How to preserve Gooseberries using Honey

Gooseberry is an excellent source of vitamin C. It keeps you active and drives away lethargy. Honey is an excellent source of energy. It is a natural preservative. It is also an antiseptic par excellent. Gooseberries that are available only 2-3 months in a year can be preserved in honey and used throughout the year. Honey helps retain the vitality and medicinal properties of gooseberries. One way to preserve gooseberries using honey is described below.

A small note on honey, honey harvested from mature honeycombs is the most beneficial. Prematurely harvested honey gets sour quickly and becomes useless.

Take required number of mature gooseberries. Each gooseberry is pierced at various spots (5-6 piercing) with a stainless steel sharp object or thorn. Now take a jar full of pure honey and drop these pierced gooseberries into them. Let the gooseberries be fully immersed in honey. Cover the mouth of the jar with a thin white cloth and place it in sunlight for 1 hour each day for 15 days. Now the gooseberries are storehouses of energy.

On getting up in the morning, after cleaning your teeth, take a honey soaked gooseberry first thing in the morning. This eliminates lethargy and keeps you active throughout the day.
This is an excellent source of energy for both young and old and ideal for strengthening the mental faculties.

Siddha Remedies for Eye Problems

Eyes are sensitive enough to reflect changes that happen internally in our body.We are familiar with doctors checking the eyes for jaundice. Redness of the eyes in many cases is regarded as increase of “heat” in the body, according to Siddha practitioners. They would say the body has “heated up” and it has to be cooled down. To that end they use both external and internal preparations to regain the needed balance. The redness is cleared once this balance is established.

While some problems of the eye may be due to simple “heat” (“heat” in Siddha terms is when the body’s pH becomes acidic, this may be due to deprivation of sleep, stress etc) from a home remedy perspective, it is always advisable to seek the help of a qualified physician if problems persist for more than three days. Certain problems of the eye require a complete study of the individual to diagnose the exact cause.

Now for some simple remedies of the eye.

Neem flowers help improve eyesight. For this purpose dry neem flowers are used, preferably 6 months to one year old. These flowers are fried lightly using ghee and then taken internally in the form of thuvayal.

The extract of crushed jasmine flowers also help improve eyesight. Four drops of this juice is put in the eyes using a dropper. Regular application will help in clearing up the redness of the eye.

Following preparations are used to “cool” the body.

Arugampul (Bermuda grass) root is dried and powdered. This powder is then fried in ghee and taken internally.

Take a small amount of cumin seeds. Boil the seeds in water. Filter the seeds out.The boiled seeds are then taken internally with cow butter.

For irritation of the eye, kadukkai, gooseberry, neem seeds, coconut, and white pepper are taken in equal quantities and ground to a fine paste. This paste is applied on scalp 5 minutes before bathing. Use this paste once in two days until irritation ceases. This simple Siddha home remedy helps clear eye irritation.