the Renaissance Housewife
  • Home
  • Topics
    • Saving >
      • Kitchen >
        • Food >
          • Recipes
      • Bath & Laundry
      • Medicine Cabinet
      • Office
      • Garage
      • Electricity
      • Gardening
      • Foraging
      • Animals
      • Weekly F. A.'s
      • Printables & Downloads
    • Earning
    • Investing
  • Books
  • About
    • RH Recommends
    • Newsletter & Updates
    • Travel
    • Beta Readers
    • Legal Stuff

Ebola & Vitamin C

10/24/2014

0 Comments

 
Hey, it's Linky Friday again! Today we're going to talk about the unavoidable elephant, Ebola. 

Ebola is really scary, right? It is oftentimes fatal, and now it's in the US. Actually, it isn't as scary as the news would have you believe.

What is Ebola? (Wiki article)

Ebola is not like a cold, where you breath it in from the person standing beside you. It's not airborne. Ebola is spread by contact with bodily fluids, much like HIV, AIDS, or other STDs. The only way you can get Ebola is if an Ebola victim throws up on you, kisses you, has diarrhea on you, or... well, you get the picture. You can't get the virus simply by being on an airplane with an Ebola patient. Unless you come into contact with their bodily fluids.

If anyone contracts Ebola, it will be a family member or caretaker of an Ebola patient... think nurses and doctors. If you really want to avoid getting sick, stay away from hospitals and other places where people are throwing up and dealing with bodily fluids like blood.

Build Your Immune System

Another thing you can do to fight any kind of virus is to strengthen your immune system. Besides not eating sugar and getting enough sleep, it's important that you get enough, or even more than enough, vitamin C. An easy way to get vitamin C (also called ascorbic acid) is to just take it in a tablet, chewable, or gel form. 

Vitamin C packets

Unfortunately, good vitamin supplementation can get pricey. The packets I linked to above are over $1 each. If there are five people in your family and each person gets one packet per day, this would add up to $150 per month. There has got to be a better way, right? I found a list of foods high in vitamin C, which is a start.

Food sources of vitamin C

However, none of these foods come close to the 1000 mg of the vitamin C packets. You would have to eat six papayas to get as much calcium as one packet of vitamin C. And here in Michigan, six papayas cost way more than a dollar.

So fresh foods aren't as efficient... but this past week I learned about sauerkraut. Cabbage itself doesn't have a great amount of vitamin C, but fermentation heightens the vitamin C content. In days past, people would make a "medical crock" or sauerkraut, fermented longer for especially high vitamin levels. I'm sure this didn't make it tasty, but it's an interesting concept. 

Sauerkraut and scurvy

My last and still enduring hope for a better source of vitamin C lies in foraging. What foods, here in Michigan in our own backyards, are just chock full of vitamins and we let the birds eat them? Think about elderberries. One serving size of elderberries (145 grams) has 52 mg of vitamin C. Now what would happen if we fermented those berries? Just a thought.

Do you take a vitamin C supplement? What have you found to be most helpful in warding off seasonal illness?

Next week we'll be talking about some new discoveries I've made, thanks to my brother-in-law the Mighty Hunter.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Bethany

    A housewife; cook & bottle washer, cleaning lady, hobby farmer, seamstress, eBay seller, and amateur botanist.  

    Keeper of one happy husband and a beautiful baby girl. :)

    Picture

    Picture
    The Housewife's Guide to Frugal Food
    How to Eat for $10.00
    ​per Week

    Picture
    The Housewife's Guide to Menu Planning
    A Weekly Menu to Save
    Time & Money
    Picture
    The Housewife's Guide to
    Frugal Fruits and Vegetables

    No Garden? No Problem!

    Check out my Youtube Channel!

    RSS Feed


    Picture
    Baby Girl's Birth Story
    Picture
    8 Cheap Ways to Eat Healthy
    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Animals
    Book Reviews
    Books
    Christmas
    Cleaning
    Clothing
    Cooking
    Couponing
    Education
    Ego
    Electricity
    Farmers Market
    Finance
    Foraging
    Frugal
    Frugal Accomplishments
    Frugality
    Garage Sales
    Gardening
    Gifts
    Grocery Budget
    Grocery Shopping
    Herbs
    History
    Hobby Farm
    Home Based Business
    Home-based Business
    Home Decorating
    Housekeeping
    Industry
    Languages
    Laundry
    Marriage
    Meal Planning
    Medicine
    Minimalist
    Network Marketing
    Organization
    Plants
    Product Reviews
    Quotes
    Recipes
    ROI
    Rv
    Sewing
    Simplicity
    Spanish
    Spending Report
    Travel

    Archives

    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014

    Full Disclosure & Disclaimer

    Picture
    Picture
    I get cash back for many online purchases including wedding gifts and Ebay stuff!

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from dasWebweib, amanessinger, thewritingreader, diakosmein