You probably have vinegar in your pantry. Did you know that vinegar has been used for many different purposes for thousands of years? It’s true. Back in 2000 B.C., vinegar was used for all sorts of things from seasoning, to medicine, to preservative. People even drank it, although that might not sound palatable to us today. Hannibal used vinegar when he crossed the Alps – he dissolved boulders with it!
Today we don’t think of vinegar as being a drink, but this wasn’t always the case. In ancient Rome, soldiers would drink vinegar on the march. The word vinegar comes from French for “sour wine.” Early vinegar was produced when a cask of wine developed a crack. The wine within turned into vinegar.
You can get vinegar out of anything with sugar in it, if it ferments. That doesn’t mean that all vinegars are going to be palatable. Most of the vinegars we are familiar with come from a starter that is called a “mother.”
Most cultures figured out the trick of producing vinegar. As a result, we have a nice broad selection to choose from. Most common vinegars are apple cider, wine (white, red, and rice), distilled white, and basalmic.
Vinegar is healthy for you. Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine,” thought vinegar had strong healing properties and used it to treat wounds and sores.
You don’t actually want to use it on wounds, according to today’s experts, even though vinegar does help reduce microbes. It’s fine for use on dentures though, and less likely to cause tissue irritation or damage than bleach.
Midwives also have a use for vinegar. When vinegar comes into contact with tissue that has an outbreak of human papilloma virus, there are visible changes that show the presence of this virus.
Vinegar may be beneficial for blood pressure, also. Studies show that it can lower b.p. However, you need to be careful when using it for this purpose because it may affect calcium. Think of the old story of Cleopatra’s famous meal. Once, she bet someone she could eat a fortune in a single meal – and won that bet by dissolving pearls in vinegar then drinking the mix!
Scientists have also been interested in whether vinegar might help people with diabetes to regulate blood sugar. Studies have been conducted since the 1980s, and seem promising, but so far diabetics aren’t recommended to take more than a teaspoon or so at a time.
This writer also frequently writes on topics including skinny jeans for women and tummy tuck jeans.