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Make your own sugar wax

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natural, recipe, sugar wax, beauty, arabic, health, ancient arabic, sugaring
Sugar wax or sugaring is an Arabic beauty secret you can make at home.

Sugar wax, sugaring or Persian waxing, whatever you want to call it there is an old, tried and true way to wax, naturally. Many beauty regimens do more harm than good as many products contain harsh chemicals including toxins, hormone disruptors and even pesticides!  That’s why we have scouted out an ancient Arabic beauty regimen that does not threaten your body or your bank account for that matter.

It’s an attractive recipe. This all-natural sugar wax is most popular in Egypt and Lebanon.  There are plenty of videos which present efficient instructions on how to proceed with the depilatory “cooking.” But we like the video better below.

Sugar wax sugaring recipe

Sugar, white or brown (1 cup)

Water (2 Tbsp)

Lemon juice (1.5 Tbsp)

Salt, optional (1 tsp)

Sugaring Wax Method

Combine these above natural ingredients in a saucepan and simmer on low heat. Allow the mixture to thicken and turn golden-brown.  (Just like freshly baked cookies you know it’s good when it’s golden-brown.)

Stir the mixture with a spoon, making sure the sugar crystals dissolve.  Within roughly eight minutes, it will thicken considerably and take on a syrupy consistency.  Be careful not to let it burn.

Watch as the mixture turns a darker brown, turn off the heat, and let the forming wax cool for a couple of minutes.

And voilà (as this is also called Persian waxing), there you have your wax.  Apply where desired and pull in the opposite direction of hair growth.

The wax is totally reusable so stick the leftover portion in plastic and put it in the fridge.  10 seconds in the microwave will be enough when you want to use it later.

 

The sweetness of this sugar wax cannot be denied: it’s sticky, like toffee, and the color of caramel.

It’s also effective, cheap, and non-harmful.

Great for sexy legs. So try it at home. I know I will!

UPDATE: Link here for my trial and error attempt (and part success making my own sugar wax). Or go in the reverse and do a Januhairy.

 

RecycloEgy Aims to Scrub Cairo’s Black Cloud and Make Money

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black cloud, pollution, agriculture, Cairo, clean tech, scienceEvery year when farmers start harvesting their sugar cane, maize and other crops, Cairenes brace themselves for what is ominously known as “The Black Cloud.” Caused when seasonal meteorological conditions meet the smoke released by burning agricultural waste, the heavy black pollution settles over an already smoggy Cairo, and respiratory diseases flourish.

Now a new team of ambitious young Egyptians aims not only to scrub the skies clean of its soot, but to make a pile of money doing so. Founded by Yahia Mohamed Reda, who devoted his graduation project at Banha University to finding a way to convert agricultural waste into activated carbon, RecycloEgy must first raise the funds that will see this lofty ambition through. 

Visualizing Migrant Workers’ Rights in Lebanon

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Why and how have migrant domestic worker’s rights been violated in Lebanon?

Five decades after the development of the kefala (sponsorship) system, Lebanon’s two-hundred thousand migrant domestic workers continue to be denied central human rights like the right to self-realization which is interlinked with the right to  freedom of movement, just conditions of work and the right to legal recognition.

The issue of domestic violence and the rights of migrant workers in Lebanon has already been covered by Green Prophet, but the origin of such human rights issues has never been fully deconstructed before. Here, for the very first time, the details of how the sponsorship system has brought about such abuses is revealed through a detailed infographic story board designed and researched by AltCity (Dima Saber), the Migrant Worker Task Force (Jeremy Menchik) and graphic designer Joumana Ibrahim.

Yemeni Girls Solar Power Post-Revolution Darkness

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Creative Generation Company, Yemen, solar power, renewable energy, clean tech, INJAZ, all girl company in YemenA group of Yemeni high school girls have created a suite of solar-powered gadgets to help illuminate their country’s post-revolution darkness. When the first revolutions began to sweep through the Arab world, we were all so hopeful about the changes to follow. So hopeful, we called this time the “Arab Spring.” But for people living in Yemen, hope was almost completely extinguished with the lights.

Wafi Al-Rimi told Al Monitor that there were times when the capital, Sanaa, only had electricity for one hour a day, which made studying for exams tricky. So she and her all-girl posse developed low cost solar-powered solutions with help from an entrepreneurship program offered through their school by the non profit INJAZ Yemen, an offshoot of the Colorado-based business education program Junior Achievement Worldwide. They even started a company!

Parrots Die After Exposure to Fumes from Non Stick Cook Ware

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This grey Congo parrot could be at risk if exposed to  cooking fumes from PTFE coated cookware

Issues surrounding the safety of ceramic and other “non-stick” cookware have still clouded peoples minds in Israel and elsewhere. These issues followed an Israeli TV consumer watchdog program, Kolbotek warned viewers that some brands of ecolon ceramic  coated fry pans and other cookware may be “killing you with color”  due to certain poisonous metals and other dangerous substances being present in the pans’ coatings. The warning that some of this cookware are allegedly carcinogenic even caused panic among consumers in Israel.

Ecolon, a silicon based coating ingredient, is not only used in the cookware industry, but also has many uses in other products as well, including automobile parts and accessories.

The issue of whether ecolon and other coating substances (including teflon) are dangerous to human health is still not entirely settled; and one company, Neoflam, which was singled by Kolbotek even filed a lawsuit against against the television program  for giving what that company says is a false report on the dangers of its ceramic cookware products. A few years before the Kolbotek program was aired, back in 2007,  Neoflam sent samples of its products to America’s FDA laboratories for testing.  The test findings determined that there were  0.5 mg per kilogram of cadmium, 5 mg per kilogram of lead and 2 mg per kilogram of mercury present in the ecolon coating . The findings at that time were “non-determinable” as to any harm caused to consumers as a result of the use of these coatings.

Chart showing effects of high cooking temperatures on PTFE coated utensils

One interesting recent finding that people might be interested in learning, however, is the effect that cooking fumes from polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) or teflon coatings on many cooking utensils have on both humans and animals; especially pet birds like parrots. Studies on this substance . which is also used in bags containing microwave popcorn, have found that not only is prolonged use of these utensils causing low birth weights in humans  but may also be responsible for the deaths of pet birds, especially parrots.

The bird deaths are said to be attributed to the fumes emitted by the non-stick coatings when the cookware is submitted to high temperatures during cooking. The emitted fumes are then said to cause the birds to quickly produce high amounts of fluids in their lungs as a protective measure measure against the fumes. The increased fluids then literally choke the birds to death. These bird death from teflon fumes have been noted in various studies going back to 2003 and earlier . No findings on bird deaths from fumes coming from the use of ceramic coated cookware have been noted, however.

As the jury is still out on the dangers on using ceramic coated cookware, consumers who use these products should only use the higher quality ones that have been certified as “green”  cooking utensils. Following the manufacturer’s usage instructions, including not cooking on extremely hot fires or burners and using a bit of oil like olive oil in the pan, are good ideas as well.

More articles on issues surrounding ceramic and PTFE coated cookware:

Ceramic Coated Cookware May be Killing You With Color

Are Cooking Coatings Messing with Birth Weights and Bodies?

Neoflam Ceramic Pans Are Allegedly Carcinogenic, Causing Panic in Israel

Ceramic Frypan Company Neoflam Sues TV Show for False Report

The Life of Pi Film is a Visual Poem About Humans and Nature

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bengal tiger eyes hunting in water Can computer generated Bengal tigers help save the 1850 real ones which remain in the wild?

The Life of Pi is a novel by Yann Martel, first published in 2001. It told the story of a boy whose family is shipwrecked while moving their private zoo’s animals from French India to Canada. It was thought to be unfilmable. In Ang Lee’s film adaptation, Piscine Molitor (aka Pi) , played by the delightful young Suraj Sharma, is the only human survivor of the shipwreck. No, I haven’t given the story away. The Life of Pi is open in Turkey, Jordan and other cinemas throughout the Mideast. It faces stiff competition from Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit and Les Misérables, but if you’re looking for a beautiful movie with a thought-provoking environmental connection, consider the Life of Pi.

“We’re dying Richard Parker. I’m sorry.” A tearful Pi says this to a surviving castaway aboard his lifeboat. His companion is a Bengal tiger who was dubbed Richard Parker after a name mix up between a tiger its hunter. Like the novel it was based on, The Life of Pi takes us on a philosophical adventure. It explores the nature of reality, truth, religion and storytelling. Like the book it also contains some fascinating ecological metaphors. We can imagine his lifeboat as Noah’s ark or as a microcosm of our world. As a boy, Pi studied many religions and several of these hold that humans are stewards over our planet.

Aussie trumps big tobacco

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cigarette packaging

Is there a Middle East nation with the chops to follow this public health leader?

Government scored a massive win over the tobacco industry in 2012 when the Australian High Court ruled in favor of plain packaging for cigarettes, making this the first country to require all tobacco products to be sold in plain, standardized packaging.

Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd told AlJazeera, “Cigarettes are not cool. Cigarettes kill people. Therefore, the government makes no apology whatsoever for what it’s doing.”

So starting last month, it’s goodbye brand-specific logos, symbols, and colors.  The new packaging has a dull matt finish, with graphic health warnings printed against a drab brown background. Brand names are featured, but in a standard position, font size and style.

It works to deter people from smoking, especially young women and children, so says new research from BioMed Central, online publisher of peer-reviewed scientific research. It’s also expected to help smokers wishing to quit. Wildly unattractive, they leave no chance that people will be misled about the dangers of smoking.

The upshot is that the packaging’s most prominent feature is stark medical images.  

Sanjid Amatya, a cashier at a Sydney newsagent, told The Jordan Times that many customers found the new packaging (which feature images such as a gangrenous foot, mouth cancer and a skeletal man dying of cancer) “off-putting”. Another retailer said customers select the least offensive images (a hand stubbing out a cigarette), or opt to buy cigarette cases so they can toss out original packaging.

Stafford Sanders from Action on Smoking and Health Australia told AFP, “The images are supposed to be disturbing, be confronting. If the images stop one child from taking up smoking, hasn’t it been worth you being offended by it?”

Other countries are considering the Australian example.

Last summer, American courts ruled against use of similar imagery saying it went beyond offering up information that cigarette smokers need to know.  The tobacco industry fought the change, claiming the horrific pictures limited freedom of expression which is guaranteed by the first amendment of the United States constitution.  The US Food and Drug Administration had planned to post the photos on cigarette packages beginning in September 2012.  It’s uncertain if the FDA will appeal the decision at the Supreme Court.

Irish Cancer Society (ICS) head of advocacy and communications Kathleen O’Meara said the society would be seeking to progress the issue of plain packaging with the Ministry of Health, “perhaps becoming the first European country to introduce plain packaging”, she told The Irish Examiner.  The ICS conducted focus groups that found cigarette packages targeting female smokers did not look as if they could cause any harm and were viewed more like a fashion accessory.

Last August, to comply with World Health Organization treaty obligations, packaging on cigarettes sold in Jordan and Egypt began to feature vivid photos of smoking health risks. It’s a big step for countries where public discussion on the evils of tobacco is nearly nonexistent.  The American Cancer Society says smoking grew 8.6%  in the Middle East over the past year. Jordanians spend half a billion US dollars annually on tobacco. This, in a nation where 25% of households earn less than $6,000 per year. The associated costs due to lost productivity, chronic illness and death are incalculable.

We hope Middle Eastern governments will calmly review the evidence emerging from the Australian action, not be swayed by the distorted misinformation put out by the tobacco industry and its allies, and implement similar public health protections.

WHO: Global Fertility Rates Mostly Holding Steady (Middle East exception)

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Worldwide close to 50 million couples are unable to conceive after five years of trying, states a recent report.

A recent World Health Organization report of 277 national surveys estimates that infertility rates have remained consistent over the past 20 years, with North Africa and the Middle East showing the strongest negative trends in reproductive fertility.

Popular Wind-Powered Bamboo Landmine Detonator Needs Support

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Mine Kafon, Massoud Hassani, bamboo, wind-powered minesweeper, Afghanistan, land mines, EgyptLand mines kill 42 people every month. They’re all over Egypt, where Bedouins frequently lose limbs while daring desert treks, and in 81 other countries around the globe. Pernicious and anonymous, these weapons of mass devastation are almost impossible to destroy without compromising human lives. Which means that any solution that attempts to do so deserves the full weight of our support.

Enter Massoud Hassani and the biodegradable bamboo “minesweeper” featured previously on Green Prophet. An enormously popular wind-powered device modeled after the Afghan designer’s childhood toy, the spherical Mine Kafon has biodegradable bamboo and plastic spikes that detonate landmines rooted out with help from a sophisticated GPS chip embedded in the large ball.

Jordan’s Tiny Renewable Sector Receives a Fast $300 Million Boost

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cleantech, jordan, solar energy, wind energy, renewable energy, Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC, Hashemite Kingdom of JordanWhen 97 percent of a nation’s energy is imported, every renewable energy gift counts. Jordan received a $300 million grant from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which Minister of Energy and Transportation Alaa Batayneh says will be used to develop a host of solar and wind energy projects in southern Jordan, The Jordan Times reports.

Globally, Obesity is Now Deadlier Than Hunger

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fat man belly on beachNeed incentive to eat healthier?  Diabetes, stroke and heart disease, have become the dominant cause of death and disability worldwide.

Obesity and its myriad complications produce health problems greater than those caused by hunger:  according to a new report published in the British medical journal The Lancet, it’s the leading cause of disability around the world. Middle Eastern countries are more obese than ever, experiencing a 100% increase since 1990.

Green Prophet has reported on the Gulf’s supersized children, and advised readers that four of the ten fattest nations weigh in from the Middle East.   According to the World Health Organization’s Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010), more years of life are now lost from obesity than from hunger. But its not just this region that’s straining at the seams. In the past twenty years, global obesity rates have increased over 80% in an epidemic touching every country outside of sub-Saharan Africa.

Saudi takes the Nile to feed grass-fed cows

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Saudi Arabia land grab water
Saudi Arabia is taking water from the Nile to grass-feed their cows in air conditioning

Land grabs are old news, but National Geographic has taken a closer look at Saudi’s African interests in particular and the resulting story is startling. The world’s favorite nature magazine visited two massive dairy farms, including the world’s largest, that were built in one of the driest and hottest parts of earth – roughly 100 miles southeast of Riyadh. Here, Friesian cows survive amid temperatures of up to 110 degrees fahrenheit.

The cows raised at the Al Safi and Almarai farms live better than some humans in air-conditioned sheds and water misters that keep them cool. But feeding them with grain grown nearby has depleted 4/5th of the Kingdom’s ancient aquifer in the last 30 years. For milk. The farms are facing closure as a result of water shortages, but instead of giving up altogether, the Saudis are buying up land and water elsewhere – including the already vulnerable Nile.

Water is free to farmers in Saudi Arabia so they have no incentives to use less or to conserve at all.

The Nile was apportioned in 1929 by colonial powers, an issue that has created great tension among Nile River Basin countries in the last few years. Egypt relies almost entirely on this river for its population’s survival, but upstream countries feel that they have been shortchanged by that country’s monopoly.

Ethiopia has been particularly vociferous, though the main instigator of a slew of new damns and hydroelectricity projects, former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, died in August, 2012. But not before allowing Saudi Star, owned by Sheikh Mohammed Ali Al Amoudi, to purchase large tracts of land near the headwaters of the Nile in Gambela.

Member of the local Anuak Tribe talked to National Geographic about the firm’s usurpation of land and water. At the time of writing, the company was digging a canal to drain nearby wetlands and their 24,711 acre relies on a reservoir built in the 1980s by Soviet engineers.

Tribesmen told the magazine that they intended to farm their ancestral land anyway. When they moved in to do so, gunmen shot and killed several Saudi Star workers, unleashing a vicious government crackdown in the nearby villages.

Men were killed, women were raped. Many people fled to neighboring Southern Sudan.

The Saudi government offers shiny incentives for firms to seek out arable land outside of the Kingdom. According to National Geographic, the King Abdullah Initiative for Saudi Agricultural Investment Abroad has catalyzed projects as far afield as Senegal River in West Africa and Indonesian New Guinea.

And the reason? The Saudis are concerned to secure a steady food supply in the decades to come now that their own resources are depleted as a result of chronic mismanagement. Other Gulf countries such as Abu Dhabi are pursuing a similar track.

Meanwhile, several reports show that Gulf Arabs are among the fattest people on earth, which begs the question: will Saudi, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar purge other resources the way they destroyed their own in order to satisfy their overgrown waistlines?

 

Turmeric Helps Conquer Arthritic Inflammation

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image turmeric for arthritisIn the Middle East, now is the time to buy fresh turmeric root for freezing or planting.

Fancy a turmeric smoothie? That’s how my husband gets his daily dose of the deep-yellow, pungent root. When his doctor took him off anti-inflammation medications, I cast around for a natural way to help him cope with the pain in his hands.  He has psoriatic arthritis.

turmeric and blood pressure
A turmeric smoothie

We’re familiar with spices as medicine. I began reading more. While turmeric’s anti-cancer properties are already well-known, it was news to me that turmeric is also an effective anti-inflammatory with a long history of relieving arthritis pain.

The Middle East’s hot climate doesn’t exempt people from psoriatic, rheumatoid, and osteoarthritis. According to the Israeli Rheumatic Diseases Foundation (site in Hebrew), an estimated 17% of the population suffers from arthritis in one form or another, while the Emirates Arthritis Foundation estimates that 20% of the United Arab Emirates do too. These figures are slightly lower than the estimated percentage of American arthritis sufferers – 22% of the population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Now medical authorities are turning their attention to one of turmeric’s constituents, curcumin, in help in controlling the debilitating disease. A study conducted in Thailand in 2009 concluded that in controlling pain of knee osteoarthritis, curcumine was as effective as ibuprofen. This review of preclinical and clinical trials with curcumin submitted to PubMed.gov is only one of many publications attesting to its anti-inflammatory powers.

So for ordinary people with aching joints, what’s the best way to ingest the yellow stuff?

  • Fresh Root Smoothie: slice off a little chunk of turmeric root, about the size of the first joint of your forefinger. Blend it with a cup of any good milk, a teaspoon of cinnamon for flavor (and because cinnamon also fights inflammation), a teaspoon or two of local honey, and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper to get things circulating quickly. Add something for creaminess if you like: a banana or half an avocado. Drink it up quickly. One smoothie a day should do the trick.
  • Variation with dry, ground turmeric: Use 1 tablespoon of ground turmeric (best is fresh-ground from a spice store, but even freshly-bought supermarket tumeric will do) instead of the fresh root. It’s best to heat the milk first, to help the spices disperse, and to drink it warm.
  • Ground Turmeric Capsules: Some buy vegetable-based capsules and fill them at home. Three to five 00 -sized capsules are the ordinary dose, although individual needs vary.
  • Curcumine Supplements: The University of Maryland Medical Center suggests that adults take one to three grams of dried root powder daily; 15 to 30 drops of 1:2 tincture four times per day; or 400 mg to 600 mg of standardized curcumin powder three times a day.

I’m no great fan of standardized extracts, and suggest that if using fresh or ground turmeric is inconvenient, tincture is better.

Who should avoid medicinal doses of turmeric? Curcumin is a blood-thinner and may prevent normal blood clotting.

  • People on Warfarin or similar medications should therefore not add medicinal doses of turmeric to their regime.
  • Pregnant women should also restrict turmeric to ordinary culinary quantities – a pinch to color or flavor food is fine.
  • People anticipating surgery should stop taking turmeric two weeks beforehand.
  • Do not combine medicinal doses of turmeric with ginger, gingseng or other blood-thinning herbs.
  • You’ll know you’re taking too much if you experience nausea or stomach upsets (this is true of any other culinary spice too).

How To Keep Turmeric?

  • Fresh turmeric root lasts up to a year in the freezer. That’s how I store it for blending into smoothies.
  • If buying dried, ground root, buy small quantities and replenish. Keep your ground turmeric away from the heat of the stove or a sunny window. It will last, kept in a cool, dark place, for six months.

To ensure a constant supply of fresh root, it’s worth growing your own. It takes little space or effort. The Backyard Gardening Blog offers an easy-to-understand guide on growing turmeric. The comments also offer valuable advice.

Since the Israeli winter is mild, with many sunny days, I myself sprouted and planted some turmeric roots recently.  I hope to harvest a good amount of fresh roots to freeze, later in the year.

Food as medicine on Green Prophet:

Beating Breast Cancer With Turmeric

5 Supermarket Vegetables You Can Upcycle and Grow At Home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 Evergreen Books on Sustainable Food for Your New Year

books on a bunEating sustainably can make a huge impact on our planet.

We all know that eating sustainably, and eating local is good for the planet and good for the economy. Now that your New Year’s resolutions to eat better have come into effect, check out your local bookseller for seven recycled titles that will help bolster your New Year’s food resolutions. These titles are largely published before 2012 but still relevant.  Dig in.

Happy 2013! A Good Year for Electric Cars

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Mitsubishi's new Not a head turner but Mitsubishi’s new “buggy” MIEV all electric car is one of the best EV car deals

The year 2012 has been a mixed year as far as the success of various models of electric cars and hybrid cars go. Regarding the Middle East, where the luxury Fisker Karma electric vehicle hit the Middle East though a dealer in Dubai, Fisker cars in the USA were under consider pressure following news about some Fisker cars catching fire. This allegation, which involved at least 15 Fisker Karmas burning up at a storage lot in New Jersey during the hurricane Sandy mega storm, was later challenged on Green Prophet by a Fisker Karma owner himself who debunked the allegations of the $130,000 cars being  fire hazards.