Family remedies and ancient therapies

The Mom Factor probably has a lot to do with why chicken soup makes you feel better. It probably also explains why otherwise rational adults tie socks around their necks and fill them with smelly, non- medicinal foods such as bacon rinds.

“What really makes you feel better or comfortable has a lot to do with what your mom did when you were a kid,” said Judy McLean, a professor in the faculty of land and food systems at UBC.

“Sometimes students want to dismiss parent or grandparents remedies as unscientific and want me to give them ‘ proof’ that their grandmother is old fashioned and incorrect,” said McLean. “I never go against a grandmother.”

It doesn’t much matter what comforting foods parents or grandparents provide for sick children — and they do vary widely across cultures — her students from all over the world say the family remedy makes them feel better, she said.

So maybe moms ( and their moms) know something scientists don’t.

A simple cup of hot water with honey and lemon juice is comforting when you feel miserable. It also delivers a hit of vitamin C, and it might suppress a cough.

Many people swear by a more grown- up version, consisting of whiskey, honey and hot milk or water. In the Caribbean, rum and lime are the main ingredients while American colonists drank rum mixed with hot cider, butter and spices for their sniffles.

Garlic and ginger are used in every corner of the world to fight the effects of a cold, though there is little evidence that either one works.

Garlic has proven antibiotic properties, but probably not enough to get an immediate benefit simply from eating it. Ginger is a mild analgesic and antiinflammatory,

The superfoods craze is a more modern manifestation of ancient food- based healing, although research hasn’t found much to get excited about.

so it could ease a few aches and pains.

Proven or not, some food- based remedies have been used for centuries, even millennia.

Honey, garlic and ginger are staples of cold treatment in Ayurveda — Indian traditional medicine — along with black pepper, cinnamon and turmeric.

Eating in accordance with the 5,000- year- old Ayurveda strengthens the immune system, by designing each person’s diet specific to body type and the requirements of the season, said Amrita Sondhi, Bowen Island- based author of The Tastes of Ayurveda.

“At this time of year we really turn up the heat with ginger and chilies, to keep things warmed up and moving,” she said.

If you do catch a cold, the most healing recipes bring all the immune boosters together to increase the digestive fire, especially in curries, spicy soups and brewed teas, she said.

Sondhi’s cold- busting tea combines ginger, honey lemon and turmeric, the latter a potent antiinflammatory.

The superfoods craze is a more modern manifestation of ancient foodbased healing, although research hasn’t found much to get excited about.

Vitamin C, ginseng and the new darlings of the health food set, zinc and vitamin D, are all widely touted to shorten or relieve a cold. But there is a remarkable dearth of good science to back those claims.

Zinc supplements and echinacea show promise in preventing and shortening colds, according to holistic nutritionist Maya Rowson. But dealing with a cold once you’re infected is very difficult, even with the most effective immunity boosters.

“I really believe the best approach to preventing colds is to strengthen your immune system from the inside out,” she said. “Some people get sick and some people don’t and I think it has a lot to do with the quality of the immune system and the body’s beneficial bacteria.”

Rowson turns to the most potent superfoods to build natural immunity, borrowing heavily from traditional Chinese medicine.

Goji berries and reishi red mushrooms have both been used in China to enhance the immune system for thousands of years.

While most medicinal foods have to be concentrated in powders or tinctures to achieve a therapeutic effect, goji berries can be eaten just as they are, dried or thrown into a smoothie, she said.

When she feels a cold coming, Rowson crushes raw garlic into salad dressing. Garlic is prized for its medicinal value by the world’s oldest and most widely practised healing traditions: European folk medicine, Ayurveda, and traditional Chinese medicine

“I expect that if you ate a clove or two of garlic every day you wouldn’t get sick this winter,” she said.