Saturday, June 5, 2010

The Miracle Of Vinegar

By Sandy McCormick

Vinegar is good for more than just salad dressing and cleaning windows. For thousands of years, vinegar has been used for a wide variety of purposes. In 2000 B.C., vinegar was used as everything from a seasoning to a beverage to medicine. In an extreme example, Hannibal brought along vinegar while crossing the Alps, and used it to dissolve boulders.

In ancient Rome, a soldier would be given vinegar to drink on the march. The French word for wine is "vin," and vinegar is simply "sour wine." That's what many early vinegars were; vinegar would form when a crack developed in a cask holding wine.

You can get vinegar from fermenting anything with sugar in it. However, you wouldn't want to taste all of these different vinegars, some are downright nasty! Commercial vinegars usually start with a starter that is called a "mother".

There are lots of different kinds of vinegars. Most cultures mastered the use of starters or "mothers," and we have a variety of vinegars to show for this including wine vinegars (red, white, and rice), basalmic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, and distilled white vinegar.

.Vinegar may actually be healthy for us. Hippocrates, the "Father of Medicine," extolled the healing qualities of vinegar. He used it to treat sores, ulcers, and various wounds.

You don't want to pour vinegar on wounds, though. Experts agree that, while vinegar does reduce microbes, that's not the best thing for you to use to clean a wound. Instead, use vinegar to clean dentures. Vinegar is less damaging to tissues than bleach, so it makes a safe and effective alternative.

Here's an unusual use for vinegar: midwives in rural areas use it detect human papilloma virus in women. When the acids in vinegar come in contact with HPV-changed tissues, there are visible signs.

Vinegar may be beneficial for blood pressure, also. Studies show that it can lower b.p. However, you need to be careful when using it for this purpose because it may affect calcium. Think of the old story of Cleopatra's famous meal. Once, she bet someone she could eat a fortune in a single meal - and won that bet by dissolving pearls in vinegar then drinking the mix!

Scientists started checking into the effectiveness of vinegar in helping diabetics moderate their blood sugar, back in the late 1980s. Studies seem promising, but the evidence is not yet sufficient to lead to recommendations that diabetics start a vinegar regimen.

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment