Good Food Good Health- Honey

Hi Everyone

Did you know lurking at the back of your kitchen cupboard you probably have a jar of honey that good old grandma gave you and has never seen the light of day.

Well if you have children and they have coughs, colds or sore throats, honey is great for helping to alleviate the problem.

As we always say you are what you eat and that ‘good food good health’ is the basis for a healthy life and healthy outlook on life. By adding honey to your diet is definitely a step in the right direction.

For centuries the healing power of honey has been legendary, and new research finds that it truly is a ‘miracle of nature’.

This golden sticky liquid made from nectar by bees is full of antioxidants that are great for us, and also antimicrobial agents that help to fight infection.

So now you can see why it is time to add this golden nectar to your regular shopping list, as its uses are endless and is the healthiest way to s

weeten your diet, being completely natural and not refined or processed like other sweeteners.

Honey was used abundantly in ancient times, especially being spread on wounds to stop infection, prevent gangrene and improve recovery, and therefore was an important item on the battlefield – a fore runner to antiseptic cream today.

My grandparents swore by a mixture of honey, a dash of vinegar or lemon and a little boiling water mixed together as a remedy for coughs and colds. I remember taking this many times, and especially just before bed it really did help. It was great for sore throats too.

Recent research carried out has shown that it easily outperforms a pharmaceutical cough suppressant that is widely used in many of the popular children’s medicines on sale today.

The key active ingredient in many over the counter cough mixtures is Dextromethorphan or (DM), and is even used in flavoured syrups as well, but was found not to work as well as a spoonful of ordinary buckwheat honey given before bedtime.

They found honey did a better job of reducing and soothing the frequency, severity and bothersome nature of coughs and colds, thus giving a positive effect on the child and parent by enabling a better quality of sleep.

During the tests DM made no appreciable difference to symptoms compared when offering no treatment at all, unlike honey.

Researchers at the Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania said ‘Our study adds to the growing literature questioning the use of DM in children, but it also offers a legitimate and safe alternative for physicians and parents’.

Recently in the United States there have been deaths in young children linked to over the counter cough and cold remedies, and it was disclosed that they have been found to cause serious side effects in children under the age of two.

Some of the same ingredients used in the American remedies are also included in some British brands as well – including some of the most popular, but if taken at the correct amount and intervals have been deemed safe.

Therefore if we can use honey, with it being completely natural must be a plus and with its great flavour should be easier to administer to our little ones.

The researchers also suggested that parents that regularly bought expensive cough medicines might be wasting their money.

As always, medical assistance should be sought with persistent coughs and colds whether in children or adults and if honey is great for children then it is also excellent for adults as well.

Being able to use natural substance and knowing there are no additives is a great bonus, when you look at the length of the list of ingredients on some cough remedies it is amazing, especially today when we are trying to be more aware of what we put into our bodies.

So perhaps we should keep honey in the bathroom cabinet as well as the kitchen.

Yet again you can see that we are what we eat, so just remember good food is good health.

Sandra & Ted

http://www.goodfoodgoodhealth.com

http://www.thetalkingbooksite.com

http://www.quantum-mind-power.com

Good Food Good Health- Detox naturally

Hi

After eating all the rich food that Christmas entails it is time to naturally detox your body, and quite simply eating a good balanced healthy diet can do this. Our motto ‘good food good health’ says it all.

Nowadays there are many books written about this subject and many famous people swearing by some new treatment which costs the earth and generally has little effect the body cannot do itself.

Did you know that our bodies already have fantastic ways of ‘detoxing’ – getting rid of things that we do not need, silently and effectively every day?

What we need to do is to help and support these natural processes. By taking stock of our diet though eating a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, regularly, enables the body to work at its best – ‘good food good health’.

The word varied here is of utmost importance. It would do your body no good at all if you ate only one type of fruit or vegetable, and ate that in abundance. The body gleans different components from various foods and needs an array of vitamins and proteins a good balanced varied diet delivers.

Basically the body has three methods of naturally ‘detoxing’. Firstly through your lungs when you exhale, secondly your skin and the third most obvious way of getting rid of waste is through stools and urine.

The skin is the area most people over look, and yet it is the largest area on our body. Many cultures in the past used the skin far more for cleansing and detoxing and knew its importance for cleansing the whole body.

Your skin is fabulous, when you start thinking of it as a two-way membrane through which substances can pass back and forwards, into and back out of your body, then there is a lot you can do to assist and improve detoxification processes through your skin.

Making your own salt scrub is cheap and easy, mix olive oil and finely ground sea salt together with a few drops of essential oil. Vigorously rub the mixture in and leave for at least 15 minutes before showering or bathing.

As always make sure you are sensible and use a rubber slip proof shower or bath mat when using any form of oil products in the bathroom.

As well as detoxing, you can have added benefits by having a partner or friend to massage each other, with relaxation and de-stressing, and the great smell of the aromatherapy oil adds to this.

Can also be great fun is you share the shower too! But beware, this kind of malarkey is no good if you both slip and do yourself an injury. Always take care.

The shower is another great tool too, and any shower can be turned into a naturopathic treatment just by alternating hot and cold water, although this is most definitely not advised for people with heart or blood pressure problems.

After taking a normal shower, turn the heat up as hot as you can bear – obviously not to burn yourself, and focus especially on the chest, tummy and thighs for about 30 – 60 seconds. Next switch to cold water for 30 – 60 seconds, and yes it is ok to shriek at this point, although family members and neighbours might be confused!

Repeating this procedure a few times after your daily shower will really get your blood circulating through the skin, with the added benefit of each skin cell getting boosted oxygen and nutrition. Detoxing is this simple.

Honestly, after a couple of weeks your skin will feel great and have a healthy glow, and by eating good food at the same time will maintain this and help strengthen your body’s ability to fight off stress and viruses that are prevalent at this time of the year.

So as always just remember good food is good health.

Sandra & Ted

http://www.goodfoodgoodhealth.com

http://www.thetalkingbooksite.com

http://www.quantum-mind-power.com

Good Food Good Health- Diesel Fumes

Hi everyone

Did you know that Diesel Fumes are destroying our Health?

Most of us today drive, and in many families each member possesses their own vehicle, and being honest we too can be counted in this category.

Ted and I have our own cars and so does the eldest daughter, the youngest will be starting driving lessons next week on her seventeenth birthday and would love her own car, and I guess we are just like every other family up and down the country.

But do we really need them? If we all knew the damage that we are doing to ourselves perhaps we might think twice and cut back.

With the amount of cars and lorries on the road today, especially in towns and cities, we all know pollution from fumes are bound to build up, but did you realise that our health suffers, our arteries are being clogged up by these fumes, leading to an increase of strokes and heart attacks.

Pollution is causing deadly hardening of the arteries through a chain reaction in the blood, from the exhaust emissions of cars, busses and lorries.

This is really bad news for people who suffer from chronic heart disease and lung conditions. Staying outside when pollution levels are high for any period of time should be avoided, to minimise any problems.

I find this quite disturbing as although I feel and look completely healthy, through contracting bronchial pneumonia as a teenager and having a really nasty chest infection two years ago, I am now considered to have COPD – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

I am so pleased that the new ‘no smoking in public enclosed areas’ has become law, so now we can enjoy having a drink, eating a meal or dancing in a club, with clean air around us and our clothes and hair still smell fresh. More importantly not breathing in second hand smoke. I have never smoked a cigarette in my life, but I do wonder how many I have passively smoked without knowing it and how its damaged my health.

For some time now scientists have known about the link between strokes and heart disease with pollution, but only recently have found through a new study that blood vessel inflammation is caused by fine particles of diesel pollution, these particles ‘work’ with an artery clogging cholesterol which then switch on the genes to cause the inflammation.

I think we all know that we are guilty of causing pollution, but we have grown up enjoying our freedom, myself too, and it is so very hard to give up or change out ways, but small changes really do help.

There are several schemes where people can share driving into work; I do this with my friend three days a week. Not only is it beneficial to the environment, it saves money through only one parking and petrol payment and obviously less wear and tear.

The school run is one of the biggest offenders, when our vehicles probably are lucky to get off choke. We were lucky with our primary school being only 800 metres or so from home, that we always walked, but the pressure was there from the children who saw others being ferried by car, living just a couple of doors away, who did not get cold or wet. So some days it was a battle but the only time I gave in was due to illness.

Park and ride schemes are good, keeping more vehicles out of our town centres helping to eliminate some of the pollution. Unfortunately in our area these services do not run on Sundays or bank holidays, when nowadays towns are just as busy as a regular working day.

Not only does the pollution cause us great harm, but also our wildlife and plants. Many trees in cities and towns are dying because of the fumes. We really do need to act now, however small, to try and curb some of our wasted journeys.

I have heard people saying, we do not have to worry as we live in the country side and the air is of good quality, but if we all think like this and carry on as we are the country side is going to suffer as well.

For our health and our children’s health we really should all be trying to cut back, a study found that new asthma cases are on the increase in general but has sharply elevated in children over the last decade. These findings were especially high in areas where there is more pollution from exhaust fumes.

Do not forget good food is good health

Sandra and Ted

http://www.goodfoodgoodhealth.com

http://www.thetalkingbooksite.com

http://www.quantum-mind-power.com