Whipped Shea Butter & Its Many UsesWritten by Lisa Maliga
Shea butter, also referred to as karite, which means “life” has been used across African continent for centuries. It hails from Central and Western Africa. It’s actually a nut fat, as it’s obtained from fruit of kernel. Shea nuts are picked by women, then par-boiled, and sun-dried for a week in order to dehydrate nut. This increases their storage time. The next step is to crush dried fruit, in order to remove skin. When shea butter is hand crushed like this, it retains all its numerous vitamins and minerals and nutty, smoky scent is naturally preserved. The color ranges from off white to gray to golden brown to green, depending upon maturity of nut. It’s always refined at least once, in order to remove dirt, bits of gourd, or leaves, objects that would not be fun to apply to your skin. In Africa, shea butter is often used as a cooking oil. Shea butter can also be used as a hair conditioner, as a way to prevent sunburn pain, to soothe cracked, dry feet and hands, especially during those skin-drying winter months or for those of you who live in a dry climate. According to noted soapmaker/author Susan Miller Cavitch, in her 1995 book 'The Natural Soap Book', writes: “Shea butter is gentle enough for babies and people with sensitive skin. It soothes and softens dry chapped skin, while nourishing all skin types. I have come to rely heavily upon shea butter for its effectiveness.” She was using this wonderful substance, and including it in her homemade soaps, long before most people in North America had even heard of shea butter!
| | FLUORIDE DEBATE CONTINUES.Written by Alfred Jones
The debate regarding Fluoride continues to rage, is it good for your teeth? or, teeth of our children. There does not appear to be a survey available, without bias, that goes one way or other.We could say that Fluoridisation of water supply is an expensive exercise, because it is only intended for drinking, but is actually being used for washing clothes, cars, used in showers and baths, also for watering gardens and lawns. Obviously a more cost effective option, would be to supply those that want it, with Fluoride Tablets, then we would not all be forced into consuming it daily and it would not be wasted on gardens, etc. The Fluoridisation agent used by most water authorities throughout world is sourced from phosphate fertiliser plants, and is an industrial grade that can contain traces of Lead, Arsenic, Cadmium and other real goodies. also they have never been tested for safety in humans, see http://www.flouridealert.org/phosphate/overview.htm The more expensive pharmaceutical grade of Flouride, sodium salt is seldom used. Most dentists, for some reason are in favour of use of fluoride, but, there is a group in Ireland fighting to have it taken out of water supplies in Ireland, there are over 60 dentists that are members of group called "Irish Dentists Opposing Fluoridation". When you consider all chemicals that authorities already put in water supplies, plus all other chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers, that also run in to supply, do we really need to add more.
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