Dash For Power

The Chief was on the Email, their healthy living tip was a phony.

• Another “Doctor” selling booster life energy pills found to be worse than useless…

• Aunt Agatha says there are more Medicine Men out there today, minus the horse sense, but no shortage of the back end of the horse running the show, making millions. And she is 93 and sprightly, eats her plums, fruits, whole grains, says she was brought up in poverty and they had a grain field, crop prices were below cost, the depression. So when as a new family, arriving near the mild coast changed her life, and she came to realize what a green thumb she had. Now here and settling, in this garden like eden, she found she could grow crops all year long, different crops into the autumn frost, then root crops through the frost and mild winters near the coast, spring early, fruits, nuts and berries, the yard half in Victoria Gardens twice through her years: she is Princess Garden Grows.

• It is a waste people don’t do grow their Victory Garden today, all the family involved, instead unused backyard of lawn and pesticides to keep the weeds down, modern living wastelands. From the enthusiasm of neighborhood fairs to celebrate Mrs Jones’ prize Turnip Surprise to Old Portnoy’s Cabbage Complaint, we all pitched in, and passed extra goods around, a few extras to the smaller producers or those who had poor luck or judgement, it all managed itself, somehow, you know?

• Now it seems something quaint that a city person would grow bright healthy fruits and small vegetables in cities now, on balconies, rooftops, back yards. Even though our city air is now way cleaner than in the 1970’s, we got the lead out and then some.

• Home gardens are oddball, eccentric, and catching on every where that there are intelligent, innovative people. Try it. Liberate yourself. Dig down deep, get all the car tires, old archives, spoons, knives out, sift, there may be construction debris but down there is earth. Mother Earth. you may need to supplement mother with bags, or a truckload of soil mixes, bark mulch. At my Dashwood Manor we brought in a dozen truckloads of topsoil. You may not need that.

• We have beautiful mother earth not too far down below the wasteland lawn, and we worry about not enough wholesome foods available nearby. What could we possibly do? Victory Garden, a small voice cries out, but to increasingly vigilent ears and minds who see that healthy living tips are all around us, and we can add to them daily ourselves, and point it out to youngers who still feel it cool to toss a wrapper; it’s cooler to grow your own food.

• So let’s click our heels together 3 times, awake in our own personal Kansas, and help make our gardens grow. With our friends and family around here, live life joyfully, eating early, wisely, well; getting the gang out for hikes and safe walks- no double dare ya’s about trying any thing silly. Have them do it first. And then still say no, if it might injure you, or take you out of commissionn from living your healthy lfe.

• You could prepare now by making your yard closer to the earth and tune its cycles in with yours- not the other way around.

• Work eight hours, and sleep eight hours, and have eight hours of fun. Less travel and commutes, but make the fun time your planned moments eith your gang that counts: work out which days, everone bring some dark healthy fruits or veggies, a cooked wild salmon or a cooked ham, brings the natural fruits and dark berries galore, sprinkled with whey protein powder for the boys, soy protein powder for the ladies, nuts to all of us, don’t need the kale as long as our have our purples and blueberries and raspberries and…

Cleanup is a breeze, when you picnic with your Dash for Healthy Living Tips Team. When they make a low carb plate, then no clean up ever. Ohh, I should have saved that idea for my gang. Well, you’re my gang now too: if your brilliant niece invents an edible plate, lettuce know?

Smiles-there’s something green between your teeth;oh saving it for dessert, brilliant, me too. Derek “Greens” Dashwood

“Blessed is he that expects nothing,

for he shall never be disappointed.”

• That quote from Poor Richard’s Almanac was from Ben Franklin’s May 1739 issue, when Franklin would have been 33 or so. At age 12, only able to afford the ship’s fare from Boston to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, the tired of being beaten 12 year old runaway walked the fifty miles to Philadelphia. Making his life there, in this gentler “City of Brotherly Love” Franklin worked his way up from printer’s assistant, step by step by step with healthy living to become a respected citizen of the world. Benjamin Franklin never forgot the uncertainty of life and how vulnerable many others are. It was diligent, frugal, hard work, that would make a pauper into a gentleman, and certainly Franklin proved that in his life, living sensibly, wisely, frugally.

• We have all come to super size all our desires, bloating our bodies and clouding our minds with unhealthy foods, habits, attitudes. We want it all, and now. Part of healthy living tips will discuss how we can get by with a more selective attitude: we do not need it all, nor now. What we do need, mostly we have, and some we need to get rid of. Like that cupboard or fridge with junkitos, pop, sugary good ready made canned goods- have you read the list of ingredients.

• Ben Franklin had a fullsome garden from which he enjoyed his own organic produce, and he was the one who brought prize Scottish Oats over and why his face is on Quaker Oats for that. He who is happy with a bowl of oats with nuts and berries could sit next to Dr Franklin and have a happy, brainy talk in Heaven, I can’t wait. Well, I can, am eating plums, no twinkies…

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• Less is blest, and best, what Benjamin Franklin was also saying, in his wise Almanac, was a comfort to early Americans suffering, as often happens, through times of hunger, failed, flooded crops, misery. And to be reminded it was better to miss a meal than one’s dignity, better times will come, apply yourself to your tasks, early to bed, early to rise. But that’s another Ben Franklin story. I picked May 1739 because I was born 200 years later, it was the end of the depression, beginning of the war. My goodness, had we progressed in 200 years. Do you think?

Derek Dashwood

We are growing steadily more obese, recent studies show:

• Americans are most obese in the world, with an adult obesity rate of 32%.

• Scotland is next most obese, with 25.5% of Scottish adults overweight.

• Mexico is next obese, at 24.2%.

• Canada is virtually tied with the British as next most obese, at 22.4% adult obesity.

• In an article on this by Margaret Wente in the Toronto Globe and Mail Oct 4, 2007, she notes that while Canada talks, the Scots may act, and seem to be taking this obesity threat seriously, which tends to be higher among the young than the elderly, an ominous sign for the healthy future of the nations medical system as well as it’s people, Scotland may be acting.

• The Scottish Parliament is debating laws to encourage more stores to sell healthy foods in deprived areas.

• The Scots may require supermarkets to offer big discounts on fruits and vegetables.

• It wants more weight loss programs for fat kids, and

• incentives for employee fitness classes.

• The Scots have ordered all schools to ban soft drinks and offer more nutricious food,

• and the law would lock down the kids at lunch time so they’ve got to stay and eat it.

• Sadly, Margaret notes, kids learn their habits from their parents, and haven’t we all seen an obese parent with an obese child, in line at the grocery store and you notice her cart is loaded with prepared white grain and white sugar “foods” and snacks, not much fresh produce. The kids don’t stand a chance, Margaret concludes.

We are more optimistic, and think we converts to health will have converts from the obesity crowd as their pains and aches become unbearable. Walk on, Jeeves, we will follow the Yellow Brick Road at least as far as Aunt Agatha’s for some of her liquor barn delights.

Derek and your Lean and Leaner Teamers

The worst skeletons in your closets are likely your old cleaning products wafting poisons..

• Ever open a cleaning product door and feel the strong cleaning essence? Eau de death, it is, old or new chemicals too strong for your skin and too deadly to all the little birdies with weak shells when we flush our anti septic chemicals willy nilly down the drain ( Hi, Willy, I’m Nilly).In contrast, our Foods advisor Carole Anne mentions a combined hand and dish soap in Palmolive Orchard Fresh scent, and Soft Soap Aroma Therapy; there are others that clean with natural products that don’t weaken our local eagle’s shells, we have a nest wedged in a treetop in the park nearby. You could have too, they used to cover North America. And, National geographic tells us, our skies are more lead-free now than 30 years ago, it’s other issues we have to deal with now. Well, if we can all slow down a bit we’ll waste less gasoline, don’t subsidize corn and decimate poor while paying billions to energy firms to no good public use. This rant was from the Oct 1 2007 Business Week, so it is point on fact on ways governments support friends and play us the fool, and dazzle us with their distractions. We get what we pays for. Sigh.

• Powders and liquid cleaners that change color or consistency should be replaced.

• “They’ve probably been contaminated and will be less effective or even dangerous”, says Neal Langerman, Ph.D., anofficer of the chemical health and safety division at the American Chemical |Society.

• Drain cleaner that has hardened or formed clumps shouldn’t be used. You could injure yourself if a piece reacts viollently with water inside a pipe and blows out.

• Cleaners in containers that are brittle, discolored or cracked or that have a disintegrating label should be thrown away. These are signs the products may be deteriorating. This from Real Simple Magazine in Victoria’s Times Colonist nedwspaper Oct 6, 2007.

• While we have an article that shows how natural products can have amazing cleaning qualities with minimal negative impact on our local environment, we do use some pre ’50’s cleaning products that still work well and simply.

• Mom trusted any Johnson & Johnson product, so do I. I even have an 85th J&J Metal Box Special Edition of bandages, which on the back notes that the first adhesive bandage was created in 1920 by Earle E. Dickson, a Johnson & Johnson cotton mill employee. Earle created his bandage by places of gauze at intervals on a long strip of surgical tape. Then when his wife Josphine cut herself, she was able to just snip off a piece and bandage her cut. This Band-Aid can looks like what Earle’s wise employers soon were selling in various sized bandages in a can. Every home should have one, near the knives.

• And under my own sink, I trust Comet cleaner to not scratch the bath and kitchen appliances; rub gently with a soft cloth. PSP Rubbing Alcohol is handy for so many uses as an antiseptic cleaner, to relie ve muscle stiffness, reduce excess persperation, or reduce bed sores. CLR is so good to get rid of so many tough stains. And VIM Oxy-Gel All-purpose cleaner works well. A PBS special on cleaning products suggested any Oxy product is often cleanest, freshest. For up under the toilet rim, my staff at Dashwood Manor Inn insisted on Toilet Duck please. Check our new Page Healthy Supplements, which deals with which safest cleaners should be used. Take care, watch in enclosed spaces. When you have the time to clean your own pipes, lungs and muscles out, check our new Page Home Gym Essentials. Heart monitors, biofeedback readings, dream machine workout, watch the travel channel on that HDTV. Wow.

Derek and your Dashwood

Mens Health says we are to say “Hello Plastic” just like Seinfelt says “Hello, Newman”.

• Plastic is the Newman in our lives, when it comes to putting food in glass or plastic containers and then placing them in the microwave. Or even wearing plastics, which we all do, under garments, bra portions, popular items. We touch, cuddle, hold, embrace, love plastic way too much. Perhaps we should be like that goofy lil dinosaur who looked and sniffed and ate Newman. No! That thought recoils, imagine how that poor lil dino barfed out Newman bit by bit. No plastics.
• The Graduate had it right, when that slimy toad said I have one word for you, it is the future” plastics, Ben we could tell did not buy it. No. Not true. Bad plastics. If you are going to buy her a ring with plastics, you are in the wrong time zone on the wrong planet. When urine samples of 1,451 men were sampled for phthalates, men with the highest levels had waistlines 3 inches wider than those with low levels. Phthalatesmay disrupt hormone function, causing weight gain. These chemicals contaminate your food when plastic containers are heated in a microwave.
• And think what Newman is doing to your head, even while you think Plastics!Take your honey thought our excellent Jewellry and fancy stuff categories, ignore Newman, stop with the plastics, lose your gut, make her happy.
• As for jewellry and cosmetics, She will know which colour is right for her eyes, you only need to gaze into them, get lost there, dreamily pass over your credit card- but watch out for Newman-he even skims the Post Office, they say.

Derek no skimming, no plastics, no Newman Dashwood

Lasers can shatter the outer membranes of viruses, which indicates they can be used to purify blood.

• Business Week reports that a father and son team of scientists-one a laser expert at the University of Arizona, the other an immunology student at Johns Hopkins University- built a laser that emits pulses of light at a frequency that kills viruses without harming normal cells. This by Arlene Weintraub in Oct 1, 2007 Business Week. We will hopefully hear much more about this soon. So thank you Arlene with todays power story.
• Derek and your Purified Blood Team

A new laser device could peer through the skin and veins to see cancer cells in our blood.

• Patients are injected with a fluoresent marker at the wrist that causes tumor cells to glow when struck by the long-wave length laser. The cells are then visible to a photo detector. Scientists at Purdue University who pioneered this non-invasive technique say it should now allow doctors to screeen larger volumes of a patient’s blood than is possible than by taking samples. This procedure can also be repeated more often, to measure how well you are are responding to treatment. Purdue is working with the www.Mayo Clinic.com to design a clinical trial for the laser, which is described in the www.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.com

• While we marvel at these advances in medicine, central to any message is taking care of our bodies- which includes getting off the couch, out for our walk, or at least exerise our talk. Our more disciplined lives are creating among us the healthiest, as well as some unhealthiest, peoples in human history. Fit of fat, eat well and walk or work out, we all row our own boat, gently if you please, merrily all the day, eating essential yums and plums, all the way. So we say. Work the day, make the play, eat right, stay bright, work your walk with all your might, so you sleep tight, lights out early, no late night curly, 8 hours sleep, working deep, while you sleep the night, wake up bright, showered and clean, eat power foods so you take on the Dean, or the Queen, you be nice you be firm, you make Jack be nimble, or Jacques be squirm; Polish plumbers work harder than him. But you might be wise to check out the new Home Gym Essentials.

• Derek and your Kill Cancer before It Kills You Team.

• A National Geographic article under Conservation shows a U.S. Department of Transportation study averaged fuel efficiency curve for eight cars and light trucks. The curve is the classic “Bell curve”, showing the upside down bell shape of low fuel efficiency from start-up to an efficiency height, a “Sweet Spot” we should think of it that is level high between 35-55 MPH. Beyond that, fuel efficiency falls rapidly, wasting gasoline out the tailpipe as gas drips. I guess we could consider speeders as gas drips, and are helping keep consumption higher than need be and prices up.
• Trains can be very efficient since they stopped burning coal, and a family trip, or trip for two, can be enchanting- have you seen America by train? The Amtrack train system, as with the Greyhound Bus service, served a simpler America, and still do very well.
• Now some unsettling facts about aircraft and global warming, and how we can travel more efficiently than a kerosine burning flying boxcar that is spittling it’s kerosine ashes on us as it passes on by. And talking about airplanes, many recent studies should cause us all concern. A United Nations study projects that air travel will likely double and beyond in the next decades as Asians join the western middle class. The huge problem is that jet planes run on very fast but dirty kerosene, and those vapor trails across the sky are pollutants, not a pretty cloud formation.
• During the 3 sky free days after 9/11 the skies of Canada and America cleared amazingly and smog alerts nation wide diminished.
• So, what can we say, but make it your day, don’t speed like a fool, eat wise and natural. Fly when you must, but sometimes take a bus, or build up your class, get up off your
• Duff, work yourself rough, on your body machine, way to go Gene.

Smiles. Derek and your Dash for Power Team

Ironically, people who follow the USDA guidelines on eating healthy, become healthy and reduce their risk of diabetes-as long as they are women. Men who follow the present USDA fall short of their minimal daily requirements of fiber, fruit and vegetables, Tufts University researchers who studied men and women’s USDA intake concluded, and how this met women’s, but not men’s nutrition requirements.

Happily, for men and women, it is difficult to overdose on fiber, fruit and vegetables, so men in particular, think of what you are putting in your mouth, where you are when you grab a snack, and what is in that “food” you just put in your mouth? Men, being busy and expecting mom to serve them, will put on pounds meeting with buddies to flirt with the waitress, have a beer, and a salt packed pub type meal. Big deal? You are wrecking yourself, plugging your arteries- as I have done- and there is a lot of re training. Firstly, stay out of restaurants, or watch it,

It you must belly up to the salad bar, watch the dressing, avoid moist prepared items. But you need to look at home, where you can pack and stack a day by day supply of healthy foods you can eat on the go. For your breakfast, have either fresh or frozen black berries, from freezer to fridge overnight, then into you on your morning cereal. Is your fridge freezer large enough for your needs, if not, upgrade now. Stay with hand or bite sized fresh items that you will easily grab on the go, black plums, a raisin pack, drink the OJ if the orange is a mess, red redlicious apples, or cloudy apple juice, POM pomegranate juice, cranberries or cranberry juice, prune juice. Put in an ice maker, connect it to a new filter system and get your share of water in ice cubes for the drinks. Eat those plums, chew those berries, Aunt Agatha Vodka’d them so you’ll delight at the cherries.

Smile. Play. Eat all day. But no carbs for a night treat. Read about that in our Sleep Easy Category, or tomorrow you’ll be knocked off your feet. Up at night, your tomorrow a fright, you’ll be awake at 3, Billie McGee, feeling hun-gree.

But eat all this fiber, fruit and veggies, Reggie, you;ll be ready for the day, eat right and go make hay. So start turning lights down by 8, that would be great, teeth brushed and in bed by 10, lights out. I climb into bed, sleep like the dead, awaken at seven, feel I’m in heaven. Off off into the day, I say. Guys, lay off the white bread, animal fats, white sugar.

Smiles. Derek Dashwood and your Prune Juice Clean Team

Men are twice as likely as women to develop skin cancer.

And genetic differences are the cause. Women appear to have twice the naturally occuring antioxidants that help prevent the harmful effects of the sun’s UV damage.This in Men’s Health July/August 2007 from a study by Ohio State University researchers.

So Jim, watch your skin, Jane’s OK, but you will pay, so get on some UV sun screen real quick, even if you don’t like slick, you will stay alive, no jive, live to carry the basket and eat and thrive. The blacker you are, the more you OK, you light like a Swede you burn best of the breed, but that light skin, where you bin, north pole, no goal, you can swim at the rim, get slim, but come on Jim, Jane’s here, bring the beer, stay clear, no fear as long as I can win, with life saving UV Protection for my skin. Advantage Women. So what else is n