Raw Vinegar: Health Benefits, Properties & Uses

Raw vinegar is created when acetic bacteria--the so-called mother of vinegar--consumes apple cider, forming sharp-tasting, often cloudy vinegar containing 93 beneficial compounds. Pasteurized non-organic vinegar may look clear but most of its health benefits have been removed.

Significance

• Prescribed for cleaning wounds by Hippocrates in 400 B.C., vinegar is naturally antibacterial and anti-fungal. It contains no sugar to promote bacterial growth. Harmful bacteria cannot live in its high acidity, so heating it to sterilize it serves no purpose and only destroys the raw vinegar's natural benefits.

Considerations

• Filtering out the mother enzymes makes non-organic vinegar look clear, but it also removes the most effective disease-fighting benefits contained in the raw vinegar.

Features

• The sediment that makes raw vinegar look cloudy contains 93 beneficial compounds, including apple pectin, which helps optimize healthy cholesterol levels, vitamins C, E, A, B1, B2, B6 and beta-carotene, minerals and amino acids. The high potassium content in raw vinegar also provides the benefit of promoting cell tissue growth.

Benefits

• Benefits of raw vinegar when taken internally include relieving sore throats, improving digestion, normalizing weight and fighting arthritis joint pain and bursitis by breaking down mineral deposits.

Effects

• Applying raw vinegar externally benefits the skin by soothing sunburn pain, helping to control skin rashes, itches and muscle pain. It also helps prevent dandruff and nail fungus.