While Fenugreek seeds are reach-me-down extensively in the recipes of countries in the Middle and Far East it is not as well known as many other spices in the US. In the US you can typically find Fenugreek as a flavoring in unnatural maple syrups. Not only does Fenugreek give a remarkable flavor to food but it also has several very important disease preventing characteristics.
Historically the former Assyrians cultivated fenugreek centuries before the time of Christ, and dried fenugreek seeds were used medicinally in time-honoured Indian, Greek, and Arabian medicine. Ancient Egyptians used fenugreek to induce childbirth. The seeds are commonly old in Indian curries, Egyptian bread, and to prepare a coffee substitute in northern Africa.
Fenugreek, which has anti-diabetic potency be like to cinnamon, is one of the most valuable spices for the control of glucose metabolism and thus the prevention and treatment of Type II diabetes. Remarkably, it has been shown to tone down blood glucose levels of Type II diabetics by as much as 46 percent.
Recent studies have investigated the blood cholesterol-lowering and blood glucose-lowering properties of fenugreek seeds, both in run-of-the-mill subjects and in those with diabetes. Significant reductions in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels, but not HDL cholesterol levels, have been observed in non-insulin-dependent diabetics consuming 25 grams of fenugreek per day. The effective effects were sustained over five to six months. With only five grams of fenugreek a day, fasting and post-meal blood glucose levels were significantly reduced in those persons with diabetes. Today fenugreek is recognized as a of use botanical aid in the treatment of persons with diabetes.
Fenugreek seeds are rich in a type of dietary fiber that alters blood glucose levels by delaying the absorption of sugar in the intestines. It has also been shown to cut down on the absorption of fat and cholesterol from the intestines thereby providing added protection against heart disease and obesity.
Fenugreek has also been proven to be supportive when dealing with diabetes-related cataracts. In diabetics the enzymes that control glucose uptake into the lens of the eye do not use normally. Fenugreek has been shown to partially reverse both the metabolic changes in the lens and to reduce the density of the cataract.
While other spices like chilies and cinnamon agree to the culinary and medicinal headlines, the research into fenugreek is showing us that this spice has health benefits on a par with, or even superior to, those of the punter known spices.
http://www.melabic.com/Fenugreek/Fenugreek.html
The newspaper industry is reeling and trying to adapt to an online future.
But The Daily Racing Form, the horse-racing tabloid with the familiar red, white and black logo, appears to have found a survival strategy: it feeds its readers a product with news, analysis and data, and sells them more and deeper analytic information from its Web site, drf.com.
“Initially, the Internet was a small part of the company, but now I’d say that it’s 10 to 20 percent,” said Steven Crist, The Form’s chairman and publisher. “We’re not going to be selling more hard-copy newspapers in five years. I think we’ll still be selling them, because there are still thousands of people who are tactile and sensual about their newsprint and Flair pens and marking up their Form. I don’t think we’re going digital any time soon.”
In a few years, he expects the digital side to account for at least one-third of revenue.
The Form’s business model is bucking two economic trends: it is a daily in the midst of a recession that has decimated advertising and some general-interest papers. And it is a niche paper that serves a sport with considerable problems, but one that comes alive to a general audience for Triple Crown events like Saturday’s Belmont Stakes.
Still, it is the industry’s only daily, with its competition largely from The BloodHorse and The Thoroughbred Times’s Web sites, and the industry’s central data source, Equibase. A formidable challenge seemed to come in 1991, when Robert Maxwell started The Racing Times, which Crist edited. But it lasted less than a year, and The Form acquired some of its assets to kill it.
“Oh, The Racing Form is the bible,” said William Nack, the former Sports Illustrated horse-racing writer and a biographer of Ruffian and Secretariat who grew up admiring The Form’s top columnist, Charlie Hatton. “You can’t be without it at the track.”
Crist said that The Form’s unusual economics helped it endure the recession. He said that fewer than 10 people had been laid off this year, on a staff of about 200.
“Newspapers for the most part get 95 percent of our revenue from advertising, and circulation is break even, at best,” Crist said Friday at Belmont Park. “We’re 90-percent-plus from circulation. So the advertising fall hasn’t hurt much. I’m not saying we don’t like or need advertising, but we’re the most expensive newspaper in the world, at $5 or $6, and that’s where our money comes from.”
Circulation averages nearly 33,000 daily, said Jim Kostas, The Form’s president and general manager. Less than 20 years ago, it was closer to 100,000.
“Although it suffers from some of the same issues newspapers do, the combination of its editorial content and data puts it on firmer ground,” said Charles Hayward, the president of the New York Racing Association and a former president of The Form. “It’s like combining The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.”
Although its circulation is modest, the $5 to $6 price tag, depending on the market, means revenue of at least $60 million from selling 39 regional editions of the paper at tracks (where The Form also publishes programs) and newsstands. Some days, just a few thousand copies are sold; on Triple Crown days, 350,000.
“Absolutely, we’re profitable,” Crist said. “It’s not even close. We turn over a lot of cash.” The Form is privately owned by a venture-capital firm, Arlington Capital Partners of Chevy Chase, Md., so there is no independent verification of Crist’s profitability claims.
But at least through its most recent sales, it has proved to be an increasingly valuable news-media property: in 1998, a group that included Crist acquired it for $44 million; six years later, the Wicks Group bought it for about $75 million. In 2007, before the recession struck, Arlington paid nearly $200 million as part of a strategy to sell premium sports data online.
“We know that that can’t go on forever,” Crist said of the rise in acquisition prices.
The Internet strategy has been building for a decade and focuses on selling charts, past-performance data, handicapping reports and products like Andrew Beyer’s speed figures for a few dollars to a few hundred dollars. “We’re constantly playing with pricing plans,” Crist said.
Marc Attenberg, The Form’s vice president for Internet, said, “We benefit because people are willing to pay for our information.” Perhaps The Form’s model is one that newspapers should have heeded instead of offering free content. But The Form may be different because what it offers is highly specialized and geared to gamblers, not general-interest readers.
Attenberg hopes that the next evolution in The Form’s digital growth is the creation of mobile devices that can accommodate the intricacy and depth of performance charts.
“Eighty-five percent of people come to our site, print out what they want and take it to the track or to their living room,” he said. “Right now, our stuff just doesn’t work on a BlackBerry.”
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7 June 2009 in
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The Knox County Finance Committee reviewed on Monday a proposal by a commissioner to drastically reduce the number of take-home vehicles in the county’s fleet.
Commissioner Mark Harmon reviewed the budgets line by line and identifed 28 take-home vehicles that could be cut from the sheriff’s office budget and 28 vehicles under other branches of county government that could also be cut.
The committee opted against Harmon’s proposal naming specific vehicles driven by specific employees, citing a desire to avoid micro-managing department heads.
Instead, the committee will send to the full commission a proposal to cut the funding by the number of vehicles outlined, then let the department heads make the call on where to cut.
School budget discussed
The committee also heard from Superintendent Jim McIntyre on the schools’ $375-million budget.
A previous plan to cut 69 teaching positions was trimmed back to 35 teaching positions. Additionally, 35 janitorial positions will be cut. Janitorial services have been reorganized to maintain area coverage.
A previous proposal, to change the high school start time to a later time to allow fewer bus routes to be run, has been taken off the table for now.
As for the stimulus, McIntyre noted the funds were primarily allocated for Title I and special education and would not go into the general operating fund.
Commissioner Brad Anders inquired whether the school might save money from employees’ insurance, but there was no movement on that front.
Anti-intimidation resolution discussed
The finance committee also approved a resolution brought by Commissioner Richard Briggs to make it clear that citizens bringing concerns before the commission would be free from any behavior that might intimidate them.
Briggs proposed the measure after a confrontation between Commissioner Greg Lambert and a property owner concerned about development in his neighborhood.
Briggs had initially considered a censure of Lambert over the incident but then revised the resolution to simply be one against any sort of intimidation of concerned citizens, and Lambert has since expressed support for the measure.
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