The ap­ple is not a for­bid­den fruit af­ter all. It is a won­der­ful fruit; var­ied, de­li­cious, and ver­sa­tile. When fer­ment­ed, that is, processed in­to vine­gar, it's a whole oth­er sto­ry.The use of ap­ple cider vine­gar as a ton­ic and cure all goes back thou­sands of years. It has an­tibac­te­r­i­al prop­er­ties, es­pe­cial­ly when mixed with one of na­ture's oth­er mir­a­cles, hon­ey. It's an all-pur­pose, es­sen­tial house­hold won­der in a bot­tle.

Murky vine­gar is good vine­gar

That love­ly, clear cham­pagne-coloured liq­uid on the su­per­mar­ket shelf might give your let­tuce a lit­tle char­ac­ter, but it won't do much for your dai­ly health reg­i­men. Pu­ri­fied, fil­tered, and steamed, it's glo­ri­fied sal­ad dress­ing. Good ap­ple cider vine­gar is raw and un­fil­tered, murky and aro­mat­ic, with small swirling flecks, and a bit of brown­ish sed­i­ment on the bot­tom. The flecks are called the 'moth­er' of the vine­gar; their pres­ence means the vine­gar is alive, full of nu­tri­ents, and teem­ing with the health-boost­ing bac­te­ria your body needs.

Yum­my in the tum­my

A pop­u­lar use of ap­ple cider vine­gar is to con­trol acid re­flux and stom­ach up­sets. As much as it de­fies log­ic, pro­po­nents of al­ter­na­tive med­i­cine be­lieve that many cas­es of acid re­flux are a re­sult of too lit­tle acid in the stom­ach, not too much. The body, which strives for bal­ance at all times, tries to com­pen­sate by pump­ing acid in­to the stom­ach. The re­sult: an acid tum­my, which is some­times ac­com­pa­nied by a burn­ing sen­sa­tion in the ab­domen, chest, even mouth and nos­trils.Though some doc­tors dis­ap­prove-say­ing that in­gest­ing vine­gar might wors­en the prob­lem-a long-stand­ing folk rem­e­dy is to take a tea­spoon or two in a few ounces of wa­ter, prefer­ably with a lit­tle hon­ey, twice a day.

A lit­tle help for big prob­lems

Ap­ple cider vine­gar is gain­ing a rep­u­ta­tion for re­duc­ing cho­les­terol, for a num­ber of rea­sons. The un­fil­tered stuff-the good stuff-con­tains sol­u­ble fiber, which binds to and helps re­move fat and cho­les­terol from the body. It al­so con­tains amino acids, which help neu­tral­ize LDL cho­les­terol. Lab tests prove this to be so in rats, but there has been no com­pre­hen­sive study in hu­mans. The vine­gar is said to re­duce blood pres­sure, and some tests do back this up.Most vine­gars can low­er blood glu­cose lev­els as much as 6 per­cent. Tak­en af­ter a meal, it can al­so low­er post-meal glu­cose by slow­ing down the di­ges­tion of starch and re­duc­ing the glycemic in­dex of starchy foods.

A good source of vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als

Like the fruit in comes from, ap­ple cider vine­gar is chock full of es­sen­tial vi­t­a­mins, such as C, E, A, B1, B2, B6, be­ta carotene and bio flavonoids (some­times called vi­t­a­min P). It con­tains min­er­als and trace el­e­ments like potas­si­um, cal­ci­um, phos­pho­rous, mag­ne­sium, chlo­rine, cop­per, sodi­um, sul­phur, flu­o­rine, iron, and sil­i­con.

Brighter, clean­er hair

Some women rinse their hair in ap­ple cider vine­gar mixed 50-50 with wa­ter. It re­stores the pH bal­ance of the scalp, dis­cour­ag­ing the growth of fun­gi and the ap­pear­ance of dan­druff. It can be al­lowed to re­main on the hair for at least 15 min­utes, and then rinsed out.

Nat­ur­al doesn't al­ways mean harm­less

The ad­vo­cates of nat­ur­al heal­ing con­tin­ue to tout the ben­e­fits of ap­ple cider vine­gar, claim­ing it to be a wor­thy al­ly in the bat­tle against obe­si­ty, poor di­ges­tion, arthri­tis, sore throat, bad skin and os­teo­poro­sis. And, like any time-test­ed al­ter­na­tive treat­ment, it's worth a try.But it's al­so im­por­tant to re­mem­ber that 'nat­ur­al' isn't syn­ony­mous with 'harm­less'. The reg­u­lar in­ges­tion of ap­ple cider vine­gar may have some in­ter­ac­tions with drugs you might be tak­ing. It's a good idea to con­sult your doc­tor, es­pe­cial­ly if you're tak­ing med­ica­tion for cho­les­terol or high blood pres­sure.There's al­so a pos­si­bil­i­ty that a too-strong so­lu­tion (or even drink­ing it plain, as some be­liev­ers do) can burn and dam­age the oe­soph­a­gus, stom­ach, duo­de­num and liv­er.So, as with all oth­er health treat­ments, it doesn't hurt to do a lit­tle read­ing be­fore tak­ing the plunge.

A wor­thy ad­di­tion to your pantry

Warn­ings aside, there's no doubt that ap­ple cider vine­gar is a de­li­cious ad­di­tion to your di­et. You can al­so re­move pes­ti­cides and kill bac­te­ria from fruits and veg­gies by wash­ing them in wa­ter with a ta­ble­spoon or two of vine­gar, and pour a tea­spoon of it in­to boil­ing wa­ter to keep steamed veg­eta­bles bright. Beans soaked in vine­gar and wa­ter are said to be less gassy- if you know what we mean.All in all, ap­ple cider vine­gar is a must-have for every kitchen. It's a de­li­cious way to add a lit­tle zip to your day."This is an ex­cerpt of an ar­ti­cle first pub­lished by U - The Caribbean Health Di­gest, a quar­ter­ly pub­li­ca­tion ded­i­cat­ed to health and well­ness is­sues re­lat­ed to all Caribbean peo­ple.

Email U at in­fo@uhealthdi­gest.com