Vinegar for your health? Eww!!!

At least that’s the most common response I’ve gotten from people. People who are looking for more natural ways to good health. Apparently they’re also looking for good tasting ways to good health. The only problem is, ‘good tasting’ has very likely contributed to our unhealthy states.

Well one thing you can be assured of, vinegar is not-in any way, shape or form- pleasing to the palate.

Of course, from time to time, you will run into people like my sister-in-law and niece. They would probably like vinegar. Straight from the bottle. Why? Because when they finish snacking on their pickles slices, they drink the ’juice’ that’s left in the jar. Much like you or I would guzzle a glass of Pepsi or Sprite.

Given that I don’t much care for pickles in the first place, the very thought makes my throat constrict a little.

But I was talking about vinegar here, wasn’t I. Specifically the health benefits available to those who can get past the taste.

And that can be quite a challenge.

Truth be told, it’s not very pleasing to my taste buds. In fact, it tastes downright bad to my taste buds. In fact, my taste buds think I’m torturing them and stage strikes when I try to drink it without anything to mask the putrid flavor.

And I work very hard to try to mask the taste.

Well, not so hard anymore. Thanks to a website I stumbled on a few years ago, I discovered an incredibly simple way to solve my dilemma. That is to add half a teaspoon of baking soda to every two to four tablespoons of vinegar, five days a week.

Why not seven?

For some odd reason, your body doesn’t like baking soda seven days a week. And I‘m not drinking vinegar without it! (I might do a little more research and get into the health benefits of baking soda in another post.)

And before I forget, here’s a handy little tip should you decide to give it a try.

Make sure to add some water to the mix.

Why? Because while it may appear as though vinegar dissolves the baking soda, it doesn't. If you fail to add water, trust me, you’ll just wind up with a mouthful of wet baking soda. And let me tell you, it’s really not the most pleasant feeling in the world.

Is this the voice of experience speaking.

Yup.

Unfortunately it is. I thought I’d never get the stuff rinsed out of my mouth. And the gritty feeling on your teeth...

Remember when you were in school and writing a math problem on the board with chalk? Did you ever have the chalk kind of catch, like it had a piece of stone in it? And it would squeal so bad you felt it all the way to your toes?

That’s kind of how wet baking soda in your teeth feels. So don’t do that, huh?

Now you've gotten to this point, you're probably asking yourself a very important question.

Regular apple cider vinegar or organic apple cider vinegar?

While some people are obsessed with the need that it be organic, I’ve actually used both. And I can’t say as there was an appreciable difference between them. Except regarding the taste and the price. The organic version is a lot milder and easier to handle. But you‘ll pay through the nose for it.

I, myself, balk at the thought of paying twelve or fifteen dollars for a gallon of vinegar-just because it tastes marginally better. Of course it does have brown slime (mother) floating around in the bottom of the jug. And there are companies who actually, through some process I don’t even want to know about, manage to break the slime up and mix it with the vinegar so that it forms a liquid that looks like- Well, maybe I should just leave that thought alone...

Yum.

Are you wondering if there really are any health benefits to vinegar?

I can only tell you the benefits I’ve experienced. One of them might embarrass any males that stumble upon my blog. In that case, guys, just cover your eyes when you get to that part, okay?

Let’s get that one over first, hmm.

Ladies, you know ‘that time of the month’ can be a big headache. And that’s when everything is normal. But try two-week long periods every two weeks! Heavy, painful ones at that. For about a year and a half.

Within a month of starting organic vinegar, at least once a day, five days a week, things returned to normal. And even my PMS symptoms lessened. From a voracious craving for chocolates to a take it or leave it attitude.

Yeah, right.

That was a slight exaggeration. You never get to the point where you can just leave chocolate. It’s just not possible. Isn’t that the first word that little girls learn? :o)

Are there more benefits?

Absolutely.

It helps the pain from bursitis in my shoulder. It sooths sore muscles when I overexert myself. I can now eat spaghetti and other tomato based products without suffering for it the rest of the day. I'm rarely sick anymore.

And most important of all.

I plain and simply have more energy. When I use it like I should, anyway. And that would be two to three times a day, five days a week.

So as not to get into plagiarism issues, I won’t tell you what other people have to say about the health benefits of vinegar. But I will direct you to what, in my opinion, is the best ‘natural’ website I’ve ever found. The one I referred to earlier in this blog.

I think it’s absolutely amazing!

Interested?

Then pay a visit to: www.earthclinic.com

I have to warn you though. The first night I found it, I wound up until three in the morning wandering around the site.

Good thing it was a weekend!

Another post today (duh)

Hi again!

While trying to familiarize myself with this website, tweaking the first blog and trying to come up with appropriate 'key words,' I've come to a couple of conclusions. As well as a thought (we're in deep trouble now!).

One, Bruce Willis and Jeffrey Dean Morgan have a great deal to do with health. Just looking at their pretty faces improves my mental health dramatically. And two, the Jonas Brother's improve my daughter's mental health dramatically which, in turn, reduces my stress levels.

Therefore...

Bruce Willis, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and the Jonas Brother's will be staying in the keywords. Not really. Much as I like the first two, and kind of like the 'kids,' that's not really the purpose of this blog.

Now...

I did mention something about a thought, didn't I?

Actually it has a little to do with the main subject matter of my first post. In this day and age, when gas prices make you want to faint (or punch someone!), when the cost of living would make your great, great granny roll over in her grave and when utility bills are through the roof, how does one not only survive, but thrive.

If you're not Bruce Willis, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the Jonas Brother's, or the rest of the 'have's?' If you're one of us lowly 'have not's?' Or 'not have as much of's?"

More specifically, how do people manage to eat healthily? It's one thing to walk, do crunches and lift weights. Those are vital aspects to good health and fitness.

Food is another matter entirely.

When a gallon of milk or orange juice goes for roughly $4.00 a gallon (pretty much the same as gasoline!), and you can get two-3 liter bottles of Faygo soda at the local dollar store for half that price, what are you more likely to drink?

Granted it would probably taste terrible on a bowl of cereal (although OJ probably wouldn't go over any better), as a beverage you can still get a whopping three gallons of soda to a single gallon of the others. For the same price.

Then there's the fresh produce dilemma.

Five bucks for ten pounds of potatoes! A dollar for a tomato or green pepper! Forty cents per ear of corn!

It kind of makes you cringe at the 5-7 servings a day recommended by the FDA, huh? Especially if you have more than one in your family. Just the minimum would be twenty servings a day per household for a family of four!

So where does that leave someone who wants to lose a few pounds? Out of luck? Probably not. There options.

Beans are still pretty affordable. And high in fiber so they'll fill you up. In more ways than one! You'd just have to decide if the....um....side effects were worth the benefits.

Portion control is another-and perhaps the best-option. Yeah, you'll feel hungry for a few days. Or a week or two, depending on how much you're used to eating.

But face it, unless the government does something drastic, the days of your munching on fruits and veggies to fill you up and keep you from snacking on foods that taste better are over.

And for those of you who love healthy eating, I apologize. But you know what? America wouldn't have an epidemic of weight problems if an apple tasted as good as a brownie. If a carrot tasted as good as a Frito. If a half a cup of tuna tasted as good as an inch thick rib eye steak, charbroiled to medium and eaten with homemade rolls and baked potatoes dripping in butter. If a glass of iced tea was as satisfying as a hot fudge shake.

Nope. No epidemic at all. We'd all be at our ideal weights and heart disease, high blood pressure, many cancers, etc... wouldn't be nearly as prevalent as they are today.

So what are you doing to keep healthy in this economy? Those of you have normal incomes, anyway.