A 105-year-old American woman says ‘nine gin-soaked raisins’ a day could have saved her from dying of COVID-19.
New Jersey resident Lucia DeClerk has kept the tradition the majority of her life - as well as using baking soda for toothpaste and drinking aloe vera juice.
“We would think, ‘Grandma what are you doing? You’re crazy,’” granddaughter Shawn Laws O'Neil told The New York Times.
Despite receiving two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, DeClerk still contracted the virus and was forced to spend 14 days in isolation at her rest home, Mystic Meadows Rehabilitation and Nursing.
Michael Nieman, spokesperson for the facility told The New York Times DeClerk only showed minor symptoms, and was determined to get back to see family and friends.
That family includes 11 great-great grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren, five grandchildren and two sons.
DeClerk has also lived through the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918, two World Wars, and the death of a son and three husbands.
"She's just been open with everything in life and I think that has really helped her because she hasn't hesitated to do whatever she's wanted to do," Henry Laws III told CBS Philly about the longevity of his mother’s life.
"Now all of us are rushing out and getting Mason jars and yellow raisins and trying to catch up," her 53-year-old granddaughter, Shawn Laws O'Neil said.
