Wildflower Crowns By MARLO SCHALESKY
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hey came in giggling. All six of them with dirt smudges on their noses, grass stains on their knees. Laughing and dancing and flopping on the floor in a bundle of bubbling sibling delight. “Don’t make a mess!” I gripped the dishtowel in one hand and peered out the kitchen. “No dirty shoes on the rug!” “Don’t worry,” Joelle called. “We won’t.” “Did you clean up the basement for community group?” I went back to drying the dishes. No one answered.
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“We’ve got a lot to do.” Only another burst of giggles answered me. I put my fists on my hips and stomped around the corner. “Hey, you—” The words caught. My three-year-old skipped toward me, one hand on her head. “Look, Mommy, look what I’ve got. I’m wondrous beauty!” She pulled a crown of wildflowers from her hair. “See?” I did see. I saw them all, with flowers adorning every head, with crowns woven of daisies and dandelions and little purple
wildflowers. They were beautiful. Wondrous. “Jayden made me a crown. Purple, your favorite color.” I bent over and squeezed her tight. “You are a beautiful princess.” I stood up. “All of you.” “Not me!” Jayden took the crown from his head and tossed it in the air. “Boys aren’t princesses.” His sisters laughed. “You make the best crowns, though.” He made a face and brushed sand from his hair and onto the rug.
Sigarilyas: Angelic Winged Bean
By ARLENE MAY G. CORPUS
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inged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus) or sigarilyas belongs to the family of versatile edible legumes—a very high source of plant-based protein, especially for vegetarians or vegans, and a budget-friendly food to help meet the family’s dietary requirements. Like other legumes, sigarilyas has helpful bacteria called rhizobia in its root systems. These bacteria help legumes grow with little or no fertilizers, making sigarilyas easy to propagate. When the legumes die, the nitrogen returns to the soil, making it friendly to other crops.
HEALTH BENEFITS TENDER IMMATURE POD
• Dieter-friendly and lowcalorie (49 calories per 100g), sigarilyas tastes like asparagus.
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• Best eaten when under an inch in length, raw sigarilyas adds crunch to salads. This vegetable can also be used in stir-fries, soups, stews, curries, or pickles. Other options include grilling sigarilyas with oil, salt, and pepper; cooking with coconut milk; etc. • A diet of 100g of the beans provides 66 micrograms of folate (16.5 percent of a pregnant woman’s daily requirement), preventing neural-tube defects like spina bifida in babies. • The same serving of beans also provides 18.3mg or 31 percent of recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin C. It builds immunity against infections, maintains blood vessel elasticity, and offers some protection from cancers. Vitamin C also encourages growth of new collagen, preventing fine lines and wrinkles.
• Minerals such as copper, manganese, phosphorus, and magnesium are concentrated in the beans, along with important B-complex vitamins. • A good source of healthy, monounsaturated fats, sigarilyas pods raise good cholesterol levels while lowering bad ones. • Its fiber content helps address type 2 diabetes. Fiber is also important for growing probiotic bacteria in the colon, boosting the immune system and helping with digestion. • Sigarilyas contains all sorts of sugars—fructose, glucose, lactose, sucrose, galactose, and maltose. Again, some of these are essential for the development of probiotic bacteria. • Sigarilyas also has iron for the blood. Iron also makes hair shiny and nails, healthy.
Share a Thought
Getting High
By Ryan J. Martinez
What inspires you to hike? Exhaustion from the city life. This hobby allows me to have a break from structured activities at work and school. It also gives me something to look forward to when work becomes boring. Most importantly, hiking makes me appreciate simple things in life such as good weather, green scenery, and God’s beautiful creation. —Edlyn Joy Espiritu, teacher, Davao City
Photos courtesy of interviewees
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ired of your usual to-do list? Why not try getting high, literally. This year you can choose to flex your muscles and aim for a summit— maybe a mountain’s or a hill’s. Enjoy hiking and trekking. See lush landscapes and breathe fresh air. Just like these seasoned hikers who have experienced the thrills and spills of the great outdoors.
What was your first climb like? It was Mt. Maculot in Cuenca, Batangas. Although hesitant at first, I was really excited because it’s still an adventure. Reaching the summit was such a liberating and humbling experience—seeing how small I am compared to the vastness of the landscape. I saw a new perspective, a different world of which I now also love. —Karl Mikel Pregon, environment and community worker, Davao City What is your most memorable hike? Mt. Halcon in Oriental Mindoro. It was a tough, memorable climb. The mountain is beautiful with its rich flora and fauna. There’s a nice lagoon with the clearest and sweetest water I’ve ever tasted. It’s so clear you can see the smallest rocks at the bottom. —Odessa Coral Tan, Barre3 fitness instructor, Makati City
What blunders have you made in a hike? Nothing fatal. But I failed to create a checklist of things to bring and research the weather and terrain. This happened when I climbed Mt. Kinabalu in Malaysia. Hastily researching through Google, I was only able to read a Caucasian’s perspective. I also didn’t create a checklist which I normally do, so I was really caught off guard. Europeans said it’s a 4-hour hike but it took us 7.5 hours. —Alyssa Macusi, creative director, Cainta, Rizal
______ Ryan Jabalon Martinez is editorial assistant of Health & Home.
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What is the most challenging hike you’ve done? Mountains with the elevation of 2,000 meters above sea level and up always stimulate pleasurable challenges. They also feature unwanted nature engagements such as muddy trails, chilling winds, nonstop heavy rains, and a sudden attack of colds and fever. It can be pure agony. — Francis Jay Cabrera, designer and tailor, Taguig City How do you make your hike enjoyable? I make every climb enjoyable by ensuring that I am in good company—those who love nature as much as I do. Whenever planning a climb, I look forward to the journey more than the destination. If you look at climbing as a journey, you will always enjoy it. You’ll never be disappointed. —Brian Tangcawan, farmer and humanitarian worker, Ormoc City
What have you learned from hiking? Conservation and protection are the only things we can give in return to the environment for all the services it has been giving to humanity.—Gio Paolo Espital, urban farmer and entrepreneur, Taguig City
In
Contact With Nature BY ELLEN G. WHITE
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he Creator chose for our first parents the surroundings best adapted for their health and happiness. He did not place them in a palace or surround them with the artificial adornments and luxuries that so many today are struggling to obtain. He placed them in close touch with nature and in close communion with the holy ones of heaven.
In the garden that God prepared as a home for His children, graceful shrubs and delicate flowers greeted the eye at every turn. There were trees of every variety, many of them laden with fragrant and delicious fruit. On their branches the birds caroled their songs of praise. Under their shadow the creatures of the earth sported together without a fear. Adam and Eve, in their untainted purity, delighted in the sights and sounds of Eden. God appointed them their work in the garden, “to dress it and to keep it.” Genesis 2:15. Each day’s labor brought them health and gladness, and the happy pair greeted with joy the visits of their Creator, as in the cool of the day He walked and talked with them. Daily God taught them His lessons.
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Nature’s wonders for the sick The plan of life which God appointed for our first parents has lessons for us. Although sin has cast its shadow over the earth, God desires His children to find delight in the works of His hands. The more closely His plan of life is followed, the more wonderfully will He work to restore suffering humanity. The sick need to be brought into close touch with nature. An outdoor life amid natural surroundings would work wonders for many a helpless and almost hopeless invalid. The city’s dangers The noise and excitement and confusion of the cities, their constrained and artificial life, are most wearisome and exhausting to the sick. The air, laden with smoke and dust, with poisonous gases, and with
germs of disease, is a peril to life. The sick, for the most part shut within four walls, come almost to feel as if they were prisoners in their rooms. They look out on houses and pavements and hurrying crowds, with perhaps not even a glimpse of blue sky or sunshine, of grass or flower or tree. Shut up in this way, they brood over their suffering and sorrow, and become a prey to their own sad thoughts…. God’s physician Nature is God’s physician. The pure air, the glad sunshine, the flowers and trees, the orchards and vineyards, and outdoor exercise amid these surroundings, are health-giving, life-giving…. How grateful to the invalids weary of city life, the glare of many lights, and the noise of the streets, are the quiet and freedom
Wyatt Maktrav Bedural Sweet Toddler Mountaineer By JANET R. TOLETE
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e looks like an ordinary, unassuming, and healthy preschooler. But the moment we met, when he easily greeted the Health & Home staff with a charming smile, I’ve known that he is beyond ordinary. Whenever he has the chance throughout our interview and pictorial, he hugs us, says “I love you,” and even showers us with wet kisses. Wyatt is an old English name based on words related to “war, hardy, brave, strong.” I am tempted to think the name means, “sweet, affectionate.” “He easily gets along with adults more than with kids his age,” his mother explains.
Wyatt Maktrav Bedural is turning 5 this July but he has already scaled 42 mountains here in the Philippines. From his first climb at 8 months old, he’s gotten used to greeting other mountain climbers on the trail. They usually happen to be adults. Perhaps this is why Wyatt is naturally friendly to people older than him. His parents, Kaila Sharlene and Eduardo, Jr., are both mountain climbers themselves. They individually stumbled upon this hobby and love for the outdoors. Soon this same love brought them together. Romance bloomed after they met on a mountain in Anilao, Batangas. Their love of hiking can also be seen in their boy’s second name, Maktrav. It’s from “Makiling Traverse,” a popular hiking trail. Climbing with their baby was not planned, though. When they had Wyatt, they wanted to continue their hiking but the little baby could not be left behind. They had no choice but to tag him along to Mt. Pico de Loro. They were surprised—or maybe they shouldn’t have been—how their little one felt at home in nature. Their trips together have never ended since then.
Reaping good things
“Wyatt loves every climb. He doesn’t want us to stop walking. He doesn’t get tired easily,” shares Mommy Sha, a digital freelancer and work-at-home mom. “Sometimes the older guys in the group get sick, but Wyatt does not,” prides Daddy Ed, an information technology (IT) professional. The parents believe their outdoorsy lifestyle offers several other
Photos/Eduardo Bedural, Jr.
Climbing young
Wyatt ascending top of Mt. Apo in 2014, coming from Lake Venado
Wyatt plays with the cookset while camping on Mt. Gulugod-baboy
benefits to their son and the entire family, aside from increased stamina and stronger immunity. “Despite our busy schedules, we always do our best to find a way to travel and climb a mountain as a way to de-stress from the hustle and bustle of the city and also to bond as a family,” relates Mommy Sha. Daddy Ed appreciates their trips as an opportunity for Wyatt to learn about new people, places, and things by experience. “I also want him to see the beauty of nature for himself,” he adds. Mommy Sha also notices that climbing boosts Wyatt’s
self-confidence and hones his leadership skills. “Climbing allows you to exit your comfort zone and that in itself is already a huge act of bravery. Being able to overcome fear is a very useful skill that will help you achieve success in life,” Mommy Sha muses. She edits and manages Wyatt’s own website (www.wyattmaktrav.com), which contains hiking tips and a log of the family’s adventures.
Overcoming obstacles and costs
The Bedurals faced obstacles and also had their own share of detractors, especially the first few times they hiked with their only son. Health & Home January-February 2017
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Will I Have
Cancer, By LADY CHRISTIFANIE M. DAPAT
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hen I was 9, Mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I saw her struggle with the disease with my own eyes. She even went as far as having mastectomy. But I guess it must have been too late because the cancer metastasized to her liver. She died when I was 11. Ever since, I have believed that cancer is something everyone should understand and proactively combat. A look at the statistics The Philippines has the highest incidence rate of breast cancer in Asia, according to the report
of Philippine Cancer Facts and Estimates in 2015. The country is also included in the top 10 countries with the most cases of breast cancer. It was declared that one of every 13 Filipino women is expected to develop breast cancer in her lifetime. In fact, the Department of Health (DOH) and the Philippine Cancer Society, Inc., confirmed that breast cancer is the most common cancer in the Philippines, taking at least 16 percent of the 50,000 cases of cancer diagnoses. Nonetheless, breast cancer is just one of the many kinds of cancer that anyone may be
Photo/Karen Mae RosaciĂąa
Too?
Model not subject of article
at risk of such as lung, cervix, liver, colon and rectum, prostate, stomach, oral cavity, ovary, and leukemia. The DOH estimates that cancer ranks third in the leading causes of morbidity and mortality after communicable diseases and cardiovascular diseases. Even though our genes are part of the risk factors, our lifestyle, which is not inherited, has more to do with acquiring this dreaded disease of the 21st century. In my experience, going back to the basics of health and wellness makes me feel equipped and more hopeful. Health & Home January-February 2017
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