Recipes: Traditional Gingerbread Man Cookies

 

Good Morning!

Recipes: Traditional Gingerbread Man Cookies

Ingredients

3 cups flour
2 teaspoons Ginger, Ground
1 teaspoon Cinnamon, Ground
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg, Ground
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg

Directions

Mix flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt in large bowl. Beat
butter and brown sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until
light and fluffy. Add molasses and egg; beat well. Gradually beat in flour
mixture on low speed until well mixed. Press dough into a thick flat disk.

Wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll out dough to 1/4-inch thickness on lightly
floured work surface. Cut into gingerbread men shapes with 5-inch cookie cutter.

Place 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges of cookies are set and just begin to brown.

Cool on baking sheets 1 to 2 minutes. Remove to wire racks; cool completely.

Decorate cooled cookies as desired. Store cookies in airtight container up to 5
days.

• Terms of Use

.

__,_._,___

A Guide to Good Personal Hygiene

 Proper grooming and healthy personal habits can help you ward off illnesses and feel good about yourself. Find out which personal hygiene habits should be part of your regular routine.

 

Mom was right: Good personal hygiene is essential to promoting good health.
Personal hygiene habits such as washing your hands and brushing and flossing your teeth will help keep bacteria, viruses, and illnesses at bay. And there are mental as well as physical benefits. “Practicing good body hygiene helps you feel good about yourself, which is important for your mental health,” notes Donald Novey, MD, an integrative medicine physician with the Advocate Medical Group in Park Ridge, Ill. People who have poor hygiene — disheveled hair and clothes, body odor, bad breath, missing teeth, and the like — often are seen as unhealthy and may face discrimination.

Personal Hygiene: Healthy Habits Include Good Grooming
If you want to minimize your risk of infection and also enhance your overall health, follow these basic personal hygiene habits:

• Bathe regularly. Wash your body and your hair often. “I’m not saying that you need to shower or bathe every day,” remarks Dr. Novey. “But you should clean your body and shampoo your hair at regular intervals that work for you.” Your body is constantly shedding skin. Novey explains, “That skin needs to come off. Otherwise, it will cake up and can cause illnesses.”
• Trim your nails. Keeping your finger and toenails trimmed and in good shape will prevent problems such as hang nails and infected nail beds. Feet that are clean and dry are less likely to contract athlete’s foot, Novey says.
• Brush and floss. Ideally, you should brush your teeth after every meal. At the very least, brush your teeth twice a day and floss daily. Brushing minimizes the accumulation of bacteria in your mouth, which can cause tooth decay and gum disease, Novey says. Flossing, too, helps maintain strong, healthy gums. “The bacteria that builds up and causes gum disease can go straight to the heart and cause very serious valve problems,” Novey explains. Unhealthy gums also can cause your teeth to loosen, which makes it difficult to chew and to eat properly, he adds. To maintain a healthy smile, visit the dentist at six-month intervals for checkups and cleanings.
• Wash your hands. Washing your hands before preparing or eating food, after going to the bathroom, after coughing or sneezing, and after handling garbage, goes a long way toward preventing the spread of bacteria and viruses. Keep a hygiene product, like an alcohol-based sanitizing gel, handy for when soap and water isn’t available.
• Sleep tight. Get plenty of rest — 8 to 10 hours a night — so that you are refreshed and are ready to take on the day every morning. Lack of sleep can leave you feeling run down and can compromise your body's natural defenses, your immune system, Novey says.

Personal Hygiene: Poor Hygiene Hints at Other Issues
If someone you know hasn’t bathed or appears unkempt, it could be a sign that he or she is depressed. “When people are sad or depressed, they neglect themselves,” Novey says. Talking about the importance of proper personal hygiene for preventing illnesses and providing personal hygiene items may help some people. Be candid but sensitive and understanding in your discussions, Novey says. Despite your best efforts, your friend or loved one may need professional help. You should encourage them to see a counselor or doctor if their personal hygiene doesn’t improve.
Personal Hygiene: Good Habits Help Keep You Healthy
For most people, good hygiene is so much a part of their daily routines that they think little about it. They bathe, they brush their teeth, visit the dentist and doctor for regular checkups, and wash their hands when preparing or eating food and handling unsanitary items. To keep those you care about healthy and safe, help them learn, and be sure that they are practicing, good personal hygiene.

Want To Keep Some Hand Sanitizer Handy Each Time You Use An ATM, Cautions New Study

New York City is particularly dirty and some of the most shared surfaces of this big city are automated teller machines. Scientists at New York University tested these for microbes as research for a study. The study, published in the journal mSphere and conducted between June and July 2014, took swabs of keypads from 66 ATM machines from Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn, ranging from midtown to Flushing to Inwood to Ozone Park in the US.

Specifically, the most common identified sources of microbes on the keypads were from household surfaces such as televisions, restrooms, kitchens and pillows, as well as from bony fish, mollusks and chicken.

"ATM surfaces, potentially retaining microbial signatures of human inhabitants ... are interesting from both a biodiversity perspective and a public health perspective," lead author NYU project scientist Holly M. Bik and her colleagues wrote. They focused on neighborhoods with distinct population demographics, swabbing around for patterns. The goal was to add to the body of work on the "urban microbiome."
It's a big project in New York, given that, as the authors report, the urban surfaces of Manhattan have a greater surface area than the geographic breadth of the island itself.

On one ATM near Brighton Beach, they detected Toxoplasma, the culprit in the infectious disease Toxoplasmosis, that doesn't usually show symptoms but feels like a flu if you have a weakened immune system or are a baby. But, as John Metcalfe reports at CityLab, other findings were even less savory, like protists associated with your intestinal tract, a bug related to the sexually transmitted infection trichomoniasis, "Don't panic just yet," Metcalfe cautions. "The research didn't determine how many of these microbes were still active when collected, and it's possible that many were in such small amounts that they wouldn't be harmful," he says.
Are you someone who washes his hands often and is tagged a psycho by friends? Well, pay no heed to that because you are doing the right thing! This new study gives you enough to refute claims that you're a crazy person.

However, no significant difference was found in the keypads from ATMs located outdoors versus indoors, the researchers noted. Well, till the time researchers are doing their work and digging out more reasons to stay from these bacteria, you might like to keep some hand sanitizer handy.