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All We Want for Christmas is a Backyard Bat House (Not Kidding!)

November 24, 2016 by Tammy Robinson Leave a Comment

You might have seen these strange looking boxes on Pinterest or Facebook and wondered what kind of strange bird used such a flat house? Then you looked closer and realized they were bat houses. As in HOUSES for BATS!

Perhaps you never thought about a bat house as a Christmas gift, but perhaps you should!

Don’t freak out! Bats are nothing like they are portrayed in the movies. They aren’t dangerous, they won’t get caught in your hair, and they are super good for you and your family. Seriously, they are. Keep reading.

Why Bats Are SO Important

Most people are not aware that bats eat upwards of 1,000 insects each night (depending on the species, of course, some eat much more). This means fewer mosquitoes, no-see-ums, and other biting insects.

This means that, not only can we use fewer insecticides or insect repellants, bats can help to prevent the diseases that these biting insects can pass along. Fewer bugs and less disease, wow. That sounds like a bargain, doesn’t it?

Bats are also, depending on the ecosystem, important for the pollination of plants. In fact, some plants are entirely dependent on bats to either pollinate their flowers or spread their seeds. Some plants that depend on bats would be dates, figs, mangoes, and bananas.

Still other bats eat the insects that tend to damage crops. That means by letting bats do our work for us, we can use fewer pesticides on our food. Everyone would agree that this is a good thing!

Bats are also considered to be “indicator species”. This means that changes in bat populations can predict changes in aspects of biodiversity.

By the way, let’s not forget about bat poop, which is called guano. This is super beneficial for plants. You can find bat guano for sale in almost every nursery in the world. Bat guano contains tons of potassium, nitrogen, and phosphates, which plants love.

Last but not least, did you know that a compound extracted from bat saliva has been turned into an anticoagulant drug that is used on those who have suffered a stroke?

There are so many good things that bats can offer us!

OK, now you are saying “That’s fine, but why don’t they just find a nice cave or a tree trunk to sleep in?” Good question.

Why Bat Houses Are Important

Unfortunately, many natural bat habitats have been destroyed or access has been closed off. By putting up a few bat houses around your property, you can offer bats a safe place to sleep during the day and a nice place to raise their young. This also gives bats a better place to live that they will prefer to your attic! In turn, bats will keep your yard free from most insects and provide you with free fertilizer!

Contrary to popular belief, bats don’t carry rabies since they don’t come into contact with other mammals. They also won’t fly into your hair (unless you put your head directly under the box) and they won’t bother your kids or pets.

You can find tons of information about how to build your own bat house and where to place it, online. Or, if you aren’t the handy type, you can buy them premade.

Check out a short video of bats living inside a bat house, check out this short video

We hope you will consider putting up a bat house (or two) in your backyard.

Why Don’t Mickey D’s Hamburgers go Bad? It’s Not What You Might Think

August 27, 2016 by Tammy Robinson Leave a Comment

Have you seen the latest video making the rounds on social media sites regarding hamburgers? In this video, Buzzfeed put hamburgers from 7 different fast food joints in glass jars and waited 30 days to see what would develop. (Excuse the pun).

After 30 days, some were covered in mold and other yucky things, but not the burger from Mickey D’s. In fact, it looked exactly the same as the day they put it in the jar! You can see that short video here.

What the actual heck is going on ? Are Mickey D’s burgers made from space cows? Do they use some type of Alien wheat that doesn’t grow mold?

While there is no doubt that the visual part of this experiment can be nerve rattling, there are a few things you should take into consideration.

How Does Mold Grow

Mold grows wherever there are sufficient levels of moisture and when mold spores are present (which is on just about everything). With this knowledge in hand, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, restaurant chef and blogger, created his own experiment in an attempt to find out why this one burger appeared to be ageless.

There are 5 main things that would stop mold from growing; some type of preservative, a high salt content in the meat, low moisture levels in the bun and/or meat, no air where the burger was made, and no mold spores ever coming into contact with the hamburger, EVER.

Well, it’s fairly obvious that the burgers were exposed to air and weren’t made in the vacuum of space! And since mold spores are pretty much everywhere (although some are killed on the burger itself when it is cooked), Lopez-Alt threw out these two ideas.

The ingredient list for the buns from all locations was pretty much the same. All fast food companies state that their meat is 100 percent beef, so there is no difference there. So this chef decided to make some of his own handmade burgers and compare them with Mickey D’s. A total of 9 different burgers were made, some from McDonald’s (mixing up a few buns and patty combinations) and several made at home by Lopez-Alt.

He made some burgers with extra salt, some with no salt, and he used a variety of buns from local supermarkets. He wore gloves in all phases of cooking and even when touching the McDonald’s burgers to ensure he did not contaminate them with anything from his skin.

All 9 burgers were left sitting on a plate in the open air of his kitchen for three weeks.

The Results

After three weeks, all burgers looked exactly the same. NONE of them had grown any mold. Those with no salt looked the same as the ones with extra salt, which looked exactly the same as the McDonald’s burger.

However, when the burgers were weighed, this is where the difference was found. Every single burger had lost at least 25 percent of their weight in the first week alone. This means they had lost their moisture and were dry. Mold must have moisture to grow.

McDonald’s tends to use very thin meat patties with quite a bit of surface area. This allows them to dry out very fast before they can grow mold. If you were to take a McDonald’s burger and put it directly in a plastic bag, which would seal in the moisture, it would be filled with mold quickly.

But What About the Video?

Since we don’t know anything about where or how these burgers were sealed, it leaves quite a few unanswered questions.

Were the burgers sealed immediately after purchase?
Where were they purchased? For example, burgers in Florida in the summer months would be subjected to a great deal more moisture than burgers in Phoenix.
Do other fast food restaurants use thicker meat patties?
In the video, the McDonald’s burger had cheese, but we don’t see cheese on every burger
Were there any condiments added or removed?

In order to compare things, you need to have all burgers tested be subjected to the exact same procedures. Since the video doesn’t tell us more, we can only guess.

The Bottom Line

Of course, we are not suggesting that this means you should eat Burger King Hamburgers for lunch several times a week, simply because this video shows that they grew mold. Most fast food restaurants burger meals exceed everyone’s daily recommended amount of sugar, salt, and fat.

We should be objecting to the nutritional content of fast food meals, and not waste time speculating on why this burger did not grow mold.

Top Reasons Why Your “Hidden Cancer Cure” Conspiracy is a Washout

August 25, 2016 by Tammy Robinson 1 Comment

There are several popular meme’s making the rounds on social media, saying that a cure for cancer has been found, but is suppressed because….money.

Of course, the idea that someone would withhold a cure for anything, even the common cold, simply to make money is reprehensible to everyone. Strong feelings cause people to stop thinking, however, and blindly follow whatever is popular and easy to understand, even if it’s wrong.

Let’s take a look at the top reasons why those “cancer conspiracies” don’t work.

Researchers and Their Families Get Cancer Too

To believe in the hidden conspiracy, you would have to agree that researchers and those who “know the cure” are willing to let their family members, friends, and others die because of money. To do this, you would have to believe that an entire company or group of scientists have all vowed to not release this information so others can make money off of chemo and surgery. It’s simply not human nature and it’s simply not possible.

Researchers Would Be Famous, as Well as Rich

If a single scientist, or a group of researchers, were to discover a cure, they would not only be rich, but they would be famous for all eternity! Think of Louis Pasteur and Jonas Salk, people who didn’t find a cure for cancer, but helped to stop disease. Everyone knows their names! The researchers who discovered the cure would get far more money than their salary, including a Nobel Prize, schools and buildings named after you, and a legacy beyond compare. Do you honestly think someone would give all that up so a chemo company could make some shareholders happy?

Think the Fed’s Are In on It?

Many of these conspiracy theories believe that the government has told these companies to suppress the secret, but there are two glitches in this equation:

Governments with socialized medicine would drastically cut costs. Why should they sit by and struggle for money while other nations get rich off of the chemo and surgery route?
They would literally have to kill everyone who knows about the cure. If you knew, but were paid to keep it quiet, and found out your mother, husband, sister, etc., had cancer – would you sit by and watch them suffer?

What Profit Would Insurance Companies Get from This?

If anyone with an internet connection can Google the “cure”, then why wouldn’t insurance agencies, who often pay millions of dollars per person for cancer treatment, want to get to the bottom of this? They aren’t going to spend one dime on you that they don’t have to. If there was a conspiracy somewhere, they would find it.

There Would be Competition

If you are assuming that releasing a “cure” would somehow destroy pharmaceutical companies, think again. There are plenty of companies that would investigate the findings, check out research, and do all kinds of things to try to find a mistake, so they could come up with their own version of the “cure”.

Even if you think that the cure is “natural” and that there is no money for pharmaceutical companies, they would have no trouble marketing their brand of “whatever”. They would make beautiful boxes of, let’s say, Cancer Curing Dandelion Tea.” The marketing potential alone would be astronomically profitable. Some company would be sure to research how mixing dandelion with other elements, such as cinnamon, would somehow be better for you. Companies already do this sort of thing with orange juice. What makes you think they wouldn’t do it with a “natural” cure and make money?

Not All Medical Research Companies Are For Profit Agencies

Many people mistakenly believe that all research is funded by corporations. This isn’t true. Many Universities around the world conduct research and rely on donations, such as from the American Cancer Society. Many scientific breakthroughs come from non-profit organizations. There is nothing to stop them from finding the “cure.”

The truth is that, when faced with the ugly consequences of cancer, people become desperate and seek out something, or someone, to blame. Very few people like or trust big companies, believing they got there through theft or deceit. When it comes to cancer, you should trust your doctors that they are doing whatever medical treatment has been deemed to be the best for your situation. There really is no such thing as big pharma conspiracy, folks, no matter what Facebook or Twitter might say.

Cupping: Crazy or Cool? We Set the Facts Straight!

August 10, 2016 by Tammy Robinson Leave a Comment

If you are like us, you are watching the Olympics and enjoying these superb athletes compete against each other. Then Michael Phelps comes on the screen and you wonder “WTH is wrong with his skin? He’s covered in purple/red splotches! Is that pepperoni or what?”

It’s called cupping and it’s been around for eons. It’s said to help relieve aches and pains, relieving those painful muscle knots.

We know what you are thinking, does this actually work? Is it safe? Is it cool or just plain crazy? We are going to tell you the facts so you can make up your own mind.

What Exactly Is Cupping and How is it Done?

There are two methods to cupping. The original, old fashioned method, developed thousands of years ago by the Chinese, is to heat the inside of a glass “cup” with the flame from a candle, then immediately put the cup on the skin. This draws the skin up inside the cup, heating it, and causing those red spots.

A newer method involves a tiny suction pump that is built into a special glass “cup”. The cup is placed on the desired spot, then the suction pump is used until the skin is drawn up into the cup. This is much more intense than the candle method and involves more intense bruising to the skin. This appears to be the method that is being used by most of the Olympic athletes.

Cupping isn’t new. It’s been around for centuries, but has recently gained the world’s attention because of the appeal that goes along with the idea that if professional athletes do it, it must be great, right?

Does it Actually Work or is This Just Woo?

This is the $64,000 question that doesn’t really have a definitive answer. While some scientific studies have found that it help with a few problems, such as herpes zoster, acne, and facial paralysis, other studies have found that it did nothing more than turn the skin red.

Ancient Chinese medicine didn’t actually use this as a means of muscle recovery, or even to relieve sore muscles, but to restore the flow of “qi”, which is something like the “life force” that flows through everything.

There have been a few studies done which found that cupping relieved pain in cancer patients and for those with lower back pain, however, these were two small trials that had limited conclusions.

More Facts

There are numerous types of cupping, with the most common method being called Dry Cupping, which is the type that the Olympic athletes appear to be using. Although repeated cupping effects over a long period of time have not yet been studied, at least in most cases, this practice appears to be safe.

The problem with testing the effects of cupping is that it is impossible to get a control group. In tests with substances, you can give people a sugar pill and they won’t know if they are receiving the real thing or not. With cupping, it’s impossible to tell someone they are getting cupping when they aren’t. So it is unknown how much of the “results” patients report are due to the placebo effect.

Athletes Love Woo

Most professional athletes are willing to try just about anything if they feel it will improve their performance. If you remember, at the London games of 2012, the rage was Kinesio tape. Most athletes wore blue or red tape over certain parts of their bodies, believing that it either helped muscles recover faster, or that it would prevent injury. After the games, the tape fell out of favor because it proved to do neither.

This will probably be the case with cupping, but if it returns to the 2020 games, it might be that cupping has some type of benefit!

There Can Be Dangers, However

While cupping, in general, appears to be safe, if not done properly, by skilled practitioners, it can be dangerous.

Cupping is designed to be a quick therapy. If left on too long, cupping has resulted in second degree burns and infections. In one case, a Chinese man, living in Australia, received third degree burns after repeated cupping treatments to cure his frozen shoulder.

While complaints are rare, they do happen. Never attempt to do this at home with friends and never allow someone who is not experienced to perform this on you.

The Bottom Line

While some studies show that cupping can work to improve some skin issues, such as acne or herpes zoster, there are no studies showing that cupping actually does anything at a deeper level. We need more studies done in this area before we can reach a definite conclusion.

If you have had cupping therapy, we would love to hear your experiences.

Camel Milk – Yes, It’s a Thing Now: What You Should Know

August 5, 2016 by Tammy Robinson Leave a Comment

Have you heard yet about camel milk? Yes, we mean the camel hump day commercial type desert camel.

Apparently it’s the latest health craze and people say that even those allergic to everything can drink camel milk. It’s also reported to cure everything from diabetes, IBS, and autism.

No, we aren’t kidding.

Although it’s hard to understand who, except the starving, would have ever tried to milk a smelly, obnoxious, kicking, grunting, spitting, foul breathed camel, but someone did and now, it’s a thing.

Before you plop down your hard earned money for a pint of hump juice, get all the facts.

Can Camel Milk Help Diabetics?

Well, it’s a big maybe. Although people are claiming that it can, literally, “cure” diabetes, there is no proof. There are a few studies which have found that this type of milk might improve control of blood sugar, but these were just preliminary studies. Another limited study found that camel milk might help those with Type 1 diabetes use less insulin. This study involved only 24 individuals, but it might prove to be a good jumping off point. Further studies are really needed to see how this works and if it can be used to lessen people’s dependence on insulin.

Doesn’t Camel Milk Stop or Prevent Allergies?

There were even fewer studies done regarding any benefit for allergies, however, these studies were poorly done and of little benefit. There should be better, larger studies coming out in the near future, but as of today, all we have a personal stories about how drinking camel milk helped with food allergies or sensitivities.

Can It Help Autistic Children?

Again ,this is another big maybe. In one small study, 60 autistic children received raw camel milk for a two week period, 24 children received pasteurized camel milk, and 11 received cow milk. Blood tests showed that both groups of children who received camel milk had less oxidative stress, as well as showing improvement in both cognitive and behavioral tests for autism.

This was a very small study, however, and more tests need to be done before anyone can list camel milk as a cure for anything.

The Good News

Now there is some good news to report; camel milk is very high in vitamin C. It is also lower in vitamin A than cow’s milk and appears to be tolerated by those who are lactose intolerant. Camel milk is slightly lower in total fat and saturated fat, however, it still has just as much protein and calories.

There are a few interesting facts about camels and camel milk that you might find interesting.

Camel milk, unlike cow’s milk, cannot be made into butter.
While it can be made into cheese, it is a difficult process.
It also doesn’t curdle like cow’s milk does.
The Abu Dhabi Officer’s Club offers camel burgers.
They also serve camel milk based cappuccinos, called camelccinos.
Bubonic plague has been transmitted to humans by eating camel liver.
People in Northern Kenya enjoy drinking camel blood.
Some parts of Australia serve Camel lasagna.
One ancient Roman emperor, Heliogabalus, loved eating the heel of the camel.

Oh, and in case you were interested, camel milk appears to come from the type with one hump, not two, although the reasons for this aren’t clear, at least, not to me.

The FDA recently approved the sale of camel milk in the US, but with a mere 3,000 camels in the US and imports being tightly restricted, the cost of camel milk is astronomical when compared to cow or goat milk, especially when one considers that there really are no proven benefits.