10 Healthy Uses for Apple Cider Vinegar
Happy Friday everyone! It’s been a pretty fun week here, with all kinds of discussion. We don’t have a deal today but we do have this awesome post via our friends at Well+Good. What do you use apple cider vinegar for?
The apple cider vinegar stocked in your cupboard may play a starring role in your salad dressing, but it’s also enjoyed a long run as the basis of many health remedies. (The organic, unfiltered kind, that is.)
Apple cider vinegar’s strong suit is balancing pH levels, and creating a healthy, alkalized state when you eat or drink it—or use it a skin-care product. (You want to be more alkaline than acidic for a trillion health reasons, some experts say.)
It’s also pretty renowned in natural-health circles for curbing digestive issues, spiking weight loss, promoting great skin, and banishing a handful of other pesky afflictions.
And in the medical community, small research studies point to its promise for lessening symptoms of diabetes and obesity.
Wonder how it can help you? Here are ten reasons to add apple cider vinegar to more than just your salad dressing:
1. Digestion and food poisoning. Vinegar contains malic acid, which can help common digestive issues like constipation or acid-reflux. And because it’s a trifecta of antifungal, antibacterial, and antiviral properties, a tablespoon or two in a 8 oz. glass of water may even help with a case of food poisoning.
2. Sleep issues. Many people swear by a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a cup of hot water with honey before bed, citing its sleep-inducing powers and that it promotes a more restful night’s sleep.
For a balancing elixir, dilute a couple teaspoons of organic unfiltered apple cider vinegar in tepid or warm water with lemon in the morning.
3. Diabetes. A 2007 study published in Diabetes Care, showed potential for apple cider vinegar as a tool to lower glucose levels. (Note that it can interfere with diabetes medication, if you are taking them. )
4. High cholesterol. Its high levels of pectin can help regulate blood pressure and lower cholesterol, showed a 2006 study done with rats.
5. Bones and teeth. Apple cider vinegar has the capacity to extract calcium from fruits, vegetables, and meat in your diet, thereby helping strengthen your bones and teeth.
6. Joint pain. Its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties may help provide pain-relief to neck, back, and shoulder joint pain (including arthritis).
7. Detox. High levels of potassium in the vinegar work like a clarifying tonic on the body, helping clear up sinus infections, candida, sore throats, and allergies. Some New Yorkers do a cleanse with it (and clean food) instead of juice.
ACV is highly alkalising so great if you’ve overdone it with a meal containing acid-forming foods like meat and dairy. Raw, unfiltered with the mother is the best!!
All I’ve used it for was as hair wash rinse (which I really like and vouch for …brunette here)
so there you go, thanks again for bringing in yet another number of ideas..’
happy weekend everyone..
Just heard about the first green beauty event on twitter! So excited to hear the details! What is nmdl doing for this event?
Arg. The pH thing drives me nuts. The normal pH of your blood is VERY SLIGHTLY alkaline. If you were too alkaline, that would kill you just as much as being too acidic – and the body has numerous ways of regulating pH anyway. Many of the foods considered “alkalizing” are healthy for many reasons (most fruits and vegetables), so of course most of us will feel better eating them. I’ve never seen anything that demonstrates to me it’s a pH issue specifically.
I am a fan of ACV, and to potentially overshare: it’s great for helping a yeast infection. If you are just feeling one coming on, use it (diluted, of course) as a douche, and it helps keep the balance among all your normal vaginal micro-critters.
Just to clarify, all these benefits are achieved by ingesting it?
I’ve used apple cider vinegar for hair rinses in the past. Its great for maintaining a healthy scalp.
Recently, I made a facial toner with thyme-infused apple cider vinegar, green tea and tea tree oil for my mother who has oily/acne-prone skin. She’s been using for a little while and likes it so far.
I’ve also uses apple cider vinegar in my vegan banana bread. Here’s the recipe for anyone who interested: [http://savvybrown.com/health/moist-vegan-banana-bread/] My family loves it and always makes me bake two loaves at a time.
@Rebecca There is no such thing as overshare on NMDL!!
@Rebecca ACV saved me when I had a yeast imbalance last month! It seemed like everything went nuts…I used 1c. of ACV (organic with “mother”) in my bath and it made a huge difference all around.
I mix it with clay when I make clay masks – it’s awesome. :)
@mangomadness Can you please share your facial toner recipe? It sounds amazing!
I am going to make a Queen of Hungary’s Water facial toner as soon as my monster order from Mountain Rose Herbs comes in. My hope is that the herbs mask the pungent smell of unfiltered ACV. I know unfiltered ACV has so many great benefits, but damn, I can’t stand the smell!
I use it (diluted with water) as a facial toner to calm my sensitive skin. (Its calming properties also make it great for sunburn — it takes the redness right out!) I also use it as a hair rinse to get rid of build-up, and it leaves my hair feeling silky smooth.
@Kiki:
Sure! I didn’t really measure but here are some helpful instructions and approximations.
I infused some dried thyme in some apple cider vinegar following the instructions on the LolaZabeth blog: http://www.lolazabeth.com/for-the-mixtresses-thyme-aloe-apple-facial-toner-for-acne-bye-bye-benzo/
To make the toner, I mixed ~ 1 oz of thyme-infused apple cider vinegar, ~ 2 oz of green tea and 10 drops of tea tree essential oil in a 3 oz plastic spray bottle.
I hope this helps!
These are very useful uses I just read from this article. All these words contains a great meaning. Really I was looking forward to read about it. Love this entry. Thanks for this allocation. http://www.aokc.net/athletic-orthopedics/shoulder-pain :lol:
Well, I don’t mean to ruin your mood, but I’ve seen a naturopath lately who told me that ACV is actually acidifying for our body… I used to think the best things of it but now I have doubts… She explained ACV is the least acidifying vinegars of all, but still not so good for our PH… Then from a lot of information I found on raw vegans websites, the only way to alkalize our body is so eat loads and loads of fruits and vegetables, and as little as possible of all the rest… animal products are acidifying as well as cereals…
“Long-term use of apple cider vinegar could cause low potassium levels and lower bone density. If you already have low potassium or osteoporosis, talk to your doctor before using apple cider vinegar….” http://www.webmd.com/diet/apple-cider-vinegar?page=2
For me, that’s too much doubt around that subject, and I’d rather go without ACV for now on and simply have more and more fruits and veggies! :)
I’ve heard such mixed reviews of its effects on teeth. Some say that it can help, but I’ve also had dentists suggest that you not drink it every day (even diluted) because it could cause too much acid erosion on the teeth over time. So I just drink it occasionally, when I need balance.
Also, I second Rebecca- a little ACV in a glass of water is a good way to ward off yeast infections, if you feel one coming on.
I also use ACV for an hair rinse, it works great on my danadruff and itchy scalp.
I’m obsessed with ACV! I use it in my red clay masks (along with jojoba oil, lavender essential oil and aloe– ahh), as a facial toner (with equal part ACV and water) internally and in the bath when I have yeasty problems (bah to being a girl!) and generally anything else I can think of. This post is especially timely as I just got a huge bottle of Braggs raw unfiltered ACV in the mail from iHerb last week! Last night, I took 1TBSP rosemary, 1TBSP sage, 1TBSP calendula and 1/2 tbsp thyme and put it in 80z of ACV to infuse for 6 weeks in the window. It looks lovely next to the herbal oil infusion I have next to it (almond, avacado, jojoba, apricot, coconut, and castor oils with calendula, nettles, sage, clove, and jasmine) can’t wait that one will be ready in four weeks! I hope to use the ACV as part toner part hair rinse. I’ve been doing baking soda wash with lavender and peppermint essential oils but I have been getting really bad dandruff when I have never had it in the past! I’ve been rubbing tea tea essential oil in my scalp but it isn’t really helping and I don’t want to give up the baking soda method because my hair seems to like it. If the ACV doesn’t help it, I still have my Acure Organics moroccan argan oil + argan stem cell shampoo as an alternative but I’d prefer to only use it occasionally like every 6months if I can!
Peeps, the pH in your body will not (and cannot) change. In fact, if it changed, you would die because the body can only function at a specific pH. When you eat acidic (like vinegar) or alkaline (like baking soda) things, you stomach has these chemical called buffers which release the necessary amount of H+ or OH- ions to reestablish the pH. You can’t fool your body, so save yourself the bother and eat all the acidic or basic foods you want (unless you get heartburn, of course). Source for my info: “What Is Life? A Guide to Biology” by Jay Phelan. Very straightforward and excellent if you aren’t planning on becoming a bio major.
That said, though I don’t use apple cider vinegar (I can’t be convinced that its benefits are significant enough to warrant its high price), I swear by white vinegar for rinsing hair. It’s amazing.
@x, right on! As your body processes different foods you automatically take care of whatever acids/bases are produced. The blood, other extracellular fluids, intracellular fluids, etc., all have a variety of ways of dealing with pH. People who eat animal products tend to produce acidic urine while vegans produce alkaline urine – but this in itself is no indicator of health. If your kidneys are healthy in the first place this isn’t stressing them, it’s just their normal job. I’m oversimplifying here but pH is no reason to fear meat or nuts. There are lots of good reasons to eat a plant based diet, but my opinion is the pH thing is not one of them.
X,
Although you are correct in identifying that the body has mechanisms to maintain homeostasis, circulating blood ph levels aren’t always 100% stable. For example, Calcium (Ca++) is temporarily released from mineral stores in the skeleton to counteract too acidic ph levels in the bloodstream. In the immediate sense this is not going to lead to fragile bones or teeth, but over a long period of time (and with other risk factors, like being sedentary, or having insufficient gut absorption of calcium) this can lead to a net loss of calcium/phosphorus in the skeleton. This is one reason why people with already low BMD (osteopenia or osteoporosis) need to take care not to a diet that is too alkaline because it will exacerbate their bone loss.
In the archaeological record we see a huge negative shift in bone metabolism as soon as humans start eating a cereal and legume-based diet. Unfortunately phytates interfere in normal calcium absorption and metabolism. Check out the thesis: Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword (Loren Cordain).
-A (PhD student)
I love ACV for many uses – the latest one not for me, but for my 13 week old teething puppy. I give her half a capful of organic ACV with mother in her water bowl and am seeing some decent results in treatment of (and hopefully prevention of) yeasty smelling tear stains, which are a result of very teary eyes from the teething and the breeding of gross red yeast bacteria at the wet hair around her eyes/tear ducts. For once, it is fortunate that she’s never met a treat/vinegar/shoe/belt/furniture leg she doesn’t like the taste of, so she downs it without hesitation.