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Video: Sara Chana on Flu Remedies and Medicinal Vinegar

Appearing recently on FOX Boston, Sara Chana Silverstein, a herbalist and alternative medicine specialist gave some tips in time for the cold weather on how to beat the flu with natural remedies and how to make medicinal vinegar.

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36 Comments

    • Seeing and feeling is believing

      You obviously never tried this. Sorry to hear you end up suffering from infections that are so easily and quickly treated. There is no Mitzvah in the Torah saying you must suffer if there is a cure. Welcome to try this.

  • Shterna Sarah

    #2,
    Placebo?! Really??
    What do you think was used before Pharmaceutical companies were around??

    • Mottel

      Before pharmaceutical came around people used leeches and ether . . . they also died. Truly brilliant.
      In 1918 500 million people contracted the Spanish flu. Upwards of 10% died . . . . that was some 3% of the WORLD’s population.
      But no. Please use vinegar to fight a virus. Just have mercy on your children and do what the Torah says . . . go to a doctor, not an herbalist.

    • Practicing Doctor to Mottel

      I’m sure you heard medical science is using leeches again- or not. Stay up to date with ‘modern’ medicine and you see how much the ‘old’ stuff work. European countries have herbal medicine prescribed more than conventional.
      What do epidemics have to do with this? Germs were unknown for a long time and once cleanliness and sanitation came around many diseases were gone. You think medicine cured those? We have a cure for the Spanish flu? Do you? I have a cure for the flu, but you may not like that for some reason.
      Also explain why vinegar (apple cider) cannot cure a virus.

  • Practicing Doctor

    Daas Torah? What was the Rambam using? What have I been using for over 10 years for patients that keep getting better in hours or 24 hrs with colds and flu? You don’t sound scientific or religious…

    • Mottel

      Practicing Doctor or Witch-doctor?
      Since when did vinegar cures have a lick to do with religion? Where does Judaism mandate that we have to follow medieval health practices? Please show me the exact siman and sief in Shulachan Aruch. Can you give a case of the Rebbe eschewing modern medicine for folk-remedies and other malarkey?

      The Rambam lived to be 69. The average lifespan at the time was somewhere in the mid 40s. In America today we live to be 78.2 years . . .

      In the past people suffered from diseases like small pox and polio – thank G-d today, as we approach yemos hamoshiach, the mayanos of below have opened up and given us such nisei nissim as vaccines. It’s a pity some yidden lack the emunah in the Torah and in Moshiach that they cling to vestigial practices from the dark ages and turn them into an avodah zara!

    • Practicing Doctor to Mottel

      Mottel: I have prescribing privileges and many times prefer herbs and patients see the benefits- I don’t brainwash anyone. In school they do that.
      Judaism says to take control of your health- that is the connection. Basic Bible.
      People live longer to to food and hygiene improvements, not lack of medicine. You took medicine for smallpox? When did polio become ‘eradicated’? Actually before the vaccine was out. Look it up as I have. I actually see polio-like symptoms as result of vaccines…I am in the field, I wonder what you have to deal with all day and every day, and see effects of medicine and herbs on people. How many patients do you see daily- over 100?

    • Mottel

      Practicing “Doctor”
      For the record, please clearly state if in the United States you are LEGALLY allowed to call yourself a doctor. . .

      Please tell me where Judaism says to “take control of your health” and in what world of Pshat Remez Drush or Sod that translates to “Basic Bible.” I know of two sources in Basic Bible – Chazal tell us “that the Torah gave permission to the doctor to heal” (Berachot 60) and “venishmartem me’od lenafshoseichem.”

      Those seem to tell me that health shouldn’t be trusted to good feelings and nice thoughts — but taken seriously and following the empirical advice of a trained doctor.

      People live longer for many reasons – among them the eradication and preventative treatment of diseases. Understanding of germ theory is key to that.

      I didn’t have to be given anything to prevent small pox because, thank G-d, people followed the Torah (and common sense!) and inoculated their children. MMR could go down the same route – if not for the pernicious lie that’s caused all too many parents (among them members of our own community r”l) to skip these vaccinations.

      And here we come to the proof that your statements are baseless . . .
      “Polio reached a peak in the United States in 1952, with more than 21,000 paralytic cases.” (See http://1.usa.gov/YzUYw3)
      That’s the same year that Jonas Salk, a Yid, first tested his vaccine for the disease. The decline only began after a rapid and aggressive campaign to fight it. I say decline because while it is not longer naturally occurring in the US, it’s still a problem in certain African and South-East Asian countries.

      But please tell me in which world it was “eradicated” before the vaccine came out . . .

      So yes, please tell me more about vinegar and spices and candles . . . just please be upfront with your “daily patients” about your medical credentials in OUR country and about the source of your (what seem to be largely baseless or subjective) facts.

    • Not a Believer, but

      When did polio become ‘eradicated’? Actually before the vaccine was out.

      I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

      It still has not been eradicated because fanatically demented and benighted imams in Nigeria who have the same mentality as some dupes in Crown Heights, Boro Park and Monsey don’t allow kids to get vaccinated.

      Any parent who prevents a kid from getting vaccinations should be dealt with by Child Protective Services. Any witch doctor who advocates avoiding vaccinations is more dangerous than Nechemya Weberman and Levi Aron combined, and therefore deserves to sit for 150 years.

    • Practicing Doctor to Mottel

      Mottel, you sound angry, but moving on…I have a NYS licence and DEA number. I have felt almost as strongly as you about ‘natural’ medicine in the past, but from experience on both sides will say ‘natural’ beats ‘conventional’ any day. I know you are smarter than me and all doctors, but then which doctor do you trust? Does it depend on which school I attended? Experience? I don’t have much time to argue with you, but for the sake of others who may be following this:
      1-Check out this source for vaccine facts: http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/graphs/
      2- Research for yourself before making serious health decisions. Don’t use one source or person like some nameless angry person or 1 doctor, but almost endless resources available these days from real-life evidence. A nice site taking info from many sources: http://www.betternaturalhealing.com/

    • Mottel

      Cute. Attack me as angry as opposed to responding my comments.

      Let me be very clear for the reading audience: Look where I clearly refuted our good “Practicing Doctor’s” statement about Polio . . . the Center for Disease control. Note the URL – it’s a .gov as in The Government of the United States of America.

      Note where my friend here brings a “source for vaccine facts” a WordPress BLOG!

      I think that alone should speak to anyone who hasn’t already traded in his yarmulke or her sheitel for a tinfoil hat.

    • Not a Believer, but

      Practicing Doctor, what are you using to get rid of colds and flu in 24 hours? Arsenic? A dead patient no longer has a cold last time I checked.

    • Seeing and feeling is believing

      It seems people believe what they want to. If you believe doctors then why when one says something other than mainstream is it a joke? Why one over the other? There are many professionals now being more open about the medical issues not public YET, but experience says more to me than some organization sitting in meetings with too much money going around telling us what is good for us. My friend gave her son the MMR shot and now he can’t walk and the hospital did not find the reason yet after so many tests. When the parent asked them if it can be from the shots, he said it can’t be. Now look at the facts the company says about it:http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf. They will say no link can prove it is from shots, yet if the doctor won’t report it it all looks well. I feel bad for that family and wish the records would be recorded properly so we can really know what this does and does not do.
      This topic was about herbs- NOT VACCINES!!! Most medicines were, and maybe still are, based on herbs, so why do you make fun of them? Why are many (and numbers increasing all the time) still using ‘outdated’ medicines? No access? I think the more informed ones are acting this way from being informed, so instead of laughing things off that you never tried, stay quiet to avoid showing ignorance.

    • Not a Believer, but

      Yes, there is a placebo effect. However, you don’t rely on it where real medications are available. Even simple aspirin (and yes, I know it comes from willow bark originally) is a potent medication with real effects. It works far better for headaches than aromatic oil or any other folk remedy does.

      On the other hand, when it comes to colds that are clearly viral and not bacterial, nothing is proven effective except perhaps (and very slightly) zinc. So, once you know it isn’t strep, take vitamin C (if your do not have other issues or use anything that reacts with it), zinc lozenges, aromatic oils, echinacea, arak, Glenfiddich, water or melted snow from Uman, or anything else you want (and use aspirin or substitutes for headaches and sore throats – remember never to give aspirin to children).

      If you use that stuff, your cold may last seven days. If you don’t, it may last a week.

  • DaasTorah

    It’s 100% placebo. Vinegar isn’t able to cure a viral infection any more than doing the chicken dance will make your car turn on. It’s mamish shtus and coneged halacho for people to be duped by these “herbalists”.

    • Seeing and feeling is believing

      You may understand some Torah, and hopefully chemistry. Although you decided vinegar has no healing properties, know then that it makes the bod alkaline (heard of that, or it’s a shtus as well). In that state the body is better able to fight infection, as well as the invaders being less able to survive in that environment.
      Oh, and it happens to work in real life all the time. One can only make comments after trying it, since life and health is no theory. Please stop confusing your theories with others’ health and well being. Taking control of one’s health is something not for you to interfere with. By the way, why does it bother you that others have found the cure for something you don’t know about?

    • Not a Believer, but

      LOLOLOL again! Vinegar is an acid. An acid is the chemical opposite and antagonist of an alkali.

      You want your body to become alkaline – drink Drano. That’s about as healthy as some of the cures you and your kind advocate.

  • fan

    Sara Chana – please get a new web address. It took a few tries to spell it right , and I’m sure there are others out there – not from our community – who would love to use your site as a resource but cant find the correct domain. You can actually keep this domain, and choose another one – a simpler one with a easier name – that gets directed to this site, so typing in either one would work.
    Good luck!

  • chanah forster

    see sara chana? you are mamash a genius! an nspiration to us all and making a kiddush Ha-shem! We LUV YOU!

  • Not a Believer, but

    The placebo effect does sometimes provide relief. However, you don’t need to pay an unqualified alternative medical practitioner (and they are ALL unqualified) or a mekubal to get this effect.

    Go online, pick the one you want, whether it’s Echinacea, zinc, vinegar, vodka, or vitamin C, and take as much of the cheapest reliable brand as you can handle. I “know better,” but somehow I’ve avoided colds for well over a year by taking 2000 – 3000 mgs of C 6 days a week, and as much as 5000 after exposure to someone who has a cold.

    Ask your rav to find out which vitamins really need a hechsher, and do not buy vitamins or similar products through MLM scammers or quack practitioners – buy the cheapest kosher product at your local pharmacy.

  • dsx

    Re: Daas Torah
    Actually you claim here sth. without knowledge of this field. There are many thousands of studies, that herbal medicine works. almost all chemical pharamceutical medicaments are based/ even extracted from Herbs or other natural sources. according to Torah you even have to use first natural remedies before using pure chemicals. According to today science pharmaceutical components in herbs come together with accompanying substances, that ensure, that the mode of efffetcing goes selectivly to one system, whereas pure chemicals work in a very hard fashion on all the receptors available in the whole body.. these are the reason for the side effects. It must be said, that there is aborder whrer pure chemicals must be used to protect and save the life of a patient, but a lot of common sickness are already treated by professional doctors with herbal medicine. several cultures, even developed ones, like china and japan used herbal remedies for any ailoment, even cancer. all the big pharamceutical companies send teams of scientist the whole year to traditional herbalists worldwide from china to the amazonas to detect new herbs for healing our day sicknesses. Vineagr togehter with the adequate herbs may for sure not cure a viral infection, but it can in a preventive way strengthen the system via the liver to be able to silence an infection so much, that even the patient doesn’t recognize it, except that he feels somehow a little tired today. also the Gemara is full with herbal and natural remedies, that work, if applied with the right understanding. please rethink your comments, it’s better to comement on things you know.

    • Not a Believer, but

      Yawn.

      The difference between say, taxol, a treatment for yenna machle that is extracted from the bark of a certain tree, and trying to treat yenne machle by drinking tea made from that bark, is like the difference between eating a chicken leg and eating chicken you-know-what.

    • Milhouse

      You are poshut a liar. A bald-faced liar. How dare you lie like that about the Torah?

    • Not a Believer, but

      “according to Torah you even have to use first natural remedies before using pure chemicals.”

      Please cite a reliable Torah source for the above. And I mean real Torah, not Purim Torah or some “tikkun olam” garbage from the deformed and denewal who actually want to “lesaken olam.”

      In actuality, the Torah commands us to use any means necessary for pikuach nefesh, not to avoid the side effects of real treatment by using quack cures that only hasten death L”A.

  • honmeopathic

    shes homeopathic and ure not! everyone folows their own sechel.. although the doctors ruling and medicine are way better – just go to them!

    • Milhouse

      Homeopathy is even worse than this. It is sheker through and through, and every homeopathic “healer” is possul le’eidus. Homeopathic “remedies” have no active ingredients; they are pure water or alcohol without even one molecule of the substance they claim to be in there. You may as well drink tap water.

  • Not a Believer, but

    Leeches have been the cornerstone of medical treatment for the past half-century or so.

    However, we now call them “insurance companies.”

  • American MD

    Pubmed.com.

    Biggest database of evidence based literature on all fields, homeopathic or not.

    Driven by the most objective language out there, that of biostatistics i.e. mathematics.

    BEWARE applying a double standard to pubmed articles and to your alternative sources of information.

  • @ Mottel and "Pretending Doctor"

    There should be a like button on these comments.

    I’d like to “like” Mottel’s comments a few hundred times.

    @ “Practicing Doctor” I’m calling your bluff. You don’t have a NYS license or a DEA number. Prove it. Say who you are and let us look you up? If you truly believe what you’re saying – why stay hidden behind a made up username.

    You need the anonymity because you are a liar.

    The only NYS license you have is a drivers license; and your DEA number is probably an arrest record with the DEA.

    • Practicing Doctor

      I do have those licenses but need to remain anonymous because I may loose those licenses by interfering with the ‘standard medical practices’ that fund the medical schools and industry in place (the largest in the world). Many have been through trouble when bringing up cures which stood up in courts but it is not worth my energy. My sources are not believable? So refer to statistics the insiders provide?! Wow- blind faith for you guys…Mottel. By the way, where did (and do) most drugs come from if not herbs? Do you question the doctor or pharmacist before taking meds; they make sense to you? Something cheap makes no sense automatically? Much logic there. You want official proof that things work? This country won’t provide it. Look in European ones like Germany and Russia. The same herb can be proven in one place is worthless here somehow, and I myself can take sides since I can follow labs and have seen what works. So do what you want, but it is still blind faith for you. It is mainstream for now, but the direction is changing fast. Hope you stay healthy till then…check out statistics of deaths due to drugs used correctly. For a starter.
      I don’t need you to believe me, as I have enough experience and too many patients to take care of to argue with so many clueless out there without having ever treated patients or seen what drugs really do.
      So take a chill pill (sure they are out there) and don’t worry about my position or patients- I don’t poison them and am upfront with their options.
      So no more from me- I don’t feel the need to un-brainwash anyone. I have come to do what I do after years of thinking otherwise.

    • Not a Believer, but

      Russia – a really good example of where we should take guidance.

      I lived there for several years. The pharmacies are full of quack herbal remedies, because all you need is some cash to get a license to sell anything in Russia. You can also select from a wide assortment of old Soviet remedies that are both dangerous and ineffective.

      Because there is big money in quackery, and no law preventing it, reliable firms like Teva and Sanofi bought local firms that peddle herbal dreck in Eastern Europe.

      Many a European headstone should be engraved with “Treated with Folk Quackery – Died 30 Years Too Soon.”

  • Mottel

    Yet you openly lie to them. Until you retract your statement about Polio, there’s nothing to talk about.