Sunday, January 7, 2007

Natural Wound Care & Vegan Vitamins

My best friend Michelle (soon to be a black belt) with aches, pains and bodily injuries sent me this info about using tree sap instead of crazy glue to close up any cuts you might have, naturally! Crazy glue is always a scary ingredient to deal with. You can only imagine the laundry list of things that can go wrong while using it! It does contain some nasty chemicals, so check out this info below as an alternative!

Homemade Tear Repair
Get some sap from any tree. The tree sap in this formula is what seals the wound. The tree sap is part of the tree's immune system. When the tree is cut, the tree uses the sap to seal the wound and kill bacteria. It is supposed to work the same when WE use it to fill cuts. If you don't have a tree around that has been injured and has sap flowing out, make a cut on a healthy tree yourself and collect the sap. Keep some around for the winter time when the sap is not flowing and you cannot
collect it fresh.
Now, you can choose to mix with the sap equal parts of whatever antiseptic herbs you have lying around: goldenseal, echinacea, tea trea oil, garlic. If you can't get fresh tree sap, try to purchase some myrrh gum. Whether you mix the herbs with the sap or not, you need to dowse the cut with an antibiotic tincture made with equal parts of these herbs before you put on the sap.
Now if the sap is hard, you must mix it with Bacardi's 151 Rum. You will need alcohol this strong to dissolve the tree sap. It will not dissolve unless you have 75% alcohol.
A nurse in England who worked with Dr. Schulze, an MD and master herbalist, said this formula works better for wounds than anything she had seen in 30 years of being an emergency room nurse in Northern Ireland. If you tape shut the wound for 12 hours, it totally seals the wound better than stitches and you won't need anything for infection.
Also, slippery elm bark is spoken of as a "glue." You can make a poultice out of it by mixing slippery elm and whatever other antibiotic herbs you want to add. Slippery elm should be at least 1/3 of your poultice mixture. Add enough hot water to make a gummy, gluey consistency. Besides being a glue, slippery elm draws out poisons, soothes the skin, and reduces inflammation. Once it dries, it takes a lot of effort to remove it. My source says that if you add a layer or two of cotton gauze over the poultice and press it in, it will make a cast even an orthopedic surgeon will admire.
Now, I supposed you could just make some of this sticky mixture, glop some on the tear with the edges as close together as possible, and let it dry.
Of course, if you don't have the other herbs, just the slippery elm and water can be used also.
I would love to know if anyone has tried this method, and if you have, give us your results! OR, even better, give us some dirt on mishaps with crazy glue!

VEGAN VITAMINS (not all vitamins are VEGAN??)
The following nutrients often found in your bottle of vitamins originate from an animal source:
Vitamin D-3 (cholecalciferol): derived from animal sources such as lanolin, a waxy fat extracted from living sheep's wool; many companies claim that their products are vegetarian even though they contain D-3, because after laboratory conversion to an isolated nutrient, there is virtually no molecular animal residue remaining.
Vitamin D-2* (ergocalciferol): derived from fish liver or fish skin oils, and is also processed to the point of being considered synthetic.
Glucosamine*: derived from (dead) crustacean shells, and bioidentically synthetic
Microcrystalline Hydroxyapatite (MCHC): derived from bovine bone matrix
Calcium*: most often derived from bone meal, oyster shell, egg shell and coral
Glandulars: derived from animal glands
Pancreatic Enzymes: derived from porcine, bovine sources
Bee Pollen, Royal Jelly, Propolis: nutrients harvested from worker bees
Gelatin: derived from porcine, bovine or fish
The following nutrients are stabilized with animal derived gelatin:
In order to stabilize many fat-soluble nutrients for tableting or encapsulation the oil forms are converted to powder form. Each powder particle is coated with a thin, protective gelatin beadlet to stabilize potency, freshness and integrity. The gelatin is derived from fish, porcine or BSE-free certified bovine sources, and usually less than 1% weight.
Vitamin A* (palmitate, acetate)
Beta-carotene (synthetic, Dunaliella)
Lutein
Lycopene
Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols)
The following nutrients are also available in vegetarian forms:
D-2 (ergocalciferol): microbiologically derived from saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is commonly known as baker's or budding yeast.
Vitamin A (palmitate): stabilized with BHT
Beta-Carotene (Blakeslea trispora): uses soy alginate derivatives as a stabilizer
Glucosamine: produced through a proprietary fermentation process using corn dextrose, citric acid and aspergillus niger fungal starting material.
Calcium: derived from mined limestone

As a mom to be, I knew I had to suck it up and take a prenatal vitamin. I have used the same vitamins for about 2 years and I have to recommend it highly for a few reasons.
You only have to take ONE tablet, ONCE a day! YESSSSSSSSSSS!
These vitamins never make me feel sick to my stomach, good formula for moms-to-be with morning sickness and just plain nausea over just about anything.
This particular brand is stamped with a label that says VEGAN GUARD. It means that this specific formula DOES NOT CONTAIN animal products.
The winner is: RAINBOW LIGHT Vegan Guard Vitamins


Amazon.com has Rainbow Light Vegan Vitamins on sale for around $1 a vitamin (so $1 a day) plus shipping which becomes free if you spend another $5 or so!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a vegan, I have trouble figuring out what is vegan and not when it comes to things such as vitamins. So, I'm glad to get this info.

Thanks,
Scott Hughes
Vegan Discussion Forums

Health Guy said...

Hey Keri. This is a great blog for those thinking of becoming a vegan. I'm also into health and wellness. I've created a blog about Eniva by Eniva Vibe

Iskandar Suhaimi said...

Wow! What an info. A superbly written and well researched one.

Anyway, for those who prefer propolis that comes in a bottle, I think you should let them know that it may not be vegan since it may have traces of wax, honey etc.

And oh! just want to share this info. Around2-10% of the population may be allergic to propolis

More info at this propolis site

Anonymous said...

Great job on exposing the hidden animal products in vitamins. I too thought that Rainbow Light Prenatal One "Vegan Guard" Multivitamins would be a good choice for my pregnant wife, however, I was wrong and so is your claim that it is vegan. Their Vitamin A Palmitate, Beta Carotene complex (listed 1st on the label) is bound together with gelatin. You can call the company to ask them as I did. They can claim it's vegan because after the processing there are no traces of animal product. Gelatin has the potential to contain prions and in Japan where they have had many cases of so-called 'mad cow" disease in humans all bovine gelatin has been banned and replaced by porcine gelatin. Super Nutrition's "Vegetarian" blend also has D3 derived from lanolin as you pointed out. Google lanolin and scrapie to find out about another TSE prion disease. I don't think there is a good choice of prenatal for vegans or those concerned about TSEs.

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Unknown said...

I'm Michael Mooney from SuperNutrition, my family business. What I can confirm is that our vitamin D contains no porcine gelatin to stabilize it. It uses vitamin E. We are quite clear about going all the way through all manufacturing raw materials to guarantee that while the vitamin D is derived from lanolin -- which means while they sheer sheep to get the wool and the lanolin and then the vitamin D, there is no product used where they kill or harm the animal in our multivitamins and no risk of any animal disease being carried through.

Vegan is NOT a diet said...

@ Michael from SuperNutrition:
It's great that your company does not use porcine gelatin, but rather Vitamin E. My first question to you is, where does the vitamin E come from, & if it is not animals, were any animals used at any point between the acquiring of it & bottling it up?

Here's the part in the definition of Vegan that most people don't seem to have: Veganism is NOT a diet. It is a lifestyle. An ethical & radical decision to boycott the use & consumption of animals. Its great if you sheered the sheep yourself & can therefore guaranty that they weren't harmed. It's still not Vegan. Don't use sheep anythings.

Perhaps you're confusing us for vegetarians; they don't really care if a "food" animal is used or even suffering, only if it died.