Make Your Own Cough Syrup With These Easy DIY Recipes

If you’re feeling a little sick and your coughing won’t stop, why not try and make your own cough syrup? It’s really easy and all you need is lemon, ginger, glycerin and honey. Ginger is especially good, because it presents a lot of health benefits and healing properties. It can offer relief in case of coughing, thanks to its content in oleoresin, as well as relief in case of a sore throat. This is possible because ginger has antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antioxidant properties. Basically, it’s a near-miracle product that can do you a lot of good.

Lemon juice is usually included in all cold remedies, because it contains high levels of vitamin C, it’s an antioxidant and it also helps fight infection, due to its antibacterial and antiviral properties. Sore throats are treated with honey by mothers all over the world for a reason – it works! Most sore throat medicine actually contains honey, because it has antimicrobial qualities. A sore throat can also be subdued with glycerin, which also helps with coughing.

Here are not one, but two recipes for DIY cough syrup, featuring these natural ingredients:

♣ Homemade cough syrup #1

Ingredients:

• Lemons (2)
• Ginger
• Water
• Raw honey

Instructions:

Begin by pouring a cup of water into a pan. Now, Grate some fresh lemon zest and start peeling your ginger root and cutting it into slices. Take two tablespoons of lemon zest and ¼ cup of ginger slices and add them into the saucepan. Let that reach boiling point, before allowing it to simmer for about five minutes. After that, the solution can be strained and put aside. In another saucepan, take your raw honey and put it on low heat, without boiling. Your ginger mix should be added in at this point, together with the juice from the two lemons you zested earlier. The entire mix should be stirred on low heat for a while, then taken off the stove and left to cool down. It can then be poured into a jar.

Recommended doses:

• Adults and children > 12 years old: 1-2 tablespoons once every 4 hours

• Children between 5 and 12 years old: 1-2 tablespoons once every 2 hours

• Children between 1 and 5 years old: 1/2 – 1 tablespoon once every 2 hours

♣ Homemade cough syrup #2

Ingredients:

• Glycerin (food-grade)
• Lemon juice
• Raw honey

Instructions:

Take a bowl and pour all of your ingredients (1/4 cup of lemon juice, 1/4 cup of honey and 1/4 of glycerin) inside. Mix them together with a whisk, making sure that you create a homogenous paste. Now just put it in a jar and that’s it!

Recommended doses:

• 1 teaspoon once in a couple of hours

Extra notes:

• Do not administer to children under 12 months, because honey is not recommended to infants this age.

• If you want to take full advantage of the healing properties of ginger, add a bit of juice to the second recipe.

• The syrups can be used safely for a few months, granted they are stored in the fridge.

If you’re wary of store-bought remedies and adding chemicals into your body, these recipes might be perfect for you. They are quick, easy to make and, most important of all, effective.