When I first read that the Canadian company Upaya Naturals provided online customers with raw food delights, I wondered what kind of idiot can’t just buy a raw carrot from the local food store and eat it.  Even if you are a shut-in, local stores deliver, so where is the market for Upaya Naturals?

Silly me. Upaya Naturals provides online shoppers with hard to find, all natural, vegan cheeses and ice creams that actually taste good while providing lots of nutrients.They arrive on ice to your very doorstep, where you can be waiting, crackers in hand, or spoon in fist, in eager anticipation of the yummy, delectable treats that are being delivered to your home. 

Cashew-based Ice Cream. It tastes like dairy ice cream, without the guilt.

If you find the wait too exciting, be sure to order aromatherapy essential oils that calm the nerves, and smell divine.

Get all of your favourite blender recipes at the ready also. Upaya Naturals carriesVitamix and Blendtec blenders, the cadillac of blenders/juicers on the market today. You can prepare bread mixtures, and soups, as well as smoothies and ice creams, without having to fiddle with numerous attachments. Push a button and you are off to the races.

The Vitamix Deluxe 5200 is touted as the best blender on the market, but the following videos offer conflicting evidence in this regard. You can also buy Vitamix at your friendly neighbourhood Costco store, if interested. You can save yourself the shipping fees that way, as they are presently on sale, and therefore cost the same as ordering from the company online. Ask for a demo before you buy.

The Vitamix Blendtec Kitchen Aid Challenge. You decide. The facts in these two videos conflict. Kitchen Aid is far less expensive and appears to do the trick.

The Vitamix Blendtec Challenge. 

 Why pay for Blendtec or for Vitamix if Kitchen Aid is just as efficient, if not moreso?  And it’s half the price at $199.00 How do they all fare with breadmaking? We want more tests please, before we take a Vitamix home!

Upaya Naturals also carries Superfoods, Greens etc. that are vegan-friendly. Power up so that you will have th strength inyour arms to lift that spoonful of healthy cashew-based ice cream to your lips, over and over again. After all, you have many delectable flavours to try. You need muscle mass.

So please, do yourself a favour and check out Upaya Naturals’ website.

I can hardly wait to try the cashew-based ice creams. I have never tried them before, but everyone says that they are great. I know that there are some almond and soy-based ice creams that are out there these days that are absolutely delicious. I wonder if the cashew-based ice creams give them a run for their money?

And don’t forget to brush your teeth! Yep. Upaya Naturals carries healthy,  flouride-free tooth cleansers also. And skincare products. And the kitchen sink. Okay, everything but.

Speaking of the kitchen sink. Upaya Naturals carries one of, if not the best, water filtration systems on the market today: Wellness Kitchen S-III Filtration. This countertop water filtration system can also be easily mounted under the sink with the purchase of an adapter kit. What is most wonderful about this Wellness filtration system is that trace mineral that we need for our health are added back to the water supply after filteration has occurred. If you are concerned about pharmaceuticals, heavy metals and fecal matter making it into your drinking and bathing water, this filtration system will give you the quality of water and the peace of mind you need.

Unless, of course, you enjoy all those pharmaceuticals in your water!

Perhaps we could just bottle it and sell it ourselves to those chronics residing in families that have purchased water filters.

Hmmm.

Just an evil, entrepreneurial thought.

Pat.

A strong back. Excellent posture. Good bone and muscle density. Strong, healthy joints. How to maintain this state of affairs as time and traumas march on. That is the key.

Exercise of a reasonable nature obviously factors into the equation. Reasonable, of course, depends upon what traumas you have indeed experienced to various parts of your anatomy. Diet, also, is an obvious consideration. Muscle building proteins and anti-oxidant rich, vitamin-packed foods and/or supplements, all can contribute to the maintenance and repair of the human body at any stage in the game. Adequate rest and stress management are also essential to good health, as we all know.

I cannot begin to tell you how much assistance my family, friends and I have personally experienced  over the last twenty years, from magnetic insoles and magnetic mats. And that is no bull.
Magnetic fields can have anti-inflammatory properties. Asthma and muscle and joint pain all lessen in their severity with magnetic therapy. Colds heal faster. So do ‘flus. I am not going to try to convince you. Try magnetic insoles and a magnetic sleeping mat for yourself. You will be amazed at their effectiveness.

I personally do not sleep on a magnetic mat or wear magnetic insoles all of the time. Some people swear that magnetic insoles and mats can be utilized all of the time, and the body does not get “immune” to them, but I am not willing to find out if that is true or not, since they work so well when I need to use them sporadically when my immune system feels compromised, or when I need my joints and spinal muscles to be amazingly strong for periods of heavy lifting and carrying demanded by my workplace.

Magnetic fields can assist in detoxification, so if you are sleeping on a magnetic mat, it is wise to drink extra water, as magnetic fields may also have a dehydrating effect as they compell the body to get rid of any toxic build-up it may have. Many people find that they sleep like a baby on the magnetic mats. At other times, attempting to sleep on the mat is almost impossible, as one is charged with excess energy. That is when one no longer needs to sleep on the mat. Whatever was making you sluggish has been resolved, and you can put the mat away until you need it again.

Generalising from my personal experience and that of many people that I know, magnetic fields help sprains heal faster, and if applied prior to the stress, they can actually prevent sprains and strains from ocurring in the first place. Hence the usefulness of the magnetic insoles.

Magnetic insoles are like wearing an extra kidney belt or knee or wrist brace, in my extensive personal experience with these products. And you truly can jump higher and throw further with these inserts on than without them. When you go to lift up a heavy box, your back remains straight as a board, and your knees never waiver. The sensation in incredible. And a lifesaver. Try arm wrestling while wearing insoles, and then without. A huge difference.
Unless you have a pacemaker, I highly recommend that you give magnetic insoles a try. And the magnetic mat. Nikken makes both. Magnetico makes an amazing mat. Magnetico’s sleeping pad is designed to be safe to sleep on all of the time, whereas it is not recommended to use Nikken’s mats fulltime, as sleeping on them for more than two weeks can undo any of the good they have performed due to the nature of their design.

Check the literature out on both of these magnetic mats for yourself. Check with you alternative health practitioner and your doctor for their advice on the use of magnetic mats and insoles for your personal situation.

Magnetics have been a godsend for my family. They might prove to be just that for your’s also. Magnetico mats can be found at:  http://www.magneticosleep.com. 

Best wishes, Pat.

What the heck is TMJ?

TMJ and bruxism can be treated without medication or mouthguards, apparently, quite successfully. But what the heck is meant by TMJ? I have just been on a billion websites, where TMJ is discussed and an assortment of products offered to aid in its relief.

You would think that someone would tell you what the initials stand for.

Oh, I know; I’m supposed to know it by osmosis. If I stare at the letters TMJ long enough, the correct answer will come to me. Too Much Junk food? Tight Muscled Jaw? Twisted My Junk?

That would give someone bruxism.

What?!

TMJ stands for temporomandibular joint disorder, dysfunction, or syndrome

Now I know why it is called TMJ. It is also known as TMJD or TMD.

You can call it TMJ, or you can call it TMD or you can call it TMJD, but ya doesn’t have ta call it temporomandibular joint disorder/syndrome.

Would it really have been so hard to spell it out completely at least once on someone’s website or sales page?

The temporomandibular joint is the joint on the face that joins the mandible, or lower jaw, to the rest of the skull.  Each TMJ is actually two joints. This enables the TMJ to both rotate and translate.

I beg your pardon.

If someone told me to rotate, I don’t think that I would need much of a translation. They might need a new TMJ or two once they were done, however.

Translate, in this instance, means to be able to slide, and therefore allow the lower jaw to do all those fun movements involved in chewing, talking, and mocking people with overbites.

Speaking of mocking; I wouldn’t be at all surprised if fists had something to do with a lot of men’s TMJ disorders.

Inflammation of these joints can be extremely painful, as well as limiting the usual movement of the jaw. People often suffer from referred pain, manifesting as earaches, due to the close proximity of this joint to the ears.

Temporomandibular joint disorder is often exacerbated by a condition known as bruxism. Bruxism, or bruxing, is the repetitive, unconscious movement of the jaw.

And teeth grinding.

Chronic teeth grinding.

Teeth Grinding How To Stop

Sounding like Yoda gets more traffic hits to my website, so please bear with me!

There are mouth guards available on the market, but doctors don’t advise that you use such shields. Custom-made is the way to go if you choose this avenue of relief.

TMJ NO MORE

If you are fed up of looking like a hockey player in bed, and don’t have the professional “hip-check” to back it up, or make up for the usually less than sexy appeal of this mouth guard, check out this website:   www.TMJNOMORE.com.

The lovely lady who hosts this website was a long-suffering TMJ bruxater herself. She isn’t any more. She is a medical researcher, nutritionist and health consultant. She has found a drug-free, mouthguard-free way to stop her bruxism and TMJ. Many people have benefitted from her research and are no longer suffering from the effects of these reversible conditions. Many have found that their symptoms have not left completely, but are far less marked.

She claims that you can be TMJ-free entirely within two months using her 3-step program, and find great relief from the symptoms within the first twelve hours.

Sandra Carter is her name and she can help your TMJ go away.

Sandra Carter is your number one drug-free resource for: Teeth Grinding How To Stop.

Forever.

And without making all the money in your pocketbook go away too!

Please check out her website. Once again, that is Sandra Carter at www.TMJNOMORE.com.

If you don’t like what you see,

Bite me!

Teeth Grinding HowTo Stop

There, that should do it.

Traffic.

Pat.

And it works!

Better than her expensive hearing aids.

Honest to goodness.

I said that I would find out the name of the product, because I could not get hold of grandma at the time of my post.

I found out the name of the product.

It is the Silver Sonic XL by Bell& Howell.

If I spell it wrong, like this, Bell Howell, fifty million more people will come to my website. So bear with me. I need traffic. So henceforth, that is what I will call it.  Bell Howell.

Thank you for your cooperation!

If you are 92, like Grandma Rea, (pronounced Rae), then you might just have a bit of trouble searching for it on foot. The Silver Sonic XL is available online  at www.ikitchen.com, for less than $25.00. I believe that it is on sale for even less at the time of this post.

Check it out.

In fact, check everything out. The online store is amazing! Excellent goods of all shapes and description, at excellent prices.

Once again, that’s www.ikitchen.com.

And don’t forget to tell them that I sent you!

Pat

Do you know what is kind of funny? My partner J.J.’s grandmother, aged 92, recently spent  $3,000.00 on supposedly high quality hearing aids which have worked poorly for her.

That’s not funny.

That’s quite sad.

What do you think I am, a monster?

What is amazing, not sad, and kind of funny, is that grandma more recently purchased some $25.00 cheap-shit ear piece that is peddled on T.V. infomercials as an aid for hard-of -hearing television viewers to wear when they don’t want to bother other people in the room by cranking up the volume. The batteries for it cost a dollar for two at the neighbourhood Dollarama.

Guess who can hear as clear as a bell?

Grandma Rea, that’s who.

Pronounced Rae.

And she can hear you now, so don’t mess it up.

Tell me if you ever see that infomercial. The one where the old lady is wearing the very obvious, but very stylish, hip, bluetooth-looking ear piece. She eavesdrops on other people’s conversations across the city park. She listens to television sets set at a whisper. She spies on her husband and doesn’t have to rely on lip-reading.

That commercial.

Please let me know the name of that product. We can all afford that product. So if hearing loss is happening to you, try this product first before investing thousands of dollars like Rea and her buddies.

Your kids want that money.

Or it is their money, because you don’t have any.

Speaking of kids; keep this hearing assistive device away from the grandchildren. And parabolic sound enhancers, parabolic dishes, sold in the toy store as an aid for listening to the sounds of nature, by which the advertser means birds.

It doesn’t matter what the advertiser means.

The advertiser is an idiot.

What do you think that children will listen to with any kind of sound amplifier?

That’s right.

Other people’s conversations.

LIke their parents.

And not just their parents’ conversations.

Oh no.

OH NO!

That’s right, music lovers. Those little darlings will listen in on their parents, and their grandparents, more amorous moments. And Lucie, you will have some ’splainin’ to do, if you haven’t got around to the birds and the bees already.

Unless there is nothing to tell.

Because there was nothing to hear.

We’ll do a post on the pros and cons of Viagara and Cialis etc. later on.

My friend died of a massive heart attack using Viagara. He took two hits and went dancing at a night club. The guy was 60, going on 50. Handsome, youthful looking and acting, and wham. Dead as a post.

Danger Will Robinson.

Back to cheap hearing aids that work. I will find the name and post it here. Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

Pat

Lots of wax in your ears? Try ear candles. That’s right. You can make candles from grandpa’s ear wax. Pretty soon, that grandpa will be you, if it isn’t you already.

All joking aside; ear candling is a gentle and soothing way to remove even the most stubborn of wax build-ups from your precious ears. If I just said “your ears,” people would be making “your rears” jokes. We won’t go there.

I guess we just did.

Contrary to any fear-mongerers stories that you might have been told about setting yourself on fire using these babies, ear candles are as safe as their handler. So don’t let some poor soul with Parkinson’s give you a hand in this matter. Ear candling how to takes a steady hand.

Ear candles are constructed out of wonderously-smelling bees wax and a type of linen or cotton. At least the ones that I use are, and they work like a charm. They might actually be charmed, now that I think about it. I get them from The Hedge Witch, a  new agey kind of store in my local village.

A very good friend of mine from the Cobourg area also makes amazing ear candles.They are long, slim, hollow tapers made out of the aforementioned bees wax and cloth. When it comes to ear candles, size definitely matters.

Nay sayers to ear candling contend that the wax that appears in the taper is simply the candle wax, and I am sure that this can be true. If the candles are not made properly, using paraffin-free bees wax, and only a certain amount, I am sure there can be trouble. But my life partner’s grandmother has had stubborn wax build-up for years and finds great relief from the ear candling sessions that have been provided for her. I have seen the wax, and it isn’t from any bee. She has difficulty hearing, at the grand old age of 92, but her hearing always improves after her ear candling sessions. And she is a great skeptic of all things weird.

Health Canada reports that one person, to their knowledge, has been burned by hot candle wax falling in the ear canal, causing permanent damage. Others have had their ear canals blocked by candle wax falling in the ear. Again, people; these ear candles were not constructed properly. I have never seen that happen in my life, and I have been around ear candlers, and used ear candles on others myself, for many years.

A close friend of mine makes excellent ear candles that are in in high demand.  She also states emphatically that the candles have not been constructed properly if this is happening.  She has had twenty years of successfully ear candling people with heavy wax build-up, who find relief from ear candling. It must work for some people, or they would still be complaining of partial deafness. My very skeptical brother included.

My empirical evidence is that the wax drawn gently from the ear, (and you can feel the draw, it is not fictitious as the nay-sayers claim), is not at all the same colour as the bees wax bubbled up inside the cone by the heat.

Ear Candling How To:

To use ear candles, or ear cones, as they are otherwise known, simply lie down on your side with one of your ears facing skyward. Your experienced ear candler will place the tapered end of the ear candle at the opening of your ear canal, gently,– without going into your brain.i.e. not too far.

They will light the end furthest from your head.

If they don’t, they hate you.

The wax from your ear will soften from the gentle heat and travel up the inside of the ear candle. You will experience a gentle drawing feeling if it is working properly. The ear candles do get clogged with the wax periodically, and you will no longer feel a drawing sensation. Simply stop at this point and have your partner remove the wax build-up from the taper, and relight the candle and continue with this procedure until no more wax is coming out of your ear.

Some people need to be ear candled more than once before all of the wax is out of the ear canal. Others don’t need a full taper.

The ear candling practitioner will repeat the procedure for the other ear.

Some people say to keep your ears covered for a day after this procedure, if going outside. Ear wax takes up to 24 hours to return to a normal, protective amount in the ear.

Let’s try some experimenting of our own. If the waxy matter at the bottom of the ear cone or candle is indeed simply melted candle wax, then placing the candle over any orifice would result in the same effect being observed.

No, I am not going to shove a lit ear candle up my ass or my left nostril.

Perhaps my right nostril.

Perhaps someone else’s ass.

Let me think.

“Fluffy! Come to mama!”

Just kidding.

“Fido, come here.”

Actually, take a dummy head and stick the ear candle at the opening of the fake ear canal. If the claims of the scientific community are valid, and there is no drawing of fluids out of the ear, then the same wax residual should be in evidence without an actual ear to draw on, now shouldn’t it?

Yes it should.

I will experiment and post my results, with pictures here. Ear candling how to on a dummy.

No, not me, but thanks.

p.s. If you are wondering about the suddenly strange interjections of Ear Candling How To sporadically throughout the post, that is a search engine term which is supposed to send more traffic to my website. Sorry for the clumsiness of the phrase, but if that’s what it takes to get you wonderful people to come an visit, I am going to do it. Otherwise, I will be talking to myself, and reading my own blogs.

Alone.

I don’t like alone very much.

Only sometimes.

So please put up with the odd weird phraseology.

Thanks!

Pat.