Sore Throat/Cough Relief

[2dream]

About how much honey do you use?

I slice 3 to 4 slices of a medium onion (about like you would want on a hamburger) and pour about a cup of honey over them. Just make sure the onions are completely covered and cover tightly with a lid or plastic wrap. I don't measure anything. I just slice and pour honey. Sometimes my jar is not full and sometimes it is to much for one jar.

 

[equinecpa]

I've had chest congestion for 3 weeks now and am so tired of coughing. I'm so tired at the end of the day..I think I'll try this.

 

[hqueen13]

Alright, so Sunday I started to feel really run down by the evening, and had a sneaking suspicion that I was catching something. Tossed an onion in my raw honey and let it sit. Took the mixture to work with me the next day because sure enough I was not feeling so good. Pretty much took it during the day almost every hour, not quite though.
Tuesday, woke up about the same. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Thursday I really started to feel drained. We ended up going to bed not much after 9 last night. Today, I'm feeling just a bit worse again.
I'm still dillegently taking the honey onion (though I'm about to run out! ) which is getting stronger with every spoonful as I get closer to the end.
So I guess it is working, I'm not super sick. I am not quite sick enough that I feel I should stay home, but I am not not sick either... :-/

 

[tamlynn]

If I could cut off my head I would be perfectly healthy.

But yeah, me too.

Gargling with warm salt water helps my sore throat. I also like an herbal tea called Throat Coat with honey.

 

[hqueen13]

Well, I ran out of my onion honey on Friday, and hadn't' been taken it as religiously, and promptly got REALLY sick. I spent Saturday in bed reading or sleeping. Went to bed sort of early on Saturday night (ended up not going to bed right away due to bad accident on the road that had the medivac helicopter landing in the pasture across from the house!) and mostly slept ok through the night to about 7:30 this morning. Woke up feeling SLIGHTLY better, but still dealing with a pretty stuffy nose and a wet cough (better than a dry cough!). I did a netipot this morning and got LOTS of yucky gunk out of my head, which felt good, and have been sort of ok sinus wise all day. I'm just wiped out energy wise. If it weren't for the football game I would have taken another nap!
I am still debating going to work tomorrow... I probably will even though I have a LOT to do in the house and not much time to do it in since I didn't get ANYTHING done this weekend...

 

[2dream]

hqueen - sorry I missed your post completely. Did you add a few drops of lemon juice to each spoonful of the honey/onion? I don't know that the lemon helps anything other than the after taste but I always make sure I put a couple of drops of lemon or lime juice in each spoonful. Do you think it was helping you from getting full blown sick? Do you think it shortened your cold or sinus or whatever it was? Since this is kind of an experiment thread to see how it works and on what type of complaints I would really like to know if you think you had a sinus infection, a head cold.....?
Thanks for all the feedback.

 

[hqueen13]

And I forgot to update, too! Thanks for the nudge.
I think if I remember correctly, I went in to work a half day on Monday, and then managed ok the rest of the week. I didn't technically come home and rest on Monday afternoon, but I did get quite a bit done in the house.
I was a long time recovering, I still have a scratchy throat now and then. By the next weekend I was alright, though I was still dealing with a lot of sinus pressure (to the point of tooth pain). I didn't continue the honey/onion as much as I should have, not sure why now.
I think it might have slowed down the length of time it took me to get really sick, and when I ran out that was it. I don't know for sure, but I will definitely be trying it again the next time I feel icky. I also need to try to make up some of the fire cider too and see if that helps (that one is nice because it can be done as a tea with some honey and thus taken every day through winter).

 

[dma1974]

About how much honey do you use?

I slice 3 to 4 slices of a medium onion (about like you would want on a hamburger) and pour about a cup of honey over them. Just make sure the onions are completely covered and cover tightly with a lid or plastic wrap. I don't measure anything. I just slice and pour honey. Sometimes my jar is not full and sometimes it is to much for one jar.

Can the onion be chopped or does it have to be sliced? I'm thinking surface area in the honey and that it might take less honey to completely cover the onion? Or would it be better to just use more onion in the same amount of honey? Does the ratio of onion to honey make any difference?

 

[hqueen13]

I don't know that any of that makes much of a difference. I told my parents about this, and come to find out my great grandmother always have a jar of it on her counter (so my dad told me). Hers the onion was minced up very fine, and never removed from the honey. So however you want to do it is up to you, I don't think it affects the effectiveness of the solution. What probably has more bearing on your health is the quality of the honey and how nutritious the onion is. I think earlier in the post it was commented that the sulfur in the onion is part of what helps kill the germs and help you get well - so an onion that was not a very good onion wouldn't help you get better as fast as an onion that was grown under ideal onion conditions. What that is I have no idea, and I don't really suspect you could tell from looking at an onion, sooooo.... you'd probably have an easier time controlling the quality of the honey!
I wouldn't stress that much over it. If you don't mind the onion, then you can dice it up fine and never strain it out. If you don't want to chew on onions (ME!), just chunk it and cover it with honey.

What I did find is that the liquid in the onion thins the honey, so even if your honey starts out almost spreadable (like mine) it will end up much more liquid by the time the onion soaks in.

Next up, Fire Cider!

 

[ORChick]

Generally, the stronger the onion is - tastes strongly of onion, and makes you cry a lot while cutting it - indicates a higher sulfur content. That is, a good storage onion would give better results than a sweet Walla Walla or Vidalia onion.