Folk Medicine & Apple Cider Vinegar

So, I was looking up natural remedies for acid reflux online. What I was really suffering from was laryngitis from misuse and overuse of the vocal cords, but, ahem, at the time, I had yet to see a doctor and simply assumed I had acid reflux. I searched Wikipedia (genius!), Webmd, and even Tweeted about it. One natural remedy kept popping up…

Apple cider vinegar.

Was apple cider vinegar some miracle elixir? Some sites purported that it could not only aid in curing acid reflux, but also in assisting weight loss, curing diabetes, limiting fatigue and migraines, and even reversing infertility. Say what? You mean that little $1.99 bottle of Bragg’s unfiltered organic apple cider vinegar I’ve seen at Trader Joe’s could solve…like…everything?

I may or may not have downed an entire bottle of the sour stuff in hopes it would also cure my stage fright, pessimism, and do my homework for me to boot.

After my throat disintegrated from the acid, I figured I better do some research. Problem is — there’s not a lot of legit scientific research out there on the use of apple cider vinegar. The actual bottle of Bragg’s cites the following benefits:

“Internal Benefits:

• Rich in enzymes & potassium
• Support a healthy immune system
• Helps control weight
• Promotes digestion & ph Balance
• Helps soothe dry throats
• Helps remove body sludge toxins

External Benefits:

• Helps maintain healthy skin
• Helps promote youthful, healthy bodies
• Soothes irritated skin
• Relieves muscle pain from exercise

See what I mean when I say I was ready to deify this little bottle, break up with my health insurance company and take over the world one bottle at a time?

Yea. But what, exactly, is apple cider vinegar? Apple cider vinegar is “a type of vinegar made from cider or apple must and has a pale to medium amber color. Unpasteurized or organic ACV contains mother of vinegar, which has a cobweb-like appearance and can make the vinegar look slightly congealed” [from the most reliable source - Wikipedia! here]

Another source frequently cited when discussing the uses for, and benefits of, apple cider vinegar is D.C. Jarvis’ Folk Medicine published in 1958.

I had the book sent to my school library and decided I’d take a gander.

I’ll be honest. I have a general distrust of mainstream Western medicine. Every time I go to the doctor, which is rare, I actually spend 5 seconds talking about my symptoms while the doctor is already, preemptively, writing a prescription to shut me up. Growing up, when doctors would try to “help” me lose weight, they’d simply give my mom a list of foods I should eat without any reference to portion sizes, specifics of brands, processing, etc. You know what was usually on those lists? Fruit juices and yogurts. Um…you mean loads of sugar?! Yep. Some of the most unhealthy things ever, especially if you have no clue what type of yogurt and/or fruit juice is good and of how much to consume. Anyway, I digress.

I also have a distrust of folk medicine. Are you sensing a pattern here? I really think that books, particularly Jarvis’, are cultural productions that are, generally, not relevant to me specifically. Why? Folk medicine is a product of informal physiological practices and beliefs that are specific to a particular region of people. Not much, if any, legitimate empirical research is conducted in a manner that would encourage extrapolating general practices. So, what we have in this book are the very intriguing stories of a doctor in Vermont who practiced with his population of white people of Nordic descent. I’m not being a brat here, he even writes that there are “the three white racial strains” in Vermont: ” Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean” (28).  He then gives descriptions based on hair color, head size (yep), and eye color (flashbacks of racial physiognomy?). Based on your particular racial strain, you follow a diet that befits your ancestors and, presumably, jives more with your specific genetics. There was then the break-down of three body types: slender, intermediate build or stocky. Based on these things, there are also specific foods you should and should not eat. I couldn’t figure out my build because most of my life I’d fit the “heavy” build (duh), but now I can actually see that I have a very small frame – but I still have some pudge, so who the hell knows? Look, this dude wrote in the 50s…

Jarvis claims that “Vermont folk medicine holds potassium to be the most important mineral, in fact the key mineral in the constellation of minerals. It is so essential to the life of every living thing that without it there would be no life” (61). Apple cider vinegar is high in potassium, which is why it’s his cure-all prescription. But a lot of his evidence, based on adding the stuff to cow and horse feed, kinda freaks me out.

I don’t doubt that many of his practices and studies did work, as he claimed. What I doubt is that we could assume they would work outside his niche. Actually, we can’t really assume much at all. There was no place for a mutt like me to find her “racial strain” and, frankly, I was off-put by a lot of the descriptions of what foods we should and shouldn’t eat. There was no place for a vegan in this book.

In fact, much of the talk on apple cider vinegar benefits were that if you were going to eat meat that was questionable, taking apple cider vinegar beforehand would kill the bacteria. I couldn’t help laughing and thinking, “if you think the meat might be bad, why eat it?”

Jarvis claims that if you take two teaspoons of apple cider dilute in a glass of water before each meal, you will lose up to an inch from your waist every two months without changing your diet. The actual explanations for why are not there. I guess this is the “faith” based part of folk medicine? The part where you just go “yay it works, don’t need to know why!”? What bugs me is that what I like about this book — the idea that you can take your health into your own hands and use natural remedies to do so – is then countered by this idea that you should just do things in blind faith without actually listening to your body and maybe even questioning whether it’s your diet that needs to change rather than the addition of apple cider vinegar. This is a continual contradiction in the book. In one breath Jarvis says – listen to your body, pay attention to your ancestry and to the way nature and animals work – and then he says, here take some honey, apple cider vinegar, kelp and iodine and all will be fine. I guess I have to remember – he is really prescribing these things to his specific Nordic descendants living in the Vermont climate. We should all keep that in mind, yes?

So, what do I take from this book? I really like Jarvis’ general ideology that our health is in our own hands and that there are natural remedies to help us. I much prefer to take personal responsibility and do my own research rather than rely on a doctor to prescribe me pills. But, I’m all about the “me” folk medicine. In other words, if something is not working, I do my research, I test, and go from there. I’m sorry, but I’ve let too many old white dudes tell me what I should do for my body for most of my life, and it was finally when I started empowering myself to achieve health on my own terms that I did.

All that crankiness aside, here’s the kicker, I have been taking apple cider vinegar (about two teaspoons) diluted in water every day, once a day, for the past month. Do I know if it’s doing anything? I haven’t a clue. But, I feel great. The “feeling great” is also, obviously, due to the diet of unprocessed vegan foods, the exercise, the fact that I’ve been practicing mindful living and refraining (as much as possible) from stress. So, I guess this is where my own blind faith comes in — all of these things are working together in harmony and I don’t want to raise a dissonant voice to them. At the same time, I need to know more about this stuff. I’ve heard taking it straight-up can damage the esophagus, so I don’t. But what else? Clue me in!

If only apple cider vinegar could cure my skepticism.

How do you guys feel about folk medicine? About apple cider vinegar? If you can point me to any legitimate studies, books, etc. on the stuff, I’d really appreciate it!

<3,

The Cranky One

Tags: apple cider vinegar, folk medicine