I prefer the tonic of liver, blended with onion, butter, and chardonnay, stuffed inside a big poblano pepper. Clears the sinuses and provides a solid dose of vitamins. And it's delicious!

Herbal Tonics, plants and medicine surely have been used for a long, long time. There is no Paleo Physicians Desk Reference that I've seen so we are on our own. However check out Dr. Richard Schultze at www.herbdoc.com. I studied herbs with him. He is a true believer an avid P.E.T.A. supporter, Vegan and a good guy. His web sells product but it is the best there is and he has loads of free info on the process and herbal in general. When I make my own herbal stuff, I follow his direction as I studied under him. This Master Tonic is supposed to stimulate your immune system etc. If you believe it will work its got a better chance. I have seen figure of 1/3 to 45% of pharmy meds come from plants. Some do work strongly...others not so much. Point being, we in this community should learn a little herbal medicine so that you are not beholdin to your pharmy Doc who will give you pills and snub your paleo diet. It is all part of the bigger Paleo picture. This was all part of my pre-Paleo past. There are many useful tool and plants that can be employed in healing and health and should be ued by us all. Even if the tonic doen't cure the plague, it makes a killer hot sauce on some grass fed ribs while you are waiting for them to "bring out your dead".

Semi-related FYI- there are a few natural things that have proven efficacy in slightly shortening the duration of rhinovirus (common cold). Obviously, oral/nasal zinc. But also, umckasides (advocated by Dr. Eades) and elderberry, and a couple other things as well. That being said, I try to review a cross-section of randomized trials of alternative medicines a couple times a year, and most of the evidence is for intermediate biomarkers, not health outcomes. In addition, trial quality from studies in the 1990's and before is very poor.

I am very interested to see if anyone (Guyenet? Sisson? Harris? Cordain?) will write a post speculating on the role of natural medicines in paleo times. Obviously we can't know for sure, but I wonder if some medicine wasn't needed as often because of lack of chronic disease (big duh), but acute poultice-type thingies were made for acute disease/cuts/bruises/etc. Biodiversity and awareness of local foliage was likely way way way higher at the time.

Is it only me or does this look rather like the recipe for an Indian curry? Apart from the vinegar.

My only worry with it is that after it is filtered you mostly have neat vinegar left. The acidity of vinegar is enough to damage the lining of your throat if regularly taken undiluted and garggled first as the recipe advises.

Other than that it's probably harmless enough. I guess your breath might be strong enough to keep people at a distance and so avoiding catching germs.

Some of the statements going along with the recipe are typical of this kind of cure-all. I feel Patrik's pain :)

This formula is not just for the sniffles, it has helped to turn around the deadliest infections like some of the new mutated killer viruses that defy conventional antibiotics."

I eat most of that stuff already. Not sure why it would make a big difference all squished together at the same time vs separately, unless the fermnentation helps with a probiotic effect. However, I suspect results of most of these kinds of things are from placebo effect. Anyway, at minimum, as long as there is nothing harmful in there, shouldn't hurt to try it. I am just wary as every week there is some new magic elixer that everyone swears by, some kind of concoction backed by very little scientific evidence. People take it for a while and it's all the rage and everyone swears by it. And then a few months or a year later, something else comes into vogue instead. I'd rather wait around and see what makes it past the long haul before jumping in with both feet.

I think that there is a place for something like this in the paleo sphere. Like Eva said, we eat most of that stuff anyways, what if there truly is a synergystic effect that adds extra benefit.? Definitely possible.

With that said, anything that claims to be a magic cure all, silver bullet type thing usually is not. I personally wouldn't put too much stock in the claim, but I might try to make a batch out of curiousity. Why not? looks like it could make a good salsa substitute..

I've never heard of this before, but if I have a cold that I want to shift then I'll definitely eat lots of garlic and spices (especially hot ones). Any-one who's ever encountered these foods knows that they pretty dramatically reduce congestion, increase circulation, numb pain etc, so all that seems pretty uncontroversial.

Before getting into paleo, if I was getting sick I'd also eat lots of the above as close to raw as bearable for their pro-immune, anti-bacterial, anti-viral etc properties, which have been reasonably well established. Now, though I don't doubt the claims that they are anti-bacterial and so forth, I'm a little more sceptical that eating them can have a specific enough effect on, for example, an infection in head. More likely that these properties would mostly be felt in the digestive tract, which probably has its advantages, but I've no idea whether this extends further significantly. I'm also generally more sceptical of consuming large amounts of supposedly healthy plant compounds, which before I generally assumed was bound to be a good thing (as CW asserts). Rather more plausible, is using very strong doses of plants as a medicine, as in this case.

I don't pay too much attention to the rhetoric, sometimes the WAPF make butter sound like a magical substance.

I have made this tonic and taken it for years...my daughter came down with the swine flu and it kicked it in 24 hrs after I gave her 3 doses spread out over a day. The reason you soak the ingredients for 2 weeks is to get all the goodness from the ingredients sort of melded into the apple cider vinegar. Once strained I place in glass jars and use when needed. It has a forever shelf life because of the bacteria and virus killing properties of the ingredients. To another poster that said just whip up a broth and drink it, it would not be as powerful as the tonic that has marinated for 2 weeks and won't have as good as an effect. I am telling you first hand it has cured many illnesses in my family and I won't be without it.

Crap and wonkery. Avoid.

I think, we (the paleo community) should not forget all the nutrional parameters we all follow are supported by rigorous scientific studies involving evolutive medicine. On the flip side, I don't know if there will be any serious study on this matter...

I wonder about the ACV. I think maybe just turning them to paste in your processor or juicer or whatever and then just mixing w water and throwing it all across the tongue like a shot would be better. I use these ingredients in broth when I get the occasional cold so what the heck....If i consumed it in this fashion, I'd get more doses.

Strange the moderator has such a strong response against this topic even with the additional information Adam suggested.

It makes me wonder what background Patrick may have or what stock he may own? Pharmaceuticals?