Correct time to drink Waterwater

Correct Time to Drink Water....Very Important... This is interesting!! I knew you need your minimum water to flush the toxins out of your body, but this was news to me. Correct Time to Drink Water....Very Important From A Cardiac Specialist! Drinking water at certain time maximizes it's effectiveness on the body: 2 glasses of water after waking up - helps activate internal organs 1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal - helps digestion 1 glass of water before taking a bath - helps lower blood pressure 1 glass of water before going to bed - avoids stroke or heart attack

 

 

Conscientious organic food items are playing on your compassionate disposition to push sales

Cool cows & hot chicks, time for happy eating

PLANNING a happy meal for your Sunday brunch? How about "stress-free" milk to go with the "cage free" eggs from your neighbourhood organic food store? Welcome to the next level in the organic food revolution. Think shiny happy chickens and cows that line up for morning and evening walks.
    'Natural' food is widening your options and coming up with an interesting mix for the palate. Milk from a "stressfree" cow is what Organic India's global CEO Krishan Guptaa pushes as the USP of his company's organic ghee: "A cow produces milk for her calf. We first let the calf have its fill and do not use machines to extract all the milk. Our cows live in an open area where they are free to walk around and graze to their heart's content in the fields. This, naturally, takes away any fear or restrains in the cattle's minds and hence we have marketed our product as tension-free cow's ghee." Ergo a happy cow equals a happier customer.
    Guptaa pegs his product on "India's 5000-year old tradition" and says the purity of his product lends it more potency. So the ghee from a "stress-free" cow would last twice the length of a 'regular' pack of ghee. "I tell people that what is not good for them is impurity. And all things pure, be it ghee or neem, carry the goodness of Mother Nature. It is for us to make the best use of these gifts of nature," he says.
    He isn't the only one marketing Indian hoary traditions in service of our taste buds. Ahimsa milk, or milk produced without harm to any living being, produced at a Hare Krishna farm set up by Beatle George Harrison, recently went on sale in Britain. The milk will be sold for £3 a litre in shops around Harrow, London, where there is a large Hindu community. Not only are the cows milked with ancient Sanskrit prayers playing in the background, they are also given a full Hindu burial after they die.
    Meanwhile, Keggfarms, one of the oldest poultry organisations in the country, makes sure the birds in its poultry houses are not stuffed in 8x8 inch battery cages. While they are given feed sans any chemical agents, another essential trait in their breeding is their access to sunshine and fresh air. "They are not only kept away from cages but allowed to maintain a social order of their own. We try to make sure they are happy birds since every living thing must be treated with humaneness," says Vinod Kapur, the owner of Keggfarms. With the Keggs brand flying off the shelves from around 300 outlets in the Delhi-NCR region and plans to extend the retail network to Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chandigarh among others, happy cows and chicken are clearly the way to go. "In India there was no concept of quality or fresh eggs, only of the cheapest eggs. We combined our emphasis on quality with the tenet that every life form, whether plant or animal, needs to be treated with respect," he adds.
    Research has shown that the flavour and yolk of an egg are determined by the diet and breed of the hen. Farm fresh eggs tend to have dark yolks where as chicken eggs from battery hens have lighter eggs. Controlled, low-intensity light is also used to delay sexual maturity until the bird's body is big enough to produce larger eggs. While most eggs come in white or brown shades, the Aracuana, a breed of chicken developed in Chile lays blue to green chicken eggs!
    And if milk and eggs weren't doing it for you, you might want to go in for "relaxed meat". There are scientific studies to prove that high stress levels in cattle are likely to alter the acid levels in their meat, affecting its colour, taste and texture. The technical term for meat that has been damaged by this sort of stress is "dark cutting meat". Vegetarians, take heart
THEN, there is Japan's legendary Kobe Beef. Long-standing legend has it that the Tajima breed of Wagyu cattle in Kobe are fed organic grains, Japanese beer, and even sake to make that perfect steak. "The terms 'organic' and 'free-range' are often used as little more than marketing gimmicks designed to fool compassionate consumers into purchasing more meat, eggs or dairy," says Poorva Joshipura, chief functionary for PETA India. Joshipura believes that the only way we can ensure not contributing to the suffering of animals is to stop eating them. While animal rights activists are hardly likely to support the pampering of cattle on their way to the slaughterhouse, the fact remains that there are some brutal practices going into traditional cattle-slaughter. A realisation that better treated animals will produce better meat is likely to ensure at least some relief for the animals.
    Vegetarians, take heart. Even cheese is coming with a certified "vegetarian" tag. Godrej's nature basket store which stocks a variety of cold cuts, meats, cheese and organic foods, offers vegetable red cheddar for the more discriminating customer. If you're a strict vegetarian, you will want to avoid cheese made with "traditional" (animal) rennet (fat) and should look for cheese with rennet that is made from plants or microbes. Unfortunately, this information is not always on the labels of cheese that has been pre-cut and wrapped by a store. But that is now changing. "Most cheese is animal-fat based so a vegetarian cheese is one which uses plantfat instead. While this hasn't replaced regular cheese, it has become an addon to cater to a certain type of customer," says Uttam Singh, food specialist at Godrej's Nature's Basket GK II outlet. The common thread running through this interesting but sometimes weird sounding spread: Conscientious cuisine is here to stay.
    pallavi.singh@timesgroup.com 

‘The US model of private health insurers is inefficient, expensive’

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prizewinning economist has written several articles on the inequity in access to health and the flaws in the drug discovery process of pharmaceutical companies. On a recent visit to Delhi, Stiglitz spoke to Rema Nagarajan about the negative role of patents in drug discovery and the pitfalls of private insurance in health:

    Why have you been pitching for a single payer system for health insurance rather than a system where several private companies compete?
    The US model of private health insurers has been proven inefficient and expensive. Rather than provide better healthcare at lower costs, insurance companies innovate at finding better ways of discrimination. They are inefficient because they are trying to figure out how to insure people who don't need the cover and keep out people who need it. With many companies, they also need to spend on marketing and advertising. The incentives are all wrong and the transaction costs are very high and you have to give them a high profit. In health, social and private incentives are totally disparate. Competition does not work in healthcare especially in the health insurance market. Several countries like the UK, France and Sweden have a single payer system, differing only in the organisation of healthcare delivery.
    Several health insurance companies are setting up business here. Should India be worried?
    India would be in a terrible mess, given the size of its population, if it went down the wrong route (of private companies for health insurance). They should learn from the mess that the US has got into. Once the companies start making profits, special interests in politics will come into play and it will be difficult to get them out. In India, given the disparities in income, a single system for delivery might not work. So, it will probably need a mixture of public and private provision or maybe public healthcare for basic clinics and reimbursement for others, or the UK model where provisioning or delivery is also through public institutions.
    Areyouagainstintellectual property especially in health research into medicines?
    I am not against intellectual property (IP). But the benefits of IP have been exaggerated and the costs underestimated. IP creates monopolies. And it does interfere with economic efficiency by interfering with the flow of knowledge and the use of knowledge, particularly for developing countries. The TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) agreement is trying to impose the same IP framework on everybody. The question is whether IP promotes innovation. Increasingly, the evidence is that it may actually impede innovation. It is leading to infinite negotiations around patents. More money is being spent on lawyers than on research. New ideas are the most important input into research. IP is making that input difficult to get. We need some IP. But we also need to find better ways of financing and incentivising research such as governmentsponsored research.
    Is it viable for governments to finance drug research?
    Yes, public financing of drug research is financially viable. In a system where government pays for drugs, it is in effect, the government or the public who pay for hugely expensive drugs. Drug companies greatly exaggerate the cost, especially on research. If you broke down their costs, you would see that basic research is done by the government. The applied research of a particular molecule is mostly done by small companies, often linked to universities, which is still private. But the biggest cost is testing of the drugs and that is usually blown up and often includes promotion costs.

More Fonts Means More Choice

Posted by Wongoo Lee, Software Engineer

Self expression is a beautiful thing.  It’s one of the best things about having a blog—a place where you can control the look and feel of your message and how it’s presented.  Today we’re excited to announce another amazing way to make your blog truly you—Web Fonts.

The Web has traditionally been pretty limited when it comes to font selection, especially for non-Latin alphabets such as Cyrillic and Greek.  But great strides have been made in this arena by our friends on the Google Web Fonts team, and finally there are more choices out there than just Arial and Times New Roman.  In fact, there are now 40 new fonts on Blogger in Draft for you to choose from.  And we’re just getting started—lots more to come!

Simply go into the Advanced tab of the Blogger Template Designer, select the type of text you’d like to change (Post Title, Page Text, etc.) and pick from a number of exciting, new fonts such as Reenie Beanie (which we've used for the title of this post!) or Neucha (Cyrillic) or GFS Didot (Greek) or even Hanuman (Khmer).  You will be spoilt with choice! For the full list, please take a look at the Web Fonts page in our Help Center.

Give it a try, and as always, we’d love to hear your feedback.  Just leave us a comment.

My First Attempt at a Henna Gloss

I've been reading up on the benefits of henna for hair. Outside of natural reddish brown color deposit, it works as a protein to strength hair and also as a great deep conditioner providing great softness, reduces frizzing and provides wonderful natural shine.

I went to curlynikki.com and printed out a copy of her henna gloss recipe, ordered a kit "Henna for African Hair" from mehandi.com and put aside time on saturday for this long process.

I read up on how it is extremely important to get good quality, fresh henna that is Body Quality and 100% pure otherwise it would be useless. The kit I ordered included, 100g of pure Body Quality Henna, 100g of of pure Indigo, 2 rubber gloves and a plastic cone "thingy" designed to help you to be able to better distribute the henna in your hair.  I got the kit with the indigo because I am a long time lover of jet black hair and I have a lot of grays that I need to be covered on a regular basis. The indigo is the second step to the henna process that will help me to achieve the jet black color naturally without the use of conventional chemical dyes.

I got my package in the mail early saturday afternoon around 12 o'clock.

I followed the recipe found on curly nikki's website and I mixed the henna as follows:
- 1.5 cups of warm green tea
- 100g of Jamila henna
- mixed until the henna was as thick as mashed potatoes and then covered with saran wrap and let sit for 4 hours; most people tend to let the mix sit overnight but I didn't have that kind of time
- after 4 hours I then added more green tea to make the mixture a little thinner like yogurt and then I proceeded to add 1 cup of a silicone free conditioner; I used Trader Joe's Nourish Spa conditioner. I then added 2 capfuls of Olive Oil and mixed until the consistency was smooth.
- I then put the mix into may hair making sure every strand was covered from root to tip
- I wrapped my hair with saran wrap completely and put a hat on and proceeded with my day.

After about 6 hours of letting the henna sit in my hair, I prepared the indigo powder with warm water, 1 teaspoon of salt since my grays are a bit dye resistant and mixed to the consistency of yogurt and set aside. I then I rinsed the henna thoroughly from my hair with as little manipulation as possible and then immediately applied the indigo mix, and wrapped again with saran wrap. I let this sit in my hair for another 2 hours. After this I rinsed the indigo from my hair and applied A LOT of the Trader Joe's Nourish Spa conditioner and went to sleep with the conditioner in my hair. Had it been earlier I would have sat under a hot hooded dryer but I was just too tired.

In the morning, I rinsed out the conditioner from the night before I washed once with a sulfate free shampoo and conditioned and dryed my hair.

I have to say, the results weren't earth shattering HOWEVER I did notice my hair was extremeley soft and VERY shiny without the use of any product (oil, sheen, cream) to make it this way.

All in all, I will incorporate this into my regimen as a way to strengthen my hair and I will continue to cover my gray this way from now on instead of using conventional commerical hair dyes.

TTYL, Asha!!

KIDS ROCK TOO!

  Hey bloggers,

   I think it is so cool when kids have their own identity. To recognize this at such a young age is very unique. Most of the time kids rely on their parents to dress them /pick things out for them. Kids also fall into the loop of being like other kids and looking like other kids. They are taught that this is how it's suppose to be.
     Using young Willow Smith for example, this 10 year old child has already created a style of her own. She KNOWS what she likes and she is able to express herself through her hair, fashion and music. The average parent or adult may look at her and criticize how her parents are raising her I personally don't see anything wrong with it (one reason may be because of the industry she's in). Her attitude is so carefree. I also think know she has opened the door for a lot of young girls to remain natural or transition back and feel good about it. It seems like going natural is becoming an epidemic; and one that I am not mad at. It's healthier for your hair, it's what God gave us, and you have unlimited options.
 Send pics of your kids or a child you know so we can give them some recognition.

PJ1- 3 THINGS

Hey there girls (and guys),

I just wanted to share some personal information with you by telling you my likes and dislikes about my hair. Before I post that, I just want to say that my braid out lasted 5 days..(woowhooo). That's big for me because I am always playing in my hair...

3 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MY HAIR:
1-It's Healthy
2- It's fuller
3-It's finally growing back

3 THINGS I DON'T LIKE ABOUT MY HAIR;
1-It's dryer than when it was permed
2-Summer time and straight hair doesn't mix :-(
3-How short it looks when its in it's natural state

3 THINGS I LIKE ABOUT NATURAL HAIR VS PERMED HAIR:
1- I have more options
2-I can color my hair more often
3-IT'S NATURAL!!!

3 THINGS I'VE NOTICED SINCE I'VE BEEN NATURAL
1- (I'm 90% sure about this) It grows faster
2-People are very vocal about giving me their opinion about my hair (both positive and negative comments)
3-I HAVE to have a plan for my  hair

Indian veggies, fruits remain highly toxic

Pesticides Much Higher Than European Standards

New Delhi: Rampant use of banned pesticides in fruits and vegetables continues to put at risk the life of the common man. Farmers apply pesticides such as chlordane, endrin and heptachor that can cause serious neurological problems, kidney damage and skin diseases. A study conducted by Delhi-based NGO Consumer-Voice reveals that the amount of pesticides used in eatables in India is as much as 750 times the European standards. The survey collected sample data from various wholesale and retail shops in Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata.
    ''Out of five internationally-banned pesticides, four were found to be common in vegetables sold in the Indian markets. Banned pesticides were found in bitter gourd and spinach,'' said Sisir Ghosh, head of Consumer-Voice. The banned chemicals included chlordane, a potent central nervous system toxin, endrin, which can cause headache nausea and dizziness, and heptachor that can damage the liver and decrease fertility.
    Officials said the tests conducted on vegetables at the government-approved and NABLaccredited laboratory, Arbro Analytical Division, revealed that ladies finger contained captan, a toxic pesticide, up to 15,000 parts per billion (ppb) whereas that in the EU has only up to 20 ppb. ''Indian cauliflower can have malathion pesticide up to 150 times higher than the European standards,'' said an official. The vegetables studied included potato, tomato, snake gourd, pumpkin, cabbage, cucumber and bottle gourd, among others. ''We have informed Food Safety and Standards Authority of India about the excessive use of pesticides in fruits and vegetables that pose serious health hazards,'' said Ghosh. He added strict monitoring from government agencies is required to check manufacture, import and use of banned pesticides. The pesticide residue limits have not been reviewed for the past 30 years, said Ghosh.
    The organization had conducted tests on fruits sold in Indian markets which again showed that 12 fruits, including bananas, apple and grapes, had high quantity of pesticides, violating both Indian and European Union standards. The chemical contents found in fruits were endosuplhan, captan, thiacloprid, parathion and DDT residues.
HC seeks govt reply after TOI report
    Taking suo motu cognizance of the report—published recently in the Delhi edition of TOI— showing alarming levels of toxicity in vegetables and fruits in India, a concerned Delhi high court on Tuesday asked the Delhi and central government to respond. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Manmohan converted the matter into a PIL, issued notice to both the governments and said the ''health hazard which has become quite epidemic'' as highlighted in the report ''can be curbed at the very root'' only if urgent steps are taken. The bench also appointed two lawyers, V K Rao and Saket Sikri, as 'amicus curiae' to assist the court as the ''matter requires certain study, research and assistance''. TNN

SLEEP HELPS WHEN IT COMES TO RECALLING MEMORIES

THE 2-MINUTE READ

A NEW STUDY by researchers at the University of York and Harvard Medical School suggests that sleep not only helps in learning a new piece of information, such as a new phone number or a new word, but also gets the brain to file it away so it is available when needed.
    The scientists found that sleep helps people to remember a newly learned word and incorporate new vocabulary into their "mental lexicon".
    During the study, researchers taught volunteers new words in the evening, followed by an immediate test. The volunteers slept overnight in the laboratory while their brain activity was recorded using an electroencephalogram, or EEG.
    A test the following morning revealed that they could remember more words than they did immediately after learning them, and they could recognise them faster demonstrating that sleep had strengthened the new memories.
    This did not occur in a control group of volunteers who were trained in the morning and re-tested in the evening, with no sleep in between.
    An examination of the sleep volunteers' brainwaves showed that deep sleep (slow-wave sleep) rather than rapid eye movement (REM) sleep or light sleep helped in strengthening the new memories.
    When the researchers examined whether the new words had been integrated with existing knowledge in the mental lexicon, they discovered the involvement of a different type of activity in the sleeping brain.
    Sleep spindles are brief but intense bursts of brain activity that reflect information transfer between different memory stores in the brain — the hippocampus deep in the brain and the neocortex, the surface of the brain.
    — ANI

EVOO

Happy Sunday everyone,
 Just wanted to write a quick post on Extra Virgin Olive Oil.  For starters I am on day 5 of my braid out and I was 2.5 seconds from washing my hair and restyling it. It was drying out because I wasn't moisturizing it as I should have and my curls were starting to mat. I took my spray bottle off EVOO and water mix and sprayed my hair all over. I usual do this about 20 mins before I wash my hair. Immediately as I was spraying, my hair started coming back to life. After I was done I had a change of heart ! I didn't feel the need to wash my hair anymore. It was like I woke my hair up. It was rejuvenated and a little fuller. I am going to try to squeeze another day or two out before I wash my hair again.

So just to touch on the Extra Virgin Olive Oil a little, I wanted to know what was the difference between EVOO and regular Olive Oil..... The only big difference is the percentage in acidity. EVOO has 0.8% acidity and Olive Oil has 1.5% acidity. You also have Virgin Olive Oil and Pure Olive in between.
I am a big fan of EVOO. I have it in my kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and pocketbook...
This stuff is used for an array of things. To name a few:
- cooking
- body oil (after showering/shaving)
- facial moisturizer

- hair moisturizer
- oil lamps
- medicinal use
- religious use (ex. Christians use as holy oil)

Product rating: ~Super size~