In Arizona a few days ago I was negligent about re-applying sunscreen when the kids and I were hanging out by the pool. We came home sporting varying shades of pink and red burned skin. As a mom, this was not one of my prouder parenting moments.
As happens with sunburns, we didn’t feel the full effect until later that evening, when my daughter complained about the heat radiating from her pink thighs.
The homeopathic remedy for sunburn is Belladonna. I dissolved a few pellets in a few ounces of water and gave each of us a teaspoon underneath our tongues to start. The relief from the burning started in minutes.
To take it further, I mixed teaspoons of the remedy water with some shea butter-based lotion and slathered it across the affected areas.
We each enjoyed a comfortable, pain-free night, and our skin was in much better shape the next day, thanks to the Belladonna.
One of my preferred methods of delivering probiotics is Good Belly probiotic juice drink, and Parents Magazine concurs.
Yes, yes, yes.
Probiotics can help with many, many issues for kids as well as adults, and should be de rigueur for everyone after completing a round of antibiotics, for starters.
Probiotics, in case you don’t know, are the “good” bacteria that live in our guts and help us digest our food. Each person, indeed, each mammal, is host to a unique colony of micro-bacteria that begins to develop in the womb and continues to populate throughout your life as you live and eat. Each person’s microbial biome is a unique as a fingerprint.
Antibiotics can wipe out entire colonies of good bacteria along with the bad, and the good bugs must be replenished through ingestion. Sickness, fever, viral infections, acidosis (when the body is too acidic), food poisoning, parasites, and other issues can also cause a deficiency of good bacteria in the gut, leading to incomplete digestion.
Incomplete or inefficient digestion can play a role in everything from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and Crohn’s disease to eczema, fatigue, constipation, or headaches in children and adults. Studies have shown that probiotics can help by improving digestion.
At least 80% of our health status is directly related to the health of our digestive tract. Probiotics and plant-based digestive enzymes can help get yours back on track. An Enzyme Urinalysis is a scientific analysis of your urine to see what is happening –or not happening– in your digestive system.
It’s always an exciting day at our house when Town and Country Foods comes to stock our big basement freezer with almost a year’s worth of foods. Yesterday was one of those days.
More than a decade ago my husband and I discovered this amazing service that allows you to buy organic, fresh-frozen vegetables; sustainably-caught wild fish flash-frozen on the boats; naturally-raised meats and poultry; and even some prepared foods made with the same high standards, like chicken and prosciutto ravioli, sweet potato fries, or Polish Kielbasa.
Town and Country Foods
We get loads of individually-vacuum-sealed boneless skinless chicken breasts, ground beef steak burgers, turkey breast filets, boneless pork chops, and beautiful fish filets of haddock, salmon, ocean perch, tuna, and cod. Not to mention the vegetables, fajita-cut chicken strips, and other great convenience items to choose.
We purchase the smallest package, which is budgeted to last two people for eight months. We have a family of four and one delivery usually lasts us 10-12 months. Eight low monthly interest-free payments covers the food no matter how long it lasts you, and if you purchase your freezer through them they will guarantee to replace the food after a power failure, etc. It has been a great deal for us over the years.
Our Town and Country Foods delivery means that we have quick and easy meals available at any time. We toss pre-marinated boneless skinless chicken breasts directly on the grill –without thawing! They cook up perfectly.
Glorious One-Pot Meals are tailor-made for food packaged and frozen in individual-serving portions, and you never have to thaw anything first! We might do a GOPM with frozen diced potatoes, perch filets, frozen spinach, frozen carrots, and Teriyaki sauce. Yum! Super easy – takes maybe 10 minutes to cut open the vacu-seal packaging and drop the items into a cast iron Dutch oven – and everything but the Teriyaki sauce is in our Town and Country freezer, ready to go into a meal at the drop of a hat.
Town and Country Foods distributes to 40,000 families in five western states. If you contact them for information, please be sure to say I sent you! You’ll be glad you did.
Great news to see grocery stores taking a stand against genetically modified salmon even when the FDA won’t. Beginning with Whole Foods Market decision to require GMO labeling on all products sold in their stores by 2018, now we see Trader Joes and other grocery chains announcing their boycott of GMO salmon, if and when it gets approved for widespread, unlabeled distribution to unsuspecting Americans.
A size comparison of an AquAdvantageAE Salmon (background) vs. a non-transgenic Atlantic salmon sibling (foreground) of the same age. (AquaBounty Technologies)
This franken-fish is engineered to grow twice as fast as a normal wild salmon.
Perhaps the biggest factor for me about GMOs in general is that while scientists have figured out how to splice genes from one kingdom onto genes from another kingdom and turn them “ON”, they don’t know how to turn them “OFF” afterward.
According to Jeffery Smith, director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, the bacteria in your gut can pick up these genes so that they may continue replicating inside your body.
Now if that’s not appetite-destroying, think about it a little more.
Biology tells us that kingdoms don’t –and shouldn’t– cross-mate. You never see a pig, for example, mating with a beetle and producing babies. Or a butterfly mating with corn to produce butterfly-corn offspring… Except in the labs where they are creating genetically modified foods for human consumption.
A month or so from now, with FDA approval, this transgenic salmon may begin making its way into our food supply. It will be served in banquet halls, in restaurant chains, and in school lunch programs. And here’s the kicker: you’ll never know because it will not be required to be labeled as such.
Let’s not overlook our pets. Mainstream brands of pet foods already include GMO products like corn and soy; now the fish will be GMO, too. Sorry Kitty.
It’s getting more and more difficult to opt-out of this massive experiment on the public health, even for the extremely vigilant.
The FDA is accepting public comments on the pending approval of AquAdvantageAE Salmon through April 26, 2013. Consider leaving a comment letting the government know your thoughts on the matter.
Check out this gluten-free matzoh ball recipe from Gluten Free A-Z Blog. It uses almond meal for the matzoh balls and only has four ingredients! Let me know if you try it out!
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Gluten-Free Matzoh Balls
Ingredients
Gluten free from A to Z gluten-free matzoh ball recipe.
2 T oil
2 large eggs
1 cup almond flour or almond meal
1 tsp salt
Directions
Put up an 8qt pot of water and bring it to a boil with a little salt if you like
In the meantime
In a small bowl beat eggs and oil and set aside
In a separate bowl mix almond flour ( finely ground almonds) and salt.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and blend well with fork.
Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour ( this step is very important)
Remove batter from refrigerator. Divide batter into just slightly smaller than golf ball size balls ( should make about 8-10 .
When water comes to a boil, drop in balls one at a time into the boiling water
Reduce to a simmer and cook for 30-40 minutes lightly covered.
