Start now to take better care of your lungs. Wise Woman Ways help you keep your lungs healthy.
Continuing bad news about SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) is worrisome, but need not be frightening. We can start now to take better care of our lungs. Here are four herbs - and a surprising food - that can help keep your lungs healthy. These simple, easy, effective remedies are free or inexpensive, especially if you make your own. So I've included recipes and tips on harvest or buying the herbs. Let these green allies help you feel safer in troubling times. That's the Wise Woman Way.

Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) is a stately fuzzy-leaved plant frequently found on roadsides and other sunny open places. This common weed is one of the world's best lung allies. You can buy dried mullein, or harvest your own.

No other wild plant looks like it: its large (a foot or more) fuzzy (used for candlewicks) leaves and the upright (five feet or more is common) stalk of yellow flowers (a famous ear oil is made from them) make it easy to recognize.

To harvest, I cut the entire stalk of plants just beginning to flower and hang them, upside down, in a shady place to dry.

To brew mullein infusion, I fill a quart canning jar about half full of cut and crushed mullein leaf and stalk pieces. (If using commercial herb, I use one ounce by weight.) I fill the jar to the top with boiling water, cap tightly, and let it sit at room temperature for four hours, or overnight.

Mullein leaves are fuzzy, and mullein infusion can be too. To protect my throat, I always strain my mullein infusion through tightly-woven cloth (like a handkerchief) before drinking. The dose of mullein infusion is 1-4 cups a day. Mullein infusion will last for 5-6 days refrigerated. It brews up to a dark brown liquid with a smoky flavor that I find quite appealing, especially with milk and honey. (More on milk below.)

To relieve acute lung problems, such as bronchitis, pneumonia, SARS, even coughs, 2-4 cups of mullein infusion a day, plus elecampane, echinacea, and/or poke root tinctures are consumed until health has returned. To strengthen the lungs, or to restore health to lung tissues after "assaults" such as tobacco smoke or radiation: 1-2 cups of mullein infusion daily for six weeks is suggested. To relieve allergies and asthma, 2-4 cups of mullein infusion every day for 6-8 weeks is amazingly effective.

Organic whole milk is, despite rumors to the contrary, one of the best foods you can eat to help your lungs. You don't have to drink milk to get its benefits. Eating raw milk cheeses and yogurt counts too.

I've been told the milk produces mucus. This idea was begun by Arnold Ehret who decided that milk and bread were "mucus forming" by slashing his arm open and looking at his blood after eating one food alone for three days. Not very scientific, to say the least. In a recent study of mucus production in the respiratory system, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most, water scored zero, milk one, and orange juice ten.

Organic whole milk has been considered the optimum food for mending and protecting the lungs for thousands of years. A friend just recently sent me a long article on the milk cure (especially effective for lung complaints) written in 1926. I have personally seen milk (and yogurt) help women cure themselves of Khrone's disease, severe animal hair allergies, severe asthma, osteoporosis, and life-threatening food reactions. I prefer to use goats' milk, but any organic milk or dairy product can be helpful to the lungs.

Modern milk production leaves a lot to be desired, it is true. That's why I prefer organic. That's why I get milk from a local farm where I can easily see whether or not the animals are well tended. That's why I support integrated organic farms - ones with animals.

Herbal tradition has it that mullein infusion should be mixed half and half with whole milk to effect the greatest benefit for the lungs.

In part two of this article, we will meet some big strong roots who can help us counter even the nastiest infections. In part three, I will share with you two easy, tasty ways to keep your immune system strong and able to resist SARS or any other infection.

Breathe deeply. Worry and anxiety deplete the immune system. In the second part of this article, you will learn about three herbs that can help you help your body deal with any infection. In the third part, tasty ways to keep your immune system strong.

Green Blessings.

Susun Weed
PO Box 64
Woodstock, NY 12498
Fax: 1-845-246-8081

Visit Susun Weed at: www.susunweed.com and www.ash-tree-publishing.com

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About the Author

Vibrant, passionate, and involved, Susun Weed has garnered an international reputation for her groundbreaking lectures, teachings, and writings on health and nutrition. She challenges conventional medical approaches with humor, insight, and her vast encyclopedic knowledge of herbal medicine. Susun is one of America's best-known authorities on herbal medicine and natural approaches to women's health.