Brain Foods & Hippos

Yesterday's important events included this Breaking News, to clarify misinformation about lockdowns: Trump not looking at nationwide lockdown, only "certain areas":

 In numbers: New York state has more than 900 confirmed cases of COVID-19 while cases in New Jersey tripled over the weekend to 98 on Sunday, the New York Times reported [maybe due to access to COVID-19 testing?]

 New Jersey is just across the river from Delaware, so COVID-19 is hitting close to our home (New Jersey is one of the lockdown areas).
We stay home, a lot. Our world is closing in, and life is becoming more simplified, with less movement. I climb up and down our steps and we walk around the nearby fountains. Does it seem that the slower we move, the faster time passes (with fewer accomplishments)? And the slower we move, the slower the brain? To-do lists are a good thing!

 With libraries and schools closed, and mind gears potentially cranking slower, yesterday's 2:00 p.m. CST Cincinnati Zoo educational live feed to Facebook provided young and old with brain stimulating hippo information and live views of hippos being fed. The zoo plans another live feed today. Thank you, Cincinnati Zoo.

Particular foods can be good for the brain. A November 2013 health magazine shared natural ways to boost immunity and stay well, including ways to keep the liver happy: "I like to use bile-stimulating herbs, such as wormwood, gentian, dandelion root, or beets..."

Here is an intensive beet recipe we prepare prior to each flu season, as well as beet trivia:

Recipe: This beet concoction from the Internet claims to "keep the bile thin and moving" by cleaning sludge from the gallbladder (which benefits the liver). It has a refreshing, tangy taste, especially after it has set in the refrigerator for about an hour to get chilled.

Beet Recipe

1 large organic beet or beetroot (raw, washed, not peeled unless not organic and finely grated in a food processor)

juice of 1/2 lemon

2 T flax oil

Use this mixture to add to your salads or eat alone as above 2 or 3 times a week. Note: If you cannot find organic beets, be sure to peel them. It is best to buy organic beets and use the peel as well. (Health food stores carry organic beets)

For intensive, 3-day sludge cleansing (I prefer just the Day One cleansing):
1)  Day one: take one teaspoon of mixture every hour throughout the day.
2) Days two & three: make a fresh batch. Take one teaspoon of mixture 3 to 4 times a
     day or more.

Artichokes help stimulate the gallbladder to increase bile and keep digestion going. Don't just eat the artichoke hearts... the leaves are beneficial, too.

Trivia: The term "heart" in the Bible actually refers to a region that includes the gallbladder rather than the actual heart. So, until the world gets back to normal, may hungry hippos and Bible verses keep our hearts encouraged:
Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid...
(John 14:27, NIV)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Eyes Are Full

Image
Tears are a mystery, because we shed them for diverse reasons. Sad, mournful, embarrassed, happy, touched... tears just come. So, see me cry, and don't assume the emotion I feel is sadness.  Wonder Woman Yesterday, I shed a few tears. This time tears were unfortunately due to sadness. Watching, live, a mob of radicals storming The People's Building, breaking windows to enter The Capitol. It was disturbing to me, close to the point of heavy tears. When I watched the movie  WW84 on Christmas Day, seeing actions that included destroying buildings, and cars, and property... it was so disturbing. At movie's end, the concrete, serious side of me thought, "How sad, and who would fix all of that destruction?" And then there are touching tears. Tears that come because of a story's message or the way a special event feels. That happened just today.  The COVID pandemic has provided unusual opportunity for interaction with Littles and reading together. At the tail end of ...
Read more

The Desires of Your Heart

Image
Tuesday, April 28, 2020, @ 2:00 p.m. ET, to honor our frontline & essential workers I regularly rode the train to Philly, from August 2019 to March 2020. Those trips were more than weekly activities to look forward to; they were all-out sensory experiences. Weekly trips would have continued, except for COVID-19's shelter-in-place orders that began 45+ days ago. It is good to know that angels, Navy's Blue Angels (and Air Force Thunderbirds) in particular, covered an incredible city yesterday. I have a deep-down love for the City of Philadelphia, and have tried to figure out the reason why. It makes absolutely no sense to feel this way! far from family, friends, and anything familiar; I don't normally like the congestion of big cities, and did not grow up in or near Philly (never stepping foot in the city until March 2019, when my husband had a job interview); it has beggars, city grime, and plenty of cigarette smoke that floats through the air as we walk its sidew...
Read more

"No One Will Make Them Afraid" (Micah 4:4)

Image
💓  Valentine's Day is just around the corner 💓 WW 84 , based on the DC Comics character Wonder Woman (Diana), premiered on HBO Max Christmas Day. The saga is out there. Against all odds, Diana triumphed over America's, and the whole world's, sinister and power hungry Max Lord.  Cunning Max Lord, the egocentric and lawless "friend" of earth, offered to grant one wish of each and every person. The problem is, one person's tunnel-vision wish could be another person's nightmare. Unity was non-existent. Chaos and destruction ensued everywhere. In other words the goal, Make  Yourself  Great Again,  miserably failed. Diana was the hero, and the world's fears were calmed. I am currently neither Republican nor Democrat; instead, I voted against the candidate that I never voted for in the first place. On January 20th, it felt like our battle ended, for now. "Max Lord" no longer resides in "The House." COVID still remains, but I am hopeful. ...
Read more