digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: make a raw, homemade onion, garlic, ginger, lemon, and chili syrup, preserved with a sweetener or glycerine, to use during coughs, colds, and flu. The speaker says the ingredients are used uncooked because raw spices are antiviral, while cooked or warmed ginger is only antibacterial. The syrup is made by blending roughly equal parts of the ingredients, then steeping for about a month before straining.
Key Points
- The speaker frames the syrup as a traditional remedy for winter coughs, colds, and flu, aimed at heating the lungs and clearing bugs such as fungi, bacteria, and viruses.
- Keeping ingredients raw is central: the speaker says most pungent spices are antiviral when uncooked, and that ginger is only antibacterial when cooked or warmed.
- Purple onions are chosen because their purple coloring contains anthocyanins, which the speaker describes as anti-inflammatory.
- Organic lemon peel and pith are included rather than discarded, since the speaker says they contain vitamin K and essential oils.
- The preservative is either a sweet syrup like maple, honey (the speaker suggests runny manuka honey), or vegetable glycerine, and thyme can be added for colds.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Roughly chop all organic ingredients in roughly equal parts: purple onion, garlic, and ginger, with a bit extra ginger if you like it, plus two tablespoons of lemon.
- Add two birds eye chilies if you can tolerate heat; the speaker notes they are quite hot.
- Garlic skin can be left on, and chili and onion pieces do not need to be perfectly prepared, since the mixture will be strained later.
- Include lemon peel and pith if the lemons are organic, or freeze them to use later.
- Use dried powdered horseradish in an amount equal to the other ingredients, since it is very strong.
- Blend with a liquidiser, NutriBullet, or similar. Chopping by hand also works, because the goal is more surface area in contact with the liquid.
- Add vegetable glycerine, maple syrup, or honey as the preservative until the mixture blends into a syrup, adding more liquid if needed.
- Label the jar and shake it every so often while it sits.
- If in a hurry, the speaker says it can be eaten immediately or added to salads, but the full steep takes about three to four weeks.
- After about a month, strain through a jelly bag, or a colander lined with muslin, and discard or compost the solids.
- The speaker says the solids are mostly spent after a month, since the flavor has moved into the liquid.
- The speaker says the amounts are loose and garlic can be increased for those who like it.
- These are the speaker's claims about the remedy's effects, presented as her own view rather than established medical fact.
Bottom Line
This is a homemade raw onion-garlic-ginger-lemon-chili syrup that the speaker presents as a winter remedy for coughs and colds, made by blending, sweetening or glycerine-preserving, steeping for about a month, and straining.
