Category Archives: General Health
Butter is a nutritious dairy product which is rich in fat-soluble vitamins and beneficial fats. It is made by churning fresh cream to separate the fat from the rest of the buttermilk so that the fat can be formed into a semi-solid block. Furthermore, raw milk can be left to stand before churning so that natural fermentation converts some of the milk sugar into lactic acid, giving the butter a sour taste (cultured butter). The finished butter can also be clarified in order to make ghee by heating it to remove additional milk solids and water.
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Garlic (Allium sativum) grows in the form of a bulb consisting of several cloves and produces a strong characteristic odour. The Egyptians fed it to the labourers who built the pyramids in order to build their strength and protect them from illness, and also used it to treat bites and skin irritations, according to the Hearst Medical Papyrus. The Greeks and Romans also knew it well, bringing it with them on military campaigns wherever they went to treat wounds. Dioscorides summarises the medicinal uses from antiquity: it is good for treating oedema, expels flatulence, kills many types of worms, and externally it is good for nits and lice. He adds that garlic clears the arteries, heals old coughs, treats acne and running ulcers.1
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The olive tree (Olea europaea) has been cultivated since ancient times in Persia, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean, and some trees have been known to live for more than a thousand years. The olive tree has silvery-green leaves, a gnarled trunk and an oily, bitter fruits which are either prepared whole for the table, or the oil is extracted using cold-pressure or steam. Olives should preferably be cold-pressed in order to preserve the phenolic compounds in the oil, a process that produces extra-virgin olive oil. The production of oil reaches around eleven million tons per year.
(more…)Water is essential to life and is needed to support the function of every cell in the body. Without water all physiological processes go into decline, including nutrient absorption, the maintenance of electrolyte levels, pH balance, and the elimination of waste. It is therefore important to drink good clean water throughout the day while reducing the intake of tea, coffee and sugary drinks. Excess water consumption can also be a stress on the body, the actual quantity necessary being relative to visible urine concentration.
(more…)A plethora of synthetic sweeteners are now available as an alternative to cane sugar and high-fructose corn syrup. Aspartame is one of the most prevalent, promoted for its supposed benefits to the obese and diabetic alike in a myriad of diet or low-calorie beverages and foods, and yet it is linked to disturbing research indicating that it may in fact be worse than the sugars it replaces.
(more…)Dental problems are widespread among people who eat sugar and the more that is eaten, the worse the problem. Refined sugars such as sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup are staples in the urban diet so it is not surprising that untreated tooth decay affects 36% of the world’s population.1
(more…)The consumption of pasteurised dairy products is associated by some consumers with unpleasant symptoms that evidently arise from a food sensitivity or allergy. While these reactions can resemble one another, they are also often confused with lactose intolerance which is not a food sensitivity or allergy, but a straightforward problem with malabsorption.
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Baking old-fashioned sourdough bread can’t be hurried. First the baker has to feed the ‘starter’ with a mixture of organic flour and water on the evening before baking day, and by the morning it will have grown into a spongy mass. The starter is itself made from just flour and water exposed to the environment, which inoculates it with natural yeasts. The baker then mixes most of the starter with more organic flour, water and a little salt to make the dough, and leaves it to rise in a warm place before putting the loaf in the oven.
(more…)A sugar-free diet may sound straightforward but it’s a little more difficult than it seems because avoiding sugar actually means avoiding all urban convenience foods—they all contain cane sugar and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
(more…)Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a perennial plant of the ginger family well-known for use as a culinary spice in India and Asia. As a medicine, turmeric has been used for millennia by Ayurvedic and Unani physicians to treat both internal and external conditions, as it is still used today. In particular, it has a long history as a digestive aid and a liver herb, its yellow colour hinting at this role under the doctrine of signatures. The yellow colour is due to a high content of beneficial phenolic compounds called curcuminoids such as curcumin. In Okinawa it is considered a ‘longevity food’ because its consumption is a prominent part of the diet of centenarians.1
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