Once in a Blue Moon

I can't believe that my last post in this "Amusing Tips" blog was last August 30 of this year. But don't get me wrong, the title of this post doesn't mean that I will be posting once in a blue moon. On the contrary, what it meant was that big gap in my posting in this blog may happen once in a blue moon, and I hope that will be acceptable, though I will try my best to post at least once or twice a month, or even weekly.

The photo included here was taken last night, December 31, and it was a "blue moon". It was the second full moon within the month, it happens rarely, and that is what a "blue moon" really means, and it has nothing to do with the color blue. It happens about every two and a half years.

For this New Year, it's time for Feng Shui believers to see what may happen this 2010. I am one of those believers and I just love to share my excitement so watch out for it.

Spirulina Mask

I didn't mean to scare you, that was just me with spirulina on my face! It's a very natural way to cleanse and smoothen the face, and I'd like to share that tip with you. Just put in a bowl a half egg yolk and then open a spirulina capsule (preferably the one manufactured by Tiens), and pour the powder on the bowl with egg yolk then mix thoroughly. Using a clean blush on brush, apply the mixture to your face and stand for 20 minutes. Rinse thoroughly with water. You'll instantly feel that your face becomes smooth! Egg yolk may be substituted with milk, or with egg white to remove wrinkles.

Google Docs

At the same time I was about to start working again, a post from a fellow blogger gave me an idea on how to share documents with work teammates through Google Docs (you need to have a google or gmail account first). When I explored the Google Docs site, I was amused because it does a lot more than just sharing documents, and I'm referring to the following features:

1. You can invite people with any email address either as viewers or collaborators who can edit the document shared.

2. As the owner of the document, you may be notified every time a change is made on the document.

3. You may publish the document as a web page so anybody who has access to it can always view an updated copy.

4. You may create your own document, spreadsheet, presentation or form to be shared.

5. You may choose any of the template designs where all types of forms can be found. For projects, the Project Management template is a big help, as well as the Communication Plan or the Project Timeline. For sharing personal documents like photos, there are different types of photo albums to share with friends and relatives, and even a Wedding Budget Manager, those who are getting married, take note. With 449 template designs at present, you'll surely find what you'll need.

Swine flu tips

Overwhelmed with information about the swine flu virus, it took me long to finally publish a post about it. The swine flu virus is not amusing in the first place, but maybe I should still post whatever I learned about it for the past 3 weeks, in the form of a summary.

1. Swine flu should not cause panic since the number of mortality is not significantly high.

2. A healthy person with a strong immune system will unlikely be infected with swine flu. To be healthy, foods that will cause acidity should be avoided like meat, dairy products and caffeine. A vegan diet can maintain the body's alkalinity.

3. Some antiviral supplements like resveratrol can help treat swine flu.

4. Green tea is a good alternative for Tamiflu.

5. Cytokine storm which can be fatal, can occur in a person who has swine flu. This is caused by the body's immune system and some cytokine-producing foods to continuously produce cytokine to signal the body to fight a virus cell, which incidentally is immune, as far as swine flu is concerned. Turmeric can be added to food to decrease the production of cytokine.

Ten steps to baking success

1. Read the recipe thoroughly.

2. Use fresh ingredients.

3. Ensure the ingredient are at room temperature for better mixing. Remove from refrigerator 15 minutes before you start.

4. Measure all the ingredients before you begin mixing.

5. Use standard dry mixing cups for dry ingredients and standard liquid measuring cups for liquid ingredients.

6. Level off dry ingredients when measuring (don't use a heaped measure), measure wet ingredients on a level counter top for an accurate read.

7. Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients slowly and just until combined (don't over mix, otherwise the batter or dough will become tough).

8. Preheat the oven to correct temperature (use an oven thermometer to confirm it's accuracy), and use the center rack for the even heat distribution (unless your recipe stated otherwise).

9. Line baking pans with non-stick foil to prevent sticking and to help with cleanup.

10. Use the pan size specified in the recipe.

Source: www.FoodPals.com

More Glycemic Index Tips

Aside from helping a diabetic decrease the sugar in his or her blood, here are other health benefits of low GI (Glycemic Index) food:

1. It may reduce your cancer risk - low GI eating is linked to a lower risk of breast, pancreatic and colon cancers.

2. It helps your heart - people who eat lots of high GI carbohydrates have 76 per cent more triglycerides (a harmful form of fat) in their body than low GI eaters.

3. It may reduce Alzheimer's risk: Korean researchers found swapping high GI rice for other wholegrains cut levels of a harmful amino acid called homocysteine in their blood that is believed to be a major contributor to Alzheimer's.

4. It might cure acne. Research from Colorado State University found high insulin levels increase levels of male type hormones in the skin - something linked to the development of spots.

5. It may reduce stroke risk. Switching one portion of carbs a day from high GI to low, cuts risk of stroke by 40 per cent in women, say Harvard researchers.


More tips about the Glycemic Index (GI) of food, which I have explained in my last two previous posts:

1. The more fiber a food contains, the lower GI, which is why brown bread is better than white, and the more fat a food contains, the slower it converts, which is why crisps have a lower GI than most other forms of potato.

2. Pasta is a low-GI food - many people think all white foods are a no-no in GI diets, but because the flour in pasta is high in protein it does not convert quickly to sugar in your body.

3. Adding vinegar to a food lowers its GI - the acid slows the rate at which any food converts to sugar by around 30 per cent. Squeezing lemon juice over a dish also works.

4. Eating a low GI breakfast cuts the amount of calories people tend to eat over the rest of the day by half.

5. New potatoes are the only low GI potato. That's because they're picked early in their growing season so they have lower levels of sugary starches than other spuds.


Five steps to GI success:

All you have to do is remember the following five, simple rules...

1. All meals and snacks should be made up mainly of low GI foods.

2. If you're trying to lose weight, you shouldn't eat more than one high GI food and two medium GI foods a day.

3. When you do eat a high or medium GI food, you should always combine it with at least two low-GI foods at the same meal. Do this and you slow down the speed at which the high-GI food converts to sugar.

4. Eat three small meals a day and two snacks: this keeps blood sugar levels more balanced than eating three large meals.

5. Always remember, portion sizes count: because fat affects the sugar rating of a food, some GI foods can be high in calories and fat, so for the health of your waistline and your heart, you do have to watch the quantities you eat.

Portion control:

1. Fruit and vegetables are unlimited, but meat portions should be roughly 75g (3oz), fish 100g (4oz).

2. Starchy carbohydrates like pasta or grains should be 50g (2oz) dry weight, a portion of dairy products is roughly 25g (1oz) cheese, 150ml skimmed milk or a small pot (roughly 125g) of yoghurt.

3. Nuts and seed portions are roughly 10 of a small nut like almonds, six of big nuts like brazil or a small handful of seeds.

4. Chocolate can be enjoyed two or three times a week in the form of a small bar like a Milky Way or two-three squares of pure chocolate.

AT-A-GLANCE GI GUIDE...

GREEN GO!
CARBS: Granary bread, rye bread with grains, wholewheat tortillas, soy bread, All Bran, porridge oats, barley, bulgar wheat (aka taboulleh), quinoa, buckwheat, glass noodles, egg noodles, new potatoes, yams, pasta.
FRUIT: Apples, dried apricots, avocado, berries, cherries, grapefruit, citrus fruits, pears, plums, prunes.
VEGETABLES: All except those listed in orange/red columns.
PROTEINS: All fresh meat, fish, shellfish plus processed foods (burgers, sausages, fish fingers).
PULSES: All beans (except broad beans), lentils - and any products made from them like tofu, hummus, falafel and unsweetened soya milk.
DRINKS: Water, tea, herbal tea, milk.
OTHERS: Yoghurt, cheese, nuts, seeds, olives, chocolate (though remember, calories count).

ORANGE CAUTION!
CARBS: Brown bread, fruit bread, pitta bread, high fibre bread, sourdough, muesli, wheat cereals (like Weetabix), couscous, soba noodles, udon noodles, crisps, sweet potatoes, basmati, brown and white rice.
FRUIT: Fresh apricots, bananas, melon, figs, red grapes, mango, papaya, canned fruit, raisins, sultanas.
VEGETABLES: Beetroot, corn, sweetcorn, peas.
PROTEINS: There are no medium GI proteins.
PULSES: There are no medium GI pulses.
DRINKS: Fruit juices, wine, squashes.
OTHERS: Ice cream, biscuits, cakes.

RED STOP!
CARBS: Bagels, white/French bread, flaked cereals, honey-coated cereals, puffed cereal, mashed potato, jacket potatoes, chips, any rice that takes less than 20 minutes to cook.
FRUIT: Watermelon, dates.
VEG: Parsnips, pumpkin, swede, turnips.
PROTEINS: There are no high GI proteins.
PULSES: Broad beans.
DRINKS: Cola, fizzy orange, sports drinks, beer.
OTHERS: Boiled sweets, doughnuts, popcorn, rice cakes.

Note: Helen Foster's book The Easy GI Diet is published by Hamlyn, £12.99.

Glycemic Index values of foods

This is the Part 2 of my previous post titled "A must know: the Glycemic Index of food". Most GI values below were taken from the GI Listing website, please refer to that website for more information.

Foods to avoid are those with High GI which follows. For diabetics and people who had cancer, High GI foods is definitely a NO-NO. This is my personal opinion for you people, so you can make that a habbit!

High GI Foods ( GI 70 0r more )

Breads
White bread, bagel, blackbread, Wonderwhite®, gluten-free bread

Breakfast Cereals
Sultana Bran®, Bran Flakes®, Coco Pops®, Puffed Wheat®, Rice Bubbles®, Cornflakes®

Grains
All white rice, brown rice, calrose rice, jasmine rice, rice pasta

Legumes
Broad beans

Starchy Vegetables
Other potatoes, parsnip, cooked turnips, french fries, mashed potatoes

Fruit
Watermelon

Other
Ice cream, Digestive cookies, Table sugar (sucrose), Soda crackers, Jellybeans, corn chips, pretzels


Choose from the following Low GI Foods:

Low GI Foods ( GI 55 or less )

Breads
Burgen Soy-Lin®, PerforMAX®, fruit loaf, Vogel's honey and oat®, multigrain bread, stone ground wheat bread, sour dough bread

Breakfast Cereals
All Bran fruit'n oats®, All Bran®, Guardian®, porridge, Special K®, Rice Bran, Oatmeal

Grains
Barley, Pasta (all types), Noodles, Bulgur, Semolina

Legumes and nuts
All Beans (eg kidney, soy, baked bean, etc…), peas, lentils, peanut, walnut, cashew nut

Vegetables
Broccoli, mushrooms, cauliflower, cabbage, onion, green pepper, carrots

Starchy Vegetables
Sweet potato, taro

Fruit
Cherries, grapefruit, peach, dried apricots, apple, pear, plums, oranges, grapes,
kiwi fruit, banana (not the Philippines' lakatan)

Other
Skim milk, Plain Yogurt, Soy beverage, Pumpernickel bread, Al dente (firm) pasta,
Chick peas

You may include the following Medium GI Foods but when you do, always include a Low GI Food, best practice will be 2 Low GI foods to 1 Medium GI food. In that manner, you are not deprived of most foods you are accustomed to eat.

Medium GI Foods ( GI 56 - 69 )

Breads
Hamburger bun, rye bread, croissant, light rye, crumpet, wholemeal

Breakfast Cereals
Oatbran, untoasted muesli, Just Right®, Nutri Grain®, Sustain®, Weet-Bix®

Grains
Basmati rice, wild rice, Sunrice Doongara® rice, Mahatma Premium® Classic,
couscous, cornmeal, tapioca

Starchy Vegetables
New potato, corn

Fruit
Sultanas, raw and canned apricots, mango, papaya, paw paw, raisins, rockmelon, pineapple, lakatan

A must know: the Glycemic Index of food

The Glycemic Index or GI is a way of measuring how fast a food converts to sugar in your body. If a food converts quickly, it is a high GI food (for example, white bread, potatoes and watermelon). If it converts slowly, it has a low GI rating (like berries, pasta or steak).

Why should you eat foods with a low Glycemic Index?

Eating foods with a low Glycemic Index may help you to:

1. Control your blood glucose level
2. Control your cholesterol level
3. Control your appetite
4. Lower your risk of getting heart disease
5. Lower your risk of getting type 2 diabetis

To those who work out on a regular basis, the glycemic index is important as well. When you eat high glycemic carbohydrates to help fuel your workout, you need to balance them out with low glycemic carbohydrates. Eating low glycemic carbohydrates can help bodybuilders and others involved in fitness to have a more constant level of energy when working out.

Those who have risks for cancer should remember that sugar is food for cancer and like the diabetics should avoid foods with high glycemic index.

In my next post which should follow shortly, I will post the Glycemic Index of some foods.

Why you should eat broccoli

If you eat broccoli regularly, these are the health benefits your body will get, from head to toe:

1. It can prevent the development of cataract later in life.
2. It can prevent stroke.
3. It can help the body destroy breast cancer.
4. It can prevent colon cancer.
5. It can prevent bladder cancer.
6. It can halt or slow down the development of prostate cancer.
7. Its extract can be used as sunscreen that can protect the body for three days.

6 Potent compounds that broccoli contains:

1. Diindolylmethane or DIM, which appears to be effective in reducing a variety of health risks, in particular the possibility of developing certain cancers.
2. Sulforaphane, which may be one of the strongest anti-cancer fighters.
3. Isothiosyanates, which is also well known to have anti-cancer properties.
4. Lignan, which may play a role in reducing breast cancer.
5. Thioredoxin, which can reduce the deterioration caused by oxygen-deficiency that can damage heart muscles.
6. Selenium, which is an essential micro-nutrient that is necessary for healthy cells, and which also plays an important role in normal thyroid function.

Include broccoli in your diet at least two or three times a week, if not more often.

To get the greatest health benefit from broccoli, the best way to prepare it is to steam it lightly about 3 to 4 minutes, until it is just tough-tender or 'al dente'.

Cleansing the liver

It is very important the we take good care of our liver and one way is to cleanse it regularly. There is a traditional way of cleansing which is so simple, and the TCM doctor who shared this to us would like us to share this procedure to others:

1. Get a ginger about 3 to 4 inches long.
2. Slice the ginger to about half inch per slice WITHOUT PEELING.
3. Boil the slices of ginger to 2 liters of water for 5 minutes.
4. While boiling the ginger, drink one liter of tea or water.
5. Take out the ginger, slice to smaller pieces and minch.
6. Pour the boiled water and minched ginger to a basin.
7. Test if your feet can withstand the heat when soaked.
8. If your feet can withstand the heat, soak until the water's heat is gone.


The pungent essence of the ginger will cleanse the liver from its acupoints on the foot. You should feel the heat going up your body.

A cure for cancer

When I was at a bank one time, I met an employee of the bank whose mother died of cancer. He researches a lot, but it was too late when he read an article that there is a cure for cancer. The problem is it may be administered only once and the patient is healed! It is a problem because it will stop all the procedures already there that were part of the healing process of cancers. In other words, it will affect a big percentage of the medical industry's business. This employee did not tell me what was this cure he was talking about. That was a month ago.

A few days ago, I think I found the article that he was talking about. It said that this product was tested in rats with tumors and upon injecting this product directly to the tumors, the cancer cells disappeared. This product cannot be patented since it already has a lot of manufacturers and distributors, and it is so cheap, business establishments that will attempt to manufacture them for injections will not profit.

That's really a sad news. Maybe I won't also publish what this product is, since the affected people in the industry might run after me (LOL) or just say there's no truth to this information. It's a food supplement and I'm just glad that I've used the tablet form of this supplement to my children in the past to make them grow tall. Since my eldest child was already a teenager at that time, it was my second child who was able to take it longer but not religiously I think, since we were forcing him to take a number of tablets at a time, though he really had grown tall.

Amazing antibiotic

I was afraid I would be hospitalized yesterday! I had an "eat-all-you-can" reunion lunch with some friends last Friday, but maybe my digestive system was no longer used to it so since early morning yesterday, I had diarrhea and my head and stomach where both aching. I learned that my child's caregiver was also having diarrhea and stomach ache, but they said hers was stress related because of a news from her province.

I thought a drink that will replenish my electrolytes was enough for me to feel better, but my head and stomach continued aching. I then remembered that during similar situations in the past, I would already take an antibiotic, but I wouldn't want to do that. And then I recalled that the Tiens Cordyceps supplement that we have at home has a natural antibiotic, so I immediately took 5 capsules. To my amazement, my stomach ache was gone after one hour, though I still had headache. I also gave the caregiver 5 capsules of Tiens Cordyceps. Since my head was still aching, I used my Tiens comb gadget, until I felt sleepy.

When I woke up, I couldn't feel any sign of pain, neither on my head nor in my stomach! The caregiver's stomach ache was also gone instantaneously after taking the 5 capsules of Tiens Cordyceps I gave her, and she said she couldn't believe that was possible!

The best baking tip

The best baking tip I can share is very basic: keep all baking utensils very clean and dry (free from moist).

When separating the egg whites from the yolks, remove the drops of yolk that might come with the egg whites. Use the smallest teaspoon or measuring spoon you have, to remove the yolk spots. Pure egg whites on a clean dry bowl will surely give a fluffy result when beaten.