Cooking Oatmeal the Right Way with Video

Soaked Oatmeal

Ingredients

2 cups rolled organic oats

2 cups filtered water

4 TBL lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, or yogurt

1 tsp. sea salt

Instructions

Mix, in a pot, the oats, water, and lemon juice, apple cider vinegar or yogurt.  Cover and leave on the counter for at least 7 hours or overnight.  Soak the oats longer if you have trouble digesting grains, for as much as 24 hours.

After soaking time is complete, add 2 additional cups of water, preferably filtered water, to the soaked oats mixture, add sea salt and bring to a boil.  Cook for 5 minutes.

Best served with butter and/or cream for optimal assimilation of minerals.  A natural sweetener, nuts, raisins or other fruit may be added as desired.

Recipe and video: Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist

FDA Alert for Excedrin, Bufferin, Gas-X, NoDoz

The FDA, over the years have found problems in the drugs made by the Novartis Consumer Health manufacturing plant in Lincoln, Nebraska and as of Sunday, Novartis has temporarily suspended production at their factory and have recalled:

• Excedrin and NoDoz products with expiration dates of Dec. 20, 2014, or earlier
• Bufferin and Gas-X Prevention products with expiration dates of Dec. 20, 2013, or earlier

Novartis wants consumers to discard the pills or to return the products by mail for a full refund, plus Novartis will also apply $2 for shipping costs.  Novartis's site www.nodoz.com/otc/ is available for more information as well as calling the company direct at 888-477-2403, Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 8 p.m. EST.

Because of packaging and labeling problems at the plant in Nebraska, Edward Cox of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said early Monday, "it's possible that tablets from one product may have been retained in the packaging machinery, and then may have carried over into the packaging of another medicine, this could result in an incorrect pill of one medicine ending up in the bottle of another product."

The FDA also cited problems with Novartis which included, failures to respond to consumer complaints about bottles containing incorrect tablets, file reports with the FDA and send postage-paid materials to consumers so that further evidence could be examined.  (click here for the full FDA report)

Source:

USA Today, Forbes

HealthIsInReach suggests for pain and gas relief consider alternative means, such as:

For pain relief:

• Curcumin
• FIR Pad
• FIR Dome
• Lumen Photon 
• Advanced ERE

For gas relief:

• Probiotic supplements 
• Yogurt 
• Kefir 
• Amasai from Beyond Organic
• SueroViv from Beyond Organic
• Food enzymes

Shared with:  the healthy home economist

Can Probiotics Totally Undo Antiobiotics Damage to Gut Flora?

According to Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist, evidence is now emerging that damaged gut flora may actually be permanently altered by drugs.

Dr. Martin Blaser, MD, of New York's University's Langone Medical Center writes in the August 2011 edition of Nature: "Early evidence from my lab and others hints that, sometimes, our friendly flora never fully recover.  These long-term changes to the beneficial bacteria within people's bodies may even increase our susceptibility to infections and disease.  Overuse of antibiotics could be fueling the dramatic increase in conditions such as obesity, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies and asthma, which have more than doubled in many populations."

Did you know that, on average, most children receive up to 20 courses of antibiotics before the age of 18.  Also, between one third and one half of pregnant women receive antibiotics during pregnancy.  And, with the high rates of C-sections performed, surgical births negatively affects the composition of gut flora in newborns as they completely miss out on exposure to their mother's friendly bacteria while they travel through the birth canal.

If you have been given antibiotics anytime throughout your lifetime, a good defense, is still the use of probiotics, such as, drinking kefir, eating yogurt, supplementation with probiotic capsules.  Your gut will love you for it.

Source:
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Nature

Picture credit