Ginger, Lemon and Honey.

A magical recipe to help fight colds, flu, asthma and allergies.


For some months now, I have been suffering on and off from what has felt like an almost constant cold, in truth it's actually been a combination of respiratory problems including allergies and asthma.

I have to admit my asthma got out of control and I hadn't realised, as it only deteriorated very slowly. It took downloading an app onto my phone and filling in some questions, to realise that I needed to see the doctor about it. You can get the MyAsthma app here.

The doctor prescribed a higher dose of my usual asthma inhalers and allergy tablets and they've helped to some extent but I still felt ill and run down. I really wanted a special drink that I could make myself quite quickly, that could be made using readily available natural immune-boosting, decongestant ingredients, that would taste good and do me some good.

After years of doing the travel reports for Michael van Straten on LBC 97.3FM, I couldn't fail to be influenced by his passion for using everyday ingredients to target various ailments.

So, I turned to my very special Michael Van Strattan recipe books, for inspiration. In his book 'Super Hot Drinks', I found a great recipe for Ginger and Marmalade Tea, which I really enjoyed, despite hating marmalade! The marmalade was actually homemade and given to me by the man with the voice (and the marmalade), Robbie Stevens. But as I drank the tea again and again, I could taste the marmalade more and more, so I went back off marmalade again! Sorry about that Robbie!

After a while I managed to come up with the idea of using the ginger and substituting honey for the marmalade and then adding lemon for some extra vitamin C.

So if you're feeling rubbish and battling against coughs, colds and sore throats and you're looking for some natural relief, then this is what you need...

Equipment...
1 Mug
1 teaspoon
1 jug (Plastic or Pyrex)
1 grater
1 sharp knife
1 chopping board
1 kettle or pan to boil up water
Tea strainer

Ingredients
Tap water
Fresh Ginger root, not powdered ginger
Lemon
Honey, preferably local. (mine is from Broxbourne which is not to far away)

Now Do this...
Put the kettle on, making sure you'll only be boiling the amount of water you'll be using.
In the meantime, peel a piece of fresh ginger, about the size of your thumb.
Then grate this ginger into a jug.
When the water has boiled, pour it into the jug with the ginger in.
Leave it to stew, for 5 minutes.
In the meantime put 1 or 2 teaspoons of honey into your mug and a squeeze of lemon juice.
When the 5 minutes is up, hold the tea strainer over your mug and pour the ginger tea from the jug into the mug.
Give it a good stir.
Take your mug, sit down and enjoy. Make sure you take this with plenty of rest too!

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If you're feeling poorly, please do the above recipe and tell me how it helps you and get better soon.

If you're looking someone else, please let me know how it worked for them too.

Thanks for reading, wish you well. xxx