EL Web Clips 10/10/2009
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 08/19/2009
-
Your Guide to Healthy Sleep | NHLBI
This patient and public booklet provides the latest science-based information about Sleep. Learn about . . .
* Common sleep myths and practical tips for getting adequate sleep
* Coping with jet lag and nighttime shift work
* Avoiding dangerous drowsy driving
This booklet also gives information on sleep disorders, such as insomnia, sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, narcolepsy, and some parasomnias.
-
PLoS Medicine: Sleep-Disordered Breathing and Mortality: A Prospective Cohort Study
These findings indicate that sleep-disordered breathing is associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality, particularly in men aged 40–70 years, even after allowing for known confounding factors. They also suggest that the increased risk of death is specifically associated with coronary artery disease
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 08/16/2009
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 08/15/2009
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 08/14/2009
-
Will YOU Look as Good as Jack LaLanne at Age 93?
-
it is possible to preserve most of your looks if you follow Jack LaLanne’s approach to fitness
-
Jack LaLanne once said, “People don’t die of old age, they die of neglect.”
-
He also said, “Exercise is King, nutrition is Queen, put them together and you’ve got a kingdom.”
-
-
Mercola: Comprehensive Plan for Optimal Nutrition – Annotated
-
condensed version of a nutrition plan that can have a powerful and dramatic influence on your ability to achieve optimal health.
- Provides a free comprehensive plan and training materials for optimal nutrition for beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. – post by exploringlife
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 08/11/2009
-
Vitamin D Key to Healthy Brain
-
“This is further evidence from observational studies that vitamin D is likely to be beneficial to reduce many age-related diseases,” said Tim Spector of King’s College London, who was not involved in the study. “Taken together with similar data that shows its importance in reducing arthritis, osteoporotic fractures, as well as heart disease and some cancers, this underscores the importance of vitamin D for humans and why evolution gave us a liking for the sun.”
-
The researchers warned that vitamin D deficiency is widespread, especially among the elderly, who have decreased absorption from both food and sun sources.
-
Vitamin D is synthesized by the body when the sun is exposed to the sun’s ultraviolet rays. The average light-skinned person can get enough vitamin D from roughly 15 minutes of sun on their face and hands per day, significantly less than the time it takes to burn.
-
-
Describes the use of sugar and honey to kill infections in wounds and burns.
-
He’d been receiving IV antibiotics to treat a diabetic ulcer, a wide, oozing open wound on his ankle, but this didn’t halt the steady advance of gangrene, and he was told they had no choice but to take his leg.
-
Figuring he had nothing to lose, Jerome left the hospital-against strongly worded medical advice-and came to my clinic that same day.
-
We immediately started Jerome on two therapies. First, he began a course of EDTA chelation, an IV treatment that improves circulation. Second, we dressed his ulcer with sugar. That’s right, white table sugar. We simply poured sugar into the wound, wrapped it up, and changed the dressing regularly. Within days he noticed a difference.
-
Within three weeks, Jerome’s ulcer was healed, and he was able to resume teaching and coaching the girl’s softball team.
-
Chelation is an amazing treatment, however, in this article I want to focus on sugar because it is an incredibly powerful therapy that was instrumental in saving Jerome’s leg. I’ve been using sugar to dress open wounds for 20-plus years, but this therapy has been around for much longer-at least 5,000 years.
-
Edwin Smith Papyrus, it was written around 1600 BC and is believed to be based on materials from as early as 3000 BC. This ancient manuscript is essentially a textbook on traumatic surgery, and it describes anatomy, examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of a variety of injuries in great detail. In particular, it tells how honey, along with animal fat, herbs, roots, bark, spices, and cat dung, can be used to treat open wounds and burns.
-
Today, antibiotic ointments are the treatment of choice for ulcers, cuts, scrapes, and burns. Yet honey and sugar are far superior to any antibiotic ointment ever used.
-
Bacteria cannot become resistant to the killing effects of sugar or honey.
-
When sugar or honey is packed on top of and inside of an open wound, it dissolves in the fluid exuding from the wound, creating a hyperosmotic, or highly concentrated, medium. Bacteria cannot live in a hyperosmotic environment any more than a goldfish could survive in the Great Salt Lake. Scientists have tested the viability of many types of bacteria, including Klebsiella, Shigella, Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus pyogenes, and none of them have been able to survive in a honey or sugar solution.
-
In addition to curbing infection, this therapy facilitates healing in other ways. It draws fluid out of the wound, which reduces edema (swelling). It provides a covering or filling and therefore prevents scabbing. It encourages the removal of dead tissue to make way for new growth. It promotes granulation, the formation of connective tissue and blood vessels on the surfaces of a wound. Finally, it supports the growth of new skin covering the wound. The net result is rapid healing with minimal scarring.
-
Trying to figure out why inexpensive, effective therapies like sugar and honey dressings aren’t being used is an exercise in futility. That’s because there is no rational explanation. Some physicians claim it would cause elevations in blood sugar, which is nonsense because sugar or honey used on an open wound does not enter the bloodstream. Others think it’s unscientific or just plain weird.
-
Protocol for Treating Wounds With Sugar
Sugar or honey dressing may be used to treat any kind of open wound or burn. (We use sugar at the clinic because it’s less messy.) It will not work on abscesses or pustules that are covered with skin. Do not use on a bleeding wound as sugar promotes bleeding.1)Unravel a 4″ x 4″ piece of gauze into a long strip and coat it with Vaseline. Place it around the outside edges of the wound, like a donut.
2)Cover the wound with 1/4-inch of sugar. (The Vaseline “donut” will keep it in place.)
3)Place a 4″ x 4″ sponge on top of the wound. Bandage it firmly but not too snugly with a cling dressing.
4)Change the dressing every one or two days. Remove, irrigate with water, saline, or hydrogen peroxide, pat dry, and repeat steps 1-3.
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 08/10/2009
-
Scientology, What is it? – A Reference from the Church of Scientology
-
-
The Honest Food Guide (HFG) is now available for downloading free of charge and is:
- Free from the corruption and influence of various food industries (dairy, beef, junk foods, etc.)
- Designed to benefit you, not Big Business
- Offers genuine nutritional information, not watered-down information designed to boost the sale of milk, beef and grains
-
BirdFluDefense.com Bird flu news and preparedness strategies
Healing foods reference database
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 08/09/2009
-
-
- The Ontario Multifaith Council on Spiritual and
Religious Care is a not-for-profit, charitable organization representing
a wide range of faith groups in the province of Ontario. Through a Memorandum
of Agreement, signed with the Government of Ontario December 1992, the
Ontario Multifaith Council was given the responsibility to:- Ensure adequate and appropriate religious services and spiritual care
for persons in directly-operated and transfer payment institutions and
community-based agencies and programs - Assist in the formation of appropriate responses to spiritual and
religious needs - Collaborate in the development of policies and standards which safeguard
spiritual care and religious rights and practices - Provide an effective liaison between the faith groups of Ontario and
the provincial government
- Ensure adequate and appropriate religious services and spiritual care
-
More than 4,800 essays
-
we try to explain accurately the full diversity of religious beliefs, worldviews, and systems of morality,
ethics, and values in the U.S. and Canada.
-
Interfaith Unity
Events, News & Resources
Newsletter
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 08/05/2009
-
Michael Pollen: Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch – NYTimes.com
-
But here’s what I don’t get: How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen but so much less eager to brown them ourselves?
-
What this suggests is that a great many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves — an increasingly archaic activity they will tell you they no longer have the time for.
-
The skills celebrated on the Food Network in prime time are precisely the skills necessary to succeed on the Food Network in prime time. They will come in handy nowhere else on God’s green earth.
-
Television likes nothing better than to serve up elitism to the masses, paradoxical as that might sound.
-
The Food Network has helped to transform cooking from something you do into something you watch — into yet another confection of spectacle and celebrity that keeps us pinned to the couch.
-
So what are we doing with the time we save by outsourcing our food preparation to corporations and 16-year-old burger flippers? Working, commuting to work, surfing the Internet and, perhaps most curiously of all, watching other people cook on television.
-
Richard Wrangham, a Harvard anthropologist, published a fascinating book called “Catching Fire,” in which he argues that it was the discovery of cooking by our early ancestors — not tool-making or language or meat-eating — that made us human.
-
I have the diet for you. It’s short, and it’s simple. Here’s my diet plan: Cook it yourself. That’s it. Eat anything you want — just as long as you’re willing to cook it yourself.
-
-
CDC Features – Learn more about vitamin B12 deficiency.
-
Vitamin B12 is one of several B vitamins. It is needed to make new red blood cells and help your nervous system work well. Vitamin B12 is found naturally in meat, fish, eggs, and dairy products. It is not found naturally in plant-based foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and cereal grains. Some people need to take vitamin supplements or vitamin B12 shots to get enough.
-
Vitamin B12 deficiency develops slowly, and symptoms appear so gradually that they can be missed. Vitamin B12 deficiency can cause anemia over time. The symptoms of anemia include feeling weak, tired, and faint; heart palpitations; looking pale; and shortness of breath. Vitamin B12 deficiency can also cause tingling of hands and feet, changes in ability to walk, loss of vision, memory problems, seeing things that aren’t there, sadness, and changes in personality.
-
The chances for developing vitamin B12 deficiency increase with age, untreated pernicious anemia, gastric (stomach) surgery, or long-term use of strict vegetarian (vegan) diet.
-
-
Vitamin D Newsletter May 2009 | H1N1 Flu and Vitamin D
Vitamin D dosage recommendation re N1H1.
-
Stock your home’s pharmacy with several fresh bottles of 50,000 IU capsules of Vitamin D3 (a medicine a this dosage, not a supplement) and if you get this flu, take 2,000 IU per kg of body weight per day for a week. As I weigh 220 pounds, I would take 200,000 IU per day for seven days if I thought I had an infection with a 1918-like influenza virus.
-
-
Vitamin D Newsletter Jul 2008 | Supplementing With Vitamin D
Clear information on Vitamin D Supplementation
-
if you have little UVB exposure, my advice is as follows. Well children under the age of two (2) should take 1,000 IU per day, over the age of two, 2,000 IU per day. Well adults and adolescents should take 5,000 IU per day. Two months later have your doctor order your first 25-hydroxy-vitamin D blood test. Yes, start the vitamin D before you have the blood test. Then adjust your dose so your 25(OH)D level is between 50 and 80 ng/ml, summer and winter. These are conservative dosage recommendations.
-
Where should I get my vitamin D supplements?
Anywhere. Vitamin D in 1,000 IU tablets by Nature Made are available in most pharmacies in the USA and Canada. On the internet, Bio-Tech Pharmacal has prices that are hard to beat and has 1,000 and 5,000 IU capsules. Life Extension Foundation also has 1,000 and 5,000 IU capsules. Capsules are important as it is easy dissolve the powder inside the capsule in juice for children. In Canada, Ddrops are now available, with 1,000 IU per drop. Ddrops will soon be available in the USA from Carlson, with 400, 1,000, or 2,000 IU per drop. Unfortunately, Carlson keeps selling products with toxic amounts of vitamin A. LifeSpan Nutrition has a variety of vitamin D preparations, including their new 30 Minutes of Sunshine which has magnesium together with 5,000 IU of vitamin D. If you don’t eat a lot of vegetables, you are probably magnesium deficient. Both Bio-Tech Pharmacal and LifeSpan Nutrition support the Vitamin D Council, so consider getting your vitamin D from them. In fact, LifeSpan Nutrition began supporting us 5 years ago and is responsible, in large part, for our website being what it is.
-
Why are you against cod liver oil?
Cod liver oil contains toxic amounts of vitamin A. Vitamin A antagonizes the action of vitamin D. Stay tuned to the press. In several months you will see a clear warning by numerous experts not to take vitamin A or cod liver oil.
-
-
Vitamin D – A Gene-Regulating Super Nutrient
Provides information on Vitamin D supplementation and effects.
-
All your body organs and cells have receptors for vitamin D, meaning that vitamin D communicates all around your body.
-
There is no such thing as getting too much vitamin D3 from the sun.
-
When your skin makes vitamin D then the vitamin D turns on antioxidants within your skin to deactivate the free radicals coming from the sun’s UV radiation.
-
It is ridiculous to make 100% of the population think that routine sun exposure is a major health risk when such advice applies mostly to a small group.
-
Many vitamin D researchers believe that 2000 IU are needed on a daily basis, especially in the winter months in the U.S.
-
In fact, only the dose of 2000 IU was able to bring the common vitamin D deficiency in children up to normal levels.
-
Even the Mayo Clinic is churning out press releases telling everyone to take 800-1000 IU of vitamin D per day.
-
it was found that taking 4000 IU of vitamin D per day for 21 days restored their skin’s production of cathelicidin to normal – offering protection from infection.
-
In a very large Finnish study those infants and children who consistently took 2000 IU of vitamin D per day had a 78% reduced risk of type I diabetes.
-
-
Describes four basic sources of vitamin D
-
- You have to get sunlight into your life in order to be healthy and prevent or even reverse major chronic diseases. Start getting more sun.
- Boost your antioxidant count, because antioxidants will protect you from the risk of overexposure to sunlight. Astaxanthin, green foods powder, Berry Green, and other green foods are all excellent sources. Get those supplements now and find ways to work them into your diet starting today.
- If you can’t get sunlight, visit a tanning booth to get ultraviolet radiation. It’s a secondary choice, but it’s better than doing nothing. Remember not to use tanning booths for too long, and be sure to have great nutrition for at least 30 days before tanning in a booth.
- If you can’t get sunlight or get to a tanning booth, find other sources of vitamin D. The best source is cod liver oil, which you can mix into a delicious shake the same as you would most whole food supplements.
There are four main points you should take from this:
-
-
Vitamin D Deficiency Reveals an Instant Health Care Reform Solution by Mike Adams the Health Ranger
-
“insufficient” means “deficient” in the real world
-
keep in mind that these frighteningly common vitamin D deficiencies exist even when the accepted standards of vitamin D levels in the blood are artificially low to begin with.
-
Sunlight deficiency is now at epidemic levels
-
The sunscreen industry also shares some blame in all this, as it thrives on the silly idea that sunlight is bad for children and that all kids need to be smothered in sunscreen lotions before venturing outdoors. (Of course, they never admit their own sunscreen products are filled with cancer-causing chemicals in the first place…)
-
Above all, the medical establishment is to blame for vitamin D deficiency. Rather than teaching parents and children about the importance of vitamin D, they seem to have declared a blackout on most useful information about the nutrient, preferring instead to prescribe toxic pharmaceutical drugs to treat the symptoms of vitamin D deficiency.
-
Check out all the popular cancer non-profit groups: The American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen, etc. Have you ever seen any of them actually promote sunlight and vitamin D as a way to prevent or reverse cancer? Of course not! It’s bad for business. They collect a lot more cash convincing people that they’re “searching for the cure” when, in reality, the cure already exists: It’s called vitamin D.
-
Vitamin D as health care reform
When considering today’s grand, lumbering debate over health care reform, you’d have to be a complete idiot to not realize that vitamin D could slash health care costs across the board. Considering that this one nutrient helps prevent so many diseases — cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, depression, obesity, diabetes, etc. — it’s almost like the “miracle health reform nutrient” that our modern world has been waiting for.
-
There will be no real health reform until you admit that nutrition plays a role in human health. And the FDA, of course, insists that all nutrition is biologically inert — that only “drugs” have any ability to prevent or treat any disease, not vitamins or minerals
-
Most cancer tumors simply cannot grow in the presence of vitamin D. You show me someone on chemotherapy, and I’ll show you someone who’s deficient in vitamin D.
-
It’s the same story with zinc, magnesium, calcium, selenium or natural plant-based nutrients. They’re all ignored (or outlawed) because they generate no profits.
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 08/04/2009
-
John O’Donohue – Irish Singing, Old School
-
In production on next week’s homage to the late John O’Donohue, I have been researching Celtic music, attempting to not have a show full of jigs and reels, but to have a good cross-section of this genre. I came across this style of Gaelic singing, sean-nos, meaning “in the old style,” in a YouTube video of Iarla O’lionaird (fronts the band Afro Celt Sound System) singing in a pub.
-
-
Dew of Hermon: MEMORIAL FOR JOHN O’DONOHUE
-
The Memorial Mass programmefor John O’Donohue whichtook place yesterday
-
-
John O’Donohue – Your Help Is Our Musical Gain
Musical research used in SOF interview.
-
SOF Observed – John O’Donohue’s Landscape
Audio Slideshow
-
In producing the audio slideshow, I was struck with how well the photos illustrated O’Donohue’s language in his poem “Beannacht” — a word I’ve heard translated as both “blessing” and “passage.” It’s about finding comfort in loss, and I consciously tried to match the photos to the poem’s tone, mood, and pace.
-
-
The Inner Landscape of Beauty – John O’Donohue
-
John O’Donohue was an Irish poet and philosopher beloved for his book Anam Cara — Gaelic for “soul friend” — and for his insistence on beauty as a human calling and a defining aspect of God. Before his untimely death this year, he spoke with Krista in our studios. And so this hour has become a remembrance of him. But John O’Donohue had a very Celtic, lifelong fascination with what he called “the invisible world.” And he would also surely see this also as a serendipitous continuation of his life’s work — of bringing ancient Celtic wisdom to modern confusions and longings.
-
-
-
I think it makes a huge difference when you come out of your home in the
morning, whether you believe on the one hand you’re stepping into inert
space, which is endless, or whether you’re stepping into something that
is animate and alive. And I really believe that landscape is alive. -
And yet we have
claimed everything in our name and reduced it, and I think that is something
that has had disastrous consequences, and we’re making our planet unliveable,
and we’re doing huge damage. And I think that the other point is that
landscape is the first scripture. It is THE wisest text, because we’re
not alien to it. We are the children of the earth, and the earth is in
our bodies – so the rhythm that’s outside is inside. -
And
you would have a sense that this place has a sureness in its own identity,
a belonging, and some kind of primal spirit. -
the biggest theological
question is – is there anything outside God? If you say there is, then
you’re not talking about God. -
You have storm, rain, you have huge
fog and mist in the West of Ireland, which is the ultimate invitation
to melancholia. You’ve all of that negativity there. I’m not arguing for
landscape as just a benign presence which is the source of relentless
epiphany. I’m arguing for it as a primal companion that has all the dexterity
and multiplicity of a huge kind of presence. -
he was really in the presence, and he had this sense as well,
which I suppose kind of came over to me, of the transience of things.
He used to often say ‘Life is like a mist on the hillside. It’s there
for a while, then it goes and you’ll barely know if it was there at all.’
So there was this constant focus in a very gentle way, on the fact that
we were merely strangers and visitors here. -
suddenly I began to see that thought and perception
are the lenses through which we see everything. And the huge privilege,
and the awful frightening responsibility of trying to think creatively
and critically. -
what I’m talking about
was the things I think the Catholic Church are really wonderful at – sacramental
structure, the mystical tradition, the prayer tradition, the intellectual
tradition, which can hold their own with the best in any religious system,
where I think and where my preaching always kind of tried to make an opening
for people was, I think they’re not trustable in the area of Eros at all.
I think that an awful lot of the argument for hierarchy is bogus and I
also think that there’s a pathological fear of the feminine in there.
So I tried to always kind of open these things. And I think a lot of the
notions of sin, particularly in relation to sexuality put huge burdens
on people that should never have been put on them. -
And my first morning
in home, there was a few neighbours in, and I was saying nothing and just
overhearing, listening to the conversation. And there was a full hour
of discussion went on in which not one analytic sentence fell – and yet
so many things were discussed through anecdote and the oblique respectfulness
and resonance of story. -
I don’t consider the invisible
empty. I think it’s dense with refined presences, that are not coming
up on the radar of our perception, our concepts. My understanding of ’soul’
would be that it is the unseen, hidden dimension of the self, and that
it is the place if you like, beneath or beside or above the mind and consciousness.
To put it in imagistic terms and spatial terms I think it’s the kind of
field of presence or colour or light that suffuses the body and that holds
the body, so that the body is actually in the soul. -
I read in the Latin writings of Meister Eckhart, where he said that there
is a place in the soul that neither time, nor flesh, nor no creative thing
can touch. So I think that the exciting thing then is you’ve all these
individuality humans dwelling in these bodies. -
The divine is itself. The divine is that which is totally and utterly
itself. It’s the cradle of origin, the primal presence – and it’s there
everywhere and it’s in all of us – like the most exciting thing about
humans, which Christianity has kept from us, like it’s amazing actually.
I find it so ironic, that at the heart of Christianity, well of any of
the religions, you have the centrality of the uniqueness of a poet/carpenter
… without the idea of individuality and individuation. -
we’re kind of threshold
creatures, we’re neither here nor there – we’re in between -
I suppose
one of the things that, that I really feel so drawn to, is the ol’ divine.
And I’m not holy like, d’you know what I mean, in the traditional way
of piousness and all that explicit, hard edged superficial old banter
of religion. I can’t bear it, I think it’s so crude and coarse and vulgar.
Because I think the divine, the divine is like a huge smile that breaks
somewhere in the sea within you, and gradually comes up again. It’s an
incredible, intimate thing. -
Things that move me as well as human suffering
– I hate to see people in pain. I find that really, especially really
good people. And good people often, it’s an amazing thing to me – it’s
so disturbing – the really kind people who’ve never done any damage to
anybody, sometimes get wracked asunder by the visitations of pain, disappointment,
suffering, despair. -
I don’t look on absence as the invitation to close my account with
God. That’s the deepening thing – I’ve always found it. An old spiritual
director taught me in my first year I went through an awful 6 months of
bleakness when I was studying for the priesthood. And he said ‘It’s like
when the seed is sown’ and he said ‘the ground is raked and it’s sore,
or the pruning, and something else comes through.’ I’ve always believed
that. And I often think actually, against myself I often see this when
I’m going through darkness, is that a lot of suffering is just getting
rid of dross in yourself. And sometimes lingering and hanging in in the
darkness is often – I say this against myself – a failure of imagination,
to imagine the door into the light. -
I’ve always found something awfully disturbing about
Good Friday. It never lets me alone – even if I had forgotten which day
it was, I’d know the day it was, because I think that something happened
there. Some kind of awful, raw quickening that always comes alive on that
day. It was where of course, the ultimate cry of human longing ran headlong
into the silence of God, and was left, the cry was left out there like
a huge, red hook trying to reach up into the heavens, but nothing received
it. It’s a day of, of, it’s being touched by the void – it’s the abyss
day.
-
-
John O’Donohue Interview: The Presence of Compassion
-
Compassion distinguishes human presence from all other presence on the earth.
-
In a sense, the human being is the loneliest creature in creation. Paradoxically, the human being also has the greatest possibility for intimacy.
-
Compassion is the ability to vitally imagine what it is like to be an other, the force that makes a bridge from the island of one individuality to the island of the other. It is an ability to step outside your own perspective, limitations and ego, and become attentive in a vulnerable, encouraging, critical, and creative way with the hidden world of another person.
-
Celtic thought contributes magnificently to a philosophy of compassion, deriving from its sense that everything belongs in one diverse, living unity.
-
the exercise of compassion is the transfiguration of dualism: the separation of matter and spirit, masculine and feminine, body and soul, human and divine, person and animal, and person and element.
-
For the Celts, nature wasn’t a huge expanse of endless matter. Nature was an incredibly elemental and passionately individual presence, and that is why many gods and spirits are actually tied into very explicit places, and to the memory and history and narrative of the places.
-
One of the tragedies in Western religion is the way that we have been so elitist in reserving the spiritual exclusively for the human. That is an awful, barbaric crime.
-
What is the relationship between absence and compassion?
O’Donohue: Absence and presence are sisters. The opposite of presence is not absence, the opposite of presence is vacancy. Vacancy is a void
-
The idea of the sanctuary of the human presence implies a lovely lyrical unity in the human person. When you stand in front of another human being, you stand before the presence of an unknown and infinite world of love, belonging, imagination, and ambivalence, negativity, darkness, and struggle.
-
Originally, the myth was that each human was two in one, but they were split and separated, consequently they spent most of their lives searching for their other half. In the Celtic idea of the anam cara, the anam cara is the other half that you have been missing.
-
Maybe death is that moment you are fully born and you are received into another world where the laws of separation and dualism no longer operate.
-
In life, anything can come along the pathway to the house of your soul, the house of your body, to transfigure you. We’re vulnerable externally to destiny, but we’re also vulnerable internally, within ourselves. Things can come awake within your mind and heart that cause you immense days and nights of pain, a sense of being lost, of having no meaning, no worth; a kind of acidic negativity can knock down everything that you achieve in yourself, giving your world a sense of being damaged.
-
Self-compassion is paramount. When you are compassionate with yourself, you trust in your soul, which you let guide your life. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny better than you do.
-
The real heroes in human life are the mainly silent, unnoticed ones who draw no attention to themselves but through their daily acts of love and gentleness and compassion keep the tissue of humane presence alive and vital.
-
One of the best teachers in the world is suffering.
-
Suffering teaches you what you don’t want to learn, bringing you the gift that you can only receive through suffering.
-
One of the tests of spiritual integrity is whether a person is at home in his own life.
-
We always imagine that our desire is a call outward, toward something outside. In many instances, it can be, but in its fundamental intention, desire is the call to come home and to discover that which is sought outside is actually hidden under the heart in the home of your own soul.
-
But the fullness of human presence is an awakened and focused presence toward a receiver, a listener, or a hearer. Being present is what we spiritually yearn to be. To be present is to inhabit your own presence with clarity and luminosity.
-
Presence is what life is about. When we come into real presence, the eternal becomes fully active in us and around us. In other words, when we hit real presence we break into eternity.
-
The Celtic mind practiced what I call reverence of approach to experience. Experience was a profound threshold of creativity and transformation. Anything and everything that happens in experience unfolds, expresses, and embodies your identity.
-
The ultimate goal of prayer is to learn to behold yourself with the same gentleness, pride, expectation, and compassion with which the divine presence beholds you at every moment. If we can inhabit that reflex of divine presence, then compassion will flow naturally from us.
-
-
John O’Donohue – Awakening the Mind, Awakening the Soul
-
Why must we answer the call to awaken? Why must we follow the questions of our soul? Because it is through habitual, non-inquisitive living that we lose our sense of wonder. Because eventually, even the strangest or most magical things become absorbed into the routine of the daily mind with its steady geographies of endurance, anxiety, and contentment. Left to our own devices, curiosity dims and fear of the unknown binds us; we cling to the known
-
Once you start to awaken, however, nothing or no one can ever claim you again, pull you back into old patterns. Once you start to awaken, you know how precious your time here—on earth, in this body—is. You are no longer willing to squander your essence on undertakings that do not nourish your true self; your patience grows thin with tired talk and dead language. You see through the rosters of expectation that promise you safety and the confirmations of your outer identity. Now you are impatient for growth, willing to put yourself in the way of change. You want your work to become an expression of your innate gifts. You want your relationships to voyage beyond the pallid frontiers to where the danger of transformation dwells.
-
The greatest friend of the soul is the unknown.
-
Unfortunately, it sometimes takes deep suffering, grief, or loss to awaken us.
-
When you begin to sense that your imagination is the place where you are most divine, you feel called to clean out of your mind all the worn and shabby furniture of thought.
-
On this journey, the chambers of your heart that seemed awkward, contradictory, and uneven are where the treasure lies hidden.
-
From this inner dedication, you can creatively reconstruct your own values and take action. You develop from your own self-compassion a great compassion for others.
-
-
John O’Donohue: ‘Eternal Echoes’ : NPR
-
Jacki Lyden speaks to Irish philosopher and poet John O’Donohue about his latest book, Eternal Echoes: Exploring our Yearning to Belong. (Harper Collins, 1999). O’Donohue’s writings are inspired by ancient Celtic traditions and are filled with vivid descriptions of the Irish imagination.
-
-
Where No One or Nothing is Excluded « The Website of Unknowing
An interview with John O’Donohue.
-
But whether he spoke about the despair of youth, the numbness of consumerism, or the sheer poetry of the Celtic path, his words always shimmered with a sense of trust and hope in the final beauty and power of Spirit.
-
O’Donohue muses on the climate in our culture which has made it ripe for a spiritual renaissance. “I think there’s a huge crisis of belonging in postmodern culture. The institutions of religion have really diminished and fallen into the hands of frightened functionaries who are great custodians of the gateways but don’t really know what the landscapes are like further in towards the heart of the mystery. Politics has become synonymous with economics and the crudest form of pragmatism. Then there’s the whole homogenization of culture and consciousness in mass technology and media — although there’s a lot more interaction than there once was between people, but it’s all simulated, you know, and lacks the vitality and vigor and danger of a direct encounter with otherness. So these are some of the contexts which are creating a massive spiritual hunger.”
-
another unheld conversation is the conversation between the Christian tradition and the depth and density and intensity of peoples’ spiritual search and spiritual hunger which is a new form of consciousness.
-
“There is a roster of themes, insights and intuitions in Celtic consciousness and imagination that respond very well to what we’re going through now. Celtic sensibility and the Celtic imagination looked on nature not as ’stuff’ or ‘location’ or ‘matter,’ but nature was the theatre of a variety and diversity of divine presences. Secondly, one of the great cankers and severances of the western tradition has been dualism, which separated mind from body, self from spirit, person from God and nature from the whole lot! The Celts, in some strange way, managed to preclude that kind of fissure/opening which would lead to dualism, and were able to think in a unitive consciousness and think of all these things together.”
-
“How do we give birth to community? I don’t think we do, I don’t think we can create or manufacture community, what we have to do is to allow community to emerge. So what kind of conditions must prevail in order for real community to emerge? One of the things we need is to make some clearances for ourselves again, so that we can see the shape of our souls, and so we can see also the shape of our hungers. We are caught on a treadmill of rapidity that doesn’t allow us to pause or to see what’s going on at all. Secondly, those of us who still belong in some way to a tradition have a duty to reclaim our traditions in the name of our new hunger, and not allow the great traditions to be owned by people who are into power and control. We need to stand up and say, we are the tradition, the representatives of it now, its members and inhabitants, we have these hungers which leads to this kind of conversation, and maybe do something practical about it.”
-
“Where are the voices of those who have a trenchant critique of where we’re going as a culture?” chides Donohue. “The media need to exercise some kind of reflexivity. They’ve set themselves up as non-elected custodians of sensationalism. There are huge questions which the media never go near.
-
“Consumerism’s liturgy is in service of the god of quantity and its rituals are advertising, and advertising is essentially schooling in false desire. So when you get your desire going in the wrong direction toward ‘fast food’ spirituality or whatever, then you only deepen and deepen and deepen the hunger.”
-
-
Links use of medicinal plants to specific issues and ailments.
-
People still use plants more than any
other source of medicines.These pages make sense of the science and
the stories.
-
Note: this site is being
developed
as a platform for reliable and independent information on the
use of plants in health care -
Most plant remedies are sold
as dietary or food supplements. However medicine standards are the best
way to assure useful dosage and verified quality.
Here is how to make sense of this. Check also:
-
-
Healing Cancer Naturally: Detoxification to Help Cure and Prevent Cancer & Other Diseases
-
Dr. Carrel comments: “The cell is immortal. It is merely the fluid in which it floats that degenerates. Renew this fluid at regular intervals [detoxification], give the cell something on which to feed [proper diet & nutrition] and, so far as we know, the pulsation of life may go on forever.”*
-
“Detoxification is the final expulsion of waste materials through the various excretory organs. Detoxification takes place in the human body continually from birth throughout life. Life in the human body is maintained by the
reproduction of cells, new cells arising to take the place of dead and worn-out ones. It is in a constant process of self-renewal. Cells are constantly being broken down and cells are just as constantly being renewed or
replaced.” -
Elnora van Winkle, Neurophysiologist, writes in her book The Toxic Mind, “[s]ince the time of Hippocrates it has been understood that symptoms of most
diseases, other than degenerative disorders where irreversable organic damage has been sustained, represent the efforts of the body to eliminate toxins. Any substance, endogenous or exogenous, that cannot be utilized by the
cells is recognized as toxic and eliminated. When elimination is impaired, toxins accumulate. The cells adapt to toxicosis, but when levels of toxin become intolerable the body initiates a detoxification process. Toxicosis
is the true disease, and what we call disease is remedial action, a complex of symptoms caused by the vicarious elimination of toxins. Recovery from disease is not because of remedies but in spite of them.” -
15 Detoxification Tips: Getting/Maintaining
Your Cells, Body and Environment Clean
(Release/Removal of Toxin Overload)
-
-
-
The ultimate Wikipedia articles search engine
-
-
The Organic Center :: State of Science :: Nutritional Quality
Study concludes that organic foods are nutritionally superior to non-organic, contradicting FSA study.
-
Over 40 new studies have come out since the last review was carried out — studies that dramatically improve our ability to answer a basic question — are organic foods generally more nutritious than conventional foods?
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 08/03/2009
-
Discover the Power of Cocoa Powder
Link to lowering blood pressure.
-
hypertensive rats fed a moderate dose of powdered chocolate dropped their systolic blood pressure rates by an average of 50 mmHg after a single dose. The cocoa content was 70 percent.
-
the hypertensive rats that received 300 milligrams of cocoa powder had a systolic blood pressure reading that dropped 60 mmHg four hours after the dose.
-
“The results obtained suggest that [hot cocoa] could be used as a functional food ingredient with potential therapeutic benefit in the treatment and prevention of hypertension.”
-
Contrary to popular belief, the average cup of hot cocoa contains more flavonoids than other highly concentrated antioxidant drinks, like red wine and green tea.
-
look for all-natural sources of cocoa.
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 08/01/2009
-
Organic Versus Conventional Food: UK Report Flawed – Annotated
-
But reading it makes one wonder if influence caused a misreading of the findings, and in addition, if the agency has addressed the wrong questions entirely.
-
Even with very few studies comparing organic to conventional out there, evidence has proven that certain nutrients, such as Vitamin C and antioxidants, are on average higher in organic food.
- Provides evidence to contradict findings. – post by exploringlife
-
Across all the valid matched pairs and the 11 nutrients included in [The Organic Center] study, nutrient levels in organic food averaged 25% higher than in conventional food. Given that some of the most significant differences favoring organic foods were for key antioxidant nutrients that most Americans do not get enough of on most days, the team concluded that the consumption of organic fruits and vegetables, in particular, offered significant health benefits, roughly equivalent to an additional serving of a moderately nutrient dense fruit or vegetable on an average day.
-
he Soil Association in the UK also pointed out yesterday that the FSA left out a more rigorous report commissioned by the European Union that found a range of “nutritionally desirable compounds” like antioxidants, vitamins, and glycosinolates were present in greater amounts in organic crops, while the amount of “nutritionally undesirable compounds” like mycotoxins, glycoalkaloids, cadmium and nickel were present in lower amounts by comparison in organic crops.
-
ignored the 15 relevant studies that have come out since their February 2008 cut off date that could have changed the outcome of the report.
-
Aside from nutrients, contaminants are not considered in the FSA report.
-
investigators’ claimed that these questions were “beyond the scope” of this report, but that also might be due to a certain interest in keeping the scope small and thus the outcomes skewed.
-
A look at the profiles of the head of FSA reveals former employees of agribusinesses like Arla Foods (now part of Europe’s largest dairy), Sarah Lee Corporation, and UK grocery giant Sainsbury’s. Therefore it is not hard to assume that the perspective leans towards what is best for agribusiness interests.
-
By rendering the playing field equal for conventional farmers, the government and the agricultural sector wouldn’t have to begin the difficult work of shifting the unwieldy agricultural system towards sustainability.
-
Leaving aside the nutrient question, organic agriculture helps improve the soil, protects farm workers from exposure to toxic chemicals, places an emphasis on animal welfare, and keeps toxic runoff out of our waterways. In so doing, sustainable agriculture improves not just our personal health, but our collective environmental health.
-
The nutrient content in our food is going down because our soil is being degraded.
-
Instead of focusing on puny reports that tell us next to nothing and yet dominate the media with simple binaries, we should be taking an integrative approach to analyzing data and therefore face the hard truths before us. Sustainable agriculture improves the food we eat by improving our environment.
-
-
Ignore the FSA, It is still better to buy organic – Telegraph
-
It is a pity that the focus has been on nutrition. All food is nutritious; having no food is what kills. The wider benefits of organic foods are still worth pursuing. It is what food does not contain and the effects that it does not have that really matter.
-
-
Nutritional quality of organic foods: a systematic review
A prime example of the blinding ignorance of science.
-
Conclusions: On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods.
-
-
Food Standards Agency: Nutrition: Organic vs Non-organic Food – Annotated
States that there is no nutritional benefit to organic vs. non-organic.
-
An independent review commissioned by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) shows that there are no important differences in the nutrition content, or any additional health benefits, of organic food when compared with conventionally produced food. The focus of the review was the nutritional content of foodstuffs.
- Clearly and idiotic conclusion. – post by exploringlife
-
What it shows is that there is little, if any, nutritional difference between organic and conventionally produced food and that there is no evidence of additional health benefits from eating organic food.
-
This research was split into two separate parts, one of which looked at differences in nutrient levels and their significance, while the other looked at the health benefits of eating organic food.
- No attention given to toxic elements present in non-organic vs. organic. – post by exploringlife
-
Dr Dangour, of the LSHTM’s Nutrition and Public Health Intervention Research Unit, and the principal author of the paper, said: ‘A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced crops and livestock, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance. Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.’
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/29/2009
-
Regional Seafood Watch Card | Monterey Bay Aquarium
Carry the pocket guide that’s right for your region to help you choose ocean-friendly seafood wherever you live or travel.
-
Getting to know pathogens – Wikiversity
Provides list of variants that influence to what degree people suffer from an infectious disease.
-
Human variability [edit]
We often speak of “the human body” and “human-microbe interactions” but it is wrong to think that all people have similar interactions with micro-organisms. It is important to keep in mind the full spectrum of human variability.
Sources of variation in host susceptibility to microbes:
- variation in nutritional status,
- variation in levels of stress and circulating stress hormones,
- variation in genes that confer resistance to microbes,
- variations in somatic cell mutations involved in immune system function,
- physical damage to tissues can open tissue barriers that normally limit microbial infections.
- Behavioral differences. Some behaviors promote health and avoid pathogens, other behaviors damage defenses and bring people into contact with pathogenic microbes.
- Example: intravenous drug use allows exposure to disease-causing microbes.
-
Medical Microbiology: Infectious Diseases
Samual Baron’s book “Medical Microbiology” online: Section 1. Bacteriology; Section 2. Virology; Section 3. Mycology; Section 4. Parasitology. Section 5. Introduction to Infectious Diseases
-
There is little doubt that the future will continue to reveal the infectious diseases as major medical problems.
-
A number of other terms are commonly used in describing the infectious diseases. Pathology refers to the abnormality induced by an infection, and pathogenesis to the events producing the pathology. A pathogenic microorganism is a microbe that can cause pathology. Disease refers to the existence of pathology and an infectious disease is a disease caused by a microorganism. Virulence is a term referring to the power of a microbe to produce disease in a particular host. For example, a microorganism may be avirulent for a normal host and highly virulent for an immunosuppressed host. Immunity refers to the degree of resistance of the host for a particular microbe. Finally, it must be appreciated that the occurrence of an infectious disease in a human is a dynamic process that represents a host-parasite interaction. The parasite attempts to multiply and the host defenses seek to control this effort.
-
The infectious diseases are usually characterized by the dominant organ system involved. This classification is useful as a guide in approaching patients. For example, patients do not present complaining of pneumococcal pneumonia; patients present complaining of fever, cough, and chest pain. The physician localizes the disease to the chest (respiratory infection) and then proceeds to develop data proving the presence of a pneumonia caused by the pneumococcus. Thus, we classify infections as respiratory infections, gastrointestinal infections, genitourinary infections, nervous system infections, skin and soft tissue infections, bone and joint infections, cardiovascular infections, and generalized (disseminated) infections. The chapters in this section are organized according to this scheme.
-
Environmental Defence protects the environment and human health. We research solutions. We educate. We go to court when we have to. All in order to ensure clean air, clean water and thriving ecosystems nationwide, and to bring a halt to Canada’s contribution to climate change.
Slow Poisoning By Food Additives
An overview of the neurotoxic effects of aspartame and MSG.
-
“Aspartame causes headache, memory loss, seizures, vision loss, coma and
cancer. It worsens or mimics the symptoms of such diseases and conditions as fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, ADD, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, chronic fatigue and
depression. Aspartame liberates free methyl alcohol. The resulting chronic methanol poisoning affects the dopamine system of the brain causing addiction. Methanol, or wood alcohol, constitutes one-third of the aspartame molecule and is classified as a severe metabolic poison and narcotic.” -
In 1995, the FDA was forced to release a list of 92 aspartame symptoms reported by thousands of victims.
-
How would you feel when you learn the food industry hides and disguises
these excitotoxin additives (MSG and Aspartate) so they can’t be recognized? Incredulous? Enraged? The fact is many foods are labeled as having “No MSG” but in fact not only contain MSG but also are laced with other excitotoxins of equal potency and danger. -
As discussed previously, the glutamate (MSG) manufacturers and the processed food industries are always on a quest to disguise the MSG added to food. Below is a partial list of the most common names for disguised MSG. Remember also that the powerful excitotoxins, aspartate and L-cystine, are frequently added to foods and according to FDA rules require NO LABELING AT ALL.
-
Aspartame complaints accounts for approximately 70% of ALL complaints to the FDA. It is implicated in everything from blindness to headaches to convulsions.
-
- DKP (diketopiperazine) (When ingested, converts to a near duplicate of a powerful brain tumor causing agent)
- Formic Acid (ant venom)
- Formaldehyde (embalming fluid)
- Methanol (causes blindness…extremely dangerous substance)
aspartame breaks down within 20 minutes at room temperature into several primary toxic and dangerous ingredients:
-
John Erb, author of the book The Slow Poisoning of America believes that MSG is added to food for the addictive effect it has on the human body. It is the food industry’s equivalent to Nicotine.
-
items that didn’t have MSG had something called Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, which is just another name for Monosodium Glutamate.
‘Pandemic’ Vaccine Risk – In the News – Vaccination Risk Awareness Network
-
Canada was the first country in the world to sign a contract for the purchase of a pandemic influenza vaccine.
-
In 2001, Bill C-42, The Public Safety Act, was given first reading in parliament. This act included a section which would have granted emergency powers to ministers, including the right of the Minister of Health to order compulsory vaccinations. In addition, the normal requirements for safety testing would have been waved for emergency vaccines.
-
The Quarantine Act, adopted as law in 2005, allows a quarantine officer to order a traveler, whether entering or leaving any point in Canada, to accept treatment or any other measure for preventing the introduction and spread of communicable disease. Of course, this means that anyone traveling to or from another country may be ordered to accept vaccination; it also includes compulsory vaccination of anyone traveling within Canada.
-
he contends that the contamination of 72 kg of conventional influenza vaccine shipped in February, 2009 to sixteen labs in Slovenia, Czech Republic, Germany and Austria was intended to trigger a bird flu pandemic.
-
Dr Butler-Jones says Canada may opt for a ‘pandemic’ vaccine which contains adjuvant. This, he says would increase its immunizing power such that more doses could be obtained and still leave enough vaccine available for the rest of the world. The downside he doesn’t mention is that, for the very reason that adjuvants boost the immune response, they also increase the chance for injury. The conventional influenza vaccines currently licensed for use in Canada do not contain adjuvant, although they do contain mercury. Mercury is not only highly toxic by itself, it also greatly increases the toxic effects of the commonly used adjuvant aluminum.
-
The swine flu ‘pandemic’ may prove to be a testing ground for discovering how much the public is willing to meekly succumb to the pressure to vaccinate and/or how much the authorities are willing to thoughtfully reconsider.
Swine Flu Vaccine: Will We Have A Choice?
-
What a lot of people don’t know is that true type A or type B influenza only causes about 20 percent of all flu-like symptoms that people experience during any given flu season6. 80 percent of all flu-like illness in a normal flu season is NOT caused by the type A and B strains of influenza contained in annual flu shots. And vaccine acquired immunity is temporary, while immunity gained after recovering from influenza is longer lasting
-
The good news about the new swine flu going around is that there are signs those of us born before 1957, may be naturally protected and at LOWER risk of being infected11,12. Why? Because we recovered from influenza caused by similar influenza strains that circulated in past decades and have long lasting antibodies that help us resist infection.
-
Whenever the CDC declares a public health emergency, that declaration allows the Food and Drug Administration to permit emergency use authorization for drug companies to fast track creation of experimental drugs and vaccines that do not have to be tested as thoroughly as vaccines that go through the normal FDA licensing process17. In this case, Congress responded to the public health emergency declaration by giving a group of drug companies one billion dollars18 to fast track experimental swine flu vaccines that may include whole live19, killed or genetically engineered human and animal influenza viruses, chemicals, and potentially reactive oil based adjuvants that manipulate the immune system to boost the vaccine’s potency
-
As Department of Homeland Security officials are declaring that any disease outbreak is a matter of homeland security26,27; as Department of Defense officials are defining public demonstrations as “low level terrorism;”28 as CDC officials make plans to re-route airplanes to designated airports with quarantine centers to screen all passengers for signs of swine flu29; and as fast tracked experimental pandemic flu vaccines are being created to be given to American children first, it is time for all of us – whether we are public health officials addressing what we believe is a true public health emergency or whether we are ordinary citizens simply trying to protect our health and the health of our children – to act in rational and responsible ways.
Do Drug Companies Secretly Favor a World Flu Pandemic? – Annotated
-
Ms. Sebelius’ remark was likely prompted by the fact the swine flu virus is showing itself to have mild symptoms, quick recovery time, and low incidence of death among the vast majority of H1N1 patients throughout the world (with the single exception of Mexico).
A little over a month later, on June 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its swine flu pandemic alert from a 5 to a 6. [2] Phase 6 is the highest level alert, and reflects the speed with which a virus is spreading – not its severity.
-
WHO actually considers the severity of the H1N1 virus to be moderate, generally defined as an illness requiring neither hospitalization nor even medical care.
-
Why this sudden urgency to mass vaccinate, now that the real risks of the swine flu have been shown to be both mild and infrequent?
-
Numerous studies have shown that flu shots simply do not work.
-
“We conclude that frailty selection bias and use of non-specific endpoints such as all-cause mortality have led cohort studies to greatly exaggerate vaccine benefits.”
-
Most flu vaccines contain dangerous levels of mercury in the form of thimerosal, a deadly preservative that is 50 times more toxic than regular mercury.[10] If taken in high enough doses, it can result in long-term immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioral dysfunctions.
Disorders associated with mercury poisoning include autism, attention deficit disorder, multiple sclerosis, and speech and language deficiencies.
-
Other toxic substances found in various flu vaccines include:
Ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
Neomycin and streptomycin (antibiotics)
Resin and gelatin – known to cause allergic reactions
Formaldehyde – a known cancer causing agent
Aluminum — a neurotoxin linked to Alzheimer’s disease
Polysorbate 80 (Tween80™) – which can cause severe allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis
Phenol (carbolic acid)
Triton X100 (detergent)
Egg proteins (including avian viruses)
-
Baxter is nothing if not aggressive about getting their influenza vaccines to market. In December, a Baxter facility in Austria sent a human flu vaccine contaminated with deadly H5N1 live avian flu virus to 18 countries, including the Czech Republic. According to a report by The Times of India, the two viruses seem to have been “mixed in error.”[11]
The report continues,
“Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences. While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.”
Czech newspapers questioned how the potentially deadly contamination was possible. Baxter’s position is it was human error. Other sources, however, maintain the cross-contamination was virtually impossible in light of Baxter’s adherence to the highest level of laboratory safety, Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3).[12]
The same Czech newspapers, among others, questioned whether Baxter was involved in a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.
- Conspiracy theory. – post by exploringlife
-
As predicted, Tamiflu is likely useless against the novel strain of flu.
-
Overall, I find it interesting that despite the fact that the virus may be developing resistance to one of the frontline antivirals, it’s mutating into very MILD disease that you’re likely to recover from without much fuss…
-
here’s a great deal of money, political power and momentum behind the swine flu pandemic fear mongering movement,
-
I agree with Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccination Information Center (NVIC), who says:
“Citizens around the world can be easily manipulated by doctors and politicians engaging in fear mongering in the name of disease controls to forward agendas that have more to do with ideology, power and corporate profits than health.”
-
-
Optimize your vitamin D levels. Vitamin D deficiency is the likely cause of seasonal flu viruses. Getting an optimal level of vitamin D will help you fight infections of all kinds.
-
Eliminate sugar and processed foods from your diet. Sugar consumption has an immediate, debilitating effect on your immune system.
-
Address the stress effectively. If you feel overwhelmed by stress, your body will not have the reserves it needs to fight infection.
-
Exercise. Your immune system needs good circulation in order to perform at its best for you.
-
Take a high quality source of animal-based omega 3 fats like Krill Oil.
- Wash your hands. But not with an antibacterial soap. Use a pure, chemical-free soap.
Take care of your health to reduce or eliminate your risk of contracting the flu. The key is to keep your immune system strong by following these guidelines:
-
Ten Things You’re Not Supposed to Know about the Swine Flu Vaccine by Mike Adams the Health Ranger
-
The swine flu vaccines now being prepared for mass injection into infants, children, teens and adults have never been tested and won’t be tested before the injections begin.
-
the swine flu vaccine could be a modern medical disaster.
-
The vaccine production was “rushed” and the vaccine has never been tested on humans.
-
Swine flu vaccines contain dangerous adjuvants that cause an inflammatory response in the body.
-
The swine flu vaccine could actually increase your risk of death from swine flu
-
The U.S. government has granted drug companies complete immunity against vaccine product liability.
-
No swine flu vaccine works as well as vitamin D to protect you from influenza.
-
Even if the swine flu vaccine actually works, mathematically speaking if everyone else around you gets the vaccine, you don’t need one!
-
he swine flu vaccine centers that will crop up all over the world in the coming months aren’t completely useless: They will provide an easy way to identify large groups of really stupid people.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/27/2009
-
Detoxification is the term used to describe the process your body goes through to get rid of toxins.
-
What is it?
Detoxification is the term used to describe the process your body
goes through to get rid of toxins. -
Clogged sinus
Constipation
Cough
Diarrhea
Fatigue
Fever
Flu symptoms
Cold symptoms
Gas
Headache
Irritability
Moodiness
Skin rash
Stomachache -
When you make a change in diet or lifestyle, through stopping a bad
habit or eating better, your cells begin to eliminate the toxic
substances. Before finding the exit, however, the toxins are released
into the bloodstream and are carried through the circulatory system. -
How severe are the symptoms and how long do they last?
How long the symptoms last and how severe they are depend on your
lifestyle before making a change and how quickly you make a change. If
you have a diet heavy in red meats, for example, and become a vegetarian
overnight, you might have severe symptoms for a time. If your lifestyle
changes are gradual, the symptoms could be less severe. The duration of
the symptoms might not be linear; there is a greater chance that they
will come in cycles. -
The hardest thing for many people to do is accept that they are not
sick and realize that the body is cleansing itself. Once you get beyond
this psychological barrier, the process becomes easy. The most important
thing to do can be summed up in one word: Rest.
-
-
Detoxification Symptoms – Some Unpleasant Symptoms And Their Causes
-
A splitting headache, chills, nausea, a dripping nose, increased body odor, reappearance of old aches and pains, rashes, boils, drastic weight loss—all the symptoms that can shake the faith of the most sincere health seeker.
Without proper understanding or support, you could panic at these symptoms and believe your new diet or way of life is the cause of them. You might revert to your old unhealthy practices because you became afraid.
-
-
Raw Food Diet – My Detox Symptoms (Part I) | Raw And Living Foods
-
And then the big detox symptoms came. I felt really lethargic, tired, and suffered an intense cold which lasted a full week. I slept most of the time, drinking only blended soups because no food could make it through the mountain of ulcers in my mouth! I had fever too, and it was simply miserable!
-
-
Vitamin Supplements – Good, The Bad And The Ugly
-
“This idea that supplements are safe to use is unproven – they haven`t been around for long enough.
“People taking high dose supplements are the guinea pigs of the future. There’s no way you can record adverse effects for high levels of supplements, and absence of reported effects does not mean there’s an absence of effects.”
-
-
-
And you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat ”food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.
-
Last winter came the news that a low-fat diet, long believed to protect against breast cancer, may do no such thin
-
The story of how the most basic questions about what to eat ever got so complicated reveals a great deal about the institutional imperatives of the food industry, nutritional science and — ahem — journalism
-
Foods by comparison were coarse, old-fashioned and decidedly unscientific things — who could say what was in them, really? But nutrients — those chemical compounds and minerals in foods that nutritionists have deemed important to health — gleamed with the promise of scientific certainty; eat more of the right ones, fewer of the wrong, and you would live longer and avoid chronic diseases.
-
The first thing to understand about nutritionism — I first encountered the term in the work of an Australian sociologist of science named Gyorgy Scrinis — is that it is not quite the same as nutrition.
-
In the case of nutritionism, the widely shared but unexamined assumption is that the key to understanding food is indeed the nutrient.
-
I’ll leave the premise alone for now, except to point out that it is not shared by all cultures and that the experience of these other cultures suggests that, paradoxically, viewing food as being about things other than bodily health — like pleasure, say, or socializing — makes people no less healthy; indeed, there’s some reason to believe that it may make them more healthy.
-
So nutritionism is good for business. But is it good for us?
-
But if nutritionism leads to a kind of false consciousness in the mind of the eater, the ideology can just as easily mislead the scientist. Most nutritional science involves studying one nutrient at a time, an approach that even nutritionists who do it will tell you is deeply flawed. ”The problem with nutrient-by-nutrient nutrition science,” points out Marion Nestle, the New York University nutritionist, ”is that it takes the nutrient out of the context of food, the food out of the context of diet and the diet out of the context of lifestyle.”
-
But people worried about their health needn’t wait for scientists to settle this question before deciding that it might be wise to eat more plants and less meat.
-
Nestle also cautions against taking the diet out of the context of the lifestyle.
-
In the end, the biggest, most ambitious and widely reported studies of diet and health leave more or less undisturbed the main features of the Western diet: lots of meat and processed foods, lots of added fat and sugar, lots of everything — except fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
-
Scientists operating with the best of intentions, using the best tools at their disposal, have taught us to look at food in a way that has diminished our pleasure in eating it while doing little or nothing to improve our health.
-
In nature, that is of course precisely what eating has always been: relationships among species in what we call food chains, or webs, that reach all the way down to the soil
-
”Health” is, among other things, the byproduct of being involved in these sorts of relationships in a food chain
-
these ecological relationships are between eaters and whole foods, not nutrients.
-
From Complexity to Simplicity. If there is one word that covers nearly all the changes industrialization has made to the food chain, it would be simplification
-
Medicine is learning how to keep alive the people whom the Western diet is making sick.
-
1. Eat food. Though in our current state of confusion, this is much easier said than done. So try this: Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. (Sorry, but at this point Moms are as confused as the rest of us, which is why we have to go back a couple of generations, to a time before the advent of modern food products.) There are a great many foodlike items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn’t recognize as food (Go-Gurt? Breakfast-cereal bars? Nondairy creamer?); stay away from these.
2. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They’re apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best. Don’t forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim that it was more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, turned out to give people heart attacks. When Kellogg’s can boast about its Healthy Heart Strawberry Vanilla cereal bars, health claims have become hopelessly compromised. (The American Heart Association charges food makers for their endorsement.) Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health.
3. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.None of these characteristics are necessarily harmful in and of themselves, but all of them are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed.
-
4. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. You won’t find any high-fructose corn syrup at the farmer’s market; you also won’t find food harvested long ago and far away. What you will find are fresh whole foods picked at the peak of nutritional quality. Precisely the kind of food your great-great-grandmother would have recognized as food.
5. Pay more, eat less. The American food system has for a century devoted its energies and policies to increasing quantity and reducing price, not to improving quality. There’s no escaping the fact that better food — measured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond) — costsmore, because it has been grown or raised less intensively and with more care. Not everyone can afford to eat well in America, which is shameful, but most of us can: Americans spend, on average, less than 10 percent of their income on food, down from 24 percent in 1947, and less than the citizens of any other nation. And those of us who can afford to eat well should. Paying more for food well grown in good soils — whether certified organic or not — will contribute not only to your health (by reducing exposure to pesticides) but also to the health of others who might not themselves be able to afford that sort of food: the people who grow it and the people who live downstream, and downwind, of the farms where it is grown.
”Eat less” is the most unwelcome advice of all, but in fact the scientific case for eating a lot less than we currently do is compelling. ”Calorie restriction” has repeatedly been shown to slow aging in animals, and many researchers (including Walter Willett, the Harvard epidemiologist) believe it offers the single strongest link between diet and cancer prevention. Food abundance is a problem, but culture has helped here, too, by promoting the idea of moderation. Once one of the longest-lived people on earth, the Okinawans practiced a principle they called ”Hara Hachi Bu”: eat until you are 80 percent full. To make the ”eat less” message a bit more palatable, consider that quality may have a bearing on quantity: I don’t know about you, but the better the quality of the food I eat, the less of it I need to feel satisfied. All tomatoes are not created equal.
-
6. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. Scientists may disagree on what’s so good about plants — the antioxidants? Fiber? Omega-3s? — but they do agree that they’re probably really good for you and certainly can’t hurt. Also, by eating a plant-based diet, you’ll be consuming far fewer calories, since plant foods (except seeds) are typically less ”energy dense” than the other things you might eat. Vegetarians are healthier than carnivores, but near vegetarians (”flexitarians”) are as healthy as vegetarians. Thomas Jefferson was on to something when he advised treating meat more as a flavoring than a food.
7. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are. Any traditional diet will do: if it weren’t a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn’t still be around. True, food cultures are embedded in societies and economies and ecologies, and some of them travel better than others: Inuit not so well as Italian. In borrowing from a food culture, pay attention to how a culture eats, as well as to what it eats. In the case of the French paradox, it may not be the dietary nutrients that keep the French healthy (lots of saturated fat and alcohol?!) so much as the dietary habits: small portions, no seconds or snacking, communal meals — and the serious pleasure taken in eating. (Worrying about diet can’t possibly be good for you.) Let culture be your guide, not science.
8. Cook. And if you can, plant a garden. To take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance is the surest way to escape the culture of fast food and the values implicit in it: that food should be cheap and easy; that food is fuel and not communion. The culture of the kitchen, as embodied in those enduring traditions we call cuisines, contains more wisdom about diet and health than you are apt to find in any nutrition journal or journalism. Plus, the food you grow yourself contributes to your health long before you sit down to eat it. So you might want to think about putting down this article now and picking up a spatula or hoe.
-
9. Eat like an omnivore. Try to add new species, not just new foods, to your diet. The greater the diversity of species you eat, the more likely you are to cover all your nutritional bases. That of course is an argument from nutritionism, but there is a better one, one that takes a broader view of ”health.” Biodiversity in the diet means less monoculture in the fields. What does that have to do with your health? Everything. The vast monocultures that now feed us require tremendous amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to keep from collapsing. Diversifying those fields will mean fewer chemicals, healthier soils, healthier plants and animals and, in turn, healthier people. It’s all connected, which is another way of saying that your health isn’t bordered by your body and that what’s good for the soil is probably good for you, too.
-
-
Marion Nestle: Which is better – food or nutrients?
-
We are omnivores. The human body is set up to handle and make excellent use of an enormous variety of edible plants and animals.
-
Nothing could be more overused than nutritionists’ endlessly intoned advice: “Balance, variety and moderation are the keys to healthful diets.”
-
We require or do better if we eat enough of about 50 nutrients – vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, fiber, antioxidants and water – that our bodies cannot make. We have to eat these in foods. Even if you knew the exact nutrient composition of the foods you were eating, you would have a hard time computing 50 nutrients.
Fortunately, you don’t need to. Foods contain nutrients. If you eat foods, you get nutrients. Somehow, humanity, in all its amazing variation, has survived to the present and is doing pretty well without having to deal with computer printouts of nutrient intakes every day.
-
Variety, tritely, may be the spice of life but it is also a basic principle of nutrition. Foods contain many nutrients but in different proportions
-
We are not talking about a variety of junk foods.
-
Cooking is a form of processing, but its effects are complicated
-
If you eat both raw and cooked foods, you get the best of both.
-
Japanese dietary guidelines explicitly advocate variety when they suggest eating 30 different foods a day
-
Moderation is about energy balance and calories.
-
If you include fruits, vegetables and whole grains in your daily diet, and vary the food plants and animals you eat, you really don’t need to worry about nutrients.
-
There isn’t much evidence that taking a daily supplement makes healthy people healthier, but if it makes you feel better, go for it.
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/26/2009
-
Atlas Obscura | Wondrous, curious, and bizarre locations around the world
Welcome to the Atlas Obscura, a compendium of this age’s wonders, curiosities, and esoterica. The Atlas Obscura is a collaborative project with the goal of cataloging all of the singular, eccentric, bizarre, fantastical, and strange out-of-the-way places that get left out of traditional travel guidebooks and are ignored by the average tourist.
-
EDITORIAL: Healing with Subtle Energy – Annotated
-
During the past century, we have developed in the West a model of healing that perhaps has extended our lives, but which has also taken our personal power and ability to heal our own bodies away from us. This model says that the essential skills of healing can be possessed only by a cadre of elite beings who have received nearly a decade of complicated scientific education and training. Our bodies are no longer our own.
-
Allopathy is actually an outgrowth of ancient forms of healing that relied upon physical means. But instead of using the gentle, natural vibrations of crystals, stones, rods, trees, flowers, herbs, oils, colors, sounds, and water — natural substances that can help by using subtle energies — allopathic medicine took off in another direction. It started creating artificial medicines. And these have very powerful, unnatural vibrations. These unnatural vibrations are a part of the problem with modern medicine, for they produce side effects that are sometimes more serious than the diseases they were meant to cure.
-
And these distorted emotional and mental patterns further create distorted energy patterns in our bodies and surrounding fields. And until these distortions are removed or balanced, even if we seem to be free of symptoms, we will become sick again, developing perhaps a different illness, but one whose cause is the same as the illness we had before.
-
if the body is seen only as energy — a valid perception based on quantum physics — then healing becomes a problem solved with energy and by energy. This is the basic ground of being for all subtle energy healing.
-
It is a model of life energy, or ”chi,” flowing gently, smoothly, and powerfully through the body and the energy fields that surround it. No matter what the alternative therapeutic modality, this energetic model lies behind and beyond every form of alternative healing.
-
discarnate spirits
- A discarnate spirit is viewed as a foreign entity that creates an unbalanced vibration (energy), and therefore leads to mental, emotional and physical distress.. – post by exploringlife
-
no matter what the healing approach, the goal is to nourish and balance the energy field. If we start at the level of pure consciousness, we will be able to know, intuitively, which physical methods might help us to replenish our life force energy once it has become exhausted, and release that which we do not need.
- Energy – pure consciousness – intuition – innate knowing – self awareness – post by exploringlife
-
When we know who we are
- The universal fabric of energy that is consciousness? – post by exploringlife
-
he natural energy of the soul, and that is called love
-
In healing, whether it is ourselves or another person, love is more important than technique.
-
subtle energy is a natural and innate ability within every person alive, which we have forgotten because of the way that society has developed
-
-
More Messages in Water with Dr. Masaru Emoto
An interview with Dr. Emoto that reveals his thoughts about water and spirituality.
-
From your research, are you able to discern whether the reaction of the water came from the vibration of the actual words that were pasted onto the bottles, or whether the intention of the person who was pasting the words onto the bottle influenced the experiment in any way?
DR. EMOTO:
This is one of the more difficult areas to clarify. However, from continuing these experiments we have come to the conclusion that the water is reacting to the actual words. -
The intention and prayers of the person still influenced the water. We have not yet tried further experiments from a long distance. However, my feeling is that distance would not make much of a difference. What would make a difference is the purity of intent of the person doing the praying. The higher the purity of intent, the less of a difference the distance itself would make.
-
Since the water reflects the composite energy of what is being sent to it, the crystalline structure reflects the composite vibrations of the group. So one person praying reflects the energy or intention of that one person. In terms of how powerful the effect can be, if you have one person praying with a deep sense of clarity and purity, the crystalline structure will be clear and pure. And even though you may have a large group of people, if their intention as a group is not cohesive, you end up with an incohesive structure in the water. However, if everyone is united together, you will find a clear, beautiful crystal, like one created by the prayer of a single person of deep purity.
-
he water is changed instantaneously.
-
he smaller the clusters, the longer the water will retain its memory.
-
Negative phrases and words create large clusters or will not form clusters, and positive, beautiful words and phrases create small, tight clusters.
-
Think of it in terms of vibration. It’s easy to understand that language — the spoken word — has a vibration. Well, written words also have a vibration. Anything in existence has a vibration.
-
Language is not something artificial, but rather is something that exists naturally. I believe that language is created by nature.
-
Does that mean that every word has its own signature vibration or cluster that is unique to itself?
DR. EMOTO:
Yes. -
So words actually convert the vibrations of nature into sound.
-
But even when there is this mutual underlying meaning, arigato and thank you create different crystalline structures. Every word in every language is unique and exists only in that language.
-
There is a special combination that seems to be perfect for this, which is love plus the combination of thanks and appreciation reflected in the English word gratitude. Just one of these is not enough. Love needs to be based in gratitude, and gratitude needs to be based in love. These two words together create the most important vibration.
-
REIKO:
Do you believe that water itself is conscious and is reacting to the words?
DR. EMOTO:
I understand that many of your readers are people interested in spiritual matters, and I would like to answer this question from that perspective. I believe that prior to Adam and Eve water itself held the consciousness of God — that God’s intention was put into the medium of water, and that this was used in the creation of Earth and Nature. In other words, all of the information needed for God’s Creation was reflected in the water.And then we — Adam and Eve — were placed on Earth to be the caretakers for this Creation of God. I believe that water held the consciousness of God until then, but that after the caretakers were placed on Earth, water became an empty vessel to mirror and reflect what was in the heart. It became a container to carry energy and information. Therefore, since this time, I think water has taken on the quality of simply reflecting the energies and thoughts that it is exposed to; that it no longer has its own consciousness. Water reflects the consciousness of the human race.
-
I came to the realization that these crystals are spirits. There are many parallels. When ice melts, the crystalline structure becomes an illusion. It’s there — and yet it’s not there, because you can no longer see it.
-
I think that the soul has mass, and that it returns to water molecules.
-
We traveled here to Earth on the water crystals of spheres of ice [Editor's Note: You will hear more about this amazing phenomenon in an upcoming issue of the Spirit of Ma'at on the subject of water.] Earth is not our native home. There was nothing here. So these souls can return to their native homes for awhile.
-
ather than being able to detach from our desires, the opposite has been true.
-
So when a person dies, if they are unable to attain sattori at that time, their soul remains on this planet as water?
DR. EMOTO:
That is what I believe, yes. The Japanese character for spirit is a combination of the words ”rain” and ‘’soul.” People who have seen ghosts report seeing them in water or in places where there is a lot of humidity. It’s as if the imprint of the soul, which is in the form of water, suddenly takes form when surrounded by water or moisture — much like a mirage. -
We need to let everybody know about this, and all use beautiful words and offer beautiful music, and create beauty in the environment.
-
the crystalline structure of our soul emerges. It’s like water. When water turns to ice, the crystalline structure becomes visible, but it also becomes immobile. So ”crystal” equals ‘’spirit.”
-
-
Water: Interview with Dr. Emoto
-
Messages
come in all forms -
Even
something as basic to life as water has an inherent intelligence through
which it can communicate with us. -
Dr.
Emoto soon realized that everything in existence is alive and has
a vibrational frequency, a magnetic resonance field, which is the
source of energy behind the creation of all things. -
After
much experimentation, Dr. Emoto discovered that the most powerful
combination of thoughts in terms of capacity to transform was that
of “Love and Gratitude.” -
So if we have the power to change the structure of the medium
we are made of by simply producing positive though patterns, we can
restore not only our own health but that of everyone around us, and
even the planet itself, with our every thought.
-
-
Interesting look at procrastination, its effects, and strategies to overcome it.
-
A short synopsis is that procrastination isn’t the problem — it is a symptom of other problems
-
1. Ending procrastination and being more productive is not about tactics.
-
focus less on techniques and more on underlying causes.
-
2. “Procrastination is a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.”
-
3. You have to get rid of your procrastination addiction.
-
a. It can be a way to express resentment.
-
b. It defends you against fear of failure.
-
c. It defends against fear of success
-
4. The first step towards productivity and away from procrastination is creating safety.
-
5. Play with your internal dialogue, especially when it comes to things you “should,” “must,” or “have” to do. If your attitude is that you have to do something, then you are taking away your power
-
“flow state.” Research at the University of Chicago demonstrate that productivity and creativity flourish when this state is reached. This state can be achieved with practice. In layman’s terms, it can be defined as being totally absorbed in what you are doing without critical thought.
-
-
Success Posts — Hypnosis Network Blog
-
A short synopsis is that procrastination isn’t the problem — it is a symptom of other problems.
-
1. Ending procrastination and being more productive is not about tactics
-
This has helped me focus less on techniques and more on underlying causes.
-
2. “Procrastination is a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.”
-
3. You have to get rid of your procrastination addiction
-
a way to express resentment
-
defends you against fear of failure.
-
defends against fear of success.
-
4. The first step towards productivity and away from procrastination is creating safety.
-
5. Play with your internal dialogue, especially when it comes to things you “should,” “must,” or “have” to do. If your attitude is that you have to do something, then you are taking away your power. Replace these with “choose.”
-
the “flow state.” Research at the University of Chicago demonstrate that productivity and creativity flourish when this state is reached. This state can be achieved with practice.
-
-
Chronic Back Pain Limits Brain Power
-
Recent findings by researchers from Northwestern University have turned this assumption on its head. What they found was that chronic back pain – defined as pain lasting six months or longer – can cause significant and long-lasting damage to the brain, aging it up to 20 times faster than normal.¹
-
One theory on why there is such a large decrease in gray matter is that chronic pain forces nerve cells to work overtime. Even more troubling is the possibility that if chronic back pain is allowed to continue, it may become harder to reverse and less responsive to treatment due to these changes in the brain.
-
“One explanation for the observation of short-term prospective memory deficits may be related to the link between pain and stress and the impact of this relationship on cognitive function,”
-
The brain maybe affected by pain but you should never let pain control how or what you think about. If pain relief is what you are after you must hold a firm belief that you can achieve your goals and if believe heart and soul and keep you’re your thoughts concentrated and coordinated there is no way that you can not achieve what you are after.
-
-
How to Spot a Liar in Four Easy Steps
States that auditory cues are significantly more reliable than visual cues in detecting lies. I wonder if it makes sense to try and pin down a specific mode of perception – isn’t the entire perceptual context the most critical aspect>
-
According to the research, it really is impossible if you are focusing on visual cues.
Looking for visual cues, it turns out, is absolutely the most unreliable way to spot a liar.
-
It turns out the best way to spot a lie is to use your ears.
It is all about what a person says and how they say it.
-
people without deception training are much better at detecting deception when listening to a tape recording of a liar than when watching a video.
-
Here are the four easy ways to spot a lie:***
1. Liars tend to say less. The more someone says, the more likely it is that some of those words are going to haunt them. Lies will have far less detail (in other words, they will be more general).
2. Liars also tend to distance themselves from their lies. They will include fewer references to themselves and won’t use a lot of words indicating feelings. The use of the word, “I” will be less prevalent.
3. Liars never forget. For some reason liars forget that most people forget things so they will never admit they don’t remember a certain aspect of their story. Somehow the lie creates a super human memory – which of course they are inventing.
4. A person will also have more pauses and hesitation when they are lying. It takes energy and thought to lie, this leads to little “thinking” pauses.
-
-
Articles, Research, and Interviews on Hypnosis – Annotated
-
- Via: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2006/05/16/self-help-scam-protection-101-part-1.aspx – post by exploringlife
-
-
How to Protect Yourself From Self-Help Scams
-
The goal here is to provide you with screening methods that will help you decide which self-help tools are right for you and which tools are most likely complete scams.
-
A quick way to eliminate self-help scams is to spot some simple warning signs.
-
he Guru will usually create what is called “The Attractive Personality,” and use social conformity techniques to make you feel like you are an outsider if you do not agree with him (or her).
-
Another sign that the Guru technique is being used is that this person attempts to throw you off-balance by challenging your view of reality. Then once you are confused, he or she gives you an answer that makes you feel secure again
-
the self-help solution is justified by the “fact” that the person offering it has an advanced degree in the subject. The problem is that in quite a few cases, these “degrees” come from phony institutions.
-
there are definitely people who can help you who do NOT have advanced degrees. The point here is that when a person knowingly misrepresents themselves through false degrees and certifications, it is a good indication that what they have to offer is a scam.
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/25/2009
-
MOHLTC – H1N1 Flu Virus (Human Swine Flu)
-
Ontario is working closely with the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the World Health Organization and all the other provinces and territories of Canada to monitor cases of H1N1 flu.
-
-
World Action on Salt and Health (WASH)
-
New Research reveals huge differences in salt contents in global brands
23rd July 2009
• WASH surveyed over 260 food products around the world from KFC, McDonalds, Kellogg’s, Nestle, Burger King and Subway
• Not one product surveyed had the same salt content around the world
New research published today by World Action on Salt and Health ( WASH ) shows that many popular meals eaten in UK high-street restaurants can contain large amounts of salt, in some cases more than twice the daily maximum limit for an adult in a single meal.
World Action on Salt and Health (WASH) has surveyed over 260 food products available around the world from food manufacturers such as KFC, McDonalds, Kellogg’s, Nestle, Burger King and Subway. Not one product surveyed had the same salt content around the world and some displayed huge differences in salt content from one country to another.
-
New Research reveals huge differences in salt contents in global brands
23rd July 2009
• WASH surveyed over 260 food products around the world from KFC, McDonalds, Kellogg’s, Nestle, Burger King and Subway
• Not one product surveyed had the same salt content around the world
New research published today by World Action on Salt and Health ( WASH ) shows that many popular meals eaten in UK high-street restaurants can contain large amounts of salt, in some cases more than twice the daily maximum limit for an adult in a single meal.
World Action on Salt and Health (WASH) has surveyed over 260 food products available around the world from food manufacturers such as KFC, McDonalds, Kellogg’s, Nestle, Burger King and Subway. Not one product surveyed had the same salt content around the world and some displayed huge differences in salt content from one country to another.
-
-
Ethnologue: Introduction to the Printed Volume
-
The purpose of the Ethnologue is to provide a comprehensive listing of the known living languages of the world. The Ethnologue is intended more as a catalog than as an encyclopedia and so provides summary data rather than more extensive descriptions of identified languages. Information comes from numerous sources and is confirmed by consulting both reliable published sources and a network of field correspondents.
-
The demographic, geographic, vitality, development, and linguistic information included in this volume can be useful to linguists, translators, anthropologists, bilingual educators, language planners, government officials, aid workers, potential field investigators, missionaries, students, and others with language interests.
-
Languages as particles, waves, and fields. Scholars are recognizing that languages are not always easily nor best treated as discrete, identifiable, and countable units with clearly defined boundaries between them (Makoni and Pennycook 2006). Rather, a language is more often comprised of continua of features that extend across time, geography, and social space. There is growing attention being given to the roles or functions that language varieties play within the linguistic ecology of a region or a speech community.
-
Language and dialect. Every language is characterized by variation within the speech community that uses it. Those varieties, in turn, are more or less divergent from one another. These divergent varieties are often referred to as dialects. They may be distinct enough to be considered separate languages or sufficiently similar to be considered merely characteristic of a particular geographic region or social grouping within the speech community.
-
Macrolanguages. With this edition of the Ethnologue we include entries for macrolanguages for the first time. The ISO 639-3 standard defines three-letter codes for both individual languages and macrolanguages. The latter are defined in the standard as “multiple, closely related individual languages that are deemed in some usage contexts to be a single language.
-
Sign languages. There are hundreds of sign languages in the world, created and used by deaf people. This edition lists 126 such languages. As the primary language of day-to-day communication for their respective communities of users, these languages fall within the scope of the Ethnologue.
-
Language endangerment is a serious concern to which linguists and language planners have turned their attention in the last two decades. For a variety of reasons, speakers of some languages stop using their language and begin using another
-
The concern about language endangerment is centered, first and foremost, around the factors which motivate speakers to abandon their language and the consequences of language death for the community of (former) speakers of that language. Since language is closely linked to culture, loss of language almost always is accompanied by social and cultural disruptions as well. Secondarily, those concerned about language endangerment recognize the implications of the loss of linguistic diversity both for the linguistic and social environment generally and for the academic community which is devoted to the study of language more specifically.
-
-
Slow Food International | good, clean and fair food
-
Slow
Food is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that
was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance
of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the
food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices
affect the rest of the world.
To do that, Slow Food brings together pleasure and responsibility, and makes them inseparable.
-
-
Carl Honore » In Praise of Slowness
-
What is the Slow Movement?
It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting.
-
That it’s usually a poor use of time. The latest neuro-scientific research suggests what most of us already suspect: that the human brain is not very good at multitasking. Sure there are a few simple or routine tasks we can perform at the same time, but as soon as you have to engage the brain, you really need to focus on one activity at a time. Much of what passes for multitasking is nothing of the sort: it is sequential toggling between activities. And the research suggests that this flitting back and forth is actually very unproductive: tasks can take more than twice as long to complete when performed in this way
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/24/2009
-
-
This ring is for sites that combat & debunk health-related frauds, myths, fads, and fallacies, and are more interested in real, objective, scientific proof, than in the speculative, subjective, and unproven theories and anecdotes of so-Called “Alternative” Medicine
-
-
Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural
-
SlowPlanet.com » Blog Archive » Join the Slow Writing Movement!
-
As a result of the accelerating pace of both writing and publishing, much of what passes for fiction these days would have been considered no more than an early draft only a few years ago. In truth, however, the digital age has simply compounded a problem caused by the increasing hegemony of one school of writing (the Ionic) over another (the Platonic).
-
Platonic writers tend to see their works as imperfect reflections of an unattainable literary ideal.
-
Platonic writers are the antithesis of Grub Street hacks: for them, less is resolutely more. Since publication is, of necessity, an abject compromise with base reality, they agonize over endless revisions (like William H. Gass, whose novel, The Tunnel, was 30 years in the making) or grace the world with a slim volume of acerbic aphorisms whenever they can be arsed (à la Cioran).
-
Ionic Man does not speak: he is spoken through (or played upon like Coleridge’s Aeolian harp), hence the cult of ’spontaneous prose’ in its various guises. The work of art comes as easily as leaves to a tree, appearing fully formed in a blinding flash of inspiration or in an accretive, free-associative manner as if under dictation. In both cases, logorrhoea beckons.
-
‘That isn’t writing; it’s typing’
-
Whereas the Ionics try to merge life and literature into a seamless continuum, the Platonics — spurred on by what Paul Eluard called the ‘difficult desire to endure’ — often sacrifice the present on the altar of posterity. How many works of fiction produced today have any staying power?
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/23/2009
-
National Council Against Health Fraud
-
NCAHF is a private nonprofit, voluntary health agency that focuses upon health misinformation,
fraud, and quackery as public health problems. Our positions are based upon the principles of science that underlie consumer protection law.
We advocate: (a) adequate disclosure in labeling and other warranties to enable consumers to make truly informed choices; (b)
premarketing proof of safety and effectiveness for products and services claimed to prevent, alleviate, or cure any health problem;
and, (c) accountability for those who violate the law.
-
-
NCAHF Statement on Supplement Abuse
Describes dangers of vitamin and mineral supplements.
-
supplements cannot change a poor diet into
a good one -
Few people need to, supplement their diets with pill
-
To assure good nutrition apply the three principles of variety,
balance and moderation -
Combat “trophophobia” (i.e., the fear of nutritious
foods) -
Require warning labels on potentially hazardous supplements
-
- The amount of harm from supplementation is largely unmeasured
which means that knowledge of the extent of harm due to misguided
supplementation is unknown making it impossible to state with
confidence that the amount of harm is small. - The basic dictum that should be followed is that nothing
is safe until demonstrated to be with the burden of proof upon
proponents. - Applying the benefit/risk ratio approach reveals that the
potential benefits of supplementing above the RDA without medical
indication are far fewer than the potential for harm. - The aggressive promotion of megadosing by orthomolecular
zealots needs to be countered by warning labels on the very products
they push. - The widespread amount of irresponsible advertising vitamin
companies ignoring possible drug-nutrient interactions, and nutrient
imbalances needs to be offset. - The failure of the supplement industry to regulate itself
by keeping dosages low enough to discourage overdosing or provide
consumer warnings on potentials for harm clearly shows that the
industry needs this type of regulation. - The human propensity to believe that if a little is good
then more is better needs to be countered. - Long term use of megadoses of some nutrients may decrease
longevity (e.g., zinc appears to lower HDL possibly increasing
the risk of coronary heart disease).
- The amount of harm from supplementation is largely unmeasured
-
NCAHF Position Paper on Herbal Remedies
Reveals lack of substance in claims made about herbs as medicines.
-
Herbal product vendors benefit from society’s romanticized view
that equates “natural” with “safe.” Unfortunately,
the assumption that natural products are safe is false. -
The fact that most drug-abuse substances are of herbal origin
attests to the potential harm of natural substances -
Although the study of herbal medicines has led to medical discoveries,
herbs are often undesirable as sources of medicine. -
Herbs can also be highly toxic. Plants are sources of potent chemicals
because they have developed defenses against natural enemies such
as viruses, bacteria, fungi, and insects as part of the natural
selection process. A review of 2,222 plants reported some antimicrobial
activity in 1,362 of them, but all were too toxic for human use. -
In addition
to fighting cancer, natural plant substances can also cause
cancer. -
Many
other natural substances can induce tumor -
Herbs “intended to prevent, alleviate, mitigate or cure a
mental or physical condition in humans or animals, or alter the
structure or function of the body” are drugs by definition
of the United States Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Drug products
are required by law to provide sufficient information on labels
and/or package inserts to enable people to use them properly.
Included are: (a) description and clinical pharmacology; (b) list
of ingredients; (c) list of indications; (d) information on contraindications
to use; (e) warnings and precautions; (f) what to do if adverse
reactions occur; (g) proper dosage and administration; (h) what
may constitute overdosage. OTC herbal remedies rarely provide
consumers with these important items of information. -
Canada’s regulatory policies on herbal products are more lenient
than in the USA -
Many herbal hucksters not only make unsupported claims
for the safety and efficacy of their products but also condemn
standard drugs that have undergone scientific review processes
that their own products have not withstood. The herbal industry
has been supporting the naturopathic profession financially in
a clear attempt to develop a guild of health care providers that
will promote its products. Naturopathic herbal publications are
not reliable sources of information because they are rooted in
an ideology that imagines that things “natural” are
inherently safe. Naturopathy has no standing in the scientific
community. -
Establish a special category of OTC medicines called “Traditional
Herbal Remedies” (THRs
The World Institute of Slowness Slow Life
-
The World Institute of Slowness was formed in 1999 in
order to facilitate Slow awareness around the
globe.
Eating Healthy: The Myth of Sunscreen
-
I have discovered that wearing sunscreen actually is harmful to your health.
This article below presents a scary perspective.
Robert Paterson’s Weblog: New Ghost Towns
-
John Wasik, author of “The Cul-De-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream,” says this:
“The whole premise of the ‘Cul-De-Sac Syndrome’ is we
hit a dead end,” he said. “We hit a wall of unaffordability. I want to
convey the idea that we are building, selling and developing
communities that are not sustainable.”“Sprawling urban
areas with no public transit or connection to a central city … will
become ghost towns if high energy prices return and persist,” he
writes, adding that both scenarios are likely in a healthy economy.
‘Slow’ movements urge taking care to savor one’s life, food, investments, travel – The Boston Globe
-
Slow food and slow travel are part of a broader slow movement that has expanded to slow cities, slow parenting, slow homes, slow marketing, slow reading, slow transportation, slow craft, slow art, slow energy, slow math, slow science, even slow money.
-
The popularity of slowing down could stem from its implicit challenge to the assumptions that undergird the rat race.
-
slow down and live better
-
The slow movement urges changes in lifestyles and workplace habits that move away from multitasking, competition, and compulsive consumerism. The end result, advocates say, will be better physical and mental health, and more social interaction that can tighten bonds between individuals and their communities.
-
The idea, he says, that “progress equals acceleration’’ was already under assault from many younger people who are seeking deeper meaning in their careers and questioning the old notion that he-who-dies-with-the-most-toys-wins.
-
Norway-based World Institute of Slowness
-
“I see more and experience more when I see less, in a way.’’
‘Slow’ Movements Urge Taking Care to Savor One’s Life, Food, Investments, Travel – Annotated
-
Slow food and slow travel are part of a broader slow movement that has expanded to slow cities, slow parenting, slow homes, slow marketing, slow reading, slow transportation, slow craft, slow art, slow energy, slow math, slow science, even slow money.
-
He emphasizes that does not mean shifting from the fast lane to the breakdown lane, but rather finding “the right speed” for life’s tasks, and “living life rather than rushing through it.” The slow movement urges changes in lifestyles and workplace habits that move away from multitasking, competition, and compulsive consumerism. The end result, advocates say, will be better physical and mental health, and more social interaction that can tighten bonds between individuals and their communities. The movement’s guiding precept is this: Savor experiences rather than marking them off your mental checklist before racing on to the next thing.
- Links speed of experience to quality of experience. – post by exploringlife
-
The chastened national mood has some slow advocates hoping Americans will turn their backs on the culture of acceleration.
Balanced Diet is Better than Vitamin Pills ( Many people use vitamin supplements for…)
-
Many people use vitamin supplements for good health despite the fact that few actually need it, says a leading Britain nutritionist// who argues that the best way to stay healthy is a balanced diet.
People are often seduced into buying pills because they’re worried that food has fewer nutrients than it used to, said Jane Clarke. The best source of vitamins and minerals is freshly picked produce, reported the online edition of Daily Mail.
Vitamins Save Health Costs: Which are the Best for You?
-
Can you imagine what the cost savings would be if we could get people to eat properly? Almost all the vitamins that people spend billions on each year are available for significantly less through–you guessed it–food. By far, the best way to get your nutrients, and the best way to save on health care costs and vitamins, is by eating nutritious foods.
Should You Take Vitamin Supplements?
-
start out with good fuel (raw organic
food): it has most of the vitamins and minerals you need packed right
in there in the perfect balance -
Supplements will not fully
compensate for not eating properly. Use food as your supplement and you
will be much healthier. -
Having said that, there are
certain clinical conditions that clearly warrant, and more than justify,
the use of nutrients and supplements as drug alternatives. I think this
is more than reasonable, and I use this approach frequently. One just
needs to remember to minimize the long-term use of supplements. If a person
is health, I really don’t think he/she should be taking more than five
supplements a day. -
Most fish oil is molecularly
distilled so the mercury is extracted -
I also advise probiotics
-
The other supplement that is
critical for individuals who choose not to eat animal protein is vitamin
B12. Vegetarism is not a very wise choice in my opinion
-
Dehydration occurs when you lose more fluid than you take in, and your body doesn’t have enough water and other fluids to carry out its normal functions. If you don’t replenish lost fluids, you may suffer serious consequences.
Water: How much should you drink every day? – MayoClinic.com
-
How much water should you drink each day?
-
no single formula fits everyone
-
if you drink enough fluid so that you rarely feel thirsty and produce 1.5 liters (6.3 cups) or more of colorless or slightly yellow urine a day, your fluid intake is probably adequate.
Multivitamins — Are they the best thing for you? – MayoClinic.com
-
Over the past few years there has been increasing evidence that multivitamins and single or combination type vitamin/mineral supplements may not provide the health benefit sought by you, the consumer. In some cases the opposite or no beneficial effects have been reported.
-
Let’s look at this way — do you eat a well balanced diet? If so, you may not need a multivitamin and if you take one as a “safety net” know that you may exceed what your body needs or can use.
Antioxidant supplements: Prevention in a pill? – MayoClinic.com – Annotated
-
I’m more convinced than ever that we need to give up the knee-jerk reflex that supplements are a nutritionally effective way to prevent disease.
- Article omits information about the essential need for organic food sources, otherwise we load ourselves with toxins as well. – post by exploringlife
-
Vegetables and fruit are filled with antioxidants in a variety of forms.
-
egetables and fruit contain combinations of these compounds that dynamically interact.
-
we should focus on eating a healthier diet.
Dietary supplements: Nutrition in a pill? – MayoClinic.com
-
Dietary supplements can’t replicate all of the nutrients and benefits of whole foods, such as fruits and vegetables.
-
Whole foods are your best sources of vitamins and minerals
-
- Greater nutrition. Whole foods are complex, containing a variety of the micronutrients your body needs — not just one. An orange, for example, provides vitamin C plus some beta carotene, calcium and other nutrients. A vitamin C supplement lacks these other micronutrients.
- Essential fiber. Whole foods provide dietary fiber. Fiber, as part of a healthy diet, can help prevent certain diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, and it can also help manage constipation.
- Protective substances. Whole foods contain other substances recognized as important for good health. Fruits and vegetables, for example, contain naturally occurring food substances called phytochemicals, which may help protect you against cancer, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. Many are also good sources of antioxidants — substances that slow down oxidation, a natural process that leads to cell and tissue damage.
-
Wellsphere launched WellPages, powered by its innovative Health
Knowledge EngineTM, enabling users to quickly and efficiently find comprehensive, personal answers
and support for their specific health needs – all on one personalized webpage.
Wellsphere’s unique ability to quickly and efficiently answer user’s specific health
needs has made Wellsphere.com one of the leading consumer health websites in the world. -
Wellsphere’s network of writers
and bloggers includes almost 1,500 of the leading medical minds from Stanford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins,
Yale and other top Medical Schools, as well as patients facing difficult diseases who bravely share their
stories of survival. -
In addition to expert and patient articles, WellPages present a holistic view, including relevant news,
articles, videos and pictures from reliable sources ranging from the FDA and Harvard Medical School to
leading health and fitness magazines. Instead of having to spend hours visiting many different websites
to get a complete answer to their health concerns, users can instantly get a complete picture within seconds.
The Truth About Vitamin D Toxicity
-
The single most important fact anyone needs to know about vitamin D is how much nature supplies if we behave naturally, e.g., go into the sun. Humans make at least 10,000 units of vitamin D within 30 minutes of full body exposure to the sun, what is called a minimal erythemal dose.
Vitamin D production in the skin occurs within minutes and is already maximized before your skin turns pink.
Toxicity, Vitamin: eMedicine Emergency Medicine
-
Nonspecific symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and rash, are common with any acute or chronic vitamin overdose. Vitamin-caused symptoms may be secondary to those associated with additives (eg, mannitol), colorings, or binders; these symptoms usually are not severe.
Vitamin Poisoning: Are We Destroying Our Health with Hi-Potency Synthetic Vitamins?
-
What we haven’t been told is that in large dosages, as commonly prescribed by physicians or recommended by vitamin manufacturers, vitamins can become overwhelmingly toxic and the same vitamin treatment that potentially benefit sick individuals may actually devastate healthy individuals
-
Regardless to the undeniable evidence that the human body is not programmed to utilize vitamins in maximum potencies, but rather in optimum potencies (sometimes below the minimum RDA), the industry wants you to believe that high potencies of vitamins yield better results.
-
Consequently, we have been becoming addicts to vitamin megadosages and the vast majority of us are not even aware of this. As you’ll soon see, vitamin abuse is a serious issue that requires very close attention.
-
the evidence shows that vitamin supplements can become toxic to the body in the following circumstances:
- if they’re synthetically produced
- if taken in overly high unnatural dosages.
-
Vitamin poisoning is not a simple problem.
-
What the public hasn’t been fully aware of is that the human species evolved to beneficially utilize nutrients only as they naturally occur in food and not in any other way.
-
humans have adapted to utilize nutrients and vitamins from plant sources in the safest, most efficient way and at exactly the right concentrations needed for the body’s metabolic needs. Human biology is undoubtedly vegetarian-oriented.
-
The human body can’t regulate the absorption of synthetic vitamins, neither can it optimize their levels.
-
supplementation with vitamin C ascorbate devastates the muscle,
-
Unlike the synthetic vitamin C, its natural equivalent is both healthy and safe. Natural vitamin C as originally occurring in plants isn’t just beneficial to the muscle, it is actually essential to the whole body.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/22/2009
-
TheLancet.com – Infectious Diseases
-
The Lancet Infectious Diseases was launched in August, 2001, and is a lively monthly journal of review, opinion, and news covering international issues relevant to clinical infectious diseases specialists worldwide.
-
-
-
A Pandemic Is Declared
On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) signaled that a global pandemic of novel influenza A (H1N1) was underway by raising the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 6. This action was a reflection of the spread of the new H1N1 virus, not the severity of illness caused by the virus. At the time, more than 70 countries had reported cases of novel influenza A (H1N1) infection and there were ongoing community level outbreaks of novel H1N1 in multiple parts of the world.
-
-
What’s “Organic” About Organic? Trailer
-
WHAT’S ORGANIC ABOUT “ORGANIC?” delves into the debates that arise when a grassroots agricultural movement evolves into a booming international market. As the film moves from farm fields to government meetings to industry trade shows, we see the hidden costs of conventional agriculture. We also see how our health, the health of our planet, and the agricultural needs of our society are all intimately connected. The film compels us to look forward, towards a new vision for our culture and encourages us to ask, “What should our future food system look like?”
-
-
40 Superb Psychology Blogs | PsyBlog
-
Forty of the best psychology blogs, chosen to give you a broad sweep of the most interesting content being produced online right now.
The list is split into three sections: first are more general psychological blogs, followed by those with an academic slant, followed by condition specific and patient perspective blogs.
-
-
Top 10 Food Synergy Super Foods
-
There are all types of food synergy, from different nutrients that are found
together in the same whole food, to nutrients in different foods that work
better together, to the synergy in certain dietary patterns (like the
Mediterranean diet, Asian cuisine, The Portfolio Plan, etc.).
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/21/2009
-
Top 10 superfoods — Healthy Food Guide Australia
-
While there is no official definition for the term ‘superfoods’,
natural foods that contain a high concentration of nutrients fall into
the superfood category. These foods are believed to have health
benefits beyond those of ‘common’ foods due to rich phytochemical and
antioxidant content.Antioxidants are known for their ability to fight against the
harmful effects of free radicals, which damage DNA and cells,
contributing to the process of ageing and the development of heart
disease and cancer. But purely focusing on antioxidants overshadows the
broad array of other important nutrients that are found in many foods.
-
-
The Top 10 Superfoods That Will Change Your Life
-
These special, noble foods and herbs fall into three time-proven, yet
brand-new food groups:1. Superfoods: These include foods that have many unique properties.
For example, the goji berry (a superfood) is a source of complete protein,
immune-stimulating polysaccharides, liver-cleansing betaine, anti-aging
sesquiterpenes, antioxidants, over 20 trace minerals, and much, much
more. Compare this to a normal food, such as celery.2. Superherbs: These include herbs that have super tonic and adaptogenic
properties as well as many other unique gifts. For example, reishi mushroom
(a superherb) helps support a healthy immune system, heart, lungs, kidneys,
as well as assisting with rejuvenating brain and connective tissue.3. Living, raw plant foods: These are important, normal foods that include
most fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, seaweeds, sprouts, grasses, fresh
herbs, and fermented foods (i.e. sauerkraut).
-
-
-
The list of top 10 Anti-cancer fruits and vegetables that can help are listed as follows:
-
-
-
“What is ultimately the most important to good health is a dietary
pattern that includes all these foods, along with a wide variety of other
nutritious foods and regular physical activity,” says Tufts University
researcher Alice Lichtenstein, DSc
-
-
Top 10 Superfoods | Food | Channel4.com
-
In nutritional terms a ’superfood’ is a nutrient dense food packed full of vitamins and minerals and other health promoting qualities, which may help to boost our health and protect us from diseases such as heart disease and cancer.”
-
-
-
More than 11 million Americans are estimated to have food allergies, which occur when the immune system reacts poorly to certain food. If you have an allergy, you know: Within minutes of eating the offending food, you may experience hives, swelling or have trouble breathing.
Less obvious and more common are food intolerances, which can be digestive issues that don’t involve the immune system. Symptoms may include cramps, gas and bloating. Unlike with food allergies, you may be able to eat small amounts of problem foods.
-
-
Living Without Magazine – Top Ten Superfoods of 2009
-
New to many Americans, most of these slightly exotic foods were actually standard fare for the ancients, consumed for centuries in cultures around the world. Today, they are modern-day super-performers. Naturally gluten free and generally well tolerated by people on special diets, they all contain high levels of beneficial antioxidants and are exceptionally nutritious.
-
-
Ten top ‘Superfoods’ | The Ghanaian Journal
-
But what is a ‘Superfood’ and how beneficial are they really? ‘Superfood’ is a term used to describe food with very high nutritional content and potential health-promoting properties, however, some of these ’super’ claims remain disputed as health benefits cannot be proven.
All fruit and vegetables contain essential vitamins and minerals and phytochemicals that are good for health. But generally, fruits and vegetables that are given a ‘Superfood’ tag are high in antioxidants, Vitamin C, as well as other healthy nutrients, and so are considered especially beneficial.
-
-
Dietary Supplement Fact Sheets
-
Dietary Supplement Fact Sheets
-
-
The Real Foods Diet – Healthy Super Food Recipes – thedailygreen.com
-
The Superfood Index
-
-
-
Raintree is dedicated to providing accurate and factual information on the important plants of the Amazon Rainforest, therefore this section of the Raintree web site is the most extensive. This Tropical Plant Database is continuously under construction as we continue to add more rainforest plants which are under research and update the information on the plants in the database.
-
-
Natural Herbs, Herbal Remedies, Herbal Medicine and Supplements | NaturalHerbsGuide.com
-
Natural Herbs, Herbal Remedies,
Medicines, and Supplements Guide
-
-
-
HerbMed® – an interactive, electronic herbal database – provides hyperlinked access to the scientific data underlying the use of herbs for health. It is an impartial, evidence-based information resource provided by the nonprofit Alternative Medicine Foundation, Inc. This public site provides access to the 20 most popular herbs.
-
-
Herbs at a Glance [NCCAM Health Information]
-
Herbs at a Glance is a series of fact sheets that provides basic information about specific herbs or botanicals—common names, uses, potential side effects, and resources for more information.
-
-
RxList – The Internet Drug Index for prescription drugs and medications
-
Supplement Information – Vitamins, Herbs, and Dietary Supplements on RxList
-
Vitamins, Herbs, and Dietary Supplements
Find evidence-based information on individual ingredients such as herbs, vitamins, minerals, and other dietary supplements. The supplement monographs on RxList include a description, review of effectiveness, how it works, safety concerns, and interactions with medications.
-
-
American Botanical Council: About the American Botanical Council
-
At the American Botanical Council, we are passionate about helping people live healthier lives through the responsible use of herbs, medicinal plants. We are an independent, nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to providing accurate and reliable information for consumers, healthcare practitioners, researchers, educators, industry and the media.
-
-
-
These pages contain a wealth of useful information that I developed over the last decade, mostly for academic purposes, including monographs of both Western and Ayurvedic herbs, sections of the textbook “Ayurveda” The Divine Science of Life”, and a few papers on Physiomedicalism.
-
-
Welcome – Tillotson Institute of Natural Health
-
This Web site was designed by Alan Tillotson, author of The One Earth Herbal Sourcebook, as a resource and learning tool for physicians and health care practitioners around the world who want to learn practical ways of solving complex health problems using natural methods. Simply reading through the entire website page by page, using the grey navigation bar at the left, constitutes an entire course in herbal medicine
-
-
Research Articles – East West School of Herbology – Come study with Michael Tierra
-
Herbal Therapeutics: Articles by David Winston
-
Articles by David Winston
David, the author of three books (which can be ordered through
Herbalist & Alchemist) is
currently working on two others, and has written well over 100 articles, some of
which we will be making available here for your use. We hope these downloadable
versions will be useful in your education and research.
-
-
PCA Medicinal Plant Working Group’s Website: Green Medicine
-
A comprehensive search of known
plants for medicinal chemicals is an enormous task. Of the estimated 250,000
plant species on earth, only 2% have been thoroughly screened for chemicals
with potential medicinal use. Because native plant habitats are destroyed
almost daily, many medicinally valuable plants will be gone before scientists
can even investigate them.
-
-
herbcraft – david hoffmann article index
-
This page is an index of the
articles on the www.healthy.net site. I’ve
created it for a few reasons. First, David
Hoffman is a great herbalist, and his writings are
well worth reading when researching a particular herb
or topic.
-
-
Matthew Wood: The Ten Most Indispensable Herbs in My Practice, Selections from The Earthwise Herbal
-
The Ten Most Indispensable Herbs in My Practice
Selections from
The Earthwise Herbal
-
-
Welcome. | Henriette’s Herbal Homepage
-
One of the oldest and largest herbal information sites on the web.
-
-
Dept of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard U: Biology Links
-
Large database of information on food and human nutrition.
-
Database of nutritional value of food.
-
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/
-
USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference
-
-
Dietary Supplement Fact Sheets
-
Dietary Supplement Fact Sheets
-
-
-
The Mission of the Nutrient Data Laboratory is “To develop authoritative food composition databases and state of the art methods to acquire, evaluate, compile and disseminate composition data on foods and dietary supplements available in the United States
-
-
-
The National Agricultural Library (NAL):
advancing access to global information for agriculture
-
-
Alternative Farming Systems Information Center
-
The Alternative Farming Systems Information Center (AFSIC) specializes in identifying resources about sustainable food systems and practices in support of USDA’s effort to ensure a sustainable future for agriculture and farmers worldwide.
-
-
Plants For A Future – 7000 useful plants
-
Plants For A Future is a resource centre for rare and unusual plants,
particularly those which have edible, medicinal or other uses. We
practise vegan-organic permaculture with emphasis on creating an
ecologically sustainable environment based largely on perennial plants.
-
-
Medicinal Herbs | Herbal Forumlas | Disease Database – eMedicinal.com
-
The knowledge of herbs is an art and should be protected, shared and preserved. From the beginning of time, herbalists have conducted history’s longest study on the effectiveness of herbs. We should honor and revere this knowledge.
-
-
THE MERCK MANUAL MEDICAL LIBRARY
-
Merck is committed to bringing out the best in medicine. As
part of that effort, Merck provides all of The Merck Manuals as
a service to the community.
-
-
Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University
-
- Determine the function and role of vitamins and essential minerals
(micronutrients) and chemicals from plants (phytochemicals) in promoting
optimum health and preventing or treating disease - Determine the role of oxidative stress and inflammation in human health and disease, and the protective effects of dietary factors with anti-oxidant or anti-inflammatory properties
- Help people everywhere achieve a healthy and productive life, full of vitality, with minimal suffering, and free of cancer and other debilitating diseases
The Linus Pauling Institute’s mission is to:
LPI Prize for Health Research
Vitamin D expert Dr. Michael Holick received the 2009 Linus Pauling Institute Prize for Health Research.
- Determine the function and role of vitamins and essential minerals
-
-
-
Seeking economic justice for the family-scale farming community. Through research, advocacy, and economic development our goal
is to empower farmers – partnered with consumers – in support of ecologically produced local, organic and authentic food.
-
-
-
EthicsCentre CA is a registered charity governed by volunteers and supported by organizations and individuals who share a commitment to ethical values.
Founded in 1988, we are a uniquely Canadian, independent ethics centre. We are dedicated to promoting and maintaining an ethical orientation and culture in Canadian organizations.
Our mission is to champion the application of ethical values in the decision-making process of business and other organizations.
We operate in a non-judgmental and inclusive way to explore and promote the positive role of ethical decision making. We serve as a forum and catalyst for constructive discussion and debate.
-
-
Global coalition against corruption.
-
MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine
-
Environmental Portal, Nature Preservation from Earth Clinic Planet.
-
Earth Clinic has spent a decade drawing together a global community willing to share everyday, common sense wisdom about health and healing. Together we’ve proven what a powerful thing community can be. Now we’d like to invite you into another community of healing, one aiming to save and restore that very Earth that has been our treasure chest of cures, remedies, and the riches of a healthy and happy life
-
-
E A R T H . C L I N I C – Folk Remedies and Holistic Cures
-
Our readers have been testing and developing these folk remedies, with contributors from every part of the world, since 1999. We’ve been sent some of the most exciting remedies to date – dozens of restorative remedies, plus natural cures for cancer, fibromyalgia, back pain and better than 350 other diseases and conditions!
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/20/2009
-
Buy-local push prompts Ontario grocers to go independent
-
Dale Kropf calls it Independence Day: On July 3, his five grocery stores in southwestern Ontario ceased to be Sobeys franchises.
Corporate policies prevented him from buying local products, he says, so he joined forces with four other former Sobeys franchisees and formed the independent Hometown Grocers Co-Op.
“We feel that local food, local presence is huge in our market and we wanted to take advantage of that,” Kropf says.
Dale Kropf, an independent Ontario grocery store owner, says his customers want the ability to buy locally produced food. (Alison Crawford, CBC)Canadians are increasingly subscribing to the “buy local” and “100 mile diet” philosophies due to concerns over imported food, Kropf adds. “The pressure was always mounting — the more recalls, the more bad press from China or wherever the product was coming from. I know that in our case, our private label pickles are made in Indonesia. I couldn’t believe that.”As a franchisee for a large grocery chain, Kropf says, corporate policies stipulating that he only buy federally inspected meat prevented him from stocking local products. Most federally inspected meat in Canada comes from large corporations such as Maple Leaf, Cargill and Tyson.
-
-
Core Training is Essential to Athletic Performance – A Strong Core Equals a Strong Athlete
-
he core is comprised of nearly 30 different muscles that basically wrap around your body in the area between your hips and ribcage.
-
asically, the core is fundamental to all body movement. Whether you realize it or not, you hardly make a movement without engaging your core whether it be walking up the stairs or bending down to pick something up. Your core is involved, providing you with balance and stability. The strength, or weakness, or your core will dictate how easy or difficult these movements are.
-
-
Breathing difficulties – WrongDiagnosis.com
An extensive list of causes related to breathing difficulties.
-
Breathing difficulty
of any kind
(or any kind of “shortness of breath“)
is a potentially life-threatening emergency.
It can indicate numerous dangerous causes such as heart attack, pneumonia,
or pulmonary embolism.
There are other less serious causes, but these highly dangerous conditions
need to be considered.
Refer to the causes of breathing difficulty or causes of chest pain.
These symptoms need to be diagnosed immediately by a medical
professional because
they can represent a life-threatening emergency.
-
-
Studies Show Benefits of Controlled Breathing
-
Yoga masters have known it
for thousands of years. Now scientists have evidence that learning how
to breathe correctly can improve everything from panic attacks to
hypertension to chronic pulmonary obstruction.
-
-
Dmitry Orlov – Seizing the Mid-Collapse Moment on Vimeo
-
A recording of the public lecture by Dmitry Orlov on 9 June 2009, at the Davenport Hotel, Dublin, Ireland.
This was the opening talk to the 3 day conference The New Emergency: Managing Risk and Building Resilience in a Resource Constrained World.
This conference was organised by Feasta, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability.
-
-
Feasta: The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability
-
Feasta aims to identify the characteristics (economic, cultural and environmental) of a truly sustainable society, articulate how the necessary transition can be effected and promote the implementation of the measures required for this purpose.
-
-
ClubOrlov: Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation
-
we all have to prepare for life without much money, where imported goods are scarce, and where people have to provide for their own needs, and those of their immediate neighbours
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/16/2009
-
Understanding Food Safety: Pesticides, Hormones, and Antibiotics in Food
-
“Modern production of foods incorporates a wide range of synthetic chemicals,” says Jeff Gillman, PhD, associate professor of horticulture at the University of Minnesota and author of The Truth About Organic Gardening. “Many of these chemicals have the potential to be very damaging to humans if they are exposed to high concentrations, or to low concentrations over an extended period of time.”
“More people are realizing there’s a myriad of chemicals in conventionally produced food,” says Craig Minowa, environmental scientist with the Organic Consumers Association, a nonprofit advocacy group. Although each has passed its own safety review, Minowa points out that “most of the studies on safety are done or supported by the companies themselves.”
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/15/2009
-
Hempola Valley Farms – Hemp Products, Hemp Oil, Hemp Flour, Hemp Seed
-
WriteAway! » Blog Archive » eco-farmers’ market opens
-
Entirely made up of local ecological farmers (many members of the Simcoe County Chapter of Ecological Farmers’ Association of Ontario) the annual Eco-Farmers’ Market is all organic and ecological, all the time.
Now in its fifth season, the market operates on the grounds of Hempola Farms, just north of Barrie (from Highway 400, take the Forbes Road exit or take Highway 93 north from the intersection with Highway 11, just past Barrie. Hempola is at the corner of Highway 93 and Forbes Road).
-
-
-
Simcoe County Farm Fresh Marketing Association was formed as a grass-roots organization in 2005 and incorporated as a non-profit corporation in 2007. The association is made up of area farmers, farmers’ markets, restaurants and includes other community partners in the health field, food security, government, tourism and economic development. All have an interest in raising the awareness of the availability of locally grown food.
-
-
Organic Farmers of Simcoe County
-
Organic Farmers of Simcoe County
-
-
The Local Organic Network – Size does matter: Choose Nano-Free products
-
Current estimates suggest over 800 nanotechnology products and component products are available to consumers. Although some products like tennis rackets are distinct and easy to identify, other component products or ingredients like packaging and food additives are much harder to recognize as nanotechnology.
-
The term ‘nano’ refers to things that are very small, usually less than 100 nm (nano meters) in size. To put that in perspective, a human hair is about 80,000 nm wide and red blood cell is about 7,000 nm, DNA about 3 nm. What’s important about things this small is that they no longer follow the predictable laws of physics but instead often act more unpredictably according to the laws of quantum mechanics. Substances that act one way in a naturally occurring state may act entirely differently when broken down into nano-sized particles. Aspects such as toxicity, solubility and reactivity can be less predictable.
-
I am less enthusiastic about putting these technologies into our food and consumer products without labeling and disclosure and before rigorous environmental and human safety testing is completed and published. The Australian Government is in the process of setting up a commission to study how they may address concerns. A few companies are addressing consumer concerns by voluntarily labeling their products as ‘Nano-Free’.
Some common products that may contain nanotechnology are toothpaste, canola oil, sunscreen, skin creams, hair care products, insect repellants, bandages, antimicrobial soaps, disinfectant wipes, fabrics, air fresheners, water filters, waxes, beer, vitamins and a variety of food additives, containers and packaging.
-
-
-
Our Mission is:
To build food community networks that include producers, artisans, chefs, food activists, youth leadership, and co-producers* (consumers).To ensure biodiversity in our local agriculture systems and to abolish GMOs, we support local, small-scale sustainable farm operations and oppose government support of corporate-controlled industrial farming.
To create sustainable, local food economies that support just wages for producers while ensuring that we still provide access to good, clean, fair food at a reasonable price for all.
To reconnect people with the pleasure of good food of authentic origin and flavour through taste education.
To share traditional and ethnic food cultures to ensure their preservation for future generations.
*A co-producer is an active participant in the food system that supports all of the missions of Slow Food, not simply a consumer of products.
-
-
Datamonitor: The potential and dangers of superfoods
-
Although the US currently has no similar legislation, consumers may create their own form of self-regulation and act with the feet, if producers continue to make claims on products that cannot be backed up.
-
-
-
A health claim is any representation in labelling or advertising that states, suggests, or implies that a relationship exists between consumption of a food or an ingredient in the food and a person’s health.
-
-
Food Standards Agency – UK list of health claims
-
Claims eligible for consideration are:
- those describing or referring to the role of a nutrient or other substance in growth, development and the functions of the body
- psychological and behavioural functions
- slimming, weight control, a reduction in the sense of hunger, an increase in the sense of satiety and the reduction of the available energy from the diet
Health claims of any other nature are not eligible for this list.
-
Food Standards Agency – Putting the ’super’ into ’superfoods’
-
A new European Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation comes into force on Sunday 1 July 2007, to help protect consumers from misleading claims.
-
In future, any claims made in relation to the nutrition and health benefits of a food will only be allowed if the claims are based on science, which has been verified by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
-
The Food Standards Agency is collating a list of claims to send to the EC, which will then be validated by EFSA.
BBC – Food – Food matters – ‘Superfoods’
-
Labelling some as ’superfoods’ could give the impression that they are more health-enhancing than others.
-
Following EU legislation introduced in July 2007 to prevent unsubstantiated health claims being made on foods, terms such as ’superfood’ will have to be backed by evidence explaining why the food is healthy. This could be difficult as there is no official definition of the term ’superfood’.
-
No food is ’super’ on its own. There are so many benefits in all fruits and vegetables. There is no such thing as ’superfoods’, only super diets.”
-
As long as we don’t reject some fruit and vegetables in favour of more fashionable ones, publicity that encourages consumers to eat more fruit and vegetables is to be welcomed, say even sceptical nutritionists.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/12/2009
-
New Evidence: Exercise Helps Heart Disease, Increases Survival Better than Angioplasty
-
At the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation meeting recently held in Barcelona, Spain, new heart research was presented that shows one treatment in particular can provide remarkable help for patients with certain forms of serious heart disease. It’s not a new drug or surgical procedure. Instead, it’s a natural therapy — plain old-fashioned regular exercise.
-
-
Food Fight: The Latest Battle in the US Food Wars
-
Officials,
who had bought 4000 copies of Pollan’s book, a bible for the organic
and locally grown food movements, cited budget cuts. The blogosphere
erupted, with critics talking darkly of political censorship by
agribusiness. When Bill Marler, a local lawyer who has litigated
against agribusiness, offered to pay Pollan’s fee to speak at the
university, it backed down.But if the grassroots are on fire -
Pollan wants President Barack Obama to reform the “entire food system”
- then Big Food shows no signs of surrendering. Last year biotech giant
Monsanto, which markets genetically modified (GM) seeds and the
herbicide Roundup, began an advertising campaign that stressed its
sustainable credentials. “How can we squeeze more food from a
raindrop?” one ad asked, suggesting the solution to hunger and water
scarcity was genetically modified food.
-
-
Explore | Africa – Ghana’s Cape Coast Castle
-
Built by European traders in the 17th century, Ghana’s Cape Coast Castle was the point of departure for the countless numbers of Africans who were sent to the New World as free labor for the colonies. Join Explore founder Charles Annenberg Weingarten on a virtual tour of the slave dungeon, and witness the horrific conditions the captives were forced to endure while waiting to be sent across the Atlantic.
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
EL Web Clips 07/11/2009
-
Scientists Warn of Hazards of GMOs
-
EXTRACT: [the study] brings to light “a significant underestimation of the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others. We demand the systematic publication of the results of these tests, which we could only obtain on a case by case basis by taking legal action.”
-
-
Community Supported Agriculture on PEI @ Dave’s Educational Blog
Very interesting idea to connect local farmers with community members that would like to eat locally grown produce.
-
Site 41 a battle of perception – The Barrie Examiner – Ontario, CA
-
And it’s not difficult to see why even a casual observer can understand opposition to the landfill. These 51 acres near Elmvale are not only prime farm land, but atop a source of groundwater that’s reportedly some of the purest on earth.
-
-
Simple Ways to Detoxify Your Body and Reclaim Your Health and Vitality
-
Detox, short for detoxification, is the purification of the body by removing toxins. Our bodies naturally eliminate toxins through our skin, liver, kidney and lungs. However due to the massive amount of toxins in our air, water and food supply today our bodies are unable to “keep up” with the amount of toxins invading us daily. This leads to fatigue, weight gain and a whole host of health problems. Therefore it is necessary for us to take steps to detoxify our bodies in order to reclaim our health and vitality.
-
-
-
SpringerImages provides a new way to access hard-to-find scientific content of the utmost value to researchers: images.
-
-
-
Background
Antimicrobial resistance is a serious threat in veterinary medicine and human healthcare. Resistance genes can spread from animals, through the food-chain, and back to humans. Sewage sludge may act as the link back from humans to animals. The main aims of this study were to investigate the occurrence of vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE) in treated sewage sludge, in a Swedish waste water treatment plant (WWTP), and to compare VRE isolates from sewage sludge with isolates from humans and chickens.
Methods
During a four month long study, sewage sludge was collected weekly and cultured for VRE. The VRE isolates from sewage sludge were analysed and compared to each other and to human and chicken VRE isolates by biochemical typing (PhenePlate), PFGE and antibiograms.
Results
Biochemical typing (PhenePlate-FS) and pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) revealed prevalence of specific VRE strains in sewage sludge for up to 16 weeks. No connection was found between the VRE strains isolated from sludge, chickens and humans, indicating that human VRE did not originate from Swedish chicken.
Conclusion
This study demonstrated widespread occurrence of VRE in sewage sludge in the studied WWTP. This implies a risk of antimicrobial resistance being spread to new farms and to the society via the environment if the sewage sludge is used on arable land.
-
-
Find Your Brand | Environmental Working Group
-
Disclaimer: Drink plenty of water, but avoid bottled water when you can. It pollutes the environment and is often nothing more than tap water. When you must, choose brands with high scores (clear labeling) and advanced treatment.
-
-
So, who need corporations, anyway? | The Smirking Chimp
-
a 28th Amendment to the Constitution that strips our corporations of their personhood. The net effect would be that our corporations would have no rights; they would only have privileges granted them by the state.
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
