04-06-2015

I Drank Warm Honey Lemon Water Every Morning for a Year (Here’s What Happened).

I Drank Warm Honey Lemon Water Every Morning for a Year (Here’s What Happened).

Via Crystal Davison Feb 19, 2015

Honey Lemon Article photo

Until a few years ago, honey and lemon drinks were something I bought in a packet from the chemist when in the death-throes of a full blown flu.

Naturally, those little packets didn’t help much, so I was skeptical when I started this whole crazy challenge.
Of course, drinking real lemon juice and proper honey in warm water is a totally different experience, and with all the hype around it I embarked on a 12 month quest to see if it really was as miraculous as the trend says.
I am pleased to report I am thoroughly converted, and here is why.
1. I have not had a cold, flu or gastro illness in the entire year.
Literally. On reflection, this actually blows my mind. All of my life I’ve been a serial tonsillitis-getter, and always seemed to pick up whatever was going around. With a large family, including lots of little ones, there is always someone around who has the latest bug. I am happy to report I no longer catch them, even when it rips through the rest of the gang.
Confession: there were days I skipped totally, and though I have felt very early signs of sickness sometimes (too many sneezes in a day, run down, extra tired, suspicious tummy rumblings) nothing at all has materialised. Sure I’ve had tired days and a few headaches, but nothing to write home about.
As soon as I got back on the regime these stopped happening, and I now absolutely swear by honey/lemon—to the point I‘ve become prematurely old-aged and carry them both in my bag when I stay at friend’s places or hotels. (Should I be worried I’m also proud of this?)
2. I no longer need coffee and have become a {gasp} morning person.
The zing I get from lemon and honey first thing in the morning has become something I crave, and doesn’t leave me with headaches or the dreaded caffeine comedown. I also have more energy for longer and am quicker to smile in the a.m.
It used to take me at least an hour to open my second eye and stop grunting at people like a cavewoman, but I’m now annoying the people that love me in new and wonderful ways like throwing deep philosophical questions at them as I bound into the kitchen. I’ll need to find a new challenge soon though if I am to keep them on their toes.
3. The people around me are becoming more healthy—the biggest reward.
So this has taken the longest: to convince my family that honey and lemon can help them prevent some of their man-flu incidents.
But after playing nurse and administering my magic potion to them when they are at their most desperate, they can finally see its benefits. “Whoa! That helped straight away!” never gets old and reminds me to keep going every morning so I don’t suffer the indignities of needing to be three feet from a toilet at all times, or running through a box of tissues an hour. 
It’s such a lovely feeling to know that I can help my loved ones feel more well through something so simple and available. I have become some kind of one-trick uber-nurse, and that’s awesome.
My Recipe:
I generally use the juice of half a fresh lemon, and a decent teaspoon of organic, raw unheated honey in a standard mug with freshly boiled water that has cooled a little (but still hot enough to melt the honey). I then add a splash of cold so I can drink immediately in one go to rehydrate me as soon as I wake.
However, it does depend on the lemon and the honey, some lemons are juicier or more sour and some honeys more sweet, so experimenting is important! Also half a lemon may be too intense to start, my family uses a quarter.

Why does it work? Well, according to websites thehealthsite.com and Underground Health, there are at least nine major benefits to drinking warm honey lemon water every morning. But I’ll list my favourites here:
Keeps you regular and protects from UTIs
Because this mixture when taken first thing in the morning stimulates the digestive system, as well as hydrating the colon and more, honey lemon water keeps constipation at bay. It also acts as a diuretic, cleansing the urinary tract and ensuring no urinary tract infections. I can certainly verify this one!
Improves digestion
Every part of this drink aids in the digestive process; lemons assist your liver in producing more bile so you can break down complex foods better and use the good stuff from your meals. Honey is antibacterial which protects you from any infections you might have. It also helps with the production of mucus in the stomach, helping to flush out toxins. For this reason, it also assists with healthy weight balance.
Makes you glow with health and beauty
Lemon has many benefits for skin, but it also helps purify the blood as well as aiding in the production of new blood cells that act as cleaning agents. The water and honey create a restorative, antibacterial and collagen boosting powerhouse for your skin too.
So there you have it, my verdict is overwhelming positive and I highly, thoroughly recommend it. Plus it’s freakin’ delicious.
Disclaimer: I have become incredibly fussy about which honey and which lemons I use, and can see that makes all the difference. I am blessed to live in the pristine Tasmania, Australia where I source raw, unheated honey and organic lemons from the trees of my neighbours. When I am desperate and resort to supermarket lemons and honey, the result is not the same (it just tastes like fake sugary lemony yumminess).
Proper honey and healthily grown lemons are the key.
As well as a big handbag to carry them everywhere.

                  ---------------------------------------------------

03-06-2015

Roundup Weedkiller Found In 75% of Air and Rain Samples, Gov. Study Finds

by Sayer Ji

The GM farming system has made exposure to Roundup herbicide a daily fact of our existence, and according to the latest US Geological Survey study its probably in the air you are breathing…
roundup
A new study from the U.S. Geological Survey, accepted for publication online ahead of print in the journal Enviromental Toxicology and Chemistry, titled, “Pesticides in Mississippi air and rain: A comparison between 1995 and 2007,”[i] reveals that Roundup herbicide (aka glyphosate) and its still-toxic degradation byproduct AMPA were found in over 75% of the air and rain samples tested from Mississippi in 2007.
The researchers evaluated a wide range of pesticides currently being used through weekly composite air and rain sampling collected during the 1995 and 2007 growing seasons in the Mississippi Delta agricultural region.
The researchers discovered the following:
  • Thirty-seven compounds were detected in the air or rain samples in 2007; 20 of these were present in both air and rain.
  • Glyphosate was the predominant new herbicide detected in both air (86%) and rain (77%) in 2007, but were not measured in 1995.
  • Decreased overall pesticide use in 2007 relative to 1995 generally resulted in decreased detection frequencies in air and rain, but observed concentration ranges were similar between years even though the 1995 sampling site was 500 m from active fields while the 2007 sampling site was within 3 m of a field.
  • Mean concentration of detections were sometimes greater in 2007 than in 1995 but the median values were often lower.
  • Seven compounds in 1995 and five in 2007 were detected in ≥50% of both air and rain samples. Atrazine, metolachlor, and propanil were detected in ≥50% of the air and rain samples in both years.
  • Total herbicide flux in 2007 was slightly greater than in 1995, and was dominated by glyphosate.
According to the report, 2 million kilograms of glyphosate were applied statewide in 2007, or 55% of the total herbicide flux for that year (~129 μg/m2), leading them to state the high prevalence of glyphosate in air and water “was not surprising.”  Even though glyphosate was only tested in 2007, based on the 1995 figures on glyphosate use (147,000 kg state-wide) the researchers estimated that glyphosate added 3% of the total herbicide flux for 1995, or approximately 7 micrograms per centimeter (~7 μg/m2) per sample. This estimate, if correct, reveals that there has been an ~ 18 fold increase in glyphosate concentrations in air and water samples in only 12 years (1995-2007).    
The researchers pointed out that, “the 2007 weekly air concentration pattern for glyphosate was similar to those of other commonly detected herbicides in both 1995 and 2007 in that the highest concentrations occurred in April and May. However, there were detectable concentrations of glyphosate over the entire growing season, which is consistent with how glyphosate is used on GM crops, including for post-emergent weed control throughout the growing season.”  The longer period of exposure adds to growing concern that this ubiquitous toxicant represents an unavoidable body burden and that even small daily environmental exposures may be causing significant harm through their cumulative and synergistic effects with other toxicants.
So, what is the toxicological significance of the discovery of glyphosate in most air samples tested? In the month of August, 2007, if you were breathing in the sampled air you would be inhaling approximately 2.5 nanograms of glyphosate per cubic meter of air. It has been estimated the average adult inhales approximately 388 cubic feet or 11 cubic meters of air per day, which would equal to 27.5 nanograms (billionths of a gram) of glyphosate a day.  Of course, when one considers the presence of dozens of other agrichemicals found alongside glyphosate in these samples, the interactions between them are incalculably complex and produce far more harm together than glyphosate alone (i.e. synergistic toxicity). Also, now that recent cell research has shown that glyphosate may act as an endocrine disrupter exhibiting estrogenic-like carcinogenicity within the part-per-trillion range, there is all the more reason to raise the red flag of the precautionary principle — especially since inhaled toxicants evade the elaborate detoxification mechanisms of ingested toxicants which must pass through the microbiome, intestinal lining and liver before entering the blood and only a long time later the lung far downstream.
This study brings to the surface the extent to which GM farming has altered our daily exposure to chemicals, such that even the rain and air we now breath contains physiologically relevant levels of glyphosate ‘fall out’ from the war against any plant not part of the monocultured, genetically engineered system of production. With a significant body of research now available today showing that glyphosate and its components are far more toxic than believed at the time of its widespread approval, the implications of ubiquitous glyphosate exposure should be carefully considered.
Ultimately, findings like these reveal just how illusory is the perception of choice and health freedom when it comes to the GM/non-GMO debate, and the consumer’s right to avoid harm from GMOs by refusing to buy or consume them. Not only are consumers in the U.S. not allowed to know what is in their food with accurate and truthful labeling of ingredients, we now know that biopollution from GMOs produces uncontrollable and irreversible changes in the genomes of affected organisms when their transgenes escape into them, and we know that even beyond their genomic/proteomic differences the contamination of GM foods with herbicides like Roundup (glyphosate) makes them non-substantially equivalent in chemical composition to their non-contaminated alternatives. The reality is that the environment is becoming so saturated with the ‘fall out’ from the ever-expanding GM agricultural/agrichemical farming grid that even if you somehow find a way to avoid eating contaminated food, you will be forced to have to deal with its adverse health effects, as long as you need air to breath and water to drink. Ultimately, unless our food production system moves through its present chemical war-modeled phase of GM monoculturing, even non-GM food will end up being contaminated with these chemicals and transgenes, because nothing ‘natural’ lives in a vacuum – and if it does, then it really shouldn’t be called “organic,” and maybe shouldn’t even be called food.


[i] Michael S Majewski, Richard H Coupe, William T Foreman, Paul D Capel. Pesticides in Mississippi air and rain: A comparison between 1995 and 2007. Environ Toxicol Chem. 2014 Feb 19. Epub 2014 Feb 19. PMID: 24549493

God is Geen Religie, God is Geen Illusie

Illustratie van Luuk Barink
God is een woord dat door veel mensen gemeden wordt. We gebruiken liever woorden zoals "de Bron", "Liefde" of "AL". Dit heeft te maken met de weerstand tegen religie die steeds gevoeld wordt bij het woord God. De religie, welke religie dan ook, die een Goeroe bovenaan zet en die de mannelijke energie en vrouwelijke energie op verschillende niveaus plaatst. 
Het beseffen dat religies meer kapot hebben gemaakt dan opgebouwd, is een groter wordend bewustzijn en men wil zich hiervan distantiëren.
Maar juist nu, in deze tijd, waarin de sluiers opgeheven worden is het goed om God weer helemaal te herinneren zoals het er in de zuiverste zin IS.
God is geen enkele religie maar God is ook geen illusie!