I came accross a refreshment stall during the Edinburgh Festival that sold Tahini bliss balls.

I bought one to see what they were like & put it ( carefully wrapped in a napkin ) in my pocket to eat on the train back home.

I was looking forward to it, and it was pretty good, but, a bit dry & not quite as good as my tastebuds were anticipating.

So I decided to try and make my own version ( without loading them to the hilt with guarana , as I had chronic insomnia the night I ate the one I bought ). But I will probably bake a batch of guarana loaded ones to take to Glastonbury next year. Also the one I bought uses rice crispies and I use oats in my version.

I would not usualy weigh out the ingredients for these, but, as a guideline I weighed  ingredients & timed the cooking tonight.

Tahini bliss balls:

Put 8oz oats into a bowl

add 1 handful of roasted pumkin seeds

1 handful of sunflower seeds

1 handful toasted sesame seeds

2 handfuls of dessicated coconut

4 heaped dessetspoons tahini

If the tahini you use is thick in consistency, rub the tahini into the rest of the ingredients at this stage to disperse it evenly.

Then add:

2 lg dessert spoons of honey   ( I use acacia as it is light and sweet )

2 lg dessert spoons of golden syrup ( this was not meant to be calorie free )

and then blend the mixure with a spoon pushing down whilst stiring to moisten all the dry ingredients.

Then add 4oz of melted butter & mix in well.

This mix will make 12 - 20 balls depending on the size of your hands and how hard you squeeze your balls!!

Pick up a handful and squeeze it into a ball so the mixture holds together.  You may want to scrape off the excess mix from your hands and wash every your hands every few balls, as it makes it easier to shape the next one.

Bake at 180 for about half an hour, and they should be a nice golden brown when ready.

There is no need to pre grease the tin but, do leave them on the tray intil cool. This way a sharp push undereath with a fish slice should get them off the tray without them breaking.

I think I will add some hemp seeds from now on as they are so good for you, and call them tahini hemp bliss balls.

This post is hopefully going to spread the word a little about information on a section of the film Foodmatters. If you click on the link below you can either watch a trailer of the film or pay $4.95 for a one off, online viewing or buy the DVD. The film makers James Colquhoun and Laurentine Ten Bosch welcome the information in this film to be passed on due to it’s importance to peoples health, and the reasons why some of the content in their film is not commonly practised.

http://www.foodmatters.tv/?gclid=CJH6kPqCtJUCFQs2QwodwE0FQQ

I would like everyone I care about to see this film, but even if they did would all of them change the way they eat or the way they approach treatment for an illness? Most probably not.

One person in particular in the film gave a couple of stories to grab my attention. That was Andrew W. Saul Ph.D who is a theraputic nutrition specialist & author.

He tells how he learnt of William J McCormick and Fred R. Klenner MD and their knowledge of using high dosages of Vitamin C to cure illness in the 1940’s.

Andrew W. Saul did not learn about this in med school, why would he ?

Would there be much more need for medical school in the future if healthcare was nutrition based ?

What I just found:

I just gooled Mc Cormick and Klenner to see if there was a newspaper article that could be referred t;o. I did not get that far as I found that the top article was entitled ” The pioneering work of Frederick Robert Klenner MD ” written by guess who? Andrew W. Saul

Here is the article http://www.doctoryourself.com/klennerbio.html

Niacin, alcoholism and depression:

Andrew Saul talked about Bill Williams the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Bill Williams worked with Dr Abraham Hoffer MD.

Hoffer and Williams became good friends. But Bill Williams suffered from severe depression.

Dr Abraham Hoffer suggested to his friend that he took 3,000mg of Niacin ( Vitamin B3 ) a day and it helped him feel better.

Bill Williams then suggested to alcoholics, that they took niacin for the depression and addiction and the majority who tried the niacin treatment experienced great improvements.

Williams then wanted Alcoholoics Anonymous to use niacin and vitamin therapy.

The medical profession rejected that idea, and so  to this day the AA to this day does not recommend vitamin therapy.

Phychiatrist does not recommed vitamin therapy:

The other story Andrew W Saul gave to express the effective use of Niacin for depression was this:

There was a suicidal lady in her 50’s who lived with her family.  She was severely depressed, always sitting alone, eating alone and spending most of her time just sitting in the corner in an uncommunicative state.

Her family asked about nutrition and Andrew W. Saul mentioned Dr Hoffers work with Niacin. Saul said that 3,000mg per day was Hoffers dosage, but  their daughter should have ” as much as it takes to make her  better”

At 11,500mg of niacin a day, the lady was sitting eating with the family as if nothing had happened. They took her to the psychiatrist so that he could see her in her ” well state” and the pshychiatrist said that the levels of niacin they were giving may be harmful, and to stop the vitamin treatment that had made her better.

Zero death toll:

There are not even enough deaths from niacin intake to equate to even 1 death per year.

Which would you feel safest with, for treating depression?

Taking 11,500mg of Niacin, or the usual prescribed doses of amitriptalyne, or prozac . Both drugs can cause suicidal tendancies !

On the top left corner of my blog page there is now a link to a website for a wholefood nutritional suppliment called juiceplus.

As I have mentioned earlier in my blog I do have some damage to my spine from an old & stupid accident. For the last 7 years I have been trying so many different suppliments and treatments from the medical profession. I’ve had, so many trips, at so much expense, at alternative health care clinics that when my friend Karen told me about Juiceplus ( and knowing what I know these days about the importance of getting the right foodstuffs into your system for the body to be able to heal itself ) I ordered some right away. My initial results have been so good that when I was told that I could also become a distributor I did not hesitate, since I had also seen the visual results in my friend with her having only been taking the suppliment for about 4 weeks.

What is juiceplus?

Well the website will tell you what it is and how it is produced but basically it is 17 RAW fruits and vegetables amounting to a cost of £1.10 a day.

My peace of mind:

I have mentioned many times during the lifetime of this fairly new blog, the importance of photonutrients ( nutrients from plants ) and I know that the fruit and vegetables in juiceplus are grown in a controlled environment free from pesticides and other chemical interference.

I also know that as a top up to my diet, I am getting all the nutrients my body needs to be fit & well.

I have a major challenge comming up in February when I will be cycling from Vietnam to Cambodia for a landmine clearance organisation. By then my body will have been getting 17 plus raw fruit and veg a day for 8 months. I say 17 plus as I am eating more and more raw foods in my diet nowadays aswell.

World Health Organisation:

Way back in 1972 the World Health Organisation recomended that we need 5 fruits and vegetables per day.

Now ( WHO ) are saying 7 -9 a day as a minimum requirement, and remember these are fist size potions.

I could not affords to buy that amount of fresh friut & veg ( certainly not from organic local farms ) and juiceplus capsules also contain spirulina and kelp which would not otherwise be part of my daily food intake.

Any question just ask:

If you choose to look at the link http://www.tracy4juiceplus.com

I would like to hear form you if you have any queries at all. If I don’t have the answer straight away I will damn well find out for you.

If you read my post the other day on food irradiation you will be aware of my dislike and distrust of the Food and Drug Administration. They have so much control over which drugs are allowed and those which are banned, but hey, where’s the profits in a healthy nation?

I learned from the podcast I put on that post that the FDA were aware of the dangers of the drug Vioxx, (known generically as rofecoxib and produced by the drug company Merk & Co ) but then the FDA knowingly allowed it to be prescribed, Vioxx ended up ( when taken as directed ) killing more people than the amount of Americans that were killed in the Vietnam War.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Vioxx eventually led to more than 27,000 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths.

Vioxx is a COX-2 selective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). Vioxx was commonly prescribed to reduce inflammation and pain in osteoarthritis, arthritis, management of acute joint pain and for period pain.

I have a cracked disc in my spine from a rather stupid injury in 2001 ( My own fault) . This does of course give me some discomfort from time to time and gives referred pain throughout other parts of the body, but hell am I glad that when my GP offered me ( actually recommending me would be more to the point ) a prescription for Vioxx I declined. That was at a point when I started looking into natural food alternatives for inflammation reduction instead of popping pills, even then when I was recommended Vioxx I was aware of rumours that heart attacks were a common side effect. I was not that desperate for pain relief accept that prescrption but went from the doctors surgery to the co-op to buy strawberries and a pineapple.

My medicine that night felt more like a treat than a gamble with my life.

( NSAID’s ) such as Vioxx can reek havock on the body. Vioxx side effects included causing stomach ulcers, stomach bleeding and majorly increased heart attack and stroke risk to those who were taking it.

Osteoarthritis is the result of the body lacking the ability to manufacture a molecule known as glucosamine . This then leads to a lack of collagen which is the main protein of connective tissue.

Glucosamine, which can be bought in a tablet form from a good health food shop or as a gel, is derived from crustaceans, so not a good idea if you have allergic reactions to shellfish, but capsicums and comfrey are both effective at relieving joint pain. There always seems to be some food that will do the job when it comes to healing. Perhaps comfrey cream or a capsicum food extract would be things buy for anyone building up a natural “drug company free” medicine cabinet, although I did make my own comfrey cream once that was effective and smelt “oh so earthy” but the downside was that it did stain any clothes or bedding bright green.

Perhaps this is the best way for us to save our natural food supplies. Consumers do control the market but unfortunately the majority do rely upon and expect their doctors to prescibe something for any condition that they have. If more people looked for a natural alternative, which I believe is starting to happen then perhaps our foodstuffs being irradiated could be stopped, but alas that’s allready started and a lot of education is needed before the masses turn their backs on the big pharmacuticals for common ailments that need not even occur if diets were good and prescription drugs did not so often cause a different but worse condition that it was innitially designed to treat.

I did this post a couple of days ago then last night realized I must have accidentally deleted it. ( arse ! )

I thought of Turmeric the other day as I had some inflamation in my back & hip and remembered how I used to put Turmeric in my tea when flair ups of imflamation occured. A teaspoon of turmeric into a cup of Chai tea twice a day was more effective and and better way of reducing discomfort than the taking of any anti inflamotory drugs prescribed for me by my GP. I am collecting some extract of turmeric from Napiers dispensary later today to try. The food extract has a 1:1 plant to liquid ratio so a couple of drops in water should work on the inflammation. I will report later in this post how it was.

Turmeric is a source of curcurmin ( turmeric extract, it has which has an earthy, bitter, peppery flavor and has a mustardy smell ) which is known to reduce inflammation amongst mant other health benefits including reversing the effects of Alzhemers, fighting osteoporosis, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and cancer.

Tumeric extract is also anti fungal, antiviral and anti bacterial.

The anti cancer agents in curcumin make it a hugely powerful chemopreventative.

So much to read up on & write about ,yet so little time this week, so this post will be expanded upon later.

FDA..Food and drug administration or otherwise known as.. Food despot arseholes..

This week the FDA Food And Drug Administration announced that it was allowing and encouraging the irradiation of lettuce & spinach in America and guess what, it allows irradiated crops to be sold with no labelling so the consumer has no way of knowing if the lettuce or spinach that they are eating has been irradiadted or not. Whatever happened to freedom of choice ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPGxL0HbklY Watch this American TV news report and read on.

Scary stuff eh !

Some reports say it is labelled, some say not. Some say it is safe, some say it is not.

I am pretty darn sure it is far from safe and I am angry & appauled but yet, not surprised.

The FDA insists that the levels of irradiation that they use to kill e.coli will have no effect on the nutritional value of the food. ( aye bollock’s )

When food irradiation is known to cause DNA damage and is used to kill germs, viruses and insects then surely it can’t be the best way to treat our food stuffs. Leave our bloody food alone. We have the choice to either buy fresh foods and prepare them ourselves or to purchase pre prepared meals or fast food.

If we choose to buy fresh and prepare our meals from scratch we have the right to un- bastardized produce.

Unfortunately I have very limited time today to go into much more detail on this subject but I do suggest that you continue to find out more on this issue if you care for yours and your families health.

Below is from Natural News.com who welcome people to pass on the information on their website. Below is a podcast on their site detailing the FDA’s interference with our natural food supply.

From Naturalnews.com

Why does this matter? Because irradiation kills photonutrients, including anti-cancer nutrients that are protecting your health right now. With this rule, the FDA is literally killing the food supply!

This alarming report covers the FDA’s evil plot to destroy the nutritional value of the food supply through mandatory irradiation of fresh vegetables. It follows the FDA’s decision to start irradiation spinach and lettuce.

Go to this page then click on ” click here to listen to mp3″ under the paragraph above.

http://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.html#61

On the Yahoo home page today was an article about juices such as grapefruit, apple and orange.

It does state in this article that for the last 20 years it has been known that grapefruit juice can increase the potency of some drugs, leading to risk of overdose. The reason for this being that grapefruit juice can override the intestinal enzyme that inhibits absorption.

This enzyme belongs to a family of enzymes called the cytochrome P-450 system. A particular enzyme in this familly CYP 3A4 can increase the potency of a drug by letting more of the drug become absorbed into the bloodstream. Whereas naringin, ( which gives grapefruit it’s bitter taste ) appears to block the way the body moves the drug from the small intestine into the blood stream.

I Know plenty of people who generally only buy fruit juice if they are already feeling unwell, rushing out to get a carton of orange juice, pineapple, apple e.t.c

These can make your stomach feel a bit acidic if drunk in large quantities especially if your body is not used to it. I can accross a fab juice drink recently that I buy from Lidl. It is an organic fruit juice manufactured by a company called Fresh Meadow.  A 500ml carton cost 59p and the ingredients list is great:

Tomato juice 56%, carrot juice 28%, beetroot juice 8%, celery juice 3%, saurkraut juice 3%, sea salt, leek, cress, parsley juice, lemon juice

At 94kcal per carton this is a great little carton of good for you juice!

How many times ( ladies ) have you gone to the doctors for anti-biotics and been told that ” if you are on the pill you will need to use an altenative form of contraception as anti-biotics can stop the effectiveness of taking the pill”. I have been told this on far fewer occasions than I have recieved a prescription for anti-biotics.  Also do the doctors tell that if you take medication to cure thrush it may well lead to cystisis.

I am lucky never to have suffered the discomfort of cystisis as I am am sure it is bloody uncomfortable but I know that thrush ( again lucky here, have rarely been bothered by it ) can be cured quickly & very effectively by natural yoghurt.

With the world wide web at our fingertips we can generally find natural alternatives to many common ailments.

I am, and have been for several years been against taking antibiotics, yes they were an increadible finding but massive overuse has rendered them at times useless and at the least lowered their effectiveness as humans in the western world have been building up a natural resistance to them after using anti-biotics for so many years. Now at the onset of a cold, sore throat or flu like symptoms I eat as much raw garlic as I can and generally by the time I wake the next day any nasty symptoms have subsided.  As garlic is such a strong natural anti-biotic I do have garlic prepared in my fridge for such occasions. Once a year I will buy several garlic bulbs and spend a while skinning all the cloves and then putting them into olive oil, this can be flavoured with what ever you like, just add any favorite herbs or use a flavoured oil.  After about 2 -3 weeks in the frige the garlic is less hard and it sweetens  making it a lot more palateable. If onset of a nasty cold seems imminant I will usually consume 6 - 10 garlic cloves sipping a warm drink containing honey & fresh ginger inbetween. I have not had ” a bad lingering cold for years “.

So now back to the point of fruit juices & presciption drugs:

On the Yahoo article today it mentioned a case where volunteers took anti- histamine with a glass of grapefruit juice. Now the majority of meds that I am aware of, if not all recomend that the medication is taken with a glass of water, thefore allowing the meds to get into the bloodstream.

I think the important things to remember if taking medication is to read the label, take as directed, and avoid taking prescription medication unnessesarily.  Look for herbal or alternative options & use them if possible and if you have a good balanced diet containing enough fresh fruit and vegetables daily, you are likely to be able to steer clear of problems with your heart, ( if you don’t smoke of course ) high cholesterol, diabetes, cancer e.t.c

Bad news:

It is not o.k at all but unfortunately one of the most widely consumed burgers in the world contains many things to preserve it and to make it one of the most dangrous foodstuffs I know of.

This video that I found on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYyDXH1amic

really is scarry stuff.

If you watch this video, please do pay particular attention to the ending.

There is a list at the end of the video listing all pesticides contained within this burger to ” keep it fresh ! ”

This list is taken from The Food And Drug Administrations official report on pesticide residues in American fast food. This particular fast food though is the most globally available so if you ever eat from the “golden arches” watch this.

Good news:

During the last few days I have been helping to promote a show in the Edinburgh Festival and spent a lot of time in Bristo Square. Dotted around are many places to grab fast food and most is perfectly acceptable in my mind to eat on occasion. I did try the Aberdeen Angus burgers first which were ok but if you really do need to satisfy a burger craving ” the smells do lure you at times ” I recomend Wannaburger.

The burgers are made from 95% locally sourced Aberdeen Angus and the the cheese is real!

For my dinner yesterday I chose a calorie filled bacon cheeseburger with a small vanilla milkshake.

Cost: £5

Rating : 8 out of 10

For a burger of the non veggie type I think these are the best I have ever tasted. Shakes are groovy too.

Although my tastebuds are reacting as I write this today I will be giving my stomach a heathier treat & going to Suzies Wholefood Diner in West Nicolson Street.

Wonderful smells, delicious wholesome food, relaxed friendly atmosphere, and fantastic value for money.

P.S I really should give my friend a plug. Ali Cook A Touch of Vegas. Go to You Tube and type in Ali Cook magic for a sample of what the show will be like.

He is performing every night at the Gilded Balloon in Bristo Square 9.15pm until the 25th of August.

I’m looking forward to dinner time.

You can look up the nutrition food labels on Tesco website before you shop.

I came accross this by accident this morning. I do not do online shopping with any supermarket, thank you very much but a friend forwarded this info to me knowing that I would relish in the fact that Tesco had on thier site a bag of snack products that, to be fair, must have incurred a data imput error when it was uploaded onto Tesco direct shopping site.

As you can clearly see below these, not so tasty looking pieces of what they call ” snack ” contain no salt, no calories, no fat, no saturates and no salt.

What they actually contain is for example:

Salt & vinegar cruchy snacks:-

Salt, Wheat flour, Acidity Regulator ( Sodium Diacetate ), Citric Acid, Milk, Sugar, Whey Powder, Dextrose, Flavour Enhancer ( Monosodium Glutamate ), & Malt Vinegar Powder.

It says on the bag for nutrition for the salt & vinegar crunchy snacks that for each 20g bag:

Fat: 5.3g

Energy: 100 kcal

Carbohydrate: 11.7g of which sugars 0.6g

There is more info on the bag for this product but the light reflecting on the photo of the bag that I took made it hard to read.

Of course I was not going to actually buy this product even if it was for research purposes only!

Contary to my post fish farms fuck fish

Shell fish, unlike Salmon and Trout can be successfully farmed off the West Coast of Scotland without screwing up the eco system in said waters.

Mussles:

The mussles are grown by suspending ropes, under rafts which collect the drifting spat. The spat ( young mussles ) which normally attach themselves to rocks or the seabed then grow on the ropes. As the mussles are farmed suspended in the water this way they remain totally grit free.

Oysters:

Here seed from a hatchery is put into mesh bags and put onto low tessles at the low tide mark on the shore.

They are thinned out to allow for optimum growing conditions.

Shellfish farms along the West Coast of Scotland are therfore able to produce both oysters and mussles all year round and guarantee good quality meat, untarnished and can do this without causing excess toxic bloom ( a by- product from some other ways of industrial sea farming ).

Nutrition:

Shellfish are a rich source of vitamins and minerals and are low in fat. Consuming oysters and mussles as part of your regular diet can help promote good eyesight and boost the immune system.

Toxic algal blooms:

As more algae and plants grow, others die. This dead organic matter becomes food for bacteria that decomposes it. With more food available, the bacteria increase in number and use up the dissolved oxygen in the water. When the dissolved oxygen content decreases, many fish and aquatic insects cannot survive. This results in a dead area.

Algal blooms may also be of concern as some species of algae produce neurotoxins. At the high cell concentrations reached during some blooms, these toxins may have severe biological impacts on wildlife. Algal blooms composed of phytoplankters known to naturally produce biotoxins are often called Harmful Algal Blooms, or HABs.

( The above text & pictures was taken from wikipedia ).

Nutrition:

Shellfish are a rich source of vitamins and minerals and are low in fat. Consuming oysters and mussles as part of your regular diet can help promote good eyesight and boost the immune system.

Recipe:

Below is a recipe from http://www.scottishshellfish.co.uk/index.asp

This tasty looking dish is one I will have to try !

Bothy Oysters

Ingredients

4 oysters, shucked, reserving juice and shells
4 x 30-55g (4 x 1-2 oz) slices black pudding
2 x 5ml spoon (2 teaspoons) apple sauce
salt and black pepper
50ml (2 fl oz) malt whisky
30g (1oz) Highland Cheddar cheese
4 lemon wedges
parsley, to garnish

Serves 2

Method

Microwave Power: 800 Watt
Preheat the grill

Microwave black pudding for 1 minute.

Remove skin and mix with the apple sauce, salt and black pepper.

Poach oysters for 1 minute in their own juices along with the whisky. Remove oysters and set aside.

Add whisky liquid to black pudding mixture and beat well.

Shave a few fine slices of cheese using a vegetable peeler. Place 2-3 x 5ml spoon (2-3 teaspoons) of black pudding mixture into each oyster shell, top with an oyster and cover with cheese shavings.

Grill for 1-2 minutes until the cheese melts.

Serve with lemon wedges and more malt!