My Life is Blessed with Natural Health — Can I Share What I’ve Learned with You?
I’m Jan Evans. I was born in 1952 in Chicago to a typical blue collar family. By the time I arrived, there were four kids: two boys and two girls. We always had a roof over our heads, enough food to eat and clothes to cover us. Pretty typical, normal, nothing special.
Although my mom was overweight, we kids were active and lean, as was my dad. Mom put on the weight to spite Dad, so everything wasn’t really rosy, but compared to situations of abuse and privation, it wasn’t so bad.
There wasn’t much for kids to do inside, so we spent a lot of time outside. Our neighbors had a swing set, so we would play on that some, but mostly we explored the natural world. There were drainage ditches along the roads before curbs and gutters were installed, so we caught crawdads and other crawly things. We watched bugs and birds, played on home construction sites — building with sand and scraps. There was a large open area a half mile long in the high tension towers easement where my older brothers commanded armies and ‘fought’ other neighborhood kids. We were outfitted with smelly army surplus helmets, kit and ‘weapons’.
Most everyone had kids and dogs — with the exception of our across the street neighbor — a childless couple who kept their yard very neat. The dogs ran loose much of the time or were chained or fenced. Male dogs were intact, while some of the females were spayed after their first litter.
When I look at living conditions today, they are very different for people and dogs. Yet it makes me wonder if the advances in sanitary (few open drainage ditches)and safety (kids have planned activities, screen time — little or no time or opportunity to explore the outdoors) conditions are really progress. There are undoubtedly fewer cases of parasites in dogs and children, so sanitation is a plus. But studies have shown that kids who actually play on the ground, in the dirt and have animals have stronger immune systems than those who live in more sterile environments.
This exploration into living naturally, started when I was 20 in 1972. I lived in a barn at Hollywood Park Race Track in Inglewood, California, and my future husband was given a failing Standardbred Racehorse to train. He was bred to pace fast, but was thin and in poor physical, mental and emotional condition. He couldn’t gain muscle and stamina, so there seemed to be no hope for him to get into racing form.
I came across Dr. D.C. Jarvis’ book Folk Medicine: A New England Almanac of Natural Health Care by a New England Country Doctor which advocates the use of apple cider vinegar and honey to get the body back in balance. With apple cider vinegar in his water and honey in his oats, this sorry excuse for a racehorse, Andy’s Ehu, got his appetite and energy back. The transformation was remarkable. His new, consistent training regimen got him racing and winning purses.
Although the apple cider vinegar and honey was a bitter concoction to swallow. I experimented with it some. The honey was the good part, so I started drinking honey in my morning coffee instead of sugar. It’s definitely an acquired taste, but I didn’t have to worry about anyone drinking my coffee. That combination cured my lifetime of constipation once and for all time.
In the ensuing years, there has been a myriad of proof of how and why the folk remedies work. Science is catching up with cures that have been used for millennia. It’s good to know how they work, if that’s important to you, but trying a remedy that will “first do no harm” seems a vast improvement to ingesting a drug that may work, but can cause another dis-ease (side effect) for which you’ll need to take another drug.
With Natural Health Always, I aim to explore how we can be healthier more naturally. What activities, foods, supplements can actually help us live vibrant, meaningful lives?
Life is a journey. I hope you’ll join me on this trip to the state of natural health.
Yours naturally,
Jan Evans