The Medicinal Uses of Honey

Disclaimer.  I am not a licensed health practitioner.  This is just another post on an item you might wish to have available if needed so that a physician can treat you and your family as best as possible.  No medication, including those available over the counter, should be taken without consulting a physician.  Information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only.  It is not medical advice nor a substitute for licensed medical care.  A qualified, licensed physician or other medical provider should be consulted before beginning any herbal or conventional treatment.

A simple online search for the medicinal uses of honey yields dozens of hits, if not hundreds, including all the health benefits of honey.  It's touted for helping with all manner of problems, from acne to weight loss.  We'll stick with what honey is most especially used for in a true medicinal sense when our society has collapsed.  After all, our honey supply may be limited and taking a teaspoon every day for allergies or in the evening to sleep better will exhaust our stores quickly.

First off, studies have shown that honey is more effective at quieting a cough in children than any over-the-counter cough syrup. Parents also reported that their children slept better.  (However, honey should never, under any circumstance, be given to a child under 12 months of age.)  In addition, it should be noted that the FDA has recommended removing many children's OTC cough syrups from the shelves because of adverse reactions.  Fortunately, we have honey, which is safer, more effective, and cheaper.  Just a teaspoon or two is all that is needed.  And it works for adults as well.  Also, honey tea does a tremendous job soothing sore throats.  Just remember, when making your tea, boil the water first, remove from heat, and then add the honey.  Boiling the honey itself will reduce or entirely negate many of its medicinal qualities.

Dr. Joseph Alton, author of The Survival Medicine Handbook, notes that honey was used to treat asthma in the 19th century.  Patients were directed to breathe deeply from a jar of honey, and improvement usually occurred within a few minutes.  To decrease the number of future episodes, doctors advised drinking one teaspoon of honey in twelve ounces of water three times per day.

As far as healing wounds goes, honey works in much the same manner as sugar, which was discussed last week.  Wounds, especially chronic wounds that aren't healing, have an alkaline pH, which provides an ideal breeding ground for bacteria, especially MRSA.  Honey (and sugar) are acidic, so they alter the pH and this kills the bacteria.  Honey may be spread directly on a wound and over the surrounding edges, but it will probably be more comfortable for the patient if the honey is spread on some gauze first and then applied to the wound. 

Honey is also an excellent treatment for burns, whether first- or second-degree, and may even be used with third-degree burns when there is no higher care available.  After the burned area has been cooled with running water for 15 minutes (not just immersing the wound in water, but running water), apply a generous amount of honey.  For third-degree burns, make sure this is very thick and covering the entire burn.  Per Dr. Alton, cover the honey with cling plastic wrap (the colored stuff found around Easter and Christmas is thicker and easier to manage) or a waterproof dressing and tape in place.  If the dressing begins to fill with oozing fluid, change the dressing.  The worse the burn, the more often the dressing will need to be changed, but make sure to change the dressing at least three times per day.  Continue for at least seven to ten days.  Do not wash off the honey for at least 20 days (unless the burn has healed).  Add more honey as needed, always making sure that there is a thick layer that goes beyond the edges of the burn to prevent infection and promote healing. 

So what kind of honey should you use?  What is best?

You can buy ridiculously over-priced manuka or Medihoney if that makes you more comfortable.  Manuka is what is most often used in medical studies.  But regular doctors like Dr. Alton and those who have taught the classes I attended say we can use any pure, raw honey.  Your best bet for getting real raw honey is going to be from a local beekeeper.  An awful lot of grocery store honey is adulterated with high fructose corn syrup, glucose solutions, or even just water.  There are numerous tests you can perform at home to determine if your honey is pure or adulterated, but I'm not going to go into those.  For me, the true test, the easy test, is if the honey has crystallized either partially or completely.  The fake stuff will never crystallize.  The real stuff almost always will eventually.

A couple of years ago my in-laws were going through their old food storage and were getting rid of two forty-year-old four-gallon tins of honey.  They were planning to give it to their youngest daughter to feed her livestock.  Fortunately, my husband stopped by first and brought them home for us.  (We have livestock, too, but not as much as his sister.)  And to heck with the livestock, that honey was for us.  So I asked Dr. Steve about using this really old honey medicinally on wounds.  His reply was that as long as it was pure (the honey was completely crystallized), there was no problem at all.  

In our trailer this summer, I found some older, unopened one-ounce jars of honey that I had totally forgotten about.  They're the little jars that come in gift baskets, or with room service in a hotel.  Anyway, they had partially crystallized, so I knew they were pure and put them in our medical kit.  If you have some jars or packets of honey lying around at home and you're wondering about whether they're pure, try putting them in the fridge or freezer.  If they are pure honey, they will crystallize.

Note, again.  Honey should never be given to children under the age of twelve months. 

For further reading:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18666717
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15944502
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23216146
https://www.livescience.com/7446-honey-works-cough-medicine.html
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293638941_Medicinal_Uses_of_Honey

30 january 2023

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  It is a day to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ!

Spend time with your family.  Enjoy great food.

And come back tomorrow for another daily dose of prepping skills and knowledge to acquire.

The Medicinal Uses of Sugar

Disclaimer.  I am not a licensed health practitioner.  This is just another post on an item you might wish to have available if needed so that a physician can treat you and your family as best as possible.  No medication, including those available over the counter, should be taken without consulting a physician.  Information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only.  It is not medical advice nor a substitute for licensed medical care.  A qualified, licensed physician or other medical provider should be consulted before beginning any herbal or conventional treatment.

Here we are on Christmas Eve; our society still hasn't totally collapsed.  Yeah!!  With any luck, as you and your children and grandchildren go to sleep, you'll all have visions of sugar plums dancing in your heads.

However, after celebrating the birth of our Savior, when it's time to return to the daily grind and learn and prepare more, hopefully you'll remember the little tidbit of information shared here today.

Sugar, regular white granulated sugar, has a clinically researched and proven medical use.  The study came about because an African physician working in a hospital in the UK noticed several patients for whom conventional drug therapy had failed to treat acute and chronic exuding wounds.  And he wondered why the treatment he had seen his tribal doctor grandfather use in Africa was not being employed here.  Didn't everybody know about using sugar to treat such wounds?

Apparently, such knowledge had been long forgotten in a world where we have lots of money and can afford expensive drug therapies.  Unfortunately, some of those very expensive antibiotic therapies are failing the fight against MRSA.  Sugar, however, has been shown to work.

If you have a wound, such as a diabetic ulcer on the legs or feet or a burn or cut, you can apply sugar to it.  If you apply some and it immediately soaks up the fluid in the wound, apply more until you still have some dry sugar on top.  Apply a non-adherent bandage and secure in place.  Change the dressing every other day.  Do not wash away or remove the old sugar when changing the dressing; that will also remove the very delicate new tissue that is forming.  Just add more sugar on top.  Keep doing this until the wound is healed.

In the case of a large wound, you may wish to put a ring of petroleum jelly around the edges to better contain the sugar.

So why does sugar work here?  Well, there are a couple of reasons.  First, the sugar draws the fluid in the tissue out, keeping it dry and better able to heal.  Second, it creates an acidic environment, which is very hostile to bacteria.  Third, it also helps relieve pain, which contributes to greater sense of well-being in the patient and less stress in the body.  

(This research was conducted using granulated sugar in the UK.  In the United States, well over 90% of sugar beets are GMO.  You may wish to use only cane sugar.)

Our personal experience with using sugar to treat a wound is ongoing.  About a month ago, one of my daughter's French angora rabbits somehow got some fiber wrapped around his back leg and pulled tight.  By the time my daughter discovered this, he had chewed off hair and skin, we assume in an effort to relieve the pain associated with having the blood supply constricted.  Everything around his foot and up to an inch above his ankle was completely gone.  Because we couldn't ascertain the extent to which his circulation had been compromised, my husband and I gave him less than a 1% chance of survival.  Surely infection would set in.

We discussed options with our daughter, who of course was feeling horrible, it was all her fault, etc.  Coal didn't seem to be in pain, as long as we didn't touch that leg.  We could try to treat him, but we were sure he wouldn't make it.  Did she want to try?  She did.

We tried honey, once.  Honey and angora rabbits aren't a good mix anyway, and it was hard to get the honey on his foot without hurting him.  Next we tried a mixture of usnea, juniper, and yarrow.  In retrospect, I think I should have applied more than I did.  We had a hard time getting the wound powder to stay with the wound, even with bandaging.  During this entire time, the bunny was getting fresh greens from the yard, until hard freezes killed them, as well as usnea tincture in his water.  Rabbits are extremely sensitive and conventional antibiotics often do more harm than good.  Some healing was occurring, miraculously, but it also smelled bad--not gangrene bad, but still bad.

About eight days ago, we decided to try sugar.  That was the ticket.  We poured it on as best we could, trying to cover all sides.  We decided it was easier to dip his foot in a bowl of sugar.  The smell dissipated almost immediately.  We think healing has accelerated.  We're pretty sure he's going to make it.

(Update:  I write my blog posts about a month in advance.  I so wish we had taken pictures of Coal's foot and leg from the beginning, but I didn't think there was a point.  There was no way this bunny was going to survive.  However, survive he did and is doing.  I now think he had chewed off all his skin and was left with nothing but muscle and bone when we began treatment.  Today, seven or eight weeks after his injury, he has almost all his skin grown back.  And it's growing hair as well.  I'm still blown away by that.  I figured even if skin did grown back it would all be scar tissue and no hair at all.  He still has a few bandage changes in his future before he is fully healed, but man, what a difference.  I'm amazed.)

Below, I pasted in the link to the article as well the pertinent portions of the abstract.  I encourage you to read it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21647066

Use of granulated sugar therapy in the management of sloughy or necrotic wounds: a pilot study.

Murandu M¹, Webber MA, Simms MH, Dealey C.

In the in vitro studies three types of granulated sugar (Demerara, granulated beet sugar and granulated cane sugar) were tested to determine their minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) against 18 Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria in a micro-titre broth dilution assay; growth inhibition of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in different concentrations of sugar (0.38-25%) was also tested over 12-hours in an agar diffusion assay. The pilot clinical study selected patients from a vascular surgical ward and a vascular outpatient department. All had acute or chronic exuding wounds, some of which were infected. White granulated sugar was applied to the wounds. The following parameters were assessed: surface area; wound characteristics including pain, malodour, appearance (slough/granulation); exudate level; pain level and bacterial load. Patients with diabetes had their blood sugar levels checked daily. All patients completed a short health questionnaire at the start and end of the study. Staff completed a satisfaction questionnaire at the end of the study. The study period was 21 days.

In vitro tests demonstrated that sugar inhibits bacterial growth. All three types of sugars had MICs ranging from 6-25% in the bacterial strains tested. The diffusion tests showed that strains were able to grow well in low concentrations of sugar but were completely inhibited in higher concentrations. The two granulated sugars were found to be slightly more effective than Demerara sugar, so the latter was excluded from the clinical pilot study. Twenty-two patients (20 inpatients and two outpatients) with sloughy or necrotic wounds were recruited into the clinical study. Two patients had MRSA and two had Staphylococcus colonisation at baseline. Blood sugar levels remained stable in the seven patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. All wounds were clean/debrided in a mean of 11.13 days. Pain and malodour reduced markedly. Patient and staff surveys revealed overwhelming support for the sugar therapy.

The pilot study achieved its aim of developing a protocol for a RCT. Preliminary data suggest that sugar is an effective wound cleansing and is safe to use in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes. In vitro studies demonstrate that sugar inhibits bacterial growth.

© 2019, PrepSchoolDaily.blogspot.com 

20 november 2022

22 september 2019 

Expanded Food Storage--Canning Bacon

Disclaimer: The FDA does not recommend canning bacon.  Why this is, I have never been able to find.  If you find a source or know why, please let us know in the comment box below.  That said, preppers have been canning bacon for years.  Do your own research and decide what is best for your family.

Potatoes grew extremely well for me our first year in Missouri, and so I did what any normal gardener would do the next year--I planted a whole lot more.  And we grew a whole lot more.  I canned a lot of them, but we still had bushels for eating throughout the fall and winter.  Potatoes were on the dinner menu every night.  And while I did include soups and casserole dishes, we also had a lot of baked potatoes.  Usually you can't go wrong with baked potatoes.  Most everybody enjoys them.  We always had salt, pepper, butter, grated cheddar cheese, and sour cream to dress them to our liking.  (Oh, and ketchup.  Some of the kids had to have ketchup.)

It was one of those years when we were trying to eat as much as possible only what we produced, not from economics but from the preparedness standpoint of wanting to see if we could grow what we needed and eat it.

And the children were getting tired of spud this and spud that.  So I opened a jar of canned bacon and briefly fried it to crisp it up and add to the table for topping baked potatoes. I was really surprised at what a difference it made to everyone.  And I realized we needed a lot more bacon in our preps.  For us, it has become one of those essential foods that can really make a difference and lift our spirits.

Like I mentioned above, I've been canning bacon for years.  Learn from my experience and can what you need or want for your family without waste.

Bacon Ends and Pieces

Let's begin with canning bacon ends and pieces.  It's fast and easy.

First off, you must have a pressure canner (no, you cannot substitute a pressure cooker).  You will process your canned bacon according to the instructions provided with your canner.

Second, you will need jars.  For my family of seven, I can bacon ends and pieces in four-ounce and eight-ounce jars.

Third, you will need the bacon.  Bacon ends and pieces are sold in 2.5- to 3-pound packages at Walmart and discount grocery stores and most larger chain grocery stores.  Most of the pieces are pure fat or pure meat with very little that actually looks like bacon strips.

When I started canning bacon ends and strips, I threw away a lot of fat.  Huge waste.  I got to thinking about it and realized that the fatty pieces should just be canned separately so that they could be rendered into bacon grease later.  So that's what I do now.  When canning bacon ends and pieces, I fill four-ounce and eight-ounce jars with mostly meaty pieces, eight-ounce jars with just fat, and eight-ounce jars with pieces that look more like bacon strips.  Nothing is wasted.

When it's time to make dinner, the meaty bacon will be crisped up in a frying pan.  Of course, the bacon has already been fully cooked in the pressure canner.  But you know how fabulous the smell of bacon frying is, and most people like their bacon toppings for potatoes, soup, and salad to be crisped up a little.

The canned bacon fat gets rendered into bacon grease as needed.  I use the grease for frying potatoes and hamburgers as well as making tortillas (subject of a future post).

The pieces that look more like bacon strips (and there never is that much of this kind in the packages I buy) get eaten like bacon.

Bacon Strips

Canning bacon strips take a little (or a lot) more time.  Most bacon-canning aficionados recommend using quart jars.  If you really need your bacon in full-length strips, then this is the way to go.  But if you don't, that's a heckuva lot of bacon, or a lot of wasted space if you don't fill the jar completely.  I can fit almost a pound of bacon in a pint jar, and that is plenty for my family of seven for most any meal.  Plan accordingly for your family.

Just as for canning bacon ends, you need a pressure canner.  You will also need the right jars, wide mouth pints or quarts.  Bacon may be safely canned in regular mouth jars, but it's a lot harder to get it in and out. A wide mouth pint jar will hold just under one pound of bacon strips.

You also need parchment paper.  Wax paper will not substitute and will not hold up to pressure canning.

For best results, partially brown bacon strips on low heat.  (Higher temperatures cause more curling of the bacon, making it harder to roll up the bacon and wasting space in the jar.)  Lay bacon strips side by side in the middle of the parchment paper.  Fold the ends of the parchment paper over the ends of the bacon strips.  Tightly roll up the bacon and parchment paper, like you would roll up a sleeping bag or cinnamon rolls, really making the roll as tight as possible.  Put bacon roll in your jar.  If it doesn't fit, remove one strip of bacon at a time until it does fit.

Canning Bacon

Fill your jars with bacon, leaving the appropriate amount of head space for the size of your jars.  Wipe the rims and threads of each jar very carefully with fresh paper towels and vinegar.  Vinegar cuts grease, and even the slightest bit of bacon grease on the rim of the jar will prevent a seal from forming.  I actually recommend wiping each jar twice.  Bacon grease can be very hard to eliminate.

Put the lids and bands on and place in your canner.  Process your jars of bacon according to instructions for your canner and your canning guide for processing ham.  

After processing and cooling on the counter overnight, wash jars and bands very well in soapy water, then dry, label, and store.

When the time comes, you will be so very grateful to have these little jars of culinary joy.

UPDATE, 20 February 2019:

In researching for another post, I came across this quote from Dr. Brian Nummer, Utah State University, Extension Food Safety Specialist.  The original link is now dead; this link is to where the quote was posted.  https://www.healthycanning.com/home-canning-cured-meats-bacon-brined-corned-ham-etc/

QUESTION: I am not sure who to direct this question to, maybe you can forward it to the person who can give me the answer. A lot is going around right now about canning bacon by rolling raw or cooked bacon in parchment paper (I think that is what it is called) putting it in quart jars with no liquid and pressure canning it at 15 lbs for 90 min. Is this safe to do and store in a cold storage room for an extended period of time? Thank you for your time. Susan
ANSWER: This practice is NOT recommended . The possible reasoning behind this advice is that bacon has nitrites in it that prevent the growth of C. botulinum (the botulism microorganism). Therefore “canning it” would somehow preserve it and make it safe to eat. However, there are many holes in that reasoning.  
1. The advice is NOT research based. No one has actually studied the process to determine if indeed it is safe from food-borne illness.  
2.There is no mention of “bacon” with nitrites (cured bacon). If people think its safe, they may try other processed meats. None have been research tested and all may result in botulism.  
3. Canning something “dry” will NOT generate enough heat to make things safe. Heat is transferred by water. In a pressure canner steam heats the water inside a canned food transferring that heat to the food. A temperature of 240-250 F for 30-120 minutes is needed to make a pressure canned food safe (via a research-tested process). Without water the temperature the bacon reaches will not be enough to destroy the botulism organism!”

So now there is an answer from what I would call a reputable, reliable, knowledgeable source.  There has been no research conducted to determine if the process is safe.  

And so now I ponder whether to pull this post from the blog.  For now, I'm going to leave it up so that readers can learn from the new information.  But also, I have some thoughts.

All home-canned foods processed in a pressure canner are supposed to be heated to boiling before eating.   It's something we should all practice every single time we open a jar.  Heating the food to boiling will neutralize any botulism toxin that may have survived.  (Note that this is "neutralizing" the toxin, which is produced by the C. botulinum bacteria.  The bacteria have to be heated to 250 degrees to be killed.)  Once the toxin has been neutralized, there is no danger of developing botulism.  If the bacon is cooked after it is opened, it should theoretically be safe.  Also, the news media is pretty good about informing the public of cases of food poisoning.  These things make their rounds on the internet.  I've been paying attention to this topic for at least a decade online, and through other media since I first became interested in food storage at the age of 11.  In the mid- to late-1970s, there were all kinds of story lines in TV shows like Emergency and Medical Center where characters became sick due to botulism.  My mother was persuaded that home canning was dangerous and quit preserving her own jam, and said I was foolish to begin canning myself.  I have not been able to find anything online about anyone getting botulism from home-canned bacon.

Do your own due diligence.