Move over quinoa, your little cousin from Peru is the newest power food to pop on the market. Kiwicha also known as amaranth, is a tiny whole grain that is gluten-free. This miniature version of the popular quinoa is known for its dense nutritional content. About the size of a poppy seed, it has been a regular staple in Peru for over 4,000 years,

Kiwicha is favored for many reasons, which includes being considered an anti-aging food because it is full of antioxidants. It’s referred to as a super food because it contains all 10 essential amino acids, and it is power packed with protein. One cup of cooked kiwicha provides nearly 10 grams of protein. That’s more protein than wheat, corn or milk. In addition, kiwicha contains lysine, an amino acid that is necessary for the construction of all proteins in the body.

One cup of the cooked grain provides over 5 grams of dietary fiber, nearly 20% of the daily fiber requirements for women. Fiber, as you may know, helps to prevent heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Fiber helps to eliminate wastes and toxins from the body and helps to speed up weight loss.

Containing only 251 calories, a full cup of cooked kiwicha provides the healthy carbs you need to stay active. Diets that are too restrictive can sometimes rob you of the vitamins and nutritional value you need to sustain you. Kiwicha is great for anyone who wants to lose weight because it is high in fiber, iron, phosphorous, magnesium, zinc and manganese.

Kiwicha helps to restore the vitality of youth with phenolic acids, carotenoids and flavonoids, all high in antioxidants. It also contains squaline, which acts as an anti-cancer agent and has been said to lower LDL, total cholesterol and triglycerides.

Kiwicha has even been selected for the Astronaut’s diet due to its high nutritional value, Amaranth happened to be grown in space travel since 1985, flowering in space during the orbital flight of the shuttle Atlantis.

Kiwicha can be eaten as a cereal, a side dish, in salads or you can pop it and eat it like popcorn. You can also use popped kiwicha in casseroles and as garnishes for other entrees. Popping kiwicha is easy and requires very few ingredients. A great snack for anyone who is gluten sensitive, popped kiwicha also makes a great post workout treat.

What You Need:

½ to 1 cup pre-washed kiwicha

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

How To Make It:

1. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat.

2. Add ½ teaspoon of the vegetable oil

3. Add about ¼ cup of grain, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Stirring grains with a wooden spoon as they pop. Kiwicha grains pop very dramatically and change from dark yellow to white.

4. Once the grains have mostly popped, remove them from the pan and onto a plate to cool.

5. Toss with salt and enjoy.

If you DON’T want to be published, follow this!

Write your book single spaced, on both sides of the paper – better still write in longhand! Your opening must be full of descriptive prose about a beautiful view or weather or something. They want to know which way the rain falls and what Mooey the cow looks like – after all nobody knows what a cow or rain looks like.

Then send in your entire 300,000 worded novel with each chapter carefully stapled and in a plastic wallet. Do NOT number the pages. Send it to every agent/publisher address you can find regardless on whether they are accepting material or not.

Make sure to make your query/cover letter as pompous as you can. Don’t forget to tell the agent/publisher how fantastic you are and that Aunt Fanny, Cousin Willy and grandma loved your book.

In the twenty-paged synopsis add in that you’re unsure of the genre; that it borders romance, suspense, horror and is a biography of your life.

Use a brightly coloured envelope and write the agents/publishers address in an equally bold colour to stand out from the rest. Add twinkles in the envelope, and endorse the outside with pretty stickers. Wrap the envelope in sellotape to secure. Do NOT use the correct postage.

Don’t bother with a SAE either, but telephone everyday until they receive your book and this is where you can then demand payment ASAP.

Be firm, and don’t take no for an answer.

If by some strange reason they reject your proposal, be outraged. Write a curt letter, letting them know of your disgust. Tell them they are wrong and demand to see someone senior. If this doesn’t work, take the next train down to their office and camp outside until removed by a policeman.

This way they will be certain to know of your ‘seriousness’ in becoming a writer of romance, suspense, horror, biographies.

www.louisewise.blogspot.com

When I saw “Surviving James Dean” on the bookshelf, I felt I had to reach for it, probably just for reminiscing. James Dean was the idol of my teenage years, although I wasn’t all that much taken by him. My cousin, however, married her first husband because he looked, walked, and acted exactly like James Dean. When the actor died, our entire generation of people went into mourning.

I can’t tell how much of what I read in the book’s pages can be the truth. It is always easy to say anything for or against a person after his death, because he is not around to tell his truth or defend himself against lies, if there are lies.

This book, however, is a memoir of the writer William Bast and it reflects his life, his lifestyle, and the way he looks at his former roommate and friend. I did not take this book as James Dean’s truth as it would be in an objective biography, but more like as William Bast’s truth and his obsession with the actor.

James Dean was not only an American icon; he was an idol worldwide. The reference to Dean’s homosexual tendencies, therefore, should not be taken as facts, since they may be colored by the writer’s own tendencies and his awe of the actor. After Dean’s death, the author must have had his glory days, since everyone, the renowned and the unknown, held him in high esteem because of his friendship with Dean.

According to Bast, James Dean had his flaws, especially when it came to financial responsibility, recklessness, and maybe eccentricity, but he was enthusiastic about life and showed compassion to living things. The best part of the book for me were when the two friends shared an apartment and helped each other out in times of need.

The language of the author is direct and easy to understand, and some parts of the book can be very interesting to those who remember James Dean and still cherish his memory. A passage when the author gets his first ride in Dean’s famous white Porsche reveals the actor’s recklessness that led to his demise. Passages like this make the book worth reading.

“The Porsche, built low and sleek, took the hills as they were freeways, hugging the road neatly with each treacherous curve… I had never, in all the time I’d known him, ridden in a car with Jimmy when he’d driven so fast. That night I swore I’d never ride with him again.”

The author of the book, William Bast, educated at the University of Wisconsin and UCLA, has concentrated extensively on James Dean in the book James Dean: a Biography and in “The Myth Makers” a television drama. Originally from Milwaukee, Bast resides in Los Angeles.

“Surviving James Dean” is in hardcover with 320 pages and ISBN: 156980298X.

Even if it was written from a different perspective and possibly an obsession, I found the book descriptive and interesting, because it points to the complexities of two people who have shared a friendship as well as room and board. “Surviving James Dean” could be worth reading if you keep an open mind about a few uncertainties.

I am a Taraji P. Henson fan. I love every character she has played, especially as Cookie in Fox’s Empire. She always exhibits a level of sincerity, grit and tenacity as an actress. For me, her characters are always very relatable and multi-dimensional. She’s like your favorite cousin, keeping it real auntie, friend that has your back. When I saw Sony/Screen Gems’ thriller action Proud Mary last weekend, I was again impressed with Taraji. But not because the film was great.

I did enjoy the movie, but Proud Mary was not a box office hit, grossing about $14 million by its second weekend amidst projections of $20 million in its opening weekend, and debuting in eighth place as a box opener. The movie, however, broke even so that’s always a good thing, especially since Taraji has executive producer credits.

There were elements of the film that were lacking (production quality could have been better, writing could have been tighter, would have liked a better build up in beginning and more action in the middle, maybe her face off with another female — something her Cookie character does flawlessly), and several character’s acting were not up to par (what was up with Danny Glover and Billy Brown). But looking beyond all of that to focus on Taraji’s character, Mary, she performs entertainingly (albeit stereotypical) as a fearless, bad-ass, gun-toting female assassin showing maternal instinct, empathy, and survival skills in protecting Jahi Wilson’s character, Danny, the son of one of her victims.

As a sparse movie goer but avid supporter of black women-led roles, I always look beyond the entertainment aspect of films and focus my understanding on the character’s backstory and its reflection of societal norms, values and beliefs. Mary’s backstory was not fully developed, but the storyline was clear enough to ascertain that she was an orphan taken in by a crime family who had an encounter that woke her up. She decided to reclaim her life, her goals and dreams while also giving Danny a chance to experience maternal love, hope and stability. Trying to regain control from a patriarchal environment is a familiar script that many women face in navigating their lives, but just like a bad movie, there are always some take-aways worthy of any experience.

• Trust your gut. Mary’s career choice was more about survival that desensitized her actions and ruled her life. But when she saw the kid in her mark’s home obliviously playing video games, her instincts told her it was time to move on, but not without curiosity or concern of who she was leaving behind. She thought about the kid often and checked up on him. She recognized that a change in life was due. As women, we have a unique gift and often know when we are in a bad job, have toxic relationships, and make unhealthy life choices. We must remember that it is our divine nature to trust our gut and know when it’s time to make change to do the right thing, not only for ourselves, but often for others. Let’s not ignore that nagging feeling or sign that we know is meant to get our attention.
• Be willing to start over. The organized crime family decided Mary’s destiny was assassinating folks. It took her orphaning a child to realize her life was more valuable than that, so she decided on a re-do, to live life differently, and on her own terms. A re-do can happen at any time, age or stage in life but a person must be willing to let go of the past and anything negative weighing them down. Unlike in the movie, I am NOT suggesting being extreme and taking out an entire family, but there is no shame in distancing yourself from people who keep you in a bad place because of their lifestyle, actions, dysfunction, and/or attitudes. It is possible to outgrow people and move on, especially after we’ve learned the lesson they were in our life to teach.
• You can always make a difference. Danny needed Mary in his life as much as she needed him. She learned that his mother left him and he felt abandoned, and that his father was not a good guy. Just the little bit of compassion she showed to him softened him to know that he mattered to someone. We never know someone’s story and the impact that life has had on them. Kids do become the adults we interact with and it’s the sincerity and small kindnesses that can make a difference, like a smile, holding the door for the person behind you, a quick email, text or phone call to let someone know you were thinking about them, an authentic compliment, or just paying it forward in your own unique way with the expectation of only good karma from the Universe.

As was with many Nature Cure of the 18-19th centuries James C. Thomson (1887-1960) came to nature cure when nothing else worked. As a young man he became seriously ill with an acute lung condition (Tuberculosis). He was given three months to live by the hospital and sent home to die. He went to his cousin’s farm with a few popular natural cure books and hoped to cure himself. He succeeded and became a devoted disciple of natural health disciplines.

To expand his education in nature cure Thomson traveled to America. Settling in Battle Creek, Michigan where he worked for McFadden’s natural health sanitarium where fasting and enemas were the main practice. Not satisfied with the long term results of those therapy’s he then moved on to Chicago to Henry Lindlair’s where he found a comprehensive system of natural methods of treatment anchored by philosophy and science.

Thompson became manager of Lindlair’s sanitarium, and then moved on to his own practice in Missouri and finally Florida in the USA. Then he moved back to Scotland and made a name for himself in Scotland. Although persecuted by the medical doctors he became one of the greatest nature cure philosophers of the mid twentieth century. He followed these principles:

o Healing comes from within, not without

o People heal themselves

o Homeopathic remedies

o Herbal remedies

o Nutritional adjustments

o Hydrotherapy

o The body creates sickness to cleanse accumulated toxic material

o Disease is not in separated parts, It expresses symptoms in the parts

Without Thomson natural cures would have been overlooked in Scotland. Thanks to his perseverance and successful outcomes nature cure is still a powerful treatment model in Scotland.

You’re about to learn 2 really hot sex positions that you can use tonight to spice up your love life and build some passion in the bedroom.

Hot Sex Positions #1 – The Luscious Lean

This is great position if you’re limited for space. Maybe you’re in the shower or in the bathroom at your cousin’s wedding (you dog).

Have your girl stand 2 or 3 feet away from a wall as she leans over and places her hands on it (as if she was getting patted down by a cop). Stand behind her and hold onto her waist as you thrust from behind.

This position gives you that great view of her arched back as you enter her from behind and if you’re anything like me, you love that too!

You can also build her excitement by role-playing a bit here. Pretend you are a cop and now you have to punish her for what she’s done.

Role playing is one of the best ways to make sure neither of you ever get bored in the bedroom. By keeping it new and exciting, you’ll have a much stronger relationship and your sex drive will stay alive and strong.

One great tip for when you’re role-playing is get her to describe the scenario. Women tend to visualize much better than men do and when she starts talking about the scene around you, then you know that’s she fully into it and turned on like crazy.

Hot Sex Positions #2 – The Sensual Shower

Have her stand up while she’s leaning back against the wall. Lift up one of her legs by placing your hand under the bend of her knee.

This is a great position to use for a quickie, while you’re in the shower, or if you’ve just seen each other and couldn’t wait to start ripping each other’s clothes off.

It can also be used as a very intimate position since you’re holding her so close and also taking control by grabbing her leg and holding it.

As long as she’s the same height as you are or shorter, this will cause your “manhood” to rub against her clit.

Use this position to grab and take her like she wants her man to do but don’t expect for her to orgasm too easily from it.

Since she’s up on just one leg, she’ll be holding up much more body weight with the other.

This is why you’ll want to lean her up against the wall so that now both you and the wall are holding up about 90 to 95 percent of her weight and all she has to do is enjoy.

You’re also increasing that primal animalistic desire she has for your authoritative role as the man and also primes her up for more male dominating positions later on.

In 1965, A.L. Williams died of a heart attack. He had a whole life policy, but it left the remaining Williams clan underinsured. This left an impression on his son, Art L. Williams, Jr, whose cousin later introduced him to the concept of term life insurance, which was relatively unknown at the time and provided much more in face value at cheaper rates.

Fueled by the financial hardship his family had endured, Art launched himself into an ambassadorship of term life with an almost religious fervor. He coined the phrase “Buy term and invest the difference”, BTID for short, launched a new company on the concept, had some 200k agents under his umbrella, and the rest is history.

Or is it?

Some 40 years later, a study published in the May 2015 issue of Journal of Financial Service Professionals indicates that Williams’s grand experiment had unintended consequences for families. “People don’t buy term and invest the difference”, said David F. Babbel, the study’s co-author. “They most likely rent the term, lapse it, and spend the difference”, leaving many families uninsured instead of simply underinsured when a loved one passes.

Even the small percentage of people who do fully execute Art’s advice and invest the difference may invest emotionally in the market by buying high and selling low, or buy managed investments without realizing the potential impact of associated fees to their nest egg. People who think they are playing it safe by overfunding a 401k beyond the amount an employer matches often don’t consider that, if the management fee is 3%, they must make a 3% return each and every year to break even and protect their principle.

Supposing everyone who bought term actually did invest the difference wisely, whole life still offers advantages that BTID doesn’t. Whole life locks in insurability, allowing the insured to purchase additional coverage with accumulated cash value, even if their health has declined to the point that they are no longer able to buy new policies. Further, they can borrow against the cash value, convert it into guaranteed income, or take tax-free distributions.

Chris Blunt, executive vice president of New York Life, points out the value of BTID to the investment firms, says “Generations of Wall Street professionals have been trained by their firms to trash cash value life insurance so the investment firms could maintain those dollars under management.” He also points out that there’s no need to decide between term and permanent life insurance. Young families can purchase both, and convert the term to whole life as their income increases.

Art Williams’ legacy consists of overpriced term-only options and a drastically reduced pool of agents who, like the Wall Streeters mentioned by Mr. Blunt, push only one product and openly disparage every other option available to their prospects, calling cash value insurance “trash value” and an “awful product” and touting BTID as the only solution for everyone. The 40-year look back on this way of selling life insurance detailed in this study doesn’t support these claims. America’s families deserve more in terms of both options and advice.

Brings live to your community tanks

Many freshwater fish-keepers have a warm spot in their heart for a little fish with a big name, the 1 ½-inch hemigrammus erythrozonus… or mush easier to say, the glowlight tetra. Like its little cousin, the neon tetra, the glowlight is an easy fish to keep in a community tank. In fact, many neon keepers, tired of battling neon disease, move towards the glowlight tetra.

The glowlight tetra is pastel peach in color with a horizontal red-gold stripe that spans the length of its body. Originating in Guyana, South America, the glowlight does well in a fresh water tank of slightly acid but peat-softened water that is kept between 74F and 82F. Glowlight tetras generally occupy the bottom third of the tank, except for feeding time when they will swim to the top.

The male glowlight tetra is more slender bodied than his mate, although it may be difficult to tell them apart until the female is full of eggs. Glowlight tetras are easier to breed than many other tetras like the neon and the cardinal tetra. However, providing them with a soft water environment is a critical factor for breeding. In fact, when breeding glowlight tetras, it may help to erect a special breeding tank. After your females have laid their eggs, you will need to remove adult fish from the tank until the fry hatch since glowlights have been known to eat their own eggs. Glowlights scatter their eggs among fine-leaved live plants. Clean, fresh water and live foods can encourage breeding. However, when changing water, be careful that you don’t remove so much that it causes your tank to recycle.

Like many tetras, the glowlight tetra is a schooling fish and prefers to swim in the company of at least seven of its peers. Another common characteristic of many tetras is sensitivity to bright light. Lighting in a glowlight tetra aquarium should be filtered. This is easily achieved with aquarium plants. Artificial plants will suffice (unless you intend to breed your fish), but the glowlight tetra finds that real plants are a delicacy along with its usual fare of tropical flake food, tubifex worms, and brine shrimp.

Black-eyed peas, also called cowpeas and cousin to the smaller field peas, probably came to America via the slave trade. They had more use as animal fodder before coming to the table of the two-legged. The beans themselves are beige in color, but have a black “eye” that gives them the name. You can buy them canned, fresh (frozen) or dried.

Although more popular in the South, make these potassium and protein rich, fiber-filled peas unique to your own diet by spicing them with your favorite flavors. As with many legumes, they are neutral in taste and easy to enhance with seasonings. In the South folks like to add the flavor of crisp crumbled bacon, along with red or green bell peppers, chopped onions, chili powder and black pepper. To be authentic you should use ham hocks (or a ham bone) or fatback to aid in flavoring. It is the pork’s fat and salt that add that special flavor.

There are many recipes for the famous Hoppin’ John dish served to celebrate a prosperous New Year. Here are some ideas and things to consider to get you experimenting no matter what the season. If you want to avoid the salty canned peas and avoid the pre-soaking, frozen is the way to go. Otherwise try the easy-to-store dry variety.

If you buy peas dry, you can quicken the cooking time by using a pressure cooker. They may take one to one and a half hours of simmering on a stove top (as do the frozen peas) compared to ten to eleven minutes in the cooker. Don’t forget to soak dry peas overnight, but use fresh water before simmering. Cooked peas should be tender enough to squash with a fork. Check them after forty minutes, since some have thinner skins than others, and you don’t want mushy peas.

Mix them with rice (half as much rice as peas) for a full meal and serve them with ham. Cook the rice separately fifteen minutes before adding it to the beans if simmering. Or you may cook the rice in a different pan while using a pressure cooker for the peas. Either way let the combined rice and peas simmer and blend their flavors together for an additional five minutes.

Other spices you might try with black-eyed peas are thyme, oregano, cayenne or red pepper flakes. Diced tomatoes and celery are often added. A Cajun or Creole spice blend is a great way to heat things up. Paprika or Liquid Smoke will give it that smoky flavor as will a tablespoon of molasses. Or add spices that you know you like either for their taste or nutrient value, such as cinnamon or cloves.

Many spices supposedly reduce gas, including bay leaves, thyme, cumin, ginger, caraway and mint. Some swear that throwing a carrot in the pot will reduce the side effects, others drink orange juice with the meal. If you eat beans often enough, your body creates the enzymes that aid in digestion and, thus, reduce gas. The good news is black-eyed peas are one of the least problematic of the legumes as far as “gas production” is concerned.

Think of black-eyed peas as you do any bean and consider using them in salads, with Mexican dishes, on nachos or in any hearty stew or chili. Who knows? Yours just might be the winning entry in this summer’s chili cook-off.

Japanese cuisine has worldwide popularity and nothing is more synonymous with Japanese food than sushi. The term sushi is associated with raw fish dishes that we see as healthy culinary art forms that taste great! The forms and traditional types vary greatly. Raw seafood is the foundation for dishes that are consumed and stand on their own merit. Many presentations also include rice, nori (dried seaweed paper) and numerous other ingredients such as vegetables and some seafood that may already be cooked. It is not limited to raw fish and rice. Condiments such as soy sauce, wasabi paste, a distinctive cousin to horseradish, tofu, soy beans, eggs and mayonnaise are often components to some dishes.

Fish is a wonderful source of high quality lean protein. It is low in saturated fats, cholesterol, and carbohydrates. Salmon, mackerel, herring and tuna are rich in omega-3 fatty acids which are linked to many health benefits. Tofu, soy beans, nori, the dried seaweed wrapper commonly used in “rolls”, are all excellent nutrient sources of minerals, calcium, vitamin D, folic acid and antioxidants. Not all ingredients are limited to raw fish. Shrimp, eel, geoduck, crab are often cooked before they are featured in a roll. The wide array of creative rolls and styles seems endless with something to suit any taste. One must be thoughtful about some of the ingredients in some contemporary rolls like cream cheese, fried foods, mayonnaise, soy sauce that greatly increase the calories, sodium and fat contained in your dish. Overall the benefits of enjoying sushi and sashimi are diverse and outstanding.

The risks of eating sushi are very low but are worthy of consideration. The general contamination of seafood with mercury is virtually unavoidable. Unfortunately this neurotoxin contaminates all open waters of rivers, lakes and ocean. Some caution should be exercised in choices of fish variety and quantities consumed by those who are at greatest risk by mercury consumption. Women, who are pregnant, nursing or planning to get pregnant, young children, elderly or people who have a compromised immune system, should limit their consumption of seafood to only 12 ounces per week. Some species of seafood are likely to have higher mercury levels such as tuna, swordfish, shark and mackerel. This does not mean they need to be avoided entirely but consumed in limited quantities emphasizing variety with other kinds that may be lower in mercury content such as salmon, trout, crab and shrimp.

There are other risks of undercooked or raw seafood which remain low if products are handled and stored properly. There are FDA guidelines for the industry which include freezing fish for precise amount of time to kill parasites. Still poor handling or dishonest vendors can provide tainted food that is contaminated with bacteria or parasites. The most common symptoms from eating contaminated raw fish are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, headache and fever. One must rely on a reputable dealer and trust your restaurateur to provide sanitary products of high quality. Although eating raw seafood is simply of greater risk than cooked fish, experts agree the health benefits outweigh the risks.

Enjoy the nutritional benefits of a wonderful culinary art with thoughtfulness and peace of mind. Strive for variety and eat sensible portions.