Saturday, July 31, 2004
Harvest Queen
I had things to post before the end of this month and time has not been on my side! I wanted to write about Tailtiu, and Lammas, and Celtic Queens and the "queen" phase in each woman's life and in the Wheel of the Year, and perhaps even about the lunar cross-quarters, but alas. Other things have demanded my computer time.
Let me just say that the "queen" phase or face or aspect of woman and Goddess has been too long hidden. Let's get over it!
Queen? you might be asking.
What the heck is she talking about? Is this for real? A reasonable reaction. The whole concept of royalty contradicts my feminist and egalitarian values, but isn't that how life is, when you dig your hands into it? No easy divisions, no true blacks and whites? Paradox, all paradox, and our job -- to learn to live with ambivalence. And facing one set of facts, I see the queen in history, in mythology, and even in our pagan Wheel of the Year. So why pretend she isn't there?
I've made myself more comfortable with the queen concept by thinking she represents the archetype of female personal authority. She captures who women and Goddesses are and can be apart from blood mysteries and socially-gendered limitations. Women are, after all,
captains of industry,
senators,
ministers and
prime ministers. So, let's allow our paganisms to catch up with modern (and ancient) womanhood and praise her for bringing home the bacon and setting public debate. It really is possible to do that while continuing to
praise women for child-rearing and hearth-tending. (Is there a more critically important job than child-rearing?) And woman=passive? woman=receptive? Oh, puh-lease. Sometimes, some women, sure; but the same can be said for some men, sometimes, so let's get over that, too. We just don't fit in those tight male-female polarity boxes any more, so why keep pretending that we do?
As for me? I'm in my queen phase. I won't be a "young crone" for another five or six years, and I'm well beyond any possibility of birthing babies. And as for feeling pouty about not having time to blog, well, I just need to get over that, too. I've managed to find this time to write about queenhood, after a long day of finishing all the bits and pieces of my most recent work project: the redesigned, updated, and shopping-carted website of two amazing women,
Prema Dasara and Anahata Iradah, who teach sacred dance all over the world. The new site is launched today, and I'm the web magistra who made it happen. So, woohoo for Prema and Anahata, and woohoo for me! I'm self-employed and loving it! I'm the Queen of Myself.
But enough of that!
On queens in history, mythology, the Wheel of the Year, and elsewhere -- for your browsing pleasure:
- Tailtiu, Last Queen of the Fir Bolg
Lugh dedicated this festival to his foster-mother, Tailtiu, the last queen of the Fir Bolg, who died from exhaustion after clearing a great forest so that the land could be cultivated. When the men of Ireland gathered at her death-bed, she told them to hold funeral games in her honor. As long as they were held, she prophesied Ireland would not be without song. Tailtiu’s name is from Old Celtic Talantiu, "The Great One of the Earth," suggesting she may originally have been a personification of the land itself, like so many Irish goddesses. In fact, Lughnasadh has an older name, Brón Trogain, which refers to the painful labor of childbirth. For at this time of year, the earth gives birth to her first fruits so that her children might live.
(Lughnasadh, from Mara Freeman's Celtic Spirituality & Western Inner Traditions Site)
- Empress of the Universe
Xi Wang Mu, the Great Goddess of the West, is not well known in modern times, but she has been a beloved and compassionate figure in Taoist and Chinese literature, history, and mythology from the beginning. Moreover, the early Taoists clearly regarded her as the Empress of the Universe.... The earliest references to her are from the time of the Shang Dynasty (1500 - 1000 BC) which highlight her as a creator goddess who reigned alone, complete and without a consort, the source of yin and yang, prior to yin and yang, the Mother of all, a personification of the Tao -- a Creatrix.
(Xi Wang Mu, Taoist Immortals)
- The Last Reigning Monarch of the Hawaiian Islands
In 1893, Queen Liliuokalani sought to empower herself and Hawaiians through a new constitution which she herself had drawn up and now desired to promulgate as the new law of the land. It was Queen Liliuokalani's right as a sovereign to issue a new constitution through an edict from the throne. A group led by Sanford B. Dole sought to overthrow the institution of the monarchy. The American minister in Hawaii, John L. Stevens, called for troops to take control of Iolani Palace and various other governmental buildings. In 1894, the Queen, was deposed, the monarchy abrogated, and a provisional government was established which later became the Republic of Hawaii.
(Queen Lydia Liliuokalani)
- Ruling in Dual Queenship
The double female figures discussed in this book have never before been collected altogether and viewed coherently in terms of their sheer numbers, geographic distribution, and historical written references. Since many of them were originally referred to as “Double Goddess” figures in the scholarly literature, I have kept that title, believing that it dignifies and acknowledges their sacred authority. But I am also linking earlier Double Goddess figures with much later references to Amazons “ruling in dual Queenship,” and seeing their division of labor (“priestess” and “warrior”) as the functions of twin priestesses who served as religious and temporal leaders of ancient societies. I have used the words “Goddesses” and “Priestesses” and “Queens” more or less interchangeably in this book, in order to call attention to their stature, and to overcome the consistent bias that regards every high-ranking female burial as housing a “noblewoman” or the wife of a “chieftain” or “king.”
(Preface to The Double Goddess)
- Royal Power
The Queen is a mature woman who has conquered the challenges in Her life and claimed Her own royal power....Now that She is firmly rooted in Her best Self and acting for Her own benefit, She is free to reach out in ever increasing concentric circles and offer Her compassion, expertise, time, and money to people and causes that call to Her sense of response-ability.
(On The Queen of Myself)
- Something in the Way She Moves
It was one of the oddest coups d'etat in history, and nobody knows exactly how, or when, or why it happened. For centuries, the king was dominant. Then the queen surpassed him and has ruled the field ever since.
(Something in the Way She Moves)
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Thursday, July 29, 2004
Giving the Samnites Their Due
Discovering what lies beneath Pompeii...
A non-Roman civilization thrived here for three centuries, with its own temples, houses, taverns, baths and saucy sexual practices.
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Friday, July 23, 2004
My First Blogiversary
A couple of weeks ago I realized I had been blogging for more than a year, and that I had missed my blogiversary!
I remember seeing blogiversary posts when I first strayed into the blogosphere; remember wondering whether or not I'd blog long enough to have a blogiversary. I watched the blogosphere like a cat watching a toy, or a prey animal, before I joined it: watch, wait, watch, stalk, hunker down, do the shivering-tail thing, wait, watch, stalk some more, pounce! So I created a blog and then like a cat I played, drifted off, played, feigned disinterest, played some more ... and will no doubt continue to do these things as long as curiosity and writerly interest and sheer pleasure keep me going.
In the nature of play, I've bookmarked lots of blogs, moved them into and then out of my blogroll, a playful learning activity: What do I like? What feeds me? What is catnip, what is food, what is a grassy
digestif?
I have a few answers to those questions now, and am celebrating my blogiversary (month) by simplifying my blogroll. Nature abhors a vacuum, so this kind of house cleaning is an act of magic, a way of making room for new things ... like the
100 things version of an
about me page.
In the
Other Blogs I Track section on my sidebar there are links to a page that holds, in tidy fashion, many of the links that used to be in my sidebar. If your blog used to be listed in my sidebar and you don't see it there, check out one of those links. House-keeping happens!
Other little changes to mark my year as a blogger may be forthcoming, but that's it for today.
Wait! One final comment: Blogging is the bee's knees!
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Thursday, July 22, 2004
Following the Money: Coca-Cola
Today is the first anniversary of the
International Boycott of Coca-Cola. I heard about it yesterday on
Wisconsin Public Radio's Ideas Network.
I'm not against business, or even big business or transnational business, necessarily. I'm just against business ethics that value profit over people's lives and human welfare. Some argue that this is the nature of business. Well, as we like to say, all things change....
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Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Corn
On Sunday, we had our first taste of the annual local delicacy: Wisconsin sweet corn. If I were an anthropologist, I'm sure I could paint the correct word picture, but let me just tell you: the natives anticipate it, have (secular?) festivals dedicated to it, tell fond stories about it from their youths, go searching for it at farms and roadside stands that pop up out of nowhere this time of year to sell many vegetables under their
We Have Sweet Corn signs, and delight in instructing the non-native on how to properly prepare it: it's best if you get a pot of water boiling in the fields, but if you have to use your stove in your kitchen, it's the same technique: drop an ear of corn in boiling water for just a few seconds, then eat it.
I can attest: local sweet corn in season is very different from that stuff you get all year long in freezer packages at the grocery store. It's tender, and there's truth in advertising: it's sweet.
Corn, as you may know, is actually a generic term for all kinds of grains. When I lived in France, the natives were appalled that Americans ate corn (of course, they ate their popcorn with sugar, which I found appalling). But here, I'm not talking about corn as a generic grain. I'm talking maize.
And truthfully, habit makes this former Texan reach for butter to sweeten and soften it, but I've learned to stop myself, or at least go with great moderation to the butter dish. This corn is sweet and soft in itself and butter just makes it heavy.
Corn is doubly topical, because I'm editing an article that refers to grain goddesses, and briefly to Chicomecatl as a "Great Grain Mother." Though not related to the article, I asked myself the question: Yes, but what season is She associated with? Thus, a few (no many) minutes spent feeding at the Great Information Food Trough: the Internet.
The Meso-American civilization, or "corn" civilization, was already well-established. The staple food of all the Indian tribes, corn was the link between man and the gods....
...for special occasions, generally religious holidays, corn underwent a transformation. Such was the case during the month of Hueytozoztli, the great vigil. During April-May, tortillas were made in the shape of Chicomecatl, the goddess of subsistence, stuffed with dried beans and served with water flavoured with chia, the seed of a variety of sage.
Then in May-June came the month of the god Etzcualiztli. Corn was cooked with dried beans: a heavy food to signify abundance, whether of food or of rain. June-July saw the feast of the lords Huey Tecuhuitl and ceremonies dedicated to the goddess of the young ears of corn. (
The Worldwide Gourmet)
The Maize deities of MesoAmerica are amazing. The image at right is courtesy of
Fabrice Mrugala. According to the Mexican
Museo del Templo Mayor site:
Chicomecoatl. Goddess of foodstuffs, sustenance, and thus she was the most important patron of vegetation, presiding over the maize cult. The name of Chicomecoatl is translated as "Seven-Serpent". Her cult is very ancient. The ceremonies dedicated to this goddess were celebrated in the month Huei Tozoztli, which means "prolonged fast", during which altars in homes were decorated with maize plants and in temples its seeds were blessed.OK, so Chicomecatl was celebrated in April-May and shows up in a seasonal (July-August) article. Happens all the time. We pagans sometimes want to make the world fit into our constructs, and the world makes that hard on us. Yes, Lammas -- the Celtic holiday we neopagans are preparing to celebrate -- is a celebration of grain, of the first harvest. And so we write about deities of grain now, sometimes forgetting that just pinning them to the Lammas tail of our Wheel of the Year donkey doesn't make them properly associated with a Celtic God (Lugh) and the feast day He instituted for honoring and celebrating His Foster Mother and Queen (Tailtiu).
More about Lammas, Tailtiu, and queenship before the month is over....
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Friday, July 16, 2004
Alison Harlow
I just read today that Alison Harlow passed last month. The news hit me hard, not because of a personal (or even Craft) relationship with her, but because of how important she is/was to my priestessing friend,
Mari Powers.
About Alison:
WitchVox obitHer Memorial (7/18/2004) Brief Bio From the WitchVox obit (by Macha Nightmare):
Alison studied with the late Victor Anderson and was initiated into Faerie by the late Gwyddion Penderwen, and together she and Gwydion also published one of the first American Craft magazines, Nemeton.
In addition to Faerie/Feri, Alison was initiated to 3rd degree Gardnerian by Lady Athena and Dagda.
She was married thrice, once to the late writer Randall Garrett, with whom she was very active in the early days of the Society of Creative Anachronism.
Alison was one of the founding members of CoG (the Covenant of the Goddess).
Politically, Alison was an ardent feminist and worked to assist women in obtaining safe, low-cost abortions prior to Roe v. Wade. She was politically active to the end. She also supported efforts to find peaceful solutions to the world's problems. Her day job for most of her professional life was computer programming in the health care area.
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Thursday, July 15, 2004
Summer: The Blog of Henry David Thoreau
It's been a strange season here. Not fully summer until a few days ago, if you're going by the number of days with rain and overcast skies, or the temperature of the still-too-cold-for-swimming lake water, or the outdoor thermostat on the porch, or the inevitable shall-we-turn-on-the-air-conditioner question. If you're going by riotous growth, a profusion of green and rust and golden grasses, and bee-balm splendor, well then, it's been glorious summer for weeks.
This is my eleventh southern Wisconsin summer, and it's like my first in terms of how late the weather has started acting like summer weather should act. (And believe me, my expectations of what's appropriate, in terms of seasonal behavior, have changed vastly since I left Texas for this formerly-glaciered land.) My first June here was actually colder than this one; but this June was just like May -- rain, overcast skies, rain, brief bits of sun then more gray cloudy days, rain, rain, and more rain. Note: I'm not complaining.
Yesterday was one of our warmer days so far (just over 70 degrees), and
Weather Underground tells me not to expect temperatures in the 80s until early next week.
Given this summer's tardiness, I'm not sure why it's the first in about eight that I haven't felt a keen sense of loss and a lingering, mild depression at the Summer Solstice -- a grief that comes from knowing that the longest day of the year is behind us and that we're moving into the waning year, even when summer has seemingly just established itself. A grief of light lost, and heat, diminished. Hard realities for a seventh generation Texan living in
Aldo Leopold country.
So what's different this year? Am I finally learning to live gracefully in a four-season reality? With its inevitable demonstration of how short one year really is? (In Central Texas, believe me: Time moves more slowly than sweat drips from your face. Summer lasts from April through November.)
Maybe I've acclimated, or maybe I'm doing a better job of living in the moment. Or maybe bigger grief has distracted me....
In any case, the recent appearance of
Thoreau's Blog is a rare treat. I never read his journals before, and now I get to, one day's journal entry at a time. The Blogosphere is an amazing place, one that reflects for me how surprisingly wonderful human beings really are -- a strange place for such a reflection to surface, but a necessary and delightful one. We really do have the capacity to find (sometimes surprising and joyful) new ways to express our humanity on this earth while leaving behind destructive tendencies. A future for our species -- I know we can do it.
And hey! It's not too late to catch up if you want to join me in a daily reading of Thoreau. Remember, the earth is a healer.
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Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Following the Money: Kraft Foods
Yesterday's Lunch: Philadelphia Cream Cheese on a bagel.
Philadelphia Cream Cheese is a Kraft product. Kraft was purchased in 1988 by
Philip Morris (cigarette company) to
enhance its image. (Same for Nabisco in 2000. More image enhancement: Philip Morris changes its name to
Altria Group in 2003.)
I came across the following at
Infact, a non-profit, national membership organization that has been "exposing life-threatening abuses by transnational corporations and organizing successful grassroots campaigns to hold corporations accountable to consumers and society at large" since 1977:
While spreading tobacco addiction around the world, Philip Morris/Altria has used its ownership of Kraft to improve its image with consumers and policymakers—as shown in internal corporate documents released to the public through litigation. Through the Kraft Boycott, Infact has exposed and challenged Philip Morris/Altria’s use of Kraft as leverage on tobacco and health issues.
Philip Morris/Altria is now engaged in a massive public relations campaign to polish its image with consumers and policymakers. However, a 2001 Harris Interactive poll indicates that Philip Morris’s image makeover may not be working, and may instead be backfiring. The poll found that 16% of respondents familiar with Philip Morris had boycotted its products in the past year, a likely factor in Philip Morris's proposed name change to Altria Group!
Here are a few
Kraft brands (available in the United States) I've purchased and/or consumed in the last few years:
Gevalia (coffee)
Oscar Mayer hot dogs
Boca burgers (vegetarian)
Philadelphia (cream cheese)
Grey Poupon (mustard)
Balance (energy bars)
Claussen (pickles)
Grape-Nuts (cereal)
A.1. (steak sauce)
Newtons (fig, strawberry and raspberry filled cookies)
Nilla (as in vanilla wafers)
Oreo (cookies)
SnackWell's (low-carb/sugar-free cookies)
Honey Maid (graham crackers)
Ritz (crackers)
Triscuit (whole-grain crackers)
Wheat Thins (crackers)
Does following the money to Kraft mean I'll never purchase or eat a Kraft product again?
Probably not. Change takes time, and I have a feeling that as I "follow the money" I'll find that not much of what's packaged for sale can meet a do-no-harm stamp of approval.
Once upon a time I purchased almost all of my food at a food co-op. Distance and disability have changed that in the last several years. I can see it's time to work my way back to regular co-op shopping.
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Monday, July 12, 2004
Thurisaz
The thorn rune. The fruit-bearing branch.
K & J came over Saturday afternoon and stayed until Sunday afternoon. We had an
L-Word marathon, watching tapes made by R & M for their dyke friends. We played cards, cooked for each other, talked briefly about
Bush, the November elections and the CIA and
Fahrenheit 9/11, which they haven't yet seen. Mainly, we had fun. J wandered over to the keyboard periodically, making spontaneous songs for each of us. They both opened their birthday presents -- necklaces made by me with creative and material input from F. K & J are more than friends; they're family. The growth of our friendship hasn't been a bed of thornless roses. Some deep hurts and the slow working out of them over time are part of the intimacy that binds and nurtures us.
K and I talked about the young boys who've looked to us for extra-parental support. I mentioned the
grandma hypothesis and we explored that as it pertains to other non-reproducing members of the clan/community/village/tribe: the lesbians and gay men and the heteros who don't reproduce: aunties and uncles who have time and resources to spend on the welfare of the young. One of K's dyke-sons (the grandson of a former partner, whom they raised jointly for about a decade) has asked if he can live with her. His dad is an addict; his mom has been called up to Iraq. He's 18 or 19, but not feeling ready for living independently. One of K's nephews also asked recently if he could live with her. It's not a good time for her to take on kids again, for several reasons, and she's working through the conflicts between her needs and theirs and also strategizing about how best to support them short of taking them in. The conversation exercised my
Cobi grief, particularly that deep and nearly-inexpressible part about having failed my own DNA, having failed the future, by not managing to have provided enough resources to move a physically-srong but emotionally-fragile young man into a viable adulthood.
Sunday evening, before dark, F and I took out the trash and recycling. While we were out, we dead-headed the roses. I've learned to reach carefully behind the petals; F uses garden scissors. Even with caution and technology, though, sometimes the thorns win. I was surprised to feel some
rose hips forming already and had mixed feelings about pinching them off. In late fall we'll quit dead-heading and appreciate the rose hips, the promise of the fruit-bearing branch fulfilled.
While working on the roses I thought of deity as the Great Gardener and imagined Him/Her/It reaching carefully for Cobi's spent bloom; our grief, the thorn; rose hips, the promise of renewal.
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Friday, July 09, 2004
Curves and Operation Save America
Jason at The Wildhunt Blog tells us that Operation Save America, sister organization to Operation Rescue, the radical religious
Anti-Abortion Extremist Group, is coming to town (Columbus, Ohio) to harrass not their usual targets (pro-choice and gay folk), but to take on witches. First women, then queers, now witches, Oh My!
If you missed the
Curves link in my last post, you might want to take a few minutes to explore the connection between the extremist Operation Rescue/Save America groups and the Waco, Texas-based business (Curves), that
Entrepreneur magazine
named "the fastest growing franchise in 2003 among all U.S. and Canadian companies who franchise." I heard recently that Curves is now the 4th largest fitness business in the United States.
Calling on all Pagans, Wiccans and Goddess Women to quit supporting the work of these hate groups by spending their good money at a place where the CEO uses business profits to help fund the "work" of Operation Save America.
Let Freedom Ring!
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Thursday, July 08, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11
Finally, we saw it last night. Almost two weeks after it opened, and our theatre was 98% full if not sold out.
Nothing I read about this film prepared me for it. I'm not even sure what to say about it here. It's not so much what I want to say about the movie. It's what I want to say about being human, about being a woman, about being Pagan, about being American.
I can't even accurately identify the feelings I have after taking in Michael Moore's message about Bush, business and war. I know there's anger in me somewhere, but it's having a hard time fighting its way out from under the oppression of shame, shock, futility and depression that hovered over me on my way out of the theatre.
How have we let things come to this, to all this? Yes, this movie is about Dubya & Co., and about Americans asleep at the wheel. But really, it's about so much more. Its about human values turned upside down, and so entrenched in that position that we're all Hanging Men and Women. Megabusinesses get corporate welfare and get away with murder and other nasties while our young people get killed on the streets, rot in jails and prisons, and suffer medical, emotional and social neglect due to poverty. It shouldn't be this way. It doesn't have to be this way. But what can we do to make it different?
Oh, I know, many of us are doing lots of things to make it different. Here are a few of my favorites of the moment:
But when I left the movie last night I thought
What more can I do? I must do something more. But what?
Last weekend while channel surfing I happened on
All The President's Men and watched it for the fourth or fifth time. You remember it, right? The story of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein investigating Watergate ... a journalistic investigation that lead to the resignation of President Nixon.
As I watched it, I knew there were resonances with what's going on now, and with Michael Moore's documentary journalism. In the movie,
Deep Throat tells Bob Woodward to "Follow the Money."
And so this is my first answer to my own question about what more I can do: Follow the Money!
- Curves ... Its CEO funds militant anti-choice activism with his profits. [I thought about joining. Glad I didn't.]
- AAA ... "a lobbyist for more roads, more pollution, and more gas guzzling." [We're switching over to the Better World Club when our current coverage expires.]
- Dell Computers ... CEO Michael Dell is a Bush/Ashcroft/Republican Party/Department of Defense supporter. [I bought a new Dell a few months ago. Gross.]
That's enough for today....
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Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Grandma Hypothesis
We live in a society that is so geared towards younger people. It is nice to realize that it might be older people that make us human after all.
In research published in this week's issue of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, anthropologists Rachel Caspari and Sang-Hee Lee find support for the so-called "grandma hypothesis" which credits the role grandmothers play in contributing to a group's success by helping to raise their extended families.
In a study of 768 different human fossils from Cro-Magnon, Neanderthals, and earlier prehumans such as Homo erectus and australopithecenes, the proportion of older to young adults in a given group was shown to increase over time and to have "skyrocketed" in the Upper Paleolithic, about 30,000 years ago.
This could be when the uniquely human condition of menopause evolved and started to have an effect, Caspari said. Women not burdened by childbearing could focus on their grandchildren and other kin.
Human evolutionary theory -- out with the fittest and in with the menopausal.
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Sunday, July 04, 2004
Let Freedom Ring
Saturday, July 03, 2004
Yarrow
I just learned some interesting bits about yarrow from
Kim at The Furious Spinner, writing about her Bloody Full Moon. For example:
I looked yarrow up in a couple of my herb books. It was called "Supercilium Veneris," which means the eyebrow of Venus.
According to Susanne Fischer-Rizzi in Medicine of the Earth, "Yarrow was included in the sacred bundle of herbs carried by women on the ancient pagan day of the Goddess."
In China, yarrow sticks are used with The I Ching.
We have the white variety growing in several places, but we also have the orange and yellow ones in our English cottage garden. Kim says that yarrow is good for menstrual problems. I've had few of those -- one of the blessings for which I'm grateful. I'm hoping to be done with the whole thing entirely any year now!
This morning, some old yarrow tea, along with about twelve other flavors, went into a paper bag. Teas that have been hanging around the teapot for about four years, unused. For seven years, women came here to drum every month, and tea drinking was a part of the ceremony. Drummers brought teas and incenses and candles, and when the drum stopped several years ago, we had quite a collection of tea, more than the two of us and occasional guests could drink. We gave some away, but this morning, when we set up the new coffee pot (drips into a thermos!), we decided it was time to simplify the whole coffee/tea/cocoa collection.
One corner of our kitchen is now simplified, and the paper bag of teas is on the front porch, ready to go out with us for our next magical working around a back-yard fire, where these teas will be honored and their energy and the power of their aroma devoted to a good cause.
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Friday, July 02, 2004
top 20 antioxidant foods
The US Department of Agriculture has just released its new list of the "Top 20" antioxidant foods:
1) Small red beans (dried).
2) Wild blueberries.
3) Red Kidney beans.
4) Pinto beans.
5) Blueberries (cultivated).
6) Cranberries.
7) Artichokes (cooked).
8) Blackberries.
9) Prunes.
10) Raspberries.
11) Strawberries.
12) Red Delicious apples.
13) Granny Smith apples.
14) Pecans.
15) Sweet cherries.
16) Black plums.
17) Russet potatoes (cooked).
18) Black beans (dried).
19) Plums.
20) Gala apples.
Antioxidants fight free radical molecules that attack cells and may be responsible for heart disease, cancer and aging. This might be a useful list for kitchen witches and those doing health magic for self and family.
For the record, though, Ronald L. Prior, a USDA nutritionist and co-author of the list, cautions that:
...just because a food has proven to be antioxidant-rich in the USDA's lab, that doesn't mean all those nutrients will be successfully absorbed by the human digestive tract.
"As we learn more and more, we're finding that, depending on the chemical makeup of antioxidants in different foods, some of them aren't apparently absorbed as well, or else they are metabolized in a form where they are no longer antioxidants," he said.
Whether a food is eaten fresh, frozen, processed or cooked can also affect its antioxidant potency — for good or ill, he said. Blueberries are best when eaten fresh rather than cooked in a pie, for example. On the other hand, research has shown that gentle cooking raises the antioxidant power of tomatoes, he noted.
Although experts are working hard on the project, ongoing efforts to come up with daily dietary guidelines for antioxidant consumption will be "a long process," Prior said.
"How antioxidants behave, how they act within the body, the dose-response — we just don't know enough about it," he said.
READ THE WEB ARTICLE
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