UstaadKhan Blogs

Flood survivors in Pakistan are not only facing the threat of serious illness with a lack of doctors and medication, but food shortages as well, as the water has also washed away crops and submerged hundreds of thousands of hectares of fertile farm land.

The United Nations has so far received less than half of the $459 million in immediate aid funding it appealed for last week. Another $43 million has been promised. On Tuesday the World Bank announced it would redirect $900 million of its existing loans to Pakistan to assist in the flood recovery effort.

Canada has pledged up to $33 million.

Meanwhile, thousands of people await medical assistance, emergency shelter and food supplies and anger continues to grow over the government’s perceived sluggish response to the crisis. Aid agencies and the British government have complained the international community hasn’t stepped up to provide the money needed to help those in desperate need of basic life-saving necessities, including clean drinking water, food, emergency shelter and medicine.

The torrential downpours and the subsequent flooding has so far killed approximately 1,600 people and left as many as 20 million people in need of immediate assistance. The nation’s northwestern Sway Valley region has been hit particularly hard, where water has washed away entire villages and destroyed bridges and other key infrastructure, including hospitals and schools. Large swaths of the Punjab and Sindh provinces are also submerged.

Authorities warned Tuesday that the Indus River could burst its banks again.

Water-borne illness poses a great threat and the UN said cases of diarrhea are rising, increasing the risk of malnutrition.

Looting and protests over food shortages have also been reported in Punjab. The water washed away approximately 700,000 hectares of wheat, sugar cane and rice crops. Fruit crops have also been destroyed. Food prices have spiked since the flooding began more than three weeks ago.

Food and drink have direct effect on our health. That is why Islam has prescribed regulations about our food and drink. It lays great emphasis on our physical as well as moral health, because both of these are equally important for a healthy society.

The abstention from eating pork is one of the steps taken by Islam to practise hygiene and to attain purity of soul.
Islam, for the cultivation of inner faculties, insists upon the cleanliness of body and the purification of soul through Salaat (prayers) Zikr (remembrance of Allah) and other devotional duties. Islam teaches us how to attain the virtues and how to give up bad habits because both good and bad grow in the man according to his upbringing, education and environment.

A human being has natural desires: food, sleep and sex being the three primary ones. He has also natural emotions: sorrow, happiness, love, fear, disgust and avarice etc. Islam doesn’t recommend the complete abrogation of these impulses but offers a method of controlling them through religious education and discipline.

The prohibition of eating pork in Islam is relevant in this context. There is a saying in English that “a man becomes what he eats.” According to physicians and medical experts, pork is a harmful diet. Consumption of swine-flesh creates lowliness in character and destroys moral and spiritual faculties in a man.

Body & Soul
The life of a man is a compound of body and soul. Anything, which is harmful for the body, hurts the soul as well. Consumption of swine-flesh reduces the feeling of shame and as such the standard of modesty. Those nations, which consume pork habitually, have a low standard of morality with the result that virginity, chastity and bashfulness are becoming a thing of the past in Europe today. The number of unwed mothers is on the increase despite the use of pills and other contraceptives.

According to a report, 60 to 70% girls in Sweden become mothers before marriage. The formula of “skin to skin is no sin” is having its toll but there is hardly any feeling of shame and remorse over the end-result. Since the European nations have become addicted to wine and pork, sexual freedom with all its attendant evils has got ingrained in their culture. Consequently, homosexuality has been legalised by the British Parliament. (more…)

The risk of ADHD was higher among children exposed to tobacco and lead.

More than 94 percent of the world’s people are not protected by laws against smoking, leaving them exposed to the biggest cause of preventable death, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

In a Global Tobacco Epidemic report the WHO said smoke-free policies were crucial to reducing the harm caused by second-hand smoke, which it said kills around 600,000 people prematurely each year and causes crippling, disfiguring illness and economic losses reaching tens of billions of dollars.

The report found some progress had been made, with 2.3 percent of the world’s population, or around 154 million people, newly covered by smoke-free laws in 2008. But it warned of many more early deaths if governments did not act quickly.

“The fact that more than 94 percent of people remain unprotected by comprehensive smoke-free laws shows that much more work needs to be done,” said the WHO’s expert on non-communicable diseases, Ala Alwan.

Scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability. Over the past four decades, smoking rates have fallen in rich places such as the United States, Japan and western Europe, but they are rising in much of the developing world. (more…)

Ginger root three ways: fresh; dried and ground; and crystalized

On a flavour-to-cost ratio, ginger is one heck of a deal. It’s inexpensive, depending on the form, and just a small amount can add a world of flavour to all sorts of dishes, both savoury and sweet.

Ginger is the tan-coloured, knobby rhizome of a perennial herb officially known as Zingiber officinale. The plant can grow more than a metre tall and when the leaves die, the rhizome, the ginger, is harvested. How the ginger is, or is not, processed determines what form you get.

Fresh ginger

When the rhizomes are harvested and sold as is, you have fresh ginger. When purchasing, look for firm pieces of ginger with fairly smooth skin. If the ginger appears shrivelled or has spongy spots, it’s old or was improperly stored and should be avoided. It will be difficult to peel, cut or grate.

Unpeeled fresh ginger, if placed in a tightly sealed plastic bag, can be kept in your refrigerator crisper for up to three weeks, depending on how fresh it was when purchased. For the freshest ginger taste, though, buy only what you can use in a reasonable length of time.

If, for some reason, you’ve purchased a pile of fresh ginger, it could be placed in a tightly sealed plastic bag and frozen for up to two months.

Another option for longer-term storage is to peel and slice the ginger, place it in a jar, top it with dry sherry or vodka, tightly screw on the lid and place it in the refrigerator, where it will keep for a month or more. If you do store ginger in alcohol or freeze it, keep in mind that both processes will alter its flavour.

Fresh ginger can be used in all sort of recipes; today I’ve mixed it into cranberry sauce and yam stew.

Ground ginger

To make a spice called ground ginger, the rhizome is dried and ground into a powder that has a pleasingly pungent aroma and concentrated ginger taste.

This spice is prone to clumping if improperly stored and exposed to moisture. So keep ground ginger in an airtight container in a cool, dry place and always use a dry measuring spoon when getting some. If properly stored, ground ginger will maintain its lively taste for up to six months.

After that, its flavour will begin to diminish.

Ground ginger can be used in a variety of ways, such as being added to spice blends, stirred into preserves or beaten into cookies. The New Food Lover’s Companion says the flavour of dried, ground ginger is very different from that of its fresh form and is not an appropriate substitute in dishes specifying fresh ginger. I don’t totally agree with that, because when I’m making a stir- fry and am out of fresh ginger, I have sprinkled in some ground ginger and the results were good.

If you do try to substitute ground ginger for fresh, the website of the spice and herb company McCormick (mccormick.com), says a quarter teaspoon of ground ginger equals one teaspoon of grated fresh ginger.

Crystallized ginger

To make this form of ginger, sometimes called candied ginger, the fresh root is peeled, cut into pieces or slices, cooked in syrup and dried. You can make a simple but sweet and spicy holiday confection by dipping and coating pieces, slices or strips of crystallized ginger in melted chocolate and letting it set. Sliced or chopped crystallized ginger can also be used in a variety of other sweet ways, such as cookies, steamed puddings and fruitcake. I’ve also used modest amounts of chopped or sliced crystallized ginger to impart a sweet and spicy taste to savoury dishes, such as soups and curries.

Store crystallized ginger in a tight-sealing jar in a cool, dry place. It will keep for many months.

 Cranberry Sauce With Apricots, Ginger and Currants (more…)

Dr Marcel Smits

The Bedouin of the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula have long been convinced that the milk of camels can cure almost any internal disease, driving bacteria from the body.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations reports that doctors in parts of Russia and Kazakhstan often prescribe it to convalescing patients.

In India, camel milk is used therapeutically against jaundice, tuberculosis, asthma, anaemia and piles.

And there is some evidence of a much-reduced incidence of diabetes in parts of the country where it is regularly drunk.

European health food?

In the Netherlands, proving the veracity of such claims to a sceptical European audience has become a family concern.

When 26-year-old Frank Smits became Europe’s first commercial camel farmer, his father, Marcel, a neurologist at Gelderse Vallei Hospital in Ede, decided to help the cause by recruiting his medical colleagues to look into some of the alleged health benefits of his son’s product.

Three years down the line, Dr Smits has attracted enough interest and credibility for his research to win funding from the local health authority and nearby Wageningen University.

“I think this milk does have some potential to become a new health food in Europe, but I prefer health food when it’s proven scientifically,” he said. “And that’s what we are trying to do.

“For example, we did a study with diabetic patients, involving giving them half a litre of either cow or camel milk here in the hospital, starting early in the morning and monitoring their blood sugar level every 30 minutes for three hours.”

The patients were not told whether they had drunk milk from a cow or a camel, said Dr Smits, adding that the the full results from the tests would be available at the beginning of next year.

“In the meantime, we are starting a bigger study, lasting three months, with up to 200 diabetic patients and we would not be commissioning such a study if the results of the first research had not been encouraging,” said Dr Smits.

“We have also found evidence that diabetics feel better when they are regularly drinking camel milk, that their quality of life seems to improve.

“I don’t know if this is only the influence on the diabetes or if it is also other aspects of camel milk which improve well-being. And that is also one of the things we are looking into.” (more…)