Billy’s much better now. There’s no longer blood in his urine. The apple cider vinegar seems to have helped dissolve the crystals blocking his urinary tract. It took at least two weeks of constantly mixing apple cider vinegar into small amounts of his cat food which we had to feed him through a syringe, but at least it worked. Numerous, expensive visits to the vet didn’t solve the problem and he hated taking antibiotics and other medicine anyway.

He’s a lot like me. I hate taking medicine. I caught the bug which was making its rounds during the recent holiday season and it got me bad. My throat was so sore and painful that sometimes it felt like I had daggers down my throat. The coughing was relentless and particularly nasty at night. My nose leaked like a tap. My poor hubby was down with the same bug too, as was my mother-in-law. She even lost her voice. She took all kinds of medicine but, one month later, she’s still feeling poorly.

This time around, I decided not to take any medicine at all, not even cough syrup. Instead, I brewed pots of Momordica Grosvenor fruit, an antioxidant and immune system booster which has been popular with the Chinese for centuries. You can find it in Chinese medicine shops and groceries, where it is usually better known as “lo han guo”. Momordica is popularly used to treat respiratory ailments like cough, cold, influenza and bronchitis.

The fruit can be purchased whole and dried in its shell, or in boxes of compressed cubes, ready to dissolve in hot water. Momordica can also be found in some health supplements, such as Neways Authentic Hawaiian Noni Juice. It’s naturally sweet, so it makes a good, healthy sweetener. It’s often combined with other natural ingredients like chrysanthemum and barley to make a healthy, soothing tea.

Momordica looks like a green lime, only it has a hard shell. When dried, the shell is dark brown in color. The fruit pulp within the shell has lots of seeds. To make a pot of momordica or ‘lo han kuo’ tea, simply crack the shell like an egg, discard the shell, roughly break up the dried pulp with seeds (just peel it apart with your fingers) and put that in a teapot. Pour in boiling water and leave to infuse for at least 15 minutes. The longer you leave it, the richer the flavor. As you drink the tea, you can top up the teapot with more hot water, until the momordica tea begins to taste weak. Discard once you reach that point.

I drank a pot of momordica or ‘lo han kuo’ tea almost daily, alternating with home-made barley water every other day. That really flushed the toxins out of my body and soothed my throat and respiratory system. My husband and I recovered much faster than my mother-in-law, and without the use of medicine too, although I admit to taking my Neways health supplements daily (Revenol for antioxidants, Maximol Solutions for multivitamins and trace minerals, and VMM to boost my immune system). Try this next time the bug gets you!

Posted: January 21st, 2010 under Alternative Remedies, Antioxidants, Healing Foods, Immune System Health.
Comments: 1

Morinda citrifolia, Indian mulberry, cheese fruit, beach mulberry – these are some of the other names of the noni plant. ‘Noni’ is a Hawaiian term. Originally from Southeast Asia, the noni plant grows in many parts of the world, including much of Polynesia and other tropical and subtropical countries.

Interestingly, noni’s Sanskrit name is Ayushka, meaning longevity. Indeed, virtually every part of the noni fruit and plant has been used for its medicinal properties. Noni fruit has a pungent smell, but it can also be eaten raw with salt. It is also cooked as curry by many of the tribal populations of Southeast Asia, Polynesia and Australia. The seeds of the noni fruit can be roasted and eaten. The protein-rich young leaves of the noni plant are sometimes eaten as vegetable as well. The leaves are also used as poultices.

It is traditionally believed that noni:

- stabilizes cholesterol at normal levels
- increases energy when consumed over a period of time
- delivers abundant antioxidants to scavenge free radicals
- helps maintain the immune system
- helps maintain a healthy heart
- supports a healthy cardiovascular system
- reduces inflammation
- enhances energy and wellbeing

The noni fruit is packed with vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, amino acids and antioxidants. Over 150 nutraceuticals have been found in the noni fruit, including all the B vitamins, 18 amino acids, antioxidants such as vitamin C, beta carotene, calcium, linoleic acid, and minerals like magnesium, iron and potassium. Noni fruit contains a number of phytochemicals, including lignans, oligo- and polysaccharides, flavonoids, iridoids, fatty acids, scopoletin, catechin, beta-sitosterol, damnacanthal, and alkaloids.

What is particularly significant is that a rare compound known as proxeronine, a precursor of xeronine, essential for the regeneration and growth of healthy cells, is found in the noni fruit. Noni also contains an anthraquinone compound called damnacanthal, which has promising anti-cancer properties. The journal CANCER LETTER [73 (2-3) 1993, 161-166], reported that Keio University and The Institute of Biomedical Sciences in Japan observed that damnacanthal caused normal morphology and cystoskeletal structure in K-ras-NRK pre-cancer cells. Put simply, this compound found in noni fruit may possibly turn pre-cancer cells into normal healthy cells. The researchers reported that damnacanthal reversed the proliferation of cancer cells, showing an ability to block or inhibit the cellular function of RAS cells, which are considered pre-cancerous cells.

The Cancer Research Center of Hawaii has been studying noni juice health benefits with regard to cancer treatments, since a 1999 study suggested that Noni Juice helped to stop the growth of tumors. Laboratory studies have examined noni’s effect on the growth of cancerous tissue in mice. One such study in vitro found that noni reduced growth of capillary vessels sprouting from human breast tumor explants and, at increased concentrations, caused existing vessels to degenerate.

Research indicates that noni fruit stimulates the immune system, regulating cell function and cellular regeneration of damaged cells. As the Noni fruit seems to operate at the very basic and critical cellular level, noni may help to heal a wide variety of conditions.

Noni juice also contains a precursor to melanin, which enhances all body functions depending on melanin. This could explain why the prolific consumption of noni juice has been reported to reverse diabetes, macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease in some people.

The strong odor of the noni fruit as well as its bitter taste may make noni difficult to consume in its raw form. Fortunately, pleasant-tasting noni juice is available from some manufacturers of health supplements. While noni juice from the Polynesian islands of Hawaii and Tahiti is well-known, noni fruit grown in Hawaii is said to be the best because of the pure air, water, and volcanic soil in which they are grown. Neways Authentic Hawaiian Noni dietary supplement, for instance, uses 100 percent pure Hawaiian noni, grown far from areas where nuclear testing occurred near Tahiti in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia.

For the highest quality noni health supplement and best results, always choose noni products which are never fumigated with deadly chemicals or irradiated, and grown without pesticides. The authenticity of the noni product must be guaranteed by its manufacturer and should use only the Noni fruit pulp, not other parts of the noni plant.

Besides noni fruit puree, Neways Authentic Hawaiian Noni juice is enhanced with raspberry and blueberry fruit concentrate, as well as momordica fruit extract. Red raspberry delivers high levels of ellagic acid, a powerful, natural substance that supports the body’s defence mechanisms against carcinogens. Blueberry has powerful antioxidants proven to scavenge free radicals that can damage DNA molecules and lead to cancer. Mormodica fruit is an antioxidant and immune system booster which has been popular with the Chinese for centuries. You can find it in Chinese medicine shops and groceries, where it is usually better known as “lo han kuo”.

Neways Authentic Hawaiian Noni is as pure as it gets, with no added sugars, no added preservatives, colors or artificial flavors. If you can’t stomach the natural taste and smell of noni fruit, this delicious, power-packed cocktail will help you get the goodness of noni into your body. Buy it at the wholesale price here.

Posted: September 4th, 2009 under Antioxidants, Cancer, Healing Foods, Health Supplements, Immune System Health.
Comments: 1

I like cabbage – it’s such a handy vegetable. You can stir-fry it, use it in soups, salads, wraps, or make it into a fermented cabbage dish for using as a topping or side-dish. There’s probably all kinds of culinary uses for cabbage that I’m not even aware of.

Cabbage belongs to the group of cruciferous vegetables which includes cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts and bok choy. Cruciferous vegetables are rich in antioxidants and recommended as part of a cancer-fighting diet. They are also packed with phyto-nutrients which help boost the body’s immunity system, detoxify and eliminate harmful toxins and hormones, block cancer-causing substances, and stimulate antibodies to fight cancer.

Both red and green cabbages are loaded with nutrients, with high levels of calcium, iron, iodine, potassium, sulphur, and phosphorus. They are also rich in vitamins A, B, C, E, K and folic acid. Because of its reddish pigmentation, red cabbage has higher nutritional content than green cabbage.

The ideal is to eat at least a cup of such vegetables daily. To help you enjoy the benefits of eating more cabbage, here’s a coleslaw recipe with an Asian twist which I just cane across in my local health tabloid. Kudos to food writer Sylvia Tan for creating such a tasty and healthy salad. The addition of shredded roasted chicken makes it a meal in itself, although the salad will still taste great without any meat in it. The roasted almonds may be replaced with almost any other kind of nuts. Almonds, however, are said to have anti-cancer properties.

Like most Asian salads, this coleslaw recipe contains no oil.

ASIAN COLESLAW
(serves four people)

Ingredients:
1/2 head small round white cabbage
1 medium-sized onion, chopped
2 stalks spring onion (also known as scallion or salad onion), chopped
2 green chillies (long, slim Asian variety), chopped
1/2 cup roasted almonds, chopped
1 roasted chicken thigh / breast meat (optional)
1/2 cup water
1 tbs fish sauce
Juice from 4 green limes
1 tbs sugar
Pinch of salt

Method:
1) Shred cabbage finely, enough to fill a salad bowl. Chop onion, spring onion and green chillies and scatter over the cabbage.
2) Lightly toast 1/2 cup almonds in a 100 deg C oven. When golden, remove from oven to cool, then chop the nuts roughly.
3) Discard any chicken skin and shred the meat.
4) Place the meat and nuts on top of the chopped and shredded vegetables.
5) Make the salad dressing. Mix the fish sauce, water, lime juice, salt and sugar in a bowl. You can adjust the seasoning to suit your taste. Add to the coleslaw and toss well.
6) Serve as a healthy main course, a side dish, or as a fresh salad to go with an Asian meal.

Posted: August 27th, 2009 under Antioxidants, Cancer, Diet, Immune System Health, Recipes.
Comments: none