Vibrant Life: Give us an idea of the scope of the diabetes problem.
Dr. Barnard: It is reaching epidemic levels. There are 200 million people or more who have it. Year by year it gets more common. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta estimates that children born since the year 2000 have a one in three risk of developing diabetes at some point in their lives. Most of them will not develop it as children but as adults, but one in three is an astronomical figure we’ve never had before.
A woman reaches for a cigarette while her 2-week-old-daughter sleeps in the bassinet beside her. A man leaves his family behind and drives into the city looking for his next drug fix. A pastor powers up his computer and clicks on a link that will carry him to a popular porn site. A married businesswoman glances at a handsome coworker and allows herself to wonder what it would be like . . . Read more about Breaking Your Hardest-to-Break Habit …
Nontoxic recipes for home-cleaning come together easily for daily use. You may already have most of the ingredients on hand, as well as various re-usable bottes, spray-top bottles, glass jars with screw-top lids, salvaged old t-shirts and sponges. Add a little elbow grease, and your home is sure to shine.
Some newer ingredients now available to homemakers are tea tree and essential oils, both used in the disinfectant spray recipe below. Many local co-ops, apothecaries, and organic foods stores are now selling a variety of these strongly-scented oils for both homeopathic and everyday use. Tea tree oil is a natural disinfectant with antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties. Essential oils are costly, but just a drop or two adds a lovely scent to any cleaning supply recipes, entirely masking the use of vinegar. Oils range in scent from classic lemon to cinnamon to summer berry. Read more about More Cleaning Essentials …
Everything you’ll need to keep linens fresh and bug-free.
We have a wooden dresser that I use to store guest linens. Despite fresh laundering, things consistently smell of wood on the way out. Not a soft pine scent either, more of a musty pile of sticks smell. These simple bundles now impart a light, sweet odor to our guest towels.
What you’ll need to make four
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon water
4 cotton balls
1 plastic sandwich bag, cut into four pieces
4 twist ties
1 toothpick
How the little packets will look.
What to do
Mix the vanilla and water in a small bowl. Flatten or open your plastic bag pieces on a countertop. Dip the cotton balls into the vanilla mix and place each in the center of a piece of plastic. Gather the plastic edges, keeping the cotton ball in the center, and use a twist tie to bind. When all four bags are sealed, poke three or four times with the toothpick to let the scent out slowly. Read more about Vanilla-Scented Linens …
At the local antique store, I found a set of tall, swivel chairs for my kitchen island for $12.50 each. They were previously recovered in a ’60s oilcloth print of roosters, trees and farm scenes. It was a stained and discolored, so I decided to reupholster it with an oilcloth print fragment that I purchased at Jo-Ann Fabrics in the leftover bin for $3. I sliced the fabric into a large circle, stretched it over a thin piece of polyester batting, and used a staple gun to hold it in place, pulling each side taut as I stapled around the edge. When finished stapling, I cut off extra fabric and reattached the chair backs.
For a professional finish, you can use a round of cardboard that laps over the fabric edge and nail it down with upholstery tacks. This finish offers a nice hand feel, if you’ll be touching your recovered surface often and need to minimize sharp edges. Store co-owner Robin said to polish the chrome up with that stuff you rub onto your hubcaps to buff the imperfections and get back the metal’s sheen. I still haven’t done this, since it wasn’t available at our small-town grocer. I plan to pick some up on my next trip to Kansas City.
The entire reupholstery project took me about 45 minutes to complete, and now I have two cute stools at my breakfast nook for $28. Read more about Retooled Vintage Chairs …
Everything that Dr. William W. Jih, medical director for Loma Linda University Family Medical Group, had to say about maintaining healthy fingernails didn’t fit in the magazine. Here’s the complete interview.
I’ve heard characteristic on fingernails can indicate health problems. Should ridges and brittleness worry me?
Nail changes may not be the window to the soul, but they certainly can give a glimpse into the potential health of a person. Elements of the human body that are constantly growing and regenerating–such as skin, hair, and nails–are very susceptible to major changes in the overall health of the human body. Just like rings in a tree trunk, nails can develop lines after a particularly stressful illness that inhibits the body’s resources to grow healthy nails. Auto-immune disorders or disease in which your immune system is affected can have nail manifestations. Additionally, vitamin and iron deficiency have been known to cause nail changes and brittleness. Although these changes can be a clue to systemic illness or deficiency, these changes may also be the result of external damage. Exposure to chemicals and common cleaning agents–and even prolonged exposure to water–can have a harsh effect on nails leading to crumbling, pitting, and development of lines in the nail.
Blue-green algae are microscopic plants which are more closely akin to bacteria than to seaweed. The popular blue-green algae, spirulina, is currently cultivated and harvested on an industrial scale in the ocean and lakes of several countries. It is commonly sold as a general nutritional supplement or weight-loss agent.
Spirulina (including Spirulina maxima and S. platensis) contains a variety of nutrients, such as protein, a variety of B vitamins and minerals, the antioxidants beta-carotene and vitamin E, and phycocyanin. Read more about Spirulina …
