By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

We all do it: overdo it. And if you haven't yet overdone it this year, you're overdue to do it. And if you haven't overdone it for Thanksgiving and Christmas, now's your last chance, what with New Years looming and all. Not that you need any prodding. The only notion more compelling than bidding a fond farewell a la “don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out” to the current year, is the eternal hope that maybe, just maybe, given yet another chance to get it right, we might finally do so. Hence all that optimism and all those silly pledges that so many of us make, those so-called “New Year's Vows” that are about as legitimate and valid as most people's, well, marriage vows.

Too late for World Peace this time around. Or even the end to the war(s), or the Great Recession. Peace on Earth? Dream on. Peace on Mars, maybe. And yet we still hope. And strive. And meanwhile, to get through the night, or at least New Year’s Eve, we overdo it. Too much of a good thing, we tell ourselves. So what? Moderation in all things should include moderation, right? Hell, that's my own credo. So we can and will look forward to one more year-end bender; one more extra slab of ham, or pie, or both; one more bottle of Merlot; one more argument with our conservative (or liberal) brethren; one more double dip of guacamole followed by chocolate chip; one more toast with somebody else's liqueur to celebrate whatever straw we're grasping for.

All of which will be followed, inevitably, by, you guessed it, the granddaddy of all heartburn, hangover, and headaches. Not to mention, as likely as not, heartache.

All of which leads me to my ever-so-rare, ever so parsimoniously dispensed recommendation for an actually good product. Actually, this one is so good, and so effective, and so versatile, and amazingly, so cheap, it gets my nod for Product of the Year. If not decade. If not millennium.

Ladies and gentlereaders, may I present the newest (no wait, it's 150 years old) um, bestest remedy to what ails you since, well, moonshine. It's called baking soda. AKA bicarbonate of soda, and it was first developed and marketed by a company that actually still exists, called Arm & Hammer, with a logo that looks suspiciously communistic, yet there you have it: Arm & Hammer Baking Soda. Possibly the best consumer product ever made.

Here's what you already know: it helps bake many of those delicious cakes you have been, or are about to overindulge in, this final holiday weekend to come. Just like you did last weekend. And Thanksgiving the month before. But what can be more redeeming than a product that, after giving you such enjoyment, helps you to recover from the inevitable consequences of your own misbehavior? Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was such a remedy for your (or my) economic miscues, fiscal abuses, and downright stupidity in terms of our investments in recent years? Well, actually there was one, if you were a banker or CEO. But the rest of us had to swallow our own medicine, it was bitter, and didn't even help us recover, only survive.

Unlike Arm & Hammer Baking Soda.

Which in addition to baking delicious cakes and curing (yes curing) your indigestion, will also clean your drain, flush your plumbing, and then flush and clean your kitchen and bathroom drain and plumbing as well. It also cures sunburn, for those of you who are bowl-bound, or beach-bound.

But wait! There's more. Now there's new evidence, or rather rediscovered old evidence, that it is a preventive and curative treatment for flu as well. And not just your common garden variety flu (well, actually, it helps with those too). According to a study by a prominent doctor named Volney S. Cheney, during the devastating post WWI flu epidemic ( later published by, well, the Arm & Hammer Company back in 1923), if doses of baking soda were taken prior to or shortly after exposure to a flu virus, you would either not catch it at all or recover quickly. Which means this stuff is also a miracle drug. According to Dr. Cheney, “Back in 1918 and 1919 while fighting the ‘Flu’ with the U. S. Public Health Service it was brought to my attention that rarely any one who had been thoroughly alkalinized with bicarbonate of soda contracted the disease, and those who did contract it, if alkalinized early, would invariably have mild attacks.” Cheney went on to note later on that it also worked to prevent or cure colds and common flu as well.

Here's the formula, according to its dosages for colds and influenza back in 1925, as prescribed by the Arm & Hammer Company:

Day 1: Take six doses of ½ teaspoon of baking soda in glass of cool water, at about two hour intervals. Then

Day 2: Take four doses of ½ teaspoon of baking soda in glass of cool water, at the same intervals Then on

Day 3: Take two doses of ½ teaspoon of baking soda in glass of cool water morning and evening, and thereafter ½ teaspoon in glass of cool water each morning until cold symptoms are gone

All of which will cost you about a nickel, at today's prices. And now, according to Joseph Mercola, MD, another prominent physician with openly holistic tendencies, this stuff works equally well to prevent, or mitigate the H1N1 virus, as well. Just don't tell Big Pharma. They are already plotting a takeover, and this stuff is way too cheap to cover those bonuses of theirs. So beware! And be well.

Sources:

Volney S. Cheney, MD (courtesy of Arm & Hammer archives ca. 1923) Dr. David B. Winter, DO Walter Bastedo, Materia Medica, Boston Medical Library Tullio Simonici, MD Mark Sircus, Ac OMD Joseph Mercola, MD, www.Mercola.com

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.