How to Make Cake-Balls

I’m sure this takes some skill and patience, but making cake-balls, which are enjoying extreme popularity in many venues, is explained comprehensively in the Dallas Morning News.

Editor’s Note: I like to use home-made cake. There are a couple of recipes at the Elegant Survival main site.

Crest Toothbrushes Made in China; Target Brand Made in USA

It’s true. This was discovered by my husband while shopping for toothbrushes: major American brands are making their toothbrushes in China, the home of Black-Hearted Goods. But, the Target brand toothbrushes are made in the U.S.A.

Washing and Drying Clothes without Electricity

Washing and Drying Clothes without Electricity, et Cetera

Posted at 10:58 AM on June 11, 2009 M-J's Clothes-Washing Operation (Photo Copyright Elegant Survival 2009)

M-J’s Clothes-Washing Routine

We don’t have a washer or dryer. That’s by choice. I have plenty of water, two sinks and two buckets. When I say “plenty”, I mean it is available, but I don’t waste it. The beauty of washing and rinsing in buckets is that one can dump the “grey water” out in the garden. Plants don’t mind soap or vinegar, in fact, vinegar and salt, as I like to say, are fertilizers. I have the luxury of a washbasin and a rinse-bucket. Note that the silver one matches the sink, while a white basin would look swell in a porcelain one.

This isn’t “roughing it”. I once lived without running water for over a year, with just wood-stoves for cooking and heating. I took sauna (pronounced “sow-nah”, not “sawna”) regularly, though. Then there was the time I lived in a tee-pee for two weeks in 25* weather. I am used to building my own fires for cooking and heat, making my own bread the old-fashioned way, washing clothes by hand and hanging them on the line to dry. Those things are muscle-building, and who needs a fancy “health-club” when saving electricity and doing things yourself keep a gal in shape? I don’t watch television; we cut the cable last year, as described in Household Hints. No problem–as a radio-nut,  I have a lot of them, all operable with batteries, including a short-wave.

One of my favorite themes here and on the Elegant Survival News blog is getting by without electricity. For now, I use a computer, and someday, when the power-grids fail because of ridiculous energy-restrictions, I am going to adapt to the new situation with my usual vigor.

~~Copyright M-J de Mesterton, 2009

Wash-Water Additives, Laundry Boosters

Borax

Vinegar

Salt

Baking Soda

Hydrogen Peroxide (for white items with stubborn stains)

Sometimes I use a combination of the above additives, depending upon the stains at hand.

For wringing clothes, I sometimes use The Absorber, available at auto-supply stores.

The Clothes Line, an Elegant Survival Original, Copyright M-J de Mesterton 2006

When it is raining, I use a wooden laundry-rack instead of hanging clothes outside. If you live in an apartment, plastic hangers on an extra shower-rod, placed in the middle of the area above the tub, works well, too, with adequate ventilation.

Classic French Wine for Five Bucks a Bottle

Caves des Papes Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2007

Photo Copyright Elegant Survival 2009

New Wound-Healing Product, Tested By Us, with Great Success

Derma-Wound

I will write more about this innovative, benign, helpful product at a later date. I just want people who have wounds that won’t heal to know that there is help. Dr. David Dixon of Arizona developed Derma-Wound.

Introducing Wilderness Survival

Wilderness Survival teaches real survival skills.

Curcumin in the News Again

News Release from the Royal College of Psychiatrists:

Eating a curry once or twice a week could help prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The magic ingredient in curry is curcumin, a component of the spice, turmeric.

Professor Murali Doraiswamy, director of the Mental Fitness Laboratory at the Department of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center, Carolina, told delegates at the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Annual Meeting in Liverpool that curcumin prevented the spread of amyloid plaques, found outside brain cells.

These plaques, along with neurofibrillary tangles, are thought to contribute to the degradation of the wiring in brain cells and lead to the subsequent symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

Professor Doraiswamy said: “There is very solid evidence that curcumin binds to plaques, and basic research on animals engineered to produce human amyloid plaques has shown benefits. Turmeric has been studied not just in Alzheimer’s research but for a variety of conditions, such as cancer and arthritis. Turmeric is often referred to as the spice of life in ancient Indian medical lore.”

A clinical trial is now underway at the University of California, Los Angeles, to test curcumin’s effects in human Alzheimer’s patients and specifically on their amyloid plaque proteins. A small pilot trail was completed to determine the right dose and researchers have now embarked on a larger study.

Professor Doraiswamy told the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Annual Meeting: “You can modify a mouse so that at about 12 months its brain is riddled with plaques. If you feed this rat a curcumin-rich diet it dissolves these plaques. The same diet prevented younger mice from forming new plaques. The next step is to test curcumin on human amyloid plaque formation using newer brain scans and there are plans for that.”

Studies looking at populations show that people who eat a curry meal two or three times a week seem to have a lower risk for dementia, he told the Annual Meeting. “Those studies seem to show that you need only consume what is part of the normal diet – but the research studies are testing higher doses to see if they can maximise the effect. It would be equivalent of going on a curry spree for a week.”

However, curry may be just one of the ingredients that prevent degeneration of the brain. “If you are eating fatty burgers and smoking then don’t expect an occasional curry to counterbalance a poor lifestyle. However, if you have a good diet and take plenty of exercise, eating curry regularly could help prevent dementia,” he said.

Turmeric is also found in mustard and Professor Doraiswamy predicted a day when – for those unable, or unwilling, to consume curries regularly – the public might be advised to take a ‘curry’ pill every day if the findings are confirmed in human studies.

Professor Doraiswamy and other scientists are testing a brain PET scan which can detect the prevalence of plaques in the living brain. At the moment, a definitive diagnosis can be made only after the patient has died. A second scan also being developed can detect both plaques and tangles – both of which are present in Alzheimer’s.

Many leading drugs being developed are targeting the plaques, said Professor Doraiswamy, and clinicians were prescribing these dugs “blindly” without knowing the plaque load in the brain. He said: “The hope is that with the PET scans you can scan their brains, find out whether their plaque load is high or low, and tailor treatment. If their plaque load is low, then you have to question the diagnosis.”

Some 20-30 per cent of diagnoses were wrong, said Professor Doraiswamy, and the condition could be vascular dementia or any number of other conditions masquerading as Alzheimer’s. “If you gave that person treatment it wouldn’t help – it would be a waste of money and in some cases hurt”.

The professor said it was conceivable in the near future, when preventive therapies were available, that a 50-year-old with a strong history of Alzheimer’s could be screened to determine the levels of plaque in their brains and then initiate anti-plaque therapy.

Professor Doraiswamy, a leading expert on brain health and fitness, grew up in Southern Indian town of Madras famous for its fiery curries. He is currently on a lecture tour promoting his consumer book The Alzheimer’s Action Plan, published in April.

Reference:
Annual Meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, BT Convention Centre, Liverpool, 2 -5 June 2009

Source:
Royal College of Psychiatrists

Men and Post-Menopausal Women: Skip the Iron Supplement

If you take multivitamins, be sure to use  a formula that doesn’t contain iron.

To Be Continued….