Editor’s Note:
Samantha Adams lives in southern Ohio and is the founder of Hadassah’s Herbs for Health and Healing.
By Samantha Adams
You don’t have to use traditional cough syrups at the store to treat colds and other issues this winter.
The Breath of Life Tincture is a healthier alternative.
The Breath of Life Tincture was first thought of because my son caught whooping cough at the age of two. He had it so bad that I had to sit up with him at night just so that he could breathe. And he would still turn blue when he got to coughing so bad that he couldn’t take a breath in between coughs.
I was reading Keepers at Home magazine at the time which was an Amish magazine. At the back of the magazine, ladies would share their herbal remedies. One lady put her recipe for an herbal tincture in there. I was amazed that the recipe called for red clover tops, stinging nettle, and dandelion because I knew how to find and harvest those weeds. She wrote that red clover tops are antispasmodic, so they helped to calm the coughs. She mixed it with peppermint which helps to open the bronchial tubes so that they can breathe better. I later learned that stinging nettle and dandelion root we’re both blood purifiers and so they helped to cleanse the blood of any leftover organic material from the sickness.
I didn’t start going out and collecting herbs right away. I spent the next year researching herbs in my area that I could go out and collect because I was very pregnant that year and every little thing seem to make me sick. So I spent the year studying and researching herbs and learning where to find them and how to harvest them and dry them and put them up in my cabinets for use.
I knew that I could make my own tinctures because I could collect those herbs from the forest. They didn’t use pesticides around our field and at the time, we were renting an old farmhouse and the landlord owned 100 acres and I was allowed to go anywhere on the land that I wanted to. So that spring, after my son got over whooping cough, I took my son and set out to start gathering those herbs.
I was specific to make sure that the herbs I chose could be found in my area and that those herbs were geared towards clearing the upper respiratory tract. As I found the herbs, I brought them back to the house, washed them up and dried them out. Then I would crush them and put them into mason jars. I measured them part for part. A part can be measured with anything you could use one cup as a part. I researched other recipes to know about how much they used of each herb and based my recipes off that.
Obviously, the recipe has changed over the years. Throughout COVID, I began to add Mullein, because of its powerful properties as an expectorant. The Mullen and the red clover top work together to calm the cough while also breaking up the phlegm and mucus to get it to come up. I am truly amazed at how God created everything we needed to treat each specific infirmity.
I did not call it Breath of Life tincture when I first started. I also quickly learned that I could not call it an upper respiratory tincture because of laws saying that we couldn’t claim that it would actually heal or calm someone’s cough. I originally named it an Imlife tincture because it brought life to your body during a cold.
As money became more available, I added herbs that I could purchase for a fairly cheap price. I felt this made my tinctures better because I could put herbs in there that I couldn’t grow or find that had added benefits.
Over time, this is the tincture that I finalized for coughs and congestion. I also have tinctures for the flu, for calming, for pain, asthma, and recently, I was asked to create one for energy.
I love researching plants and how they can help us. It is a way that I can add to this world and to my family at little to no cost. So I am able to be versatile in serving not only people who can afford just about anything, but also those who don’t have much.
To learn more about or order the Breath of Life Tincture, and to learn more about Hadassah’s Herbs for Health and Healing, visit the Facebook page.
