Girls Sunning

Yesterday was a beautiful day and my little ladies spent most of the day out. I kept the windows open and we were in and out keeping an eye on them. They had a wonderful time and it makes me feel so happy to see them this way.

At one point in the day I went and laid in the grass by where they were scratching. Mabel and Linda came and laid beside me, stretched out their leg and raised their wing like chickens do when they are sun themselves, and there we lay sunning ourselves together... Priceless.

Eat Fresh Eggs!

DON'T TEST YOUR BLOOD CHOLESTEROL!
IT IS A POINTLESS EXERCISE AND A POTENTIALLY HARMFUL ONE!

I will explain, why.
Your blood levels of cholesterol are maintained by your liver: when we eat more cholesterol, the liver produces less; when we eat less cholesterol - the liver produces more. That is why low-fat and cholesterol-free diets have no effect on blood cholesterol: your liver will maintain a particular amount of cholesterol in your blood, depending on what your body is doing at the time.

Why does your body need cholesterol?

Our bodies are made out of cholesterol and fats to quite a large degree, and cholesterol is essential for many functions. Cholesterol is such an essential part of our human physiology that the body has very efficient mechanisms to keep blood cholesterol at a certain level at any given moment of your life. However, cholesterol - lowering drugs (statins) are a completely different matter! They interfere with the body's ability to produce cholesterol and hence they do reduce the amount of cholesterol available for the body to use. Let us see just how dangerous that is.

Human brain is hungry for cholesterol!

Every structure in the brain needs cholesterol and saturated fats not only to build itself but also to accomplish its many functions. If you start interfering with the body's ability to produce cholesterol you put the very structure of the brain and the rest of the nervous system under threat. Memory loss and cognitive decline are very common results of statin therapy. In fact it is possible that a considerable part of dementia epidemic in our ageing population is due to our ubiquitous statin prescriptions. Eating fresh eggs and butter daily has been shown to improve memory and cognitive ability in the elderly. Any person with memory loss or learning problems needs to have plenty of these foods every single day in order to recover.
More recently statins have been linked to development of Parkinson's disease. The leading researcher Dr Xuemei Huang from North Carolina University stated: "A surge in Parkinson's disease could be imminent because of the widespread use of statins."
There are people whose bodies are unable to produce enough cholesterol; these people do need to have plenty of foods rich in cholesterol in order to provide their organs with this essential-to-life substance. Low blood cholesterol has been routinely recorded in criminals who committed murder and other violent crimes, people with aggressive and violent personalities, people prone to suicide and people with aggressive social behaviour and low self-control. From the beginning of cholesterol-lowering drug trials increased numbers of deaths from violence and suicide have been recorded. The late Oxford Professor David Horrobin warned us: "reducing cholesterol in the population on a large scale could lead to a general shift to more violent patterns of behaviour. Most of this increased violence would not result in death but in more aggression at work and in the family, more child abuse, more wife-beating and generally more unhappiness." Indeed, one of the fist side effects of statins is the change in mood and personality towards being intolerant, aggressive and short-tempered - a warning sign that the brain is starving for cholesterol.

Cholesterol protects us from infections!

Cholesterol is essential for our immune system to function properly. People with low blood cholesterol are more prone to infections and when they get an infection they are more likely to die from it, compared to people with high cholesterol. Before the discovery of antibiotics mixture of raw egg yolks and cream, very rich in cholesterol, was used as a cure for tuberculosis and other infections for centuries.

Every steroid hormone in the body is made out of cholesterol!

After the brain the organs which are very hungry for cholesterol are our endocrine glands: adrenals and sex glands. They produce steroid hormones, which accomplish a myriad of functions in the body. Without cholesterol we will not be able to cope with stress or to have children.

Cholesterol is essential for babies and children!

The proponents of the diet-heart hypothesis and the public policy makers tell us that our children from the age of two should follow a programme for reducing their blood cholesterol by avoiding natural fats and replacing them with margarine. The pharmaceutical giants are working hard on creating cholesterol-lowering drugs for children. These dangerous guidelines are given out "just in case", without any scientific data to support them. The consequences of this policy can be very serious indeed for our children: aggressive behaviour, learning difficulties, poor memory, poor immunity, poor physical health combined with the future risk of developing cancer, heart disease, stroke and infertility. Children's bodies are generally not able to produce enough cholesterol for growth and development, so eating cholesterol-rich foods is essential for children! That is why human breast milk is very rich in cholesterol!

Cholesterol is essential for the elderly!

Many studies have shown that old people with high cholesterol are healthier and live longer than people with low cholesterol. In fact it is dangerous to reduce cholesterol in old people. And yet that is exactly what our doctors are doing! The older the person is the more their low blood cholesterol poses a risk of stroke, while it has been clearly demonstrated that high blood cholesterol protects older people from strokes, heart disease, infections, cancer and many other health problems.

Vitamin D is made out of cholesterol in the body!

Our recent misguided fear of sun and avoidance of cholesterol have created an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency in the Western world leading to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, mental illness, autoimmune illness, obesity, bone and muscle disease, high blood pressure, chronic pain, poor immunity and susceptibility to infections. As many people are unable to produce enough of their own cholesterol, eating cholesterol-rich foods is essential for them to produce vitamin D.

Cholesterol and saturated fats are essential for healing!

No damage in the body, no wound or scratch can be healed without cholesterol and saturated fats. That is why large-scale studies have found that people who have low levels of cholesterol are prone to cancer, because their bodies cannot heal damaged tissues.
It is this function of healing that brings us back to the testing for cholesterol: all your blood level reflects is how much damage there is in your body at any particular moment, that has to be healed. If you had a cold, an infection, a dental treatment or a surgical procedure, then there is a lot of damage in your body to heal, so your blood cholesterol level will be high until the healing has taken place. If you are tired and under stress, your adrenals have a high demand for cholesterol, as they make their hormones from it. So, your liver has to produce more cholesterol than usual and send it to your adrenals, making blood levels of cholesterol high. In winter cholesterol goes high and in the summer it is generally lower, because cold weather and lack of the sunshine vitamin D places high demands on your immune system, which is very hungry for cholesterol. These are just a few scenarios when your blood cholesterol has to be high to serve your body's needs.
Every day, depending on what your body is doing, your blood cholesterol levels go up and down quite a lot. A blood test for cholesterol will give you a snippet of this activity, completely out of context of your body's needs at the time. If this snippet happens to find it high, then two harmful things can happen to you:

1. You are likely to be put under pressure to start a statin therapy, depriving your body from one of the most essential nutrients;
2. You will have to live with a new anxiety - a fear of heart disease! And for no good reason at all, because cholesterol levels in your blood have nothing to do with heart disease.

If you really want to know about your risk of heart disease, then these are the tests to do:

1. C-reactive protein, which is a marker for inflammation in the body. Heart disease is an inflammatory condition.
2. Insulin levels in your blood. The insulin profile will show if you suffer from a metabolic syndrome, which is the underlying condition for heart disease.

To learn more about this whole issue (and see all the scientific references), please read my book Put Your Heart In Your Mouth.
Best wishes and speak to you soon,
Dr Natasha

Save Her Poultry

Park Cities woman pulls no punches to save her poultry
http://www.dallasnews.com/lifestyles/columnists/mariana-greene/20111012-park-cities-woman-pulls-no-punches-to-save-her-poultry.ece

Dominique Miller is panicked. She is hysterical or, as she pronounces it for special emphasis, “hiss-sterical.” As she told the University Park city secretary, she would sooner give up her children than her chickens. That choice looms on Tuesday, when she petitions the City Council to revise its regulations banning the birds.

While wild waterfowl are procured, encouraged and touted as a child-friendly ornamentation on the town’s parklands, backyard hens are not welcome in University Park.

“I’ve had chickens since I was 10 years old. They were my pets,” says Miller, raised in a village near Bath, England. “It never even dawned on me they were illegal in University Park.”

The warning of doom came several years after Miller, 45, had installed a few hens in her backyard. She made no attempt to keep them secret. Her neighbors enjoy them and send their children over to visit with them. Miller threw a sip-and-see — a current custom for showing off a new baby — for a batch of days-old chicks, serving tea and lemonade to mothers and their children.

But one spring day, she found a notice of violation on the front door, and her world was turned upside down. “It’s like taking a big part of me away. I’m not going to sit back and let this happen.”

Sometime after 5 p.m. Tuesday, Miller will make her plea to the University Park City Council. Since spring, she has run a low-key campaign to collect letters and emails of support. She has enlisted local chicken experts, including Dan Probst, a chicken farmer in Poetry, northeast of Dallas, to address the council about the benefits of city chickens and to answer questions about practical aspects of henkeeping.

“I’m in the Park Cities because I didn’t want to be in a suburb,” says Miller, who came to the United States 25 years ago to teach preschool. She currently teaches children’s and beginner’s riding lessons at Rocking M Stables four days a week. “University Park is a small, old-fashioned community where people walk their dogs and kids ride their bikes.

“I’m very much an animal-loving, country sort of person. In England, you can live in the country, commute to the city and not be considered a redneck. But not here, and especially not in this part of the country.”

Miller will share her letters of support with the City Council. Among them are sentiments such as, “Chickens do not foul the sidewalks or bark all night as does man’s best friend. Chickens do not dig up bulbs or other plants or slaughter millions of wild birds as do our feline companions. Chickens are quiet, contented and often very amusing backyard friends.”

A University Park resident writes, “I’ve got other friends who live in Dallas and get such joy from their chickens and sharing the experience with their kids. It would be great if Dominique’s efforts to advocate for the chickens pay off.”

“It’s not like we are introducing something we’ve never been exposed to,” Miller says. “But we’ve got a whole generation of kids who have never had that exposure.”

Miller says she does not know what to expect at the council meeting. She has designed a T-shirt and had a handful printed. She hopes her hens’ supporters will wear them to the meeting to be readily identified.

“I don’t even know what to expect,” she says. “I hope there are 10 or 12 people there in the T-shirts who will stand up with me.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Email Dominique Miller at dominiquem65@yahoo.com.

To find out more about the City Council agenda, contact the city secretary at 214-987-5303 or city-secretary@uptexas.org.

Mariana Greene

Gardening Editor

magreene@dallasnews.com

Published: 12 October 2011 05:24 PM

Egg Whites

Read this on my facebook. I don't know the source but it is worth sharing.

BURNS
A young man sprinkling his lawn and bushes with pesticides wanted to check the contents of the barrel to see how much pesticide remained in it. He raised the cover and lit his lighter; the vapors ignited and engulfed him. He jumped from his truck, screaming.
His neighbor came out of her house with a dozen eggs and a bowl yelling: "bring me some more eggs!"
She broke them, separating the whites from the yolks.
The neighbor woman helped her to apply the whites onto the young man's face.
When the ambulance arrived and the EMTs saw the young man, they asked who had done this. Everyone pointed to the lady in charge.
They congratulated her and said: "You have saved his face."
By the end of the summer, the young man brought the lady a bouquet of roses to thank her. His face was like a baby's skin.

A Healing Miracle for Burns:

Keep in mind this treatment of burns is being included in teaching beginner fireman. First Aid consists of first spraying cold water on the affected area until the heat is reduced which stops the continued burning of all layers of the skin. Then, spread the egg whites onto the affected area.
One woman burned a large part of her hand with boiling water. In spite of the pain, she ran cold faucet water on her hand, separated 2 egg whites from the yolks, beat them slightly and dipped her hand in the solution. The whites then dried and formed a protective layer.
She later learned that the egg white is a natural collagen and continued during at least one hour to apply layer upon layer of beaten egg white. By afternoon she no longer felt any pain and the next day there was hardly a trace of the burn. 10 days later, no trace was left at all and her skin had regained its normal color. The burned area was totally regenerated thanks to the collagen in the egg whites, a placenta full of vitamins.

Pumpkin Corn Soup

This is a good recipe for "Meatless Monday". I made this soup from  Taste of Home yesterday and it is really good. Three out of four kids approve and one ask for seconds.  I will surly make it again. I used fresh pumpkin instead of can and added a can of small red beans. 

Ingredients

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 medium sweet red pepper, chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups fresh or frozen corn, thawed
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 2 cans (14-1/2 ounces each) vegetable broth
• 1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Dash cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons lime juice

Directions

• In a large saucepan, saute onion and red pepper in butter until almost tender. Add the corn, jalapeno, garlic and chili powder; saute 2 minutes longer.
• Stir in the broth, pumpkin, salt and cayenne until blended. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in lime juice. Yield: 7 servings.

Chicken Tractor

Just bought a chicken tractor that I found on of craigslist for fifty dollars. I have been planing on building one but not quite sure how to do it. It would cost at least $50 in materials to build one so I am thrilled with my purchase. Thank you Frances and John. Can't wait to let my girls try it out.


A chicken tractor is basically a coop and run on wheels so that you can wheel it around the yard for the girls to have new ground to scratch and still be protected from predators. 


I have lost seven hens to the local coyote and bob cat who decided that I had opened up a fast food chicken restaurant for their dinning pleasure. I don't let the hens out without me being with them now so needles to say they don't get out daily. I do try my best but there are days when I don't make it home in time or it's just too cold. When I am out with them and I run indoors or they loose site of me, the little ladies head to the front porch to wait for me. Their still scared. I think Mabel is the most afraid because the last hen lost was her best friend Dori. Now Mabel is the first to head to the coop when we are out and she hides up on a shelf in the corner till the other two come inside then she will join them on the roost. 


Check out the new tractor below. I will try and take measurements to post because it is so hard to find instructions on how to build a chicken tractor online. The last picture shows where their ram hit the tractor. Needs a little repair but not too bad. Frances and John chickens run free because they have Great Pyrenees who protect them. I have been researching guard animals and will post my finding at a later date.

Diatomaceous Earth

FedEX just delivered the Diatomaceous Earth or (DE) that I purchased online to sprinkle in my chicken feed. I feed my chickens an organic feed that does not contain any chemical wormer, so I want to give them a natural product to get rid of any parasites that they may get. DE is a natural product composed of ground diatomaceous earth. It's a powder that is even safe for humans to consume.

Apparently it has a number of health benefits to humans including helping with the absorption of calcium which is something that I need. There are several forms of DE so if you decide to try it make sure that you get the "food grade" DE. There is some that is used for swimming pools and you shouldn't give this to your animals or use on yourself.

I haven't given it to the chickens yet but I have tried it myself and have given it to our dog. She is another reason that I bought the DE. Libby has had an awful time with skin problems. I am hoping that this DE will help her. Here is a video that I found on youtube that tells about DE.