The wonders of ginger
-
- November
- 13
With most pediatricians recommending that parents avoid cough medication for toddlers and young children, I’ve been wondering what to do when Aristu, my youngest, gets a nasty cough. For the most part I’ve made do with rubbing children’s Vicks on his chest and making sure he’s warm.
As a kid I remember my parents giving me a teaspoon of brandy when I had a runny nose or a cough. But I guess thats not possible these days without alarming everyone. So I’ve gone back to some of the homegrown remedies my grandmother had up her sleeve.
A sure soother of sore throats is some ginger juice and a few drops of honey. I usually grate a piece of fresh ginger and squeeze out the juice in a teaspoon, and then add some honey and stir the concoction. Aristu, who just like his older brother is always willing to swallow all kinds of medication, laps it up, though the unusual taste did shock him the first time. That’s a good addition to a hot cup of tea, moms, if you ever want to give it a try. I sometimes also scrape a piece of ginger, smash it a bit, char it over the kitchen stove, pour honey over the ginger and then pop it in my mouth. Sucking on it really soothes the throat, though kids may not like it.
I’ve also introduced my husband to the wonders of mulethi, a dried root that makes tea very fragrant and soothing when boiled in it. I bring back a bag of it every time I visit my mother in India. I just Googled to see what the botanical or Western name for it was, and it turned out to be liquorice! Looks like I needn’t have gone all the way to India to get it; I could have just as easily got it from my local ShopRite.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 10:35 pm by Hema Easley.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print
| 
Email
