Kitchen Cures: What You Always Need in Your Pantry

Even if you have great health insurance, there’s no real reason to run to the doctor’s office every time you have a scratchy throat, or even a mild fever. Your medicine cabinet is probably stocked well enough with ibuprofen, band aids, and generic cold and flu or allergy medicine, but what about your kitchen? At-home remedies may not fix a broken leg or cure pneumonia, but they can alleviate uncomfortable symptoms and don’t require a co-pay or a trip to the drugstore. Try to keep a few of these items in your pantry at all times — or at least seasonally — for quick fixes when you don’t feel like spending extra on health care or feel too icky to venture outside of your home.

• Honey: Honey is used to help bee stings, poison ivy, dry skin and even acne. It’s a natural moisturizer that combats inflammation and relieves itch, too. Honey is also highly acidic, making it a useful agent for fighting bacteria and infections.
• Garlic: Garlic is a tiny, cheap little herb that is used for lots of conditions, including warts, gas, heartburn, and even yeast infections, if you’re brave enough to try this home remedy. Garlic is an antifungal herb, a blood thinner, and helps your immune system generally.
• Cumin: If you have indigestion, diarrhea or bad gas and are embarrassed to ask your pharmacist for a solution, try cumin. Boil the seeds and make a tea, which can also relieve morning sickness and clear you up when you have a cold.
• Ginger: Ginger is another multipurpose ingredient that is an anti-inflammatory agent. Make a tea to ease nausea or muscle pain, especially if the pain is due to spasms or arthritis.
• Whole milk: If you have a minor burn, dip a washcloth or bandage in whole milk — the extra fat is key — to help the pain and the skin heal itself.
• Vinegar: If you have warts, soak a bandage or cotton ball in vinegar or apple cider vinegar overnight. If the wart hasn’t died and fallen off by the next day, try it again for one or two nights, and it should work faster than anything you can buy at the drugstore.

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