Blog
Coconut Oil Can Help Heal Alzheimer’s disease.
"Coconut Oil has had a poor press over the years. This was mainly due to a campaign planned to promote the benefits of Soya, and like in so many publicity related conflicts the facts gave way to fictional commercial interests. Now, a Florida physician has written a book demonstrating the benefits of coconut oil. Hopefully, this will dispel many of the half truths that have surrounded this oil for far too long!
Dr. Mary Newport runs a neo-natal ward in a Florida hospital but her interest in the coconut began not in her work environment but in her home. Her husband, Steve, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease after a poor showing on the traditional clock test used to signal the disease. Patients are asked to draw a clock showing a numbered face and hands capable of demonstrating time. Steve performed so poorly that he was described as having severe symptoms. He had been withdrawing both socially and emotionally during the two years prior to diagnosis. It had also been difficult for him to read and he found he could no longer run. Mary was scared when she witnessed what was happening to her husband. So she set about studying Alzheimer’ s and was determined to find a way to help improve her husband’s failing health.
She explored the disease and found that it was best described as a diabetes of the brain. The culprit she discovered is the hormone insulin, manufactured by the beta islet cells of the pancreas. In the case of Alzheimer’s, because of the insulin problem, the brain cells stop accepting glucose. Glucose is the principal brain food, and when cells begin to starve they start to die. When this occurs, there is an alternative food that remains acceptable, and this is ketones. Insulin, a storage hormone, sweeps glucose into the liver where it changes to glycogen and is stored as an energy source. This means when the sugar supply expires, the liver changes fats to ketones. This is one reason that people who fast on a Detox program lose weight. They stop eating, so glucose dries up and then the body has to start burning its own fat deposits as an alternative fuel.
Dr. Newport found that long chain fatty acids like coconut oil provided the necessary fats for the ketone process to happen. She then started adding pure, non-hydrogenated coconut oil to her husband's diet and was astonished to see an improvement in just two short weeks. It was then he re-did the clock test and the result was noticeably better. He also became more talkative and less emotionally detached. After a month, he was able to run again, and the ability to read came back to him, too. She was so delighted with the results that she decided to write: “Alzheimer’s Disease; What If There Was A Cure?”, and share this new knowledge with other people. She received an encouraging response with feedback messages flooding in from family members awestruck with the improvements they were seeing in their loved ones.
Another issue raised its head. When the campaign to denigrate fats as harmful to heart health emerged, the cholesterol myth began to appear. Anything that raised cholesterol was dammed and outed as harmful. Even in the writing of this short article I have experienced such a response whilst talking to a physician from Europe. There are two types of cholesterol that are named after their transportation systems. One is LDL or Low Density Lipoprotein, and the other is HDL that translates to High Density Lipoprotein. LDL is said to be harmful and HDL is described as being healthful. Coconut oil aligns itself with HDL, thus is by definition healthy fat.
According to Dr. Beverly Teter of the University of Maryland, coconut oil improves the overall cholesterol factor in the body. She also found that it helped diminish the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, as well as Schizophrenia and acted as an antibiotic which can kill viruses. Conventional antibiotics don’t destroy viruses although frequently they are mis-prescribed to do just that. Dr. Teter tells us that coconut oil helps boost the immune system, and it is this, that is the body’s defense system responsible for killing harmful pathogens.
Thankfully, finest quality extra virgin coconut oil is easily available. Make sure you buy the crystal clear variety, which is slightly sweet to taste. The brown version often used for massage is heat treated and frequently rancid. Be sure to add a spoonful to your shakes or smoothies, pour it over vegetables in place of butter or just drink it from the bottle. In Thailand, it will be liquid, but in cooler climes it solidifies. Don’t worry; it’s still the same product."
This article by Alister Bredee first appeared in the Samui Gazette of 8th February 2012
The Food Revolution: You May Be Arrested Soon For Growing A Tomato
: from friendseat : As our government hands over billions to Wall Street bankers, jobless Americans live in tent cities and collect food stamp...
Therapy, what is it? And how can it help?
Alister Bredee of the Health Ambit Consultancy gives his views on the purpose of therapy.The word therapy originally comes from the Greek "therapeia" which translates into English as "the treatment of disease or disorders, as by some remedial, rehabilitating or curative process." From a Chinese perspective this would mean correcting something that is out of balance.
February 01, 2012 ( datsyn.com) - All “dis-ease” indicates an imbalance of some description. At a deep instinctive level the subconscious mind which can amazingly process 15,000,000 bits of information per second, grasps the problem and intuits how to put it right. Dogs and cats know what type of grass to eat when they are ill. Who taught them? I doubt it was their mothers. The life saving knowledge is instinctive. Humans had the same ability until they were educated away from it. Therapy and therapists in all their myriad forms do not heal you, you heal yourself! The therapist is the attendant who helps the process on its way.
Let’s move away from the Newtonian and Descartian models that have provided the scaffolding for health care for too long. Therapists are not car mechanics who struggle to fix engines when they go wrong.
The body is more intelligent than that. What we perceive as illnesses are “special biological programs” designed to cope with a crisis that has occurred in the environment of the patient. Pasteur was dubbed the father of the germ theory; upon which modern medicine is based He recanted this notion on his deathbed, when he said that it was the environment and not the germ that was the causative factor. But it was too late! Since then man has searched for a “pill’ to cure his woes and the pharmaceutical companies have been eager to oblige.
This has led to a serious misunderstanding of disease. The acute plagues of the past served a purpose. Disease today is chronic. It is stress driven and always carries a message. This model, thanks to “Germanic New Medicine”, fits all cases and applies to cancer just as well as a common cold. The “dis-ease” starts with a conflict shock. It can be as simple as the boss giving you the task of compiling a hefty report on some work related topic which is hugely urgent and has to be submitted by the following Monday morning. He delivers this bombshell on Thursday lunchtime but you have got tickets for the cup final in far away London on the Saturday afternoon and don’t wish to miss the match. The news knocks you into the stress dominated “flight, flight or freeze” part of the Autonomic Nervous System.
Immediately you display stress symptoms including obsessive thoughts, cold hands and feet as the blood retreats into deep muscle, heightened blood pressure, inability to sleep, poor digestive function, dilated pupils and so on. You put yourself into overdrive to complete the report before you flight on the Saturday morning. With a huge sigh of relief you leave the report on the boss’s desk on route to the airport. You get to the match and feel the first tickling of a cold coming on. Your team wins but feeling lousy you do not want to join in the evening’s celebrations. So what do you do? You go and buy an over the counter remedy that stops the cold symptoms dead.
Let’s look at this from the perspective of “Germanic New Medicine”. In this paradigm all disease has two phases. In this case you enter the first phase with the conflict shock of the boss instructing you to produce the report by Monday. This is when the stress driven cold generates itself as you work flat out to complete the task. This is the adrenal dominant sympathetic phase. You complete the report and breathe a tremendous sigh of relief. The body/mind now exits the conflict phase and enters healing which is dominated by the parasympathetic part of the ANS. You can now relax, and this is when the symptoms appear.
The body cries for rest so it can heal. This means the symptoms get worse, reach a crisis and then get better. As a result you immune system is strengthened and overall you come out of the situation with better health. Instead of just going to bed and resting you decided the party in the evening was more important. You bought a medication that further stressed the adrenals so you went back into the stress phase; the symptoms disappeared. As you did not listen to your body you went back to work on Monday and wondered why your cold had shifted to your chest and later developed into full blown bronchitis. Moreover you noticed whenever the boss thrust another report writing exercise on you that your coughing worsened.
The New Medicine shows that conflict shock impacts the brain. A lesion forms relating directly to a specific part of the body which demonstrates the symptoms. Dr. Hamer has thousands of CT scans to prove this. The therapist’s job is to find the conflict shock and reduce its affects. There are a plethora of methods to facilitate this ranging from Ambit Healing, to EFT, TAT, The Emotion Code, Dynamind, BSFF, NLP, Time Line Therapy, Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Acupressure, hypnotherapy, conventional medical treatment and so on.
I offer some of these treatments but by no means all. First, the conflict shock is cushioned to make the healing phase easier and then we look to make other changes such as lifestyle, diet, nutrition and exercise. It is important also to introduce de-stressors like yoga and meditation.
Overall the changes can be difficult, but never expect to embrace good health until you have made them. This is not a cure; it’s a healing process. Health Ambit Consultancy can help you achieve this healing!
About Us:
Health Ambit Consultancy offers treatments and healings from the island of Koh Samui. Partner, Alister Bredee has more than 25 years experience as a health care professional. Here he dispels many of the myths that fool people inot looking for so called cures. Her believes everything can be healed but it takes time and patience. It's easy to treat symptoms but to address core issues is much more difficult.
Contact Details:
Name: Alister Bredee
Position: Partner
Company: Health Ambit Consultancy
Email: alisterbredee@gmail.com
Country: Thailand
Website: http://www.healthambit.com
Contact No.: +66 84 781 4718
“The Gift In Me!”
"As the New Year dawned an astonishing article in the Australian press proclaimed that cancer had outstripped heart disease as the number one killer in the country. This is quite astounding. What has been going on to cause such a turnaround? “Why”, is a very important question, yet it is seldom asked!
Many believe the diagnosis of cancer is an automatic death sentence. This is simply not true. In its estimations for 2012, the American Cancer Society named prostate cancer as the most common type and projects that there will be 241, 740 cases during the year. Of all of these 28,170 men are expected to die as a result. That means 213,570 will survive. That gives a survivability rate of approximately 80%. This is a far cry from an automatic death sentence! True, the chances of death from some other types of the disease such a pancreatic cancer are considerably greater.
Martin Silverman was diagnosed with testicular cancer when he was seventeen. His gonads swelled to the size of an orange, overnight. His mother acted promptly, so he was seen by a specialist within two days. An aggressive terratoma was diagnosed resulting in surgery two days after that. This was followed by a course of radiation and he was then fine!
Two years ago, or 37 years after the original event Martin went for a blood test to screen for diabetes that ran in his family. In Britain, the Health Service also performs a battery of additional tests from the blood sample. He did not have diabetes but instead had a PSA reading of 63. PSA stands for “prostate specific antigen”; a level in excess of four suggests the possibility of prostate cancer. Martin was almost 16 times over that limit. When faced with the side effects resulting from the conventional medical treatment for prostate cancer, he was hesitant about entering allopathic care. However, at the outset his oncologist talked him into taking hormone pills but he alarmingly found himself developing breasts. He stopped treatment and embraced a holistic route instead.
He realized his diseases both developed within two years of a break-up of an intimate relationship. This he saw was no coincidence on realizing that it was the reproductive system that was affected. This coincides with the findings of Dr. Gert Hamer, the founder of “Germanic New Medicine”. Dr. Hamer developed testicular cancer two years after his son was murdered. After years of investigation and many CT scans to back his thesis, he stated that “all illness” was the result of a stressful event that caused a lesion to develop in the brain. The area of the brain affected, impacted directly on a specific place in the body. In this case, the relevant area involves the testicles in men and the ovaries in women. The stressful event itself involves a profound loss conflict.
Martin worked to quell the resulting emotional issues, but the first major change on his route to holism was a radical alteration in diet. He fully grasped that the average western nutrition and lifestyle pattern were a means of committing slow suicide. Out went the staples of bread and meat and in came living raw foods. His journey was much influenced by the Hippocrates Health Institute located in Florida. This was co-founded by the late Anne Wigmore who cured herself of cancer by taking what grass juice and enzyme rich raw foods. Martin feels wheatgrass juice tastes awful but all pet owners will have noticed that their dog or cat goes off and eats grass when feeling unwell. Nobody taught the animal to do this, it’s instinctual. The same impulse applies to humans but we have all been educated away from natural cures.
Aside from the juices, Martin includes sprouted seeds and good quality nutritional supplements into his eating program. He adds coconut water to this, saying it is like drinking hemoglobin. He eradicates fruit as it is too sugary. Sugar is believed to be the main food for cancer cells. Such a diet provides him with all his nutritional requirements and he is now a picture of glowing good health.
Martin is in the process of writing a book called “The Gift in Me”. He is doing this because most men are hugely out of touch when it comes to health issues. This is particularly true in the realm of the emotions. Women are much better at dealing with these issues and so he decided to produce a book written by a man that reaches out to other men confronted by similar challenges. If you feel that this will help, you can contact him via his website…www.thegiftinme.com. The book with the same title is scheduled to launch this summer."
This article first appeared in the Samui Gazette of 25th January 2012
Eat Right For Your Type By Alister Bredee
Graham Rowe was the General Manager and resident naturopath at The Health Oasis Resort on the ‘paradise’ island of Koh Samui. He trained in his native Australia and explained what ‘eat right for your type means’.
“Basically what we are saying is that one size doesn’t fit all. We need to base our diet on blood type. This is because the different blood groups profoundly effect body chemistry. There is an interaction between body chemistry and food.”
This idea is not Graham’s, it comes from work done by Dr.Peter D’Adamo who wrote a bestseller called “Eat Right for Your Type” which first hit the bookshops some fourteen years ago. Dr D’Adamo explains that because of the differences in blood chemistry, which is determined by blood group, some foods will be beneficial to some and harmful to others.
Graham maintains that this theory rings true in spite of a myriad differing diet progammes out there, because so many of the approaches simply do not work. He has found that eating according to blood type does perform successfully and what’s more unlike some other systems it has been thoroughly researched. “I am very impressed with the in depth peer review of this eating system and that the evidence supports the theory’, says Graham. “It appears to be the most rigorously scientifically evaluated diet of them all.”
“What’s more” he goes on to say, ”it works!”
Dr.D’Adamo tells us that it is perfectly OK for somebody of blood group O to eat like a carnivore and enjoy steaks and cuts of red meat. This, however, is simply not the case for those of Group A for instance, because they thrive better on a more vegetarian type eating style. I fall into this latter category and know full well that although enjoying a nice thick steak, I feel bloated and sluggish afterwards.
The trick is to know your blood group as many people don’t know this important piece of information. It seems this has proved a popular addition to the agenda and people received the information enthusiastically.
Clients come to the Health Oasis Resort for many reasons but the main one is to avail themselves of the fasting and de-tox prorgramme offered there. When the time comes to return to eating and ultimately leave Koh Samui for home these guests are taking with them a new way of feeding which helps them feel better and more energized. This assists them in holding on to the healthy benefits of their stay in a tropical paradise health resort. Many people return year after year in order to give their health a big boost of improvement and embrace eating patterns such as “Eat right for your type” with alacrity.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/584203
Are Mobile Phones Really Safe?
On the 26th of June 1996, Irish investigative journalist, Veronica Guerin was fatally shot as her car paused at a red traffic light on Dublin's Naas Road. Guerin, one time personal assistant to Irish Prime Minister Charlie Haughey had trained as an accountant before entering journalism, so she was well qualified to research the dealings of the drug gangs who had a fearsome reputation in Dublin's inner city. At her post-mortem they found severe burns in the region of Guerin's right ear. As a journalist she was a heavy user of the mobile phone. This posed some momentary questions about the safety of these devices.
The technology that made hand help mobiles possible was developed in the 1970s. Commercialization of the technology appeared in the 1980s and the expectation in the United Kingdom was skeptical with an anticipation of 10,000 of the devices selling worldwide. This figure was way off the mark. In 2006 worldwide shipments exceeded one billion; it was estimated in 2010 that there were 5.2 billion cell phones in operation on planet Earth. The calculated world population is just over 7 billion. It would therefore be safe to postulate that market penetration has been enormously successful. In some countries it exceeds 100%!
A mobile or cell phone is a small radio. They are called cell phones because for the radio to operate it has to broadcast its signal to cell towers. Most of the planet has been divided up into cells of approximately 10 square miles in radius. The different phone companies all have a "Mobile Telephone Switching Office" in every population area. It is from here the signal is fed to the numerous transmission towers that dot the landscape. The system works because every phone company has a specific five figure identification number called a SID. When a device is turned on regardless of whether you are making a call or not it is constantly picking up the SID that is being beamed from the nearest tower. The mobile phone company is also transmitting to your phone a signal on specific channels that it is programmed to tune into. In Thailand the situation is relatively lax but in some countries you have to register the phone with your personal details. That means the whereabouts of the user can be tracked.
With five billion sets worldwide; the mobile phone as an electrical device, emits photons creating an electromagnetic field. The electronic radiation is in the high frequency microwave range. In effect the caller is holding the equivalent of a microwave oven to the ear whilst chatting. No wonder Veronica Guerin had burn marks on the right side of her brain! Numerous studies have produced contradictory results, but many experts consider the risks related to phone usage to be very real indeed! The World Health Organization has categorized mobile phones into group 2b on the IRAC scale. This gives them the dubious tag of being "possibly carcinogenic". The report continued by saying that further research was required.
We live in a wireless saturated environment surrounded by modulated frequencies that are growing ever more complex due to the information that is being transmitted to mobile and smart phones as well as the all pervasive Wi-Fi network. The ensuing EMFs are largely untested, and nobody really knows what the effect of all this electronic smog is having on the human population. Olle Johannson of Stockholm's Karolinska Institute claims we are in the midst of "the largest full scale experiment ever." The question that remains to be answered is what happens when we allow ourselves to be whole body irradiated by new EMFS, 24 hours per day for the rest of our lives? Published media reviews are contradictory. Much of the research is carried out by the mobile phone industry and not surprisingly the results are skewed in their favor.
Already we know that the risk of getting a brain tumor on the side of the head where the phone is placed increases by 40% for adults. Even more disturbing data calculates the rate of getting a cancer increase fivefold for those who started using mobiles before the age of 20. In order to protect ourselves a little, it is better to limit cell phone use. Keep conversations brief and to the point. You can always use a landline for the longer and more personal calls. Or a better idea is to use a hands free connection, which means you do not have to hold a microwave device next to the head. Have you ever asked yourself why your ear grows hot after a long chat?
As far as the ever growing waves that penetrate our bodies, you can protect yourself by buying Q link pendants or orgonite protectors that are available locally. Oh, be sure to switch the Wi-Fi off overnight!
Alister Bredee
December 2011
Scottish Doctor had a Cure for Cancer 100 years ago.
Scottish Doctor, John Beard had a Cure for Cancer 100 Years Ago!
By Alister Bredee
Scottish embryologist, John Beard proposed as long ago as 1906 that pancreatic enzymes were the body's main bulwark against cancer. Having published "Enzyme Therapy of Cancer" in 1911,his work attracted a degree of medical attention until his death in 1923. These ideas then died away only to be occasionally awakened from their slumbers by complementary therapists looking for alternative and less intrusive treatments than those offered by the Medical mainstream.
In the 1960s Beard's work resurfaced in Texas, when a dentist named William Kelley started treating cancer sufferers with proteolytic enzymes. Kelley's treatments were highly controversial as they flew directly in the face of orthodox cancer medical care procedures that relied heavily on radiation treatment and chemotherapy. Thus he was castigated by the media and hassled by the authorities.
New York physician and ex-Cornell Medical School graduate Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez met the Texas dentist in 1981. Instead of confronting a demon as portrayed by the press, he met a self-effacing man who like Royal Rife before him only wanted his work to be evaluated by the Academic World of Medicine. Gonzalez thought this to be a reasonable request and set out to do something about it. Although a mere medical student at the time he elicited the help of the then Sloan Kettering President, Robert Good. Good supported Gonzalez in his quest and he was allowed to conduct a thorough case review of Kelley's work as part of his own medical studies.
Nicholas Gonzalez reviewed 10,000 patient records; He interviewed and evaluated 500 of Kelley's patients who had all been diagnosed with advanced cancers. He summarized his findings in a monograph completed in 1986. His overall conclusion was that Kelley's treatment procedure resulted in an above average survival rate, with many of the sufferers enjoying an apparent regression of their disease.
In a separate chapter he took 22 pancreatic cancer patients; this form of cancer has a very low survival rate. Statistically speaking there is a 0% likelihood of surviving 5 years.
Twelve of these patients visited only once and then were persuaded to quit treatment due to the negative reactions of friends, family and physicians who branded Kelley as a charlatan. These he took as his control group. They demonstrated an average survival rate of 67 days. Another 7 members of the control only partially followed the Kelley treatment. They displayed a survival ratio of approximately 7 months. However, and much more interestingly those who followed the treatment to the letter lived for an average of a stunning 9 years! This example serves as good demonstration of the folly of following the well-intentioned yet prejudiced advice of other people!
Nicholas Gonzalez is continuing work using these protocols dating back at least 100 years and hopes to be able to raise the interest and or money to have a full-scale scientific review conducted on the effectiveness of the enzyme treatment of cancer. The price of enzyme therapy comes out at between $5,000 and $6,000 per year, which in itself is a fraction of the cost of conventional medical care.
Alister Bredee is a freelance author specializing in articles on health related topics. He is also a health care practitioner and trainer. He is a senior partner in Health Ambit Consultancy and is available for consultations. He currently lives in Thailand and can be contacted via his website: http://www.healthambit.com. He publishes a regular blog http://www.healthambit.blogspot.com and can also be contacted via Skype where his address is alisterbredee.
His work is unique and he has many satisfied clients worldwide. See the website for more details.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alister_Bredee
http://EzineArticles.com/?Scottish-Doctor,-John-Beard-had-a-Cure-for-Cancer-100-Years-Ago!&id=170539
The Cooking Oils War
"You would have to be blind not to notice the number of coconut palms on Koh Samui. In fact the same has to be said for the remainder of Thailand. Samui has been dubbed “the coconut capital’ of the country because it sends more than 2,000,000 nuts to Bangkok each month.
The ubiquitous coconut has played a healthy role in the staple diet of tropical dwellers for as long as time itself. In 1939 an American dentist called Dr. Weston A. Price published a book called “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,” His thesis was that the standard American diet high in sugars and flour caused nutritional deficiencies that were the root cause of poor dental health. In order to write his book he travelled the world examining the teeth of people in what were considered to be more primitive cultures who had not been exposed to poor American eating habits. He went to the South Pacific and found island inhabitants eating a staple diet built around coconuts. These people enjoyed overall good health and had reasonable body fat in spite of a diet high in saturated fat. A further study releasing similar findings from the same area was published in “The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition” in 1981.
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 so beginning the US participation in World War 11. They invaded the Pacific islands and occupied coconut growing areas like Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Prior to hostilities these countries had exported their products to the West where coconuts had played an important role in food production. Suddenly this supply ceased and the producers had to look for substitutes. This was how the polyunsaturated oil story began!
Soya beans had been introduced to the USA from China as long ago as 1770. The product was used at first as animal feed, but in 1904 the noted scientist George Washington Carver noticed the beans had high protein content making them suitable fodder for humans. In spite of Henry Ford’s effort to make a car from soya beans, production did not really take off until the war years. Soya oil became a major substitute for the tropical saturated varieties. The Soya Bean Growers of America invested a lot of money in this crop and when the war ended they were not happy to see their industry dwindle because of the re-importation of coconuts and palm oil. The Association hired a powerful public relations company whose job it was to extol the virtues of soya and denigrate the benefits of coconuts. Soya became a health product and coconut was portrayed as a danger to heart health. The largest producer of Soya beans was the United States!
In the 1950s the medical profession was spurred on by this propaganda to claim that saturated fats like coconut oil were the main cause of heart disease because they stimulated the production of cholesterol, whilst polyunsaturated oils like sunflower, soya, corn, sunflower and Canola worked to protect the body from the ravages of LDL, otherwise known as “bad” cholesterol. This was blatantly untrue, but the world came to believe the spin put forward by the Soya Producers and their allies. Saturated fats were demonized and cast aside!
Coconut Oil contains medium –chain fatty acids (MCFAs). Most other vegetable and seed oils are composed of long-chain fatty acids. These LCFAs are difficult to digest; they stress the digestive system and put additional pressure on the liver and pancreas. As they don’t break down easily excess is stored as body fat, thus perpetrating another myth that all fats make you fat! Conversely the MCFAs contained in coconut oil are considerably healthier because they are smaller and can be digested easily. They go directly to the liver where they are released as energy; there is no need for them to be stored as body fat. Experts have found that coconut oil stimulates the body’s metabolism and supports blood sugar levels. This results in weight loss and not gain!
Frying is not the healthiest way of preparing food. It is dangerous because it destroys the anti-oxidants present in the oils. This oxidizes it making it rancid. Olive oil is monounsaturated. It is a healthful oil which is great for preparing salads but has a low burning point that causes it to smoke at relatively low temperatures. This means it is unsuitable for frying. The one oil that resists heat induced damage is coconut. Use this instead; throw out all the other oils and start cooking with extra virgin coconut oil which is plentifully available on Koh Samui. The brownish heat treated versions are usually rancid, avoid them for cooking but go instead for the clear, clean smelling variety sold by many shops. Please note that frying oil should not be re-used. Once it has been heated toss it out and use a fresh batch for the next cooking foray."
This article by Alister Bredee first appeared in the "Samui Gazette" of December 14th 2011
The Great Garbage Dump in the Sea
"The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” was discovered accidentally by yachtsman Charles Moore and his crew, who decided to take a shortcut back home to California, after competing in a sailing race to Hawaii. Their 1997 shortcut took them into an area of the North Pacific known as the “doldrums”. This region of high atmospheric pressure has been historically avoided by mariners because it is renowned for a lack of wind that becalmed sailing ships. It is a zone where many maritime currents converge, creating a slow vortex. This whirlpool effect sucks floating filth from the landmasses forming the Pacific Rim.
Moore discovered an enormous floating accumulation, that some have calculated to be the size of France, of non-biodegradable material, most of which is plastic. It comprises shopping bags, water bottles, polystyrene containers and much more. Just walk down any beach in Koh Samui after a patch of rough weather to view a similar assortment.
Plastic is a by product of the oil industry,where heavier cuts of crude are used to make “nodules’ that are melted down to make plastic products. It does not break down easily, but will decompose to make smaller flakes due to heat and light. These tiny chips are quickly unidentifiable. Scientists tell us that it will take up to 450 years for these particles to bio-degrade. The plastic in the Pacific has accumulated to a depth of 10 meters and has a cumulative weight in excess of 300 million tons. It sits in the ocean polluting the water and killing marine life at a truly alarming rate. Experts claim that a similar pile sits in the South Pacific off Easter Island and an alike mound wallows in the Atlantic.
Ireland was one of the first countries to register awareness of this growing catastrophe. Plastic bags were first introduced by the Supermarkets in the 1960s. Today 260 million tons of plastic products appear annually and bags make up a significant proportion of this total. As a result Ireland introduced legislation requiring the supermarkets to charge 13 Euro cents per bag. This swiftly deterred customers from acquiring the bags: the canny Irish swiftly brought their own reusable cloth carriers to the stores. This made a significant difference to the number of bags blowing in the wind! Other European countries have followed this example and this has seen a drop in the amount of plastic produced worldwide.
The production of bottled drinking water was a trend that began in the late 1980s and now sees more than 200 billion litres of bottled water sold annually. Most of this appears in plastic. This leaches into the water creating pcbs which reduce the pH of the water from a healthy 7 to much more acidic levels, sometimes lower than pH 6. This must have an affect on the health of the population! All of this, however, begs the question what can we do as concerned individuals to help reduce this horrendous problem?
Recent pictures of receding floods in Thailand show mounds of rubbish, most of it plastic, beginning to appear where water once stood. Klongs have been clogged by this material, which has blocked important drainage channels, thus worsening the extent of the floods.
The first thing to do is to stop taking the plastic bags offered by supermarkets and convenience stores. Andy Batts is an expert in recycling. He collects everything he can. He says there is “a recycling depot on the Ring Road, opposite the Bophut Fresh Market. You will find it on the left hand side of the road behind white gates.”
“There is a similar establishment in Nathon. These facilities accept what is considered to be re-cyclable waste and pay for it. Two kilos of plastic bottles sell for 9 THB. There are many Thais who earn their living by collecting these materials which they sell to the dumps.”
The biggest manufacturer of plastic product in the world is China. The Chinese are very happy to buy this waste back from other countries. This helps them reduce the consumption of raw materials and thus keeps their costs down.
We can all help this valuable cycle either by taking stuff to the dumps, or more importantly by aiding those who use this system to make a living. Place your re-cyclable materials like aluminum cans, plastic bottles and even newspapers in bags separate from organic waste. Leave these beside the rubbish bins so the collectors can find them easily. If you meet the collectors who often come round using motorcycle and sidecars, invite them to come and pick up from your home. If done properly this can help everybody and make a few small steps to protect the environment. Oh, be sure to buy bio-degradable black bags from the Supermarket!
This article first appeared in the Samui Gazette
Keep Your Blood Sugar in Range
Testing Blood Sugar
Blood sugar testing is performed to check the amount of glucose that is in the blood at a given time. This is an easy test to administer and it can be performed by doctors, other health care professionals and many pharmacies also have the facility. The reading is shown in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl) or millimoles per liter (mmol/L). This is a useful test to have done if you find you have been gaining weight and it doesn’t seem to shift easily! The place to start is to ascertain a fasting blood sugar level. A healthy reading will lie somewhere between 80 and 99 mg/dl. If you want to convert this to mmol/ simply multiply by 18 or divide by 18 if you want to do it the other way around. Conventional medicine is likely to tell you that this range is too low. It isn’t! If the reading is above 100 mg/dl, a red flag is flying.
A reading between 100 and 125 indicates that you have a pre-diabetic condition and need to take some steps to prevent a further rise. The islets of Langarhans in the pancreas produce a hormone called insulin. Insulin is a storage chemical. Its purpose is to take glucose out of the blood and move it to the liver for storage. This supply of sugar feeds the brain and is responsible for overall energy needs. More glucose is taken to the muscles where it is stored for physical needs. Overall the body does not require much; approx 100 Gms is about enough as far as the liver is concerned. The glucose that is not stored converts to fat and weight increases. Metabolic Syndrome is sometimes referred to a syndrome X, it indicates that insulin is beginning to loosen its grip and is inhibited in reaching the cells. This is when blood sugar levels begin to rise and with them blood pressure readings. Now is the time to take some drastic steps to reverse the situation. Nobody wants to take supplemental insulin if at all possible!
If a test gives an elevated reading, repeat it TEST TWICE MORE TO BE QUITE SURE. Fasting means going without food and drink, except water and repeating the procedure first thing in the morning. If you are a smoker, refrain before because that might increase the result. If the reading is still above 100, go for another test an hour after eating. If this reading is even higher it seems safe to assume a problem exists. What do you do about it?
The first step is to regulate the diet. Glucose is something you eat so cut out the obvious culprits like sugar and sweets. Lettuce is a carbohydrate and will not be a problem. It is the starchy carbohydrates that pose the major difficulty. Starchy carbs include bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, biscuits, cakes and so on. You need to substantially reduce these in the diet. Thinking behind nutrition has changed radically and the old carb food pyramid is now obsolete. Instead include a restricted amount of complex carbohydrates in your eating regimen. This variety has not been refined so the husk and associated particulates make the digestion process slower. These foods include brown rice, jacket potatoes, wholemeal bread as well as pasta. Ideally though lots of vegetables and salads along with lean protein should be the preferred option.
Reduce the intake of coffee, instead plump for herbal or green tea, all preferably without sugar. Alcohol is sugar. Anything ending in “ol” is a sugar and should be severely curtailed if not avoided all together. Many high blood sugar issues are the result of excessive alcohol consumption.
Coupled with this dietary change it is important that your start to exercise. Long brisk walks that get you out of breath, but swimming, cycling, yoga, muay Thai, work outs in the gym or even hula hooping can have the desired effect, too. Such exercise will help burn off glucagon stored in the muscles and help displace blood sugar.
Higher blood sugar levels indicate the body is in a heightened state of physical readiness (flight or fight) because at an emotional level there is a stress related situation. You are squaring up to some situation that you want to resist. It would be a really good idea to examine what the situation is and do something to bring down the resistance levels. Health Ambit Consultancy can advise you how to do that. You can make contact via the website.
Low blood sugar is another problem but that is as they say another day’s work."
This article by Alister Bredee first appeared in "The Samui Gazette" of 11/11/11
