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22%
22% of New Yorkers have to choose between food and medical care. – City Harvest
Just thought you might want to know.
-Cara
Rubus Idaeus (Raspberry Leaves)
I started a juice fast today. Well, today to start the juice fast I am only eating raw fruits and veggies and then tomorrow will begin the all juice fast. I will get more into it in a later post. This particular post I will focus on one of the many teas I can drink to replace my million cup a day coffee habit. I am not only scared for me, but honestly, I am a little afraid for the world. The first tea I started today with is an organic raspberry leaf, so to make it more interesting I have done some research on said tea. I can say for sure, it does not taste nasty…or bad for that matter, which is good. :]
Species Rubus idaeus, family Rosacaea, raspberry is a relative of the rose, famous for vitamin C in the rose hip. Raspberry leaves (and fruit) are rich in citric acid, malic acid, tartaric acid, citrate, malate and tartarate of iron, potassium and calcium, calcium and potassium chloride, sulphate and phosphate, pectin, fragrine (an alkaloid that tones the tissues), a volatile oil, vitamins A, B, C, E, and fructose. The action is astringent, tonic, refrigerant, parturient, hemostatic, anti-septic, anti-abortient, anti-gonorrheal, anti-leucorrheal and anti-malarial.
If you grow your own raspberries or live where they grow wild you should harvest the raspberry leaves in spring or mid-summer for maximum potency. Use them freshly picked, but if drying them for storage, do so away from light. They dry nicely spread thinly on a cotton sheet hung hammock fashion from the ceiling, according to Norma Whitehead.
For a nice cup of tea using bulk herbs, pour one cup boiling water over a teaspoon of dried leaves and let it steep at least 15 minutes. Raspberry leaves are abundant in potassium (441 ppm), calcium (121 ppm) and magnesium (93 ppm), it is also rich in all important trace minerals such as manganese (.52 ppm), zinc (.35 ppm), iron (.04 ppm) and chromium (.02 ppm). Raspberry leaf tea is a gentle, soothing, nourishing drink – morning, noon and night. Most prefer to take Red raspberry leaves in a tea. It can be drank warm or cold depending on what you like. You can also find it in capsule form.
Red raspberry leaves have been used for many years dating back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. It has also been widely used by and Native American women. Some of the illness they used red raspberry leaves to treat included the flu, gum disease, rubella, upset stomach, hangovers, diarrhea, fevers, vomiting, menstrual problems, and inflammation.
It is also said to tone the uterus and provide many vitamins and minerals to the body. They recommend drinking one cup of the red raspberry leaf tea daily during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy and then increase to two or three cups a day during the last three months. Some say not to use in the first trimester if you have a history of miscarriage it is always best to consult your doctor before starting any type of herbs. Red raspberry tea with red clover (one or more cups daily for several months) promotes fertility in men and women, prevents post-partum depression and hypertension, and with blessed thistle, increases breast- milk production. Remember again, it is always best to consult your doctor before starting any type of herbs.
The red raspberry leaves may change the way the body absorbs medications so if you take any other medicines take the red raspberry at least two hours before hand.
Red raspberry leaves have also been used for a mouth rinse to treat sore throats, thrushes in your mouth (a yeast infection) or canker sores and drinking raspberry tea can soothe the pain they cause.
Raspberry tea reduces the blood flow in females who bleed heavily during their menstrual cycle. It also helps relieve cramps. Later in life, during menopause, it can support the adrenal glands as they try to compensate for the reduced functioning of the ovaries. To regulate a menstrual cycle drink two to three cups of the red raspberry leaf tea a day. After two or three months the menstrual cycle should be right on schedule.
Red raspberry leaves can also be used on the skin as an astringent to relieve irritated skin and it is good for people suffering from acne. It also helps the tissue become firmer and tightens the skin’s upper layers.
Red raspberry leaves have also been found to lower blood sugars in people with diabetes. If taken in large does the red raspberry leaves may cause blood sugar levels to drop too low.
When using the red raspberry leaf to treat diarrhea you will need to drink six cups a day. If the diarrhea continues you should call the doctor.
If you want to treat a cold or flu try drinking only red raspberry leaf tea until the symptoms are gone. Then start back on raw fruits and vegetables. It is important to not eat anything else while fasting on the red raspberry leaf tea or the symptoms of the cold or flu will return.
Men whose bodies have cut down on testosterone production can drink it to help aid adrenal gland performance. It can also help with bed-wetting by toning pelvic muscles.
I read somewhere that it is good in a popsicle form, but I have yet to try that.
That is a lot of good stuff.
-Cara
Marine is doing some research for our organic t-shirt business, be nice and sent me this web site, http://actionnetwork.org/. They are a part of Environmental Defense. One of their featured action alerts has to do with humans increasing resistance to antibiotics. Go here to send a message to your Congressperson and Senators.
I, myself have never been a big fan of Western medicine, especially that flu shot. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that flu shot is just the government doing some crazy testing on us or something to that affect. I am sure of it! It is the same way with goldenseal root and penicillin, if you take them for too long or just take too much you become immune to their positive/healing effects. I also think that Western medicine mostly covers up the aches and pains of sickness till you heal, unlike natural vitamins and herbs that act as a preventative measure and heals you rather than covering up the sickness.
Heal naturally when possible.
-Cara
With that said…
The Day After An Inconvenient Truth via e-mail, a gift from me to you.
You’re Welcome. :]
-Cara
Petition Time -Tell Congress to Ban TV Drug Ads
When I had TV I remember one of the most annoying things on the box were the pharmaceutical ads. Most prescription drugs are used to cover up your ailments, instead of healing your body and making you stronger.
I can’t remember which comedian used this shtick in his act (I think it was Chris Rock…maybe…), but he said in all these years with all the advancements in medicine how come polio is the last cure we have come up with??? lol…it is funnier than that, but you get my point. Drug companies are extremely powerful due to the wealth they have acquired from others’ illnesses. They can not make money if no one is sick. Think about it.
This petition is about getting Congress to support H.R. 6151, The Responsibility in Drug and Device Advertising Act of 2008, a bill introduced by Representatives DeLauro and Emerson that would place a three-year moratorium on advertisements for new drugs and devices. That would give enough time to see what insane side effects some of these drugs have.
Just say no.
-Cara
Victoria Woodhull, was born September 23, 1838, in Homer, Ohio. Her father was an itinerant con man and a thief; her mother was illegitimate, illiterate and a religious fanatic. Victoria was raised in filth and squalor, beaten and starved, given little education and exploited in her father’s traveling carnival show as a clairvoyant and fortune teller. She demonstrated psychic powers, located missing objects and people, cured ailments and was said to be a medium.
At 15, in order to escape her father’s brutality, Victoria eloped with an alcoholic doctor, 28-year old Canning Woodhull from a town outside of Rochester, New York. Dr. Woodhull was an Ohio medical doctor at a time when formal medical education and licensing were not required to practice medicine. He fathered a mentally retarded son, Byron and so botched the delivery of their daughter, Zulu (later Zula), that the baby nearly bled to death. After five grueling years, Victoria left him.
Victoria’s belief in the spirits enabled her to form alliances with such powerful men as Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, enabling her to become the first female Wall Street broker. She opened Woodhull, Claflin & Company in 1870 with the assistance of a wealthy benefactor, and her admirer, Cornelius Vanderbilt. She was also the first woman to found her own newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, which stayed in publication for six years, and was notorious for publishing controversial opinions on taboo topics. The paper advocated, among other things, women’s suffrage, short skirts, spiritualism, free love, vegetarianism, and licensed prostitution. The paper is now known primarily for printing the first English version of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto in its December 30, 1871 edition. She spoke before Congress demanding that women be given the right to vote and finally, ran for U.S. President in 1872 against the popular incumbent, Ulysses S. Grant, and powerful newspaperman, Horace Greeley.
Victoria’s era was a difficult one for women, who had almost no rights to property or person. If a married woman worked, her wages were given directly to her husband. She could not dispose of her property upon death. If she divorced, she automatically forfeited custody of her children. Women could not enter universities, law schools or medical schools. They could not serve on juries, and they could not vote.
There were no laws to protect women from physical abuse at the hands of their husbands or fathers, although some states stipulated the size of the objects that might be used to inflict discipline. They had no right to deny their husbands sex. The professions open to women were few, domestic housework, factory work, teaching, prostitution and, for the privileged, writing.
Only women who committed adultery were subject to a jail sentence, not men. In 1868, Victoria Woodhull bravely instructed women to demand a single sexual standard and not to accept the view that sexual desire in females was vulgar. “What! Vulgar!” she said. “The instinct that creates immortal souls vulgar…be honest…it is not the possession of strong powers that is to be deprecated. They are that necessary part of human character.”
Victoria was a pioneer in diet, exercise, and dress. She adhered to the diet prescribed by Sylvester Graham (known for inventing Graham Crackers!). Graham was a sickly child and cured himself through proper nutrition. He recommended no alcohol, caffeine, meat, lard or other types of shortening. Victoria was a vegetarian.
Women of the day were thought desirable if they were delicate, frail, but Victoria advocated vigorous exercise. She rode horseback and walked at least three miles a day. She advocated drinking at least two pints of water a day and eating fresh fruits for good health.
She often wore men’s clothing and urged other women to do the same.
Victoria, used alternative medicine. She practiced homeopathy, a treatment begun by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, who took a minuscule amount of a disease-causing agent and diluted it with liquid to create what he called a “spiritlike essence.” Dr. Hahnemann believed that when this substance was introduced into the body, the person would become immune to the disease. Victoria was also a well-known “magnetic healer.” The use of therapeutic magnets dates to the ancient Greeks, who used them to halt bleeding, soothe inflammation, purge infection and promote general healing.
Because Victoria Woodhull said what she thought and antagonized certain people, a campaign was organized against her. She was jailed repeatedly on charges of sending obscene material through the mail, and the press depicted her as “Mrs. Satan” and “The Prostitute Who Ran for President.”
She died on June 9, 1927 at Norton Park in Bredon’s Norton, Worcestershire, West Midlands, England, United Kingdom. She had moved there in October 1876. She met her third husband, banker John Biddulph Martin, and married him on October 31, 1883. From then on, she was known as Victoria Woodhull Martin. Under that name, she published a magazine called the Humanitarian from 1892 to 1901. As a widow, Woodhull gave up the publication of her magazine and retired to the country, establishing residence at Bredon’s Norton.
The End.
-Cara
The Bipartisan Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act gets first Congressional hearing in 12 years on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee held, for the first time ever, a hearing on the bipartisan Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act. Championed by Representative DeLauro (D-CT) and Senator Snowe (R-ME) and Senator Landrieu (D-LA), this bill would eliminate the practice of “drive-through” mastectomies, when women are forced to leave the hospital following their physically and emotionally difficult breast cancer surgeries before they and their doctors may feel they are ready to go home. For the nearly 200,000 women who will face breast cancer this year, they feel it is way past due.
Sign the petition today and urge Congress to continue to take steps to pass this bill.
Here is a video by hersfund.org about breast cancer that’s inspiring.
Be heard.
-Cara
Flip-flop season is upon us here in New York City, well at least it was last week. This week it has gotten a bit colder and rainy. None of this matters of course, except that last week it was warm enough for me to wear my flip-flops out. I walked for about three hours in them non-stop. My left foot was not ready it seems for such a long journey and served me with a blister where the strap rubbed it one too many times. I needed some first aid fast!
I got home and discovered we were out of topical antibiotic ointment or first aid cream (like Neosporin or Band-Aid cream), call it what you will. Anyway, I wanted to get a natural cream instead of a chemically based one, but was worried, I had tried Bach’s Rescue Cream based on a recommendation that it healed cuts with its blend of “six Bach Flower Essences“. I like the regular Rescue Remedy, so I tried it. It turned out to do nothing for me. This is why I was worried about trying another natural cream. My other struggle was I knew Neosporin worked and worked fast…but at what cost???
This other gentleman recommended I use Nelsons Tea Tree Cream (they make Bach’s Rescue Cream as well), over this other cream specifically designed for cuts and blisters. I was weary and had yet another struggle over trusting a box or a person. In the end I chose the person and took the Tea Tree Cream.
Here’s what happen, the first day (after two applications) I did not notice much improvement. The second day (I think I used it once) maybe it was a little better…well not worse for sure. Then suddenly by the third day…magic…no red around the wounds and it scabbed up really well. :-O It’s great now and if I had used the cream everyday, it would have healed faster, but that’s not me! :)
I am glad I listened to the human.
Humans – 1 Boxes – 0
-Cara
The Day After An Inconvenient Truth 
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