Welcome back to the Gubba Podcast. I'm Gubba, a first time homesteader following in the footsteps of my homesteading forebears. I discuss everything from homesteading to prepping and everything in between.
Today’s episode is about traditional remedies, the ones our grandmas used before every discomfort had a prescription attached to it. We’re going to talk about how natural medicine was pushed out of everyday life, why so many people are finding their way back to it, and what simple, practical remedies you can still make in your own kitchen to support your family today.
What is fascinating is how some of these remedies quietly disappeared from everyday life. Not because they were proven useless. Not because they were dangerous. But because the entire medical system changed, and when it did, anything that couldn’t be controlled, standardized, or monetized was pushed to the margins and labeled “quackery.”
I discussed a "reset" of sorts in my World Fair podcast, and I find it interesting that there were so many changes happening in the early 1900s.
This episode isn’t anti-medicine. It’s pro-context. It’s about understanding how we went from homes that handled most everyday health issues themselves to a culture where even minor discomfort feels like it requires an outside authority to fix. You know, an authority who paid to be told how to think and if they step outside the system, their license is revoked. So who is really right here?
Because when you understand that shift, a lot of things suddenly make sense.
When Healing Left the Home
For most of human history, medicine was local. It was personal. It was built on observation, repetition, and experience. People didn’t need randomized controlled trials to notice that certain foods soothed digestion, certain preparations eased coughs, or certain balms helped skin heal faster. It was common sense I think and passed down wisdom.
Doctors existed, of course, but they were often a last step, not the first. Everyday health lived in the home. Also, these doctors didn't get bonuses for administering a certain amount of vaccines or kickbacks for pushing certain products.
That changed dramatically in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when medicine began to industrialize. Pharmaceuticals could be mass-produced. Hospitals became centralized. Medical education shifted toward chemical intervention and standardized treatment protocols.
Did you know sunshine used to be prescribed for a variety of ailments? Now, doctors tell you to slather on chemicals to "protect" yourself from it. What an interesting shift.
The only upside of modern medicine is the advances for trauma, surgery, and infectious disease. But it also quietly reframed what “real medicine” was allowed to be.
Anything that couldn’t be isolated into a single compound, patented, and dosed precisely became inconvenient. Herbal remedies. Food-based medicine. Home care practices. The sun, like I mentioned. No one profits when your patient heals themselves by just being in the sun. These weren’t easily monetized or standardized, so they were increasingly dismissed as outdated or unscientific.
The Flexner Report of 1910 accelerated this shift by reshaping medical education in the United States, favoring pharmaceutical-based medicine and closing schools that taught herbal or traditional approaches. Overnight, generations of practical knowledge were removed from formal training. Not disproven just removed. Who was tied to the funding? The Rockefellers of course.
From that point on, healing increasingly became something you received, not something you participated in. Interestingly enough, I made a reel about this subject and it got taken down on TikTok because I guess even mentioning the Rockefellers and how they influenced modern medicine is considered "dangerous." Dangerous to whom, I wonder?
Why Traditional Remedies Are Returning Now
Thankfully, people are returning to their roots, and what we’re seeing today isn’t nostalgia. It’s recalibration.
People are realizing that the modern system excels at emergencies but struggles with everyday health. Sleep issues. Digestive discomfort. Skin problems. Anxiety. Minor illness. These aren’t crises, but they affect quality of life constantly.
And for these issues, the system often offers either suppression or long-term dependency, not resolution.
So people are looking backward to what their ancestors did to reclaim what was lost.
That’s where traditional remedies live.
Coughs, Colds, and the Art of Supporting the Body
Our grandmas didn’t treat every cough like a malfunction. They treated it like communication. The body was doing something, and the goal was to make that process less uncomfortable, not to shut it down completely. Our body knows what it is doing with fever, cough, runny noses, and other symptoms that the medical system says need to be treated. I have found that letting my body run its course without heavily medicating has led to my body being stronger and more resilient.
Honey was a staple for sore throats because it coats and soothes irritation. Warm liquids mattered because warmth relaxes tissue and encourages circulation. Lemon wasn’t added for vitamin C hype, it was added because it cut through heaviness and made the remedy tolerable.
Onion and honey syrup is one of those remedies that survived because it worked often enough to earn its place. Onion releases liquid when combined with honey, creating a syrup that people took by the spoonful when coughs lingered. It wasn’t meant to be taken indefinitely. It was used until the body moved through the illness.
Steam was another overlooked remedy. Long before humidifiers, people used bowls of hot water and towels to ease congestion. Steam loosens mucus, calms inflamed airways, and helps people breathe more comfortably, especially at night.
None of this was complicated. And that’s the point. Now, we have shelves lined with thick goos with long lists of side effects to calm our coughs and help with mucus. That's a big no thank you for me.
Magnesium, the Nervous System, and What We Lost
One of the most interesting places where traditional wisdom quietly disappeared is nervous system support.
Today we talk about anxiety, depression, burnout, and sleep disorders as isolated conditions. Historically, they were often understood as signs of depletion, especially mineral depletion.
Magnesium plays a critical role in nervous system regulation, muscle relaxation, and sleep. When it’s low, people tend to feel restless, tense, emotionally flat, or unable to unwind. Modern diets, depleted soil, and chronic stress have made magnesium deficiency incredibly common.
What’s fascinating is that older generations seemed to understand this intuitively, even without the language.
One example that surprises people is depression glass.
During the Great Depression, colorful glassware became widespread. On the surface, it looks decorative or frivolous, odd, even, during hard times. But there was a belief that color affected well-being, and certain colors were associated with calming and grounding effects.
Green and amber glass were especially common. These colors were believed to help counter low-magnesium states, which were associated with nervous tension, low mood, and fatigue. People noticed patterns. They noticed that environment mattered. Light mattered. Color mattered. Calm mattered.
I still remember my grandma always drinking from depression glass.
Warm evening drinks. Dim lights. Mineral-rich foods. Consistent routines. These weren’t wellness trends our grandparents had. They were survival tools that they learned growing up.
When pharmaceutical solutions became the default, this layered approach disappeared. Emotional distress became something to medicate rather than something to nourish. So we got the bandaids instead of the root fix.
Today, these different minerals are being rediscovered, not as a cure-all, but as a foundational support that many people are missing.
Digestion as the Center of Health
Traditional medicine always placed digestion at the center of health, because people noticed that when digestion was off, everything followed. I feel that personally as well. When I was vegetarian, everything just seemed to be a disaster. My nails were brittle, my hair was thin, and my skin wasn't great either.
Our grandparents used simple remedies for digestion issues. One of my favorite that they use was ginger tea for nausea and sluggish digestion because it’s warming and stimulating without being harsh. Fennel was used after meals to reduce bloating and discomfort. Broth was given when the body needed nourishment without strain. Parsley was also eaten to support digestion. And we wonder why digestion is such a big issue now, our digestion has no traditional support!
Modern medicine often treats digestion symptom by symptom. Traditional care treated it as a system. Medication after medication that just masks the symptoms. Seriously, if you go in for acid reflux, instead of discovering why you are having it, you are given a pill that will just make your stomach system worse. Read the inserts before taking anything and understand the side effects or long term effects.
Skincare Before It Was an Industry
In my opinion, nowhere is the contrast between traditional care and modern intervention clearer than skincare. You can see the results on skin. I have with my own when I embraced traditional skincare.
Traditional skincare focused on protecting the skin barrier. Dryness, irritation, and sensitivity were treated by reducing moisture loss and shielding the skin from environmental stress, not by stripping, resurfacing, or “correcting.”
This is why tallow has such a long history as a skin remedy and support.
Tallow supports the skin barrier in a way that feels intuitive. It doesn’t fight the skin. It supports it. When the barrier is strong, the skin naturally becomes calmer, more resilient, and better able to heal itself.
Modern skincare often creates problems it then sells solutions for. Again, read the ingredients on your skincare and research the side effects. They are selling you the problem and they telling you they will fix the problem they are selling. A Big Pharma psyop.
I go very deep into this in my podcast episode Tallow Truths: Breaking Free from the Skincare Matrix, where I explain why simplifying your routine and focusing on barrier support can completely change how your skin behaves. I highly recommend listening or reading that episode here: The Truth About Tallow for Skincare.
If you’re looking for a practical way to apply this philosophy, this is exactly why I created my tallow balm. It’s designed to protect the skin barrier, reduce dryness, and support long-term skin health without unnecessary additives or hormone-disrupting ingredients. I have thousands of reviews of people sharing their positive skincare stories.
You can find it here: Whipped Tallow Balm
This isn’t about trends. It’s about restoring what worked before skincare became an industry overtaken by Big Pharma.
Why Natural Remedies Were Called “Quackery”
Traditional remedies didn’t vanish because they failed. They vanished because the system changed.
Once medicine became centralized and pharmaceutical-driven, anything that couldn’t be regulated, patented, or prescribed lost legitimacy. Home remedies didn’t fit the model.
This created a false binary: either modern medicine or nonsense, but real life doesn’t work that way and everyone is individual in how their system operates.
Modern medicine is extraordinary in emergencies like I mentioned. I won't step foot in a doctor's office for routine care, but if I need trauma, I would go. That's it. Traditional care is extraordinary for everyday life. We lost balance when one replaced the other entirely.
Now people are restoring that balance, not by rejecting medicine, but by reclaiming agency.
The Real Lesson Our Grandmas Left Us
The biggest lesson our grandmas left wasn’t a specific remedy. It was confidence to know that our bodies are complex and smart and that a pill isn't going to solve our problems.
Confidence that the body can heal when supported. Confidence that not every issue requires a visit to the doctor's office. Confidence that the home can once again be a place of care.
Traditional remedies aren’t about going backward. They’re about remembering that healing was never meant to be outsourced entirely. Think about how individual we are and how they have lopped healthcare into one boat. You need to start getting to know your body if you want to address the root of your health.
And that knowledge didn’t survive generations because it was sentimental. It survived because it worked. I have been embracing this on the homestead for a while now and I haven't been to a doctor in years and I am healthier than in my whole entire life.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and I appreciate you spending your time with me.
FAQs
Are traditional remedies safe to use today?
Many are gentle and widely tolerated when used appropriately. Start small and pay attention to your body. We have become so disconnected from ourselves and this is the heart of the problem.
Why don’t doctors recommend these remedies anymore?
Modern medical education focuses almost entirely on pharmaceuticals and acute care. Traditional remedies were largely removed from training, not disproven.
Why does barrier-focused skincare work so well for dryness?
Because dryness is often caused by moisture loss, not lack of products. Supporting the skin barrier allows the skin to retain what it already has.
Where can I learn more about tallow for skin?
The episode Tallow Truths: Breaking Free from the Skincare Matrix explains the history, science, and real-world results in depth. You can read or listen here: Skincare Matrix
