Bananas. 07/16/2010
 
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 Did you know you can treat depression, sleeplessness, high blood pressure, and cholesterol, PMS,  and lots of other medical conditions, by eating bananas? 
 22 Fantastic things to know or love about  Bananas 

A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are known as fingers.

As bananas ripen, the starch in the fruit turns to sugar. Therefore, the riper the banana the sweeter it will taste.

Banana plants are the largest plants on earth without a woody stem. They are actually giant herbs of the same family as lilies, orchids and palms.

Bananas are a good source of vitamin C, potassium and dietary fiber.

Bananas, instead of, sleeping pills? Like turkey, bananas contain tryptophan, a protein that converts to the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin is instrumental in facilitating relaxation. Low levels of serotonin are believed to cause mood disorders including depression.

Bananas are high in the B-complex vitamins, which are known to have a calming effect on the nervous system.

Bananas are great for athletic and fitness activity because they replenish necessary carbohydrates, glycogen and body fluids burned during exercise.

Bananas are one of the few fruits that ripen best off the plant. If left on the plant, the fruit splits open and the pulp has a "cottony" texture and flavor. Even in tropical growing areas, bananas for domestic consumption are cut green and stored in moist shady places to ripen slowly.

Bananas are perennial crops that are grown and harvested year-round. The banana plant does not grow from a seed but rather from a rhizome or bulb. Each fleshy bulb will sprout new shoots year after year.

Bananas have no fat, cholesterol or sodium.

Each banana plant bears only one stem of fruit. To produce a new stem, only two shoots - known as the daughter and the granddaughter - are allowed to grow and be cultivated from the main plant.

In some lands bananas were considered the principal food. Early travelers and settlers would carry the roots of the plant as they migrated to the Middle East and Africa. From there Portuguese traders carried banana roots to the Canary Islands, where bananas are still grown commercially.

In South East Asia, the banana leaf is used to wrap food (in the place of plastic bags and cling wraps), providing a unique flavor and aroma to nasi lemak and the Indian banana leaf rice.

India is by far the largest world producer of bananas, growing 16.5 million tonnes in 2002, followed by Brazil which produced 6.5 million tonnes of bananas in 2002. To the Indians, the flower from the banana tree is sacred. During religious and important ceremonies such as weddings, banana flowers are tied around the head, for they believe this will bring good luck.

Some horticulturists suspect that the banana was the earth's first fruit. Banana plants have been in cultivation since the time of recorded history. One of the first records of bananas dates back to Alexander the Great's conquest of India where he first discovered bananas in 327 B.C.

The banana plant reaches its full height of 15 to 30 feet in about one year. The trunk of a banana plant is made of sheaths of overlapping leaves, tightly wrapped around each other like celery stalks.

The origin of bananas is traced back to the Malaysian jungles of Southeast Asia, where so many varieties and names for the banana are in that area.

The phrase 'going bananas' was first recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, and is linked to the fruit's 'comic' connections with monkeys.

The word 'banan' is Arabic for finger.

There is no such thing as a banana tree. Bananas grow on plants.

Today's commercial bananas are scientifically classified into the genus Musa of the Musaceae family.

Because my friend Gem, grew this hand of Bananas in this photo and cut me this bunch, giving it to me as a gift J. Thank you Gem.
 
 
I remember when I was younger and I was carrying a fruit bowl full of fibroids,  people made comments about my being pregnant. I hated those comments and was always so careful to never assume anyone was pregnant because of their shape.  I did not need to take prenatal vitamins, I just needed a hysterectomy to get rid of those fibroids but I wouldn’t get it done, I was convinced it wasn’t needed.  I put up with them for 20 years until I finally had to get the op. done in my fifties.  I had kept my head in the sand in defiant belief that almost all hysterectomies were unnecessary, and had not seen the clear evidence that mine was.  Part fear and a lot of stubbornness on my part.


What can I say now about it?  ‘Best thing I ever got done for my health’. I was crazy to have waited and ignoresd all the advice I was given.  Second best thing I've done for my health was mastering my weight problem and getting down to an average size, not my former size 22 going on 24.

Now at 63, my poor stomach muscles are like that rubber band that was over stretched, for over twenty years both due to those fibroids mimicking a full term pregnancy in size and my obesity. I may never take a good side on photo, thought there are lots of things I do now that I never thought would be possible once.  I was however pretty pleased with my front view photos today.. lol, Hope you don’t mind my sharing  my pleasure.

I am also showing Reg. Pretty trim as he is, doing all he can to keep healthy, by ing up his walking encouraged by me to walk 10,000 steps a day and he wears his pedometer and  takes pride in seeing the kilometres come up to that daily target.  A great goal, for a man of 69. J, and apparently the best thing you can do to aid memory, is not doing crosswords but to walk. J.
 
 
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When Reg and I camped at Alice Springs for six weeks last year we became friends with a couple camped near us, who were running the Alice Springs group of Riding for the Disabled.

RDAA is a very active non-profit, volunteer run group in Australia, it provides opportunities for anyone with a disability to enjoy safe, healthy stimulating, therapeutic, horse-related activities  

Knowing the therapy value of close communication with animals and the incredible freedom  and appreciation of being mobile, these organizations provides opportunities for anyone with a disability to enjoy safe, healthy stimulating, therapeutic, horse-related activities.  

Organisations to encourage and provide horse riding for the disabled have sprung up worldwide.

In North America, there is the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association. Individuals with the following disabilities commonly participate and benefit from equine facilitated therapy and activities provided by NARHA:

Muscular Dystrophy
Cerebral Palsy
Visual Impairment
Down Syndrome
Mental Retardation
Autism
Multiple Sclerosis
Spina Bifida
Emotional Disabilities
Brain Injuries
Spinal Cord Injuries
Amputations
Learning Disabilities
Attention Deficit Disorder
Deafness
Cardiovascular accident/Stroke

Most of the disabled people, who participate in these riding for the disabled sessions, require mobility products, when not on the horses back. The experience, of riding almost allows them to forget for a while, any handicap they  may have  For the volunteers, to see the joy on the faces of the participants, must be an incredible reward for their hard work.  

At least there are now many aides available to help keep handicapped people as independent as possible, mobility compare , is a good place to begin researching special needs mobility items.

 
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I just updated the listing of standard size postcards made from my artwork, that I have for sale, in my http://www.postcards-art.com Natures Postcards, blog and web site.

I have illustrated this post with some of the postcards that can be ordered from mypostcads-art web site and purchased, 'direct from artist', under our caravan awning studio.

I am working hard completing the jobs I need to have done before we set of on the next stage of our ecotherapy tour which will be early Autumn all things going to plan.

 

Ecotherapy is not a fad, nor a new marketing approach for the psychology profession, and not just more “green exercise,” although it does include fitness and wellness practices.  I try to do my exercises as much as posible in nature, bushwalking is our great love. Even when we relax at home, we love to have a window view, unbroken, looking out over nature. The tranquility this brings Rus is the eco-therapy I speak of.

Some examples of recent ecotherapy research findings:
- “Equine Therapy Helps Withdrawn Vets Reconnect”
- “71% Report Depression Decrease After Green Walk”
- “Immersion in Nature Makes Us Nicer”
- “How the City Hurts Your Brain...and What You Can Do About It”
- “Connection to Nature Vital to Our Mental and Physical Health, Scientists Say”
- “Drug Addiction: Environmental Conditions Play Major Role In Effective Treatment And Preventing Relapses, Animal Study Shows”
 
 
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I have been talking about children's classic books and nursery rhymes with my face book friends. I wonder how many of these were written in order to explain to children the effects of illness or the mental health behaviour of adults.

A brief ‘lay persons’, analysis of the two great Children’s classics.

This is my feelings about the possibly health condition and behaviour being explained by the stories in, ‘Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll”, and Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie.

I never liked 'Through the looking Glass', though I live' Peter Pan’.

I see Peter Pan, the story of the mischievious boy who never grew up as the child fiction explanation of the adult who needs supervision because they have lost their executive function and have a cognitive function disorder, or Frontal lobe degeneration and or dementia . I have a 'Peter Pan', and I'm Wendy the carer and I love our Never Never land, (eco-therapy), life.  Oh and there was a dog, in the Peter Pan story.

Through the Looking Glass, or Alice in Wonderland, I feel is probably an explanation to a child of an adult’s uncontrolled schizophrenia nightmare and it scared the heeby Jeeves out of me when I first read it as a child and saw the film and I still do not like the story. I do not choose nightmares as my reading entertainment :-)