This Valentine’s Day, Get Choc Full o’ Health
As if you needed an extra excuse to eat chocolate… With new studies showing that dark chocolate is loaded with antioxidants and can help lower blood pressure, ambitious chocolatiers are taking things a step further, creating sweet surprises that are good for both body and soul.
•Power Organics’ Cacao Berry Clarity may be the true-blue fountain of youth. Packed with a whopping 1,000 milligrams of Klamath Blue-Green Algae—a nutritional powerhouse said to increase energy, improve mental clarity and aid in weight loss—plus raw cacao, wolfberries and Miracle Krystal Salt (aged 250 million years in the Himalayas), this toothsome treat adds nourishing zing to a balanced diet.
Available online at Powerorganics.com or call 800.327.1956 for a list of local retailers.
• Looking for a sinfully delicious alternative to Botox? Hollywood starlets are pounding down the door for the creamy confections at Comparte’s Chocolate in Brentwood, owned by 21-year-old candy guru Jonathan Grahm. Using organic ingredients, Comparte’s Anti-Aging truffle includes an exotic blend of Japanese pearl dust, lyceum and pine nuts, while their decadent Anti-Oxidant truffle tucks pomegranate and blueberry into a dark chocolate blend.
compartes.com, 310.826.3380, 912 S. Barrington Ave., Brentwood.
• Feeling more concerned about, er, other areas of your health? Chocolate temptress Diane Krön of K Chocolatier is a Beverly Hills dream come true. Her husband gained fame in the ’70s for inventing the chocolate-covered strawberry, and the couple catered to the likes of Jackie Kennedy and Andy Warhol. Today, Krön is revered for her specially formulated For Women Only chocolate, which features a blend of herbal aphrodisiacs like the aptly-named horny goat weed. Paired with her titillating Vodka Martini chocolates, these mood-enhancing treats have the ladies a’ flocking, and men stopping by just to say “thanks!”
KChocolatier.com, 310.248.2626, 9606 Little Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. —Sarika Chawla
Oh My Goodness!
And yours too… The newest and easiest way to incorporate small acts of charity into every day? GoodSearch.com. This Yahoo-powered Internet search engine donates money to your cause of choice every time you click—at zero cost to you.
After recognizing the possibilities inherent in the $4 billion online search engine industry, altruistic brother-sister business team Kenny and JJ Ramberg started the LA-based company, pledging to donate 50 percent of the profits to charity. “The beauty of this is obvious,” Mr. Ramberg told the NY Times. “This money is being raised by people who are doing something they do every day: search the Internet."
Choose your favorite out of the more than 900,000 affiliated schools and charities, or submit the info of your preferred nonprofit and Goodsearch will add it to the list, pending verification. According to Ramberg, a small charity with 100 Goodsearchers who use the site twice a day would generate $730 in annual donations—an average of one cent per search. Now that’s virtual virtue with real returns. —Eliza Thomas
Nip it in the Buddha
If you’re wondering what Buddha would do in our troubled times, why not just ask him yourself? According to the tens of thousands of daily visitors to a certain pipal tree in south-central Nepal, the Buddha is no longer centuries out of reach; he’s been reincarnated as a 15-year-old boy named Ram Bahadur Bamjan.
Called “Buddha Boy” by his growing entourage, Bamjan has been deep in meditation for over six months, and according to his followers, he hasn’t eaten or drunk anything since the start of his quest. The episode has been compared to that of the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, who achieved enlightenment after 49 days of meditation underneath a pipal tree. The historical Buddha was born 160 miles from where Bamjan sits, to a mother named Maya Devi, which is Bamjan’s mother’s name as well.
During the day, Buddha Boy’s visitors can observe him from behind a fence located five yards away. After dusk, however, the boy’s followers place a screen in front of him—rendering his nighttime activities unknown (and therefore great fodder for skeptics). Local officials have arranged for scientists to investigate claims that the boy has been surviving without nourishment, but so far reports have been inconclusive. Buddha Boy has vowed to meditate for six years; so we may have to hold our questions until 2012. —Andi McDaniel
Screaming For Yak Cream
If the International Ice Cream Association (IICA) has its way, everyone’s favorite frozen treat is about to get a lot freakier. The Food and Drug Administration is currently considering broadening rules for ice cream processing, including one, championed by the IICA, that would allow ice cream manufacturers to source milk from animals other than cows. What kinds of animals, you wonder? Well, sheep and goat, for instance… and, er, reindeer, water buffalo, yak… pretty much whichever exotic animal milk is cheapest on the global market. For example, water buffalo milk, the primary source of India’s dairy trade, is up to six times cheaper than its cow counterpart.
Well, the thought of a yak milkshake makes me want to yak, you say to yourself. I just won’t buy it. That might be easier said than done, counters critics of the proposed rule change, like John Bunting, a dairy farmer and analyst for an industry trade publication. “It’s powder you have to worry about,” Bunting warned CNNmoney.com. “Sure, you may have to say ‘water buffalo milk’ if you are using it, but if it comes in a powdered form mixed in with other powdered milks, the rules are a little less clear.”
The FDA has been grappling with the mystery milk proposition for a couple of years now, so it’s unlikely Reindeer Rocky Road will be hitting a grocery freezer near you any time soon. But concerned dessert lovers who want to keep the Moo in à la mode can stay on top of the story at milkweed.com. —ET
Watch the Pain Disappear
The Little Engine That Could isn’t the only one who thinks he can; a new study suggests that focusing the mind can ease suffering for those with chronic pain.
Using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers at Stanford University had patients observe the activity in a pain-regulating part of their own brains. Functioning sort of like a live MRI, the fMRI technology allowed patients to “see” the pain activity in their brain on a moment-to-moment basis.
Patients were then instructed to attempt to control the visible pain occurring, using techniques such as picturing the pain as benign. All of the subjects of the test, both actual pain sufferers and healthy subjects who were exposed to (non-harmful) pain stimuli, experienced less pain as a result of the “neuroimaging therapy.” The actual pain-patients reported a remarkable decrease, averaging 64 percent.
Study co-leader Christopher deCharms suggests that the technique is a long way from commercial application; it needs additional testing with more subjects and longer test periods. But the results of the pilot study are nonetheless encouraging, indicating non-surgical, drug-free chronic pain relief may be possible. And for a condition marked by constant suffering, even a glimmer of hope can feel pretty darn good. —AM
To Buck Fush All You Need Is a Dollar and a Dream
The next time a shop clerk hands you a wad of singles, take a closer look: You may be holding “Bush Bills”—dollars altered to register disapproval of the Bush administration. Some of the popular statements appearing on our national currency are: “No War,” “Impeach Bush/Cheney,” “No Blood for Oil,” and “Buck Fush.” Forget those clumsy placards, banners and bullhorns of yore: Today’s tool-of-choice for cutting-edge dissidents is a felt-tip pen.
People who tag singles with political graffiti are called “Georgers” (a reference to both Washington and Bush) and they appear to have originated the most accessible form of protest in the history of civil dissent. While it takes 37 cents to mail an indignant letter to the White House, it only takes a few seconds to turn an ordinary dollar into a Bush Bill. Since the average dollar circulates for 18 to 22 months, Bush Bills can make an indelible impression on the cash economy. As Swami Beyondananda notes: “In an age where money talks, this is a great way to spread a message the media ignores.”
Inscribing slogans on paper money is an established free-speech tradition. Atheists routinely replace “In God We Trust” with “In Ourselves We Trust.” Feminists prefer “In Goddesses We Trust.” And Native Americans remember the forced relocation of the Cherokee Nation by scrawling the word “Shame” across Andrew Jackson’s face on $20 bills.
But isn’t it illegal to deface dollars? Apparently not. While US Code, Title 18, Section 333 targets anyone who “mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together” a Federal Reserve note “with the intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued,” George-ing a bill doesn’t render a dollar unfit to circulate—that would defeat the purpose. LawforKids.org gleefully assures future Georgers that “it is not against the law to draw giant red lips on George Washington’s dollar bill portrait.” In short: the Bill of Rights protects the rights of bill-writers.
With corporate media threatening to throttle the last cries of dissent, Bush Bills offer a down-and-dirty way to Buck the trend. It’s a textbook case of “viral” advertising—a low-cost, high-impact means of spreading a message fast and far.
“Bush Bills are a great outlet for citizens who feel their country has been taken away from them,” says a local Georger whose nom-de-plume is Billwinkle. “It’s my way of ‘sending a message’ to Washington,” Billwinkle explains. “Even if they don’t accept my message, they’re going to have to accept my dollar.”
For a colorful collection of altered currency, go to uglymoney.com. —Gar Smith
