Yesterday, I mentioned that wheat has been in Britain longer than previously thought. After 8,000 years of relying on the grain for our daily bread, our bodies should be used to wheat. Yet more people are suffering from allergies and intolerance lately. We have to wonder why.

Researchers are trying to discover why food allergies are on the rise in developed countries worldwide, and to learn more about the impact of the disease in developing nations.

Wheat intolerance: the facts. Source Daily Mail.

An increasing number of Britons claim they are intolerant to wheat.

Health problems involving wheat fall into three main groups.

Gluten intolerance, otherwise known as coeliac disease, is an inflammatory condition of the digestive tract, caused by gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats. It is not a contagious illness but is often genetic. Coeliac disease affects one person in every thousand. Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 30 and 45. Classic symptoms include lethargy, weight loss, vomiting and diarrhoea.

A wheat allergy. A sensitivity or allergy to wheat can produce a variety of symptoms in the body such as sneezing itching, rashes, watery eyes, runny nose, coughing, hay fever, headaches, nausea, digestive problems, swollen limbs or general aches and pains. When someone is allergic to a certain food, their immune system reacts as if the food were an invader and produces antibodies.

Unlike classic allergies, if you are allergic to wheat you will usually be allergic to more than one food. On average, sufferers react to four or five different foods.

Sufferers are advised to eliminate wheat from their diet altogether and replace with rice, corn, millet, buckwheat or potatoes.

Wheat intolerance does not involve an immune response. The reasons why people suffer from wheat intolerance are not entirely understood. Some experts believe it occurs when some people are short of the enzymes necessary for the proper digestion of wheat. Symptoms of wheat intolerance can include bloating, headaches and joint pains. Some people find pasta and bread hard to digest. This is because the food absorbs water, so it swells in the body and causes discomfort. Many jump on the bandwagon and assume they're wheat intolerant.

The exact causes of allergy symptoms are still being investigated. Researchers know what happens in the body, they just don't know why.

What Causes Allergies? The Role of Antibodies:

The immune system is similar to a sensory system in that it is aware of the environment and adapts. Its purpose is to recognize foreign invaders, such as bacteria and parasites, and launch an attack to counteract the threat of infection. It also recognizes and disposes of ill or defective internal cells, to prevent a disease from spreading. Wow!

The immune system must recognize and separate what is foreign or abnormal from what is normal. A complex process produces millions of unique antibodies which serve as recognition agents that can trigger an immune response. Sounds like a robot!

Food allergy and food intolerance are quite different things. A food allergy is a reaction produced by the body’s immune system when it encounters a normally harmless substance. An intolerance does not usually involve the immune system. When a foodstuff (such as wheat) causes an unpleasant reaction (such as a rash), the effects are slow. People who have allergies will have a bad reaction even if they come into contact with a very small amount of the foodstuff they are allergic to, whereas those with an intolerance may still be able to eat that foodstuff in small quantities.

The foods people can become allergic to include: celery, cereals containing gluten (including wheat, rye, barley and oats), crustaceans (including crabs and prawns), eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs (such as mussels and oysters), mustard, nuts (including brazil nuts, hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts), peanuts (groundnuts or monkey nuts), sesame seeds, soya.

I'm one of the lucky (healthy) ones. No allergies for me. As a child living in Australia in the 40s, I played in the street, or the dirt in the back yard, legs exposed to the environment. When I fell off my bike and grazed my knees, thick scabs formed that took weeks to heal. I ate anything put in front of me, and tasted all sorts of weeds. Maybe it's beneficial for a young body to get down in the dirt and eat a variety of foods. Perhaps modern children living in developed countries are too removed from the environment.

According to new archaeological evidence, wheat was traded in Britain 8,000 years ago.

Fragments of wheat DNA recovered from an ancient peat bog under a submerged cliff off the Isle of Wight suggests the grain was exchanged long before it was grown by the first British farmers. No wonder. The grain is nutritious, concentrated, easily stored and transported, and can be processed into various types of food. Although many people are now allergic to wheat, the crop now feeds 30% of the human population and provides 20% of its calories.

Research from the University of Warwick, published in Science, suggests there was a sophisticated network of cultural links across Europe.

Agriculture first appeared in the Near East and then spread along two main routes into Europe. The accepted date of arrival on the British mainland is around 6,000 years ago, as ancient hunter gatherers began to grow crops such as wheat and barley. But before then, wheat could have been traded with the less advanced hunter gatherer society in Britain. There is no sign of the crop being grown in Britain until much later. At that time farming was gradually spreading across Europe.

The research shows that scientists can analyze genetic material preserved within the sediments of the landscapes stretching between Britain and Europe in prehistoric times. The hunter-gather societies of Britain, far from being isolated could have been part of extensive social networks that traded or exchanged exotic foodstuffs across much of Europe before Britain became severed from the mainland.

Wheat is mostly grown on wind swept areas that are too dry and too cold for the more tropically inclined rice and corn, which do best at intermediate temperature levels. Unlike any other plant-derived food, wheat contains gluten protein, which enables a leavened dough to rise during fermentation. I eat a lunchtime sandwich nearly every day made from wholemeal bread, which supplies roughage.

Wheat is the product of a cross between three different grass species which seems to have happened about 10,000 B.C. In the stone age, man ground grains of wheat with rocks to make flour. Later, man understood that he could grow food as well as hunt food. The ability to sow, reap, and grind cereals may be one of the chief causes which led man to dwell in communities, rather than to live a wandering life hunting and herding cattle. 3,000 BC The Egyptians were the first to produce risen loaves using yeast, probably by accident when beer was used to mix dough instead of water. Pictures and models of the first bread oven is shown in their tombs.

This latest discovery shows that Britain was a civilized society much earlier than previously thought. Love history and finding out about how mankind first developed.

In my co-written dystopian novels, the lovable characters are thrown back to primitive life after the Great Flood. There, I've used my imagination to work out how they would live each day in wild Britland.

They can also be bought from an Amazon near you.

Wind Over Troubled Waters: http://bookgoodies.com/a/B007X57XMS
Knights in Dark Leather: http://bookgoodies.com/a/B00A3EYR0M
Golden Submarine: http://bookgoodies.com/a/B00C8T4O0I
Long Doom Calling: http://bookgoodies.com/a/B00DT6QHFO
Seaweed Ribbons:  http://bookgoodies.com/a/B00Q3IVJ1M

The stunning moment when a purple-coloured alien-style 'aircraft' was seen hovering above locals in Lima, Peru was captured on film by a TV crew.

They were recording an episode of Peruvian show Alto al Crimen in the Miraflores district of Lima at the time, interviewing a Congressman. In the background, a mysterious purple object hovered in the sky. The crew halted the production and gaped.

Although eyewitnesses claim the object was in the sky for two hours, no footage has emerged of the UFO leaving.

Authorities were unable to explain the mysterious object. Mutual UFO Network, an American-based society which investigates cases of alleged UFO sightings, is looking into the mystery. If you want to watch the footage from the first moment the object was sighted, here's a link to the Mirror story. 

However, much to my frustration, an advertisement starts playing first, which is just as long as the actual footage. Dang, that's annoying.

A paid commercial takes precedence over the purple UFO? Maybe it's a purple people eater. Remember that Oldies song? Sheb Wooley wrote and sang the lyrics of Purple People Eater, which reached #1 in the Billboard pop charts in 1958. It's now listed under childrens' Very Silly Songs.

Well, I saw the thing
A comin' out of the sky
It had a one long horn
And a one big eye
I commenced to shakin'
And I said "oohwee
It looks like a Purple
People Eater to me"
         ~
It was a one-eyed, one-horned
Flyin' Purple People Eater
One-eyed, one-horned
Flyin' Purple People Eater
Sure looked strange to me (One eye?)

During WW1, the Flying Baron is said to have believed he shot down a spacecraft, and, being such a good pilot, he evaded the UFO. If this is so, they've been watching us for a long time, way before the Roswell incident.

Do you think we are really being watched by aliens?

Okay. This is a mundane subject, but we all need to wash dishes. Most, apart from the people who eat out or use takeaway containers, need to wash the dishes and cutlery we've eaten from.

The latest news is that if children eat food off crockery that has been hand washed, rather than cleaned in a dishwasher, they are far less likely to develop allergies.

Scientists found that manual washing-up left more microbes in place on utensils and crockery meaning that children’s immune systems became more developed, making them significantly less likely to develop eczema and asthma. The same goes if they grow up on a farm, or have pets, or eat fermented food.

In a paper published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, Swedish researchers report that kids who grew up in households where dishes are hand-washed as opposed to sterilized in a dishwasher were less likely to report suffering from eczema, asthma, or hay fever. With the goal of uncovering practical habits that might protect against allergies, the study questioned the parents of 1,029 Swedish children aged 7 to 8. 

The result of the questionnaire suggests that hand-washing dishes (and leaving some microbes on a fork, bowl, or plate in the process) may help reduce the risk of allergy development in the young.

The finding is in line with the hygiene hypothesis, which suggests that excessive cleanliness is responsible for a growing allergy epidemic. The idea is that exposure to germs in early childhood is necessary to stimulate the immune system and reduce the risk of allergy development.

However, abandoning the use of a dishwasher could be an expensive prospect. Households with a dishwasher were found to use on average 50pc less water and 28pc less energy than the households that didn’t own one.

Previously, experts warned that while dishwashers can be more hygienic, poor designs and overfilling can leave dishes less clean than hand washing. But if you wash up by hand for more than nine minutes while running the hot water, or use more than six washing-up bowls for your dishes, then you are likely to save more by fully loading the dishwasher up once.

The revelation that dishwashers could result in more instances of childhood allergies came as it emerged that peanut consumption can reduce allergies. The New England Journal of Medicine's findings from the first large-scale trial testing a method of preventing food allergy, suggest parents may have been given wrong advice about peanuts for decades. Barring peanuts and other allergenic foods from babies altogether might actually increase the risk of food allergy.

Ho, hum! What are we to believe? Experts and studies clash in their advice all the time.

I'm a firm believer in allowing young children to live as natural a life as possible, playing in the soil, rolling about with pets, and exposing their skin to the elements in all types of weather.

We have a small dishwasher, but rarely use it. My husband, who is the chief cook, prefers to wash up in the sink. How about you?

An 82-year-old Chinese writer was removed from his home early one morning in mid-September. His supporters say they have not been able to pinpoint the precise reasons for his arrest. However, they have reason to believe it was the result of an online article in which he attacked one of the Communist Party’s seven most powerful leaders.

Earlier this month in China, an intensified crackdown went into force against anyone spreading harmful information on the internet.

You might notice I've removed all names from this article. I'm elderly and I like to comment on news articles that affect us all. Perhaps I'm safe in England for the moment, but political changes make a huge impact on laws. As writers, we're aware it's best to stay clear of politics and religion as a safeguard against antagonizing other people. We don't expect to be arrested.

The Beijing-based writer is expected to stand trial in southwest China for running an illegal business on Wednesday afternoon. Defended by a well-known human rights lawyer, he is due to appear at the Qingyang District Court in the city of Chengdu, more than 1,100 miles from the Chinese capital. The defendant claims the authorities hope the distance from from Beijing will minimize negative media coverage.

That campaign has seen many potential voices of opposition detained or jailed including human rights lawyers, academics, artists, anti-corruption activists and religious leaders. See The Telegraph article. 

Unless writers can publish their views, nobody will ever know what's going on—what's affecting people in different parts of the world. If our knowledge is limited, we'll become insular. We might not know the aging writer, or even care what happens to him, but in principle, we must stand against anyone limiting our voice.

A recent study found that although 94 per cent of us claim we are giving people, one in six of us do not know our neighbor’s name. Isn't that the most important Christian teachings? Love thy neighbor.

And a quarter of the people in the UK survey taken by the Home Heat Helpline confess to never performing a random act of kindness.

Now, this is open to interpretation. A random act of kindness could be smiling at a crying baby to distract him in a supermarket so the mother can attend to her business. I'm sure you'll come up with the things you do.

The most common was letting someone go ahead of us in a queue, which 51 per cent say they have done. Next most popular was checking in on a loved one, followed by asking after the health of a neighbor, looking after a pet, or garden, or taking a delivery for a neighbor.

More than a quarter said they would not trust a neighbor to look after their home while away, while only 22 per cent said they had ever given up their seat on public transport for someone who is pregnant or elderly.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, almost half those questioned said they did not feel part of a community, while 35 per cent admitted not giving anything back to their local area. 

Here are some suggestions:

Smile at someone on the street, just because.

Let another driver into your lane. They’re probably in a rush just like you.

Forgive someone, and never bring up the issue again.

Talk to the shy person who’s sitting by themselves at a party.

Leave your newspaper behind for someone else to read.

Let the person behind you at the supermarket checkout with one or two items go ahead of you.

Right. I'm just trying to think of some way I've shown kindness recently. Ummm. Ohhh. I hardly see anyone. Those I pass on the street while I'm taking my rollator for a daily walk are in a hurry, jogging uphill or rushing to collect their child from school. A greeting and a smile is all they have time for.

But what do I do? My husband—I see him all day. Well, not first thing in the morning, but that gives me hours of private time to write this blog. Am I really kind to him? When he asks me to repeat what I've said, do I show patience? No, I do not. He's often mentioned my sharp manner. He's the patient one with me, explaining every time how he can't hear my soft voice.

Room for improvement, I'd say.

Can you remember the last time you were kind?

One other thing I discovered about myself in the early fifties—I liked boys. After the evening meal, I would run outside for a last play in the dimming light with my friends—games like hide and seek, basketball or cricket. One day, I met some exciting foreign boys on pushbikes. With a swagger, they told us they were from Italy. The recent war meant nothing to me and I found their attitude charming. My friends and I didn't know about the shocking history of internment his family might have faced during WW2.

When Italy declared war on Britain and its allies on 10th June 1940, Italian migrants in Australia became political pawns. In the interests of national security the Australian Government interned thousands of men, women and children. Most of those held in many camps around Australia, often in remote locations, were classed as 'enemy aliens', that is, nationals of countries at war with Australia. At the peak of the invasion threat in 1942, more than 12,000 people were housed in these compounds. They had no access to government support. The Salvation Army, which used to play music, shake their tambourines and sing on the corner of our street, offered emergency relief for destitute families, but a number of these were eventually interned at Tatura to access basic food and shelter.

Times were hard back then. Our diet was frugal, consisting of bread with maybe an egg and some tomatoes. I don't remember eating meat very often, although it was available for people who could afford it. Despite eating three Weetbix with milk for breakfast, I was constantly hungry. My father wasn't around much any more. He sometimes called in to pull all the flowers out of our garden, which made Mother cry, or cut our hair with a pudding bowl upended over our head to get the shape. This made her cry even more because she loved beautiful things and he'd spoiled our appearance.

When I went to visit my father and stepmother on weekends, she'd make soup out of vegetable peelings bought fresh from the Melbourne market. Her mother and aunts were wonderful older ladies, who boasted pianos and told endless stories about a life I knew nothing about—grand parties and picnics in the bush, and overseas travels. We could play with china dolls with cloth bodies that came from Germany and dress them with beautiful lace garments made in Paris.

Compared to this, I can only imagine the suffering the prisoners of war must have endured.

I've since discovered other violations of human rights caused incredible sufferings for migrant families living in Australia. 

Internees produced goods and cultivated crops for the Australian war effort. Many of these men were deployed as farm labourers, or were employed as railway workers. Although there were a number of escapes, most POWs were recaptured because they had nowhere to go.

Everything changes. Now, most people in Western society have equal rights, although not equal wealth. Migrants move about the world to live in different countries. Once they've gained citizenship in a free country, they don't expect to be interned at an outbreak of war concerning the land of their birth.

However, right now, the refugee reception center on the Italian island Lampedusa represents the promised land for hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing persecution and war in Syria, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and the Sahel.

Recently arriving migrants spoke of being subjected to random brutality, not only from the Libyan army, police and militias, but also ordinary citizens intent on robbing them of what little money they earned from casual work or had borrowed from their families to reach Europe.

Do the youngsters play outside their camp? Do they realize why they're being persecuted? I hope they have happy memories to tide them over the hard times. If only everyone could see life in the way of a child.

I've tried several times today to post my blog. Each time it has disappeared. To save all the bother, I'm posting a test.

Fears are growing for the safety of three east London schoolgirls who police believe are trying to cross the Turkish-Syrian border to join Islamic State (IS) extremists.

Police have issued an urgent appeal for help in finding them, suggesting they are "extremely vulnerable". The three teenage girls were last seen on Tuesday morning during the school holidays. The girls, aged from 15 to 17 years, told their parents they were going out for the day, but were photographed going through the airport scan. Maybe they were given false promises and didn't realize they would enter a war zone or that they will not be equal to their male counterparts. With winter clogging up the roads, and transport links hindered, they may still be in Turkey.

Young teenagers are so gullible, yet these girls must have enough money to book the ticket and know how to travel to foreign countries unaccompanied.

While I was younger than these girls in the 50s, money was scarce and no child could dream about a trip abroad. I'm going back to my youth again to remember my early teenage years in Australia to see what could have happened to me.

In 1954, at the age of twelve, I left primary school to attend secondary school, which required more of a walk each day. For the first time, I wore a uniform, large starched white collar on a buttoned check dress, white socks under lace-up shoes and gloves worn at all times outside the building.

The news often mentions how predator teachers approach students, and that happened to me. While I happily sang in the choir, the teacher complimented me on my voice. He singled several girls out for special attention. I basked in his praise. At the lunch break, he invited one girl at a time into the tuck shop in the hall to help sell sweets. I went in once, full of excitement. He let me choose a chocolate bar, something special in those days and not an everyday treat, and he leaned close behind me. However, I never got another turn because he was removed from the school under dark murmurings. A lucky escape for me, in hindsight.

Every Sunday, my sisters and I attended Sunday School at a church close to the primary school, when we'd dress in our Sunday best. There we could sing to our heart's content. I learned about how a stone thrown into a pool causes ripples to spread right to the edge, the stone being our good influence which would affect everybody else.

Although I took a packed lunch to school, my mother always reserved enough money for me to buy a 'sundae' at the shop over the road from the building. When I look back, I can appreciate how much of a sacrifice that must have been. I really appreciated the luxury, remembering the times before when my sisters and I would beg from the chip shop little serves of leftover fried batter. It would be wrapped in newspaper and we'd eat it straight from the pack as we walked along the street.


In the two years I attended secondary school, I grew very tall, nearly my full height of 5'10”. One kind teacher thought I'd outgrown my strength and used to let me lie in the sick room when I broke down sobbing. I guess these years are difficult for any girl, especially one with a mother working part-time and no father at home to support the family. And so, at the end of 1955, I finished at the secondary school and prepared to go to MacRobertson's Girls High School, close to Melbourne. I'd need to catch the tram to get there from Prahran, and looked forward to reaching 14 years during the summer break.

Hope springs eternal in young hearts. Woe betide anyone who shatters their innocence.

Do you have a story about a lucky escape from danger?

Today's news is all over the spectrum regarding the past, the present and the future. Rapid fluctuations in climate may have produced bigger brains in our ancestors, deep seas creatures are getting bigger, and according to Stephan Hawking, human survival may depend on space travel. All are adjustments to Earth's environment.

But what of the differing roles between men and women in the planet's past? Surely women were equal partners in our ancient cousins. Well, studies suggest women were expected to hunt alongside men to get food.

Huh! Despite their smaller size, the female of the species held her own.

But it looks as if household chores played a big part for them too, similar to women's complaints now. Female Neanderthals had tasks like the preparation of furs, stitching, and the elaboration of garments. 

Did the men sit back with their feet up after the hunt? Nope. Researchers state that the retouching of the edges of stone tools seems to have been a male task. That's fair. Both hunted, and both worked on separate activities which would ensure their comfort and survival.

All this comes from the study of the grooves in our ancient cousin's teeth. Scientists at Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid analysed 99 incisors and canine teeth of 19 Neanderthals found at sites in Spain, France and Belgium. The fossils in Spain dated back 100,000 years, in France 50,000 years, and in Belgium the ancient teeth were believed to be 44,000 years old.

Regardless of age, Neanderthals dental grooves pointed to the custom of using the mouth as a third hand, as in some current populations, for tasks such as preparing the furs or chopping meat.

But the study found similar grooves in all the female fossils of the same pattern. These were different to those found in male individuals, pointing to the way each sex used their teeth.

In England's modern society, men and women do equal work, but often women are paid less for the same job. At home, although women try to get me to help with the running of the house, their efforts are not wholly successful in some cases. I think that is because of women's ancient role in multitasking. The cave woman could look after they youngsters, cook, and chat to her friends all at the same time. Whereas men, with their so-called polar vision, concentrate on one task at a time (hunting).

My own household consists of equal partners now we're both retired. Earlier, my husband took over all the chores because of my walking disability. Now, as his own illness progresses, he's too weak to do most of the cooking and he does no cleaning. The best he can manage to do is to hunt (collect food from the shop). I've stepped back into my cooking role. My effort doesn't compare to the wonderful, tasty meals he once prepared. Perhaps that doesn't matter because in the last few days, he's lost his normally healthy appetite. Simple meals appeal to him now, which is lucky because I've always cooked no-nonsense food. Now I'm wondering if my cooking skills have put him off his food. Talk about role reversal.

The past is tied up in the bones of our planet, the future is in doubt, and as to the present, this moment is the only reality. I'm doing the best I can. How about you?