Get ready for Year of the Sheep | The Honolulu Advertiser

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Get ready for Year of the Sheep | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper

Posted on: Monday, December 2, 2002

THE LEFT LANE
Get ready for Year of the Sheep

Advertiser Staff and News Services

The Year of the Horse isn't over, but booksellers such as Dragon Gate (100 N. Beretania St., at the Chinese Cultural Plaza) already are stocking up on "Rocky Sung's Guide to Chinese Astrology and Feng Shui" (Thorsons, $13) for the 2003 Year of the Sheep.

The astrology guide is an annual bestseller at Dragon Gate, manager Emily Ng said. Business owners buy it to read about how they can improve their fortune or that of their customers. Other readers look to it to learn what the combination of Chinese astrology and feng shui means for their love, life and career for the new year.

Looking to Eastern astrology might also buy you some time when it comes to making New Year's resolutions. The Year of the Sheep begins Feb. 1 on the Western calendar, and Feb. 4 according to traditional Chinese astrology.

Matzahs in the mail

Hanukkah began Friday, but it's not too early to begin thinking of Passover. Honolulu's Temple Emanu-El is kicking off its annual "Got Matzah" (the unleavened bread also is spelled matzo) program, a mail-order service for Passover goods, including more than 70 "Kosher for Passover" items and wines from Streits Kosher Foods. Proceeds benefit temple programs.

Contact Jewish organizations throughout the Islands, phone (808) 595-7521 or e-mail gotmatzah@hawaii.rr.com. Deadline: Dec. 15.

Order up the oranges

A growing body of evidence suggests that people who eat enough fruit and vegetables to meet the daily requirements for vitamin C have healthier blood-pressure levels than those who don't. In a study published earlier this year, Gladys Block, professor of public health nutrition at the University of California-Berkeley, took a group of healthy men with normal blood pressure and fed them a diet low in vitamin C for 30 days. For the next 30 days, the men ate food high enough in vitamin C to provide 117 milligrams a day.

Block found that diastolic blood pressure — pressure exerted on blood-vessel walls when the heart rests between beats, the lower number in a blood pressure reading — rose and fell significantly along with the intake of foods rich in vitamin C. People with the lowest vitamin C blood levels had the highest blood pressure.

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