Food as Healing Medicine

Introductory Note: This is the final issue of the Wellness Newsletter. I will not be writing any more newsletters, though I may write an occasional blog post looking at life from an octogenarian’s perspective. This final issue of the newsletter deals with a subject close to my heart, namely, the…

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The Healing Power of Food

Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself, published in March 2019, is an excellent addition to the growing literature on the healing power of food. Author William Li, MD, emphasizes the scientific evidence that supports food’s healing power. Part I of the book…

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Nutrition and Lifestyle

Abundant research confirms that good nutrition is a major factor in health. Good food not only nourishes healthy muscles, bones and internal organs, but helps to prevent and even reverse serious diseases. Today’s newsletter features a book on the healing power of good food with a healthy lifestyle. Is Most…

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Protecting Our Figs!

I’m enjoying backyard gardening now that we’re settling into our summer routine. This can be challenging in San Antonio with our blazing 100+ degree days in July and August, but a bit of gardening can still be done. I planted 18 sweet potato slips in a few of our box gardens a couple weeks ago because sweet potatoes thrive in the summer. Yet, even they wilted in the hot afternoon sun the first few days after putting them in. Then I improvised a bit of shade for them, and that seemed to help a bit.

Box Gardens

This week, we began getting rain almost every day, breaking a long drought, and this is helping a lot. I’m seeing new growth on almost every vine, and that’s a good sign. I’ve removed the “shades” and we’ll see how the vines do over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I noticed that a few figs on our backyard fig tree were beginning to ripen. I planted the tree as a small “start-up” five years ago. It’s grown to a 15-foot fig tree that shades our back bay-window. About 3 dozen figs were growing on it in June. These are Black Mission figs, but they stay green most of the time. They begin to turn a deep purple – almost black – a few days before they’re ripe. I noticed one was almost ripe a couple days ago, but I decided it needed one more warm day to fully ripen. Unfortunately, that’s when our neighborhood cardinal found it. I wound up picking a well pecked fig.

 

 

Ripening Figs

Backyard Fig Tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After giving this some thought, I decided to see if our “pet owl” could protect the remaining 3 dozen figs. I bought the owl a year or two ago to keep the cardinal from dashing it’s head against its “rival” image in our window. That helped, but the cardinal does not fear the owl nearly as much as it did last year. We’ll see what happens over the next weeks. So far, so good! 

Owl protecting our figs

 

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A Full Day at Africa University!

We had a full day yesterday, starting with a delicious breakfast at the Ubuntu Center, followed by an informative campus tour. Then we met with VC Furusa for half an hour in his office conference room. After I introduced the family, he gave a heads-up on what is happening now…

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