By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.” – Socrates. We discussed the kitchen pharmacy. We listed six items which your kitchen should be stocked with – rice, rice tea, salt, ginger, camote and turmeric. These items can keep long and don’t require refrigeration and would come in handy even in the middle of the night. One time I had a bad ankle sprain and my healing partner recommended that I put crushed fresh ginger on the affected foot in the evening. I wrapped it with cloth and wore a sock over it for better stability. By morning, the swelling, pain and hematoma were gone! Magic! Yes, definitely, food can be wonderful medicine.
Not all food, though, can keep for long like those mentioned. No worry, there’s always the arubayan (the immediate surroundings of the house) where a lot of medicines grow prolifically that sometimes you see them as weeds. The following are medicinal plants:
1) Camote leaves
I put this on top of the list as it is dengue season now and camote leaves decoction is your remedy to the drop in platelet count. Dengue is a viral disease thus there is no medicine to treat it but by the action of our body’s healing power, it will go away in 3-7 days. However, in the course of the disease, the platelet count can become very low which then may lead to massive bleeding and shock – that is the danger of dengue fever. Local experience is that drinking camote leaves decoction will increase the platelet count. Place camote tops in boiling water for around 5 minutes. Don’t add any salt or sugar. The camote plant survives all year round, even with little water. With camote leaves drink, who’s afraid of dengue?
2) Tawa-tawa ( a Hiligaynon term) – or botobotones or gatas-gatas
Tawa-tawa made waves in the local scene some years ago as the magic medicine for dengue fever. Like camote leaves, its decoction increases platelet count thus preventing hemorrhage. I highly suspect it is the dagta (sap) of camote & tawa-tawa that do the trick. Tawa-tawa grows all year round, too- in the garden, in the tuping, at the roadside, anywhere with ample sunshine. You can mix it with camote leaves. It makes a delicate drink.
3) Lemon grass (balaniw or tanglad)
Lemon grass is mild sambong – a mild diuretic so it is a cleansing agent. For fever, just drink its decoction. It is a favorite tea.
4) Sambong
Sambong is a general cleansing agent. It is a diuretic (makes you urinate) and melts kidney stones and even gallstones. But you need to augment it with a healthy diet, as with all other ailments.
5) Oregano
Oregano is good for cough and is pleasant-tasting that kids would easily like it.
6) Lagundi (or dangla)
Lagundi is good for cough, asthma. Drink decoction of leaves and/or have steam inhalation. An herbal bath with boiled lagundi leaves is very energizing especially after a bout of flu.
7) Sabila
The fresh sabila slimy sap is good for burns. Just rub in on the burned area. This will immediately soothe the pain and hasten healing. This is a sturdy plant, easily grows even in pots. So if somebody gets burned, just get out and get the medicine.
8) Sayote
Sayote fruit is wonderful for sore throat and cough. Eat it straight from the plant – the younger the fruit the better as it has more sap. Chew it well.
9) Yerba Buena – mint (Eng), singsinggam (Bontoc)
Good for fever, just steep the fresh leaves in boiling water and drink 3X a day. The fresh crushed leaves are good for rayuma – massage the juice over the painful parts. A poultice of fresh leaves is good for insect bites. The fresh sap is also good for toothache- gargle with salt solution then soak a small piece of cotton in the sap and insert in the aching tooth cavity.
There are countless medicines in your arubayan – gendey/lampaka, malunggay, amti, kalunay, saluyot, kale (laping), gipas, kangkong, squash, okra, etc, etc. (A must read is Leonard Co’s Common Medicinal Plants in the Cordillera available at the CHESTCORE office in Baguio City.) In fact, all plants contain antioxidants, enzymes, a variety of vitamins, minerals that are needed by our body to function and renew itself. Try looking at the healing properties of medicinal plants and you will note that they are usually “cure-all”. So make sure there are spaces for these to grow. But if you have cemented all your arubayan, then plant these in pots like what the BOMARVA in Bontoc market (market vendors association) are doing in their recycling program.
You cannot go wrong with plants. Some people will discourage you saying that what is written here is not scientifically proven. Your proof will be a healthy you. You will not die if you drink lagundi or eat sayote. You have nothing to lose. What more, you don’t have to buy these amazing medicines! Well, they are God’s gifts to us. So next time you see a plant growing in your arubayan, don’t be in a hurry to pluck it off the ground. The Igorot mother, after all, did right. Remember the story of the Igorot mother? She went to visit her daughter in the USA and removed the bermuda grass from their lawn. In its place she planted camote.**
