A Natural Environmental Health Facts Ezine

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"A NATURAL ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH FACTS Ezine" Here to Inform and Help You Become Healthier and Happier while Achieving Quality Longevity!

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Email Lena
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Friday June 03, 2005
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=> IN THIS ISSUE!
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==> Editors' Ranting & or Warnings
==> Something To Think About
==> Health Thought for the day!
==> Showcase Health Spotlight
==> Monthly Spotlight Ads
==> Today's Health Tip
==> Food of The Week
==> Health Today
==> Environmental Report
==> Life Changing Information

The end of the week, I think, it all went so fast I'm not at all totally sure what day it is. Didn't we just have Christmas last week? It seems that way to me, but the year is almost half gone so I must be lagging behind... Have a great weekend and be sure to take a rest day for your health sake...

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Remember ANEH Facts archives now exist Click Here
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Take charge of you and your family's health before it takes charge of you!
Lena

==> Find An Alternative Health Professional
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Something To Think About
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New research implies that elderly people who are taking aspirin to help prevent heart attacks and stroke may be setting the stage for serious health problems. You begin an aspirin regimen to protect your heart, but if you stop taking it cold turkey, you stand a chance of prompting a dangerous coronary episode.

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We accept all advertisements in good faith, but the advertisers are completely responsible for the content and accuracy of their advertisements. We do not give any warranties and accept no responsibility. The editor and publisher suggest that you exercise due diligence!
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Sweet Prunus avium L.
Sour Prunus cerasus L.

In a few weeks the season will be upon us in parts of the United States:
So it's time to get those taste buds working overtime anticipating the sweet and tart taste? Cherry Picking Time!

Cherries are a small, round, red stone fruit. They grow on trees in small clusters. There are both sweet cherries and sour cherries. Sweet cherries are round or slightly heart-shaped.

Cherries are eaten fresh, made into pie filling, flavored yogurt, jellies, jams, sauces, stewed fruit, fruit drinks, ice cream and candies. Cherries are a good source of vitamin C, the B vitamins, potassium and many micronutrients. Most sweet cherries are eaten fresh. Almost all sour cherries are processed for canning.

Compact, juicy, and colorful, cherries are nicely supplied with nutrients, notably pectin (a soluble fiber that helps control blood cholesterol levels), vitamin C, and beta-carotene, with some potassium. (Sour cherries, which are sometimes called "pie cherries," have considerably more vitamin C than sweet cherries do, though much of it is lost when the cherries are cooked.)

Cherries are also high in a number of phytochemicals, including: anthocyanins (pigments responsible for the red and blue colors of fruits and vegetables), which are touted to have anticancer properties based on their antioxidant activities that defend cells against harmful carcinogens); and quercetin, a flavonoid, which is an antioxidant and with anticancer properties as well as anti-inflammatory and antihistaminic properties. It is this anti-inflammatory activity that has made cherries (specifically cherry juice) of interest to people who suffer from gout.

Both sweet and sour cherries besides being rich in fiber also contain several vitamins, such as Vitamin A, Thiamin- B1, Riboflavin- B2 and Vitamin C. Also mixed in are the minerals such as Calcium, Phosphorus, Iron, Sodium, Niacin and Potassium.

There's even a possible dental health bonus in that studies have shown that a substance (not yet identified) in cherry juice may help prevent tooth decay.

Although some people find the cherry pit an annoying feature, the cherry's only other shortcoming is their brief season, which lasts less than 3 months.

The two basic categories of cherry: sweet and sour.

Sweet Cherries;

Bing: There are many commercial varieties of sweet cherries, but the leader is the Bing, a large, round, extra-sweet cherry with purple-red flesh and a deep red skin that verges on black when fully ripe and great fresh.

Lambert: The second most popular variety is the Lambert, a smaller, heart-shaped red cherry similar in taste and texture to the Bing.

Rainier: The Rainier, a sweet cherry with yellow or pinkish skin, is grown in limited quantities and is milder and sweeter than the Bing.

Royal Ann: Another light-skinned variety, the Royal Ann, is often canned or made into maraschino cherries.

Sour cherries:

Most commercially grown sour varieties--such as Montmorency, which is the best known--are canned or frozen for use as pie fillings or sauces, although you can occasionally find fresh sour cherries during the summer months at farmers' markets and roadside stands. Sour cherries are smaller than sweet cherries and are a bright scarlet.

Both sweet and sour cherries have extremely short shelf lives, and must be handled gently to reduce bruising and oxidation.

Sour cherries for processing are dumped into cold water immediately following harvest. They are then transported to processing plants, where they are washed, de-stemmed, pitted, and packed for freezing, all within hours from harvest.

Sweet cherries are hydrocooled or dumped into cold water by pickers, and packed in shallow flats after being sorted based on color and size, usually the largest being 15/16 inch or higher.

Sweet cherries are usually shipped immediately, since shelf life is 2 weeks. They are subject to the same post-harvest diseases (brown rot, grey mold, blue mold, Rhizopus, Alternaria, etc..) as other stone fruits.

A nutrient rich food!

Maraschino cherries are made mostly from sweet cherries, but a small proportion of sour cherries are brined for this purpose. Brined cherries are de-colorized with SO2, then steeped in Marasca, a liqueur distilled from the fermented juice of wild cherries.

Our favorite way of eating cherries are fresh and ready for popping into the mouth. Nothing quite so great as picking and eating when they are in season. But we also love cherry cobblers and pies?

Here are two versions of Cherry Cobblers for in season or off!

Fresh Cherry Cobbler

1 1/4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
4 cups pitted fresh tart cherries
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons shortening
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400?. Blend 1 1/4 cups sugar, cornstarch, cherries, and almond extract in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Continue to boil and stir for 1 minute. Pour fruit mixture into an ungreased 2-quart casserole.

Place in oven while preparing dough.

Measure flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, baking powder, and salt into a mixing bowl. Add shortening and milk. Cut shortening in several times then stir until dough forms a ball. Drop dough in about 6 spoonfuls onto hot fruit. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until topping is golden brown. Serve warm with cream, if desired, or cool slightly and serve with vanilla ice cream

Cherry Cobbler with Biscuit Mix

2 tablespoons quick cooking tapioca
2/3 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 can (20 ounces) drained canned tart cherries, reserve juice
1 cup cherry juice (add water to make 1 cup if necessary)
2 teaspoons butter
1 cup biscuit mix
2 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup evaporated milk

Preheat oven to 425?. In a bowl, combine tapioca, 2/3 cup sugar, 1/8 teaspoon salt, cherries and the 1 cup cherry juice (if there isn't enough cherry juice to make 1 cup, add a little water). Mix and put into a lightly buttered 1 1/2-quart baking dish. Dot top of cherry mixture with 2 teaspoons butter, cut in small pieces.

Bake at 425? for 12 minutes.

In a mixing bowl, combine biscuit mix, 2 tablespoons sugar, and evaporated milk. Remove cherry mixture from the oven and drop dough by tablespoonfuls on top to make 4 dumplings.

Bake for about 12 minutes longer, or until dumplings are lightly browned.

Cherry Cobbler serves 4. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream of a dollop of whipped topping.

Enjoy
Lena

High Cholesterol? With Children, It May Not Matter
By DAN HURLEY
May 31, 2005

Dr. Thomas B. Newman doesn't like the use of heart-rending stories to sway medical decision makers. He prefers statistical proof, the cold calculus of numbers. But in trying to explain why testing children's cholesterol rarely makes sense - a contention strongly disputed by many leading medical societies and government health agencies - even he cannot help stooping to a story.

"I have a friend whose teenage son had his cholesterol measured," said Dr. Newman, a pediatrician and professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. "He was on the swim team and the track team, and he ate a very healthy diet. But he wanted to get his cholesterol measured because to him this was like a test he had studied for, and he wanted to get an A."

When the test came back high - over 200 - the boy became depressed, Dr. Newman said. When his friends invited him to a barbecue: "He didn't want to go. He said he can't eat hot dogs. And this is an otherwise perfectly well child."

Dr. Newman thinks it is unfair to what could be millions of children who, if the recommendations of some medical groups are followed, would likewise be tested and labeled as having high cholesterol. For 15 years, even as children have grown more obese and the proof has grown more compelling for the ability of statin drugs to prevent heart disease by lowering cholesterol, he has argued in The Journal of the American Medical Association and in the journal Pediatrics that no good can come of such early testing.

He concedes that too many children today are overweight, putting themselves at increased risk for heart disease in adulthood. But, he says, "You don't need to measure children's cholesterol to know if they're overweight; just put them on a scale."

Even if testing were to find a cholesterol level of 240 or over, he adds, no diet study has ever demonstrated more than a negligible improvement in children's cholesterol levels. As for statins, while a handful of studies in children have found the drugs can safely and effectively reduce cholesterol levels for up to two years, Dr. Newman points out that no study has ever examined statins' safety if begun in childhood and continued for decades.

But conducting such a study, he says, would be unethical.
"It would be all risk and no benefit for the children," he said. "You can estimate with superb accuracy, based on existing data, how many heart attacks you're going to prevent in the first 10 or 20 years. You're going to prevent zero because there is no heart disease to prevent at that age. Any benefit you might get will not be for at least 30 years."

He added: "To treat a child the same way you'd treat a 60-year-old man with a bypass just doesn't make sense. One has to be careful about the use of language. Pathological precursors to atherosclerosis may begin in childhood, but it's not a disease. It doesn't make anybody sick."

On the other hand, he said, telling children they have high cholesterol may worry them unnecessarily and distract them from more pressing threats to their health, like drugs, depression, cigarettes and violence.

Neither the American College of Physicians nor the Preventive Services Task Force, an independent advisory panel for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, recommends testing anyone's cholesterol before age 20. But the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Heart Association and the National Cholesterol Education Program all recommend screening children if their parents have high cholesterol or early heart disease.

The pediatrics group also recommends testing if the parents' status is uncertain and if the child has other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, like high blood pressure and obesity.

Dr. Rae-Ellen Kavey, chief of cardiology at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago and lead author of the American Heart Association's latest guidelines for preventing heart disease in children, sees Dr. Newman's views as far out of the mainstream.

LENA'S COMMENT: I agree in part with Dr. Newman, children should not be subjected to testing for cholesterol, but he still is linking cholesterol to heart problems and no proof exists that that is the case!!! In fact more proof exists that anything under a 300 reading has nothing to do with heart disease or heart attacks... The insanity of cholesterol as the problem for heart disease continues. Why? Because it makes the drug industry billions of dollars to scare the pants off people. Now they are urging doctors to put children's lives in jeopardy with unnecessary tests and medications that are flat out dangerous and detrimental to everyone's health... When will the insanity end?

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To Save Its Canal, Panama Fights for Its Forests
By CORNELIA DEAN
May 24, 2005

MIRAFLORES, Panama - A freighter slides slowly into the first of the Miraflores Locks, red, orange and white cargo containers stacked six or seven high on its deck. Gates swing shut and the lock begins to drain, water flowing into the lock below.

The water to operate Panama Canal locks like Miraflores flows down from Gat? Lake, which depends on the health of the surrounding watershed forest. A few minutes later, when the water levels are equal, gates at the other end of the lock swing open, and the ship moves into the next chamber. Once again, water drains, gates open and the ship and its tons of cargo head out to the Pacific Ocean.

Something else is moving, too - about 26 million gallons of water, the amount that drains from the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks each time a ship goes through them to or from the Pacific. The same amount drains into the Atlantic when ships pass through the Gat? Locks on the other side of the isthmus. So each trip through the canal, or lockage, means 52 million gallons of water. On a busy day, there may be as many as 40 lockages.

The water comes from Gat? Lake, one of the largest artificial lakes in the world, created during construction of the canal.

The canal depends on the lake and its water, and they in turn depend on the health of the surrounding watershed forest. But in the last few decades, half of it has been lost to logging and slash-and-burn agriculture.

Panamanians know what will happen if they cannot maintain an adequate supply of water for the canal. In the drought winter of 1990-91, lack of water forced canal operators to curtail lockages to fewer than 30 a day, something no one here is eager to repeat.

Although Panama City is a major financial center now, by some estimates the canal and its associated businesses still contribute 40 percent or more of the nation's economy.

And if Panamanians vote to upgrade or expand the canal, an issue they are expected to confront in a referendum this fall, the reliability of Gat? Lake's water supply will be even more crucial.

"We need the water for the functioning of the canal," Reyna Carrillo, a guide at Miraflores, recently told a group of visitors. "Without the water, we would be the biggest ditch in the whole world."

The Panama Canal Authority and an array of scientists are working together to study Gat? Lake's hydrology, to restore its watershed and to teach the people who live there the importance of preserving it.

Gat? Lake is fed chiefly by the Chagres River, which was dammed during the construction of the canal. It straddles the isthmus at the canal's highest elevation, and part of the canal runs through it.

Water per se is not its problem. The Chagres drains a tropical jungle where it rains 10 feet or more each year - about three times as much as it rains in Seattle or New York, and in theory more than enough to keep the locks operating at capacity.

But the rain does not fall steadily year-round. Most of it comes from May to December, in brief but intense downpours. An inch in an hour is ordinary, and six inches in a day is hardly unheard of. Rain falls so heavily in Panama that early canal builders described storms as turning the air to water.

On forested slopes, much of this water soaks into the ground and feeds slowly into watershed streams and then into Gat? Lake.

But deforested slopes cannot absorb heavy rains.

Floods of water run off into the lake, overflow Gat? Dam and run out to sea - useless for lockage. Meanwhile, eroded sediment ends up on the lake bottom, reducing its storage capacity.

One consequence is apparent to those who traverse the Gat? Lake portion of the canal.

Between the town of Gamboa and Barro Colorado Island, a dredge anchored offshore drills into the lake bottom, sucking up excess sediment and pumping it through long pipes to shore.

The resulting turbulence fills the lake with so much silt that people nearby who rely on it for drinking water have to filter it or use bottled water instead. But the dredging helps maintain the lake's capacity to store water.

Columbus and his men were the first Europeans to see the towering forests of the Chagres River basin, with their 1,500 species of trees, some of them growing more than 100 feet tall, and the howler monkeys and toucans and other creatures that inhabit them. Another Spanish seafarer, Juan Corzo Serna, wrote about them in 1524, according to Stanley Heckadon Moreno, a sociologist and research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

"He is our first witness to the land," Dr. Heckadon said. "He describes it as a monumental forest."