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Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.

Berry Time

The importance of berries for health cannot be overstated. If you can pick berries where you live, do so! Here in down-east Maine, raspberries are gone, but blackberries are just starting to ripe in the sun after several days of rain. Every late afternoon, we are going for a walk along the road and pick and eat, pick and eat. Nothing better on Earth! And most important: Blueberries are upon us! My husband likes the big, cultivated ones; I favor the little ones from the wild. Does not matter - all are good. In Europe, we had another kind of blueberry, namely bilberry. It differs from the varieties here that they are blue through and through - meaning that all the valuable anti-oxidants are even higher. Besides anti-oxidants, they are loaded with vitamins, cholesterol-lowering fiber, bone-building manganese, and so much more. Their anti-inflammatory potential are legendary - they fight cancer and diabetes, arthritis and infections. Eat them now while they are plenty and cheap. Here my favorite recipe - as usual with me, not much of a recipe, but just throwing the goodness in a bowl in abundance. Add a small teaspoon full of coconut milk. The fat helps absorb fat-soluble vitamins (like vitamin A) which would otherwise just pass by, unused. We have this for a breakfast. And then again for desert after dinner. Late in the day, a splash of rum over the blueberries and the coconut milk makes it even better (not if you are an alcoholic!!). Read More 
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Treat Simple Urinary Tract Infection Without Antibiotics!

Most UTIs can be dealt with simply, with herbs, probiotics, and so on. Antibiotics should be reserved for the really dangerous infections. Not only should we curb antibiotic use because of possible resistances; it also has been shown that bacteria bury into the bladder wall during a course with antibiotics – only to pop up again a bit later! But for starters, this warning: IMMEDIATELY see your physician or the Emergency Room, if you have any of these signs/symptoms: • Blood in the urine • Pus from your vagina /penis • Fever (ANY fever means that the infection has gone beyond the confines of the bladder) • Flank/kidney pains: If you have pain that far away from your bladder, it means that the UTI ascended to your kidneys. Or that you have kidney stones. • ALL UTIs in children should be seen by a doctor. • If you never had a UTI before. The usual cause of UTIs, especially in women, is sexual intercourse. Women have a very short urethra, so bacteria can walk up easily and invade the bladder. UTIs are most common in young women (frequent sex) and in women after menopause (lacking estrogen leads to shrinking tissues which means less protection against invading bacteria). This is what you can do to prevent UTIs: • Make sure that man and woman are clean at their private parts. Insist especially that your man washes behind his foreskin daily, and you yourself wash between the folds. Don’t use soap – daily water washings suffice! • Use a lubricant to make sex smoother. • Right after sex, the woman should get up and urinate to flush out potential bacteria. • Avoid all sugars and white starches. • If you tend to get UTIs often, take cranberry capsules for at least a day after sex. Cranberries prevent bacteria to lodge onto the bladder mucosa. • Drink enough hot fluid. • Take a daily probiotic – this helps get rid of bad bacteria in the bowel (which are most often the culprit in urinary infections). • A new and promising treatment is another probiotic, Lactobacillus crispatus that normalizes the vagina flora (taken intra-vaginally), thus preventing “bad” bacteria to invade the bladder. • Doing Kegel exercises or standing on one leg (see a former blog) to strengthen pelvic muscle. If your muscles down there are weak, you might not be able to empty your bladder fully each time – and that is a set-up for recurrent UTIs. • Regularly take women’s herbs after menopause to strengthen vaginal mucosa. Prevention of course is better than treatment. But when you get the familiar sensation of burning during voiding that heralds a UTTI, you should act IMMEDIATELY, because any infection is easier to treat, the earlier you catch it. Other symptoms of a UTI are: a cloudy urine, an offensive odor, discomfort in your bladder area and the urge to go frequently. Apart from the measures above that you should continue, use these tried-and-true herbs in a tea, three times a day: • Uva ursi (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) • Usnea spp. – a group of lichens growing on trees Other herbs helpful in UTI: • Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) – or any other source of berberine would do as goldenseal is an endangered species. • Marshmallow root (Althea officinalis) – soothing, but not necessarily healing • Buchu (Agathosma betulina – formerly Barosma betulina), a plant from South Africa. • Corn silk (Zea mays) – and old stand-by • Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) – should not be taken too long as it is harsh on the kidneys. • Indian Coleus plant (Coleus forskohlii) reportedly has effectivity against UTIs too, but the data are still scant. This would be a plant to investigate if you have allergies to all the aforementioned herbs. • Also worth trying is D-Mannose – not strictly an herb, but a sugar - which only works against E. coli that happens to be the most commonly found bacterium in UTIs. • Similar proanthocyanidins that work in cranberries are also found in blueberries and strongly colored fruit and vegetables, tea (black and green), black currant, bilberry, grape seed, grape skin and red wine,  Read More 
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Berries - Gift of Summer

You know by now that I don’t believe in super-foods. We are supposed to eat a variety of foods, always changing with the seasons. Now is berry time! Not everything we call a berry is one in the narrow botanical sense. But I am talking about food here – so let’s take it loosely. This list is not exhaustive – just mouth-watering: * Bilberry or whortleberry (Vaccinium spp.) * Blackberry - many kinds: dewberry, boysenberry, olallieberry, and tayberry (Rubus spp.) * Blueberry (Vaccinium spp.) * Chokeberry (Aronia) * Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus) * Cranberry (Vaccinium spp.) * Crowberry (Empetrum spp.) * Currants: red, black, white (Ribes spp.), * Elderberry (Sambucus - be careful: some are poisonous) * Falberry (Vaccinium spp.) * Gooseberry (Ribes spp.) * Hackberry (Celtis spp.) * Huckleberry (Vaccinium spp.) * Lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) * Loganberry (Rubus loganobaccus) * Mulberry - black and white (Morus spp.) * Raspberry (Rubus spp.) * Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) * Sea-buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) * Serviceberry (Amelanchier) * Strawberry (Fragaria spp.) * Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus) * Wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius) In summer, we have the duty – and the joy – of eating berries - I am eating fresh blueberries right now. Mentioning that berries are full of anti-oxidants might bore you to tears because you have heard it so often. But it’s the truth, nevertheless. Health benefits of anti-oxidants: • Anti-aging • Protects the skin against sun damage. Yes you heard right: EATING stuff protects you against skin cancer … maybe better than slobbering sunscreen all over you. Best, of course, might be a combination of both. And even more important: sunhat and long sleeves. • Anti-cancer • Reduce high blood pressure. • Anti-inflammatory (and as many diseases are mediated through inflammation, this is a godsend). • Protects the liver (which is the organ that does all the work detoxifying your body). • Anti-bacterial • Immune-regulating • Anti-diabetic • Lower cholesterol • Anti-depressant And these are only a few of the benefits of eating berries. They are probably as true for eating your greens and other vegetables. But since berries are so much more delicious – just do your duty and eat them! You can also plant some in your garden or on the balcony (I used to keep blueberries in containers). And go out for a long walk in the countryside, with a friend and a can, and pick berries for free. Because now is the time! I think (and this now is totally subjective) that berries are sent to us so that we stock up on wholesome phyto-nutrients in order to survive the next winter better. And since I am at it, I might as well mention that I believe smelling the roses (and other flowers) at this time of the year, will get us through the next winter without too much of the winter blues. Pure speculation, of course … but then again, the nose and the olfactory nerves are in the vicinity of our brain. Read More 
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