(part two in a series of Old Wives Tales)
You know that old wives tale of “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, right? But apple cider vinegar?!?!
I can remember always seeing my mother or father take a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar with a glass of water every time they felt a cold coming on. They’d tell me about the wonders of it all the time, and how they avoid going to the doctor when feeling sick. My mom would have us take it if we had canker sores in our mouth, or a cold sore. So they related it to fending off cold viruses. Sometimes my dad would take it to help with his digestion. I have never tried this in my adult life, so I researched it and found that this old wives tale is a pretty good one, and true.
Why It’s Good For You
Apple cider vinegar is a powerful detoxifying and purifying agent. This home health remedy can help boost your immune system. It breaks down the fatty, mucous and phlegm deposits within the body. By breaking down these substances, it improved the health and function of the vital organs of the body, such as the kidneys, bladder and liver, by preventing excessively alkaline urine. It helps in the prevention of high blood pressure by oxidizing and thinning the blood.
Summer Survival Tip
Apple cider vinegar also promotes digestion, assimilation and elimination, all the while neutralizing any toxic substances that enter the body. It has been found to neutralize any harmful bacteria that may be found in certain foods. When a mixture of cider vinegar and water is taken before a meal (particularly food served in restaurants or at picnics where the preparation or duration of food left uncovered and not refrigerated is questionable), it seems to prevent diarrhea or digestive upsets. Who knew?! That’s a handy tip for all the pool parties, bar-b-ques and picnics you attend this summer.
The Best Kind of Apple Cider Vinegar
The key though, is to purchase raw, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar. The ones you buy on your grocery store shelf are pasteurized, distilled and filtered, which robs them of all the good stuff. Be sure it’s organic too, since it’s made from apples, they need to be pesticide free.
Recommendations on how much an adult should take vary from 1 -2 tsp. diluted in water three times a day, to 1-2 tbsp. 3 times a day. Personally, it really depends on what remedy you are seeking. Weight loss, lowering cholesterol, immune boosting benefits all recommend 1 -2 tsp mixed in water 3 times a day. The less you dilute it, the greater the benefits will be seen. Most dilute it with 8 oz. of water, but you can go as low as you find tolerable, like 4 oz.
Treats Candida?
Apple cider vinegar is rich in vital nutrients, and natural enzymes which aid in digestion. They also restore the natural balance of healthy bacteria in the gut by creating a perfect environment for those healthy bacteria to grow, all the while keeping yeast like candida in check. So this explains why some parents of children with autism choose this alternative method for treating their child’s overgrowth of yeast in the gut. One exception for this is that it’s high in phenols. So if you or your child has trouble processing phenols, this may not be the best approach.
My next shopping trip to Whole Foods will include an organic, raw, unfiltered, unpasteurized bottle of apple cider vinegar. Anything to “keep the doctor away” is worth a try. Thanks mom (and dad)!
Read the third post in the series of “Old Wives Tales” here: https://healingautismandadhd.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/my-mother-made-me-take-cod-liver-oil-and-i-lived-to-tell-about-it/
Filed under: Biomedical interventions, Diet, Supplements | Tagged: apple cider vinegar, autism, Biomedical interventions, cold sores, cold viruses, healing autism and adhd, health, high functioning autism, increased metabolism, lower cholesterol, summer survival tip, wives tales, yeast |
Healing Autism & ADHD 
Funny — I’ve been meanign to start on this again and actually bought some and have it in my fridge, but haven’t gotten around to it it yet. I’m motivated now… Thanks for the reminder!
We also give our son epsom salt baths. Love your blog!
Janice
I just started doing it. I can take it right off the spoon as long as its chilled. We’ll see how it goes.
I bought the Allens apple cider vineagar from the gorcery store. It says it’s pure, which doesn’t neccessarily mean organic, but whatever, it seems to be having a positive effect on me. I take 1 teaspoon a day in a large glass of water and it helps my digestion. It takes away bloating and I feel less hungry throught the day. I wouldnt recommend overdoing it though. Not all suppliments are good in high doses long term.
Do you have to dilute it at all? I am a fan of vinegar and can take it straight. Will there be any affects from taking it undiluted?
I’m not sure, but I’d take it with a glass of water to dilute it.
Just to be more specific…..I wonder if swallowing the vinegar without diluting it would upset my stomach or cause my tooth enamel to become weak. I think I heard of the tooth enamel issues with drinking lemon & water.
I haven’t heard of any tooth enamel issues with lemon and water or ACV. Just to be safe, dilute it in water.
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Hi How we can give kids apple vinegar.I always use in salad for myself..But How can I give for my 4 years old boy ?
Diluted in water…not sure how else. Not sure the taste will over so well. Anyone else have suggestions?
Do you have any thoughts on whether a phenol sensitive child should have cider vinegar?
I suspect a yeast overgrowth in my son, he loves vinegar so this would be ideal but I’m worried about a phenolic reaction.
Yes, ACV is highly phenolic. Try virgin organic coconut oil. I’m going to write about yeast, coconut oil, leaky gut soon.
Have you ever heard of Dr. D’Adamo’s Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type Diet? I fasted for 72 hours once and started doing it. It was unbelievably fascinating to me when I tried to add BACK IN foods that were on the “Avoid” list for blood type A patients. I was never hungry or calorie crazy after eating. I was satiated until 2 hours later when I was supposed to eat again. I have discovered 6 mini meals per day is LOADS easier on my body and I actually maintain a SANE weight when I do that. Most blood type A’s are highly hypoglycemic, so this was a great thing to try when I was already eating that way anyhow.
The reason I asked about ER4YBT is because blood type As are forbidden vinegar of any kind, anything pickled, and lol…it is a HORRIBLY restrictive diet and…NO red meat is allowed either. When I cross references that diet as my base, then remove the foods that MCAD and EDS forbid, I am pretty much eating PEARS. I react to just about EVERY food on the planet and….I’m not really sure what to do about it.
I discovered AFTER I was married, my husband is hypermobile EDS and has scoliosis. I was born with chiari malformation, MCAD, EDS, and POTS. I didn’t know ANY of that, and I am actually STILL trying to get some of it on paper. All 3 of our children are showing signs and symptoms of all 3 of those as well. I had a full spine MRI in 2015 post decompression surgery (2012) for the chiari and there was nothing out of order. By August of 2016 I was having severe and debilitating lower left back pain and finally got into a chiropractor because NO other doctor was looking at my BACK, which is what my pain was coming from that eventually radiated up my spine to my HEAD. They kept checking my head. I went to this guy and he did a full spine x ray and….there it was. Scoliosis. In ONE year between ages 35 and 36 I had acquired scoliosis. My neurosurgeon had to admit…he’d NEVER seen that before. My chiari support group folks pointed me to EDS. Every single person that commented when I asked them what would cause a decompressed adult to pop scoliosis out of nowhere, and everyone said EDS.
Funny enough, all of the chiari patients and EDS patients KNOW this, but NO doctor in my town knows it, and hasn’t bothered looking for the scholarly study I told them there was out there. I am against a clock I can’t stop. I started to notice a couple months back, my body is aging at a rapid pace. I am aging YEARS in a week. I don’t know how to prove it to anyone but…all I can compare it to is when….when a DOG knows they are about to die and goes out into the woods and just finds a nice view and goes. I am terrified because NO one seems to care as much as I DO. I have to find out what is wrong with me BEFORE I die. I can die AFTER it is on paper for my babies. My husband knows nothing about medicine, physiology, or anatomy. If I die without this completed, we’re all going to die. The Air Force moves us every 3 years on top of it. I only get SO far, and…they move us. That has contributed WAY more to this nightmare than I thought it would. If I can’t get this stuff on paper, the military doesn’t HAVE TO consider access to care. Because the chiari was found, I had to be stationed somewhere that I had access to a neurosurgeon familiar with chiari. When my daughter was born and I KNEW in the OB OR she had chiari, it took me 2 years to document it…and 3 pediatricians. But it is FINALLY there. Pediatric neurosurgeons are what I needed to make sure she had access to. Lifestyle cautions…I could take care of on my own.
But, we’re here again. We have about 9 months, if we’re lucky, before the Air Force moves us….and it isn’t looking good.
I watch our children react to almost every single food I give them. We’ve been dairy free, gluten free, and organic…and vegan on ANYTHING I can get them to take that is vegan. It still isn’t enough. I can tell they are still struggling with some foods. I don’t know what to do or WHOM to talk to so I can help them be WELL. I’ve been studying medicine since I was SIX…and trying to figure out WHY I hurt all of the time. I wanted to be a neurosurgeon back THEN lol I had NO idea I had chiari until I was 30. I was BORN lol LOOKING to be a surgeon. It was all I spoke about for years, my parents chalked it to me being odd. By 1986 my mother needed brain surgery. A 10 hour brain surgery and she could talk and SMILE…she couldn’t prior to that. I was reading medical encyclopedias while listening to Mozart (read a study…it supposedly helped retention. To this day, I remember where I left off in the encyclopedia when my parents took it away because I was diagnosing people at family reunions, church, school, and lol on the bus. I was never wrong, but…some people were really annoyed with it. When I told my grandmother she was going to die if she didn’t stop smoking, and the signs and symptoms to watch for that she may be starting to develop lung cancer she looked at my mother and said “JoEllen, get her OUT of here…” she died 2 years later. That was the END of my run with medicine publicly…), so I read every stitch of whatever while I was listening to Mozart.
I regularly get angry that I didn’t do what I planned on doing which was never get married, never have children….and be a doctor and breed hunting dogs. I look back at that dream and….I think I’d be dead if I did that. I only found my chiari because I delivered my son when I didn’t know I had it….it gave me a syrinx in my spinal cord, and we found the chiari. I also know with chiari, syringomyelia, MCAD, EDS, POTS, degenerative disk disease, spinal stenosis, and scoliosis…I’d NEVER have made it through my RESIDENCY in school. My friends who completed it…sometimes 96 hours on call…I’d be toast. I’m not really sure what I know all of this junk for if I can’t even get a doctor to LISTEN to me, and order TESTS to confirm this stuff. They REFUSE. It is hard to reconcile. I don’t want to die because a doctor can’t set their pride ASIDE for a day or two. It is scary.