I recently received an email about the power of onions and sucking up viruses and air impurities. So I searched the net and found two stories.
Story 1 – The Email Circulating About H1N1 and Onions
“In the winter of 1918, there was a flu that was all over the world. Gene was in France at this time and there were folks all around dying. One man lost his wife and two children with this flu. The doctors sent out word to the whole community to get a hundred-pound sack of onions and eat them three times a day, anyway you can. Boiled, fried or raw, just eat onions. It seemed to help all right.
They sent riders out all over the community to tell everyone that there was a special Sunday set aside for a prayer day. The sickness started in November and when this rider was sent out at this time it was in the spring. The flu did finally die down, our family did get it, but not as sick as some of the other families.
We were well enough though to take care of our chores and we went down to the King Family and helped them out with their chores at nights for two or three days, which was about three and a half miles from us. Mr. King and the children were all down with it, but we didn’t get it so bad that we couldn’t take care of our own work. It was all over by February or March, but up until then it was a worry for everybody.”
Although influenza is no longer the unchecked grim reaper of years past (in 1918 the so-called “Spanish Flu” killed an estimated twenty to forty million people worldwide, including a half-million Americans), it continues to present a very real danger even in modern times. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), millions of people in the United States, about 10% to 20% of U.S. residents, will get the flu each year. Influenza also costs Americans an estimated $10 billion annually in lost wages and medical expenses. Worst of all, every year about 36,000 people in the United States die from it, and about 114,000 are admitted to hospitals because of it. The flu is not just a mild sickness from which everyone recovers after enduring a week of feeling lousy and missing work; it is an illness that can, has, and does kill.
The 2009 outbreak of H1N1 (swine) flu has brought home even to those who don’t normally ponder such matters the danger posed by contagions often dismissively regarded as mere seasonal flu, maladies that are thought of as wholly unpleasant but not life-threatening. These days, people are far more aware of the sniffles and sneezes around them. Also, unlike in other years, more folks are actively looking for ways to avoid catching the flu.
In addition to good advice about washing one’s hands frequently and avoiding the company of persons who are obviously under the weather, those looking to sidestep being felled by the flu are subject to toutings of a variety of folk remedies, each of which is presented as a surefire and deadly preventive. The missive quoted above about onions absorbing the virus is one such offering.
There’s nothing medically magical about peeled or cut onions: they don’t act as sponges that soak up whatever viruses or nasty microbes might be present in the same room with them. However, the belief that they do act in this fashion antedates the 2009 flu outbreak by at least a hundred years. Long-standing superstition asserts that keeping raw onions in the house (either cut or whole; different folks swear by different methods) will draw illness-causing germs from the air, thereby rendering the home free of contamination.
The full article on this can be found here http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/onion.asp
Story 2 – Benefits of Onions For Cold and Flu Symptoms
Most of us are aware of the powerful odor of onions. Did you know this is their secret weapon against viruses and bacteria? That pungent odor is caused by the rich sulfur compounds that promote health and well-being. Throughout history onions have been held in high regard for their culinary and medicinal qualities. They have even been used as a currency in Egypt to pay the workers who built the pyramids.
Onions have phytochemicals and quercetin which assist the body by moving and breaking up the mucus in the head and chest. The powerful odor causes the eyes to tear and the nose to run. It is this affect on your body that stimulates the immune system to fight the virus or bacterial infection. This is helping your body shed the virus and reduce the inflammation from congestion.
The onion is a warming, stimulating and penetrating herb. It is used in soups and even cough syrups. But you don’t have to eat it to experience its healing affects. Apply them externally as a poultice and inhale and feel their pungent effects. Onions bring heat to the area and this action brings the fever to that part of the body to control how far the infection spreads.
You can also cut them in slices and put them in a bowl by your bed at night or in any room in the house. It is said they absorb the viruses and bacteria from the air. A doctor during the 1918 Spanish flu discovered a farmer and his family doing this very thing and they did not catch the flu, so the story goes.
Onions are anti-bacterial, ant-viral, and anti-parasitic. They are rich in vitamin C, potassium, chromium, fiber, manganese and vitamin B6. So eat onions every day, learn to make poultices and syrups and continue a 5,000 year old remedy.
Want to know more about how to boost your immune system? Traditional diets and how to prepare them, healthy fats, herbal remedies and debunking health myths are some of the subjects covered in The Natural Living Site Newsletter at http://thenaturallivingsite.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shanna_Ohmes
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