Protecting Our Brains

So.......many of us may live to be 100 or more & we certainly want to have brains to help power our lives, especially if we are going to be short on cash.
It's too much to hope for beauty, but not too much to hope for brains.

According to Dr. Neal Barnard, there is a 3 step plan that can protect our brains:
1.  Get rid of the metals, (iron, copper and zinc) in our pots and pans, in our supplements and avoid the foods that have too much of those metals, ie  meats and dairy and even fish.   We need these metals but we get enough of them in decent food.  Too much clogs the brain.
2.   Eat the power foods: broccoli, sweet potatoes, fruits, kale and beans.
 Make ourselves a shield of an umbrella of vitamins, especially E and B6 and B12 and Folate.
3.  Use "linking" to bolster specific memories.  (Want to know how to do that?  Read his book, "Power Foods For the Brain".)

Hope this gives you hope.

Saying a fond farewell to my darling cast iron skillets,
Riverwatch

Longing for the Future

CDC says 105 kids died of flu this year; most didn't get vaccine!

I truly am amazed at some of the scientific data we are subjected to from the CDC ......data put out there with words like "most", headlines even!

"Most".  
How scientific is that?  
Isn't there a number?   Like 57....or 90..and did they not get both shots (recommended for children) or did they get only one and so it was counted as NO instead of YES?

So when I read this latest little blurb from the Center for Disease Control who are obviously not very talented and gifted at researching, compiling and sorting data, I decided to do a google search on deaths of children...which was mixed in tables that also included deaths of adults, also. 

I was amazed at what I ran into.

One teen in Minnesota who died from the flu (she reportedly had been vaccinated but that was "not proven" and considered anecdotal!) was "perfectly healthy" before.....I wonder how they knew that.  ?????
Was that anecdotal information?  
Or had she had MRI's and Scan's and batteries of lab tests before she fell ill?  She got the flu, had trouble breathing immediately and was put on heart-lung bypass and "received blood transfusions".  What I would like to know is:  what was her true health status right before she got the flu?  

As I plowed on through the articles on flu data, I found the word "estimates" so many times  I wanted to run up a white flag and surrender.  Why even bother going on!  

The word "methodology" came up without saying what methodology they were using!  

I did read this: "portions of records were inflated in order to better estimate".  Now there's a handy dandy methodology!

Guess what.  All the info on Hispanics was "adjusted for under-reporting".    Say what?????
To top it all off, I read that one way CDC estimated how many people were getting the flu was by counting the google searches on flu symptoms!  I kid you not.  

I kid you not.

I kid you not. 

I kid you not.   (me....with my mind blowing away)

I just know they didn't  weed out the hypochondriacs like me who google and google and google and google diseases in an obsessive-compulsive manner.

Our "methodology" on gathering human statistics seems like a hold-over from Aunt Neanderthal.

I look forward to the future when we actually can manage clean clear data.  Surely we have that kind of technology.

Even when Jesus was born, civilizations were doing a better job with statistics even if you had to ride a donkey to your hometown to be counted!  
And back then they didn't "guesstimate and estimate" crap they really didn't have data on!  They limited themselves to the "begats", on which they did have reliable data.
Of course they had no flu vaccine to sell! No drug companies making big bucks.  Their big economic thing was staggering taxes without representation, not drugs and medications and false advertising (is there any other kind?).

In the meantime, I keep messing up the statistics with all my google searches on SYMPTOMS!   Damn that internet tracking! 
Sorry. 
Do you have any idea how often I have looked up "cognitive decline" ????  No wonder the guru's think Alzheimer's is on the rise!!!!!



PS  If you get the flu shot and you die of the flu, don't expect the media to report the fact of your immunization properly except to say "it is reported that she had the flu vaccination, but that is under investigation and has not been proven."   ( I use the term "you" because I haven't had a flu shot since my first one 50 years ago.  My daughter thinks I'm daft since she and her kids go get the jab every year with excellent results.  To each their own, I say.)


Bunches of gratitude to you for listening to my warbles,
Riverwatch, RN

The Law of the Harvest

I have always loved the concept of the Law of the Harvest: you reap what you sow.  It is a spiritual concept, to be sure, but it is couched in earthly terms and often used in earthly terms.  And it makes sense in earthly terms.

It is such a guide to living when you are young.

Good guide even when you are middle aged.....though by that time you may be wondering if, ahhh, well...perhaps...you might possibly be doing something wrong about that sowing and reaping concept.

By old age you get figured out that the "law of the harvest" as understood in youth is just the tip of a mighty iceberg.
It is a much bigger, a much more comprehensive picture at harvest time!!  Not only have other people's sown seeds affected your field and your harvest, but you are beginning to suspect you might be part of the harvest!

Betsy owned a beautiful home but by age 82 was living in her own basement while needy family members lived upstairs on ground level.  Yep, Betsy fell on the stairs twice, ripping out her shoulder once.......but she continued to soldier on alone in the basement.

Keith and Dina, neighbors, died suddenly together in an accident leaving their beautiful home and grounds for their posterity.  It was my horrid privilege to see their posterity dancing and rejoicing on the grounds of their new riches!!  I was sick for days after watching that display of "grief".

Last week, Emma Jean told me about her 83 year old friend.  Seems  Lavelle's daughter came into Lavelle's home and took all her valuables "so nobody will rob you, Mom."
See?  They thought she was so old and stupid she wouldn't recognize a robbery if she saw one in progress!

"The law of the harvest" is a beginning concept to something so complex we may never get it figured out.
In the meantime, be careful if you are old.  We might be part of the harvest.

                       "Knock knock.  Let me in!"     

"Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin.

You are the wolf and you can't come in!"

And speaking of hair on the chinny-chin-chin...but that's a blog for another day.

Watchful,

Riverwatch

My responsibility

Even when I am old and gray,
do not forsake me, O God,
till I declare Your Power to the next generation,
            & Your Might to all who are to come.
                              Psalms 71:18