Celebrity causes obesity

Not directly, obviously, but certainly for women that read 'women's' magazines on a regular basis.
Now, I'm a sensible Greer/Wolf raised feminist type ith some understanding of nutrition, and a fairly clear take on the evils of the media, but I still look at pictures of Katie Holmes 'amazing post-baby body' and sigh in envy. 15kgs in 2 months! How did she do it? It took me 2 freakin' years! Where's that annoying loose tummy skin that plagues most new mums? Where are the stretch marks?
I know there are many and varied social/cultural/political/economic reasons behind the ever-increasing collective girth of our country, but I suspect that the endless and pointless dieting cycle indulged in by most women is fuelled primarily by self-comparison with celebrity bodies.
We forget. of course, that most of these gals have personal trainers, dieticians, stylists and personal cosmetic surgeons to help them along the way, or we ignore the fact that we know this and still try to emulate what they have regardless.
It makes me nauseous to think of how much $$ women spend on trying to attain some physical 'ideal'. Money most of us can little afford.
Here's my admission. I want to look like that too. I can't afford it. Still, my monthly female shopping bill looks like this;

Moisturiser =$20
Compact -$15
Lipstick =$20
Hair-dye _$25
Feminine Hygiene products =$10
Deodorant +$10
Razors =$5
Shampoo & Conditioner =$13

That's $118 dollars! a month! on me! (Those of you that know me will prolly wonder where all this investment goes...I look like a very normal chick).
Oh despair. I do not have the $$ to be beautiful. I do not have the time to do 300 crucnches a day. My wardrobe lasts until it falls apart. Aaaargh! I just wanna be a woman....

The Method of Madness

Late last night, I turned on 'Parkinson'. I was very pleasantly surprised to see Daniel Day-Lewis come gangling down the studio stairs as Parki's last guest and settled in for what I imagined would be a good 10 minutes of drooling and sighing over Mr Day-Lewi's extraordinary talents on screen.
What I saw was actually quite distressing, as I realised that if I ever had met the man (and believe me, I thought alot about the possibility as a teenager!), we would have fought like cat and dog.
Parki asked him about 'the incident'. For non Day-Lewis fans this refers to a 1989 production of 'Hamlet' in the Olivier theatre when Daniel played the title role. According to reports and the words of the actor himself, he walked off stage during Hamlet's scene with the ghost (his father) because he believed he was actually having a conversation with his own dead father (Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis). He never returned to the stage.
-I can only imagine that his cast mates were quite understanding types, because I would have been as mad as a hornet at such self-indulgent behaviour, however...
Day-Lewis went on to explain that sometimes the line between fantasy and reality become very blurred, especially in his process of 'trying to fool himself' that his situation is real.

It should be mentioned from the outset, that I am quite vocally 'anti-method', and situations like this are one of the reasons for my stance. Day-Lewis went on to comment on the famous Olivier/Hoffman incident; 'Why don't you try acting dear boy?' and opined that in this comment Olivier betrayed how little he knew about screen acting.

At the end of the interview, I was certain of two things;
(1) Day-Lewis came across as quite 'damaged'. His responses and manner were disjointed and defensive and his analyses and anecdotes poorly worded and understood. In short, he had the fragility that is most often seen in people who have had a nervous breakdown.
(2) His attitude toward acting embodied everything I hate about the industry. In his world (and unfortunately, many others) acting is a selfish, inward-looking process that says 'screw everyone else, -I'm searching for truth'.

On the flip-side, he was there to promote his new film (written and directed by wife, Rebecca Miller) 'The Ballad of Jack and Rose', and despite everything I've said above, I'm very keen to see it! I only hope that his performance is not too tainted by what I saw of him on late-night television. the problem with actually listening to actors off-screen is that is does affect how you see them on screen. I doubt it will make our cinemas (maybe Dendy), but I will make every attempt to suspend my disbelief and watch 'Jack' rather than 'Daniel'.

Man, I hate it when my teenaged fantasies get smashed. Now I'm in quite a tetchy state.

Sex in the land of the rising sun

Those hard-hitting journalists at Cleo are at it again with this month' edition containing a controversial little piece about Japanese sexuality.
I hope this starts an international comparison series, but more on that later...
According to these ornery newshounds, Durex has just (in 2001) completed a national survey on sexuality and come up with the following;
* More than 20% of couples don't have sex
* Agencies offer sex 'volunteers' to deflower frustrated 30 yr old female virgo intacto
* A statistically significant amount of Japanese men (?!) will only have sex with prostitutes, preferring to keep their wives as mother figures solely responsible for raising a family.
* There are vending machines available containing the used underwear of teenaged girls.
* A strange fashion trend occurred in which females deliberately hitched their skirts into their panties as an attempt to turn men on and signal tha they were 'available'.
* Japan came 58th in a list of 58 sexually active coutries with the greatest significance given to sexual frequency. Twice a year was the most common amount of sexual activity.

Oookaaay...

Put all this alongside population control measures and we have a confusing situation. Methinks Cleo will publish anything at all with the word 'sex' in it ('cos after all, that's the most important thing for 15-25 year old females to know), and that they're somewhat desperate for material (rehashing a 5 year old study). I guess it's finally hitting them,-there's only so much you can say about sex before you run out of scintillating material. And before you strangle me for buying such tripe, -I read it at work during a boredom session and put it back on the shelf.

So, I wanna know, is the vending machine thing true...?..anyone who has been in Japan recently can answer this one:-)...cos that's just nasty in soooooo man ways.

Fidel Castro's boys secret hippies...

Who woulda thunkit? Commandante Guillermo Garcia Fritas, one of the five original "commandantes" of the 1959 Cuban revolution, was a nature lover that pushed the Cuban government to adopt a strong environmental ethic for a generation of scientists and government officials.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Cuban factories and agricultural fields have lain dormant. The island has had to become self-sufficient, turning to low-energy organic farming.

"The solution it (Cuba) chose...essentially unprecedented both within the developed and undeveloped world...was to establish a self-sustaining system of agriculture that by necessity was essentially organic."

//seattlepi.nwsource.com/

Cuba prioritized food production. Other countries in the region took the neo-liberal option and exported 'what they were good at' and imported food. The Cubans went for food security and part of that was prioritizing small famers.

Cuba is filled with more than 7,000 urban allotments , or organopoicos, which cover as much as 81,000 acres. They have been established on tiny blocks of land in the centre of tower-block estates or between the crumbling colonial homes that fill Havana. More than 200 gardens in Havana alone supply its citizens with more than 90% of their fruit and vegetables. Of all these gardens, the Vivero Organoponico Alamar is considered one of the most successful. Established less than 10 yearsago, the 0.7 hectare plot employs about 25 people and provides a range of healthy, low-cost food to the local community.

A tour of the garden shows details like a shed of tomatoes that had produced five tonnes of fruit in six-months, housed in a self-designed metal pyramid structure, a worm farm packed with California red worms and bright marigolds planted at the end of each row of vegetables to attract bees and butterflies.

The land is owned by the givernment and everything grown there is split 50-50. The surplus is theirs to sell the with the profits divided among them. Along with free meals for the workers, such cooperation and socialist idealism is easy to be attracted to, and indeed is a good example of what Castro's international supporters saw in his revolution.

OK, let's see if I can put it in a nutshell. Apologies if this doesn't work-I am not known for brevity:-)

In the late 80's Cuba's agriculture had one aim,-produce as much sugar cane as possible, which the Soviets bought at more than 5x the market price. In addition the Soviet Union purchased 95% of its citrus crop and 73% of its Nickel. In exchange, the USSR provided Cuba with 63% of its food imports and 90% of its petrol. So, quite a vulnerable position for a country to be in, No? When the USSR collapsed all the subsidies stopped and Cuba's future looked a tad bleak.

The UN food and agriculture organization suggests that the daily calorie intake of the average Cuban fell from about 2600 c/day in the late 80's to between 1000 and 1500 by 1993. People had to get by on about half the food they had been eating. With no subsidies and limited resources, the Cuban regime decided to look inward. Ceasing to organize its economy around the export of tropical products and the import of food, it decided to maximise food production. By necessity, this meant a back-to-basics approach; with no Soviet oil for tractors or fertilizer it turned to oxen, with no Soviet oil for its fertilizer and pesticide, it turned to natural compost and the production of natural pesticides and beneficial insects. Crop rotations, green maturing, intercropping and soil conservation have all been incorporated into polyculture farming.

It has worked. Annual calorie intake now stands at about 2600c/day, while UNFAO estimates that the % population considered undernourished feel from 8% in 92 to 3% in 2002. Cuba's infat mortality rate is lower than that of the US, while at 77 years, life expectancy is the same.

In the old system it took 10 or 15 units of energy to produce one unit of food energy (similar to the stats for beef production),-remarkable economically inefficient.

But could Cuba's labor-intensive example be repeated without the availability of large numbers of enforced workers? Professor Jules Petty, of the University of Essex's dept of biological sciences says;

"I don't know. I think it is true that it has required much labout...the thing is, it has also produced alot of food...People are closer to their food production. (In the West) we are worried that we don't know about where our food comes from. In Havana, people are closer to their food production and that may also have psychological benefits".

Food for thought indeed.

Oxford cries 'foul' on new clutch of A-level graduates.

I don't know how many of you follow news in Britain, but this latest development from England's pleasant pastures has my interest piqued.
This year, the English A-level examinations posted a new 'record pass-rate' of 96.9%. This has raised the question: are students getting smarter? or has the examination process been 'dumbed down'.
Oxfordian professors are screeching that the latter is closer to the truth as they welcome students that have a serious deficit in their learning infrastructure,-forcing universities to develop a more remedial aproach to first year learning. The professors in question are at this time speaking anecdotally about changes they have noticed in the 'quality' of their students over the last ten years.
Spokesmen from the British Education ministry have responded by growling that the Oxfordians and their ilk are dinosaurs from a distant educational past where only 3% of students went on to higher education, rather than the 43% in 2005. They are speaking vehemently against the idea that the academic success of an examination process cannot be measured by how many people it fails.

Public opinion seems to be fairly evenly divided into two camps. Camp one says 'tosh and nonsense,-we are very clever thank you awfully', Camp two says 'In my day you couldn't cheat, we sat June exams in large halls with stern supervisors,-nowadays, with the emphasis on individual long projects and GDP's students have greater access to 'help' from family members, the internet ect'.

In Australia, myself and teacher friends have noticed a similar change in learning trends. There is far less emphasis today on 'retained knowledge' than ever. A sit-down supervised examination requires the student to truly 'know' the required information, whereas the assigment allows the student to 'source' information freely and present it at a later date as a coherent whole. I know that I (as a fairly lazy person) love assigments, and still get sweaty-palms before an exmaination. But then, surely educationalists should be asking the question: Which kind of learning is most appropriate in today's education and workforce?

Many university courses today are based heavily on 'course-work' and the number of examinations a student is required to sit for has dropped drastically since our parent's day. Many of my friends doing BA's at Usyd managed to sit about 3 exams total in three years to gain their Baccalaureate. Before you sniff in an oxfordian manner at the humble 'arts' degree, remember that with 1 yr dip ed. these people are becoming the vast majority of teachers in our primary and secondary schools.

Teachers of an older generation are frustrated too. Many new-grads in our schools have Bachelor's degrees, licenses to teach our children and cannot spell. School principles are having to spend time editing reports before they go home to parents (even with the advent of the ubiquitous 'spell-check').

To me, something is definately rotten in the state of Denmark.

Thoughts?

Genuine intelligence at Steak...

It won't surprise you to hear that I have something of an issue with the Meat Council's ads starring the previously respectable Sam Neill proposing that the ingestion of Red Meat somehow makes you smarter.
I have heard some fallacious and ungrounded arguments in my time, but this one really takes the cake.
According to the ads, we were 'meant to eat it' (determinism?) and in the print versions, gracing such trustworthy publications as "Women's Weekly", it's 'as natural as drinking water'.

Anymore of this twaddle and Cuchulain's battle-fury will seem like a bit of a tanty in comparison to my reaction.

For starters, let's look at 'it's as natural as drinking water'. Weeelll, there is one small difference,-water is essential to continued existence,-red meat isn't. If it is, I am superhuman and something of a scientific anomaly in that I have survived without it for 16 years of my life. Am I a freak of nature or could it be that they are WRONG?
Secondly, there is nothing in our physiology, past or present that suggests we are in any way primarily adapted to eat flesh. Please pick up your anatomical comparisons textbook and have a quick squiz at the carnivorous digestive tract. Now have a look at ours. Hmmm, doesn't look very similar does it now?
Now, the main beef (...), 'eating meat made us smarter'. Of all the ridiculous and uscientific statements ever made... (Grr, argh, retch, spit, rend, wail, snap, snarl). The human, or Homo, genus emerged during the Pliocene. Early species of Homo were similar in body size to Australopihicus but had noticeably larger brains. These species were replaced by the even larger brained H.Erectus and then, in the Pleistocene, by H.Sapiens, which has the biggest brain of all. Prof. Katherine Milton, who has studies the dietary behaviour of indigenous human populations living in the Amazon basin, as well as field studies on the foraging behaviour of howler and spider monkeys in Panama, suggests that the striking expansion of brain size in our genus indicates that we became so successful because selection amplified a tendency inherent in the primate order since its inception: that of using brainpower, or behaviour, to solve dietary problems. Coupled with anatomic changes -and with the associations in living primates between larger brains and a high-quality diet -this increase also points to the conclusion that the behavioural solution was to concentrate on high-quality foods. It is true that H.Sapiens during the ice age turned to animal sources for sustenance as the quality and quantity of plant-source foods became more scarce, but as Dr Milton posits,-further along in a time-line is not, in any way, a measure of greater intelligence. One has to look carefully at other indicators of intelligence such as mapping, social interraction, religion, tool-making and environmental manipulation to point us in any direction suggesting levels of 'intelligence', and in comparative studies, it cannot be claimed that ice-age H.Sapiens made intelligent advances greater than their herbivorous predecessors.
'Eating meat makes you smarter'. Does it? Dr Carel van Schaek, suggests that the animals that are intelligent are the ones that are cultural: they learn from one another innvative solutions to ecological or social problems. Culture promotes intelligence. Primatologists define culture as the ability to learn -by observation -skills invented by others. Culture can unleash ever increasing accomplishments and can bootstrap a species toward greater and greater intelligence.

The idea that hunting and skinning meat somehow requires greater intelligence than mapping and planning gathering strategies that avoid using all available resources (early agriculture) is unfounded. It does go some way to explaining though, why men have traditionally felt that intelligence was truly their domain. Is the cattle farmer more intelligent than the wheat farmer? Even the primitive mind knew that resources were expendable, -probably more acutely than we do today as they were limited by seasonal offerings.
The socio-cultural development of H.Sapiens in hunting, gathering and early farming contributed to the rise in human intelligence. To assert that only one of these factors is responsible is reductive and indicative of faulty logic.

Biochemically, we know that the brain is a hungry little bugger and relies primarily on Glucose for nourishment. Fruit is, and always has been the most readily available souce of brain energy for the primate family. I don't see any ads out there claiming that fruit makes you smarter,-and for good reason. This too would be a fallacious argument. Intelligence is not measured by brain-size or it's ability to absorb nutrients of any variety. Eating meat, lentils, fruit, coke, water cannot, in and of itself, make a species 'smarter'. If it could, one would assume that the incredibly efficient hunters in the carnivore family would have surpassed human intelligence long-ago (being that we are stubbornly omnivorous).

I do not, and will not ever propose that the very fact of eating meat is somehow morally 'wrong'. The human digestive system is well able to digest flesh. Intensive factory-farming and an inherent disregard for a being's 'right to life' is in my view morally reprehensible, but it not a view that I propose as a blanket solution.

What makes me mad, is the childish assertions made by these ads. They are not scientifically grounded in any way and yet people believe them vehemently. For chrissake, -since when was the TV a reliable source of unbiased information?
I do not ask all and sundry to give up eating meat, but I truly hope that the aforementioned start to think about the quality of the information that they are basing their dietary choices upon. Drinking Coke will not guarantee you a beach full of babes and a rockin' good time, highly processed cheese sticks are not a go choice for your child because cartoon cows hot-air balloon them into schoolyards, a KFC meal will not bring your family together in peace and jovial happiness and eating red meat WILL NOT make you smarter.

I welcome any offers of individuals brave nough to test the 'water' theory too. I suggest a trial where person (a) eats no red meat for 4 weeks and person (b) drinks no water for four weeks. I suspect the results may speak for themselves.

Grrrrrr.

What Women Want

Oh, I forgot t mention man (d) as in Da Man, as in Beethovian 'Da da da Daaaaa',

Mr Darcy/Mark Darcy..oh hell, Colin Firth really,-he'll do nicely...:-)

Polyamory

Who says monogamy is the only way to go? with thanks to 'New Scientist' July 8 2006

'Polyamory' as a term was coined by internet news groups in the early 1990's. The Ethical Slut, a 1997 book by Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt that some call 'the bible of Poly', has sold more than 50,000 copies and is about to go into its second edition.
New scientist quotes;

'For psychologists and evolutionary biologists, polyamory is a rare opportunity to see, out in the open, what happens when people stop suppressing their desire for multiple partners and embrace non-monogamy. Proponents say the poly brand of open but committed relationships may be a way around infidelity because it turns an age-old problem into a solution: polyamorists are released from the burdens of traditional marriage vows, yet they seem to keep their long-term relationships intact. What makes poly enticing is the possibility of reconciling long-term stability and romantic variety' (pp.45)

OK. Well (deep breath) what scant evidence there is ( about 3 studies) shows that poly couples (?) stay together as long as monogamous ones. Maybe it's more realistic than monogamy, -having multiple partners frees people from the process of trying to find "the one" who is perfect for them in every way. In the wonderful world of Poly, even my schizophrenic brain might be satisified (we're talking hypothetically here people, -Brett,-dont' worry!), technically I could find man (a) who is very 'masculine', he is of large build, is protective and strong, he loves sex, and wants to fulfill the traditional role of 'man', -bringing home the bacon and providing security for his wife and children. Man (b) is sensitive and artistic and somewhat more 'refined' physically. With this man I can share musci, poetry and philosophy,-he won't be embarassed by my feminine functions but will cuddle me when I have a cramp and support my 'taking a sickie' on bad days, he may also love animals, be a vegan and cry during sensitive foreign films. Man (c) is active and sporty and loves nothing more than to suprise me with spontaneous abseiling jaunts or parasailing weekends. he's got the 'ideal' body, and adores all things active and outdoors. Staying in to play computer games is an anathema, he is fun and outgoing, very sociable and suggests we go to parties! He organises them for us too! Man (d) is a cool, aloof mystery man who communicates little but passionately. He does not wish for anything traditional or even comprehensible but maintains a steady brooding presence in my life. He is Heathcliff, Mr Rochester, the man of pain that adores me to bits. The man that understands that I would rather be taken out to a misty mountain on a cold cold day than any other entertaiment that can be devised. This man not only knows that my favourite flower is a jonquil, but goes out of his way to find a field of them for my birthday.

Dossie Easton says, biology is not the point (to all those who immediately think "But what about raising children!"), "In middle-class urban cultures, people aren't marrying for survival anymore. They can get divorced, and the kids won't starve. This means we're having marriages and relationships for very different reasons than our ancestors did. We're doing it for emotional gratification". Easton sees poly as a break from the "survival strategy" traditions that created both polygamy and monogamy.

The 'rub', is of course, that I'm not the only one in this hypothetical that is free to skip between partners, -so is 'he/s'. Call me simplistic, but my life is already timetabled to a ridiculous degree, how on earth would one manage fitting in time with 4 men? Also, what if one night (say, 1st day of menstruation), I really want to see (b) but (c) is the only person available? WRONG. And what if I want to watch a stupid brainless American fluff-flick (Legally blonde) and Heathcliff drops over for a quickie?

I guess my final conlcusion is that I'm naturally inclined toward monogamy with a healthy 'fantasy' life. I can 'love' a numer of different people (men and women) in my world that are all important to me in different ways and for different reasons, but I have no real need to express that love sexually. I strongly believe that true intimacy between people (sexually) is only possible in a monogamous situation. It takes time and care to learn about the other, and like most arts (yes, I do believe sex is an art), it takes time and patience to create a masterpiece. Few artists create multiple masterpieces simultaneously.
Maybe the idea is more attractive to men than to women? Maybe I am still quite 'biologically determined'. Many have said that the desire for multiple partners is not gender specific,-that women have just as strong urge as men to taste the varieties of life.
Is it too simplistic to posit that this particular need is generally fulfilled in your 'dating' years? Before you find someone that you'd like to settle down with? Or is polyamory the only enlightened way forward?

Kiss me please don't hurt me...

Sensuality

Very underused term in our world. Entirely supplanted by the ubiquitous 'sexuality' which is NOT a synonym.
Here's my thing;
I am tired tired tired of trying to live up to the ectomorph standard. I am sick sick sick of the fact that of all the genetic/racial/familial body structures in the world, only ONE has been chosen as the 'ideal' for all women to attain. How dull would life be if there were only one song-bird in the forest? If there were only roses in the meadow? If the only drink were champagne?

I am tired of trying to explain to men that 'fish' analogies are not funny, and that 'Whoa! she's a double A penetration!' does not turn me on. I am tired of trying to explain that I need to sleep without a snoring man, that morning sex inevitably involves halitosis and is nasty, and that I am TIRED during my period and don't want to 'fool around' (see: 'Give blow-job-because-you-owe-me-for-making-your-vagina-off-limits'). Men of the world, you must must MUST start to listen. My liking for things pure and beautiful is not to be 'tolerated', my need for space, peace and calm is not 'quirky'. Listen before your progeny gets flushed. End of story.

Nectar of the Gods...

'Next I come to the manna, the heavenly gift of honey...A featherweight theme: but one that can load me with fame..."
-Virgil from Book IV of the Georgics.

Is Honey appropriate fare for a Vegan?

See, this really sux because I know the answer is absolutely and positively 'No', but I LOVE honey. I mean seriously adore the stuff. I have at least 5 cups of tea a day, each with 1/2 tsp of honey. Could I just have sugar instead? Yes, certainly. Should I? Yes, certainly. Could I get off my lazy ass and buy malt syrup or rice syrup instaed? Yes, I could and have, damn it, there's barley syrup in my cupboard right now. However, as many people could tell you, I am something of a romantic, especially when it comes to food history and connotations, and I just have this inexplicable romantic thing for honey.

The simplest reason why honey isn't vegan is by definition. The term vegan was coined by Donald Watson in 1944 and was defined as follows:

Veganism is a way of living which excludes all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, the animal kingdom, and includes a reverence for life. It applies to the practise of living on the products of the plant kingdom to the exclusion of flesh, fish fowl, eggs, honey, animal milk and its derivatives, and encourages the use of alternatives for all commodities derived wholly or in part from animals.

But we don't need to go back to 1944 to define honey as not vegan -any definition of veganism agrees with the reduction of animal suffering, and honeybees (Apis mellifera) are, without a doubt, animals. Do vegans only care about the phyla "above" Arthropoda (the one bees are in)? No, Arthropoda includes lobster and crab. In answering my own question,-Honey is definately NOT vegan. It is, however, extremely delicious. So is Golden Syrup, rice syrup, barley malt and Cane and palm sugars. I guess I can be big enough to throw over this, my last 'anti-vegan' behaviour...

For those non-vegans out there, here are two charming things that can be done with honey, -both benefit a bit from a delicious significant other sharing in them:-)

(1)miskwimin amo sisi bakwat -strawberries crushed in pure honey as a paste....(Mohawk Indian recipe used for winter stores)

(2) In Eastern custom, a spoonul of honey is poured into the palms of a newly married couple's hands. They must lick it off fo each other as a sign that they will now take all their food together, and it is said to ensure that the husband will not lift his hand to his wife except to caress her, and none but loving words will spring to the wife's lips -not during the aptly names honeymoon but forever after.

Wondern what vegans in the east do? Smack each other around a lot I guess. As it should be,-all this sweetness can be a little cloying...

An Apple a Day

The Humble apple. Pyrus Malus N.O Pomacae. The oldest known evidence of apples is to be found in the excavated remains of Swiss lake-dwellings, completely charred but still showing the seed-valves nd the grain of the flesh. It exists in its wild state in most countires in Europe and also in the region of the Caucasus. The crab-tree or wild apple is native to Britain and is the wild ancestor of all the cultivated varities of apple trees. It was the stock on which were grafted choice varieties when brought from Europe, mostly from France. Twenty-two varities were mentioned by Pliny: there are now about 2000 kinds cultivated.

'Malus the Appyll tree is a tree yt bereth apples and is a grete tree in itself...it s more short than other trees of the wood wyth knottes and rinelyd Rynde. And makyth shadowe wythe thicke bowes and branches: and fayr with dyurs blossomes, and floures of swetnesse and lykynge: with good fruyte and noble. And is gracious in syght and in taste and vertuous in medecyne...'
-Bartholomeus Anglicus 'Encyclopedia' 1470

The peculiar winy odour is stimulating to many. Pliny, and later, Sir John Mandeville, tell of a race of little men in 'Farther India' who 'eat naught and live by the smell of apples'. Burton wrote that apples are good against melancholy and Dr John Caius, physician to Queen Elizabeth advises the patient to 'smele to an old swete apple to recover his strengthe'.
In Shakespeare's time, apples when served at dessert were usually accompanied by caraway as we may read in Henry IV, where Shallow invites Falstaff to 'a pippin and a dish of caraway' In a still earlier Booke of Nurture, it is directed 'After mete pepyns, caraway in comfyts'. The custom of serving roast apples with a little saucerful o Carraway is still kept up at Trinity College, Cambridge.

From pagan tradition, we learn that the apple is feminine and sacred to Venus, and is said to have powers of Love, Healing, Garden Magic and Immortality.
August 13 was Diana's festival in Greece (Venus' in Rome) and on this day a ritual meal was prepared, part of which consisted of apples still hanging on their boughs.
Wiccan alters are often piled high with apples on Samhain for the apple is considered to be one of the foods of the dead. For this very reason Samhain is sometimes known as 'Feast of Apples'
The apple is a symbol of immortality. A branch of the apple bore buds, flowers and fully-ripened fruit (sometimes known as the silver bough) was a kind of magical charm which enabled its posessor to enter into the land of the Gods, theUnderworld, in Celtic mythology.

An Apple Love Spell

Take an apple 'before it falls from the tree' and write upon it with a sharp knife the following:
Aleo + Deleo + Delato
As you do this, say the following words;
I conjure thee, apple, by these names which are written on thee, that what woman (or man) toucheth and tasteth thee, may love me and burn in my love as fire melteth wax
Then give the apple to whom you will.

Unicorns live eneath the trees of apple and ash.

Finally apples are rich in vitamin C and soluble fibre (pectin) which helps the body to eliminate cholesterol and so protects against environmental pollutants, the pectin joins up with heavy metals like lead and mercury and helps the body to get rid of them. Apples also contain malic and tartaric acids, which aid digestion and are especially helpful in dealing with rich, fatty foods. the Vitamin C in apples helps to boost the body's own immune defences. Apples are also an important weapon in the fight against constipation because of their soluble fibre. Even the smell of appleshas a calming effect and has been shown to lower blood pressure. The sugar in apples is mostly fructose, a simple sugar that is broken down slowly and thus helps to keep blood-sugar levels on an even keel.

Why apples? Because apples hanging on a tree makes me happy. Because I always wanted boughs of apples at my 'wedding', because I always imagined the Knight in 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' languishing beneath a wintry apple tree, because if I were Eve, I would have eaten it too and walked out, because I love their simplicity and beauty, and because I am a passionate advocate of whole-food dietary choices, and I do truly believe that a history behind what you're eating makes the whole experience so much richer and enjoyable. Now I've made myself hungry, but as it's a cold day, I think some stewed apples with a few caraway seeds served with a nice soy custard will go down well for lunch.
:-)

I Love Quizzes:-)

Dear old Cam, I really want to answer these questions! Partially because I will happily chat about books for hours on end with anyone brave enough to listen to me, and partly because books are a bit like a religion with me. i.e. I actually have hopes that after reading the answers below someone will think "Hmmm, -I must get a copy of that!" and then I'll get more brownie points for book-heaven...or something like that....banana banana

No reason for Liam Neeson to head up this topic, except that if he were a book I would read each page very very slowly and never want to reach the end...he he

1. One book that changed your life
The Heretic's Feast by Colin Spencer. It's a history of vegetarianism, covering religious, philosophical and social aspects of vegetarianism. It started me thinking on a whole new level about the relative 'truth' of our dietary beliefs in Western society.

2.One book that you've read more than once
Voyage of the Dawntreader C.S. Lewis. I would have said the whole Narnia Chronicles but the question did say 'one book'. Dawntreader is definately my absolute favourite though. That painting coming to life was a very visceral image for me as a kid and still delights me in art galleries to this day:-)

3. One book that you'd want on a desert island
Blank notebook, and a good supply of pencils.

4. One book that made you laugh
Handy Hints for Minister's Wives. I can no longer remember who wrote it or where I found it but it was an absolute hoot! I remember sitting on a train on the way back from uni literally wiping tears from my eyes because of the painmy stomach was in from laughing so hard.

5. One book that made you cry
Well, obviously as above, but also as a pathetic hippy animal-loving type, yes, I cried like a little girl when Artax was swallowed by the swamp of despair in The Neverending Story. Mind you, I was a little girl at the time, so I can't actually be called any derogatory names for that one. Little girls have a weird obsession with Horses,-don't ask why.

6. One book that you wish had been written
OK, it's a cross between The Female Eunuch and The Beauty Myth but it's written about women by a man, for men, and men actually read it and buy it for their other men friends. They all talk of nothing else for a good while, and it makes the top 5 bestsellers of all time, outselling Harry Potter. As a direct result of this book, major social structures begin to change in favour of true equality...etc etc blah blah no one actually wants to hear about this anymore....

7.One book that you wish had never been written
The Bible. Actually, any of the religious tracts/texts. Why? It would have been nice if humanity had evolved to think for itself, to establish a moral code without fear as a motivator. It would have been nice if the Church had held less power over people in centuries past. It would have been nice if women were never tied to the stake and burned for helping other women give birth. It would have been nice if English people had just stayed in their own goddam country rather than running off to 'liberate' jerusalem. It would have been just peachy if the word 'missionary' had never been invented,-many tribes still would not have heard the words 'syphilis', 'malaria' or 'flu'.

8.One book that you're currently reading
Stolen Apples by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. I haven't read enough poetry lately so I thought I'd dip back into the Russians Beautiful stuff. Changes the way you see the world while you're reading it.

9. One book you've been meaning to read
The China Study by Dr T.Colin Cambell. I will read it when my order arrives next week! Can't wait, -40 year nutritional study in cooperation with America,Japan and China. Non-anecdotal, scientific double-blind proof that a diet based on animal proteins is responsible for the vast majority of our western 'diseases of affluence'.

10. Now tag five people
I would, if I had the faintest idea what 'tagging' is...