An episode from my own experience illustrates this principle most clearly. One day when she was about nine, my oldest daughter suddenly developed a cough. There was no mucus, cold, illness, or any other problem associated with it; it was just a mysterious cough. As she hadn’ t eaten either dairy or ice cream during the past month— the usual culprits— I couldn’ t figure out where this was coming from. Then I remembered that three days before a friend of mine had returned from a trip to Europe and brought me some pure unsweetened licorice strings from Holland. I’ ve never liked licorice, so I didn’ t eat it, but my daughter loved it and had finished the batch. On a hunch, I looked up licorice in an herb book. 5
I found that one of the conditions it helps heal is asthma, which of course entails coughing. Therefore I speculated that as my daughter had no cough or asthma that needed curing, the remedy, taken in a rather large dose, had flipped over and caused that very same condition it would normally cure. I felt that if such were the case, it would be out of her body within a day or two, with no further attention. And indeed within a couple of days there was not a trace of the cough left. On the basis of this and other experiences, I have formulated the following Law of Remedies. I believe it applies equally to whatever remedies you may be using, be they pharmacological drugs, natural and synthetic vitamins and mineral supplements, homeopathic remedies, herbal remedies, or any food used medicinally: 1. Any substance( drug, supplement, or herb) that cures a symptom will cause that same symptom( a) in a different dosage, either larger or smaller; and / or( b) if used in the absence of that symptom.( Tranquilizers can cause anxiety; digitalis, an anti-arrhythmic, can cause cardiac arrhythmias.) 2. A remedy that has cured a symptom should be stopped once that symptom has vanished. 3. Symptoms caused by the excess of a remedy or medicine cannot be cured any more by the same remedy, even if the remedy originally did cure the symptom. Discontinuation of the remedy is mandatory; in most cases an antidote, or simply the passage of time, will eventually reestablish balance. This technique will minimize the development of resistance to remedies. Foods, herbs, and other natural substances can be very potent remedies. They are also vast in number. Therefore, the healing systems based on them are as complex and sophisticated as that of modern medicine. Any detailed guide to these healing systems is beyond the scope of this book; my purpose here is to show how we can use food to heal ourselves continuously, every day, with the simplest of natural ways accessible to us. I have found a number of food remedies that are as easy to prepare as a bowl of oatmeal and that can help flip our balance if we’ ve swung out too far in one direction or another. They are therefore very helpful in managing our health on a day-to-day basis. Please note that if you have a chronic, distressing problem, you will be best off consulting a professional healer who understands your needs. HOME REMEDIES Throughout history, every household has had its own remedies for various minor problems, handed down through the generations. Usually, these remedies reflected the healing system accepted in each particular society. In our own society, we have a blend of many traditions. I myself am such a blend: European by birth and ancestry, South American by upbringing, North American by choice, Oriental by study. The remedies I’ ve used at home for small health disorders are likewise a mixture of these traditions. Some are from the European school of natural health; some are from the Oriental system of macrobiotics; a few are from the“ health food” movement; and my favorite digestive tea is an Argentine blend called Cachamai. I have used the remedies listed below for fifteen, twenty years, some even longer, and found them effective in many different situations. I am not implying that only these remedies are worth using; just that these are the ones I understand best and have worked with most consistently. Also, I believe in simplifying life— it’ s complicated enough— so I use as few and as simple remedies as possible to avoid confusion. I hope that each reader of this book will add and subtract from the list and thereby end up with a highly personal and individualized home remedy kit, appropriate for his or her own situation. In the following sections of this chapter you will find information about how these remedies can be used to balance various conditions of imbalance. Please note that natural remedies of any kind may have less or no effect if you are also taking pharmacological drugs. First, we’ ll list and categorize the remedies. After that, we’ ll look at different conditions and how these remedies can be used to counterbalance them.
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B-u: Buildup B-d: Breakdown +: More –: Less