To whiten teeth, brush with fresh lemon juice once a week. To treat dandruff, massage with warm apple cider vinegar. For chapped lips, rub your mouth with fresh cucumber slices.

Moldy lemons repel ants. Sprinkle equal amounts of baking soda and sugar to combat cockroaches. Cure warts with potato peels. And eat half a mango per day for your cat allergy.

Massage therapist and pharmaceutical assistant Viviane Kolp, with support from her mother, has produced a handbook of 64 'sweet & sour' pain-free remedies called Once Upon A Remedy (Hushion House $12.95). She warns that homespun suggestions are not prescriptions and are not intended to serve as medical advice.

"Science is strong,"; says Kolp, "but it cannot defeat the powers of nature."; 0-9680085-3-4

[BCBW WINTER 1999]