Once read an old wives/farmer’s tale that once said an onion kept the flu out of their home. It stated that a doctor made house calls to a farmer’s community that took very ill with the flu taking many lives. When he finally visited a home that all who lived there was healthy he wanted to know what they did different than everyone else did in the community who were sick. Apparently, this family peeled a onion and put it in every room of the house. The doctor asked to take one of the onions and placed it under a microscope and sure enough found that the onion had absorbed the flue virus. This story made perfect since to me as I think back to my child hood and knew that anytime our house appeared we might be coming down with the flu my mom would make homemade chicken noodle soup and knew that she always used a lot of onion and probably the reason none of us really got sick a lot when we were younger.
This story got me thinking this year after five long years of being attacked by so many auto immune and inflammatory issues. I’ve decided to kind of take a stand in my own health and see what I could do to strengthen my own immune system and so far so good for me and is also working for the rest of my family. Anytime that I think anyone is looking a little tired, sore, sniffles, and sneezes I’ve decided that one of the things I would start using faithfully in our family was the old onion myth. The onion comes out and after everyone has washed their hands all three of us take part in helping to prepare that dinner with onion. Rather it is to peel it, chop it, or throwing it in to the pan we’ve all handled the onion…any left over pieces have been placed around the house to suck up any bacteria in the house. Sure enough in taking advantage of the onion action in all of 2013 we were finally able to fight off any colds or flu symptoms. If it is only a myth it works for us and I’m sticking to believing in it…