Okay all of you "health nuts" out there... you're eating your share of fruits and vegetables and drinking your milk (all organic of course). Are you taking your daily dose of raw apple cider vinegar with the mother? Whose mother? What? You're probably questioning why you would take 2 tbsp. of something as bizarre as apple cider vinegar every morning. When most of us think of vinegar we associate it with salad dressing or marinades, maybe even something you'd use to wash the floors in your house! You'll be amazed when you learn about just how handy this is to have at home and how beneficial it can be to your over all health.

First let's talk about the many uses of apple cider vinegar. Did you know that you can use it to wash your hair and the smell goes away in five minutes? That's right. All the ladies out there are probably gagging thinking about pouring stinky vinegar in their lovely locks as I did when I first heard of it. Believe it or not this is better for your hair than the most expensive shampoos. The trick is to scrub your scalp and work your way down your hair with baking soda! Rinse the baking soda out of your hair then pour on the vinegar and massage it through and rinse again. This will clean your hair better than any shampoo out there and it is so much cheaper! Shampoos and conditioners contain alcohol that can dry out your hair and other ingredients that can leave a film behind. Unless they're organic they most likely contain propylene glycol, a chemical found in antifreeze and poisonous if consumed in large quantities. This is just one of the uses for apple cider vinegar.

My bathroom tub is constantly getting clogged with hair even though I have the slotted drain that is meant to catch most of it. My hair is just past my shoulders and my daughter's goes all the way to the bottom of her back so, of course, there is always hair left over from bath time and showers. I use this vinegar to wash my hair twice a week and the rest of the week I use organic shampoo and conditioner. My tub drains perfectly now that the vinegar is working its way down the drain every once in a while. Pouring just a little down the kitchen and bathroom sink and tub once a week will get rid of excess build-up in your pipes and they will be less likely to get clogged. This is basically the way apple cider vinegar works in our bodies when we consume it.

Apple cider vinegar with the mother helps to clean the inside of our bodies as well as the outside. It helps to break down fat and aids in digestion, making it easier for our bodies to rid of waste. It helps to clear your colon walls of many years worth of built-up toxins when you take just 2 tbsp. a day. Folks trying to lose a few pounds will be amazed by how easy it will be to shed some weight when you get rid of toxins that have made themselves at home in your body. People who do not need to lose weight don't need to worry because the only weight that will be lost will be the trash that your body doesn't need. If your body is not toxic and in need of some waste management, you won't lose weight and you will have an easier time maintaining your figure.

Here are some of the many things that can be helped with apple cider vinegar with the mother:

• High cholesterol
• High blood pressure (I kid you not when I state that my husband's high blood pressureis gone and we attribute it to this vinegar)
• Chronic fatigue
• Acid Reflux
• Gout
• Arthritis
• Acne (It also gives pale people like me some color on their cheeks!)
• Colds
• Allergies (Taken at the first sign of a cold or allergy, this vinegar may stop it dead in its tracks!)
• Flu
• Sinus infections (This vinegar thins mucus immediately helping you to fight the infection!)

You will reap the most benefits by consuming Bragg's Raw Apple Cider Vinegar with "The Mother". This type of vinegar is the purest in the market as it is derived from crushed apples that have been aged in oak barrels. "The mother" is the sediment floating at the bottom of the bottle from the fermentation process it has undergone in the barrels. Raw ACV with the mother is not pasteurized, distilled or refined. These processes destroy the cider's benefits. Not everything that is great for you looks and tastes as good as it works. The vinegar is strong but certainly worth it, so take a deep breath and a quick swig and your body will thank you for it!