Are We Living Longer?

Donaghmore

I started to listen with interest to a topic on Sean Moncrieff's afternoon programme on Newstalk the other day. He was interviewing an expert on Alzheimer's and Dementia. As the interview progressed I went from interest to disbelief. He said that we were living longer since the 80's and this was why there had been such a huge increase in these diseases.

Now it takes significantly longer than 30 years for an evolutionary increase in age expectancy. I read recently that we were not living longer than our predecessors over a hundred years ago. In fact average life expectancy has hardly changed at all. What has changed is that there is significantly less infant mortality. A hundred years ago a large number of young children and babies would have died from something as curable as a cold or a flu. Similarly, lots of young adults and middle aged people died from diseases that are largely curable today. However, many many people lived well into their eighties and nineties. It would be interesting to research how many of them suffered from Alzheimer's/Dementia.

I would hazard a guess a lot less than are now. What this expert did say (which was interesting) was that there has been an explosion in the incidence since the 80's.

It was on my mind and when I was in Wexford recently and I climbed over the wall of a very old graveyard. I walked around and tried to make out the writing on the old lichened gravestones. What I did discover was that there were a large number of octogenarians and nonagenarians commemorated. There was equally a large number of infants, children, teenagers and adults aged in their 40-50s. All of these would probably have survived nowadays due to advances in medicine, antibiotics and access to better nutrition and health care.

I think it has to be a bit simplistic to say that had all those people lived longer that they would have also succumbed to Alzheimer's/Dementia.

My mother from a long lived family says she doesn't remember anyone in her town in the west of Ireland with Alzheimer's/Dementia. My mother was a nurse and worked in the local hospital there so I'm sure she would have been aware.  Her own mother died aged 94 in 1981 and my grandfather aged 88 in the seventies. Her grandparents (my great grandparents) were also well into their eighties. She has also insisted for years that there wasn't as much cancer then either or other degenerative diseases. There was no Autism, no Irritable Bowl Syndrome but there was one case of Multiple Sclerosis and the whole town knew about it. Now you can say that these cases were undiagnosed in that they were not named but they would have still been described. Not only were they not diagnosed or named but they were not described either. Which would indicate they hadn't occurred.......?

So what has changed?

Is it too simplistic to assume it's something as simple as food? Or overuse of antibiotics? Or pesticide residues, Or GMOs? 

I really wonder? Do you?

(My dad age 81 was diagnosed with vascular dementia a good few years ago so I have an interest in the disease.)

Bloom in the Park 2014 in Pictures

Emma Jane Rushmore's fabulous wire sculptures

The opening day of Bloom was a bit wet and miserable. It wasn't a good start. We had tickets to collect and for some reason they had to be left in the only ticket collection booth at the "main" entrance. Only trouble was that we were arriving at the Castleknock entrance.

We started to walk around as we had done last year but with the rain and the long grass and the muck we turned back and decided to drive around. But we met lots of obstacles in the form of road blocks, Gardai who told us there was no main entrance, another Garda who told us we couldn't stop the car and run over to collect the tickets. So we had to move the car from one car park to another and hike through the long wet grass to collect the tickets.

By the time we got in we had wet feet, we were cold and we were hungry. Not a great start.....

We headed straight for Bistro Bloom and went to the Prosecco Bar where last year we had relaxed in hot sunshine.

This year it was cold and the tables under the canopy and umbrellas were in demand. A lovely waitress brought us rugs.








It's self service. It's eye-wateringly expensive for pre-prepared plates of food chilled to oblivion. So chilled in fact that you can barely taste what you are eating. But that's food safety for you.
Actually the Prosecco and the food improved our mood no end and then we felt able to head off and tour the gardens.






The wet weather meant that the light was really good for photography and not a lot of people about.

This is a Wisteria in tree form. Beautiful.

This lovely garden house was in the Woodie's DIY garden which had a really beautiful colour coordinated planting scheme.

Cranberry (Ocean Spray) garden. I stood looking at this for ages as there were a lot of people in front of me and I couldn't figure out what they were. It was incredibly soothing.









The harvested cranberries in the boxes made a terrific feature.











Several of the gardens used vegetables as feature plants including potatoes. When potato plants are healthy and flowering they make a super ground cover.















Bumble bees were in abundance making the most of all the flowering plants.
















               
The recycle garden was really clever and included a composting bin in the centre of the garden as well as very clever use of food to make displays.










The red chair really drew your eye to lead you up the garden path.

Some of the really fabulous and very healthy vegetable displays that added lots of colour and texture.













There were fashion and craft stalls inside in a big pavillion. Virtually impossible not to get completely carried away.


















Everything you could possibly need for your garden was on display including these butterflies.

The main food area is an absolute foodie's paradise where you can sample and talk to the producers. This range of vinegars were an absolute find. Wildwood Vinegars. He told me he can't claim they are organic as he uses lots of foraged ingredients. To my mind they are better than organic. They are real.






Bloom is a really enjoyable day out. Once we got over the hiccup of ticket collection everything else was superb. The organisation and attention to detail is excellent. There is something to interest everyone including really terrific and interactive areas for kids to play, learn and let off steam.

If you missed it this year, get thee to the Phoenix Park next year and make a day of it.
















  
                                                 

Raw Honey

I've been itching to have an oul rant now for ages but have been biting my keyboard.

It seems most food blogs concentrate on recipes and reviews. Now I have no problem with blogging a recipe mainly for my own benefit, as when something works out really well, I either can't remember where I found the recipe or what little tweaks I gave it.

But I leave the reviews to the experts who have a lot more patience than I do when confronted with a fabulous plate of food. It would be impossible for me not to dig in immediately. I really wouldn't have the patience to set up a photo shoot.

But to the rant.

I read a tweet the other night about the benefits of "raw" honey. Now in my innocence I did not realise what they meant by raw honey. I knew the stuff in the supermarket, the Boyne Valley stuff was blended from lots of different honeys from more than one country and probably heated/pasteurised. When we were kids my mother always told us it wasn't as good for you. Her father had kept bees and they grew up eating their own honey. Then when we went to Wexford every summer we used buy honey from a house on the way to our mobile home. The old man sold it in sections and I really loved digging out the honey with the wax and slathering it on homemade soda bread rolls baked in a wonky old oven.

My mother had an inkling about all it's now recognised benefits. To us it was just honey. Real honey not the Boyne Valley honey.

So now the benefits of real honey (I can't use the term raw) are being written about in the media and even SuperVet aka Noel Fitzpatrick over on the Channel 4 programme uses it in post-operative wound management.

Following this tweet the next day I took a picture of real honey and posted it on Twitter. It was honey produced by my brother in law from his garden in Blackrock. Almost immediately I got a reply from a honey "producer" (**Irish Bee Sensations) asking was this honey raw. Cue bafflement. I replied I was fairly sure it was although I did think it was a bizarre question. In their reply they had asked how it was extracted. I replied I was pretty sure "in his kitchen". Then the clanger, do you not realise honey sold must be extracted in a honey house. (It does not).

I replied "Oh my God", thinking the food "safety" police had got their sticky fingers on honey extraction and production to make it "safe".

I am just so weary of all the food safety rules and regulations that have very little to do with making food "safer" and a lot more to do with keeping bureaucrats in jobs as well as kowtowing to the EU.

If you are really really worried about the miniscule risk of getting botulism or food poisoning from honey read the link above which explains how these pathogens and/or spores may be present. Then work out the risk or the possibility. I would imagine you would be more likely to be hit by a jumbo jet falling from the sky. Of course there is a risk to the immuno-compromised and possibly small babies but you know if you stick a small human in a sterile bubble they will never develop an immune system. In fact this has been pretty much proven with the increase in asthma and eczema and the obsession with sterilising everything a baby comes in contact with.

Instead concentrate on the benefits amongst which are; eliminates allergies, anti-inflammatory, strengthens the immune system, anti bacterial, anti fungal, improves digestion, calming, pain relief.

And if you want any more proof apart from that seen on SuperVet. A friend's newly born colt foal who contracted rotavirus and was very very sick was cured using a combination of natural yoghurt and honey.

I have yet to meet a bee keeper who has not been passionate and incredibly knowledgeable about bees and bee keeping and I would very much doubt they would extract under unhygienic conditions but even if they do, honey is not a great environment for bugs to live in.

On balance I will stick with real honey extracted by small, truly artisan producers and avoid the mass produced and heavily regulated. 



**Irish Bee Sensations have since disappeared off the market and are suspected of repackaging honey from German supermarkets. The owners are wanted for fraud.