Tag Archives: Winter ’06-’07 Catalog

Goat Milk Soap, Great for your Skin- Winter 2006-2007 Catalog

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By Arielle Hebert

 

Some years ago, a friend gave me a bar of her own goat milk soap. Prior to using this soap, I often battled extremely dry, cracked hands. After faithfully using my friend’s goat milk soap, I was amazed at its effectiveness. My hands no longer dried out and cracked! My skin became soft and moist. I was so impressed that I even began using the soap as a wash on one of my does (mama goat) who has a super sensitive udder, and she appreciated it as much as I!

So, I experimented with making my own goat milk soap, using milk from my herd of dairy goats. Over the years, my knowledge and understanding of soap making grew and my soap formula improved. My family and I found it to be so much better than commercial soap. I began my own cottage industry to share this great treasure with others.FacialBarLarge1_1

 

So, What makes it so Great?

Goat milk is rejuvenating, anti-inflammatory, and moisturizing. It contains over fifty nutrients including the vitamins A, B1, B2 (riboflavin), B6, B12, C, D, E, and K, niacin, zinc, and calcium, as well as some minerals, amino acids, citric acid, unsaturated fatty acid, proteins, various enzymes and many other nutrients. These are all part of what makes goat milk soap so special. Vitamin A slows the effects of aging and prevents brown spots. Zinc contributes to the re-construction of collagen fibers, resulting in firmer, smoother skin. Zinc also encourages moisture retention and assists in maintaining your skin’s elasticity. Calcium tones and smoothes the skin. Since goat milk is naturally homogenized (the milk and cream do not separate), the natural fat provides the skin with a rich, moisturizing effect. The oils in goat milk are easily absorbed by the skin, resulting in a healthy balance of oils for dry or oily skin.

Goat milk also contains alpha-hydroxy acids. These acids, which occur naturally in the milk, are known to plump the skin and smooth fine lines. Alpha-hydroxy acids also exfoliate by breaking down the glue holding those dead skins cells together. Additionally, these acids neutralize free radicals, slowing the aging process and refreshing the skin. Caprylic acid is a fatty acid contained in goat milk that reduces alkalinity, giving goat milk soap a pH level very close to that of the skin. This prevents the soap from stripping away the natural oils of the skin. The natural oils of the skin form a protective barrier that keep microbials out.

Goat milk soap cleanses while leaving that protective barrier intact, and soothes the surface tension of the skin, allowing it to be moisturized and absorb the healthy nutrients. Th e other fatty acids present in goat milk are also natural antimicrobials and anti-fungals. My soaps also contain: Olive oil, which moisturizes and forms a protective film on the skin without inhibiting the skin’s normal, necessary functions, and is a good cleanser. Vitamin E oil is an antioxidant, and a natural preservative. Coconut oil is a moisturizer, but it also makes the soap hard (unlike many other handmade soaps), but with a generous lather, and it resists rancidity. Palm oil is a gentle cleanser. Lastly, there is lye. Lye is a cleanser with a long, long history. In the proper amounts it provides great cleansing but is still gentle. It is great for getting rid of chiggers and is said to soothe bug bites.

Why is Handmade Soap Superior to Commercially Manufactured Soap?

Natural glycerin is produced during the process of soap making. This glycerin is highly valued for its moisturizing properties and its ability to help your skin retain moisture. Commercial soap producers remove the glycerin from their soap in order to use it in more expensive products, like moisturizers. Of course you need a moisturizer after using most commercial soaps. My hand-made soap is completely natural, right down to the essential oils with which it is scented. Essential oils are powerful aromatic substances extracted from flowers and herbs that contribute their own beneficial properties to each bar of soap, delivering more health and vitality to your skin! Commercial soap often contains chemical additives and synthetic ingredients including synthetic fragrances and dyes which can be irritating and drying to skin.

My handmade goat milk soap (Rehoboth Farm Goat Milk Soap) is produced in small batches in which the quality of the soap and the ingredients can be closely monitored. The same care and caution is not likely to be exercised when soap is mass produced. The skin-nutritious oils in my soaps are each carefully selected and combined based on how they compliment the properties of the goat milk and achieve a rich, moisturizing, hard bar of soap, with great lather. When goat milk is combined with a carefully selected blend of oils in a handmade soap, the result is a mild, skin-nutritious, luxurious bar that thoroughly cleanses, refreshes, smoothes, and moisturizes and is so gentle it can be used on infants. Doesn’t it make sense to treat your skin well by using goat milk soap?

Beeyoutiful Products mentioned in this article:

Rosehips, The Vitamin C Flower- Winter 2006-2007 Catalog

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By Rebekah Joy Anast

 

I adore roses. When I lived in Israel an old man down the street had the most magnificent roses. I used to lean on his iron gate and breath in the scent of his garden and repeat my thanks to him for tending such beautiful roses. Every color, every shape, wild and cultured, by the road, in a garden… that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet… And when the rose has faded, and every brightly colored petal fallen to the ground, the most wonderful part of the rose is finally ready to be of use. The bright little berry, wearing a gnarly dried crown, is an amazing natural source of vitamin C!

 

Interesting Facts

During World War II when imports of citrus products were limited, rose hips became especially popular in Great Britain. Volunteers spent many hours gathering hips from hedge rows for making rose hip syrup for the Ministry of Health to distribute. At that time, there were plenty of recipes around for eating the actual berries as “dinner vegetables” and as various kinds of preserves and jams. However, they have gone out of fashion now, and most people buy processed ascorbic acid as an inadequate source of vitamin C to meet the so-called “minimum daily requirement.” Native American women not only brewed rose hip tea, but they used the pre-boiled rose hips in soups and stews. The tea “leftovers” (the berries expand a lot) are a good dinner vegetable with butter and salt. There is still a lot of remaining food value in the cooked berries. The most common rose used medicinally is the Rosa Canina, also known as the Dog Rose, or Wild Rose.RosehipCWebProPillS

 

About Rosehips

Rosehips are the ripe, fresh or dried seed receptacle of Rosa Canina (Dog Rose), one of the most familiar flowers in the world. This round fruit of the rose, usually red in color, is seldom allowed to develop on our modern display roses. However, the prolific old-fashioned shrub types, such as the rugosas, bear rose hips abundantly. These roses, blossoming on thorny briar tangles, flower through June and begin to set their haws, hips or berries, which are red and ripe, by early fall.

 

Beeyoutiful Products Mentioned in This Article

Rosehip C

Land of Milk and Honey, Part 2- Winter 2006-2007 Catalog

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by Rebekah Joy Anast

Recently, as a homeschool project and in anticipation of starting our own beehives, we visited a successful bee farm in Tennessee. We contacted Tim Durham Sr. ahead of time via phone to see if we could drop in and see his hives. When we arrived in the humid afternoon, I was surprised to find a small portion of the Durham’s bee farm right in their own backyard, in the middle of a rural neighborhood. Mr. Durham graciously introduced us to his bees and allowed us to watch as he opened a hive and checked on a new queen that was being introduced to the hive. She was in a little cage and the entrance was plugged with “candy.” He said that by the time the worker bees ate their way through the candy, they would be used to the new queen’s smell, and accept her as their new matriarch.

“Now, you fellas be nice and get to know your Lady. She’s a good one, and you better be sweet to her…”

“Do the bees know you?” I asked, watching them crawl over his hands, and buzz around in his face without stinging him.

“Funny you should ask,” said Mr. Durham, “I really think they do. Recently there was a test conducted that proved honeybees prefer the face of their own keeper. When shown photographs of various people, the bees would favor the photograph of their own beekeeper. They know me all right.”

I learned a lot about bees that afternoon, and went home with an absolute amazement over the benefits of bee products.

Honey

Honey is the nectar of the herbs and flowers that grow wild in the fields and woods. The benefits of hundreds of herbs are carried in the form of nectar in the stomach of the bee where it is subtly altered by the bee’s digestive enzymes in ways that modern science has been unable to explain. New health benefiting compounds are created by this process before the honey is regurgitated in the hive, concentrated by evaporation, and stored in honeycomb. Because of the high natural sugar content, Honey absorbs moisture in wounds, making it hard for bacteria to survive. Many honeys contain large amounts of hydrogen peroxide which is regularly used to disinfect cuts and scrapes. Most raw honeys contain some propolis, a compound that can kill bacteria. In laboratory tests, honey put on seven types of bacteria killed all seven!

What is Raw Honey?

There is a difference between raw honey straight from the hive, and processed honey which you buy in stores. Any honey is good for you, but raw honey is by far the best since it has not been through a heating process (over approximately. 120 degrees) to melt the sugar, which also kills the wonderful enzymes and bacteria that are so rich in healing properties. Raw honey can be purchased from local bee farmers in your area.

WARNING: Children under twelve months of age should not eat honey as there is a risk of botulism.

Propolis, the Bee Glue

And you thought honey was sticky! Propolis is made from a sticky resinous material that western bees gather from tree buds or sap flows. The sap usually comes from coniferous trees and/or Poplar trees. A worker bee will tear off tiny amounts of resin and place them in her pollen baskets (the middle portion of each back leg) and then carry the resins back to the hive. House bees (young bees) unload the resins at the hive and mix them with pollen, wax and enzyme-rich salivary secretions. The finished propolis resembles cement, or glue, and is used to to build or repair the hive. Propolis covers virtually every centimeter of the hive, acting as an antibacterial sealant, and is a sanitary covering for all hive surfaces.

A Mummy Mouse in the Bee House!

From time to time some unfortunate little critter will get into a beehive; most commonly a mouse or a lizard. The bees will sting the invader to death, but are not capable of removing the carcass from the hive. To keep the dead animal from rotting in the hive the bees will coat the carcass with propolis. Amazingly, such propolis-mummified animals remain undecayed for years. The powerful flavonoids in the resins, which the bees collect to make propolis, are an anti-viral shield for the hive. Not only does propolis protect against viral infections, but against bacterial and fungal invasion of the hive. The same things propolis can do for a hive, it can do for you…

Propolis’ Healing Recordbee_immuneweb

Propolis has been used topically for skin problems ranging from the ordinary abrasion, to advanced herpes in the mouth, gum infections, eczema, acne, skin cancers, bruises, burns, and… well, pretty much anything that can go wrong with skin. The high percentage of flavonoids in Propolis results in a remarkable immune boost when taken internally. Because of this, my favorite way to take propolis is in capsule form along with Rosehip vitamin C. Th is combination will stop a developing common cold in its tracks. Just last week I woke up with a sore throat, swollen glands, and aches. I took three Bee Immune propolis capsules, and 2000 mg of Rosehip Cevery other hour all day. The next day I was completely well, with no cold symptoms remaining.

Bee Pollenbee_strongweb

Bee pollen is the dust-sized male seed, required for the fertilization of the plant, found on the stamen of all flower blossoms. Once a honeybee arrives at a flower, she nimbly scrapes off the powdery pollen from the stamen with her jaws and front legs, moistening it with a dab of the honey she brought with her from the hive. Her legs have a thick crowd of bristles called “pollen combs.” The bee uses these combs to brush the gold powder from her coat and legs in mid-flight. With a tapping movement of her auricle, which is used as a hammer, she pushes the gathered pollen into her baskets. Her pollen baskets, surrounded by a fringe of long hairs, are simply concave areas located on the outside of her back legs. When the bee’s baskets are fully loaded, the pollen dust has been tamped down into a single golden granule. This pollen-gathering bee now takes the pollen back to the hive where younger house bees unload the pollen. They secrete nectar and special enzymes into the flower pollen to create what we know as “bee pollen”. Bee pollen is food for the young bees.

Super Food

Bee pollen is approximately 40% protein. It is considered one of nature’s most completely nourishing foods. It contains nearly all nutrients required by humans. About half of its protein is in the form of free amino acids that can be directly absorbed by the body. Bee pollen is taken by athletes and body builders to increase stamina and speed. Th ere are countless stories of impressive athletic improvement attributed to the regular intake of bee pollen. Most believe this is due to the pantothenic acid in bee pollen which helps the body build resistance to stress, and aids the production of the adrenal-cortical hormones. When the glandular system is adequately nourished with sufficient pantothenic acid (as found in bee pollen) it creates a powerhouse of vitality and energy.

Bee Pollen and Weight Control

Bee pollen also stimulates the metabolic processes. It speeds caloric burn by lighting and stoking the metabolic fires. Bee pollen is a low-calorie food, containing only ninety calories per ounce. (An ounce is about two heaping tablespoons.) It offers 15% lecithin by volume. Lecithin is a substance that helps dissolve and flush fat from the body. Bee Pollen also satisfies many “cravings” by meeting your body’s vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

Health and Beauty

Some doctors and dermatologists say that bee pollen seems to prevent premature aging of the cells and stimulates growth of new skin. It may offer protection against dehydration and inject new life into dry cells. “The skin becomes younger looking, less vulnerable to wrinkles, smoother, and healthier with the use of honeybee pollen,” Dr. Essen of Sweden says. “Taken internally or used externally, bee pollen exercises a suppressive effect on facial acne. It is also an important skin rejuvenator, primarily because it contains a high concentration of the nucleic acids RNA and DNA as well as a natural antibiotic factor.”

Cinnamon Honey Toast

Now that you know everything about honey… Drizzle warm honey on fresh cut slices of buttered bread, sprinkle with cinnamon powder, and toast on a cookie sheet in the broiler

Beeyoutiful Products Mentioned in This Article

Bee Immune

Rosehip C

Bee Strong

How Goot Changed our Lives- Winter 2006-2007 Catalog

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by Wanda Hughes

garlic

My strong, hardworking husband came in from toiling in the summer heat. Sweat was pouring down his face. He went straight for the refrigerator, yanked on the handle and pulled out an ice cold canning jar with yellow liquid inside. He smacked his lips and grabbed the lid. Just before he unscrewed the top, he hesitated. “Is this stu? okay to drink?” he asked. “Well,” I replied, “It would be good for you, but I don’t think you’d like it.” In his hand, he held a quart of whey. I quickly got him a tall glass of red raspberry tea and sent him on his way. I guess he didn’t want to repeat the time that I told him to take some sleep tincture and he accidentally got into the herbal rub for muscle aches. Who knew wintergreen rubbing alcohol could taste so bad?

My kitchen wasn’t always a laboratory. We used to eat fast food, chips, ice cream, milk shakes, you name it. Sure, we had allergies, got colds, sleep disturbances, etc. But you can just take a pill for that and move on, right? That was our mindset until we saw close family members start su?ering. When we visited the doctor, the little boxes that you mark for family history of illnesses were starting to ?ll up. More and more, medicines were starting to cause side e?ects that required yet another prescription to deal with those e?ects.

I had always been interested in natural health, but didn’t know quite where to begin. I had tinkered with supplements, but not yet ventured into herbs. I didn’t know where to start. Then goot happened. We had decided not to immunize our youngest children. One had gone through the trauma (well it was more OUR trauma) of surgery. We were ready to ?nd other ways to build up their immune systems. A kind, dear, wonderful man showed us how to make goot – garlic oil ointment.

To be honest, the recipe looked like something you’d smear on your toast. The ingredients were:

3 tablespoons of fine-ly chopped fresh organic garlic cloves,

3 tablespoons of olive oil,

3 tablespoons of organic extra virgin coconut oil.

Once the oils were made liquid (by gentle warming) they were blended with a hand wand mixer along with the garlic cloves. Any large pieces of garlic were then strained out of the mixture which was sealed in a small jar and refrigerated. After about 1 hour, you had a paste.

I knew garlic had a lot of healing properties and was a versatile herb, but I was still skeptical when I blended my ?rst batch. The information said that this stu? could be used directly on the skin. It could be used on the feet of infants and children to transfer the garlic oil into their bloodstream to ?ght infections. It could be placed in the nose for sinus congestion, behind the ear for ear infections, on the chest or back for colds or pneumonia.

This stu? was even supposed to help athlete’s foot and jock itch. You could even insert it into other areas if it was needed for yeast, parasites or other maladies. I looked at my little jar. It would only last two weeks before I’d have to make another batch. I smelled my garlicky ?ngers and thought, “Well, if nothing else, MY sinuses are open.”

It wasn’t long before goot was put to the test. Someone stepped into a ?re ant bed.

“Mama! Mama! The ants bit me!” I put the little guy in a chair and took a look at his feet. I could already see the red welts starting to form. If nature were allowed to take its course, he would have white bumps and a very red, swollen foot by the next day. “Well, goot, here’s your chance.” I pulled out the little jar and put the cool salve on each mark. For good measure, I rubbed it over the foot and put socks on my little guy. I noted with interest that he immediately stopped complaining of the pain. I watched him the rest of the day and also noticed that he didn’t scratch at the bites. Before bed, I checked his foot. “Come over here to the light,” I said. I looked closer. There weren’t any welts. There were some red spots that were very slightly raised. “Do these hurt?” I asked. He said no and that they didn’t itch either.

The next day, I pulled the sock back and found only pink dots. They weren’t even raised. The dots themselves were hard to see if you weren’t looking for them. That’s when I was convinced. This herbal stu? really works. If just three ingredients from my kitchen shelf could do that with ant bites, I was going to learn more.

I started collecting recommended books on herbal medicine and nutrition. I learned more than I could implement, but I kept on learning anyway. I wanted to know all I could so that I would be able to discern what was most important and how best to invest our few dollars. I already knew that it was very easy to spend a lot of money on the chance that something might work. I wanted to know what would work and why. One little salve. Three little ingredients. One huge success. Now my husband has to look twice before he gets a drink from the refrigerator. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

Garlic, The Natural Plant Antibiotic- Winter 2006-2007 Catalog

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by Rebekah Joy Anast

I lived and worked among the Kumboi people in the highlands of Papua New Guinea during 1997-1998. I was the whitest white person they had ever seen. They affectionately named me “mbiny kuloi ai yande,” the albino daughter. I was there to teach literacy and compile a translation of the New Testament in their language, but healthcare inevitably took up some of my time. The main health problems in those mountains were infections of all sorts, from skin boils and abscessed wounds to lung conditions like pneumonia.

Rather than destroy their precariously built immune systems with antibiotics, I planted a huge garlic garden and explored the uses of that smelly herb. The village ladies were enthusiastic. We tried everything from garlic poultices on external infections and internal doses for parasites (we also used pumpkin seeds for that), to garlic water enemas. What a job it was to explain the civilized reasoning behind enemas! I showed the village ladies how to use a clove in the ear for ear infections, warm-garlic chest plasters for lung infections, a few drops of diluted garlic water on an infected umbilical cord and a warm washcloth saturated with diluted garlic water on the baby’s belly. Mothers were taught the benefits of using garlic poultices on general infections, and how the ingesting of garlic by mothers could help prevent any afterbirth infections due to prolapsed uterus, etc. I cannot give garlic all the credit for the success we had; I’m certain that God, as usual, was working miracles.odorlessgarlicweb

The most encouraging thing about the use of garlic in rural conditions is that, when I left that village, I did not take my medical care with me; it remained there in a little aromatic patch in the middle of those thatched huts and has continued to heal a multitude of diseases. Garlic has been used medicinally for thousands of years. It is the most powerful herb for the treatment of antibiotic resistant disease. No other herb comes close to the multiple system actions of garlic, its antibiotic activity or its immune-potentiating power. It has been through over 1000 years of recorded history, but we aren’t allowed to tell you what it is used for, so you’ll have to do that research on your own. Here are some links:

How to Make a Garlic Poultice.

Break off two or three large cloves and lay them on your counter. Start some water heating on the stove, and then lay out a clean washcloth or double thick paper towels. Smack the garlic cloves with the bottom of a heavy glass to lightly bruise or crush them. Now the papery skin will come o? easily. Take the bruised cloves and dice them up, or smash them in a garlic press so that the juice and the smell billows out to make you hungry for lasagna. Lay the 2-3 tablespoons of minced garlic in the center of your washcloth or paper towels and fold in the edges of the cloth, creating what I call a “poultice” or “plaster.” Lay this garlic pad in a bowl or plate and pour the warm/hot (but not boiling) water over it. (If your water is too hot, it may kill some of the powerful healing properties in the garlic. You should be able to keep your fingers in the water without scalding yourself.) Let it sit for 5 seconds or so, and then fish it out and squeeze the excess water out with your hands. Place the warm (not hot!) poultice on the chest, the back, and the soles of the feet (alternately) for about 60 seconds each for viruses, colds, flu, infections, etc. Garlic poultices can also be used for earache – holding the poultice against the infected ear. For flesh wound infections – hold against the wound lightly. Eye infections – hold over closed eye.

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Odorless Garlic