Ginger Lemon Tea – make it part of the detox protocol or use as a powerful cold/flu/cough remedy.
This tea is best to be taken in the morning before breakfast as it will cleanse your digestive system and give you a good boost of energy.
Ginger root is relaxing and soothing for our intestinal tract and stimulates the immune system. Cooked ginger releases specific compounds that increase cardiovascular circulation and warm us up.
Besides an impressive amount of vitamin C and many other health benefits of lemon, the citric acid in lemons aids digestion and helps to dissolve kidney stones.
That’s why ginger-lemon combination works extremely well and is inevitable part of many detox programs.
When you add some honey and couple of cloves of crushed garlic and/or cayenne pepper you will get a powerful cold/flu/cough remedy.
Time To Prepare
20 minutes
Ingredients
2-3cm (2 inches) of ginger root
2 cups of filtered water
juice of half lemon
When part of the detox regime you can make this tea (double or triple the amounts) in the morning and drink throughout the day.
Optional ingredients for cold/flu/cough remedy: honey, 2-3 cloves of crushed garlic, cayenne pepper, Echinacea tincture drops (not to be used all at once)
Steps
Chop or even better grate the ginger root and infuse in freshly boiled water.
Turn down the heat and leave it simmering for 20 minutes.
When cooled, add lemon juice and stir.
When used as cold/flu/cough remedy consider adding some of the following ingredients: honey, crushed garlic (leave it sit for 15 minutes after crushing), cayenne pepper or Echinacea tincture (couple of drops).
Chicken soup made with made with chicken bones and meat has been medically proven in number of studies to knock out a cold or the flu and speed up healing.
Chicken soup contains a number of substances with beneficial medicinal activity including an anti-inflammatory mechanism that could ease the symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections.
Here is my recipe with carefully selected ingredients all of them contributing to making this soup a good remedy for cold and flu.
Ingredients (Serves 4)
800gr of chicken (bones and meat)
2-3 onions (don’t peel)
4 garlic cloves
4 carrots
3 leeks
2 tomatoes
1 potato
1 sweet potato
1 medium parsnip
4cm long piece of ginger
handful of parsley & cilantro (coriander) plus 4 additional garlic cloves
salt, pepper or cayenne (as much as you can handle)
Obviously to obtain the maximum, you would need to go organic all the way.
Duration
2 hours and 15 minutes.
Steps
Wash veggies (onions, garlic, carrots, leeks, tomatoes, potatoes, parsnip, ginger) and then cut them coarsely into 1-2 cm cubes.
Put the meat in large pot, and add veggies.
Add enough pure water to just cover the meat and vegetables.
Bring to a boil then lower the heat and simmer slowly for 2 hours.
Strain (optional)
When the soup has cooled a bit, add finely cut parsley, cilantro and garlic cloves. Remember to activate antiviral allicin in garlic by allowing chopped garlic to sit 15 minutes before adding it to the soup!
Garlic excels as an antibacterial and antiviral herb for cold, coughs and the flu.
For those who are not up to eating it raw, which tends to be absolutely the best way to consume it, an alternative comes in form of garlic tea which surprisingly has a pretty nice flavor.
Preparation does matter a lot, because when handled incorrectly, garlic does not release or loses allicin, the most beneficial compound.
Preparation Time
25 minutes
Ingredients
5-6 cloves of garlic. When treating a child’s cold, use less garlic 2-3 as it may be too hot for them.
2 cups of filtered water
Raw or pure honey
Juice of lemon
Steps
Peel the cloves.
Mince or press the cloves into a paste. This is important, as by chopping garlic more finely, more allicin is produced. Pressing garlic or mincing it into a smooth paste will give you the strongest flavor and may also result in an increased amount of allicin.
Let the garlic sit for 15 minutes. This is important, otherwise the allicin will not get a chance to get released.
Bring the water to a boil. Lower the heat, and add the garlic paste. Lowering the heat to low or medium is important, otherwise allicin will be destroyed.
Simmer for another 10-12 minutes. Important: simmering over 15 min. will weaken and damage allicin.
Strain the garlic and allow the tea to cool to mouth temperature.
Add raw honey and lemon juice. Alternatively you can add a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Ginger Lemon Tea – make it part of the detox protocol or use as a powerful cold/flu/cough remedy.
That’s why ginger-lemon combination works extremely well and is inevitable part of many detox programs.
Food In, Love Out 