Home is where the remedies are

There’s an e-mail being passed around the internet suggesting people can use onions to combat the flu. Apparently an unpeeled onion can absorb flu virus and bacteria. The article advocates buying some onions and, without removing the dried outside layer, placing them in bowls around your home. This décor tip obviously will not make you the Martha Stewart of your block – but then again, if Martha comes down with chills and fever and you don’t, you will have the last laugh while she hacks away in her colour-co-ordinated mansion.

I’m not advocating skipping your swine or seasonal flu shot, but I can’t see how a little backup onion therapy could hurt. After all, a footnote in the same article states authoritatively that onion and garlic “saved many from the black plague years ago.” I don’t want the black plague and I know you don’t either, so don’t dismiss this onion thing out of hand … as I tried to tell Kayak Guy, when he inquired into our updated, onion-themed décor.

K.G. isn’t buying in. Maybe because he’s still ticked about the honey. I had read on the internet that honey can help with minor burns and sinusitis. Just coat the burn with honey, it said. So when K.G. complained about his sinuses, I suggested the same approach. Turns out the honey was supposed to go into some warm tea. Who knew?

After all, my friend Lovera had previously passed me an e-mail which advocated swabbing your nostrils each day with cotton buds dipped in warm salt water. Apparently this can “bring down the viral population” and help prevent any H1N1 molecules that might have attached in there from proliferating. K.G. happened to spot me with a swab stuck in each nostril. Not my best look, I admit. But if it makes the bad bugs back off, I’m up for an occasional salty swab.

Which is more than I can say for K.G. Even when his Kayak Ear was bothering him, he wouldn’t hear of using olive oil, which I was sure I’d read about on the Net as an ear remedy. Or maybe it was yogurt? No, the yogurt was for thrush. I’m not sure what thrush is, but I’m stocking up on fruit-bottom, just in case. I’d suggest you do the same. And while you’re at the store, don’t forget the onions for your coffee table display. An ounce of prevention . . .

What home remedies do you recommend?  (I can’t wait to try them out on K.G. 🙂 )

© Judith Millar 2009. All rights reserved.