We use echinacea to heal cold sores and canker sores. I actually have never had a cold sore in my life, (had one try to start once) but I have had plenty of canker sores, before we grew echinacea that is.. but my daughter picks up all sorts of stuff at school so she complains about something sveral times a year... anyway we take some fresh or dried echinacea, chew it slightly to start releasing the good stuff in there and just sort of push it onto the sore and let it sit there as long as you can stand it. Generally heals canker sores and things of that nature overnight.
You should definitely consider putting some echinacea into your flower beds if you get that type of stuff, it will end your misery forever. You can use echinacea tea in the meantime, rip the teabag open and chew the dried herbs.
Echinacea is a bit difficult to get started the first time but worth the trouble. You can order seeds online. I like the purple coneflower type the best. You have to keep it cold before seeding it, keep it in the fridge wrapped real good for 2-3 weeks, and then seed it into a little pot. Use lots of seed, you just need two to sprout. To get difficult stuff to sprout, especially teeny tiny seeds I use a little spray bottle and mist the soil a few times a day, never fails. Echinacea is a pretty big seed but I would still use the mist techinique, as well as keeping the soil moist all the way through. You will love having echinacea in your garden, we never get more than a sniffle during flu season here, thanks to the echinacea, so many uses for the echinacea. Don't overdo eating it though because then it may not work for you when you really need it.
The fresh baby leaves are some of the best for drying, and the roots of the baby plants that come up year after year once you have a couple established flowers. I have already started picking the leaves of this years sprouts to dry for the winter. Have them sitting on my porch on the sun right now as a matter of fact. I cut the root parts into little bits when they are fresh and tender (they get real hard when dry) and dry those too (not from the main plants, from the sprouts). The dried echinacea seems just as effective as the fresh stuff. Echinacea is very similar to penicillin, it's a natural antibiotic, a must have on my shelf, works wonders for us. Just use when you need it though because using it too much does have the same effect as overuse of any prescription antiobiotic (overuse can cause the superbug syndrome, actually weaken your immune system).
but anyway it's two main uses in our house is cold/canker sores and sniffles/flu. I felt a pretty hefty chest cold coming on last week out of the blue... I drank 3 cups of echinacea tea (from fresh leaves this time) that evening sitting on the couch... I started feeling better, much better, within 2-3 hours of starting the tea.. I never did get the cold, it was pretty much gone the next day.
no knowledge of low sulfur foods here though <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />
