I’m a peaceful person. But when germs are starting to attack – it’s on.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been routinely surrounded by people who are sick with one bug or another. Today is the first day that I have started to feel a little something…
It started in the late morning. It was an on-and-off twinge of pain in the throat. By the time I was waiting in the car dealership after work today, flipping through magazines and munching on complimentary cheese crackers, the pain was more present. I had some time until my car inspection was done, so I decided to take a bold step. I walked over to the nearby natural foods store and scanned the aisles for something that would help. That’s when I found some Elderberry Juice.
I had remembered having some elderberry cough drops years ago and feeling that it may have helped me heal quicker… The juice was quite pricey, but I felt like staying well was well worth the $5. (People can spend $5 quite easily on a drink at a bar 🙂 ) The bottle had been sitting on a shelf and the juice was not cold enough. I had a little trouble drinking it at first. It tasted kind of intense. But then, I mixed it in a cup with some chilled water from the waiting room water cooler, and it went down just fine.
Note re: elderberry – I just found this article. As I’m not feeling any of those described effects, I’m assuming I’m okay. This juice, unlike the juice in the link, was crafted in a professional facility and I’m sure no leaves were involved in the making of it.
So, back to the germ war. When I came home, I drank a cup of Emergen-C. By this time, my throat was hurting every time I swallowed. But I mobilized the forces anyway, and made a full dinner.
I started off with some miso soup, made with cabbage, turnips, whole garlic cloves, and mello white miso. Miso is known for its probiotics, and I don’t think I had been having enough of it this week.
In the oven, I baked some beer bread. Now I’m not sure if beer bread has any healing properties, but it’s a nice cozy thing to have fresh-from-the-oven bread, and I’ve been thinking about making it ever since Madeline mentioned it in a post.
So super easy to make. I used all whole wheat flour, and Sucanat instead of regularly-processed brown sugar. My beer of choice was a Corona which had been in the back of the fridge since I had bought a six-pack for a small gathering mid-April. I guess you could tell how much I drink.
I needed something with super amounts of garlic for this germ war. So I minced the cloves from 2 and a half small heads of garlic for a EVOO/lemon juice/salt/pepper dressing for quick boiled beet greens. (Cooked similarly to this swiss chard.)
I also pan fried salmon-feta-dill burgers I got from a farmer’s market, from a business called Wild For Salmon. The company is run by a couple who travels to Alaska each June and makes a big catch of salmon, and then in turn brings them back to PA. The burgers were tasty. We enjoyed them on an open-faced sandwich on the beer bread, with some dijon mustard and tender mixed greens.
I followed dinner with a 50mg zinc tablet. Another part of the battle strategy. Next up – going to bed early.
My new resolution is to have something containing probiotics every day, such as miso or kefir. I want to keep my immune system strong.
How do you get your immune system into battle mode?
Crisp and Verdant 