Cold vs. Flu: What’s the Difference and How Do We Treat It Naturally?

Welcome back to Season 2 of Crunchy Stewardship! In this premiere episode, Katie and Chrissy kick off the new year with a fresh look at winter wellness. They discuss the fascinating connection between your gut and your brain, break down the actual differences between a cold and the flu, and share why they ditch conventional treatments like Tamiflu and Red Gatorade. Instead, they offer a toolkit of natural, budget-friendly remedies to help your family fight sickness while honoring your body’s natural healing ability.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The "Second Brain" concept: How your enteric nervous system impacts your mood and immunity
• The difference between Influenza (Flu) and Coronaviruses (Cold) and how to spot them
• Why they avoid Red Gatorade and Tamiflu (and what they use instead)
• Specific natural remedies including: Menthol crystals, onion water, miso soup, and the "Special Drink" recipe
• Prevention strategies involving cod liver oil, sleep, and avoiding pork

Resources mentioned:

• Book: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price - https://amzn.to/45M45iS 
• Book: The Forgotten Home Apothecary - https://amzn.to/49OMU2A
• Book: Ancient Remedies by Dr. Josh Axe - https://amzn.to/4qgf7W9
• Book: The Biblio Diet - https://amzn.to/3Zb9nRi
• Product: Menthol Crystals - https://amzn.to/4sAJQi5
• Bone Broth Brands: Kettle and Fire / Pacific Organic Foods
• Vitamins: Ancient Nutrition (Immune Support) - https://amzn.to/4qEXdMu

Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship
00:33 Season Two Kickoff
02:16 Random Revelation: The Second Brain
04:02 The Importance of Gut Health
05:13 Western A. Price and Nutrition
09:44 Flu vs. Cold: Understanding the Differences
23:24 Natural Remedies for Common Illnesses
31:14 Favorite Store-Bought Broth Brands
32:55 Benefits of Bone Broth
34:48 Natural Remedies for Cold Symptoms
36:45 Homemade Remedies for Throat Phlegm
41:56 The Power of Oregano Oil
44:38 Parasites and Pork: A Surprising Connection
48:45 Staying Healthy During Cold and Flu Season

Remember, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Connect With Us:

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FREE How to Afford Non-Toxic Living Workbook: https://crunchystewardship.com/how-to-afford-non-toxic-living

Transcript

0:03

Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship. I'm Chrissy Rombach. And I'm Katie Fiola Jones. We are cousins on a mission to honor God by stewarding our health spiritually, mentally, and physically. From ancestral nutrition and natural remedies to biblical finance and holistic health, we are digging deep into how God intended us to live. So grab yourself a raw milk latte and join us as we unpack the ins and outs of crunchy stewardship.

Katie 0:33

Hey, and welcome back guys. It is really exciting to have you back with us for another season of Crunchy Stewardship. Uh, I hope you like our new intro Jingle Noise thing that Chrissy and I came up with. We're pretty excited about it, so let us know what you think. Um, if, if you're enjoying it too, it's gonna stick around hopefully this whole season. And maybe next year we'll change it up again. Who knows? But this is going to be the regular intro that you will hear for this second season of Crunchy Stewardship. It's kind of wild that we're here. At our second season, and we're really looking forward to it. We had a nice planning session to discuss what we wanted to do. We did get feedback from some of you guys on ideas for this year as well as we've had our own ideas and we really hope that this year will be really awesome. I don't know, uh, just we took a, a very intentional look at what we were doing with this podcast, and we just have some ideas as far as wanting to help you first and foremost grow closer to God. So we really do pray that by the end of this year, by the end of every episode, that you do feel like you are growing closer to the Lord, but also that you are learning new things. About how to take care of your health and your body and your wellness and all the things. So yeah, again, if you have any feedback throughout the year, please let us know. But here we go, starting off season two of Crunchy Stewardship. If you are joining us for the first time, we start out our episodes by doing a random revelation. And this often doesn't have to do with the topic of the episode that we are going to be discussing, but it's just something fun that we learned, uh, relatively recently that we wanted to bring to you. So it could be really anything. I mean, we really have no parameters on what a random revelation is and maybe it, it doesn't have anything to do with health and wellness, I don't know. But most of the time it does. So with that, Chrissy is going to share with us her random revelation, the first one of 2026.

Chrissy 2:56

The first random revelation for 2026 is a very fun fact that is called the second brain. It is the idea that your gut actually has its own brain. It's called the enteric nervous system, and it contains over a hundred million neurons, which is actually more than your spinal cord, which is quite fascinating. And so this is one of the reasons why your digestive system can influence your mood and your stress levels and your thought clarity and things like that. Because it has so many neurons and sends so many signals up to the brain that it really, truly does impact all of the brain functioning. What a wild thing. Hippocrates was kind of right about one thing when he said, all disease begins in the gut. And if the gut impacts your brain that hard or that much, how much more so does your gut impact like the rest of your body? You know, I, I just, I think about that all the time. And so our, our biggest, one of our great focuses in this podcast is really focusing on the gut. How do we heal our guts in order to heal all the rest of the things that we have going on? Arthritis, pain, um, digestive issues, migraines, vision problems, uh, depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. All these things are impacted by the food that we eat and the health of our gut. It's kind of wild to think about. It makes so much sense because everything we put into our body impacts our body for healing or for the opposite of healing, and so our gut really is like the core of what it means to be healthy. So.

Katie 4:54

Yeah, it is kinda wild. You and I have talked about this a lot off camera of just how our food just impacts literally everything. And I feel like I shouldn't be surprised by this anymore, but every time I do hear a fact like that, I'm like, holy moly. And it, it's just crazy. I, over the Christmas holiday break that we took from the podcast, the book that I started going through and started reading was, uh, nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Western A Price. And I've talked about Western a price a lot on our podcast. They, he's the dentist. That really kind of started understanding that cavities themselves really have to do with our food, but more, more than that, like the food really impacts the food that we eat, impacts our long-term health. So like when you think of nutrition and then physical degeneration, like he started putting together all these links that when we start eating more processed foods and at the time, like he was doing this research back in the thirties, and so he started seeing a trend even earlier than that and then started going around the world to. Look at these primitive cultures that were not exposed to, quote unquote modern day foods, which is funny to say, modern day foods, because this is almost a hundred years ago. So think about how much worse our current modern day foods are compared to the thirties. But he started seeing this trend that the indigenous cultures that started to get exposed to what he called the white man's food, which was processed white flowers, like refined white flowers, anything with sugar in it, he even classifies like jellies and jams as being in that, um, white man's food classification. So any of these foods led to more cavities in people as well as just physical degeneration. Their, their faces were slightly more deformed, having like smaller airways and nasal passages and everything. So then these people became like mouth breathers, which also led to more chronic cavities. And then. Lots of other issues that he mentions throughout his book where it's like all linked to just simply the food they were eating, they changed. Nothing else in their lifestyle or anything, just the food. And that's wild.

Chrissy 7:22

Did you know also heart disease like was an incredibly rare phenomenon until the twenties, like it almost didn't exist until the twenties when processed food really started kicking up.

Katie 7:35

And it's crazy because like, like you think of things like that and people are like, oh, well it's, it's the red meat that causes heart disease. That's like one that I see so often. And I'm like, these people literally only ate red meat basically. I mean, their diets were full of dairy products and red meat, and if they did have any sort of grain, it, they were like these ancient grains more like rye and iron corn. And they, the way that they prepared them, it was much more nutrient dense than the way that we prepare any kind of grains today. And so they go through a lot of like fermentation processes. Like, you know, you think about sourdough, it's like the. Gluten and stuff, it's fermenting and it changes the way it like predigests it. It's, that's the way that the west a price talks about it a lot in their stuff is like considering things like predigested and then when you eat it, it's easier to digest for your body. And so anyway, not even the topic that we're getting on, but it's just something that Christie and I are clearly extremely passionate about because yeah, food is really the building box to everything, also impacts our just everyday, immune system, including being able to fight off things like the flu, which also Western a price does talk about that kind of stuff. And so, but we, we'll, we'll leave it at that for nutrition. Maybe we'll come back to it because we do a lot, but we're gonna talk about natural ways to. Kind of fight common illnesses such as flu and cold, because we are in the midst of that season right now. Right, Chrissy?

Chrissy 9:20

Oh yes. I think probably like 30% of my patients, and like people I know got the flu this year, right around Christmas time. It was horrendous and I don't remember so many people getting the flu in years past. Do you.

Katie 9:40

I, yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. I guess my first question for you is do you distinguish the flu from like a cold? Because in my mind they're both very similar, but like what, what distinguishes them apart?

Chrissy 10:00

Well, I think probably severity. The flu is definitely more severe than the cold. You know, the cold, you really feel crappy. Your head hurts, your sinuses hurt. You have a cough, you have a stuffy nose you can't breathe. Um, but. I, for the most part, you're still able to function. I feel like the flu just quite literally knocks you on the back.'cause it comes along with like body aches and pains, joint pain, um, brain fog, which I mean, you can kind of get with the cold also. Um, oftentimes some people could get like the stomach flu, which didn't go around this year, but that's another form of the flu where it's just like vomiting incessantly for hours and hours on end. Um, so I think really just for the most part it's severity, but also the type of virus that causes the infection. So these are viruses. They're not bacteria, which means we can't fight these infections with antibiotics. We really just have to let our bodies run the course of fighting off the flu or a cold or things like that. So, um. The flu is caused by a virus called Influenza A and influenza B. There's two different strains, essentially, and they're the ones that caused the flu, virus or flu, getting the flu. And then a cold is caused by the coronavirus now, not COVID-19. Fun fact. There was actually a lot of coronaviruses around in the world before COVID-19 happened.

Katie 11:42

I feel like I've actually heard that, but you saying that again, I'm like, that's wild because I don't think I ever heard anything like coronavirus or anything like that until 2020.

Chrissy 11:54

Well, yeah, they only, why do you think they named it 19? Yes, it was discovered in 2019, but also like there's SARS COVID two, there's sars COVID four. There's. You know, so many different CO coronavirus strands that our bodies have been fighting forever,

Katie 12:16

mm-hmm.

Chrissy 12:17

you know, without a problem. But then COVID to 19 happened and it was worse than the rest of them, I guess. But now it's kind of the same as the rest of them, in my opinion. But I think the fact that it was politicized so much is why it gets so much hype nowadays. In my personal opinion, that is not backed by science, but I.

Katie 12:39

I. I mean when, during COID times, like in 2020 and 2021, um, Wes and I were definitely the people who didn't really like test very often.'cause we just never, we, we would get sick, but we never really got sick enough that it was like, oh, we have COVID. But then later I forget what we were doing. I, it might have been, oh, this was going through our infertility journey and I was getting some blood drawn and I asked them if they would do like a COVID o antibody test and it turned out that I had the antibodies for COD in my system. So I was like, oh, clearly I must have had it or something at some point, but I had no idea because I just was not one of those people who was like, I'm gonna go take a COVID test and see. I just, I dunno. The only time I really did was when we went to Hawaii in 2020 December. So yeah, that was wild.

Chrissy 13:39

You know. As last time I got COVID was, I think two winters ago. I wallpapered my bathroom, the whole thing.

Katie 13:48

Is that the wallpaper that you

Chrissy 13:49

I,

Katie 13:49

down and it kind of destroyed the bathroom?

Chrissy 13:53

we don't speak of these things. Okay. So for reference for our listeners, what happened to our, our wallpapers, a very sad story. So we were living in a rental home, I'll, I'll make this story real quick. We're living in a rental home and I put up renter friendly peel and stick wallpaper in the front bathroom because the entire house was white and I was over the white and I didn't wanna deal with it anymore. So I put up this lovely blue and came time to move out, and I asked my husband to take down the wallpaper and he comes back to me like 10 minutes later. He says, Chrissy, I can't do this. I was like, why? And he's like, come, see. I went into the bathroom. The walls were coming off with the wallpaper. Apparently there was real wallpaper on the walls that had been painted over with this ugly white paint. And so we were peeling off our peel and stick wallpaper and the paint and the real wallpaper and the sheet rock. It was all coming off at once. So we messaged our landlord and they said, oh, don't worry about it. We'll get it fixed when you guys move out. And I said, yeah, and charge us$600 for you guys to fix it when I could buy all the supplies and fix it for$200. You're funny. So I bought all the supplies and I went to town sanding and spackling and drywalling and fixing that bathroom. And I thought it looked okay, like it wasn't great. It was definitely a first time nurse's job at Wallpapering and it ended up costing us about maybe 250,$300, which was still less than the 600. I anticipated them to charge me and then they charged us$800 to fix the bathroom walls. So needless to say, we did not get much of that security deposit back. And be careful if you're using peel and stick wallpaper because it's not always renter friendly. And don't put it over real wallpaper that's been painted over. Okay, that's the end of my Ted Talk about wallpaper.

Katie 16:07

Well, going back to the flu stuff, we, I, I kind of always noticed that to me, felt more along the lines of just a flu. Like I just, I, I don't know. It just never, because again, like I clearly had had it at some point, but it never destroyed me. It never wiped me out too much. And so I was like, I, I must have one of, one of the small sicknesses that I had gotten at some point was probably it. And yeah, so I don't know. That makes sense though, that flu is more along the lines of being intense than just a cold. So, yeah. And right now I'm kind of battling a small cold. I could just have a, like a little stuffy nose, you know, but that's about it.

Chrissy 16:57

I feel like that's just the consistency of wintertime. Okay, so I need to touch on Tamiflu because we use Tamiflu all the time nowadays to fight off the flu vac, the flu virus, right? Everybody says, oh, you have the flu, you have to go get some Tamiflu, so you'll be able to fight it. Well, crazy enough, when Tamiflu first came out, it was only allowed to be given to a healthy adults and b, at risk people. So people who already had more comorbidities or were immunosuppressed or things like that, we're at a higher risk of having more harm from the flu. We're allowed to get this Tamiflu to help them fight it, but children were not allowed to get it at first. It's actually not until recently that kids, um, have been approved to get Tamiflu. So I find that kind of interesting, like, okay, at risk people were the ones that were like the main focus of Tamiflu use, and then it just kind of spread into being used among others.

Katie 18:10

I have never used Tamiflu and I was not really familiar with it until more recently when people were asking me about it and I was like, uh, I don't know. I, I would say like when I got sick all growing up, and even more recently, my mom was actually decently. Like educated in the more natural sense of like how to help fight your bo. Like how to help your body fight off whatever it is that you're dealing with. And I always remember when I was getting into like middle school and high school, she always told me that if I ever started to develop any kind of sore throat to come to her and she would give me vitamins and she usually would give me vitamin C and zinc. And so growing up that was just like the typical thing. Like if you start feeling sick, take vitamin C and zinc and basically just take that until you feel better again. And so that was always my go-to whenever I started getting sick. E even now, like I oftentimes will go to my vitamin C and zinc first off. And it, it really does help, especially the zinc. The zinc is the one that I feel like really makes my body fight whatever is going on. It helps support my body in. The process of getting better, I guess is maybe the way it's working. But that was, that was our go-to for any kind of sickness really. And then obviously if we got really sick, there would be other things that we would do. But that was like our first line of defense. Do you remember what you guys did growing up?

Chrissy 19:53

We did Tamiflu and Mucinex. Well, my mom was a nurse. very much like on, well, not so much anymore. She's becoming more crunchy after talking to me. But growing up she was very. In a medication mindset. And so if we had a cold, we took NyQuil or Mucinex. If we had the flu, we got Tamiflu. Um, we didn't really have soups or stews or, um, we did swear by, um, whatchamacallit, we used a lot of miso soup. If anyone had a sore throat or strep throat, it was an excuse for us to go get Japanese food so that we could have miso soup because my sisters and I re soup cured sore throats. And that's actually kind of true though, is that miso soup. Does cure sore throats. When I was little, it was just a joke that, oh, whenever you have a sore throat, we have to go get Japanese food and we have to get hibachi so that we can have the miso soup and cure the sore throat. Um, but the reality is miso soup actually has a ton of, um, immune boosters in it. It is a fermented food, like the miso is fermented, and so it has a lot of probiotics and prebiotics and postbiotics, and the warm like broth helps to soothe your throat, first off, like physically, but then the miso soup just gives your body like a boost of energy essentially to fight it off really quick. And so it, it really is very effective in treating sore throats, colds and things like that.

Katie 21:47

Yeah. Miso is fermented soybeans. Just in case you wanted to, said fermented miso is, what it was, but it's soybeans.

Chrissy 22:00

Oh,

Katie 22:00

But

Chrissy 22:01

miso is fermented. Miso, don't you know that?

Katie 22:03

like, wait, that doesn't really make sense. Anyway.

Chrissy 22:08

Well,

Katie 22:08

we, we did

Chrissy 22:09

anyways.

Katie 22:10

when we couldn't sleep, so we did do that occasionally. But yeah, during the day, I mean, we maybe took like Robitussin if we had like a really bad cough or something and then we did do some cough drops, but, and well, and then when we actually would get really sick. The main thing we would have was Gatorade. Like my mom would ha give us Gatorade all the time. And so for the longest time, and still now, I really just do not like red Gatorade because it always reminds me of being sick. Especially when I would get something like a stomach bug. I'd be like, puking back up red Gatorade. And then you know, when you just like throw something up and now it's just like ruined for you forever. Well, that's what happened to me, but it's not that I even would really drink Gatorade anyways these days. But Red Gatorade specifically is just like, literally means sickness to me. Like when I see it and think about it and taste it and I'm like, Ugh, I'm sick.

Chrissy 23:09

I'm very thankful. Miso Soup. Does not mean sickness to me. It's still delicious in my mind. Yes. But, okay, so the, the biggest thing that we wanna touch on with this episode, right, is how do we fight these common illnesses, the cold, the flu, things like that with natural remedies, because ultimately that's gonna be the best way that we're gonna support our own immune systems to fight these viruses, because that is the best way to fight them by using our own immune systems to fight them. Then it strengthens our immune systems and gives us more fighters essentially, to fight these illnesses in the future. It's the same idea that like daycare, kids get colds all the time, but then when they get older they never get a cold. That's because their body developed antibodies to fight all these viruses when they were little, and then they become adults and they don't. Feel like they're fighting them very much because their immune systems have been bulked, essentially bulked up. They're fight. Fight and ready. So I think let's start off talking about like natural remedies for the flu specifically. Um, and then we'll transition and talk about natural remedies for a cold specifically. And then also prevention.'cause I think that's important to touch on too.

Katie 24:34

Yeah. Do you want me to share first or do you want to share something first?

Chrissy 24:42

You go.

Katie 24:44

Well, one of the, the more natural things that I have learned is really good you're fighting the flu or honestly, any kind of sickness or even when you're just trying to help your body heal. In general are any kind of bone broths, you know, beef bones like, like cow bone broth, um, or a chicken bone broth, or even fish broth, which is more just, it's, it's in a lot more of the Asian dishes. But I've learned a lot of really good things about fish broth specifically. Um, especially because it, when you do anything fish related, there is cod liver oil in it typically, like, there's a, a bit of that, which when you have a really concentrated and really good form of cod liver oil, it's really saturated in vitamin D and vitamin A and those two together. Help boost your whole system to get better. So we all know vitamin D comes from the sun, and the sun helps us heal as well. And so if you're ever sick, going in the sun also is really, really helpful. But in order to get that vitamin D and a together through the winter season when you're not getting the vitamin D like we would in the summer, it's really important to have something like a cod liver oil. So Wes and I are taking like a really high quality cod liver oil throughout the winter in order to keep our vitamin D up. Um, but then you can also get that through like fish broth. Um, but then bone broth specifically just has a lot of nutrients and a lot of vitamins and minerals all packed into it because it's basically like taking the bones of an animal. And it in hot water and letting it just, uh, get all the good stuff out of the bones. Especially like if you have bone marrow bones and, you wanna make sure that the bones that you have, if you're making like a homemade bone broth, are from. A like grass fed, pasture raised, you know, healthy organic cows or chickens if you're doing a chicken broth. we have been, we made a bunch of bone broth after Thanksgiving from Turkey bones actually, and we have tons of jars in our refrigerator that we've just been like adding it to lots of different stuff. You can also drink it. Some people will just simply drink bone broth. I don't find it very appetizing, honestly. I, I was given some like nice sipping broth after I gave birth to Malachi, and that was really awesome. But the stuff that I've made is not very, like yummy to just like sip on. It's honestly, not the same as like a stock I or something. I don't know, like maybe it's just the way that I make it or whatever, but it's much better in stuff.

Chrissy 27:47

I, I definitely describe, if somebody asks me, what does bone broth taste like? I say, it's like chicken broth that really needs to be salted. Like it's just super bland chicken broth. Um, which is kind of like, it makes sense'cause you get a lot of the flavor from the fat, but bones don't have nearly as much fat in them as like skin and other chunks and stuff, um, that you would have it for stock. So that's how I usually describe it.

Katie 28:22

broth is meant to be like a base for things. It can be like the base to a sauce. Like if you're making some kind of pasta sauce, it can be

Chrissy 28:31

Mm-hmm.

Katie 28:31

to a soup. Obviously we, a lot of us know that and use it. You can add bone broth to a lot of things. I know people who even add'em to like their smoothies and stuff and so it really can be kind of like a super food in a way. Just like adding it to all your things. So the we a price foundation. Which is where I get a lot of my nutrition information. They highly recommend making your own. And I would probably agree with that because when you start to look at the actual ingredients in the store-bought packages, it's not nearly as good, um, as what you could make. And making it is actually pretty easy. Getting a hold of like bones to make broth is not as hard as I thought it was going to be. So we stock up on them when we can and keep'em in our freezer. I literally, I don't know if I talked about this before, but, I can't remember if this was before all the holidays, I think it was. I had a bunch of like chicken feet in my freezer and it was very just strange.

Chrissy 29:38

yeah, you did. Tell me about that.

Katie 29:39

it was just weird like opening our freezer and there'd be like chicken feet in there. But I used it all to make some chicken broth and yeah, it was really good. And yeah, we use it in a lot of our soups and curries and I actually, I should have, I made curry today. I did not add it to that. Dang it. Oh well.

Chrissy 30:00

You know, I have actually, I've noticed even with myself, we, um, we will keep the bones. So if I buy like a whole chicken and then we cook it. Obviously we're not eating the bones. I will use the carcasses essentially from the whole chicken when I separate it all up and the bits and pieces, the bones with little bits of like tendon and things like that left over from when we eat the chicken. And I'll simmer all of that for a while to make a stock. And then once the stock is made, those bits and pieces separate so easily from the bones, you can re simmer the bones for bone broth. So you can like use a bunch of pieces from a whole chicken multiple times to get multiple different kinds of broths and things like that with different nutritional values. That's usually my go-to though. Anytime I get a cold or I feel like I'm getting the flu or a sore throat, something, I just, I do sip on bone broth like three to four times a day. I will have a cup of it. And it's kind of my go-to. I have actually found two brands in stores that I personally like. They taste fine. Um, it's the Kettle and Fire and Pacific Organic Foods, or Organic Pacific, something like that. Um. It's a green box, but those two, looking at the ingredients have quality ingredients. They're all organic ingredients. They don't have any added flavorings. No natural flavors. No artificial flavors, no colors, no nothing like that. Um, it's just raw, organic ingredients, which I really appreciate. So I have used those in the case that I don't have any broth on hand, but I, I do enjoy making my own, and I feel like it kind of makes the house smell a little cozy. Also, just not overnight. I really don't like waking up to the smell of broth.

Katie 32:02

we did that when, I think it was like the first time I made some broth a little bit ago we woke up and it just smelled like beef in our house and it was, yeah, not appetizing at all. And I kind of like woke up with this like, ooh, like kind of feeling. But yeah,

Chrissy 32:20

It's like you wake up and you're like, what is that smell? Is it did, did something get like dirty? Is it my socks? Is it the pillow? Like what? And then you realize it's the bone broth and you're like, wow, that would smell much better in the afternoon.

Katie 32:39

I also, so I learned that, so I like lost my train of thought. In the middle of that I learned that bone broth is kind of like a. Natural electrolyte. And part of the reason it's so helpful is that it has all of those minerals and yeah, just the minerals in there like magnesium, potassium, and I believe phosphorus is often in it. And so it helps your body build up the electrolytes and then actually keep you hydrated while you are sick. And so it's really good, especially if you like have a fever and if you're like sweating or if you have those aches and pains, it'll help to kind of maintain the fluid in your cells and create like this balance for it. And so. It's, it's really helpful and, and most of us know that we should be staying hydrated. I mean, again, like I drank a lot of Gatorade when I was sick and now thinking back to that, I'm like, oh my gosh, that was probably just so bad with the colors and the sugars and all the stuff in it, which is just so funny to me now. And yeah,

Chrissy 34:02

But it had some electrolytes too.

Katie 34:03

do and, and it is funny because Gatorade actually does have some electrolytes in them, so it's in that sense it is good, but then there's also all these other terrible things in it. And so you're like, wait

Chrissy 34:17

I feel like the bad outweighs the good, unfortunately, when it comes to Gatorade.

Katie 34:22

And

Chrissy 34:23

Yeah, for sure.

Katie 34:23

too, like Propel, I used to drink Propel a lot, and then I realized that it has all those natural flavors and stuff, and I'm like, who knows what's in this? It's probably so bad for me. So I stopped drinking

Chrissy 34:36

Nobody knows. Yep. All right. So for the cold, what do you do for cold? I still drink bone broth, honestly.

Katie 34:47

Yeah.

Chrissy 34:48

Although one thing that I just got, I, I went on a trip to the Middle East and while we were there, we were shopping at like a, a local spice market. And this guy gave me a cup of steaming water. He said, smell it. And I was like, what? And I took a big whiff and that stuff punched me in the face. Not even kidding you. But then I turned around and I was like, whoa, I didn't realize my nose was stuffy. I can breathe so clearly. And I was like, what is this? He said, it's menthol crystals. So I bought me some. Middle Eastern menthol crystals. I didn't have to buy'em in the Middle East. They're on Amazon. Not super expensive at all whatsoever, but they are so fantastic. I, I just take a small cup. I found that stainless steel works better than ceramic. I feel like ceramic mugs kind of absorb the menthol somehow. I don't know how it happens, but, uh, stainless steel cup works best and I put boiling water in the cup and then I'm not even saying like less than a centimeter of this crystal, maybe half a centimeter of a crystal in the water. Let it dissolve and just slowly breathe in the steam. It clears sinus passages like nobody's business. It is so effective, more effective than VIX vapor rub. More effective than a humidifier, more effective than peppermint oil even. Um, essentially it's. Distilled peppermint oil in solid form, which is how it's made. So, um, really effective in clearing sinuses if you have a cold or sinus infection or something like that.

Katie 36:36

Very interesting. Okay. I tried, uh, weird. I'll share this weird one, and then I'll share some of my other things that are more normal and maybe not so strange sounding. My friend sent me a video, like a reel on Instagram the other day, and it was this Chinese medicine like thing in order to help combat. Uh, it was, especially for throat phlegm, you know, when you just had to like clear your throat a ton or you have a lot of the just like nasal drip kind of stuff. So she sent me this reel and lo and behold I'm kind of like struggling with just like, needing to clear my throat and everything. So I was like, I'll try it. So it's boiling a red onion in some water. So you boil, you start boiling the water, you put the red onion in the water, boil it for a couple minutes. The water kind of turns this yellowy pink color from the red onion. Then you strain the onion out and then you add a, like a, a spoonful. So I don't even know if that's like, they didn't even say if it was a teaspoon or like a tablespoon, but they just got like a spoon from their drawer and did a spoonful of olive oil and a spoonful of honey. And you just drink that, mix it all together and you drink it. And so I tried it that night'cause I was like, I have all those things. I'll just see what it does. And it actually did help clear up the like mucus that was in my throat at that moment. But the next morning,'cause I did it in the evening while we were watching a show and then the next morning I was kind of back to being all Fleming again. So it was like a temporary fix. I don't like, maybe I didn't do it right. Or maybe it's something where you drink it throughout the day, like you do it a couple times and stuff. But either way, it did help in the temporary. So there was that, but the next morning it

Chrissy 38:31

So

Katie 38:31

helpful.

Chrissy 38:32

maybe think of that one more as like a medicinal. Symptom support kind of thing because you know, NyQuil and Mucinex are temporary also. As soon as it wears off, then your symptoms are right back. And so I wouldn't be surprised if there are natural remedies out there that kind of act the same way that like while they're in your system, they work really well and then your system metabolizes them and you kind of go back to feeling the symptoms again. Um, but in the end, like in the grand scheme of things, big picture, you're supporting your immune system so much better with these natural remedies like the red onion and the honey and the olive oil. All of those have really great immune system supports to them, especially the honey that the Mucinex or NyQuil just doesn't have, you know? So

Katie 39:28

kinda

Chrissy 39:29

I would think. I.

Katie 39:29

way that I thought of it too because yeah, it did it, it cleared up the symptom at that moment, so I was like, oh, I don't have to go like eh as often, then the next morning it was back. So yeah, so that was just an interesting thing. Feel free to try it

Chrissy 39:43

Now my question with that is, did it smell weird?

Katie 39:48

you know, it did for a moment, but it didn't smell as bad as I thought it was going to. It was much nicer to drink than our typical drink that I make us when either of us has like a sore throat that we're dealing with, which includes apple

Chrissy 40:05

Mm-hmm.

Katie 40:06

in it, which then makes it way more pungent and just kind of gross to drink. This one the, with the. Onion, you know, when like an onion is cooked, it almost kind of tastes sweet, like, so it kind of tasted

Chrissy 40:21

Yeah.

Katie 40:21

a sweet onion, but then it had the honey and then it had olive oil. So it was just, wasn't bad, like it really was not a bad drink, especially compared to the other one that I often make us, which I wanted to share whenever we have, especially like a sore throat or like a little bit more intense of a respiratory stuff, we make a drink or I make a drink. Now Wes does it on his own too because he knows that it helps. He, he has actually noticed the effect of this as well, but we boil some water. It's, it's like making a hot drink, which also when you, when you drink hot stuff, it really helps soothe those throats and your whole system. It just kinda helps to loosen everything up. Um, just relaxes all the muscles versus drinking cold liquids. It constrains things. So that's the first and foremost is like, you wanna be drinking warm things. We add, I honestly don't measure it, so I'm just gonna give you what I think that the measurements are, but I just kind of eyeball it all the time. But it's about maybe like a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and then we add some honey, maybe about a tablespoon of honey. Um, sometimes I do some mineral salt because that's like the electrolyte and you, you get those good minerals. So we put a pinch of salt in there. If you, if you are trying to measure it, it's maybe like one eighth of a teaspoon if I had to guess. Just a little, little pinch, you know. And then recently we have been adding oregano oil to this drink. Now oregano oil is really good killing. sorts of like bacterias, like it, it works at killing fungus. It works at killing viral infections. Um, candida. It, it basically can replace an antibiotic in a sense. So again, you know, Chrissy kind of talked about the differences between something that can actually like, like flus technically can't be fought with an antibiotic, right? And so it's anything when you have like an actual infection. But we have found that the oregano oil does help to kill bad stuff. Like it, like that stuff is really potent, um, and really good. But we, we do that and that drink helps, like super, like especially with sore throats, the, all that stuff in there helps to kill whatever's going on in your throat. And so, but I guess that doesn't, like, sore throat is more of a actual like viral infection versus a flu, right?

Chrissy 43:10

Sometimes, or it could just be that your throat is dry or you have a little bit of a nasal drip, or you've been talking too much. But usually a sore throat is like kind of the first indicator of a viral infection. Yeah.

Katie 43:26

The other

Chrissy 43:27

But nonetheless, I would be willing to bet that, uh, oregano oil can fight the viruses because it's like multi microbial, you know, or multi antimicrobial or just antimicrobial essentially. It's good for you and it fights all the bad stuff, not just some of the bad stuff, like antibiotics, fight, just the bacteria, oregano oil fights, the fungus and the bacteria and the viruses and other things. The, does it fight parasites?

Katie 44:03

I think it does, I actually do have it down as a, in my parasite cleanse stuff. Mm-hmm.

Chrissy 44:09

I feel like that just like came out from the back shadows of my brain somewhere.

Katie 44:14

That's actually, uh, a goal of mine this year is to do my very first parasite cleanse. We should do an episode on that. I'm very

Chrissy 44:23

be fun.

Katie 44:23

to do that this year. So it's done. I literally wrote it down as a goal for 2026. I'm like, I just, I'm so weird, like

Chrissy 44:31

know, I find it interesting because dogs frequently have parasites like heartworms, and we deworm them and then we give them anti worm medications. But like what's saying that humans don't have those because parasites like live in bodies of water. You know, like a lake, the ocean,

Katie 44:54

in way more than the

Chrissy 44:56

the

Katie 44:56

actually. Okay.

Chrissy 44:58

air thing. Oh, no.

Katie 45:00

I don't know if you, if you really like pork, maybe turn the podcast off for a second because it's really interesting. So I read that book, the Biblio Diet, and they go into pork and so does Western a price Western. A price also is not a fan of pork, but there are a lot of like ancient traditional cultures that really basically say like, do not eat pork. And pork is really not that good as far as like the actual nutrient value to it, but also. Pigs traditionally have been known as like the garbage can of the world and all that most ancient cultures saw them as good at was turning garbage into fertilizer. And so, you know, you think about you literally can feed a pig anything, and they will eat it. It's, it's kind of like a magic thing that they could do is like you just put anything in front of them and they eat it and. they were kind of known as like a natural garbage can. Well, because of that they eat a lot of really bad stuff and they often, like pigs are often full of parasites. And so when you eat pork, you are often eating parasites. And they could be in a form, like there might, they might be dormant in the meat or whatever. And anyway, there's a lot, there's a lot of like back and forth. Like some people are like, oh well if you cook it just right, then the parasites die. But then other people are like, no, they never really die'cause they are really to lots of stuff, blah, blah, blah. But it is very interesting to me that in a lot of ancient cultures, they basically recommend not eating pork. And you kind of wonder why. And maybe it's because it's really not that good for us. So it's kind of hard.'cause I do actually really like pork and I love bacon especially. So

Chrissy 46:55

I was just about to say it's a good thing. I like Turkey bacon better than regular bacon.

Katie 46:59

You like

Chrissy 47:00

It's a new discovery I've made. I love Turkey bacon, and the only reason I bought Turkey bacon is because when I went through my whole gut reset last year, well, actually I'm still kind of going through it because that was only three months ago. We're only halfway through, but when I eliminated sugar from my diet, the Turkey bacon was the only sugar free bacon I could find. Everything else had added sugar to it, which beware. There is sugar in everything. Bacon, uh, Turkey, lunch meats, salami broth even has sugar in it. So just beware guys. Sugar pervades all the spaces, like the parasites. They kind of just

Katie 47:53

Yeah.

Chrissy 47:54

all throughout.

Katie 47:55

So anyway, be careful of

Chrissy 47:56

Yep.

Katie 47:57

if you're interested in learning more about that, let us know. And then maybe we'll add that to our list of episodes to touch on because it's definitely, it's something that I've been learning more about and something that I am really curious in trying this year because like you said, yeah, animals normally go through it, uh, pretty regularly, and us humans are very similar and we're in similar places as animals and we we're just as likely to get them as a dog and cat is. So anyway, I would like to try it and we'll see how that goes.

Chrissy 48:33

Now let's get back to cold and flu and less about parasites. Um, before we go, what are some things that you do to protect yourself from getting a cold or a flu to begin with?

Katie 48:49

Yeah, we do. A lot of vitamins. I'm, again, going back to how we started this podcast is just like eating really good foods. I mean, the best way that you can stay healthy is eating a good balanced meal. And that means like not having all of the processed foods, it also means, it also means drinking lots of water, especially with electrolytes and especially in the morning when your body is really trying to wake up and rehydrate itself. We also try to stay active. You know, getting active regularly is super helpful. It's hard for me right now because I love being active outside and we have had like over two to three feet of snow already this year. And so it's hard for me to get outside, at least in the way that I like. Um, it also means like getting good sleep. Sleep for me is like one of the number one indicators on if I'm going to get sick. Like if I'm not sleeping well or if I'm going to bed really late several days in a row, I can almost guarantee that I'm going to get sick. Like, like no joke. It, it is, that is one indicator for me that get sick if I'm not sleeping well. So if you're regularly getting sick and you realize you're going to bed really late and then getting up early for work, because your immune system doesn't, your body doesn't have that. Time to like reset and to heal itself overnight. And so you need to be getting good sleep. Um, and also like on that same page is like reducing your stress and just like being able to allow your body to relax. So if you feel like you're in this like anxious state all the time, you feel really stressed. You, you know, your body is pumping, uh, cortisol constantly. It just doesn't have the chance to heal itself. And so stress is also an indicator that I'm going to get sick when I'm really anxious and stressed about things. And that also like the anxiousness leads to less sleep, which then leads to me not healthy. And so those are some of the things that I'm doing to like keep myself healthy or just like work on not getting sick. Um, yeah. Are there any things that you would add to that Chrissy?

Chrissy 51:14

No, I think you pretty much hit it. Essentially organic fresh vegetables is like key, especially like the green leafy vegetables, because those are just absolutely nutrient packed. Um, those are, that's pretty much what I use and I'm learning how to incorporate kale and spinach into so many more meals, um, and making it more of just a regular thing. If I'm making a soup, I throw in a handful of spinach. If I am, we have steak. Let's throw in a handful of steamed spinach on the side. You know, it's three bites worth it doesn't taste all that great all the time, you know, steamed spinach. But it's so worth it with the, um, the nutritional value that you get from it, and there's really good ways to make it. Having a spinach salad is really yummy. Even a kale salad I think is really yummy. Adds some extra crunch. So, um, I've been incorporating a lot of leafy greens.

Katie 52:09

Yeah, Leafy greens have a lot of

Chrissy 52:12

Yep.

Katie 52:12

vitamins and minerals and stuff. And

Chrissy 52:16

Mm-hmm.

Katie 52:16

I

Chrissy 52:17

Lots of vitamin K.

Katie 52:18

on top of that, on top of like those just regular lifestyle things. We do take more vitamins through the wintertime we're, you know, not getting outside as much or we do get outside, but the sun is not as strong in the winter, so your body isn't actually producing the vitamin D. We talked about that actually in our, uh, what's that podcast? The Sunlight, the sunscreen episode that we talked about, like your body

Chrissy 52:47

yeah.

Katie 52:47

vitamin D and so. Yeah, through the winter we take really high concentrated fish oil to get the high vitamin D and vitamin A together. But I also often take elderberry and zinc and vitamin C. I have been, I, I actually started doing this, uh, vitamin from ancient nutrition, which is Josh X's, uh, like business that he like sells broths and he sells protein powders and mushrooms and not the magic kind, but the health kind of mushrooms and all sorts of different vitamins. But they have like an immune boost vitamin and it's made from real foods. So when you look at the ingredients, it's like actual food ingredients and they're kind of in the concentrated powder form. So that's also really important, is not taking a synthetic vitamin. And really you can just look at the ingredient bottle and you can like Google if you don't, if you're not familiar with anything, you can Google it and just say like, is this a synthetic form of this vitamin? And if it is, then try and look for something that's made from like a real food versus that's made in a lab because it'll be better used in your body. You think about like something that is manmade versus something that comes from a plant or an animal. Your body can use the plant or animal vitamin form much easier than something that's made in a lab. So just be aware of that. If you are choosing to do any vitamins, like if you're supporting your body with vitamins, then just make sure you're getting the stuff that's actually worth it. Like don't waste your money on synthetic stuff. It's not gonna help as much.

Chrissy 54:34

For sure, for sure.

Katie 54:38

Do you have anything

Chrissy 54:38

we do our ending?

Katie 54:39

Yeah, I was like, do you have anything else?

Chrissy 54:41

I do not. I don't. Well, with that, we just wanna encourage you guys, we are nearing the end of. Cold and flu season as this episode is coming out. So I know some of these things might be a little bit outdated for some of you by the time you listen to it, but be encouraged. You can prepare for cold and flu season next year, starting in the summertime, you know, starting to get in those organic high quality fruits and vegetables, good quality meats, things like that. You can also create for yourself, little tinctures and immune boosting supplements in your own kitchen. Um, there's a lot of great resources out there. Two resources that I personally love is The Forgotten Home Apothecary. It has 250 remedies and immune boosting recipes in it, and then ancient remedies for Modern Life by Josh Axe. Both of these books have fantastic recommendations on how to naturally fight illnesses and fight common things that we have. On a regular basis that we deal with because we live on planet Earth. So definitely take a look at those. They are awesome resources that are just super helpful in learning even about the background of these illnesses. Like what did ancient people think about the common cold? What did ancient people think about the flu? Things like that. So good to know, good information.

Katie 56:10

All right. Well, cool. Yeah, check out all of those links. We'll share stuff to that in the show notes. If there's ever anything that we forget to add to the show notes, feel free to email us or find us on our Facebook group. Crunchy Christian Mamas on a Budget. One of our goals for 2026 is to just kind of be more active in there, so we get to that. We are two busy ladies, but if you do post anything in there, we will see it. Thanks for tuning into our conversation today. Be sure to subscribe and join us over on Facebook that whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.