp salt to recipe)
2 or 3 (depending on the size) very ripe bananas, mashed
3 full Tbs plain yogurt
3/4 cup coconut flour

1 tsp baking powder 

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

• Whisk up the eggs, honey, butter, yoghurt and mashed bananas 
• Sift flour, baking powder and bicarb into the batter and stir until completely mixed 
• Pour into a greased loaf tin and bake in a pre-heated oven (175°C/350°F) for 40-50 minutes 

NOTE: Please keep an eye on your loaf because my oven has a door that doesn't close properly and I have had to play around with temperature and time to avoid over or under cooking it! Stick a toothpick in and it should come out clean.

Here are a few really nice ideas to make it more interesting and delicious!

• You can make it a chocolate banana bread by adding 3-4 Tbs organic cocoa powder 
• Make it a cinnamon banana bread by adding 1 tsp organic ground cinnamon 
• Make it a ginger banana bread by adding 1 tsp organic ground ginger
• Give it an extra omega 3, crunchy boost by adding 2 Tbs of flaxseeds
• I also occasionally add a handful of dried cranberries and the same can be done with raisins or nuts

Honestly, once you have mastered your banana bread, the sky is the limit. I tried an apple and cinnamon loaf this morning and it is YUMMY!

A slice of this banana bread has only 6 grams of protein, 9 grams of fat and 18 grams of carbs! That will alter slightly depending on what fruit you use, but it will still be low in calories at only 170 calories a slice. You  can triple all those amounts if you use a grain flour like wheat and even more if you use normal, refined sugar. The amazing thing is that every single calorie of this banana bread is GOOD FOR YOU. Kinda blows your mind a bit huh?

If you find coconut flour is out of your price range, fear not! I have since discovered chickpea flour! 

It is also a grain-free flour and it is a lot more economically viable. It DOES give your baked goods a slightly nuttier flavour but I enjoy it and hopefully you will too! You will just need to alter the recipe slightly with the chickpea flour and these are the changes below:

Grain Free Banana Bread with Chickpea flour

3 eggs
2 Tbs honey
1/3 cup salted butter or coconut oil (if not salted butter add ¼ tsp salt to recipe)
2 or 3 (depending on the size) very ripe bananas, mashed
2 full Tbs plain yogurt
11/2 cups chickpea flour

1 tsp baking powder 

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

You will use the same method to make this one.

The nice thing about chickpea flour is that you can buy it at dischem. In fact, dischem is going to become your favourite shopping place for all your organic needs;) What's really handy about Dischem is that they have a loyalty card system. Not only do they use the money you spend to help various charities, but you also get rewarded with money back. There is an added advantage for FNB bankers in that you can shop there with your ebucks. I love shopping at places that reward you:) And I really like that dischem has good ethics when it comes to protecting their customers, animals and the planet.

I have plenty of other suppliers that I get all of my organic goodies from. It has been a journey of discovery over the last year and I have slowly but surely built up a good, solid list of organic suppliers and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to bring them all business! I think they deserve it given all that they are doing for a healthier world. That will be a blog post for next week!

Please let me know how your banana bread turns out! Happy baking:)