I’m a sucker for anything holistic.
Some of my first memories are of my grandmother giving me a big, heaping spoon of cod liver oil right before bed, followed by a dose of wisdom.
“This will make you smarter than all the other girls,” she would promise.
And with that … I was hooked.
Who needed to memorize multiplication tables each night, when instead, I could endure two seconds of this gross, nasty, magical elixir … and just like that, I would know math.
My grandmother was also a big believer in the benefits of fresh goat’s milk. And when I mean fresh, I mean still warm from the utter … fresh. To keep me from gagging she would add in two tablespoons of chocolate Ovaltine and then place the tall glass of frothy, smelly, awfulness in front of me.
“This will make you prettier than all the other girls,” was the promise this time.
To this day, if I pass Ovaltine in the grocery aisle, I have to take a big gulp and look away.
But I continue to be a believer, and so every few months, if I stumble on an article or hear about an amazing superfood that will make me healthier (with no other effort on my part), usually, within 48 hours, I’m trying it.
Coconut oil … check.
Kefir … check.
Green tea … check.
Ezekiel sprouted bread … check.
You name it. I’ve suffered through it.
And most always, I’ve done it alone.
This time, however, my husband was the one who heard about the benefits of apple cider vinegar and wanted to give it a shot. After a quick google search of all this vinegar could promise, I was in.
Before he could say Kroger, I was home with a big bottle of Bragg’s Organic Vinegar.
This would be easy. I liked apples. I liked cider. And I loved vinegar on my salad.
The bottle said to add two tablespoons to a cup of water and then mix in honey to taste.
Are you kidding me? I was weaned on the oil squeezed from the liver of a cod fish.
I drank it straight.
The burn as the vinegar went down my throat was like tiny razors slicing my throat, one paper cut at a time. The taste was like eating a salad puréed in a blender.
This elixir was going to go the way of all the others, except for one small fact.
Throwing away a $6 bottle of vinegar is not anything Brody Kane can bring himself to do. So instead, every morning, he brings me my vinegar water.
“I promise … two more weeks, and the bottle will be done,” he tries to remind me.
I close my eyes, hold my nose, and gulp it down.
This worked a lot better, when I was the only health nut in the family.
Telling Tales is written by Wilson County’s Becky Andrews and Angel Kane.
Telling Tales is written by Wilson County’s Becky Andrews and Angel Kane.
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