hooray for prunes!

For 15 years, Dr. Bahram Arjmandi has studied how our bodies react to certain foods. His latest study followed Jeffery and more than 100 other women to see if bone density could be improved just by adding dried plums or prunes to their diet.

"I have never seen anything this consistent that not only prevents bone loss but increases bone mass," says Bahram H. Arjmandi, Ph.D., R.D., Professor/Chair of the Department of Nutrition, Food and Sciences at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

Dr. Arjmandi's several successful animal and human studies document that special phenolic compounds in dried plums up-regulate growth factors linked to bone formation (such as IGF-1) and counter the activity of factors that inhibit bone formation (such as TNF-alpha). It probably also helps that prunes are one of the foods highest in antioxidants and also contain generous amounts of various key bone nutrients including potassium, boron, and copper. While Dr. Arjmandi has found other natural substances capable of halting bone loss, prunes were the only food found to actually restore lost bone.

This summer Dr. Arjmandi and colleagues will complete a landmark, controlled human clinical trial on prunes and bone health. For this study, 120 post-menopausal women have been taking either 100 grams of prunes (9-10 a day) or an equivalent portion of dried apples for one year. While it will be a few more months before all the research data is in, thus far 30 women in the prune group have had at least a 6% increase in hip bone, and one woman had an exceptional 11% increase consuming prunes over the year. Preliminary data from a segment of research subjects found that all prune-eaters showed at least some improvement in bone mass by six months into the study.

Interesting, no?  Ladies - rev your engines!  Eat them prunes!

If you are inclined to join us, take Dr. Arjmandi's advice and start slowly with a few prunes a day, working up to the full 9-10 over time. I have found soaked or stewed prunes are easier to digest, and Dr. Arjmandi has found that prunes do not lead to either weight gain or increased blood sugar levels. Also they should help build new bone in men as well as women.

We read in Joshua 4 this morning, where the children of Israel crossed over Jordan.  A lot was mentioned about the 12 stones, and about telling your children what they meant.  I remember hearing how my parents (grandparent... great-grandparent...) heard the gospel - when I was young it was just like a story mom and dad told us.  An exciting one, too - I had the names of the two workers who came to my great-grandma memorized, I remember.  Still do, for that matter.

It's sunny today - at the moment.  Ha.  I hope it stays that way!  

donedonedonedonedone

Hooray!  I'm done!

I don't feel like writing anything, so I am putting up pictures instead. Enjoy!

Photo A:  Gopher whistling.

Photo B:  Yesterday in Conrad. Like the combo of dandelions and 5 ft drifts?

Photo C:  Norm and Joyce Benjamin's - out the front door Wednesday morning.

Photo D:  West Butte a few weeks ago, taken from the Gold Butte cemetary.

Photo E:  Yesterday in Great Falls.

Photo F:  Pelicans; yesterday in Conrad.  Did you know that pelicans fly in spirals?  I don't know if they always do this, but these were spiraling.  Not up like hawks do, but laterally.  One huge circle that overlapped the next huge circle that overlapped the next, and so on.  So that very slowly, they were moving north, though at approximately the same altitude.

Badgers!
They are the new cool thing.
Julia and I went out to the buffalo jump south of Great Falls a bit, and I walked along the cliff, and saw three badgers and a coyote. They were below me maybe 20 ft on a ledge that was about 20 ft wide; just enjoying themselves immensely. I'm pretty sure they didn't know I was there - the badgers, not the coyote. I don't know if he saw me or not; he got up and left but that could have been because of the badger heading straight for him.
If you ever see one, you will recognize it at once by how it runs - from behind, it looks like a flat, fur rug that undulates along. I thought 'raccoon' first, but the tail isn't striped.

Trains Are Good.
I shall enumerate:
* Cheap. * Comfortable. * Close to the scenery, and slow enough to enjoy it. * Good food. (A bit expensive, not what you'd want to be doing regularly, but not so outrageous that you can't splurge for a meal.) * Interesting people. * Train stations! Have you ever noticed the relative coolness factor between train stations and airports? Trains win hands down. * I will admit that it is hard to sleep in the seats, but there are beds available (ever seen a bunkbed on a plane or in your car?), and even if you stick to the seats, they're easier to sleep in than on the plane, and if you're driving, you'd better not be sleeping!

I took the train out to Washington for my grandmother's funeral, and thoroughly enjoyed the trip, both ways, minus one small portion at about midnight somewhere near Spokane when the Co-Passenger From The Netherworld Region of Your Choice had his light on and was talking on his cell phone MUCH too near me.

I left Shelby Monday evening and got into Seattle Tuesday morning. Scott picked me up, and we raced off to Michael's to pick up supplies for a picture board. In the afternoon, (after a nap...) we put it together. It ended up looking really nice, if I do say so myself. Wednesday was just a nice stay-at-home day with my bro. :) And Thursday morning, we picked up Brandon and headed south to Vancouver. The funeral was Friday afternoon and went quite nicely. My aunt, who is Mormon, wanted to sing one of their songs, so all the family (that is, all the family who felt up to singing) did that right at the beginning. I think it sounded quite nice; and then the whole congregation sang a hymn at the end. Jenith Hamon and Darryl Doland spoke. There was a bit of a glitch at the graveside... my aunt and my great-aunt both ended up being late! Auntie Anna got lost. But all ended well, no one got rained on much, and the lost were found. It was really nice to get to see so many Vancouver folks both at the funeral and the dinner following. I haven't seen them for years and years.

I spent Friday night at Mom and Dad's in Olympia, then had a quick-stop visit with Sara Stickland who's on her way back down to California for preps; and lunch with an old roomie in Seattle - and then Scott and I went to the Boeing Aviation Museum. That was fascinating. I wish we'd had more time. I would have liked to have spent a lot of time in the WWI and WWII exhibits. As it was, we dashed through the WWII one, and barely poked our heads into the WWI one. But I did get to see the original, unrestored, first fighter plane built - in Italy. The cloth of the wings has frayed, and some other things, but it is in remarkable condition. I hear that in Everett is the place where they do the actual restoration (lots of the planes; most of them, really, were either replicas or restored) and that is free. I have it on my list of things I'd like to do if I'm ever in the area. The museum in Seattle costs, but is worth every penny.

Then back on the train to come home (this is the segment with the Evil CellPhone User). I splurged for supper - had salmon and rice and vegies and chocolate HaagenDaz icecream. As a side note, did you know that Haagen Daz has absolutely no meaning at all? It just sounds good. I got in Sunday morning at 11:30 or so, had lunch and a nap, and drove to Great Falls (80 miles south) for gospel mtg at 3:30. Julia was just coming back from Plentywood, so it worked well for her to pick me up in Shelby. I am told that the meeting was very nice, but I haven't much idea what I said. ;) Or what Julia said either, for that matter, but I want it on the record that I did /not/ fall asleep!

THEN we had lunch with Gary Myers and his mom, which was great, even if I was about face-planting in my soup by that time.
I guess that's about it. Fade curtain with me sacked out in bed.

Money

This is very interesting, and somewhat scary, depending on your point of view.
I myself feel rather fatalistic - there's nothing I can do about it anyways, so I won't worry about it. But I do feel a bit better informed now.