Herbalist’s (or Witch’s?) Guide To Avoiding Coronavirus
Sensible precautions and natural treatment can help you stave off flu.
health
Keep Clear Of Germs and Wash Your Hands
Most of us have been taught to wash our hands since early childhood. But the hand hygiene we were taught can be improved. Especially now during summer vacation when we spend more time out of our own friendly-germ environment and possibly traveling, it makes sense to follow sensible precautions. When do you wash hands? Naturally, […]
Mead: The Ancient Wine Is Back
What do you think of when you think of mead? You might imagine Vikings with braided beards quaffing something potent out of cow’s horns. Or possibly, jolly Hobbits clinking pewter cups of golden liquid between nibbles of seed-cake and tarts. But mead is no longer the drink of the mythical past. As the recipe for […]
Gargle With Sage To Stay Healthy In Winter
Sage Infusion Sage infusion strengthens gums and treats periodontal disease, if you gargle with it regularly. Sage is an antiseptic, skin-soothing herb with a special affinity for the tissues of the mouth and throat. Gargle with sage infusion twice a day all winter long to prevent colds and flu and to prevent/treat mouth sores. Do […]
An ancient salad recipe from the Rambam
Maimonides, referred to as the Rambam, was a philosopher, codifier of Jewish law, and a renowned doctor in 12th-century Egypt. Israelis follow his startlingly modern-sounding health advice until this day. He wrote that the best breakfast is a big, leafy salad: it clears digestion and the kidneys and purifies the blood. That’s not how I […]
Eat Prebiotic Foods To Keep Your Probiotics Healthy
An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Folk wisdom produced this proverb a long time ago. Our canny ancestors didn’t conduct laboratory experiments with rats, but they knew that people who ate an apple every day stayed healthier. The proverb would hold true even if changed to “an onion a day” or “whole grains […]
How Clay Jugs Make Polluted Water Safe
Cool, fresh drinking water. Westerners turn the faucet on and take it for granted that good water will flow out, but in many countries fresh water is a treasure, gained by hard work. In rural villages all over the globe, people – usually women and children – fill buckets and jerry cans from a communal […]
Soy, where to find it, how to avoid it
Soy has been touted as a source of perfect protein for decades. It was believed that soy prevents breast cancer and heart disease. Women built soy into their diets as a nutritional shield against breast cancer. Soy-based baby formula was hailed as a convenient and healthy alternative to mother’s milk. In 1999, the FDA authorized […]
Does Your Mood Depend On Coffee?
I confess: my first thought when I wake up in the morning is, “Yay, coffee!” It’s only one cup every day, but I feel grumpy until I get it. The good news is, the daily cuppah fills me with energy and and a good mood.The bad news is, I’m addicted. As addicted to my one […]
Make Your Own Sugar Scrub For Smooth, Glowing Skin
Sugar scrubs refresh and moisturize your skin, leaving a lovely fragrance behind. And why should you pay for a commercial product if you can make your own scrub at home? The ingredients are inexpensive, and you probably already have them in your pantry. After all, a sugar scrub is only sugar, a good oil, and […]
Natural mallow salve calms mosquito bites
Considered an invasive weed in some parts, mallows are yet a valuable edible and medicinal herb. And bees love mallows flowers; that’s crucial in a world that becomes less friendly to those important pollinators by the day.
Rosewater For Beauty and Healing
Part IV in a series of 4 on eating and healing with roses. Rosewater is the fragrant liquid left after steaming has extracted roses’ essential oils. Rose essential oil is most expensive – sometimes more costly by weight than gold. Thankfully, rosewater’s price is affordable even to ordinary budgets. Rosewater has been a resource in […]
Ready-washed bags of salad? Best used as compost!
Those convenient bags of prepared salads are breeding grounds for bacteria, so say scientists from Britain’s University of Leicester. The best defense against inadvertent food poisoning is a hearty and immediate appetite: researchers advise consumers to eat bagged salad as soon as possible after opening the package. The study, published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, found that […]
Skittles, Risk and Statistics
I’m going to thank Donald Trump Jr. for providing a simple way to visualize our decisions regarding human refugees. He said that we should pretend that “those people” are skittles, not someone we could ever imagine being a loved-one– capable of thought, compassion, joy and loss as we believe of ourselves. In junior Trump’s analogy, […]
Soylent, a beige goop alternative to eating food?
A liquid formula that goes down easy and provides you enough nutrients for the day. Would you ever start eating soylent?
Is fruit juice shortening your life?
Ah…a cold glass of orange juice, first thing in the morning. Gives you energy, vitamin C and zest to start the day. Right? Is that glass of juice really good for you?
8 types of delicious raw honey from Yemen
Terrorists probably come to mind long before honey when people think of Yemen, but the raw Yemeni honey Balqees had for sale at the recent Masdar Festival was far and away the yummiest honey I ever put in my mouth.
Obamacare: Amman, Jordan Style
Green Prophets burn lots of calories trying to make the planet a better place, but you can’t do much do-gooding if you’re dead. I’ll share a day in my week as a cautionary tale (and offer a peek into Amman’s excellent, and sometimes culturally surreal, medical system).
Turmeric Heals The Way Drugs Do, Only Better
There are two good reasons for cooking with turmeric. The first one is that the spice’s attractive yellow color and pungent flavor satisfy the sense of having eaten real food. The second, as folk wisdom has always known, is that it’s good for you. Our previous post on turmeric vs. arthritis offers a wide view […]
Ancient “Weed” Could Save Middle East Wheat
A particularly virulent strain of stem rust that first struck Uganda’s wheat crops in1999 before it spread up into Sudan and Yemen, Ug99 might have met its match in a 5,000 year old weed.
Can Mannitol Artificial Sweetener Stop Parkinson’s?
Artificial sweeteners may have some complicated side-effects or contra-indications for people with existing health effects. But artificial sweeteners could help people beyond losing weight, cavity prevention and reducing blood sugar: a new study from Israel has found that mannitol, widely used in chewing gum, could slow down the effects of Parksinson’s disease.
Grow Spirulina Superfood Algae at Home With A DIY Kit
Give a microscopic vegetable the right conditions of sunshine and water, and you can home-farm what some say is the world’s most nutritious food: spirulina.
Molasses is Egypt’s Favorite Sugary Treat
It is hard to find a house anywhere in the world that doesn’t have sugar in the pantry, but in Egypt, molasses is the number one sweet treat. This is particularly true of Upper Egypt (the southern half of the country), the site of many sugar cane plantations.
A natural tea sunscreen you can make at home
Now that the sun is out in full force, and you’ve tried this recipe for sugar wax, it’s time to up the ante and make a paraban-free, organic, and skin-nourishing sunscreen. (Update on July 24, 2020: The Wall Street Journal reports that chemicals in our sunscreen may be building up in our bodies faster than […]
Turkey Bans 26 Genetically Modified Organisms
While the United States is completely in bed with companies that manufacture genetically modified organisms (GMOs), countries in other parts of the world are resisting their relentless push to populate the planet with their patented seeds. Turkey is the latest country to ban 26 GMOs following an incident involving the unauthorized entry of genetically modified […]