Known as The Miracle Tree, Moringa Oleifera, just one of the many Moringa species is a  multipurpose tree that is used all over the world.  So, why Moringa?

The better question would be, why not?

Moringa Oleifera is a tree in which every part can be used.  From its roots to its leaves and everything in between, the Moringa tree hosts a list of nutritional properties that are making children, adults, animals, and land healthier the world over.

Just look at these amazing facts.  Moringa leaves alone contain:

• 7 times the vitamin C of oranges
• 4 times the vitamin A of carrots
• 4 times the calcium of milk
• 3 times the potassium of bananas
• 2 times the protein of yogurt

Altogether, it includes vitamins: A, B1, B2, B3, C and E.  The plant is also packed with minerals, including: calcium, chromium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, protein, and zinc.  This miracle tree also harbors 18 out of the 20 essential amino acids, which are the building blocks of DNA that humans need.  There are eight amino acids that our bodies cannot synthesize on its own; fortunately, the Moringa provides it for us.  Moringa also helps stop diarrhea, skin fungal infections and stomach aches, while improving anemia, and stabilizing diabetes.  We do not recommend that you stop taking your doctor prescribed medications without medical consent, but it is advantageous to supplement the plant into your diet and reap its beneficial effects.

Moringa pods can be cooked as a vegetable, the seeds can be pressed for cooking and cosmetic oil, and the seed pulp can be used to purify water.  This has been extremely beneficial in parts of the world where clean water is scarce.  Its ability to mitigate malnutrition in these parts has also taken effect.  Africa, Asia, South America, Latin America and the Caribbean are benefitting from the high potency of vitamins by administering the leaves in pounded powder form to babies and pregnant women.  In fact, women in Senegal, Ghana, the Philippines, and Haiti are seeing such positive results for themselves and their children that they are planting their own trees and using the powder as a regular cooking spice sprinkled directly on top of each family meal.  And the benefits just keep on coming!

The increased planting of Moringa trees has helped to strengthen degraded soil and prevent future erosion.  The abundance of water in the root of the tree also makes it drought resistant, a huge benefit in this time of changing climates and unpredictable weather patterns.  These trees are also fast growing.  One tree can be harvested eight times a year, producing over 100 tons per hectare of green matter worth using.  And use it you can!  Even to bathe.

Yes, Moringa is a magnificent cleansing agent.  The sap from its bark can be used as an antiseptic to clean cuts and wounds, but the leaves itself can be processed into soaps, lotions, crèmes, and other cosmetic products.  This isn’t just good for personal hygiene and health; it is also good for the health of the family economy.  Products that are made can be sold and that produces another livelihood and generates income for a family.  This is truly a tree that keeps on giving, a miracle tree, which proves to be worth far more than the soil it’s planted in.

Beginning Your Organic Garden

Permanent Agriculture (Permaculture) and intensive gardening are the ways to combat the ongoing and growing infiltration of genetically modified organisms into our homes.  These are techniques where various plants share the same space in support of each and where no chemical fertilizers or pesticides are used. 

Most permaculture techniques begin with healthy soil.  There are many ways to create a sustainable garden bed.  One way is to:

Ø  Prepare the site by loosening the soil

Ø  Dig out a few inches below ground level for the entire bed area – about 4 ft. wide

Ø  Line the bottom of the bed with dead leaves as compost and pest prevention – the larger the leaves the better

Ø  Add a large amount of compost and bio-char as a layer on top of the dead leaves

Ø  Mix in some other soil to build a small mound with a flat top for the bed – the more compost the better

Once the beds are made, they should never be opened or tilled again.  If the soil gets compact, lightly fork the top layer.  Now you are ready to plant:

Ø  Mix many types of crops: leafy, bean, root, tomato, herb

Ø  Avoid planting two of the same type of crop together to limit pest damage and competition

Ø  Maximize production by giving the crops just enough space to grow

Ø  Replace plants that are no longer yielding output with a different type of crop

Ø  Plants and weeds that are taken out can be left on top of the beds as mulch, just remember to remove their roots so they don’t begin to grow again

Thank you for reading!

The term "pink slime" was coined in a United States Department of Agriculture memo. There are two major problems with Pink slime.  It is the connective tissue and muscle from the cow, sometimes meat scraps gathered from the slaughterhouse floor, but mostly the trimmings of the cow.  Essentially, as a former USDA food safety inspector said, "it is not meat and could never be considered beef."  The second problem is that companies add ammonium hydroxide and to destroy harmful microbes, such as Salmonella and E. coli.

Ammonium Hydroxide is a colorless liquid chemical solution that forms when ammonia dissolves in water.  It is found in many industrial products and cleaners such as flooring strippers, brick cleaners, and cements.  Ammonium hydroxide can also release ammonia gas into the air and exposure to it, especially if ingested can lead to:
 
Breathing difficulty (from inhalation)
Coughing
Throat swelling (which may also cause breathing difficulty)
Wheezing
Severe pain in the throat
Severe pain or burning in the nose, eyes, ears, lips, or tongue
Vision loss
Esophagus, stomach, and intestines 
Blood in the stool
Burns of the esophagus (food pipe) and stomach
Severe abdominal pain
Vomiting, possibly with blood
Heart and blood 
Collapse
Low blood pressure (develops rapidly)
Severe change in pH (too much or too little acid in the blood, which leads to damage in all of the body organs)
Skin Burns, Holes and Irritation
It actually becomes a matter for the center for poison control.

Pink Slime or Lean Beef Trimmings is banned in the UK but In the USA, it is sold by several companies, including Cargill Meat Solutions and Beef Products Inc. Fast food restaurants like McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Burger King have recently eliminated pink slime from the meat they serve us in their burgers, as a result of Jamie Oliver shining a light on this practice.  The most disgusting part of this whole ordeal, in my opinion is that the United States Government has ordered 7 million pounds of pink slime to be delivered to public schools to be served to the students for lunch. 

I'm done!

I was reading an article about "PINK SLIME" that caught my eye on shine yahoo.com and then did some research and obtained more information from the huffington post as well as medical news today.com which lead me to today's health tip, "how to prevent salmonella and e. coli poisoning".  Both of these are bacteria that causes food poisoning which leads to severe stomach pains, abdominal cramps, vomiting and bloody diarrhea.  They are both foodborne illnesses, usually coming from undercooked ground beef or ground beef that contains fecal matter in it.  

So, how do we prevent these nasty bacteria from setting up in our bodies?  I have 3 practical tips.

1 Control bacterial growth. Food contains good and bad bacteria. What's important is controlling the growth of bacteria and keeping them at a temperature level that is safe for consumption.  Meat should be in the freezer, thawed out in the refridgerator, and completely cooked.  Food should be stored at the proper temperatures until they are ready to be prepared or served. For example, hot foods such as soup must remain at a temperature of at least 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold foods must stay below 40 degrees. Using a meat thermometer is very helpful.

2 Wash, wash, wash and scrub your hands, utensils and surfaces before handling food, during and after food preparation and especially when handling raw meat, fish or eggs. It is safer to use paper towels rather than sponges when washing surfaces.  Also, we must be mindful of cross-contamination. Once a utensil has been used on raw meat, fish or eggs, do not re-use it on foods that won't be cooked. Use the same precautions with surfaces such as cutting boards and countertops. It is best to use a separate cutting board for fresh produce.

3 When food is going to be out of the kitchen or in the sun all day, for lunch, picnics, or car trips, we should opt for eggless dishes.  Something like potato salad sitting in the sun or in the summer heat, will quickly reach an unsafe temperature level. 

Those are the three precautionary measures to take for preventing salmonella and e coli poisoning.  *In my humble opinion, I think we should eliminate beef all together from our diets.  Besides the fact that beef is where salmonella and e coli bacteria is poisoning us from, cows are no longer feeding on the grass they've grazed on for hundreds of years and as a result, we have things like madd cow's disease, a result of cattle being forced into carniverous eating and canibalism, which is meat from animals including other cows being ground up and put in their feed as well as fruits, vegetables and grains that are not naturally part of a cow's diet, like corn, which ends up in our system as sugar when we think we're eating protein.  

For more information check out www.ehow.com.  

Nominated by International Labor Rights Forum as one of the top ten anti social and environmental companies of 2012-  Hershey the largest chocolate manufacturer in the United States- makes the list. Hershey's founder, Milton S. Hershey, built the company as a model of responsible corporate citizenship by supporting a range of community efforts including the Milton Hershey School for disadvantaged children.  Unfortunately, the company's lack of compassion for children forced to harvest cocoa in West Africa makes Hershey's a nominee for the Corporate Fool of the Year. Since 2001, instances of forced labor, child labor, and human trafficking on West African cocoa farms have been widely reported.  Recent surveys reveal that hundreds of thousands of children continue to work in hazardous conditions. Hershey gets much of its cocoa from West Africa, yet the company is years behind its competitors when it comes to ethical cocoa sourcing and protecting children against exploitation.</p><p>More information can be found at: http://www.nationofchange.org/who-biggest-corporate-fool-2012-1330872328.


So, what can we do?  Let's hit Hershey where it hurts.  STOP buying Hershey's Products!  If they cannot respect our people and our world, let's make them understand that we cannot support their practices.  Calling for a 2012 Boycott of Hershey's, which includes: 
HERSHEY’S KISSES
HERSHEY’S BLISS 
REESE’S 
KIT KAT 
TWIZZLERS
ALMOND JOY and
ICE BREAKERS 

There's NOTHING sweet about stripping the environment of its natural resources AND exploiting children to do the dirty work.  HERSHEY'S hear us loud and clear: This is not right and we are no longer consuming your products.  FIX THIS MESS!  Build schools to educate the children you are exploiting, Pay local and native adults of the area a fair wage under adequate working conditions and appropriate hours, and Limit the amount of land you devastate yearly to make a profit.  Please stop the production of chocolate goods and spend the rest of 2012 cleaning up the mess you've made in West Africa.    

Nation of Change.Org has a very recent article about companies that are devasting our environment, which of course has a major affect on our health.  One of the top ten on the list is Southern Company which is one of the nation's largest and most polluting utilities.  It mentioned that Southern Company's coal-fired power plants cause over a thousand deaths (1,224), close to two thousand (1,710) heart attacks, 752 cases of chronic bronchitis, and an astounding number of asthma attacks totaling 20,770 yearly.  So today's health tip is natural ways of treating asthma.

First, asthma attacks introduce large amounts of harmful free radicals to your body. You can counteract their harmful effects, which can lead to a number of serious illnesses, by taking extra doses of Vitamin C and Vitamin E each day.

Since asthma is, by nature, an inflammatory disease, you can also treat your asthma by using ginseng. This is a popular Oriental herb that has anti-inflammatory properties and can be used effectively to help manage bronchial irritation.

Use magnesium supplements to open up your lungs' air passages. 500 mg of magnesium, taken daily, can widen your bronchial tubes, facilitating easier breathing and reducing the chances of a severe asthma attack.  Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body and is essential to good health. Eating a wide variety of legumes, nuts, whole grains, and green, chlorophyll rich vegetables will help you meet your daily dietary need for magnesium.

Eating fish, particularly salmon &amp; tuna, nuts, seeds and flaxseed oil -things that contain valuable omega-3 fatty acids have been proven to reduce swelling in the lungs of asthma patients as well.  I would also recommend adding a fish oil supplement to the diet which can be found anywhere that sells vitamins.

Other health tips can be found at www.ehow.com. I urge you to do a little research on the importance of magnesium, and also don't forget to visit nationofchange.org for more information on companies that are ruining our health.  That's the health tip for the day.  Here's wishing you happy, healthy and easy breathing.