June, 2011 - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for June, 2011

Testing New Post

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Testing to see what happens with a new post.

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Coconut Oil and Alzheimers

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

copyright 2011 the Bettina Network, inc.

We had a great discussion around the breakfast table on Coconut Oil.  I pass it along to you.  You can put it in Bettina’s Blog, if you like.  Maybe other houses in the Bettina Network of bed & breakfast homes would like to start the discussion around their breakfast tables to see what surfaces.

The conversation came from my having seen a segment of the Dr. Oz show which had Dr. Mercola on as a special guest.  Thanks to you, I now subscribe to Dr. Mercola’s newsletter at mercola.com so he was no stranger when I saw him on Dr. Oz. The topic of Coconut Oil came up and to my surprise, they were very positive about it.

I am from the generation which was told Coconut Oil is bad and you shouldn’t use it ever.  It was put in the category of trans fats and could wreck everything from your heart to you liver to your total health and decrease your life expectancy.  I listened to that, in spite of the fact that my great-grandmother used nothing but Coconut Oil.  I am, you see, from the generation of people who trashed what they were told growing up in favor of what they hear from their peers and the spin on everything the marketing people spread around the globe.  It has taken a couple decades, but I am a reformed family negater and am doing my best to recover the information and wisdom which had been passed on to me by various family members.  The longer I live, the more I am shown their wisdom and information was real and long lasting.  It stood the test of many generations and is still very viable.

I am a part of the women who have just been liberated, who are roughly akin to first generation immigrants who discard their culture, their language, their family’s wisdom in favor of what they find in their new country.  Maybe I have just started to pass that ‘newbie’ space and am moving on to recovering who I am and who the women were in my family.  I owe them a lot, which i did not repay nor acknowledge.  Trying to say thank you as I recover what I’ve almost lost and grieving over my actual losses of the wisdom and stories the woman in my family tried to pass on to me is overwhelming for me right now.  The damage sexism has done to women continues to add-up.  I do my best to hold it up for the next generation to see and understand.

I first came upon Coconut Oil in a new light at my daughters house. They had this huge container of Coconut Oil, which they used for everything.  I was appalled and was sure they were destroying their health and worse, the health of my grandchildren.

When a guest started talking about the Dr. Oz show and Coconut Oil – I had seen the same show and was doing research into Coconut Oil because of the conflict between my daughters using Coconut Oil; the information I was raised with; and the prevailing information about Coconut Oil out in the ether.

Dr. Mercola talked about Coconut Oil being something which possibly could reverse Alzheimer’s.  Which to me meant it could probably also reverse my forgetting nouns and proper names.  The conversation around breakfast was fairly heated because one gentleman decided only people who were uneducated could really seriously consider using Coconut Oil after everything ‘science’ has discovered about ‘these foods’. As he talked I immediately defended Coconut Oil because he set off an old feeling which arises when people talk about ‘these people’.  Is this a minority food?  Is this food threatening to some industry which doesn’t want or like the competition?

I checked out Bettina’s Blog and found we have an article on the blog about massaging after a shower with Coconut Oil.  Wow! Ahead of the curve?

As the conversation progressed, we heard – if the guests were correct – there is no ‘good science’ around Coconut Oil being a very negative food which raises your cholesterol.  The tests which the marketing people push, were done with partially hydrogenated Coconut Oil – so the Oil iself didn’t stand a chance.  The test results were pre-determined to make it look bad.

When one uses Organic, Expeller Pressed and whatever other words were thrown out during breakfast, it turns out Coconut Oil is a good food.  All the words meant that Coconut Oil should be bought and used unadulterated without being processed and without being full of additives or hydrogenated.  So off I went to buy my Coconut Oil and try the massages, adding Coconut Oil to everything I cook – although I can’t quite get into taking four tablespoons of the Oil daily for the Alzheimers cure – it sounded pretty gross and I am hoping that with no Alzheimers nor dementia in the family I will avoid that one.

I should read Bettina’s Blog a little more diligently so I don’t pass over breakfast conversations like the one you put out on Coconut Oil and Massage.  I am going to massage my scalp with Coconut Oil and let it sit for a time before washing my hair.  Maybe it will reverse the beginnings of hair loss I am experiencing.  It can’t do any harm and I am way ahead of the game if my hair starts to grow in thick and shiny and beautiful.  Isn’t that what was used in the Hawaiian Islands for generations – before the U. S. introduced them to all this other stuff – and they were healthy and beautiful people with thick, shiny hair?

Ed Note:  Thank you for this article.  I would like to add a brief conversation we had over breakfast about using Coconut Oil in a Latté by putting it in the milk before the milk has air whipped into it.  The taste is supposed to be excellent, but I must put in the caveat that we have not tried this. The person who told us about this use for Coconut Oil used skim milk.  We are not fans of skim milk because we think it is an unhealthy way to go so when we try it, we will try it with whole milk – raw if possible, as untampered with as we can find if we can’t find raw milk.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Estate Sales and the Environment!

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

Copyright 2011 The Bettina Network, inc.

It is no secret that the Bettina Network is expanding into estate sales/auctions/etc.  It is one of the things that just about every Bettina Host Family enjoys and uses to maximize the profit from their bed & breakfast, to help the environment and to enjoy a day out going from one sale to the other “kibbitzing”.

As we gave some thought and discussion to this phenomena we realized that we have not been to a department store, hardware store, shopping mall, etc for quite a long time.  The only place we shop, other than estate sales, is the grocery store and we generally only buy food at the grocery stores because things like aluminum foil, bags, paper products, etc. even clothes, shoes and some toiletries can always be found in a house sale for very little money.

The last sale we went to was full of hand crocheted pot holders, dish towels, place mats, and an exquisite hand embroidered table cloth.  Over $700 in the stores, but $50 at the house sale.  Someone’s grandmother probably spent a couple years making the table cloth and it was hardly used – kept for special occasions – except special occasions for us turns out to be breakfasts and we really use those table cloths and other table accoutrements.

We had been given a pot holder as a gift not long ago along with an oven mitt by friends of ours who were very excited about the new materials on the market.  I put a hand crocheted pot holder and this new, red, greasy looking but not greasy feeling pot holder side by side and started to research the two on the computer.  What I discovered was the new red pot holder was made from petroleum products and the hand crocheted pot holder was grown and spun from cotton.  What a difference!!!  Why go to the trouble of trying to drive less to save gas and do all the other things we are being encouraged to do to limit the amount of oil we use when new products are constantly coming on the market which are made form petroleum.  Products for which we have perfectly acceptable materials out of which they have been made for generations.

Even products that our parents and grandparents used without thinking for cuts, burns, etc. are made of petroleum – ie Vaseline ‘Petroleum’ Jelly.  What is wrong with using aloe very gel or juice or the entire plant?  It is one that can be put on a cut or burn or bruise with good results and you can drink a glass of it with or without water to double the affect.

I am sure you and I could go down the list and find many products to eliminate so we don’t overwhelm our bodies and environment with oil products and used the real things instead.  What a new, clean way to live.

We needed paint this week – and found the exact color we needed at a house sale; I have several very elegent designer dresses from a house sale; a much needed comfortable chair for one of our bedrooms at a yard sale and many, many pillows.

How do you deal with cleaning the things you buy?  We throw the pillows in the washing machine on ‘sanitize’ and then into the drier and they all come out beautiful.  We cleaned the chair with an upholstery and rug cleaner and on top of that put the pillows on the chair into the drier on ‘sanitize’ and we were off to put the money we saved under our mattresses:)

Now which bed & breakfast are we talking about?  And are you going to strip the beds and look under every mattress from now on when you stay at a Bettina Home to see if you can find which one is being used as a bank?

Send us your ideas as to how to live a life without all of the oil, petroleum, and other horrible products which create health problems for us in the future – and – how to find and use those natural products which are still on the market, although for most you will have to go to house and estate sales, especially if you want to find real cottong (which was grown in a field full of sunshine) or real silk which was spun by the butterflies, etc.

______________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.


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