Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

the first time I made it I had to look everywhere but now our local co-op has horseradish or did the last time ;) It may be seasonal. . . fall would be better time to look.

I am currently bribing my children in a major way to take master tonic cuz we were coming down with something and we have a suspected case of swine flu in the neighborhood. I think it's paranoia most of the hype but. . . I am giving them a check whenever they take it and checks are earning them a nintendo ds game.

The other thing is that I am *hoping* that they'll realize it's not THAT bad and take it happily when they get used to it. I take it almost daily.

Honey hasn't worked for us yet :( Or maple syrup or in juice or in other stuff. Although I thought about stirring it into our chili at dinner time :shifty

Lisa, great idea on the netty pot. I put it on topically on someone's rash after you told me you did that and it went RIGHT away. We also tried it on a big pimple and it went away. Actually typing that, Savana has a wart like thing on her arm and I am going to apply some and see if it goes away. :tu

SEriously, this stuff ROCKS. It's my all time favorite immune tool now :rockon

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

Does it ever go bad?

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

It just gets stronger. . . we keep it in the dark and wrapped in paper bags to block the light . . .
I don't think it goes bad but ours has only lasted for about 5 or 6 months until it's gone so I am not positive!

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

Can some of you who have made this say how big a container you used, approx amounts of ingredients and amount of final product? I wanna make some but I'm just trying to plan how much stuff to get.

Also, how much of the benefit do you think comes from actually drinking/swallowing it? As in, it would still work if I put it in G's feeding tube?

And Lisa, your DH is brave! My nose is hurting now just reading that. :giggle

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

:think I used about 1 C of each before shredding and it turned into a gallon after adding apple cider vinegar.

I may have used a bit more horseradish :think

I can't remember. I just estimate honestly :shifty

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

I think your throat benefits from the contact/swallowing but I would use it in a feeding tube. . . the only thing I'd be super careful about is doing it after a feeding. It's super hard on my gut. I give it to the kiddos after meals or sometimes there is vomiting or severe tummy pains. :hugheart so my only concern would be how hard it would be on G's tummy :hugheart

Today, I actually succumbed and gave them cyclone cider. Which is a supplement almost exactly like master tonic but just a supplement. They take it much more easily and I don't have to fight them :shrug

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

How effective do you think it would be in salsa?(like in a small amt.) My kids will down chips and salsa like it's going out of style, but try to make them "drink" something spicy, and it's "nooooo" :snooty, LOL.

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

I think it would still be beneficial.

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

Okay so I just made this today and thought these portions would be helpful for you if your'e are making in a 1 quart sized mason canning jar. I ended up using 3/4 cup of everything with the exception of the peppers. I used habanaros and used less than an 1/8 of a cup. That filled the jar about 3/4 of the way full. I then needed a 32 oz bottle of Bragg's raw cider vinegar to fill to the top. You'll still have some vinegar left over. The 16oz won't be enough. Hope that helps. My fingers are still burning from chopping the peppers and I wreak of garlic. :). Curious to see how it turns out. Oh, and a good time to buy horseradish root is in the late summer to early fall. If your can't find it, ask the grocer and they will order it for you. It comes in big chunks but if you don't want a big chunk they may be willing to cut you a piece that's the size you want so you don't have to waste money on what you won't be using. My grocery store let me do that. It's like $5 or $6 a pound so don't buy more than you need if you don't have to. 1/4 lb was plenty for me with some left over, fyi

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

After reading this thread I decided to try to make this too! It's my first "natural" homemade remedy so I almost didn't do it because I was second guessing myself since I am unfamiliar with some of the ingridients. But I decided to put away my perfectionisma and just go for it, and if the it worked it worked and if it didn't it didn't. In the end it really wasn't that hard at all. I took pictures along the way for any other newbies who might not know how much to pick up at the store and how much it would yield. In the end I think it turned out pretty well! Mine is still brewing but the amounts at least seemed to come out right for the most part.

Here's a play by play:

Here are all of the ingriedients and the original amounts I bought at the store before they are all chopped up or grated.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/IMG_2266.jpg

The white onion yielded a lot and in the end I had leftovers of this

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/IMG_2270.jpg

This is the ginger all grated up (I peeled it using a spoon per MIL's suggestion and it worked great! Then I grated it by hand - not sure if there was an easier way to do this?)

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/IMG_2271.jpg

I took apart all the cloves of garlic. On a cooking show I saw they said to smash the clove and then the shell comes off very easily, so that's what I did. Then I used a pampered chef chopper to get it all chopped up pretty evenly.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/IMG_2273.jpg

For the habeneros I made sure to wear gloves since previous post said her hands were burning! Then I simply cut off the top stems and put about three whole peppers at a time into my chopper and chopped away. In the end this was the only ingriedient I didn't have quite enough of. I wasn't too worried though since all I could find were habernero and those are hotter than cayenne which is called for in the original recipe.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/IMG_2275.jpg

I had never even contemplated that horseradish could come in other forms than "jar" :giggle so I looked up what to do about this root that I didn't know existed. One site said to make sure you're in a well-venilated room and wear gloves with this too! Although my room wasn't particularly well-venilated I didn't seem to have any troubles and I did wear the gloves. It said to peel the outer layer off with a vegetable peeler and then grate it. I thought I would save time and try to chop it in the chopper but it just didn't give the right results or consistency. So after that first trial I grated the rest. (At this point it was late and I was tired so I didn't do the entire root. I basically used the part of it that was "straight" and the "bulb" part is leftover. The grocery wouldn't let me just buy a part of it.)

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/IMG_2278.jpg

Here is everything next to each other so you can get an idea of the proportions.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/IMG_2281.jpg

Then I just mixed together equal parts and put it into two 16oz. leftover spaghetti sauce jars that I had saved back. I covered with the Bragg's apple cider vinegar and voila!

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/IMG_2282.jpg

FYI the ACV was the most expensive for my batch
Here is the breakdown:
Bragg's ACV $6.79
Ginger (.33 lb at $4.99/lb) $1.65
Onion (.67lb at $1.29/lb) $0.86
Habeneros ( .12 lb at 4.99/lb) $0.60
Garlic (pkg of two (I had one bulb at home already)) $0.69
Horseradish Root- lost my receipt but found it at Walmart and I think it was about $4/lb and it came to about a $1 maybe


Hope that helps anyone else who wants to make this in the future! Sometimes I am just paralyzed by the "what-ifs" when I haven't tried something before so maybe some of you are like me and this will answer a few questions before you start out. :heart

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

That is great! Thanks. I need to make some more... haven't made any yet this year.

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

Thanks for the pic by pic tutorial!! :rockon Nice!!!

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

R, could you add "Master Tonic" to the subject line? Like Immune-boosting Master Tonic Recipe? People are talking about MT all over the board, and I think it'd be helpful.

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

good idea..will see if I can get it to work.

Re: Immune Booster Recipe
 

making more.
this stuff is great. my dh swears by it.
i still can't get my children to take it :sigh - it has even become a joking matter for them, "yeah, i'll take it mama, if it isn't MASTER TONIC!!!" :rolleyes