Brown Rice

I love brown rice but often can't wait the 40 minutes it takes to cook. However, I've stumbled on a great solution: cook plenty of brown rice allow to cool to room temperature and freeze in serving portions. These portions can be easily and quickly defrosted
on the counter or pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds. The taste and texture are perfect.
With brown rice the husk is removed, with white rice the husk and the layer of bran are removed. Several vitamins and minerals are lost when the bran is removed, however is the U.S most are put back in as enriched white rice. What white rice is lacking is mainly fiber but also a considerable amounts of magnesium are also lost in the process. The good news is that in a recent study has shown that rice bran oil may help lower LDL cholesterol. Plus I love it's nutty flavor.

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Instant Moisturizing Treatment

Water! That's right, splash a little cool water on your face and let dry. Then apply your moisturizer or not.
You can also get a spritzer bottle add mineral water (make sure it is spring not tap!) and a bit of lavender essential oil, store in the frig. for up to 7 days.

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Toxic Jeans?

Toxic Fashions
The latest wave in jean fashion calls for a highly labour intensive product, dipped in layer upon layer of toxic chemicals.

The journey of the jean, from fabric mills through the hands of cutters and sewers to the chemical baths of laundries, takes its toll on both workers and the environment.

Once the fabric weight is selected and the yarn is spun, either in Mexico or in the southern United States, the dying process begins. Chemicals are used in making blue dyes, and the darker the jean the more chemicals are involved.

For designer jeans, textile companies use sulphur treatment and mercerization (which involves treating the cotton in a caustic soda solution, and then neutralizing with acid to improve dye absorption).

Tinting - in which beige and yellow dyes are padded onto finished fabric by hand - is one of the latest fads. Hints of purple and green "overdyes" add another stage of chemicals to the mix.

Mexico's lax enforcement of environmental laws allows companies to dump dyes into surrounding bodies of water, polluting the groundwater that feeds nearby farms. The deep blue of the creeks surrounding jean factories in Tehuacan is the dangerous result of such unregulated dumping.


Once the jeans are assembled, they are sent to laundries for additional chemical treatments.

Tinted, "dirty" vintage jeans add new labour intensive steps to the finishing process. Jeans are "crunched" by hand to create wrinkles in the dye, rubbed manually to remove the indigo, and sponged to add colour.

More expensive styles are first "dipped" in dyes, then baked in resin to keep the indigo dark and provide an aged, rigid denim look.

Another technique involves bleaching and stonewashing with enzymes to destroy the indigo. For instance, amylase is used to shrink the jeans and soften the fabric. Cellulase weakens the cotton fibre before the jean in thrown in a stonewashing process with pumice stones or other abrasive objects.

Laccase is replacing bleach in stripping the indigo dye from the jeans to give them an aged look. At this stage in the process, tinting and "overdyes" can be done by hand on the single garment rather than on the bolt of fabric.

If kids knew the impact of their fashion statement on workers and the environment, they would realize toxic jeans are very unfashionable.
US health and safety expert Dara O'Rourke

Chemicals used in the laundries often end up polluting local waters. In many regions, the sheer volume of water used by laundries cannot be accommodated because of arid conditions and low water levels. Torreon is said to be one of the few Mexican cities with a sufficient water supply, however a water shortage is on the horizon
The last toxic step is the drying and baking. The large dryers, heaters and ovens present a final problem. Mexican laundry workers are seldom protected from the toxic fumes released by huge dryers, heaters and ovens.


Maybe it's time to say, "No to toxic fashions."

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