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Health and Beauty tips – 2

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Honey

Honey is an all-rounder, it can boost the body’s supply of antioxidants and promote well-being. It has been used for years as a complementary remedy for coughs and colds because of its’ high antibacterial properties.

Help ease a sore throat with a gargle made up of two tablespoons of set honey, four tablespoons of cider vinegar and a small pinch of salt. 

Flush out your system each morning and give a boost to your day by mixing two spoonfuls of honey with the juice of half a lemon in a cup of hot water.  Drink this each morning before breakfast.

 

 

 

Healthy eating with herbs

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Parsley – is very rich in vitamin C, evidently a single serving of 30g provides more than half the recommended daily amount if this vitamin.  It is also a good source of beta-carotene which our bodies convert into vitamin A. Vitamins A & C are also antioxidants, they protect cells from damage by harmful free radicals, which are the bad guys, involved in  a whole range of diseases from cancer to heart disease.

Garlic – this is just brilliant!  Allicin, the main ingredient of garlic, relaxes blood vessels so reducing blood pressure. It has also been clinically proven to help keep your arteries clear of nasty cholesterol.  Garlic also has powerful antibiotic properties and was a lifesaver when  used in traditional medicine, in the days before the discovery of penicillin.

Watercress – this one packs a peppery but nutritional punch! Gram for gram it is higher in vitamin C than oranges and has a higher content of iron than spinach.  It too is packed with beta-carotene. 

Watercress omelette

  • 4 eggs beaten
  • 80g watercress chopped finely
  • 2 tbsp grated cheese
  • 1 crushed clove of garlic
  • 1 tsp olive oil or spray

Either spray a non-stick pan with olive oil or add 1 tsp to the pan and gently fry the garlic for about 2-3 minutes

In a bowl, beat the eggs and add half of the watercress.  Once beaten, pour into the pan

Cook until the eggs have set

Now, add the remainder of the watercress and the grated cheese to the pan

When the top of the omelette is lightly set, fold it in half and cut into two pieces

Serve the omelette with a chunk of fresh, crusty french bread and a large green salad

Rosemary – the great news about this herb is that is may help slow the brain-ageing process (according to the scientists at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in the US and at Japan’s Iwake University). It too has properties that protect the brain from damage by those pesky free radicals.  Rosemary goes brilliantly with lamb:-

  • Melt some red currant jelly in a bowl in the microwave, usually takes about 10 seconds on high power in my micro
  • Chop up some fresh rosemary, you need about a level tablespoonful
  • Add the rosemary together with a crushed clove of garlic and about a tablespoonful of balsamic vinegar, to the melted jelly
  • Whisk together to form a marinade
  • Take two lamb chops or steaks and place in a dish. Pour the marinade over and leave for at least 30 mins.to let the full flavour develop
  • Cook the lamb under a medium grill for 5 – 6 minutes each side, depending on how thick the meat is and how you like your lamb
  • Serve with fresh carrots, broccoli and sliced green beans

Thyme  – this goes great with poultry, especially chicken, but thyme has been used for years in herbal medicine to treat chest compliants.  It has antiseptic and antibacterial qualities and evidently a study on rats found that supplementing their diet with thyme could help slow brain ageing! Thyme also contains antioxidants called flavonoids that can help reduce the risk of heart disease and strokes.

Herbs have been around for hundreds of years and have helped previous generations, long before the advent of modern medicine.  They are so undervalued, but they don’t just taste good they offer us great health benefits too.  So, off you go and stock up your store cupboard

  

 

Well it’s Wednesday

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Where did the weekend go? It disappeared in a whirl of shopping and houswork that’s what! And the dog isn’t any better yet either, she is still coughing and sounds like an old smoker on a 50-a-day habit!

I have been watching some of the Tory Party Conference and listening to the changes they plan for the country if they win the next election. That something serious needs doing is in no doubt. The Labour government has lost it’s way, trying to be all things to all men with a one-size-fits-all approach was never going to work.

Now it is very easy to sit in your chair and moan about the state of the economy and politics in general and a very different story to have to actually do something about it, I fully appreciate that, but where do some of the ideas these politicians expound actually come from and what is the reasoning behind them?

I never understood why education had to be  messed around with as much as it has; my generation grew up with standards that have held fast for forty years and most of them were learned at one education establishment or another from teachers who were free to do their job and not worry about budgets and balance sheets! I learned respect for people and I grew up with a strong work ethic, instilled in me by both my parents and this is something I have passed on to my children.  What worries me, is what is going to happen to the “lost generation” who have never had a job and see no sign of getting one any time soon.

Someone once said ” a country gets the government it deserves” in that case, heaven knows what we have done, but we surely deserve better

Healthy Eating

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After talking to friends and reading countless articles on the subject of losing weight, I have come to the conclusion, perhaps a bit late in the day, that only I can change MY lifestyle and I have to WANT to do it.

If you have excess weight and really want to get rid of it, the most important thing you can do is to understand why you put weight on in the first place. Think about your lifestyle, what you eat and the amount of exercise that you do each day. Once you do this, you will find the reasons for the excess weight and only then can you take the steps to make a change.

Deep down inside we all know what we should be doing, we don’t need expensive books and celebrities to tell us what to eat and which exercises to do. We are all individuals and as such have different needs, we can work out an eating and exercise plan for ourselves. I think we have been so brainwashed into believing that there is a “fast fix” for losing weight that common sense goes out of the window and we rush to spend our cash on anything that has the words “Diet” or “Fast Weight Loss” plastered all over it.

The truth is, if we take in more calories than we spend, we will always, always put weight on. Once you know and accept this as fact, you can start making changes straight away. Involve your friends and family; tell them what you are doing and they will be your support group.

Holidays

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Just managed to post the map of cities I’ve visited and seeing it up there, set me to thinking about the places I have been to and just how lucky I have been. Years ago, we couldn’t afford to go anywhere abroad and spent our holidays in the UK, like a lot of our friends and relations. We enjoyed caravan holidays in Devon and Cornwall, places I had stayed with my parents when I was a child. I love the beaches of Devon and the ruggedness of the Cornish coast.
I remember once, when I was about 10, my parents sister and I, stayed in a house called Anne’s Cottage near West Portholland, overlooking Veryan Bay. It was a magical place for us children. Friends of my parents and their two children came with us and, although it rained quite a lot of the time, we didn’t care. The four of us spent every morning on the beach, which was only a short walk from the cottage. We searched rockpools for crabs and walked along the shoreline looking for shells. We bought nets from the little shop in West Portholland and told our parents we were going fishing. But it wasn’t until we all went on a visit to Mevagissey, that we actually caught anything.
The four of us went out with a local fisherman, looking for mackerel. I caught 7. I remember being absolutely delighted and there is a photo of me somewhere grinning from ear to ear, standing proudly alongside a smiling, gap-toothed fisherman, holding my catch for all to see. My sister is scowling because she hated every minute.
Another year, we went to Devon and stayed in a caravan near Goodrington Sands, heaven for my sister and I. One day after having a picnic on the beach, we returned to the caravan and my mother started washing up the plates and cutlery we had taken with us. A little while afterwards, she let out such a shout, we all came running to see what had happened. She burst into tears and told us that she had lost her wedding ring and as my father tried to calm her down we set about trying to find it. The search stopped when it got dark, with my father reassuring her we would try again the next day. Looking back, as we had no idea where she had lost it, it was a pointless exercise, but we felt we had to do something.
Eventually after two days searching, my father told her that he would buy her a new ring and we would all go into town and look for a jewellers. We finally found one and my sister and I were asked to wait outside. I remember feeling miffed, I wanted to look at the rings too. After what seemed like ages, my sister started dancing about saying she needed to go to the toilet, so into the shop we went. Just as my father was paying for a new wedding ring and my mother was proudly admiring it on her hand, I evidently announced, in a loud voice, “mum can you hurry up as we need to go to the toilet”. We were rushed outside pretty quickly.
I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we really did have some fantastic holidays.

Yesterday was a sad day…

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We went to the funeral yesterday of a very dear friend. It was a sad day. It was a Humanist Funeral, I have never attended one before and at first found it strange that there were no hymns to sing, no vicar or priest to offer prayers. But rather a service dedicated to my friend, a tribute to his life and achievements and to what he had meant to his family, friends and colleagues.

Gradually, as the celebrant read out the memories, told to her by his family, in a warm and sincere way, I came to accept that this service was just what he would have wanted. He was not a religious person, yet the service did not give any offence to those in the congregation who were; merely just telling the story of his life and the things he loved and held dear and helping us all to understand that though he was no longer living with us, our memories of him will keep him “alive” for ever.

There was a mixed reaction afterwards, some people didn’t like it at all, some, like me were at first a bit unsure but then came to realise that it was perfect for our friend. It suited his personality, the quiet unassuming way he always had in life had been continued in celebrating him in death.

It was something rather special.