Today is Monday. Some people don’t like this day because the working week starts again. We are busy again, and have our plate full. Of course, the weekend is much better when we can relax and have fun. There’s other group of people who are superstitious. They believe that Monday never brings any luck or anything good. So, for both groups there is a simply wonderful message that comes from students of the city of Sondrio in Italy.

You’ll never guess what is in this message created by great Italian young people who sincerely want to make you feel good even for a moment. You know, Italians are happy and positively emotional people. So, their message comes attached with free hugs…

Abbracci gratis a Sondrio, which means in Italian, Free Hugs from Sondrio. Is it not great to see how people are open, kind and loving? Watch this video, forget about your life problems and get good start to a new and joyful week.

Submitted by Svetlana Konnikova.

  Greens are so good for you that you should eat lots of them. Whatever the  season, there is something for  everyone, vegetarians or meat eaters, when it comes to greens.

 Greens are also quite delicious and versatile when it comes to recipes. You can make inexpensive, nutritional and simple dishes with a surprising texture and delightful flavor. Try to make Cauliflower with Tomatoes and Mushrooms, Spinach Pie, Spinach Omelette, and Spinach and Cannellini Beans; Broccoli Crumble, Broccoli Tartlets and Broccoli and Chicken Lasagne; Stir-fried Brussels Sprouts, Chard Pasties, Kale with Garlic and Parmesan; Fettucine Pasta with Savoy Cabbage and Gruyere or Cheddar Cheese; Chinese Cabbage with Lime, Cocoanut or Mushroom Sauce; Greek dish, Dolmades (grape leaves) or my favorite, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish Golubtsi (grape leaves).

I compiled a List of the Best Greens for Healthy Family Eating that are an excellent source of vitamins A and C, calcium, potassium, iron. These Greens are  highly nutritional vegetables wheather are eaten raw or cooked:

• SPINACH: Spinach and Baby Spinach which is easy to grow and quick to cook, and delicious raw, served in salads.
• CAULIFLOWER: Baby cauliflowers, Broccoli romanescoes, Broccoflower; a member of the cabbage family, Brassica oleracea. Cauliflowers are excellent raw or  steamed, either whole or in florets.
• CABBAGE: Savoy Cabbage, in 3-4 minutes of cooking it gets tender. Green Cabbage, a very good cabbage for stir-fry with eggs and onions or Russian red borscht, and needs longer cooking. Red Cabbage,  should be cooked with a little vinegar added to the water or the color will fade. Red cabbage can be pickled or stewed with natural spices and flavorings. White Cabbage (Dutch Cabbage) and Spring Greens; delicious raw or simply sliced and used  in a coleslaw, or boiled, steamed and served with lemon and olive oil dressing.

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Is is really your Soy Dream? If you will review food products on the shelves of the supermarkets, including health food stores, you’ll see hundreds of food products containing soybeans or soy extract. Thanks to the skillful manupulations of PR industry, soy became a magic ingredient in 50-70% of our food products from tofu and burgers, baby formula and tacos. Soy trend swept the nation as an expertly crafted recommendation to use it as a source of protein, an easy way to help you build strong bones, to lower risk of osteoporosis, to reduce hot flashes, to prevent some types of cancer, and other nutritional ‘goodies’ and promises that soybeans are all natural and good for you.

Today millions of health-conscious people believe in the benefits of soyfoods as a newest panacea for better health and prevention of numerous diseases. In reality, soybeans, soy extract or soybean oil maybe add some taste to our foods. Maybe not, it depends what you like. However, you don’t have too much of a choice. Today this realtively cheap ingredient is included in the hundreds and hundreds of different food products. This little trick helps food manufacturers to bring down the cost of their products and increase their profits tenfold at the price of consumers health and money.

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   In summer we have an abundance of dark green leafy vegetables. Do you know that Romane lettuce, spinach, kale, collard greens, mustard greens, Swiss chard chicory and leaf lettuce are invaluable sources of fiber, folate and carotenoids such as lutein and zeaxanthin, along with flavonioids and saponins?  You can do so much with these dark leafy veggies. Salads, garnish, juices and this is only beginning of the list of healthy meals.

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective, foods containing carotenoids can protect against cancers of the mouth (smokers be aware!), pharynx and larynx. Scientists also noted that foods containing folate may decrease risk of pancreatic cancer and foods rich in dietary fiber reduce a chance of developing colorectal cancer.  Sounds very complicated, isn’t it? But this information is good to know, if you want to keep yourself healthy.

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Black and green teas have been used as beverage and natural medicine for centuries. Both teas contain numerous active ingredients, including antioxidants, which are flavonoids and polyphenols.

One class of flavonoids called catechins became the focus of many studies analysing them for its anticancer potential. Studies have shown that tea is the best source of catechins in the human diet. Green tea contains about three times more cathechins than black tea. Other laboratory studies found, green tea can slow or prevent cancer development in breast, liver, colon and prostate cells. In addition, some researchers say that consumption of green tea may have protective effects in tissues of the lung, skin and digestive tract.

In Asia green tea consumption is common, especially in countries as China, Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong. Asian scientists’ studies associated with observation of participants who regularly consumed green tea have shown that these people had lower risk for colon, bladder, stomach and pancreatic cancers.

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 Summer just started, and hurricane season, too, here in Florida. It’s still sunny, quiet and brightly green. Flowers are in a tender bloom. Fresh breeze from the ocean is still coming very early, at 7:00 AM when I take a walk. A delicate scent of white gardenias perfumes the air. It is so peaceful out here far away from the noise and traffic of a big city. When I come back home from my morning promenade, I go to my backyard to see how my new tomato bushes are doing, I can hear insects buzzing around, and red parrots observing the world from the branches of my 100 years old, huge banyan tree.

Fennel, parsley, basil, arugula and sunflowers are growing happily in my small garden. They do great without any chemical pesticides or fertilizers. I do the same as my grandmother did in our family garden. We had “tons” of fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables that she ‘farmed’ without chemicals, but she never called them organic. The produce just expected to be pure and natural. Otherwise, why to poison yourself voluntarily?

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 If professor Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907), Russian chemist, was alive today, he’ll be astonished with the fact how modern chemistry progressed with so many new and harmful chemical compounds that are used today in our food industry.  He became world-famous for his formulation of the periodic law and the invention of the Periodic Table, including a classification of the elements. In 1869 he published the first Periodic Table of the atomic elements and  laid out the elements from lightest to heaviest.

The term ‘elements’ (stoicheia) was first used by Greek philosopher Plato in about 360 BCE. At this time, he started Timaeus, a long monologue  about the composition of inorganic and organic bodies which became a rudimentary treatise on chemistry. Many centuries ago, the ancients started exploring a puprose of the universe and nature of physical world. They tried to define a distinction between the physical world and the eternal world. As they said, the physical is one world that changes and perishes: therefore it is the object of opinion and unreasoned sensation. The eternal world is the one that never changes: therefore it is apprehended by reason.

When Dmitri Mendeleev came up with the Periodic Table, he predicted that as-of-yet unknown elements existed with properties appropriate to fill gaps in the table. Elements are pure chemical substances composed of atoms with the same number of protons. Common examples of elements are iron, copper, silver, gold, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. As of March 2010, 118 elements in total have been observed, of which 94 occur naturally on Earth.

I always wonder, why modern chemists are working so aggressively on creation of new and proven to be harmful, manmade chemicals that are enthusiastically applied to our food products instead of 100% natural elements? Is it because the physical world changes and can perish one day or there are other reasons that big food corporations pursue in a hunt for an unlimited enrichment?

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*Buy several kinds of natural roasted coffee beans, mix and grind them. Then
pour spring water in a small stainless steel pot. Add finely grounded coffee and bring to a boil. Boil for one-two minutes. Pass this coffee liquid trough the strainer into a glass jug and serve in small cups. Add one teaspoon honey to it, and you have a perfect cup of coffee.

Coffee made using any electric appliances will never taste the same. Actually this is not coffee at all, but a cheap parody. Did you read the latest news that Walmart is recalling about 900,000 coffee makers under the General Electric brand. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commssion received more than 80 reports of the machine overheating, smoking, melting, burning and catching the fire. 83 complaints received Walmart from the customers who purchased, including three who suffered burns.

Under federal law companies-manufacturers are required to report immediately to the government any time a product defect has been indentified as creating “a substantial risk of injury.” It is mot unusual, writes Wallet Pop today in the latest news, “for some companies to sell all the products before recalling them — a far less expensive endeavor.”

Walmart, a discount retailer, doesn’t care about quality of the products selling in its mega-stores. This retail giant cares only about the cheapest price and volume sales. You get what you paid for… A cheapest price is not always a good option even if you want to save money. What about your health and safety?

I never use any electric coffee maker because of these reasons. Coffee made in an electric coffee maker tastes nasty. I always make my coffee from scratch, starting with the best coffee beans I can find on the market. It smells and tastes delicious!

So, the first thing comes first! Here are tips for you how to blend the best coffee beans. Then you’ll get a recipe how to use these beans.

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We all have heard about the numerous airport closures across Northern Europe. Last Thursday the volcanic ash crisis struck Europe. At first, nobody took it seriously. As winds have blown the ash cloud eastward, about 20 countries have closed their air space entirely.

Meteorologists that know better than anyone else about dangers of the volcano that continues to spew ash into the atmosphere have been not so optimistic as European Union officials hoping flight could return to half their normal level on Monday if the cloud begins to dissipate. Today there are no news about any cancelled flights. My sister, who is on vacation in Germany called that her flight from Munich is scheduled on time for tomorrow, on April 20th. We’ll see…

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 Anxiety disorders. How can you prevent this condition from happening?

• Follow a healthy lifestyle including a nutritious diet and exercise to dispel anxiety and stress.
• Talk over your problems when they arise instead of bottling them up.
• Seek help sooner rather than later–the longer you hide an anxiety problem the more deeply it can take a root.

The cures that naturopaths will recommend:

• A whole food diet, stress reduction, and therapies to relieve the effects of stress. (see the book, Mama’s Home Remedies, Chapter about Stress, page 185).
• Hydrotherapy in the form of swimming. Swimming works well as part of a hydrotherapy treatment, promoting a feeling of calmness and well-being.
• Use of flotation tank to induce balance and tranquility.
• Lifestyle change and assessment to inprove  physical, mental, and spiritual health generally.

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