Swiss Drafts, Onion Honey & Why Grandma Knew Best - So Frickin' Mini

Hey, Donna. How's it going?

I'm good, Megan.

How are you? I. I am also good. I need another cup of coffee. I don't need. I would like another cup of coffee, but other than that, I'm fine.So I wanted to pick your brain. We both live in Switzerland. We were not raised in Switzerland.And I am always struck by some of the health advice that I hear just randomly from Switzerland. And I also had this conversation in my German conversation class where we had a Swiss, an Italian, and American.And we were all talking about, like, the different, like, idioms that people give for, like, health advice. Like, of course, in Italy, like, you never swim, like, three hours after eating and swimming. Some other things like that.So I thought we could, like, hit some of these today, because every once in a while, you've. You've mentioned this, like, every time I tell you I'm sick, you're like, onions, Megan. Onions.

Onion honey.

Like, onions do everything. And I feel like you got that from somewhere growing up. So what is it with the onions? And how did you hear about this onion hack?

My go to is actually making onion honey, specifically, and putting. Putting an onion cut in half next to your bed if you're stuffed up so that you can actually breathe in it.

Where did you get this?

You know what? I have no bloody clue. I think the onion honey is, like, it dates back to, like, ancient Jewish, like, scholars, like, something crazy.And the onion itself, I just discovered it when I had young babies that were stuffed up, and I was like, help. And someone somewhere, probably Facebook back then said, put an onion. You know, like an onion. Put it next to their face.They smelled like kebab the next morning, but they slept the night, so that's a win in my book.

Yeah.

So I still swear by onions. I don't necessarily think they're. They're gonna save you from everything. Yeah.But onion honey is the first thing that we make at home as soon as anyone just complains about any acre pain. Yeah.

But this is also. I. I think the biggest one for me is in Switzerland is, like, the drafts.

Oh, yeah.

Like, the Swiss were raised that if you have any kind of airflow over your body, you will. It. You'll get pneumonia. Physical pain. No, but also physical pain. Like, and I remember one time I was hiking, and it was hot.It was, you know, it was August hot. I don't remember, but it was hot.And we were at a little hut off of one of these glaciers, and it was so sunny outside, we wanted to sit inside so we could Stay in the shade. And then we opened up some windows to let some cross breeze through. Oh, God help me.And Swiss came in and they immediately shut all the windows and we're just like, just dripping sweat. I'm like, what is wrong with you people anyway? But this is definitely one of these like health advice things that they grow up with.And even, you know, I've even had people like have a fan blowing on them and they're just like, ah, it makes my neck hurt. And I'm just like, how, dude.

I live. I, I met my husband in Israel. It's bloody hot there. We sleep on top of a fan if you don't have an ac.And he was like, don't, don't, don't position that on me. And so we would sleep with like the fan only, only somehow touching me and not touching him. It was just the most hilarious.You want to hear a really funny one that I got from my mother in law?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which really took me by surprise back then was when I was breastfeeding. So when my oldest was born, she goes like, drink beer, it'll help with your milk supply.

Yeah. And I was like, I've heard that one. I don't even have to say I've heard that one.

Yeah.So I actually, I actually looked into it a little bit and it's not, well, the assumption is not because of the alcohol, but it's actually because of the barley.Now there's no actual science proven science behind it, but you know, I think a lot of times placebo does a lot and you know, other times maybe, maybe it worked for some people who have, I don't know, low something that is in the, in the barley.

I know, but I mean, I feel like that those always come from some kind of historical facts that were never tested because who's going to benefit from that? Because the beer companies cannot advertise that pregnant women or, you know, breastfeeding women should be drinking beer.So they're not going to get the benefit of that.

Sure.

And if you don't want to drink any kind of beer, you can get the grains, the barley, grains that have been spent from that and you can make bread from them. You can probably steep them and make some kind of tea. I'm assuming. I haven't tried that. I don't know, I'm just throwing that out there.But I think even non alcoholic beer would work because it's still going through that same process. They just remove the alcohol later on. And there is a ton of non alcoholic Beers now. So I. Yeah, why not? But I feel like this is also an Irish thing.They're, like, always like Guinness in the morning with their oatmeal.

Yeah. Beer is, you know, a cure for everything.

What's another one? Okay, so I was really thinking about this because I'm like, what did. What did I have when I was growing up?So the only ones that I could think of were, like, always the chicken soup when you're sick, even if it's coming from a can. And I don't know if that was just basically to get more fluids in you, especially as a child, that. No, I mean, everybody loves chicken soup.At least we in our family, they did, so why not? And then the other one was. Yeah, starve a fever and feed a cold.

Yeah.

Which I feel like does have some merit because sometimes when I have a fever, I don't feel hungry anyway.

Yeah.

And I feel like that's my body telling me, stop eating. We need to fight this. And we don't have the energy to process food at the same time as fighting this fever. Whereas a cold, you know, I mean,.

If your throat hurts and it doesn't. It bothers you, then don't. You know, it's all about listening to your body at the end of the day. But the chicken soup, I have.I have a lot to say about the chicken soup, because I think that on the one hand, yeah, it's kind of like a grandma medicine, you know, silly medicine. But at the end of the day, when you think about it, you're boiling the chicken.They actually boil the chicken once to remove impurities, and then they kind of make the soup with a bunch of vegetables in there. And you have the bones of the chicken in there and the skin of the chicken in there.So you're basically getting a lot of nutrients that you maybe wouldn't necessarily get if you're eating a steak or rice or, I don't know, whatever else you're gonna eat. Yes, definitely. Also the liquid intake, but also electrolyte intake, because it is salty.It's got, you know, extra stuff in there that fills up your body. When you're, again, feverish, you're losing a lot of electrolytes. So I think chicken soup is a winner in terms of old wives tales kind of thing.

Yeah, old wives. Yeah. That's a good way to say it. Old wives tales. Then the other one. That. And I. I feel like some of these. I don't remember them.So definitely the chicken soup when I was growing up and starve a Fever feed a cold. But I feel like more of these I feel like I've learned as an adult. Right.So like the whole, I grew up in the 80s and the whole hand sanitizer thing hadn't hit then.

Yeah.

And sanitize everything that had kind of happened as I was in high school and going into adulthood and then, and then the backlash of that, of if you over sanitize everything, then, you know, what does that do? And I grew up on a farm, man. We, we ate lots of dirt when I was growing up. So I feel like I might have a really healthy immune system.So I was born vaginally and I grew up on a farm with farm animals and dirt. And I like, like that is like the number one way to grow up for the best immune system possible.

100%. 100% Lucky. I grew up in the city, I was C section and I lived off of antibiotics for 11 years, so.

Oh, yeah, yeah. You're exactly opposite.

Yeah, I'm the complete and utter opposite. I don't even know how long my mom breastfed me. How long do we have? Do we have more time?

We're, we're pretty much out of time. So I would say I am very, very curious. We have listeners from all over the world. Okay. Yeah. And let's do this little experiment.Wherever you're listening from, can you think of at least one kind of old wives tale or health advice that your grandma gave you or something that you grew up with?Maybe you didn't understand completely, but you did because everybody told you to do it or everybody was doing it and drop it in our comments, Send us a voicemail, send us an email. I think I would love to do another episode where we collect all of our listeners versions. Put which country you're coming from or.

Which country and if it works or.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

If.

Does it work? Does it not work? Okay, so that's the call out. All right, do it. Come on, come on.

What are you waiting for?

We love you.

Okay. All right, bye.

I'll see you later.