I was sitting out in the sun enjoying the cool breeze today. The wind was blowing dandelions into the air and it was very peaceful. I haven’t had an experience like this since my early 20s before I developed severe seasonal allergies. I could never understand how someone could live over 20 years without allergies and then suddenly have allergies so bad that you can’t even open a window in the spring. Doctors offered no explanation, they just prescribed allergy medicine. I took them and felt relief. A year later, allergy season was back and the allergy medicine wasn’t working anymore. I was told that I needed something stronger and that’s when I stopped taking them. I just suffered through it for years ever since, trying to find a cure. So how am I sitting here breathing this air today without an allergic reaction? I’m not exactly sure but there are a number of things I’ve changed in my life since then that I will list:

1) stopped eating seed oils.

2) stopped eating refined sugar.

3) cut out gut disrupting ingredients (e.g. guar gum, xanthan gum, carrageenan, etc.).

4) cut down on bread significantly and eliminated gluten completely.

5) ate homemade pickles AND drank the pickle juice.

6) took the antihistamine supplement from Paul Saladino’s business.

It’s hard to say exactly what fixed my allergy problems. It could very well be a combination of all these things but if I had to choose one I’d say it was the pickles. They seemed to have the most immediate impact and they tasted so good prior to allergy season which could be an indication from your body that there is a nutrient you need. I didn’t crave or desire pickles as much later on during the year. The good bacteria that you get from pickles is a natural immunity booster. Which leads to an important question: what other natural remedies did our ancestors use to fight off common ailments?