All these years of blogging has repeatedly made me realize one most crucial aspect of food. That, it is a medicine. It is a cure. As well as a slow poison. Treat it right and it would make you, love you or get on its bad side and make doctor visits a ritual.  Any health based website worth their salt keep telling me that the best multivitamin/cough-cold relief/supplements is actually food instead of those shiny pills that we all consume without second thought. While I still rely on such pills on and off, I am trying to get into the food based medicine bandwagon in the last year.

While my learning curve is slow, it helps to have parents who are completely sold on this concept and rely on herbs/plants to treat their minor health setbacks. My mom is Siddha medicine certified and dabbles quite a bit about healing via food.  My youthful years were spent just like any unknowing "adult". Making fun or ignoring or utter indifference to all this "complicated" healing instead of making use of science a.k.a pills. But now being a mom myself, I have backtracked considerably with utmost humility and seek advice from her on and off. So with the advent of cold weather in my part of the world and the first cough, my mom did what she does best. Went into our garden to pick up a cure.

Tulasi (Holy Basil/ Thulasi) is a precious plant to Indians - both for religious as well as medicinal purposes. We grow two varieties in our garden named "Krishna Thulasi" and "Vishnu Thulasi". We have used the leaves of both these plants but you can use any one instead. The presence of Ginger and Peppercorns is self explanatory when spoken in the context of cold. These powerhouses come together to make this Kashayam which is a Tamil term to mean Tonic/Herbal Drink. Simple to make with minimal ingredients.