5 Key Food Myths and Truths

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Too many people are looking for a “silver bullet” when it comes to health issues and these are some popular (and unsubstantiated) food myths.  Some other widespread beliefs have a sound basis.

1. Drink at least eight glasses of water a day (myth)

This myth is not supported by scientific evidence; originated around the time jogging got to be fashionable and is popular because it is easy to remember.

The Mayo Clinic recommends eight glasses of fluid a day, but the need for water has to be evaluated according to the level of activity and external temperatures. A guideline on the need for fluids [Read more…] about 5 Key Food Myths and Truths

Dancing With Fred Astaire

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I could feel the muscles in my eyelids.  When I blinked very slowly, I could feel them connecting to my face under the skin.  And in my neck, when I lifted my chin, I could feel the fine muscles all through my neck.  It was an amazing sensation.

After nine weeks of dancing lessons, learning  Jive, Rock & Roll, Cha Cha  and some line dancing – I thought I knew every muscle in my body.  I wondered – how come all that exercise hadn’t dealt with every single muscle I owned?

Every Wednesday and Friday night – regardless of the 42° heat – we had stepped, swung and sweated our way through over two hours of lessons in the Baskerville Hall. In the following week we would start Jive again, but this night, this [Read more…] about Dancing With Fred Astaire

Dining Out

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One night while we were living in Stoneville, I decided to take my Dad out to dinner at a very upmarket Chinese restaurant in our neighbourhood.

We had been there before with friends and I was quite happy to spend $120 – 150 for us to have a lovely dinner with wine, beer, desert, coffee, whatever we wanted. I booked a table for two, for 8:00pm.  When we arrived, the restaurant was very busy doing takeaways and a number of tables were set but not occupied.  We were on time.

We were shown to a table for two, just inside the entrance to the dining area.  My father was seated first, with his back to the room of diners.  I was seated opposite him, with a first class view of the staff entrance into the kitchen/ serving area, the rubbish bins into which all plates are scraped before they hit the dishwasher and the repository for all empty bottles.

Suffice to say, I politely and quietly told the young waiter that the table was not suitable; we would not sit [Read more…] about Dining Out

One Cup Of Top Of Milk

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 When we were young, the milk lady used to bring the milk around on her horse and cart. Her name was Maria, I think. She was Italian and, to my mind at the time, all Italian ladies were called Maria. 

On the cart were huge silver steel cans and Maria would ladle the milk directly from them into our billy can, complete with its own lid. She came every day and I never thought about how many cows she might have had, or where they were housed. We lived in Big Bell, a gold mining town inland in Western Australia. It was hot. The earth was red and dusty. The milk was always creamy and white – and we never considered how Maria might tend her cows in that climate. 

My mother cooked on a wood stove, cream and green with a Kookaburra on the door of the oven, and on the side hob she would bring the milk to a very gentle heat to scald it. We did not have a refrigerator. After an hour or so, the cream [Read more…] about One Cup Of Top Of Milk

Waterless Garden

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The idea of having a waterless garden has appealed to me for a long time.  I have tried lots of different ways to grow my garden with little or almost no water and, more importantly for me, no watering.  It’s getting away from being tethered to the end of the hose that I want.

Let’s forget for the moment about past experiments and look at what we are trying now.  This weekend, the last weekend of March 2012, we started round two of the new waterless garden scheme.

Around Christmas time, I discovered a potentially new way of watering the garden. The product comes in a plastic sausage shape and comprises a jelly substance that is said to be 97% distilled water and 3% cellulose.  The jelly is cut and placed raw surface down onto the soil, where a microbe action will begin and their activity causes the water to gradually be released from the jelly into the soil.  [Read more…] about Waterless Garden

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