Our Blog
March 28, 2024
Are You Mad?
Here we are right in the middle of the annual March Madness college basketball tournaments. Historically the men’s tournament was the big daddy, but we’re heading into an era where both men’s and women’s tournaments garner premiere attention.
A women’s tournament game featuring Caitlin Clark, a generationally talented female athlete from the University of Iowa, set an all-time women’s viewing record this past Monday evening.
For those of you who don’t follow college basketball, consider it a teaching lesson for you.
For our household, it reflects are own special madness.
As first generation college graduates in our families, we fell in love with our schools.
Donna fell so in love with the University of Kansas, she stayed for a second degree, which gave her more time to camp outside the basketball arena on cold winter nights for the opportunity to see her team.
Ron fell in love with two schools, first the University of Illinois and then the University of Washington through a teaching assistantship which brought him to the West Coast.
For years beyond his maturity, his residences were full of college team spirit gear, some classy but most suggesting he was emotionally still living in his teens.
For decades, even though both of us were living in Southern California large distances from our colleges, we followed our teams faithfully in the best ways we could.
We kept our faith through scouring the LA sports pages for scores and news. We’d pull out our transistor radios (remember those?) when a rare opportunity came up to listen to a game. And if we were really lucky, and the rabbit ears or later cable tv afforded us a special treat maybe once every couple of years with a televised game, we were right there watching.
For years, we had limited opportunity to follow the colleges we loved.
But in the past year or two, we’ve begun to experience a brand new wonderful world.
Cable + streaming + 4k TV + sound bars + every game of our schools telecast somewhere across the spectrum = bliss.
Games for all teams record on demand for us. With YouTube TV, we can click “key plays” and see a whole game in minutes when we don’t have the time to watch it live or in full.
We will be ready tonight when Ron’s Illinois Fighting Illini hit the court back in Boston attempting to move from the final 16 to the final 8 in the men’s tournament.
Our son, Hunter, graduated from a major university with sports teams a few years ago.
Think the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree? Guess again.
He only knows and cares about one sport, which he plays with his hands.
Donna and I are mad, but not about the products we represent.
Both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Association of College Athletes (NCAA) encourage whole food nutrition and microcirculation therapy for its college athletes.
Whole Food Vs. Multivitamins
- 70% of Americans are trying to fill gaps with a multivitamin
- A multivitamin only has a few isolated nutrients
- An apple has approximately 10,000 PHYTONUTRIENTS working in synergy
- Research shows that isolated vitamins may do more harm than good
ANNALS of INTERNAL MEDICINE. DEC 2013
Click Here for More on Juice Plus+ Vs. Vitamin and Mineral Supplements
Salad in a Jar
Not only are salads in a jar sustainable,
they are delicious and easy too!!
February 25, 2024
Are You Ready to Take a Leap?
Most everybody knows 2024 is a Leap Year, when this coming week we add February 29 to our calendar.
Leap Year occurs every 4 years in the year evenly divisible by 4.
Since we get an extra day this coming week, it seems appropriate to share how we got to the Leap.
Until the time of Christ there was no Leap Year or Day.
In pre-history, we as people just knew the four seasons.
We knew the equinoxes, the days when the daylight and nighttime hours were equal, using structures we built to pinpoint those days through the positioning of the sun.
Stonehenge is a famous example of early calendar tools.
There were other primitive solar/lunar calendars in the centuries before the time of Christ, but all were primitive approximations.
The first widely adopted Western calendar was the Julian calendar, the first strictly solar calendar, through an edict from Julius Caesar on January 1, 45 BC.
He added a Leap Day every four years, but all months, by custom in the Roman Empire, had to be even numbered. The month of February continued to have 28 days, but on Leap Year, February 24 was repeated to account for the extra day.
If you were born on February 28 of a Leap Year, you got to have a 48-hour birthday every four years.
The Julian calendar worked well for a while. Still over the course of almost 600 years, the Julian calendar overcalculated by roughly 11 days. The vernal equinox had moved from March 21 to April 2.
No self-respecting Pope could allow that to continue, so in October 1582 Pope Gregory XIIII introduced the more refined Gregorian calendar, which is the standard calendar in the world today.
Pope Gregory replaced two February 24ths in the Julian Leap Year calendar with a new day, February 29, as Leap Day on the Gregorian calendar.
Pope Gregory got his monk mathematician star power to work, and they calculated a calendar year at 365.2422 days instead of the 365.25 days in the Julian calendar. That took care of some of the 11 day overage in the Julian calendar, but still we would be a little off without a further adjustment.
Strain your brain to the maximum to get this: Once every 400 years, there is a Century Year with a Leap Day. That is the Century Year divisible by 400.
All other Century Years will not be Leap Years.
The Century Year 2000 was a Leap Year (2000/400=500), The Century Year 2100 will not be a Leap Year (2100/4000=5.25).
The next Century Years to be Leap Years will be 2400, 2800, 3200.
By then most of us living likely will be on Mars instead of Earth, so the calculations will be meaningless.
That’s it. The most perfect calendar except for the occasional need to add a Leap Second in some years. We let the atomic clock take care of that.
Of course, as we well know these days, human beings can be prone to suspicions and conspiracy theories, and we have some about the calendar too.
In Ireland and England, for instance, it is a tradition that women may propose marriage in Leap Years. (Hopefully, we are past that one year every four years limitation!)
In Finland, the tradition is if a man refuses a woman’s proposal on Leap Day, he has to buy her a skirt. (Might want to up the stakes on that a bit to maybe buying her a car.)
In Greece, marriage in a Leap Year is considered unlucky. One in five engaged couples in Greece will plan to avoid a wedding in a Leap Year.
Fortunately, there are no Leap Year or Leap Day prohibitions on taking whole food supplements or using a microcirculation device. Leap Days are just bonus days for better health.
Eliminating Toxins from Our Food
Now that we have your attention, it’s crucial to recognize the significant rise in environmental toxins over recent generations, including microplastics found in our food, water, and air. While we strive to reduce exposures, it’s not always feasible, and our bodies require support to efficiently eliminate these toxins.
Accumulation of toxins can lead to various health issues such as autoimmune diseases, fertility issues, including low sperm count even in young men, brain fog, allergies, cancer, thyroid disorders and more. Toxins are also sadly found in 99.9% of pregnant women.
Please watch the video below featuring Dr. Tamara Sachs, for more information on where these toxins come from and find out how and why to detox with plants!
Meditating for a Healthy Heart
Problem: During stressful situations at work or home, the release of stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine can lead to increased heart rates and blood pressure, contributing to cardiovascular stress and potentially severe health issues such as kidney damage, heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes—leading causes of death in America.
Solution: Meditation activates the body’s “rest-and-digest” functions, countering the “fight-or-flight” response. Incorporating meditation into your daily routine has been associated with lower heart rate and blood pressure, reducing the risk of heart disease. Take a breath and remember to do something for yourself every day.
Whether that is carving a little time out to relax or unwind, taking a bath in the evening, scheduling a yoga class, waking up 5 minutes early to drink your coffee alone, or curling up with a good book. When you take care of yourself, you are also better able to take care of others.
Free meditation resources are readily available on platforms such as YouTube or you can download a meditation app on your phone. We use an app named Calm and highly recommend it. There is both a free version and a subscription version which runs about $60 a year. You can download it to your phone or through any streaming platform.
Discover how meditation benefits your heart, body, and mind for overall well-being.
It’s a Three-Peat for the Stoffels!
We’re ordering a third Bemer for our household this month, this time the new Bemer Evo with enhanced electromagnetic pulse and new features, including a dedicated LED light for facial repair, including acne.
And the best news is the new model has a lower basic price than the original Bemer.
We’ll give you a personal review after we have a chance to experience it.
Heart Healthy Dessert (or Breakfast) Hack
Treat yourself guilt-free with a delicious Banana Split made with yogurt or a plant-based alternative (preferably unsweetened), topped with your favorite berries, nuts, granola, coconut, or any other toppings you desire!
Better yet, make it for yourself and savor every bite of this wholesome treat!
December 14, 2023
Santa Baby!
Some of you may have already seen our 2023 family holiday greeting with the Marilyn Monroe theme.
Seems appropriate this month to address a common misconception about Marilyn and Christmas.
Many of us associate Marilyn Monroe with the classic Christmas song “Santa Baby”.
Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Ariana Grande, Gwen Stefani, and Trisha Yearwood, among many others, have covered this perennial holiday favorite over the years. It was a featured song on Taylor Swift’s 2007 Christmas album.
But the consensus best version of “Santa Baby” was by the entertainer the song was written for in 1953, a sultry singer of the 50s and 60s, Eartha Kitt.
Perhaps because Marilyn Monroe was a famous celebrity when the song came out and because as years pass, our memories get fuzzy, it’s assumed by most of us Marilyn sang “Santa Baby”.
Marilyn did have a hit song in 1953 for the movie “Gentleman Prefer Blondes”. The song: “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”. It is questionable, however, how much of the singing is her real voice.
Marilyn did not sing “Santa Baby”. She was probably saving her voice for “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” nine years later.
The myth persists about Marilyn singing “Santa Baby”. Watch the video below with Eartha Kitt’s voice and Marilyn mouthing the words like the way mouths move in cheap cartoons.
“Santa Baby” was composed back in 1953 by long-time songwriter and current resident of Pacific Palisades, Phil Springer. At age 97, Phil continues to compose 35 or so new songs every year.
Phil Springer takes Juice Plus+ and uses the Bemer for microcirculation.
A Gift of Small “Interest” for the Holidays
Bemer microcirculation pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF) can be a god-send for people seeking an incremental way to maintain good health or who have chronic health challenges to be addressed.
It also can take a substantial bite out of a wallet when purchased with a single payment.
Bemer is now offering low interest financing for spreading the cost of a Bemer system over up to 36 months.
Click the Bemer Financing link below for details. Contact Donna for more information if you are interested.
Ginger – It’s More than a Cookie Ingredient!
More and more people are becoming aware of the significant culinary and medical benefits of ginger. And that number might see a significant increase with growing interest in ginger’s potential to support immune health.
Make and Gift this Chocolate Bark
A perennial, “quasi-healthy” holiday favorite!
Veggie Humor
October 27, 2023
We Are All Frankensteins!
Yes, you read it right. We are all Frankensteins!
Our bodies are merely one large machine full of circuitry and electricity.
Since practically 70% of our bodies are made up of water, they are considered good conductors of electricity.
This is due to the ions (i.e. Na+, K+, Cl-) that are contained within the water.
Check out the video below for an example of how the human body is a perfect electrical conductor.
Low-intensity pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) microcirculation devices use the body’s electrical conductivity to enhance blood flow, resulting in better circulation and supporting the elimination of CO2.
Regular use of a PEMF microcirculation device reduces stress, improves relaxation, enhances muscle conditioning and physical fitness, and affords a better overall feeling of wellbeing.
The device we recommend to our clients, the BEMER, which stands for Bio-Electro-Magnetic-Energy- Regulation, developed and manufactured in Luxembourg, is the top-selling microcirculation device in its class.
Our Immune System
It probably comes as no surprise (especially to you healthy readers!) that eating junk food increases the risk of becoming depressed. This study prompted calls for doctors to routinely give dietary advice to patients as part of their treatment for depression.
Published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, the findings have come from an analysis by researchers from Britain, Spain and Australia who examined 41 previous studies on the links between diet and depression.
Did you know?
That 10 grams of sugar can suppress your immune system for up to 3 hours? And, 10 grams of sugar isn’t much!
A Grande pumpkin spice latte (16 oz) has 50 grams of sugar!
But What About Diet Soda?
Another urban myth that has been exposed as inaccurate in the past few years is that diet sodas are good for you.
When it comes to drinking diet soda, these two UCLA doctors provide sound advice: err on the side of caution. Rather than consume diet soda daily, save it for an occasional treat. Many people find that it’s the bubbles as much as the sweet taste that they crave. That makes the many varieties of fizzy water that are now available a viable option.
Uplevel Your Pumpkin Spice Game!
A thought to leave you with…
September 23, 2023
Don’t Fall for It!
Not this fall.
Today, September 23, is the fall equinox for 2023 when days and nights are of equal length. It can be anywhere between September 21 to September 24 in any given year based on astronomical calculations.
Equinoxes occur at exactly the same time around the world. Technically, while much of the U.S. experiences the fall equinox on September 23, it is actually 11:50 PM on September 22 on the West Coast. That’s if you are splitting hairs.
Regardless of how we define the date, do we really feel it’s fall today? If we focus on the United States, in some sense, it depends on where we live.
For decades, the beginning of the school year, typically right after Labor Day, signified the beginning of fall. But now school starts in August for most of the country, and in some places, as early as late July.
So what are our markers now?
In the South, it’s the first kickoff. Football = Fall. Football typically starts at the end of August.
In the Northeast, fall begins when the foliage begins to turn, as early as mid-September in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.
In the Midwest, it’s when the bugs go crazy.
But it’s not as scary as you might imagine if you are not from there.
Pinhead-sized green aphids sense when the first frost is coming to kill them off. One late September evening, you’ll experience thousands of these little creatures clinging to window screens and flying into unprotected open mouths.
They’re said to enhance the flavor of a drive-thru McDonalds hamburger on that one special night.
In the Northwest, it’s the day after Labor Day every year, when a weeklong rainstorm almost always abruptly ends the usual dry and pleasant summer. Summer = Independence Day to Labor Day.
But for most of California, summer sticks around for a while.
The best month of the year in San Francisco is October. No fog, warm weather, clear blue skies.
Same for Los Angeles and San Diego. Hot, dry, sunny weather, which briefly peaks in the afternoon as the days begin to shorten, leaving idyllic mornings and evenings.
Ron, a Midwest transplant, recalls sitting in the parking lot at Santa Anita Racetrack during his first fall in California sometime near the end of October, watching a spectacular sunset as he was waiting to exit the lot, wondering if summer-like weather would ever end.
(Yes, there was major traffic. Those were the days when going to the racetrack on a weekend meant coping with 50,000-60,000 other handicappers mostly exiting the lot at the same time.)
Ron’s ultimate conclusion on the end of his first California summer: Thanksgiving. Put the Christmas Tree up. Summer’s finally over.
So what’s the point?
Don’t fall for poor diet and no exercise. The odds would be up you could be experiencing your last fall.
Our Immune System
There are so many reasons our immune systems need shoring up: school has started, the fall equinox has arrived, and when summer ends, whenever that is, we’ll begin to spend more time inside than outside, so continuing to build a healthy immune system just makes sense.
JP+ can help. Did you know that JP+ capsules have been the subject of four different studies on immunity conducted on four different populations: healthcare professionals with direct patient contact, young law school students, an elderly population, and athletic men? The combined results of these studies show that Juice Plus+ capsules support the normal function of the immune system and support upper respiratory health. Watch the video below to hear from Manfred Lamprecht, Ph.D., the JP+ Director of Clinical Research.
Back to School Special!
To celebrate the back-to-school season, JP+ has a delicious offer for you. By using our Healthy Starts program, you can gift JP+ to a loved one between the ages of 4 and 25 – free of charge! This is a simple and affordable answer to getting good nutrition into young bodies.
In addition, thru the end of September, when you begin Healthy Starts, you can receive 15 single-serve sachets of Complete by JP+ for FREE! Contact me to start today!
Fast, Healthy Breakfast
Would you like an easy, no-cook convenient breakfast to get you and your children’s day off to a healthy start? Try making Mason Jar Oatmeal.
Make it in individual mason jars for the perfect serving size and an easy grab-and-go breakfast straight from the fridge (it’s eaten cold).
Mason Jar Oatmeal is high in protein, calcium & fiber; and low in fat & sugar.
For another fast, convenient, and nutritious breakfast idea, remember our JP+ Complete Smoothies are always in season!
Making Time for Exercise & Self-Care This Fall – Tips from Bemer
August 30, 2023
A Co=Op Changed My Life
No, not coop, co-op.
So what is a co-op?
In Ron’s case, we are talking about a purchasing co-op, a form of
co-op very popular in the Depression, where people join together through paid memberships to allow for the purchase of goods at fair prices and for members to receive part of the co-op earnings back as participation dividends.
In Ron’s case the co-op we are talking about is Recreational Equipment Inc. or REI as many of us know it today.
REI started back in 1938 in Seattle when avid outdoor enthusiasts Mary and Lloyd Anderson couldn’t find good ice axes at a fair price.
Mary discovered she could purchase at far better prices by translating German outdoors catalogs and then purchasing by mail directly from Germany.
The Andersons recruited 21 outdoors friends to form the Recreational Equipment, Inc Co-Op run for many years out of their house in West Seattle. The initial members paid $1 for a lifetime membership, were able to get great deals on their outdoor equipment needs and got part of the profits back based on the volume of their purchases.
Over the ensuing decades, their business grew to fill a warehouse building on the edge of downtown Seattle. By 1960, there were 20,000 members. By 1970, close to 200,000 members, with the warehouse and a downtown storefront.
Enter Ron, a southern Illinois flatlander who arrived in Seattle to attend graduate school at the University of Washington in the early 1970s, and whose only outdoor experience was walking five miles from his grandma’s to home on surface streets to qualify for a Boy Scout merit badge.
On an early reconnaissance of downtown Seattle, he spotted Recreational Equipment on the second floor of one of the retail buildings and climbed the steps up. The second floor held the REI store and an office of The Mountaineers, the preeminent outdoors club in the Northwest.
On that fateful Saturday afternoon, he purchased an REI membership and signed up with the Mountaineers for a hike in the local mountains the next day.
After that, life changed. Ron lost his flatlander moniker and incorporated recreational exercise into his lifestyle. REI continued to grow from 200,000 members based in one city to 23 million members and 181 destination stores in 42 states and internationally today.
Good nutrition is the foundation of a healthy lifestyle.
Regular exercise, recreational or purposeful, is a necessary complement for optimal health (unless it’s skydiving).
Good nutrition + regular exercise = best chance for an extended satisfying life.
10 Parts of Fruits and Veggies You Didn’t Know You Could Eat!
Plant-based diets have many health benefits and tend to be better for the planet compared with diets that are heavy on meat, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). But there is one area where produce lovers could take a tip from carnivores: reducing food waste.
An astonishing 30 to 40 percent of the nation’s food supply goes to waste, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If you think about it, there are plenty of perfectly good produce parts we hack off and throw out for no good reason. (With Juice Plus+, we use all of the fruit or vegetable, so there is minimal waste)
Healthy Snacking
Looking for healthy snacks that you can throw in your gym bag, beach bag or car? Look no further than our Juice Plus+ Bars, single-serving Complete and Chewables!
Summer Recipes
Get the Most Out of Your Exercise with Bemer Microcirculation
The REI Co-Op got Ron started. In recent years, the Bemer came along.
Good nutrition + regular exercise + Bemer microcirculation = improved overall wellbeing and better sleep.
July 29, 2023
Orange County’s Own Yellowstone
Watch Yellowstone? We have our own Yellowstone here in Orange County under the current name Rancho Mission Viejo. Originally called the Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores, the ranch stretched from Oceanside all the way to the plains under Saddleback Mountain, over 200,000 acres in all. Current ranch patriarch, Tony Moiso, poses above.
Founded in 1841 in a land grant from the Mexican government, the ranch was an enormous financial and cultural enterprise for 200 years. The picture above shows ranch activities in the early 20th Century.
Then World War II came, and Uncle Sam took over the San Diego portion of the ranch, leaving about 52,000 acres in Orange County.
The original ranch house and grounds, now part of Camp Pendleton HQ, housed the camp commander and his family all the way through 2010, whereupon it was turned into a museum with tours to the public.
As Los Angeles grew into an ever-larger metropolis, there was pressure for housing in South Orange County.
Rancho Mission Viejo turned to land development and successively opened the communities of Mission Viejo (1966), Rancho Santa Margarita (1986), Las Flores (1995), Ladera Ranch (1999), and Rancho Mission Viejo (2013) with a total population today of just under 200,000.
Donna’s first career job after college and moving to South Orange County from Kansas was as Executive Assistant with the Rancho Mission Viejo Company, as work on the planned 55,000-population Rancho Santa Margarita community began. See her and her cohorts above.
And what a job that was. Worked out of a ranch house in San Juan Capistrano with extended office wings emanating from a vaulted grand room with a floor-to-ceiling fireplace. (Jealous, John Dutton?)
Casual dress, parties practically every week in the grand room, Fridays off (way ahead of their time).
Planning for community events such as the RSM Rodeo and the El Vaeje de Portola (The Journey of California Explorer Portola) where each spring to this day a large contingent of community leaders trail ride 30 miles round trip for charity from downtown San Juan Capistrano to a remote ranch camp for drinking and carousing.
Teaching the electric glide.
Donna still reminisces about that being the best job she ever had.
Ron bemoans the multiple pairs of retired cowgirl boots taking up a considerable portion of their shared closet.
The ranch has always been more than a cattle ranch. Here’s Donna with her dad picking oranges on the ranch when she worked there.
As the final planned community, Rancho Mission Viejo, continues to build out in the south end of the ranch not far from San Diego County, we are witnessing the pioneering of a new land development movement, agrihood.
Housing is being built on mesas, not surrounded by golf courses or lakes, but by working farms. There are 17,000 acres of open space in the community, which includes the largest citrus orchards in Orange County. Orange, lemon and avocado orchards mix with cattle and permeate the open space.
So what does it all mean in terms of health? Better to be a ranch hand in South Orange County than Montana. You can add fruit to your carnivorous diet, and wait a little longer to ride off into the sunset.
In with the New
Donna’s mom, Bonnie (on the left above) continues her daily sessions on the Bemer Essential Pro, as she has done daily for the past seven years.
The young man (on the right above) is using the new Bemer Evo introduced a few weeks ago on July 10.
Bonnie’s still good with her Bemer Essential Pro, a reliable device built to last.
The new replacement Bemer Evo offers everything the Bemer Essential Pro offers, plus a plug-in providing medical grade LED skin therapy.
The B-body, B-pad and B-spot continue to provide microcirculation therapy for inside the body, and now the skin therapy plug-in supports your skin deep health.
Click on the link below to learn more about the new Bemer Evo.
LINK TO MORE ABOUT NEW BEMER EVO
Into The Wild Blue Yonder
By Natalie Rizzo, TODAY show
Berry lovers, rejoice! The summer season packs store shelves with juicy berries of all varieties. One of the fan favorites? Blueberries, which are bursting with sweetness and packed with nutrients.
One cup (or handful) of blueberries is a good source of fiber and contains vitamin C, K, manganese and polyphenols, or beneficial plant compounds.
P.S. Our Juice Plus+ Berry blend is full of blueberries!
Why Eating More Plants Is The Key to Health
We all want to be healthy, but what does true health mean? Oftentimes, people think it’s about their weight, the way they look, counting calories, dieting, and restriction. But true health is really about feeling your best. Ask yourself: Do you have the energy to do what you want to do in life?
Type 2 Diabetes Remission
More good reasons to eat more plants: growing evidence supports the benefits of a whole-food, plant-based diet, which includes reduced blood pressure, lower cholesterol, improved heart health, and diabetes outcomes.
According to a new study published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, following a lifestyle intervention that involved adopting a whole-food, plant-predominant diet, patients showed potential to achieve type 2 diabetes remission.
Red, White and Blue Salad
Giada De Laurentiis says: I love a salad that’s loaded up with goodies, and this one definitely fits the bill! With lightly pickled cucumbers, grapes, blueberries, pistachios and gorgonzola cheese, it’s got a ton of amazing flavor going on.
June 22, 2023
Donut!
As many of you know, June 2 was National Donut Day. If you look closely, you can see us in line that morning at the local Krispy Kreme for our FREE donut.
While sweetened breads of all sorts have been around since ancient times, the donut is an American invention.
From where did it come?
Its origins were about the time of the American revolution, when Dutch settlers to New York brought recipes for fried “olykoeks,” or oily cakes….no holes, just a round ball.
The oily cakes had widespread popularity, but when did they evolve into donuts?
Fast forward to 1847. Merchant ships at the time included derivations of oily cakes as part of the typical sailor diet because they were easy to store, cook and eat.
Hanson Gregory, a ship captain on a merchant ship based out of Quincy Massachusetts, all of 16-years-old at the time, depended on his mother, Elizabeth, to supply the food to be stored for a journey.
To help ward off scurvy and colds, Elizabeth mixed hazelnuts and walnuts into the pastry dough and created the name “doughnut” to describe it. And Hanson, finding the doughnut cooked unevenly after being pulled from the ship’s galley bins, tried creating a hole in the middle of the “doughnut” with a round hole punch, which did the trick. The doughnut with a hole in the middle was born.
There is a Hanson Gregory Day every June in Quincy to commemorate his contribution to American cuisine.
Let’s move along to New York City 1920. Adolf Levitt, a Russian immigrant, opened up a donut shop in Harlem. The theaters near his donut shop clamored for him to make more donuts to satisfy the demand for his donuts in their concessions.
Up to that time, donuts were fried in a pan. Adolf used his mechanical skills to invent the first donut making machine. Years ahead of his time, he machine-cooked his donuts in an open store window, and crowds watched enraptured outside.
Adolf went on to sell an unheard-of-for-the-time $25 million in donut making machines around the U.S., and the donut was on its way to being an institution.
Which brings us to the late 70’s and Ted Ngoy, who would come to be known as the Donut King.
Ted came to Orange County CA as a refugee from Cambodia, gained employment at a local Winchell’s Donut, learned the trade and then started his own donut shop run by him and his family.
With the support of the U.S. government, over a period of years, Ted sponsored many Cambodian refugees fleeing from the Khmer Rouge regime there, bought donut shops and leased them to his sponsored families. By the mid- to late-eighties, Ted owned 57 donut shops up and down California.
He and his family moved into a beautiful $7 million mansion on Lake Mission Viejo. Unfortunately, someone else lives there now.
Ted was drawn like a lightning bug to Las Vegas, and the story goes every time he went to Vegas, another donut shop was sold. He ended up sleeping on a friend’s mobile home porch before returning penniless to Cambodia.
His story is told in a 2020 film named “The Donut King” currently available on streaming.
Ted left a lasting donut legacy before and since his return to Cambodia.
As a distributor of donut shop supplies to the shops he owned and numerous others in the California Cambodian refugee population, he sourced for cost-effectiveness. He discovered pink boxes were a few cents cheaper than white boxes. Ultimately because of him, the pink box is the trademark donut box in California.
Perfect for the California drive-time culture, Ted helped build the highest concentration of independently operated donut shops in the U.S. With a donut shop as close as your nearest strip mall, and with 95% of these shops currently run by people of Cambodian descent, Ted made Southern California the donut consumption capital of America.
Have your heart set on a donut now? Consume your fair share of donuts over the course of the year? If so, you may be a candidate to bridge the gap with some whole food nutrition.
Juice Plus+ Versus a Pretender
An inferior product to Juice Plus+ by the name of Balance of Nature has been advertised recently on late-night TV and in social media.
Be forewarned. It is more expensive than Juice Plus+ and is inferior in quality. Click the link below for comparisons.
LINK TO DETAILED PRODUCT COMPARISONS
Closeout Sale on the Bemer Pro Device
Snapshot of Donna’s mom, Bonnie, using the Bemer microcirculation device the other day. Bonnie has been using the Bemer daily for the last 6+ years. We wake her up and she periodically exclaims “I’m STILL alive.” We tell her we’re doing our best to keep her that way.
There is a new model of Bemer coming out in July. To clear inventory for the new model, Bemer is offering the current Pro Essentials model for $3,990 from $5,990, a $2,000 (30%) savings while supplies last.
Check the link below for sale details. The Pro Essentials is the current top-of-the-line model.
LINK TO BEMER PRO ESSENTIALS SALE
A Corny Joke
What did the lettuce say to the celery?
Quit stalking me!
May 30, 2023
A Tall Order
We went to Scottsdale earlier this month for a vacation week near our son, Hunter, who currently works there.
Right down the street from our resort, on the busiest intersection in town, was a park with a magnificent spire, beautiful by day, stunning at night.
Upon inquiry, we learned this 125-foot spire is a replica of the spire Scottsdale’s favorite son architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, had proposed for a new 20-story Arizona State Capitol Building in 1957.
Frank Lloyd Wright, of course, was the preeminent American architect of the first half of the 20th Century.
And he was both self-confident and an innovator, like when he proposed a 500-story skyscraper for downtown Chicago in 1956.
Fortunately or unfortunately, then Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and municipal leaders attending Mr. Wright’s large ballroom presentation, with a 25-foot tower replica in the middle of the room, were delighted with the proposal until the cost on their dime was revealed at the end.
And he was both self-confident and an innovator, like when he proposed a 500-story skyscraper for downtown Chicago in 1956.
Fortunately or unfortunately, then Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and municipal leaders attending Mr. Wright’s large ballroom presentation, with a 25-foot tower replica in the middle of the room, were delighted with the proposal until the cost on their dime was revealed at the end.
CLICK HERE FOR A SNAPSHOT OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S PERSONALITY
Frank Lloyd Wright had a challenging personality, akin some of the most well-known in today’s times.
He bullied his architectural students into gratis greenhouse tending, allowing for fresh fruits and vegetables farm-to-table on his compounds.
As a result, he ate well, and had no need to “bridge the gap” with whole food supplements right up to his death at the ripe old mid-20th Century age of 91.
It’s All About Ron’s Teeth
One Sunday afternoon back last August we went to the movies to see Brad Pitt in “Bullet Train”. Before the very first murder in the movie, Ron bit into popcorn, and from maybe a single kernel (who knows for sure) imploded the same upper molar tooth on each side of his mouth.
Having only had crown dental work in the past, he was venturing into new territory when he was told he would need implants.
Oh, well. TV commercials promised you could replace all your teeth in a day. How challenging could it be?
If you’ve had implants, you know better. It’s a year-plus of extractions, waiting three months for each tooth, sinus uplift surgery, waiting three months, surgically installing the metal rods, waiting three months, and finally getting the implants capped.
At each step in the process, Ron’s dental surgeon was impressed at the speed and quality of the healing, way beyond his normal expectations, especially for someone at Medicare age.
Ron’s unorthodox home treatment regimen in support of healing?
Strapping the Bemer microcirculation pad over his mouth for 16 minutes a day.
Tower Garden Trauma
It’s been an unusual winter in Southern California this year.
Just saw a surfer up in Malibu bemoaning on a news interview how it’s been three months of crappy weather and he was waiting for a better day.
We planted our Tower Garden six weeks later than usual this spring, and as you can see from the image above, still not much to show for.
At least the bougainvilleas are looking good.
The worst part was, by waiting until after April 1 to order our seedings from a mail order vendor, the most efficient way to acquire hydroponic seedlings, we got trapped by the newly enforced California law disallowing the mailing of certain seedlings from April 1 to December 31 in the calendar year.
We’ll start the Tower Garden in our garage next year if we want the restricted tomatoes, peppers or eggplant. Well, forget the eggplant.
Lettuce Celebrate National Salad Month
May is the perfect time to celebrate National Salad Month. Did you know the Association for Dressing and Sauces created this event in 1992? National Salad Month encourages people to incorporate more salads into their daily food regimen. So this May, celebrate by turning over a new leaf. Change your eating habits, get creative with your salads, and inspire others in your life to do the same.
Here’s a tasty, simple recipe to kick-start your salad month, with (some) ingredients you can grow in a Tower Garden!
15 Spring Bucket List Ideas
This list has some fun ideas for your spring/summertime enjoyment.
1. Eat outdoors as much as possible
2. Go tent camping
3. Eat produce in season…