Oyster is One of Favorite Seafood in Louisiana – Food 2

Fig 01- A Louisiana oyster dish

Marine products contributed US$ 1.8 billion in to Louisiana state economics. The products include:

- sea foods
- fisheries
- shellfish

In term of production, Louisiana is second largest after Alaska. Louisiana catches 1.3 billion pounds of marine creatures, while Alaska produced 5.3 billion pounds of seafood.

Oyster is one of my favorite seafood. Louisiana oyster has different taste compared to other oysters.

Louisiana oyster is quite like meat texture with “fresh earth” (earthy) flavor. Just to remind you that Louisiana oysters are harvested from Gulf of Mexico.

Other oysters which live in the ocean let’s say Pacific and Atlantic are different in tastes than Louisiana oyster.

The tastes could be saltier and sweeter.

Fig 02- Oyster just harvested from public sea in Louisiana

Prices of Louisiana oyster dishes are range from US$ 9.00 to US$ 12 per six oysters, depend on kinds of restaurants.

I think price for raw oysters is quite cheap, US$ 30 for a 100 pound. It is mean that US$ 0.3 for 1 pound, contains 2 to 3 oysters per pound.

I often eat oysters in US$ 12 restaurants where I can eat everything available menus: fish, oyster, chicken, noodle, pizza, fruits, cake, ice cream and etcetera.

Fig 03- A fishing boat to harvest oysters

Public may harvested oysters from Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana in certain seasons. Oyster could be found in the areas such as:

- Shallow tidal zones
- Sub tidal zones.
- Estuaries
- Brackish water

Open season starts in September and closed in April. Louisiana authority in this case “Wildlife and Fisheries Commission” may decide to close or open the areas based on biological data.

Finally, have you taste an oyster?

What do you think about th taste: sweeter, salty or earthy?

Do You Know a Sign of Bipolar Disorder? - Healthy Life 8

Illustration of Bipolar Disorder,

credit to Cleveland Clinic Health Essential

Bipolar disorder is “a brain disorder” relates to daily activities where moods may swing highly from low to high. Lower level refer to depression periods, while higher mood refers to mania periods.

In addition to moods, irregularity in activities and energy lead to unable cope with difficulty in daily live.

The exact caused of bipolar disorder is not known yet. However, the causes are suspected from internal and outside factors.

Hormonal imbalance in the body could trigger this mental diseases. Outside or environmental factors that may cause disorder include mental stress, abuse and traumatic events.

As reported by National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in 2017 that “The average age-of-onset is about 25, but it can occur in the teens, or more uncommonly, in childhood.

The condition affects men and women equally, with about 2.6% of the U.S. population diagnosed with bipolar disorder and nearly 83% of cases classified as severe.”

Flowers in the garden

How many of 2.6%?

The number should be: 2.5% x 350 million = 9.1 million of USA population affected by bipolar disorder illness.

When the people ever experienced depression, mania and Hypomania, then they might develop bipolar disorder. Many signs of people enter early bipolar disorder such as stop (difficult) sleeping and loss focus.

They might not know, but the patients stop sleeping day by day will face severe conditions later on.

If patients or family bring the patient to see a doctor (family doctor), then the doctor may refer to the psychiatrist for treatments.

Reference

NAMI. 2017. Bipolar Disorder. Retrieved From:
Www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Bipolar-Disorder

Summer, be aware with Traveler's Diarrhea – Healthy Life 7

People at the beach

Yes, many parts of the world are facing trouble pandemic in this Summer.

However, do you have any plans to travel abroad?

Getting ready to visit the nice places and enjoy the local culinary, but...have you ever have stomach flu when you enjoy traveling?

It does annoy you and sometimes it ruins your traveling schedules.

You are not alone, that happened to me, and many of us. In every 10 person, 3 to 7 person have this experience.

This stomach flu causes loose or watery stool, also known as diarrhea, and it's almost common in travelers. This stomach flu is called the Traveler's Diarrhea (TD).

Why do you get stomach flu when travel?

When I traveled to the warmer area and an area with poor public hygiene, that easy for me to get infected the stomach flu.

These areas do not have access to plumbing and latrine, so you can imagine that the amount of stool contaminated and more accessible to flies.

Sunset in the tropical area

Whenever an area has lack of safe water. electricity frequent to black out, and lack refrigerators will increase risk to the stomach flu.

The stomach flu is caused by many pathogens from contaminated water, prepared food, and utensils. Bacteria is the most commons cause, such as E. coli, Campylobacter jejuni, Shigella, dan Salmonella.

Viruses, such as norovirus also contribute to the somach flu. Parasites is less common.

How do you know that you got TD?

Knowing the symptoms, such as suddenly I have loose stool or watery stool, bloating, urgency using bathroom, vomiting, belly pain, tired, and fever.

When this symptoms mild, it goes away, but when severe I need to call health care provider.

How does you prevent TD?

I always make sure do not eat food from unknown sources, do not put ice in drinks, and only drink sealed bottle water. Avoid to eat raw fruits and salads, raw meat, selfish, and unpasteurized milk or yogurt.

I always carry traveler size of alcohol sanitizer, tissue, and liquid soap in my purse. Some medications for TD prophylaxis are always along with other cases.

Family Saga and Meaning to be a Good Person – Part 2 - Reading 1

Andrew Ridker, The author of The Altruists.

You may read the first part:

- The Rainbow Before Evening : Family Saga and Meaning to be a Good Person – Part 1 - Reading 1

I read all through the book. I did not see any funny and smart.

I just felt piety to those characters, seems they are not mature, not smart and wise about life. “Am I loosing the sense of humor?”

I was thinking that I was stressful, my anxiety level was getting higher. I was about frustrated because I also had to google some terms from this novel that I was doubt about the definitions and the concepts.

This book was wrote by a millennial author, a young man in her twenties. It is his novel.

Since I review another book which is Altruism:

- The Power of Compassion.

Finally, I agree that The Altruists is super funny and super brilliant.

Flowers in the city garden

This novel is ironic and tragicomic about moral life, and the concepts how to be a good person with the naïve thought.

The author fascinated about two differences. We can see how two generation, between baby boomers and millennials, between dysfunctional family and campus life, in this novel. He gives the readers good measurements of compassion.

The author is very smart, even the characters seems kind of un-mature persons, but he created their personality exactly like in the theories or concepts that we learn either in the Sociology Class or in the Psychology of Personality.

The terms in the book are also terms in the textbook, and some concepts might from his faith.

Could Positive Thinking Lead to Live Longer? - Healthy Life 6

 

A wild flower at backyard

Based on researches done by several Universities recently that there is relationship between positive thinking and live longer.

I think this finding have changed our long belief that the physical outfit only could increase our chances to live healthy and life expectancy.

Feeling of positive thinking or optimism make our health condition better, thus naturally, our immune system or body in better condition to fight many diseases.

In other word that positive thinking people have lower risk to get diseases such as:

- respiratory relate diseases
- cancer
- stroke
- heart diseases

It is interesting that we may have positive thinking by doing good or healthy or certain habits.

What kind of habits?

Positive thinking, just for illustration (credit to RTE)

The positive or healthy habits include:

- exercise regularly
- consume healthy foods (not smoking, no alcohol)
- sleep enough, at least six hours daily
- strong work ethics
- regulate emotional

Moreover, one of researches has observed more than 70 thousands men and women for periods of 10 to 30 years. It is concluded that:

- positive thinking people may live about 13% longer than pessimism people.
- optimism persons have greater chance to reach 85 years old age.

Do you believe that a positive thinking or optimism can make us live longer?

When do Pine Trees of our Neighborhood Produce Nuts? - Nature 9

Fig 01- Nuts of pine trees

We routine go shopping to our neighborhood Walmart super center for everything from grocery to medicine.

We noticed that there are plenty of trees planted in park lot areas. We guess those trees are pine trees like.

Here in Lousiana, we have several kind of pine trees, some of them are:

- The spruce pine tree (Pinus glabra)
- The longleaf pine tree (Pinus palustris)
- The loblolly pine tree (Pinus taeda)
- The slash pine tree (Pinus elliottii).
- The Virginia pine tree (Pinus virginiana)
- The shortleaf pine tree (Pinus echinata)

Pine trees mainly are evergreen, but some species change their leaves color to red to brown in the autumn, then fall down.

We know that leaves of pine trees at our neighborhood have changed colors during fall season. The tree and leaves re-grow in the spring.

Fig 02- Two pine trees at parking lot.

Fig 03- The trees produce nuts or seeds

We are quite surprising, after take a look closer to the branches that the trees are producing nuts or seeds at this time around, middle of May.

Like other trees in the northern hemisphere, the production followed the seasonal temperatures.

We read from literature that at least 20 species of pine trees produces nuts or seeds. Our pine nuts size is quite big enough with rounded shapes.

Most pine nuts are edible and good for sources of nutritional foods. Zero cholesterol and sodium.

Have you tried nuts of a pine tree?

Family Saga and Meaning to be a Good Person – Part 1 - Reading 1

The Altruists, a novel

I picked this book with several reasons, some of them because I like:

- the cover with clean white
- the pictures
- and reviews stated, “Super brilliant, Super funny”.

The first chapter I did not see any funny but sad, because this chapter was about their burning house, meanwhile whole family plus a couple client were in the house.

The end of the first chapter, the author put some conversations among them, when they were seeing the fire fighters doing their job from the outside of burning house.

Seemed the author left the clues for readers by putting two words in bold fonts. I kept in my mind those words.

The next chapters jumped back and forward, reminding me to words with bold fonts.

They are the “theme” of this novel.

Fruit from a wild flower

This book is about the a family, Alters. Arthur Alters is a father, “professor at a Midwestern college, he can’t afford his mortgage, he’s exasperated his much-younger girlfriend”.

Maggie is a main characteristic, a daughter, who “a would-be do-gooder trying to fashion herself a noble life of self-imposed poverty”.

Ethan is his son, an introvert gay.

# To be continued to part 2