Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Cranberry
Prevents Bladder Problems
Family: Ericaceae; (includes Azalea, Rhododendron, Blueberry)
Genus and Species: Vaccinium Macrocarpon or Oxycoccus Quadripetaius
Also known as: No other common names
Parts used: Juice from the berries
Many women drink cranberry juice, believing it helps prevent urinary tract infection (UTI). Herbalists and some physicians encourage the practice, but other physicians say the herb doesn’t help. The scientific studies have gone both ways, but the latest research shows cranberry probably works.
Thanks to the Pilgrims
Cranberries were eaten for their tangy, refreshing taste long before anyone thought of them as a healing herb. The Pilgrims supposedly dined on cranberry dishes at the first Thanksgiving in 1621, but cranberry sauce did not become a national tradition until after the Civil War. General Ulysses S. Grant considered cranberry sauce an essential part of Thanksgiving, and he ordered it served to Union troops during the siege of Petersburg in 1864. Soldiers unfamiliar with the tart berries liked them, and the custom stuck.
The colonists were unaware of cranberries’ high vitamin C content, but cranberries became a favorite among New England sailors because those who ate the bright red berries did not develop scurvy.
America’s 19th-century Eclectic physicians did not consider cranberry particularly beneficial, but their text, King’s American Dispensatory, contained this curious prescription: “A split cranberry, held in position by a daub of starch paste, will quickly relieve the pain and inflammation attending boils on the tip of the nose.”