Here we are again… last week of the year. How fast did it pass? With all its good and bad memories... with all its achievements and challenges. The year of the Spring of the Arab World, the spring of freedom and autonomy that brought with it many challenges and huge responsibilities.

With most matters still yet to be resolved, we can’t help but look forward to the New Year in hope and anticipation. And it is the role of each and every one of us to assume his/her responsibility towards this new era of human history… Assume our responsibility for our own wellness and health, for the health and wellbeing of our community, and that of the entire planet.
  As it is said, if you want to change the world, start by changing yourself. Allah tought us in the Qur’an: “Verily, Allah will never change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves” (Qur’an, 13:11).

So, what is your plan for the New Year?

 A good place to start is by defining your dream, hope and purpose in life. What’s your biggest dream? Once you see it loud and clear, think about what makes you want that dream, what will make you hold on to it despite any challenges or obstacles on the road? What’s your intention? Why do you long for this dream to come true? How will it benefit you and the whole world?

Then, it is time to devise some plans. Devise your long term plan for the whole year. Don’t forget to include your 8 fields:
   1. My Nation
  2. My Religious and Spiritual development
  3. My Health
  4. My Family
  5. My Social Life
  6. My Personal Development
  7. My work/career
  8. My Life
P.S. For more about these fields you could refer back to my older post: Are you ready for the New Year:  http://www.amiraayad.com/1/post/2010/12/are-you-ready-for-the-new-year.html 

How do these fields fit in the Big Picture of your life Dream? and how do they fit into your Bigger Picture in life, this one and the Hereafter?

One step at a time, you can soon see your dream materialize before your eyes. By assuming responsibility for your life, you are assuming responsibility for the whole planet, you are definitely helping to make our world a much better place.

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to bed with a mosquito”
  Annonymous

Have a great week, a happy New Year, and an amazing, healthy, successful, and rewarding 2012!

See you next Year in shaa Allah

 

I am currently reading a very interesting book called: “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon. It’s a  nutrition and cook book that, as the author says: “challenges politically correct nutrition and diet dictocrats”. And, indeed challenges it does!

This book challenges almost every idea, theory and concept I’ve been taught in my nutrition and natural health studies. It also challenges all fad diets and commonly popular beliefs. I can’t say I totally agree with all what the author has to say; but I can’t totally disagree with her either. She surely offers amazing ‘food’ for thought.

Nourishing traditions is based on honoring time-tested old traditional ways of cooking and eating. Natural, whole food cooked with butter, ghee, meat and fat; along of course with fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs. The author urges us to acknowledge our grand mothers’ ways of cooking and preparing foods. She advocates fermentation and pickling, as well as preparing bone broth, germinating sprouts and making nut butters. Reading this book brought memories of my grandmother’s and great grandmother’s kitchens. My grandmother is in her late nineties now, and she still enjoys perfect mental abilities, she never suffered from degenerative diseases, never tested her cholesterol nor blood pressure. She never thought she needed to.

Our ancestors died from just ‘old age’. They lived naturally and frugally, yet they ate and cooked with fats, meats, broth, and ghee as Fallon described in her book. Where did we go wrong? Why degenerative and chronic diseases, diabetes, heart problems, and cancers are on the rise? Is it really, as she states, because we drifted away from this frugal way of eating?
  Natural, whole, chemical-free food, we all agree is our way to health. But what is natural food? Aren’t butter, cereals, meat, shell fish, honey, eggs and milk also natural foods? Questions Fallon.

  Here is a food for thought:

 Nowadays I see many people still in their thirties or forties suffering from joint aches and arthritis. Conventional medicine offers anti-inflammatory cortisols and analgesics that do nothing but suppress the symptoms crippling the patient with side effects of compromised immunity, edema, hypertension, and upset stomach.

Natural medicine, on the other hand, offers supplements of glucosamine, chondroitin, and hylurenic acid that help build and support the cartilages and bones and restore the synovial fluid (The fluid lubricating the joints); the patient is also given MSM, source of organic sulpur essential for building healthy cartilages and connective tissues, and  omega 3 fatty acids supplements in form of fish oil, flaxseed oil and/or EPA capsules to reduce inflammation.
Traditionally, though, the patient is fed on natural bone broth. The broth is prepared by boiling bones (chicken, turkey or beef bones with their cartilages) with onions, garlic, cabbage, ginger, and celery and ¼ cup of apple cider vinegar for 4 to 5 hours till the bones are tender and the stock is thick and gelatinous. Then, the broth is strained and half a cup is consumed every day. The bones in the broth are natural source of glucosamine, chondroitin, and hylurenic acid; and the added vegetables supply the needed natural sulfur.
  As anti-inflammatory, fish broth, with its rich omega 3 fatty acids content, could be prepared using fish carcasses and head, celery, garlic, ginger, onion, carrots, bay leaves, mastic, cardamom, and turmeric. The ingredients are also boiled with ¼ cup of vinegar to release all the calcium and nutrients from the bones. The added vegetables and herbs have additional anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant action in their own right.

As I told you, I am not totally supporting all the ideas in the book, but some of them brought such ‘food for thought’. I would love to hear your opinions and comments.

I have to leave you now to check on my bone broth simmering on the stove!!!

Have a great day!

Hi,
As many of you requested, Below is the link for the time schedule of the MeVeg conference 2011. It has lots of interesting seminars, workshops, and sessions.

Hope to see you all there!!! 

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