My new website is TenSecretsofExceptionalHealth.com and it is also the new host site for my blog. Please look for my blog on the new website, and it will be easy to follow it there. Thank you for your interest!

We hit the road to Arizona today, making it El Paso, Texas tonight. Driving on 1-10 all day, and still not getting out of Texas made me realize what a huge state it is. Tomorrow we head on to Cottonwood where we will visit my sister Peg Miller this weekend. 

Today's Food Diary: Breakfast was our usual hearty bowl of hot steel cut oats with all the usual toppings except blueberries. Lunch consisted of a crunchy almond butter sandwich on 100 % whole wheat bread, plus organic carrot sticks and celery sticks. We ate this picnic-style at a rest stop. Carol shared some mixed nuts for a mid-afternoon snack. We stopped for supper an an Olive Garden where we both had Olive Garden's large salad. Carol had shrimp primavera, while I had angel hair pasta covered with finely diced tomatoes. Delicious.  

Breakfast: A bowl of organic 4 Grain Plus Flax hot cereal cooked ten minutes with raisins, topped with sliced banana, blueberries, sliced organic strawberries, and walnut pieces; 1 glass orange juice; 4 prunes; 1 slice of home-baked whole wheat bread with Olivio spread and organic raspberry jam on it.

Lunch: A bowl of organic creamy tomato soup heated on the stove with added veggies and brown rice; one whole wheat tortilla spread with crunchy almond butter, and one orange. Also one tall glass of water.

Supper: Baked potato with left-over ratatouille as topping; steamed veggie medley of cauliflower, broccoli, beet, carrots, and asparagus spears; 1 serving of hot collard greens cooked with onion on stovetop; garden salad as previously described; 1 slice home-baked whole wheat bread with Olivio spread; and a bowl of cut up Kiwi and organic strawberries for dessert.  

Breakfast was the same as yesterday's. My breakfast is fairly similar most days.

Lunch: I finished the rest of the butternut and spinach soup, but I had organic crunchy almond butter instead of hummus on the whole wheat tortilla. (Crunchy almond butter is similar to crunchy peanut butter, but better.) I had an orange to finish lunch. (No mixed nuts today.)

Supper: Leftover ratatouille on organic brown rice, cooked collard greens with chopped onion, steamed carrot and asparagus, and a garden salad like yesterday's, with 1 slice home-baked whole wheat bread with Olivio spread. I skipped dessert tonight.

Comments: Lunch is my light meal of the day. When I don't have home-made soup, I get one of several brands of organic soups that come in cardboard containers instead of cans. Pacific brand and Dr. McDougall's brand seem to be the ones we get the most. They are nutritious and delicious, as well as being lower in salt. My veggie and fruit servings came to a total of twelve today.

Veggies and fruits are awesome foods. Their colorfulness is a good clue to their being loaded with vitamins and antioxidants. No other foods come close. Go for at least six servings daily!

I signed up today to join our church team on the San Antonio CROP Walk on Saturday, March 6th. It promises to be a fun event for a good cause! We'll walk ten kilometers to raise money for hungry people around the world. As with most such endeavors, in helping others we'll be helping ourselves as much as we help them!

It's good to get back into my regular routine again. I walked to the gym after breakfast (steel-cut oats and fruit) and worked out for an hour. Then I walked over to Whole Foods Market and bought fresh organic groceries for lunch and supper today. We'll have organic sweet potato soup for lunch and ratatouille on brown rice for supper. I also got a bunch of organic beets, and we'll have the beet greens for supper tonight also. San Antonio was still fogged in as I walked the mile back home, but what an invigorating walk!

The Daily Word for today is based on Luke 17:21. "The kingdom of God is within you." What a marvelous statement by Jesus. We can nourish this kingdom daily with positive living and love.It's up to us!

We arrived back home last night after two days of driving our Toyota Tacoma from Inverness. What a trip! We had our suitcases and other bags stuffed in the back of our little cab, and the pick-up bed was loaded with stuff that did not go in the moving van. Yes, we sold our home! We bought a tarp at Lowe's in Inverness that partly protected our stuff, but it turned out to be an adventure to keep the tarp in place properly. Fortunately, the one time it poured cats and dogs was on Friday night, and the management at the La Quinta in Daphne said it was OK to let the pick-up park under their front portico overnight. That was one of the nice things that happened to us during our marvelous three weeks in Florida. Being with family and seeing lots of old friends was the icing on the cake. People are wonderful!

The students in the Holistic Health class I finished teaching at Central Florida Community College this week were wonderful. Their interest, enthusiasm, and participation made it a terrific class, and it was a joy to teach. Thank you, class!

Today's tip for exceptional health is simple: Refresh your commitment to healthy living every day! This is simple, but very significant. Without daily refreshing of commitment, it is all too easy to slip off the healthy living trail. How do you refresh your commitment daily? That's the subject of my Wellness Newsletter this month. Please sign-up or let me know if you're interested. It's free!

Are you confused about what dairy products and calcium do for bone health? It's not surprising if you do, because of lots of confusing information about this. I recently came across a great book on this subject. The title is, Building Bone Vitality, by Dr. Amy Lanou, Assistant Professor of Health and Wellness at the University of North Carolina. Written in clear, crisp language, this book provides solid scientific evidence that dairy products, calcium, estrogen, and drugs are not the answer. Instead, the book offers convincing evidence for the benefits of saving and building bone with a revolutionary diet plan that is healthy in all respects. This book is tops in its field, and I recommend it highly. It is available through Amazon or most bookstores.

It was a frigid 39º when I went for my early morning walk to the gym for my training session there. I was glad to finish both my two-mile walk and the resistance exercises. I probably should be taking yoga classes instead!

Later, it was a delight to finish chapter two of my upcoming e-book on the top ten secrets of health. It's coming along. On my afternoon walk to the Instituto Panamericano, about half a mile from our apartment, I was delighted again (second time today!) to learn they could schedule me for sessions in the spring to refresh my Portuguese. That will be a big help (I hope) when we visit Portugal and France in June!

It's been another amazing weekend. I went on Muziti Safari last evening, right here in San Antonio. It was held in the Africa section of the San Antonio Zoo, right next to the Hippo pools, and it was wonderful. Muziti is the community where Bishop Abel Muzorewa lives. He is a retired Bishop in the Zimbabwe Methodist Church, but his son, Tendekai, lives here in San Antonio, and works as an IT specialist for the city of San Antonio. Bishop Muzorewa was here this weekend and was the featured speaker at the Muziti Safari. This is a fund-raising drive to help Muziti obtain running water and electricity for the school, church, and homes of the community. The Safari dinner was held in the Africa section banquet room and was a smashing success. Over one hundred people attended, some in safari outfits, and all enjoyed the evening immensely. We had an authentic marimba band from Austin playing, Tendekai showed a 20 minute video of Muziti and the needs there, and I introduced Bishop Muzorewa after the dinner. He gave an excellent talk about Zimbabwe, and about Muziti in particular. Everyone was glad to be able to help Muziti in this unique way!

Today I went to see the missions of San Antonio with a group from University United Methodist Church. We went by van to two of the five historic missions. Many people don't realize that San Antonio had four other Spanish missions established besides the Alamo. Today we saw San Jose´ and San Francisco de Espada. They are well worth seeing if any of you ever come to visit us here. We'll do San Juan Capistrano and Concepcion another day. 

I went for a walk after breakfast today and found a gorgeous morning in San Antonio. It made my walk even more of a joy than usual.

This morning I'm finishing an essay on healthfully navigating the Holiday Season. If you are interested in reading it, send your email address to me at Timangola@gmail.com and I'll be glad to put you on the free subscription list for my monthly Wellness Newsletter. It will be emailed in a few days. Best wishes for a wonderful day! 

What a week! The Pro Avatar Course in Orlando was excellent. Then I got to spend a fabulous weekend with Amy, Paul, and five terrific grandchildren! We played tennis, kayaked, read, played tennis, pressure-cleaned walks, played tennis, and went to a spaghetti benefit dinner at the Presbyterian Church together. Wow! Then, Jeff, Tammi, Abbie, and Spencer popped in Saturday evening. They were down from Indy for a special event at Eckerd College with which Jeff was very involved. We all converged at Amy and Paul's place without it being pre-planned. How special was that? We all had a great visit. Besides all that, I saw lots of wonderful friends at Unity Church! Now I'm headed back to Texas for the next chapter of our adventure there!

I visited Mary Miller and Barbara Hill Thursday evening, and it was wonderful to see them again. After returning from going out to dinner together, Barbara gave us a private piano concert that was marvelous. She has magic in her fingers. Mary gave me three CDs of concerts Barbara has given in the past, and I played them the next day on the long drive to Orlando. They carried me through the day! I'm in Orlando now for the week-long Professional Course. 

The Friends of Project Tariro met today in Nashville. (Tariro is the Shona word for Hope.) The purpose of the group is to raise awareness of the HIV/AIDS problem in Zimbabwe and to help provide education and practical help in whatever ways we can. Twelve members are leaving for Zimbabwe tomorrow morning to spend a week there learning more about the problem and how best to help. No, I'm not going on this trip, but this is a good group (I'm new to the Friends of Tariro group, so I can say this!) There really is HOPE for Zimbabwe!

I woke up in Little Rock, Arkansas this morning. I knew I would because I went to sleep here last night, having driven 585 miles from San Antonio yesterday. Even though I drove through rain all day, and there was flooding in areas, it wasn't a bad trip. Today is cool and overcast, but there was no rain when I was out on my morning walk, so that is hopeful for today's drive. Why am I in Little Rock? It is just a stopover on the way to Nashville today for a Friends of Tariro board meeting tomorrow. More about that in the next day or two. 

My trip from Little Rock to Nashville today was an easy run - all on I-40. I stopped for lunch at a rest stop near Jackson, Tennessee. Inside the rest stop building there was a brief display about the legend of Casey Jones that intrigued me, inviting readers to visit the Casey Jones Museum and Home in Jackson. Since I had an extra hour to spare, I decided on the spur of the moment to stop at the museum, which was just one block off of I-40 in Jackson. I'm glad I did. It turns out that Casey Jones was a genuine American hero - bigger than legend. If you're interested you can google Casey Jones and read about him in Wikipedia. He is worth the read. The museum made him come alive for me, and I bought the Ballad of Casey Jones.

Carol and I made a big decision late yesterday afternoon. We decided on a home and the lot we want to have it built on. Of course, this is contingent upon selling our home in Inverness within the next four months. If it doesn't sell, the contract is null and void. Still deciding where to live for the next thirty years (!) is a big decision! Anyone want to buy a great home in beautiful Inverness, Florida?

Our team arrived home just before midnight last night. What a team! Altogether we had 37 people, including six physicians, one dentist, one physician assistant, two nutrition counselors, and many others. We saw a total of 205 patients during the one-day clinic. The clinic building is new, but not yet completed, so some of us worked in rooms that were unfinished. That didn't really matter as everyone did the best they could with what we had. We stopped for dinner in Eagle Pass, on the U.S. side of the border, at about 8 PM last night. Although we traveled in three vans, our day of working together had made us a truly cohesive team! 

I'm headed to Mexico for the weekend. Actually, its just for a quick venture across the border to Piedras Negras. My friend Ten Muzorewa has been involved in the Borders Ministry here in San Antonio. He invited me to come with them for this quick weekend trip to staff a one-day clinic in Piedras Negras. We leave this noon and will be back late tomorrow night. I'm looking forward to this new experience and will let you know more about it when I get back. Should be fun and hopefully, helpful. 

I know it's hard to believe, but at this late stage of my life, I'm enrolled in the local Bally gym and now have a personal trainer. Josh is great. This morning he guided me through an hour's workout designed to strengthen my "core" and my "lats". Well, don't worry. I will never become a senior "Mr. Universe." I just want to slowly improve my physical flexibility and fitness. We'll see!

I had the happy privilege of attending the "Taste of Africa" a little over a week ago in Quinter, Kansas. Rev. Kennedy Mukwindidza, pastor of the Methodist church in Quinter, introduced the "Taste of Africa" experience to his congregation several years ago, and they liked it so much that they have made it an annual event. This year I was invited to speak about our recent Volunteer-in-Mission trip to Zimbabwe. I had made a fifteen-minute DVD movie from video clips I took while in Zimbabwe, and we showed that at the event. It allowed folks to see the places we went and the enthusiasm of the people we met there. Everyone enjoyed the DVD very much. Earlier we had all enjoyed a Zimbabwe-oriented dinner in the Fellowship Hall, and many crafts and pictures from Zimbabwe were on display on various tables in the room. The overall program was a success, and the people of Quinter are wonderful!

It's been a month since my last entry. I thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Zimbabwe, and I've been back home in Texas for two weeks now. During all that time an odd thing happened. My user name and password would not allow me to enter my own website as administrator, and I have been unable to make any kind of entries for the past month. Today, the online office at the Citrus County Chronicle was able to fix the problem, and now I can make entries again. Hallelujah!

Another thing to cheer about is that Carol and I were finally able to get our Texas driver's licenses today. We got license plates for the car and pick-up a few days ago, and we now have triple A Texas insurance on them. I'm even beginning to feel like a Texan, though I'm sure I will never qualify to be truly Texan.

My last point to cheer about is that I finished making my video movie of our experience in Zimbabwe this year. Entitled Zimbabwe 2009. it is 17 minutes long, and worth watching even though made by an amateur. I'm burning it on a number of DVD discs, and I will make one available for anyone interested! 

Today makes one week since we landed in Harare, so it's a good time to let you know how everything is going. 

People in Zimbabwe are still going through tough economic times, but there is clearly a sense of hope in the air that things are getting better, even though times are still very tough for most people.

I'm in Mutare at the home of Tom and Tracy Sarimana, my host family. I stayed with them in 2004 and 2007, and it feels wonderful to be with them again. Sunday, most of us went with Kennedy to his home church at Chitikatera, and it was a delightful experience. It was Harvest Sunday, and the church was jammed. Even though the impact of the economic hard times is severe, everybody was joyful as they shared their harvest with the church. This pretty much sets the church budget for the coming year, so it is a very important Sunday. The singing was incredible, and there was lots of it. It is so wonderful to experience that kind of joyful service. One of the very interesting bits of information that came from talking with elders at that service is that Dad presided at the ground-breaking for the Chitikatera church about fifty years ago. That was something that Kennedy did not know, even though he grew up in that church, and neither Peg nor I knew anything about it either. Interestingly enough, today, one of older members of that church brought an old faded picture of the ground-breaking, and it clearly showed Dad as the presiding church official for the ceremony! That makes our connection with the Chitikatera church even stronger!

Monday, we went to the Chitikatera Primary school and gave gifts to the 1257 students there in a general assembly type of program, though it was conducted outside. The faculty and staff were most welcoming, and the kids were wonderful. Then we went back to the Chitikatera Church to meet with the Women's Sewing Club, and that was a very nice experience. They welcomed us with the kind of exuberant singing that we hear so much of here. It is really great to hear them singing so joyfully in spite of their dire economic circumstances. They showed us samples of their sewing work, and it is excellent. I bought a few sample place mats, as did several others in our group.

Tuesday we went to the Zimunya Project site, and carried bricks each morning for the brick-layers to work with. The gables are all completed now, and we're hoping to see the trusses put in place early next week. It now looks as if the roof will be put on later that week or early the next week. In any case, the classroom building should be roofed over by the time I leave, and that will be great.

Wednesday, we were at Africa University, starting with morning chapel service at 8 AM for the Pastor's School being conducted there this week. I met with Dr. Fasan and Dr. Fadzai at 10 AM, and it was a very productive meeting. It looks like there will be a good opportunity for me to teach here for three months next year, and it all goes well, probably for several years after that. In addition, Dr. Fasan is interested in the possibility of tying our Zimunya Project with Africa University's community outreach program. It looks promising.

Wednesday evening I went with Tom Sarimana to the Prayer Section meeting for which he is the chair person. There were about twenty people there, and I enjoyed meeting all of them. The discussion was lively and well informed, and then we concluded with prayer. Among the people I met, the Kangwenda's (husband and wife physicians) are both on staff at Mutare General Hospital, and they invited me to be the guest presenter at their hospital Grand Rounds on the morning of Friday, August 14th. I accepted the invitation, and it should prove to be very interesting. There will be about twenty physicians, and many nurses and lab techs. Presenting to such a varied group will be challenging, but I have a topic that will attract much interest. I'm going to present the problem of obesity as a major public health problem, which it is, and discuss the contributing factors, causes, and consequences, as well as approaches to prevention. They already know it is a huge problem in the United States (everybody around the world seems to know this,) and they realize that it is an emerging problem in Zimbabwe among the more affluent urban people. The Kangwenda's are enthusiastic about the topic, and it is certainly something for which I have much information to share.

Today we worked at the Skills Training Center again, carrying bricks for the brick-layers. After lunch we went to the factory making the trusses for the roof, and saw our own trusses in process. They now plan to deliver them over the weekend, and start raising them on Monday.

All told, this week has been a marvelous experience. Peg has loved being here, but I'll let her fill you in on her perspective when she is able.

It almost 6 PM on Friday, July 24, and I'm now in Mutare at the home of Tom and Tracy Sarimana, my host family. I stayed with them in 2004 and 2007, and it feels wonderful to be with them again. Our flight arrived in Harare last night at 9:30 PM (after leaving the USA at 5:30 PM the day before,) and it was midnight by the time we cleared customs and crawled into bed in our hotel rooms. I think all of us were bone-tired, and we slept like logs until 6AM. We all met for breakfast in the hotel dining-room at 7:30 AM, took care of some business in Harare after breakfast, and then hit the road for Mutare a bit after 10 AM. We stopped at Halfway House for lunch at 12:30 PM, and then came the rest of the way to Mutare for introductions to our host families and a brief overview of the work we will be doing in the coming week.

Our other team members are Peg Miller from Arizona, Rev. Mark Conard from Hutchinson, Kansas, and Don Corwin and Rev. Kennedy Mukwindidza from Quinter, Kansas. Every one of us has been to Zimbabwe at least once before, so nobody is worrying about culture shock. The economic situation in Zimbabwe is beginning to stabilize, but its impact is evident in many ways. On the road between Harare and Mutare we saw almost no buses, whereas there were many buses on the road five years ago. That is simply one small indicator of the economic hard times here.

On our flight between Johannesburg and Harare, an elderly lady sat between Mark Conard and me. She and her husband run a private orphanage in the outskirts of Harare, and she was returning after a brief trip to see family members in the USA. Her husband is eighty years old, and she is in her mid-seventies. Together they care for sixty-six orphans, with only intermittent help from volunteers who come from the States. Older orphans also do a great deal to help with the care of the youngest ones. The couple began the orphanage about ten years ago when they retired from mission work with the Seventh Day Adventist Church. What a remarkable couple!

More updates later this week!

I've just come back from the Angola Reunion, held at Niagara Falls, Canada this year. We stayed at the Mount Carmel Monastery, within walking distance of the falls. It was a beautiful location, and it was wonderful to see old friends again as we were updated on the latest progress in Angola.

Wednesday, July 22nd, two days from now, I'm taking off for Zimbabwe, stopping in Washington DC to join the rest of the Volunteer-in-Mission team. We will arrive in Harare late Thursday night, and then travel on by van Friday to Mutare in Eastern Zimbabwe. That's where we will be spending most of our time as we work on the Skills Training Center project. It's great to be this close to take-off!

We are concluding a wonderful nine-day Avatar workshop in Orlando this weekend. It is truly remarkable that over one thousand people from over twenty countries can come together to learn and work together so well and so harmoniously. I cannot think of any other organization that brings so many people together from such diverse backgrounds, and has them working together so effectively within a day or two. People from different cultures, languages, races, ages, and religions become fast friends within a few days, and their lives are often transformed in a wonderful way.

As a side note, there is a marvelous Whole Foods Supermarket about half-a-mile from the conference center, and many of us walk there to eat at lunchtime. The food is delicious, nutritious, and tasty, and it's cost is very reasonable. My lunch plate loaded with delicious organic food usually costs me about $10, which is less expensive than at most restaurants. In addition, we get the bonus of walking a mile (round-trip) so we get in our daily exercise and Vitamin D!  

Carol and I are attending an Avatar workshop in Orlando this week. I received an "Aha" moment as Harry Palmer was speaking to the group on the first day of the workshop. He noted that the goal of Avatar is to teach people how to become responsible for their lives - to give people tools to help them take ownership of their own lives. My "Aha" was that this is in complete sync with my goal of teaching people to become responsible for their health - to take ownership of their own health. This has real potential for helping people develop personal health power.

It took longer to get our computer service up and running again than I expected, but we're back online again, and I expect to write notes here more faithfully in the future. Today I'm simply updating my new postal and email email addresses, as follows:

384 Treeline Park, Apt. 1323, San Antonio, TX 78209

Email: timangola@satx.rr.com 

Be Well! 

We are moving to San Antonio, Texas this coming weekend. We have been preparing and packing for this move, and will be on the road starting Friday. We will arrive in San Antonio on Sunday afternoon. My column in next Tuesday's Citrus County Chronicle will explain why we are making this move, and it will also be posted on my website under Chronicle columns for those of you who do not receive the Chronicle. 

In addition to letting you know about this, my reason for writing this note is to let you know our new address in San Antonio, as well as my new email address. My current email address will not work after tomorrow because the server does not operate in the San Antonio area, so you must use my new email address to reach me after tomorrow. Here are the addresses:

16100 Henderson Pass, Apt. 501

San Antonio, Texas 78232

Email: edodge44@yahoo.com

Our computers cannot be hooked up in San Antonio until March 25, so please be patient if you do not receive timely responses to any emails you may send between now and then. I hope to access email by guest webmail until then, but cannot guarantee that I can either receive or send mail until March 25. 

I plan to send my April Wellness Newsletter the first week in April. Until then, 

Be Well,

Ed Dodge

My friend, Cheryl Vyfuis, better known as Che`, is a writer and a poet who also happens to be a corporate public relations professional. She is an expert in communications, so it is not surprising that she has created a fascinating online blog. It is entitled Namaste` Wholistic, and it explores a broad range of subjects and issues. As the blog title suggests, its central focus is spiritual in nature, which might seem surprising coming from a corporate PR person. What is not surprising, for those who know Che`, is how wide-ranging she is in her explorations. If you ride with Che`, it is wise to buckle your seat belt.  

In one of her ventures, Che` is showcasing the lives of some of her friends this year. As it happens, her blog published this week features Carol and Ed Dodge. Why she chose us, I’m not sure, but she wrote a nice piece about us. If you’re interested, click on: namaste wholistic. 

By tomorrow, you should have the March issue of the Wellness Explorations Newsletter in your inbox. Be prepared for some mental jogging!

Dear Friend,

Below is a link to the picture story of my trip to Project Mercy in Ethiopia. Click on the link to bring up the picture album. Click on "View album," and then on "Play Slideshow." You should get a picture show that lasts about five minutes. Enjoy this mid-month bonus to Wellness Explorations!

Picture Story of Project Mercy

Ed Dodge

As many of you know, I returned a few days ago from a trip to Ethiopia that was especially meaningful for me. I had fond memories of Ethiopia because of living and working there forty years ago. When I was invited to go with a team of faculty and students from Taylor University to Project Mercy in Yetebon, Ethiopia for the month of January 2009, I happily accepted.

I have written a series of six articles for the Citrus County Chronicle about this experience, and I will not try to recap those articles here. The first article was in the paper this week, and the others will follow weekly in the paper, and also on my website. Anyone interested can find them under Chronicle Columns on the Main Menu of this website. My purpose in this newsletter is to share some thoughts about wellness that have come to mind over the last few days as I have reflected on this trip.

Ethiopia remains a very poor country in terms of material wealth, and it has many major health issues related to poverty. Those issues are similar to ones faced by many developing countries, and I will not explore them now. Instead, I wish to emphasize some of the features of life in rural Ethiopia that may be instructive for us in the West.

One of the things that struck me was the walking done by Ethiopians of all ages, at least in the rural areas. For most, walking is the main, if not the only, way of getting from one place to another. Children may walk several miles a day to get to school. Farmers walk, laborers walk, housewives walk, and elderly people walk. The result is that most Ethiopians are remarkably fit.

My second observation is that the standard Ethiopian diet consists of whole grain foods with vegetable and lentil sauces, along with modest amounts of fruit and meat. Highly processed foods are rare or non-existent in rural homes, so basic eating patterns are healthy for most rural Ethiopians. From a standpoint of nutritional health, Ethiopians do better than most Americans.

My third observation is that in spite of much hardship, most Ethiopians seem happy. It’s worth noting that happiness has been the subject of many studies. Results typically show that happiness does not hinge on wealth. In fact, poor indigenous cultures often rank higher in happiness than wealthier ones.

In thinking about why this might be so, and reflecting on our experience in Ethiopia, I realized that when Ethiopians greet one another, they do so with a great deal of affection, deeply validating one another’s worth. When this is repeated on a daily basis, it must have a favorable impact on one’s feelings of self-worth. This is certainly a key factor in anyone’s happiness quotient.

Another notable factor was the absence of many distracting influences that are a daily part of our lives in the USA. During three weeks at Project Mercy we saw no television, received no daily newspapers, heard no radios, and saw no movies. Even email and telephone communication with the outside world were very limited. Without these distractions that are so common in the West, we were less stressed, and life was more peaceful in many ways.

Before concluding, let me make it clear that I am not painting Ethiopia and its citizens as utopian. Ethiopians who are poor have a hard life, and it is not to be romanticized. If given any opportunity for an easier life, most would take it. That is one reason why education is prized so highly. It is an avenue to a life that most dream of as being more desirable.

Still, there are virtues in the simple agrarian life that tend to be lost in urban settings and in more developed countries, and it is worth highlighting them. I believe it is possible to achieve a balance between the simplicity of rural life that I have described, and the excessive richness of diet and accumulation of things that characterize much of our Western culture. Striking that balance is my personal goal, and a subject worthy of Wellness Explorations.

Be Well!
Ed Dodge

Welcome to the Wellness Explorations Newsletter. The purpose of this letter is to give you brief updates on health news or research that I find interesting, as well as to offer you my personal reflections about various aspects of life and health. The letter is sent to interested subscribers, but the main text of the letter will also appear on this blog site each month. 

This first report is a particularly apt one for January. We’ve known for some time that health behavior has a powerful influence on quality of life as well as on mortality. A study done by the University of Cambridge in England documents how much four basic health behaviors affect life. 

The study was done on over twenty thousand men and women between the ages of 45-79, following them for an average of eleven years. None of these people had any evidence of cardiovascular disease or cancer at the start.

The four health behaviors evaluated include non-smoking, physical activity, moderate alcoholic intake (two drinks a day or less,) and fruit and vegetable intake of at least five servings a day. The results were eye opening.

After eleven years, those with four desirable behaviors, compared to those with none of them, showed a four-fold lower risk of mortality. The authors of the study calculated that for those with all four desirable factors, this was equivalent to being fourteen years younger in chronological age. 

What made the study even more convincing was the step-wise progression of risk. That is, all four desirable behaviors were associated with the best results, three desirable behaviors had the next best results, and so on, to the group with none of the desirable health behaviors who had the worst results. 

For those thinking about enhancing their health outlook in 2009, this study provides powerful motivation. One’s improved quality of life is worth any added self-discipline it may take to follow a healthy lifestyle. 

To shift gears at this point, I’m flying on the first leg of a trip to Ethiopia later today. I will be there with a volunteer group from Taylor University for the month of January, and am looking forward eagerly to this venture.

For those of you who did not read my article about Ethiopia in the Chronicle last week, it is now on my website under the category heading of Chronicle columns. If you would like to read that article, return to the home page and find Ethiopia in the Chronicle columns. It explains why I’m so interested in this trip.   

Since time is flying by, I will bring this letter to a conclusion. Part of it will appear on my website blog, for the sake of people who are not subscribed to this newsletter. If you would like to respond to anything in this letter, my suggestion is to do so on the website blog. I am turning my computer off at noon today, and will be essentially incommunicado for the next four weeks. 

This will be a monthly newsletter. There will be no advertising of any health products of any kind, though on occasion I may mention health meetings or conferences that may be of interest. Your privacy will be respected and your name and email address will be kept confidential. If at any time you wish to unsubscribe, simply send me a quick email with the word “Unsubscribe.” 

Be Well! 

I'm enjoying delicious, homemade lentil soup today. We made it earlier this week, and it is especially good on a rainy day like this one. To make it, we mixed a one pound bag of dried lentils with six cups of water in a large pan. After bringing it to a boil, we put the cover on and let it simmer on low for 35 minutes. Then we added one can of Italian style diced tomatoes and one half cup of medium salsa. We also added one cup of veggies leftover in the refrigerator from the night before. They include diced potatoes, diced carrots, chopped Vidalia onion, and one third of a cup of chopped greens. We let this simmer another ten minutes, and then it was ready to serve. It was delicious!

Welcome to my blog, I hope to blog about things that interest you!

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