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Cathy's Wealth of Health: The magic of medical mushrooms
“Medical mushrooms are a true superfood.” – Cathy McNease, Herbalist
I first saw medicinal mushrooms being used in a family of Taoist healers with whom I was apprenticing in the early 1980’s. I had been asked to help the matriarch teach cooking classes, since she spoke very little English. Lily Chuang was a brilliant herbalist, but she preferred to prevent illnesses in her family rather than treat them. One of the tricks up her sleeve was regular use of SHITAKE MUSHROOMS (Lentinula edodes). She always had a jar of the dried mushrooms rehydrating in the refrigerator. Every meal included a small amount of these gems, cooked with eggs, in oatmeal, in soups and stir fries. She even made “burgers” out of the tough dry stems that she powdered in a coffee grinder and mixed with grated vegetables and eggs, and pan fried until brown. The soaking water from the rehydration process was used as a delicious addition to soups and grains.
Nowadays, SHITAKES are widely available in many forms – dried, fresh in the produce section and incorporated into capsules and tablets of medicinal mushroom blends. SHITAKES are one of the most flavorful mushrooms to use as food, while some of the others are too bitter or woody to use this way, and are better taken in capsule form. SHITAKE MUSHROOMS are very rich in a large sugar molecule called a polysaccharide, which has been found to show strong anti-tumor, anti-viral and immune enhancing effects, such as increasing macrophage and killer T-cell activity. SHITAKES have been shown to improve the health of chronic hepatitis, HIV and AIDS patients. Research also has shown their ability to lower both blood pressure and cholesterol. General dosage as food would be to eat 2-5 mushrooms daily, cooked in some form (or taken as directed in capsules). MAITAKE (Grifola frondosa), another delicious mushroom, but not as widely available, has been found to be even stronger in its action against cancer.
Two other woody textured medicinal mushrooms that are powerful healers are not eaten as foods, but taken in teas, tablets or capsules: CHAGA (Inonotus obliquus) and GANODERMA LUCIDUM (aka Reishi, Ling Zhi). CHAGA has long been used in Russia and Eastern Europe for treatment of cancers, gastritis and stomach ulcers. It has an enormously high level of anti-oxidants for reducing inflammation, fighting infections and promoting good health. CHAGA is available from Canadian suppliers in a powdered form which can be prepared as a pleasant tea (www.mitobi.com). With cancer on both sides of my family, this tea has become one of my staples.
GANODERMA MUSHROOM is used as an immune-modulator, which means that it normalizes both an overactive immune system (auto-immune conditions) and an underactive immune system (frequent or chronic infections). It is not generally used as a tea due to the bitter flavor, but is widely available in pills, capsules and tinctures (alcohol extracts). GANODERMA has been used in the Chinese pharmacopoeia for over 3,000 years. Its benefits include: anti-inflammatory, liver protective, anti-tumor, reducing altitude sickness (by improved oxygen utilization), anti-histamine, cholesterol lowering, and mental disease caused by environmental stress. With older patients, the research shows a marked benefit on the heart and lungs in conditions such as coronary artery disease, palpitations, dyspnea (difficulty breathing) and chronic bronchitis.
One of the most restorative mushrooms from the Chinese tradition is actually a combination of a fungus and a caterpillar: CORDYCEPS (Dong Chong Xia Cao=Winter Worm Summer Grass). This is a caterpillar that freezes just under the surface of the ground in winter and in spring a fungus grows out from its body. These are very expensive and are now being cultivated minus the caterpillar. This is considered in Chinese medicine to be a very powerful, deeply strengthening immune tonic, used in serious problems such as bone marrow failure, HIV-AIDS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and generalized weakness. They were made famous recently when a group of very successful Chinese female athletes credited their Olympic success to CORDYCEPS. They are often included in the medicinal mushroom blends that are prepared into capsules and available at your local health food stores. In traditional Chinese culture, CORDYCEPS are prepared into meat and poultry soups with other herbs like ginseng. A word to the wise…if you do this, crush up the CORDYCEPS first; otherwise, when it rehydrates into the soup, the caterpillar clearly become visible and may be staring back at you on your soup spoon.
For further information and research details, go to the following sites:
http://www.christopherhobbs.com/
http://www.drweil.com/
http://www.fungi.com/
Cathy McNease is a nationally certified herbalist with a Diplomate in Chinese Herbology from the NCCAOM, a B.S. in Biology and Psychology from Western Michigan University and two Master Herbalist certificates from Emerson College of Herbology in Canada and East-West Course of Herbology in Santa Cruz. You can view her bio here.]]> -
Illinois civil union law not just for same-sex couples
I was thrilled with the new Illinois civil union law. Not only am I among the minority who has no problem with getting a civil union instead of a marriage (neither is available in New York!), but I’d like to see civil unions available for any two people, as they now are in Illinois. It can benefit seniors, for instance, of same or opposite sex, who choose not to marry for whatever reason. Perhaps it’s an aging widow and widower who don’t want to re-marry but do want the legal protections. Or someone and their best friend who they plan to share their life with. There are any number of scenarios now available with the Illinois law I’d like to see expanded across the country. While I am a marriage equality advocate and would like nothing more than to see it pass in my home state so Frank and I could get married here, I would like just as much if not more to see civil unions for all – which, believe it or not, is even less likely than same-sex marriage to happen any time soon.
From TribLocal.com:
How often had I said “Not in my lifetime”, and yet, on June 1, 2011, Illinois will start recognizing LGBT families and other families who have previously been denied recognition via a civil union document issued by county clerks. Most who will get civil unions will be same-sex families, but there will be seniors and disabled families who couldn’t get married because of social security and pension “rules”.
The civil union law is a compromise that sets up a two-tiered system in Illinois law. Vermont was the first state to establish civil unions back in 2000. Since that lead, many states have passed civil union laws, domestic partnership laws, “everything but marriage” laws, and equal marriage laws. Other state legislatures continue to debate civil union and equal marriage laws. It’s an evolutionary process that will be resolved when the federal government decides equality is a good thing . For now, two tiers are better than total exclusion.
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Institute of Health seeks more data on LGBT patients
From the News Journal: Finding a doctor they’re comfortable with is a quest that many gay men face, said Seeley, program director of CAMPsafe, the HIV/AIDS prevention program of CAMP Rehoboth, an organization serving gays and lesbians. “It’s challenging for gay men to let doctors know that they’re gay,” he said. “But we need to disclose this.” Doctors don’t have much to go by. Comprehensive data on the particular health needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people — also referred to as the LGBT population — are scarce. So scarce, said the Institute of Medicine in a recent report, that researchers must start aggressively reaching out to the LGBT population to draw them into health studies. They say that will help doctors get a more precise snapshot of the types of health problems LGBT patients face. Continue reading]]>
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Tired Old Queen at the Movies #75 – 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon'
Another fabulous movie review from Steve Hayes, ‘Tired Old Queen at the Movies.’ You can read my interview with him here.]]>
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lgbTravel: A Day in Old New Castle, DE
By Mark McNease
Yesterday Frank and I spent an afternoon in New Castle, Delaware. It’s a lovely town not far from Wilmington, about two hours from our house in Stockton, NJ.
Once a year they have a homes and gardens tour, the oldest in the country, with some of the residents opening up their historic old homes and their still-immaculately kept gardens to the public. Frank had been there before but this was my first, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. There are cobblestone lanes, the Delaware River to one side of the town, and a dozen or more very old houses. The first one we toured (a brief tour since it’s a small house) was owned by a black man whose family had lived in the house for generations. His great-great aunt was a freed slave whose attempted kidnapping for return to slavery caused the townspeople to arrest and convict the kidnappers. It was quite a story, and quite a man – he told us that he was the only African-American who opened his home for the tour, because he thought the history was important.
You’re supposed to buy tickets for the tour but no one stopped us. We walked through several of the gardens, the local cemetery (I have a thing about visiting cemeteries when I’m travelling) and enjoyed all the people in period costumes. You can spend the day there, or, as we did, a few fun hours. “A Day in Old New Castle” is worth the drive and highly recommended for a spring day’s outing. See a slideshow here.]]> -
Substance abuse problems on the rise with seniors
Some news is good, some not so. Given the higher rates of substance abuse in the LGBT population, it’s important to report on these things. It can also give hope to those struggling with alcohol and drug problems.
I don’t know if substance abuse itself is on the rise, or if seeking help for it is. In either case, we need to know these things – information is power, including the power to improve our lives.
From CBS News.com:
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – They go around this room at the Hanley Center telling of their struggles with alcohol and drugs. They tell of low points and lapses, brushes with death and pain caused to families. And silently, through the simple fact that each is in their 60s or beyond, they share one more secret: Addiction knows no age. “I retired, I started drinking more,” one man said. “I lost my father, my mother, my dog, and it gave me a good excuse,” said another. A remarkable shift in the number of older adults reporting substance abuse problems is making this scene more common. Between 1992 and 2008, treatment admissions for those 50 and older more than doubled in the U.S. That number will continue to grow, experts say, as the massive baby boom generation ages. “There is a level of societal denial around the issue,” said Peter Provet, the head of Odyssey House in New York, another center offering specialized substance abuse treatment programs for seniors. “No one wants to look at their grandparent, no one wants to think about their grandparent or their elderly parent, and see that person as an addict.”]]> -
"Out in Chicago" exhibit opens at Chicago History Museum, tells city's LGBT history
Co-curators Jill Austin (left) and Jennifer Brier discuss the Chicago History Museum’s new exhibit “Out in Chicago.” Chicago, Chicago, the big city I would love to live in but probably never will. I grew up across the lake in Elkhart, Indiana, and remember trips to Chicago very well. Frank and I are there almost every year for his business, and it remains dear to my heart. A new exhibit is opening today at the History Museum, chronicling the proud story of the city’s LGBT history. I remember walking down Halsted Street when I was a teenager and knowing I wasn’t alone, long before my life in Los Angeles and now New York. From the Sun-Times:
In 1958, Chuck Renslow, his friends and their group’s affinity for leather was too much for a Chicago gay bar called Omar’s. Tossed out, Renslow decided to open his own nightspot, the Gold Coast Bar, a haven for people of all persuasions that was the country’s first leather bar.
“I was just trying to bring the leather community together,” said Renslow, 82. “It was a place where leather men could meet and know each other.” A mural of Renslow and friends from the Gold Coast Bar is now a piece of Chicago history, part of a new exhibit “Out in Chicago” opening Saturday at the Chicago History Museum. “We’re telling Chicago history through the lens of LGBT history,” said Jill Austin, a Chicago History Museum curator who co-curated the exhibit with Jennifer Brier, an associate dean and professor at University of Illinois at Chicago.]]> -
Gay rights pioneer Joe Norton to be remembered in Albany
From TimesUnion.com: ALBANY — A celebration is planned Sunday to recall the life of Joseph Norton, a former psychology professor, World War II veteran and leading figure in Albany’s gay rights movement. Norton, a Cobleskill native and longtime city resident, died Wednesday. He was 92. In 1970, Norton was among a group of men who — in the wake of the gay rights protests that flared in New York City a year earlier — coalesced to form the Capital District Gay & Lesbian Community Council, now 41 years old and believed to be the oldest such continuously operating organization of its kind in the country. [SNIP] The list of organizations Norton either helped found or lent his time to was lengthy, including the Association of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexuals in Counseling, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, the New York State Coalition of Gay Organizations, National Association of Gay Psychologists and, locally, the Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless and the Capital District Counselors Association. DETAILS: What: A community celebration of Joe Norton
Where: First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, 405 Washington Ave.
When: 4 p.m. Sunday
Reach Jordan Carleo-Evangelist at 454-5445 or jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com ]]> -
MARK'S CAFE MOI: Making an ass out of me and me
I over-reacted as usual. It’s something dangerous but also admirable about me: beneath an exterior others have described, to my puzzlement, as calm all my life, is a cauldron of emotion. Some anxiety. Plenty of hair-trigger indignation – it doesn’t take much. (It wasn’t until I started making videoblogs and clips with myself in them that I saw this apparent calm others have always seen, a sort of lethargy; I attribute it in part to my roots as a Southerner, and in part to my determination very young to conceal my feelings.)
I’d been waiting two weeks to find out if I’d get a job I interviewed for at my company. My boss is leaving in just over a week, and I’d been sitting in my cube every day doing precisely nothing. Okay, well, blogging, which isn’t nothing, but it’s not what I’m paid to do here. Yesterday I left early and met my friend Rick, who’s visiting from Shreveport. We got back to the apartment after having coffee and bagels, and there on my work BlackBerry was a message from my friend Denise, also an executive assistant. “So sorry to hear about the job,” she wrote. Huh? She clearly knew something I didn’t, so I called her and asked her what she was talking about. Someone else got the job I’d interviewed for and they had told Denise, no doubt thrilled to be moving to the upper echelons of executive assistantdom.
That’s when the fuse reached the explosives. I emailed human resources and let them know what a mockery this made of company policy. I’ve been here ten years, she’s been here six weeks, having been hired to work for someone else. I was humiliated and insisting they initiate my severance package immediately. Then, about a half hour later, I got an email from the man who’d interviewed me. He praised my skills and experience, explained that they had hired Jean, and promptly offered me another position, assisting people I’ve known well for some time, in one case for a decade. I said I’d be delighted.
While the chickens aren’t yet hatched on this job offer, the whole experience was an emotional roller coaster. I made assumptions, went quickly to my default position of being wronged, and let the indignation fly. I was wrong. I made an ass out of me and me. Today the landscape is quite different, and while I may not end up with this job, what I assumed to be true was not, and I was left once again with the lesson that waiting a few hours at least before reacting can make all the difference.]]> -
Buying power of seniors down 32 percent since 2000
I look for positive things to post, I really do, but these are difficult times in a difficult economy.
A recently released annual survey reveals that the buying power of seniors has declined 32 percent since the year 2000.
From Reuters:
WASHINGTON, May 19, 2011
WASHINGTON, May 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Seniors have lost almost one-third of their buying power since 2000, according to the Annual Survey of Senior Costs, released today by The Senior Citizens League (TSCL). TSCL is one of the nation’s largest nonpartisan seniors advocacy groups.
To view the multimedia assets associated with
this release, please click
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/seniors-have-lost-32-percent-of-their-buying-power-since-2000-122205249.html In most years, seniors receive a small increase in their Social Security checks, intended to help them keep up with the costs of inflation. But since 2000, the Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) has increased just 31 percent, while typical senior expenses have jumped 73 percent, more than twice as fast. In 2011, for the second consecutive year, seniors received no COLA. Prior to 2010, seniors had received a COLA every year since 1975, when the automatic COLA was introduced. Seniors are forecast to receive a very small COLA next year.]]> -
Rick's Travelicious: An introduction
This is an introductory clip with Rick Rose, who’ll be writing Rick’s Travelicious for the site. Rick manages to travel about as much as anyone I’ve known (and I’ve known him since the late 1980s). I believe his energy, humor, experience as a traveler and a travel writer (Discover Wisconsin just a prime example), will add a fun and welcome element to lgbtSr.com. So here we are, saying hello from my Manhattan apartment, looking forward to the first of many of Rick’s travel postcards. You can read Rick’s bio here.]]>
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Column: LGBT candidates should check their closets thoroughly
By David Webb – The Rare Reporter
During every election cycle at some point I start to wonder why anyone would even want to run for elected office in light of the nastiness of politics.
It’s easy to see why older LGBT people would be attracted to the idea of public service because it provides an opportunity to put professional skills to use for the public good while keeping busy in retirement. We also know how important it is for the advancement of LGBT rights to have openly gay people serving on government bodies.
It sounds like a perfect idea for the professional who is retired or nearing retirement to round out a career, but be forewarned of the risks.
Any candidate announcing a political campaign opens themselves up to the most invasive intrusion into their personal and professional lives possible. The truth is that practically everyone has something in their lives that they would just as soon not become public knowledge, and that might well happen.
No matter how long ago something happened and regardless of whether it went unnoticed at the time, someone will either remember it or discover it when the spotlight focuses on a political candidate. And misdemeanor convictions suddenly become a very big deal.
A lesbian Dallas City Council candidate recently learned that when she went before The Dallas Morning News editorial board and found herself under fire over a misdemeanor criminal record. The editorial board had obviously done its homework by researching the candidate’s criminal record. It’s really easy to do because the Dallas County District Clerk’s Web site and many other government entities across the country offer free public access to all criminal and civil records. And for a small fee anyone can access commercial Web sites that offer the same information about anyone living anywhere. On her own, the candidate owned up to pleading guilty in 2007 to misdemeanor theft in connection with her former job as executive director of a nonprofit local public improvement district. The candidate said an audit of her expense reimbursements turned up irregularities. The reimbursements were for cash payments she made for contract labor and supplies for maintenance jobs such as painting and minor repairs in connection with public improvements, she noted. The audit reportedly revealed an absence of substantiating receipts. Originally, she wanted to go to trial and fight the charge, said the candidate, who was fired from her job in 2005 over the discrepancy, but after two years she was broke and unable to proceed. It didn’t seem like such a big deal to plead guilty to misdemeanor theft to end the case, she said. Her penalty was a $1,000 fine and a probated 180-day sentence. What the candidate apparently didn’t realize was that the editorial board would also uncover an almost two-decade-old DWI conviction and a bad check for $20 she wrote almost a decade ago in a grocery store. The candidate said she didn’t mention the DWI because it had occurred so long ago, and she didn’t even think about the bad check that she made good for in 2009 when she learned about it from the District Attorney’s collection division. The Dallas Morning News editorial board however did think it was a big deal, and in an editorial they declined to endorse the candidate over it while noting she seemed capable and had some good ideas. At the same time, it declined to endorse the incumbent or a third candidate in the race, without saying anything good about them. Having known the lesbian candidate as a strong neighborhood leader for more than a decade, I believed her explanation about the theft charge. As regards the DWI and the bad check charges, they’re as common as rodents and insects in all parts of the country. Last weekend, the lesbian candidate wound up losing the race and coming in third place. It’s hard to know how much the revelation of the misdemeanor criminal record had to do with her losing, but it obviously didn’t help. Of course, the message here is for anyone considering a run for political office to make sure and check their criminal record before they step into the spotlight. There’s no telling who or what might be waiting to jump on stage with you. David Webb is a veteran journalist who has covered LGBT issues for the mainstream and alternative media for three decades. E-mail him at davidwaynewebb@yahoo.com.]]>
