Food Do, Food Don't.

An article on the "future of food" - I look on this with the same kind of horror as I do when I see lists of additives (as you can find in the Body Friendly Zen Cookbook in the appendix) and or these mushrooms served by a supposedly healthy restaurant.

Why? Pasta that cooks in 90 seconds is either being subjected to sterilising type heat or else is made in a different way to permit full cooking in a minute and a half. Either way it's not going to be an ideal food. And the sauce is in a sachet, totally brilliant idea except that - well, it needs to be preservatived up beyond belief to prevent lawsuits, and is not likely to be good for you either.

And no, I'm not advocating raw vegetables as a basis for diet - our ancestors first started cooking and processing certain vegetables for a good reason. They were KEEN observers and noticed that certain foods were just better for them when heated or processed in some way. Or lasted longer, or had some other survival benefit. Notice our ancestors had to be survivors or we might very well not be here today... %)

In fact, this article documents a few points I've already made in The Body Friendly Zen Cookbook, namely that we NEED certain processing and certain foods. Once again fats emerge as a key concept, and I can expand on the following paragraphs, where the italic smaller font is my comments:

"Studies at Ohio State measured blood levels of subjects who ate servings of salsa and salads. When the salsa or salad was served with fat-rich avocados or full-fat salad dressing, the diners absorbed as much as 4 times more lycopene, 7 times more lutein and 18 times the beta carotene than those who had their vegetables plain or with
low-fat dressing." (There's a bit more to this, of course. A full fat dressing can be any of a range of oils, but in my research, olive oil has always been of the most benefit generally, and an oil rich in vitamin E such as grapeseed oil, about 2 or 3 times more effective again, than just vegetable oil. The best oil for extracting the lycopene, for example, is 1/4 grapeseed and 3/4 olive oil, used for cooking instead of other fats. It's also possible to add another fat for specific flavouring, but the base should always be that olive/grapeseed mix.)

and that's just for one group of compounds... I've found that almost three years after my win over prostate cancer, where I used the diet exclusively to reverse my prostate cancer, and then stuck loosely to the principles of the diet ever since, my PSA levels first dropped from 4.2 to 0.8 and have never climbed above 1.0 again since. That puts my prostate health at around the late 20's to mid 30's - and I'm 51.

So if just a bit of consideration of your diet can do that much for you, think what you can achieve if you put just a bit of effort into it. And avoid 90second pasta dispensed by some grotty machine on a street corner...

Polyunsaturated fats - not great, actually.

Sticking to less of the supposedly healthy oils might just save your cojones. (Or your prostate - but close enough, would you let anyone with a knife near either unless it has become dread necessity?)

Poly-and-mono-unsaturated fats are generally thought to be healthy for one, and it's again to balance that we should direct our attention. 25g of fat is supposed to be our limit, with 50g being about where I'd call it a day. Mind you, 50g is about 7mm (3/8") to 1cm (1/2") of a slice off the smallest face of half a kilo (about a pound) of butter. A few tablespoons of olive oil, to be sure.

Thing is that a pack of take-away fries or fish and chip shop chips can easily have all that fat stuck to them and soaked into the potato. Add a piece of fish or a burger and you're eating the next three days' worth of fat allowance.

The supposedly ideal approach used to be to avoid fats. Avoid animal fats especially, in favour of these newfangled poly and mono unsaturated fats. And now comes the kicker - to the average human palate, the two biggest components of flavour are - you guessed it - fats and sugars, closely followed by saltiness. Prod at the greasy salty baconburger in the sickly sweet bun you're eating and ponder that for a moment...

Diets have traditionally been regarded as bland because they have little flavour. In my diet book though, I still recommend balance. And dietary studies bear it out. The reason we crave the "flavour" that fat gives to a food is because we need it. Same for the sugars and salt.

That's why I recommend a balanced diet, an aware attitude, where you know that you need only stick to sensible limits in order to let your body work efficiently.

One word of warning - if you eat processed "diet" meal packs as seen in many supermarkets, you deserve all ill health you're going to get. LOOK - I mean, really look - at the ingredients list and then look them up in the Additives list in the diet book and realise that all the other things they do to your body come at a price - your body will start to "hoard" precious nutrients in an effort to cope with the damage - and how does that help your diet or your health?

I just find it so interesting that EVERY article which has a tip for healthy eating and living recommends precisely what I do. Save yourself the price of the book if you like, but be aware that I've now been on the principles outlined in the book for over three years and actually lost some weight, have had no further trouble with my prostate.

I've also experienced a reduction in the signs of guttate psoriasis which used to make my legs itchy and splotchy red as well, and my blood sugar and insulin levels are normal.

I've experienced a drop in testosterone levels, which is not alarming and in fact is beneficial, and it seems that over the three years, my digestive system has also returned to much more normal operation, no wild acid refluxes and IBS like symptoms.

And I LOVE my flavourful food and my cooking, across just about every style of cuisine known to humanity. Even if you aren't ill with any of the modern diseases caused by poor diet, you should take a look at the book.

Cos by then we won't need them

Audi - great ideas - later...

Calculate The Energy Savings

Quick link - to USA Energy Star pages which contain information relevant universally.

"Global Climate Change" followup

I mean, has anyone thought seriously about what any global climate change will entail? In a past article I said that any climate shifts will have disastrous results.

Analyse: In South Africa, there seems to be no mention of drought and famine until around the same time as we seem to think global warming may have started, which unsurprisinlgy enough, was a century or so after we started digging up fossil fuel and burning it in copious quantities to fill our energy needs to industrialise.

It seems reasonable to link the two, that climate changes of what appear to have been relatively minor magnitude, caused rather a large change in the condition and lifestyles of South Africans. You can't tell me that it's just a case of out of control breeding, because that just doesn't sweep over a entire continent for no reason...

To continue that analysis, then. When you think of South Africa, besides the famines, what is the other symptom of the region that springs immediately to mind? Did you say violence and inhumanity?

People will go to incredible lengths to ensure that their DNA passes on into the next generation, including rationalising murder and genocide as "culling" or "they deserved it" or any number of other such sops to our conscience. Wars are fought for religion, and religions are collections of people who want to survive as a group as well as individually.

Even without the incredible pressure which global climate change will bring to bear, we don;t actually have a period of recorded history in which there wasn't a war going on somewhere.

Project: The current trend to failing crops and food production forward a few more years. Which demographic in their right mind will send food and medical aid to a third world country when their own children in turn are starving and ill?

Think: About the incredible havoc and destruction of human lives that are taking place in South Africa with conventional weapons and explosives. Project that forward to a point in time when a developed nation with a massive armoury of WMD decides that their best chance is to reove some of the competing populations of the world.

Think: In Russia, that flashpoint is much closer than in Australia, even though we are in a drought of epic proportions. The United States also are reaching a point where their large population is makiing demands on the land, food, and medicine economy which can't be sustained for too many more years, and the population there is swelling from illegal immigrants and birth rate.

Act: Reduce your footprint. Carbon, greenhouse gas, energy (heat) release, footprint from overly processed and transported food, from the amount of trees that have to be felled for new building and for farmland, the amount of energy that has to be expended to dig the metal of your next car out of the ground and form it into a car, the amount of noxious and toxic byproducts that have to be produced to produce the plastics and electronics and throw-away disposables you use each month.

If every person that owns one kept their car for an extra year and used it less each year, the impact would be huge. If every person who purchases a steak bred on farmland that would be better off growing lower impact foods switched a couple of meals a year to that lower impact food, that too would make tons (literally) of difference per person.

Think: About: It...

Maybe Call It "Global Climate Change?"

- would that make it clearer to the ostriches?

Some people will go to extraordinary lengths to stick their head in the sand. Especially about things like global warming...

Our previous Prime Minister spent his entire record number of terms in office denying that greenhouse gases existed, that global warming existed, or that we needed to do anything about it. He apparently also thought that petrol companies were fair and honest and didn't need policing, and that the entire Australian population was composed of creatures of the IQ and mentality of sheep and could be lied to over and over without cottoning on...

I'm sad to say that on the latter matter, the Australian masses almost always proved him right...

But for years now one other person has been conducting a one-bigot campaign against global warming activism. He uses his humour email list to conduct a campaign that, if he stopped and really thought about it, would have him heading for the fallout shelter instead of spouting inane little digs.

Here's a quote, about a snowfield in Hohenfels, Germany: "Looks like they don't have any Global Warming either.Mother Nature seems to want to make it perfectly clearwho is in charge and who is full of BS." (BTW Hohenfels means "high rock" or "high cliff" and is a skiing spot I remember from my childhood as being a good snowfield. So he's even baseing this snide sideswipe on on a fallacy.)

All of the last several years he has been posting photos of unseasonally cold weather around the UA and the world and saying "See? No global warming here!"

And in the process, he's been ignoring the one thing that scares intelligent people everywhere and is forcing ever faster changes in our behaviour and abuse of the ecosystem: Life is delicatley balanced, a shift of just a few degrees in either directon will be disastrous.

Also, weather is a closed system with really only one energy input, being the energy from the sun. When we unlock the energy that used to be stored beneath the ground in the form of fossil fuel, we are effectively releasing ancient energy into a delicately balanced system. In addition, we're also disturbing that delicate balance by changing the composition of the atmosphere and the way that the atmosphere retains the energy of the sun.

Therefore, if the weather starts heading for extremes of cold, we had better prepare for the rebound in the other direction. As in, for example, a record drought in Australia, which we have been experiencing for over twenty years and which is affecting the world economy. Want to see global warming in action Herman? Come visit Australia and see what were once viable and productive farmlands fallen into drought-stricken baked mud flats.

Arguing about the semantics of the words "global warming" at a time like this is a bit like fiddling while Rome burns, or wandering around your empire in a brand new suit of nothing.

The rest of us, do something now to halt the changes, do our bit, and we may come out of the "Global Climate Change" with most of us still intact...

Coughaesthetic

Oh and here's one from a flu far far away an in the past:

It happened that I was working at Channel Nine in the Store at the time, and I had the flu and a nasty cough. The nice chemist had given me a Chemist's Own Brand (read - "cheapie") orange flavoured cough syrup which I kept on my desk to save the day, but neither it nor Panadol were helping me. In fact, I was so fluffy-headed from the flu that it would take me one to two hours to book in one delivery of stock items.

By the afternoon I'd generally start coming around a bit more and by knock-off time I was usually alert and awake enough to drive myself home. Then came the fateful morning when I arrived at my desk and the bottle was empty. I figured "I'll get one at lunchtime" and I proceeded to plough into the work for the day. And had it all finished by midday.

So at lunchtime, I headed for the chemistand got another bottle of the Wonderful Orange Elixir and sat it on my desk- throat sooooo sore, - took a Panadol and a measure of WOE and settled in to breeze hrough the last bits of outstanding work. - Only - I was back. Back to doing everything in a somnolent state. Back to doing everything in a s-l-o-w somnolent state where I forgot what I wanted to do, generally taking careful note of how fucked up everything was, and then not finding any way to get back in sync again.

Turns out my body doesn't like Codeine very much, and especialy it doesn't like Codeine with Paracetamol. So every day I'd arive pico bello, take my medicine and end up a zombie.
So another thing to watch, codeine snd panadol.

Read your labels, check interactions, and preferably know what makes you react badly.

Skinflint Skim Food.

You ma have watched Current Affair last night, and heard about the "adulteration of our milk" with a thing called "permeate." I can honestly say that I have been lucky enough to have milk fresh from a farm, and thus have something to compare supermarket milk to.

I can therefore also say that there IS a difference. You can see that supermarket milk is more transparent ("thinner") than fresh minimally processed dairy milk. No it doesn't taste the same, but then all processing of milk alters the taste from the rich bacteria-laden brew that comes out of a cow's teat. Some of that is actually beneficial.

Adding permeate is just adding back what's left after extracting most of the useful parts of whey, which is in turn wat's left of milk after extracting the most useful parts of milk for making cheese. So yes permeate is a long way down the ladder from milk, and shouldn't be there - but at least it's not going to be any more harmful to your health than milk. And in some cases the thinner milk is actually good, such as in baking.

So really, permeate should go into the bread instead of full cream milk, thus reducing the cost of bre... Hang on, that's right, bread already uses he minimum amount and form of milk possible, adulterated by whatever the bakeries use to stretch the milk as far as possible...

Adulteration of food is nothing new. Frederick Accum was among the most vocal and active of anti-fraud activists, back in the early 1800's no less. He used a then still fairly high tech medium - he published a book - to actually name the merchants and manufacturers, and they shut him down with legalities and innuendo. Today, you still notice manufacturers shutting down sites where the public are encouraged to name and shame, and more importantly, you still notice that adulteration of food is taking place, just that the handling of it takes a different form.

In Accum's time, he noted with some grim glee that each of the primary foodstuff and pharmacy manufacturers were poisoning one another in a circular spiral of karma and bad digestion. He didn't need to specifically note however that this was also true of the general consumer too, the person whom all these adulterations eventually filtered down to, en masse.

Today we find that as each manufacturer uses some technique to stretch their ingredients, we lose once. Then because most of those ingredients in their turn come from a source that has already diluted or adulteratd these basic building blocks, we're losing out in a geometric progesssion...

But times have changed.

Where in Accum's day it was a case of slip in whatever you could and bank on the public's ignorance to not recognise poison in their food when they encountered it, our time is a time of disclosure.

Nowadays it's a case of slip in whatever you can, disclose as little of the true nature of the additives or find some loophole to allow you to remain within disclosure law as you can, and bank on the public's ignorance to not recognise poison in their food when they encounter it...

In Accum's day, there were as yet few additives. (Which are nowadays produced mostly by laboratory processes from waste products from another manufacture stage.) The reason was that there were then no processing plants able to manage this process. There were none, because the energy that ws needed and that we would soon unlock in the form of electric power from fossil fuels was not yet available, along with the spike in the production of poisonous emissions and greenhouse gases that would march hand in hand with the exploitation of fossil fuels.

In our day, we have added more illnesses and cancers to our repertoire than at any other time in the development of the world, not a mean achievement by any means. And do I think that the increase in additives, onset of pollution and huge increase in the incidence of cancers and other illnesses is all coincidental? What do you think?

Once again, I can never overtstate this enough - manufacturers could not get away with this shit if it wasn't for one very important group - US - the buying public. If we don't use every avenue open to us to bring these greedy companies to heel, they will continue to poison us. It's that simple. Check products carefully. Read labels, and at all times keep yourself aware of the latest deception being practised on us by nitpicking loophole seekers.

This is the price of keeping your own health, and the health of your family and people you care about. Let someone else forge the pioneering work of attempting to assimilate these poisons into the human genome...

What IS a Healthy Lifestyle, Anyway?

Hmmm so fit and healthy people like Lisa Curry Kenny get heart problems despite (or perhaps because of) her training and active life. There's no justice in the world, so the important thing is to take lessons from the injustices - in this case, that exercise and healthy living can make you very very sick.

Okay okay that was unfair - it should read "that exercise and healthy living can make you very very sick if it's not part of a balanced lifestyle and diet." Exercise is commendable but please don't overdo it, and remember that balance in all things is far more important for your health.

Prostate Cancer Risk Reduced By Green Tea

. . . with a caveat: While this article makes perfect sense, due to the known antioxidant properties of green tea (when prepared right!) there is the caveat of evolutionary pressures.

If you're not of Asian extraction, then probably your body has NOT evolved to take advantage of the precise properties of green tea as the Asian bloodlines will have evolved to.

That said, you will probably not suffer any ill effects from downing a cup or three of green tea a day. Also of course, green tea should not be the one and only prong in your plan of attack, you should also follow the other guidelines of The Body Friendly Zen Cookbook because the balanced approach and proper use of the foods will be far more beneficial than just trying one thing.

Last thing - this is not just for prostate cancer prone people - many cancers could be avoided by following a better diet, and the The Body Friendly Zen Cookbook has a lot of tips for keeping a healthy diet.

No Fleas, yet No Pesticides

The easiest way to kill the fleas harbouring in the carpet of the house from where Tiddles scratched them and the little bugger bred and multiplied? "Quick Henry - the Flit!" is not the answer. Nor is getting the pest man in with his goggles and mask and his jolly toxic sprays.

Latest research seems to say - vacuum the little sods. Kills them dead. Apparently. Hell, I say - why stop there? Vacuum Tiddles too!

Honey, could you please check the fuel rods?

Yeah they're coming in thick and fast now, for no readily discernible reason. Here's another way to live off grid and probably get paid for contributing to the grid in fact: Toshiba's personal nuclear reactor...

If this is not a hoax, it will probably be quite expensive for the average householder, but for motels and roadhouses and office blocks, it could be an answer to the cost of powering from the huge, expensive, polluting, and ugly Grid, the power network that has to span almost every city, town, village, highrise, factory, farmhouse, and homestead in Australia to supply the all-important energy needs of those places.

Actually, you may find that suburban streets could probably band together and set these up, the output at 200KW is enough to power about 90 toasters or 220 refrigerators, so if you go figuring it out, about 10 - 20 houses average usage.

Contrary to my title above, these things are sealed and pretty much maintenance free. And if you buy one you'd better hope so too - I hate to think what a 100,000 hour service would cost otherwise...

This is the kind of technology that, while entrenched power monopolies would love to be able to malign and create FUD around, will end the global warming cycle. 10,000 of these deployed around Australia will take away the need for several hundred megawatts worth of generator plant burning dirty fuels, and (more inportantly) take away the need for grid-supplying power cable runs across tens of thousands of miles as we currently have.

Aside from returnng material like aluminium and copper to the stockpile, this clears visual pollution, traffic hazards, and the need for surge power capacity that we have to currently build into the grid. Combined with houses supplying some of their power with cheap wind and solar electricity, the need for surge capacity will largely disappear.

Once again - tell your local Member about it, write about it, bring it to public attention - we can make Australia an example of how to do it right.

Cheap Cheap Solar Cells Hit Manufacture Stage

Have to give out this link - these are going to revolutionise a variety of solar electric technologies. How about your house covered in solar panels for $3000 instead $15000?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/technology/18solar.html?ex=1355634000&en=091b06819623f9d0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

LATEST NEWS:

• http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/green-tech/cheap-solar+power+everywhere-nanosolar-powersheets-go-on-sale-really-are-cheap-335096.php
• http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9835241-54.html?tag=newsmap

Additives? Just say NO!

The evidence against additives keeps mounting up. I'm very glad I take the stance I do against additives and adulteration of whole foods, because if just one person more starts reading and taking note of the labels of the foods they eat, I consider that a victory and am glad to have given one more person a chance at healthy life.

In The Body Friendly Zen Cookbook, I think I made that point, and at the risk of saying it again - it takes our bodies hundreds of generations to adjust to new foods. Even if the human species is evolving at a faster and faster rate, it's not going to be possible for YOU personally to "evolve" to adapt to additives and preservatives and other crap in your food.

Personally, I check every tin, every packet, and every sachet the first time I encounter it during shopping, and if the ingredients aren't listed or the list is made hard to figure out, or if the list looks like a chemistry experiment in progress, it goes on my ignore list. If you're at all concerned about your health and the health of your family, you'll do the same.

The best way to survive the next few decades will be to eat minimally processed whole foods, cook the food yourself, and remember that what our ancestors were eating 7,000 to 12,000 years ago is what we are just becoming adapted to now...

Another Biodiesel Problem, Solved!

With this breakthrough, biodiesel has become fun again! Now that Rice University boffins have found a way to digest the major slimy slippery waste byproduct into another fuel, (ethanol,) there is no reason to avoid biodiesel any longer.

I don't know about you, but I played with biodiesel despite having no motor to test it in, and what really stumped me was the litre of slippery glycerin that is left behind for every 11 litres of oil you crack into diesel.

Because larger players have been getting into making biodiesel, the demand for glycerin has decreased sharply, one might say... Being able to sell or give it away to an ethanol refinery would solve the major problem, once a month/year/whatever you can have your waste glycerin removed and turned into something useful!

According to the article, each litre of glycerin digests into almost a whole litre of ethanol, meaning there will be little waste to worry about, and I'm betting that the waste there is, will be something that is easily biodegradable, being just the waste from bacteria digestion.

I'm thinking here - car engines run on petroleum, and are not really suited to running on ethanol. Old diesel engines were not really made for biodiesel, either. But once the advantages of biodiesel became apparent, diesel engine manufacturers got wise and now there is hardly a diesel engined domestic car that doesn't claim to run on it.

Similarly, petrol distributors have been adding ethanol and methanol to petroleum, and slowly car manufacturers have changed engines so they will run on these augmented fuels.

Now here's another thought - diesel engines were also NOT designed to run on neat vegetable oil, yet some are capable. If a diesel engine could run on a blend of vegetable oil and biodiesel, then you could say that 15 litres of vegetable oil will make 13 - 14 litres of useable biodiesel blend, and 1 -2 litres of glycerin, which, according to the story I linked to, will become 1 -2 litres of ethanol.

Negligible waste - now that is something to aim for!

The beautiful thing is, that we know that car engines, both petrol and diesel, are capable of running on these alternative and much cheaper and cleaner fuels, so put pressure on car manufacturers. The best way we can do that is by avoiding products with pansified petrol-only-sipping engines or fussy-fossil-diesel-thanks motors...

So pressure away - it will finally be YOU and YOUR CHOICES that determine the future of the world.

No, THIS is the Most Bastard Marketing Evah...

Aside from this article I posted a few minutes ago on telemarketing with a new twist, I'd say what I found yesterday has to take the cake:

Went to my chemist the other day to pick up a script, and noticed another piece of genius marketing. Do you suffer from cracked heels? If you do, then you know that it's partly hereditary, parly down to footwear, partly to weather. And you probably know the name NS-8 Heel Balm.

So there's a cardboard display on the counter full of NS-8 bottles, and beside them, a stack of pink thongs. (Known as flip-flops to our Podean siblings. Yeah, rubber beachwear for your feet.)

And this is brilliant marketing because? Well, because the one type of footwear guaranteed to bring on dry cracked heels is - thongs. As you sweat, the sweat collects between your foot and the rubber and doesn't dry, and breeds the fungus that is one of the other causes of cracked dry heels.

Just when you thought you'd seen everything...

Food "Unbelievably Coupled" With Body Chemistry. Well Duh!

Look - this one should already be obvious by now, but it bears repeating, often - You Are What You Eat. I know this story is only tangentially related by one reference to the topic, but it shows how what should be the most important thing you take home from an article is often just one line, one concept.

"The food you eat is so unbelievably coupled with your body's chemistry," said Richard Mathies, who described his new technology in an article published Thursday in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

If Richard was the only person saying that, you could be excused for not picking up on it. But the fact is that almost every article you ever read on health and nutrition mentions this central tenet. You Are What You Eat.

The Body Friendly Zen Cookbook is based on this tenet. You Are What You Eat. Yet we still go out and allow someone to sell us foods laced with additives that are known toxins and poisons...

We let them lie to us about it, because it's either cheaper for us, or easier for us. We Are What We Eat. We eat foods that are described with lies, that are lies. Lying to ourselves that it's not really that bad for us, becomes easier every time...

If I look even in my refrigerator I can find a lie right away. The carton of milk reads "Low in Fat, High in Taste." That's bullshit of the first water, right there. First of all, the flavour we perceive, is fat. You want to make something tasty to homo sapiens, add fat. It's how our tastebuds and brains are wired. So if the milk is low on fat then it isn't high in taste, at all. And if you find it tasty, it's fatty, you can depend on it.

The other exhortation on the carton, is "Perfect Balance. Dairy Goodness." Need I go back to the last paragraph? If the fat has been removed then the milk is no longer in "perfect balance," nor is it "dairy goodness" any more. We Are What We Eat.

Yet we buy it because of those slogans and all the "research" that has been done proving that watering down milk by up to half strength, skimming off the cream, and adding stabilisers and preservatives, all makes the milk "better."

Despite vastly improved medical resources, we have more illnesses, cancers, inflammatory diseases, and immune system illnesses per capita now than we ever had. We Are What We Eat.

Our greatgrandparents boiled the milk, and succumbed to flu and illnesses related to lack of hygene, but had almost none of the modern illnesses. They Were What They Ate, Too.

I can't stress this enough. Our bodies have for millenia evolved to be able to use the foods at our disposal, and that NEVER included additives and preservatives and semi-toxic colourings, nor chemical splitting of foods, nor "enhancement" of foods by adding totally unrelated vitamins and minerals and "secret ingredients" to them.

Get smart, get Body Friendly, and avoid additives like the Plague. If you can, try growing some of your own vegetables and herbs. Over at the Zen Cookbook site, I'll soon be posting a series of projects for growing fresh vegetables yourself, and other projects. But do your body a favour and start giving it a chance...

No Nurse! I Said - Prick His - Oh Never Mind!

For readers of the Body Friendly Zen Cookbook, you'll already know that despite the stress the diet places on unprocessed foods, tomato paste is the best form of tomato because the boiling process releases the lycopene better than other forms of cooking. Now we know that the same is true of peanuts.

"Lloyd Walker, chair of Alabama A&M University's Department of Food and Animal Sciences who co-authored the study, said these phytochemicals have antioxidant qualities that protect cells against the risk of degenerative diseases, including cancers, diabetes and heart disease."

Apparently, boiling doesn't destroy these phytochemicals as much as roasting does. And raw peanuts don't release the chemicals as easily as cooked peanuts do.

Similarly, the tomato lycopene is released by the boiling process and becomes more available to the body than raw tomato or other forms of it.

And we shouldn't forget that teas started as a way to infuse the healing properties of herbs into water and make them more effective. There's another important lesson here - some delicate properties of teas and herbs are destroyed in anything hotter than boiling water.

Roundup Of Recent Interesting Bits

Roundup:

Biofuels may become more attractive if this membrane that filters out methane and CO2 becomes widespread in use.
As I say, the wheel of life keeps rolling along, yes we have species extinctions but there are a lot of new species being discovered too.
Cloned animal (meat) products may be in your diet already.
But eating cloned meat may be okay of you use potato starch compostable cutlery.
And it all doesn't matter, because the Matrix is closer than you think, and Microsoft is going to be spearheading the changes. Apparently. Get set to be rebooting your brain several times a day... %)

New Psoriasis Drug.

New Psoriasis Drug - this should be good. I have a mild form of psoriasis and it was the first time in my life anyone had told me I had "an incurable disease" which was both upsetting and also rocked my faith in the medical profession.

But this is a 3 month injection and it apparently shifts the plaque form of psoriasis - inform your doctor if you have a need, you might find it is good for you.