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Fun Pubic Hair Fashion Styles
There are many different ways to remove your pubic hair. Some methods of pubic hair removal are discussed in this article. One of the more common methods is to shave the pubic area to reduce or remove the pubic hair completely. Continue reading ›
Also tagged bikini, NudeThe Secret Uses of Manuka Honey
Would you be surprised to discover that scientists and medical research teams are now realising that an item that can be freely bought in shops can be used in a major offensive against post operative infections?
Even to fighting the dreaded MRSA superbug that has been killing thousands of patients a year in UK hospitals?
Well, this new secret weapon turns out to be honey, in this case, a particular type of honey, but nonetheless - honey.
The healing powers of honey have been known to man for thousands of years. We know that honey was used to treat various ailments and wounds by the ancient Greeks and Romans.
We also know that they were aware that honey made from the nectar of certain plants, gathered at specific times of the year, held unique properties.
Unfortunately the arrogance of modern medicine with its myopic view of using pills and antibiotics, has led to the neglect of using natural remedies. This, my friends, is one of the biggest crimes of the modern age.
Sure, scientific advances in medicine have been phenomenal and beneficial. And yes, there are millions of people alive today, who would not be here, but for modern medical advances.
But why shove aside the old cures, developed over thousands of years, simply because there is no profit in them? Next time you’re in a second hand bookshop lookout for a book of herbal remedies that’s at least 100 years old. You will be surprised at what you find.
But, I digress. Yes, honey has wonderful healing properties, especially the monofloral honeys; that’s honey largely from one species of plant. And the honey that has been making the headlines is known as Manuka Honey from New Zealand. It comes from the Manuka plant, otherwise known as the Tea Tree.
This particular honey has an ingredient called the Unique Manuka Factor or UMF. This was discovered by Dr Peter Molan, who leads the Honey Research Unit at New Zealand’s Waikato University. He has spent nearly twenty years studying the antimicrobial and antibacterial properties of honey and how it might be used to treat skin infections, burns and wounds.
He says, “For over 10 years, I have scientifically investigated what many local New Zealanders have accepted as common wisdom: our local Manuka honey is a superior treatment for wounds and infections”.
As you can imagine, putting gooey honey on wounds can be a messy ordeal, never mind trying to keep it in place with a bandage. Well, Dr Molan has come up with a solution. He has developed a special type of rubbery bandage, manufactured from Manuka Honey. It is non-sticky and can be easily cut and moulded into shape.
Truck driver Chris Graham had this unpleasant experience: “”I got bitten by an Alsatian. It grabbed my hand and gave me a five-stitch bite. So I went off to the doctors, and they solely used Manuka honey, nothing else, no other treatment. I’ve got barely a scar now, and that’s only three weeks ago. Now in the medical kit I carry in the truck, I have Manuka honey and bandages, and that’s all.”
But Manuka Honey also has internal uses. It’s been found to be effective against certain stomach ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome.
I hope you will look on honey now as more than something to spread on toast. It’s also not just the food of the gods, but truly a Gift from the Gods.
Ivan Maxwell is a speaker and author specialising in health and well-being. You can find out more about the secret uses of honey at http://www.manukahoneysecrets.com/.
Health Benefits Of Honey
I remember as a kid, whenever I would get a sore throat, the first thing my mother would do would be to boil up some water and throw in a little lemon juice and a heaping tablespoon of honey.
I didn’t ask her why, but I do know that 9 out of 10 times after I’d finish that yummy mixture, my sore throat was gone. Later on in life, as I started to study the health benefits of many foods, I discovered just what it was in the mixture that got rid of my sore throat.
I didn’t ask her why, but I do know that 9 out of 10 times after I’d finish that yummy mixture, my sore throat was gone. Later on in life, as I started to study the health benefits of many foods, I discovered just what it was in the mixture that got rid of my sore throat.
Honey is probably one of natures most wonderful foods. Naturally, this also depends on the quality of the honey itself. Not all honeys are alike so you really have to do your due diligence when buying honey.
The biggest problem with finding a really good honey is that the process by which the bees make honey greatly depends on the flowers from which the pollen is collected. Some plants are better than others and so naturally, some honey is going to be better than others.
Raw honey, in its purest form, which means not adulterated by additives that some companies feel they have to put in, is a powerful anti bacterial and anti fungal substance. Honey is a great energy source and a terrific substitute for processed sugar, which is just plain bad for your health.
But here’s something about honey that few people know. Honey is actually great for applying topically and healing wounds. Honey has been used to treat ulcers and burns for many years in a number of areas around the world.
The United States, which unfortunately has become a “go to your doctor” society, is totally oblivious to the wound healing properties of honey. The reason that honey is such a great healer is because it is composed mostly of glucose and fructose. These two sugars strongly attract water.
So what happens is that honey absorbs the water out of the wound, thus drying it up. It is so simple how it works, yet so incredibly effective.
But the most effective use of honey is internally. Just taking one spoon of honey a day will be enough to eliminate most of the free radicals in your body. The reason for this is because honey raises the levels of antioxidant compounds in your body.
Many controlled studies have been done to show that people on a daily regiment of honey, when given blood tests at the end of the study, showed higher levels of antioxidants. And if all this isn’t enough, honey is absolutely delicious.
Like I said, not all honey is the same and you really have to shop around. You want to look for a honey that is as natural as possible. Your best bet is with your local health food store, though even there you have to be careful.
The health benefits of honey are numerous. And it tastes great too. It’s almost like heaven on Earth. To YOUR Health!
Steve Wagner. For natural treatments to a number of ailments, visit our website at http://www.natures-healing-remedies.com/ where you can get a free report on how the drug companies are killing us as well as get a 52 week series on a different ailment and treatment each week.
Also taggedTeaspoon of Cinnamon Lowers Blood Sugar
Adding some cinnamon to your dessert may temper the blood sugar surge that follows a sweet treat, a new study suggests.
Researchers at Malmo University Hospital in Sweden found that adding a little more than a teaspoon of cinnamon to a bowl of rice pudding lowered the post-meal blood sugar rise in a group of healthy volunteers.
The findings, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, add to evidence from past studies that cinnamon may aid in blood sugar control. However, it’s too early to prescribe cinnamon as a therapy for diabetes, a disorder in which blood sugar levels soar because the body cannot properly use the sugar-regulating hormone insulin.
Dr. Joanna Hlebowicz and her colleagues based their findings on 14 healthy volunteers who had their blood sugar measured before and after eating a bowl of rice pudding; each volunteer was tested after eating plain rice pudding and after having a cinnamon-spiced version.
Post-pudding blood tests, which were taken repeatedly over 2 hours, showed that volunteers’ blood sugar rose to a lesser degree when they had the cinnamon dessert.
One reason for the effect seems to be that cinnamon slows the rate at which food passes from the stomach to the intestines, according to Hlebowicz’s team. Using ultrasound scans, they found that the volunteers showed a slower rate of “gastric emptying” when they ate the cinnamon rice pudding.
Whether people with diabetes should start spicing their diets with cinnamon remains to be seen. One small study, Hlebowicz and her colleagues note, found that when people with type 2 diabetes added cinnamon to their diets for 40 days, their blood sugar and cholesterol levels tended to dip.
On the other hand, a recent study found no such benefits among people with type 1 diabetes.
Further studies focusing on people with diabetes are still needed, Hlebowicz and her colleagues conclude.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, June 2007.
Also taggedTheory of the Nude in Fine Art
My friends and family often ask me why so many artists paint (as they say) “naked people”. Some think that the nude is only pornography, while others just think that it’s out-dated in the art world. Most artists will tell you something along the lines of “we don’t see them as ‘naked’ we just see beauty”.
Though this may be true, it doesn’t answer our question. As a classically trained artist myself I have a theory on why people make art using the nude. I think the first step in understanding the nude in art is to understand why people made them in the past, and why they continue to make them.
There are three basic categories of nudes, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive (sometimes they overlap):
The Ideal Nude:
Originating with the Greeks, the ideal nude is just a concept really, the basis of which was most clearly explained by Plato. He stated that within all things there is a universal and divine “form” that defines it. For example: if you look at 100 trees, each individual tree will look different, yet they are all similar enough to categorize them as trees.
What is the sameness or underlying quality of the tree which makes it a tree? This thing, this sameness, Plato called form. Greek artists took this idea and tried to find the ideal form of the human body.
They used shapes in the human body, much like a musician would use musical notes to form a chord. The idea was to create a harmony through repetition and variation of certain visual elements of the body.
Excellent examples of this are, of course, classical Greek and Roman sculpture, Leonardo da Vinci (who also could be mentioned in all of these categories for different works), Donatello, Rafael, and the Neo-classicists of the 19th century.
The Observed Nude:
Originating in the Fayum portraits of ancient Greece in a technique of painting called Encaustic, which uses wax as a medium for pigment instead of oil or water. The main purpose of this originated in portraiture and was all about trying to capture the individual’s personality and particular appearance.
Great examples of this can be found in the paintings of Rembrandt, John Singer Sargent, and ancient Roman portrait busts.
The Expressive Nude:
This form is intended to do just what the name implies. The nude is used here as the main vehicle for the artist’s expression, usually with emotive, and in the case of the Renaissance, devotional purposes.
Great examples would be the work of Michelangelo (who could be classified under ideal nude as well) and most of the artists of the modern period: Rodin, Picasso, Matisse, Kathe Kollwitz, Edvard Munch, and Paul Gauguin etc…
I would like to rephrase our original question in the interest of brevity and to be more specific. “Why is it that the most recurring subject in all of art history by far is the human face and body?”
Modern scientific research also gives us a clue to the reasons behind our question. The human face and the human body are psychologically stimulating to the mind. Our brains are actually hard wired to recognize human form.
Take, for example, a chimpanzee. If you look at three different chimps for 5 seconds, would you be able to tell them apart as individuals? Now if you look at three human faces for 5 seconds, I bet your success rate will be much greater. But a chimp can recognize and differentiate between other chimps much easier, just as you can recognize a human face much easier.
You might say, Ok I understand why we look at faces, that makes sense, but why nude? Well there are multiple reasons. First (and least important to me) is tradition. There is a long tradition predating even the Egyptians of recreating the human body.
So, as a method of teaching art, there are lots of people who have done it before and so there are a lot of excellent techniques and examples for artistic training that have been developed which apply to other forms of art as well.
Second, it is a test of skill. If one can make a believable representation of something that we are so familiar with, then everything else is a piece of cake. If I paint a chimpanzee you would be less critical of whether it looks real or not than a human face, simply because most of us don’t see chimps every day for our entire lives.
Some artists get caught up in this challenge for perfection and are never satisfied with their degree of skill, (I know I never am) and so continue to pursue impossible perfection even though most people might not see the minute faults of the work which the artist does. -
The next passage includes much of my opinion on the subject and is not intended to force my views on anyone, but merely to share another point of view.
Third, (and most importantly to me) the nude, when I choose to paint it, is representative of something more than observation.
My works are meant to evoke complex emotions or thoughts in the viewer, and are not meant to be decorative, though beauty is important to me. Since nudity is not often seen in normal everyday settings, it implies that there is something more to the interpretation. It makes the piece more intimate.
For me, art is about conveying the complexity of life; its joy and its sorrow. If I paint a nude with a certain degree of sexuality implied, it is to communicate the dual nature of every human being. All of us, from the most pious, to the most base, from the greatest ideals of compassion and love, to fear and jealousy; we are all torn between what we are and what we wish to be.
We all have some desire to do or see something greater than what is before us, and we all struggle with the desire for immediate pleasure. It is this tension between our animal and divine sides that I attempt to evoke; and in doing so, perhaps to help myself and others understand a little bit more about being human.
By Richard Scott, 2007. Richard Scott is a figurative artist in Brooklyn, New York. He holds an MFA in painting from the distinguished New York Academy of Art, and is also a published art theorist. To view his art and read more, visit the Joelle-Scott gallery at www.memoreejoelle.org
Also tagged nudity
