Monthly Archives: May 2006

by Debra Stark

In Jack Challem’s book, Feed Your Genes Right, Mr. Challem says nutrition feeds our genes, which not only are found in every one of our 70 trillion cells, but which contain the basic biological instructions for everything from eye color to the risk of heart disease and other disorders.   “Instructions, encoded in the long strands of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) that form genes, program everything that happens in your body. They tell heart cells to beat rhythmically and brain cells to store memories. But when genes and their DNA become damaged, information becomes garbled and disease can be one of the consequences.” ...Read More

The saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) is a rare purple flower that grows in Iran, Greece, Spain, Morocco, and parts of India.  As many as 75,000 flowers – a football field’s worth of intensive cultivation – are needed to produce a single pound of saffron, which must be harvested by hand! ...Read More

When you stop and think about it, all the stuff that goes on to keep us alive is pretty amazing.  And I’m not even talking about the wonder of reproduction or the miracle of consciousness, but about the everyday nitty-gritty that keeps things running.  The heart pumps (and we don’t notice), the lungs inhale and exhale (and we pay them no attention), our jaws chew, our salivary glands produce saliva, our stomachs churn, and our digestive tracts take it from there.  All of it running on autopilot, while our “higher” thoughts are free to contemplate poetry, or revenge, or a cheeseburger.  ...Read More