Farrah Sarafa

Citrus fruits - oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruits and kumquats - are native to tropical and subtropical climate zones like Southern China and Northern India. However, while visiting my Aunt Vickie and Uncle Zuhair Sarafa in San Diego this past month, I was delighted to find their flowering citrus trees had been fully ornamented with bright orange and yellow fruit for picking!

As a “pescatarian,” a vegetarian who eats fish, for more than a decade, I’ve had to learn about the health value of different kinds of fish. Healthier, lighter, and better for the heart than artery-congestive red meats known to cause Alzheimer’s disease, heart diseases and colon cancer, it is important to know where the fish we eat comes from and how it was caught.

It wasn’t until meeting Rakan, marketing distributor of Chartreuse tea, an herbal tea company that specializes in combining USA grown herbs into healing, medicinally effective concoctions, that I came to discover the true historical relevance of plant leaves, seeds, flowers and extracts.

The olive tree is a regenerative and wild food staple that is a source of Mediterranean fertility, strength, and power. It produces an oil hailed as a golden liquid by Homer; it is the symbol of Athena.

“Multi-grain” refers to breads, cereal, or cookies that contain two or more kinds of grains. While multigrain products are healthier than white flour products, they’re composed of the weakest, least nutritious part of the grain: the endosperm.

The words on ingredient labels can be misleading. The word fragrance, a misleading term, is too often overlooked, as it might really indicate a combination of 100 or more different chemicals. Many of them may be toxic or harmful like phthalates, petroleum based ingredients, or flowers sprayed with chemicals or fertilizer.

Oceans, rain, cascading waterfalls: countless poems derive their inspiration from the important liquid on which our emotional, physical and spiritual operations depend. Controlled addition of fluorides to the public water supply helps to keep the enamel of our teeth from wearing down. It prevents gum disease and tooth decay, the latter of which is extremely expensive to treat.

Raw, vegan, or South Beach Diet? None of these methods really caught my attention like macrobiotics did. Macro means big and biotic means life, so the term, “big view of life,” refers to a balanced, wholesome system of eating first coined by George Ohsawa in 1959. A Japanese philosopher, Ohsawa claimed to cure his own tuberculosis by applying Chinese and Japanese folkloric techniques.

Hangovers’ pounding head pains, dehydration, endless fatigue and spotty memory: the weekend’s dreadful finale. Now it can be safely cured, thanks to wheatgrass.

Itchy eyes? Red, irritated skin? This has recently been happening to me when I apply elegantly bottled perfume and brand name creams and cosmetics. The average person uses nine cosmetics per day, which at an extra 126 chemicals per cosmetic for our bodies can cause long-term health problems. Green and chemical-free organic alternatives do exist, and in my opinion feel safer, purer.