“The lifestyle typical of most Americans,” she writes, “couldn’t be more pro-aging.” True! She enumerates some lifestyle points that the BluePrint for Life is meant to counter…

• We’re overly stressed, yet we try to portray overwork and stress as good.
• We don’t sleep nearly enough.
• Our lifestyle is too sedentary: “We work at desks and entertain ourselves in front of computer and TV screens,” she writes.
• We drink unhealthy beverages, when we should be usually be choosing water, and we make unhealthy food choices.

“And yet,” she writes, “we expect, either through good genes, good luck, vitamin supplements, or cosmetic surgery, to get that full-of-life glow. It’s an illogical premise.”

She goes on to share some details of her personal approach to living agelessly…

Meditation—She equates meditation with quiet time. “You can use it for journal writing, prayer, or sitting with a cup of tea and pondering life,” she writes. However, she notes, if you want it to slow the aging process, classic transcendental meditation is ideal. She reminds readers of the study that showed people who had meditated regularly for five years or more were a whopping 12 years younger physiologically than non-meditators.

Exercise—The BluePrint for Life states this point unequivocally: Our bodies are designed to move! Inhabitants of the world’s Longevity Hot Spots spend portions of every single day <moving, LINK TO http://akealife.com/blueprint-for-life/activity/> as part of work and play. To live as agelessly as possible, we need to make it our habit to do the same thing.

Nourishment—Nutrition, as you know, is an important aspect of the Akea lifestyle. (Are you taking your Essentials every day?) Moran makes the important additional point that we are nourished by everything we take in—”our immediate environment, the scenery, conversation, music, movies,” she says. “A chronically messy room isn’t nourishing. Neither is a hostile encounter, murder or mayhem, even on the silver screen.”

What would you add? What helps you live more agelessly? Comment here and let us know.

Put your hand up if you have ever had ‘traveller’s stomach’, or ‘Delhi belly’, or ‘a funny tummy’, or outright food poisoning. Most of us have been there, even if we traveled no further than a local restaurant – I myself was struck down by something icky after lunch at a perfectly reputable pub in genteel Bath, England, not so long ago, and then again a few weeks later after a wedding in Peshawar in Pakistan.

I did then as I always used to do when I lived in Pakistan and occasionally things didn’t seem quite right – I chopped up a couple of cloves of garlic and swallowed them with a glass of water (or to be more accurate, I asked someone else to do it for me, as both times, I was lying prone on a bed afraid of straying too far from the bathroom). Within fifteen minutes, the sick feeling had gone, and then it was just a matter of a day or so before things were back to normal. No need for antibiotics, nothing dragging on and on, no tedious visits to the doctor.

I have always presumed that garlic would do the trick, because it is known to be anti-bacterial and anti-viral, amongst its many other health benefits. It was given to monks in the Middle Ages to ward off the Plague, and rubbed into soldiers’ wounds during World War Two to prevent them from going septic. It worked for my nine-year-old daughter, too, after the aforementioned Peshawar wedding, which was a relief since clearing up after sick children so isn’t my favorite thing, plus we had a long plane journey looming.

And now, it seems, the scientists have come up with the evidence to show that the monks, the soldiers, and my daughter and I were right all along. Garlic is ONE HUNDRED times more powerful at fighting food poisoning bacteria than antibiotics! Researchers from the College of Veterinary Medicine, WA, added a compound from garlic called diallyl sulphide to something nasty called Campylobacter jejuni, a sick-making organism which is particularly adept at making our lives a misery since it wraps itself in a slimy protective biofilm, the better to hang around on surfaces and wait around for us to come along and stick our fingers in it. Our friend the diallyl sulphide destroyed the biofilm and put the C. jejuni out of action (thus giving it a good taste of its own medicine) ⁽¹⁾.

Campylobacter is the most common cause of food-borne illness in the US, it can cause Guillain-Barré syndrome, and it can kill, so the power of garlic to destroy it should not be taken lightly. The study researchers concluded that garlic could be an alternative agent against drug-resistant bacteria to some of the antibiotic drugs doctors prescribe which have a weaker effect. Another advantage of garlic is that it does not kill the ‘friendly flora’ in our gastrointestinal tract, as antibiotics do.

Eating garlic on a regular basis is a great way to boost your gut immunity, whether or not you have a bad stomach. Try some of the following:

• Tsatsiki (yogurt, garlic and cucumber dip) – eaten in Symi, Greece
• Garlic bread dipped in olive oil with slices of tomato
• Fish or chicken marinaded in garlic, lemon and ginger
• Salad dressing with crushed garlic
• Vegetables stir-fried in garlic, ginger and soy sauce
• Roasted vegetables with garlic
• Garlic, tomato, and basil sauce with pasta

References
⁽¹⁾ Lu, Xiaonan et al (2012). Antimicrobial effect of diallyl sulphide on Campylobacter jejuni biofilms. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Advance Access; May 1, 2012.

For months now, the blogosphere has been lighting up in a particular shade of green.

Kale green. Yes, parents, food enthusiasts, snack-lovers, gardeners, and all kinds of bloggers have been posting and re-posting recipes for kale chips. They swear they’re the best thing ever. And since early springtime is kale season, it’s time to keep this trend a-trending.

You already know that leafy greens tend to be very nutritious. Let’s look at the numbers for kale. Just one cup of raw kale provides…

• 12% of your daily fiber needs
• 2 grams of protein
• more than 350% of your daily Vitamin A requirement
• nearly 90 percent of your daily Vitamin C requirement
• 9% of your calcium and 6% of your iron needs for the day.

That’s pretty impressive! Kale can be strongly flavored, especially as it ages, but people who enjoy kale chips say there’s no bitterness in them whatsoever. Many of them say—gasp!—they’ve forsworn potato chips for kale chips.

Yes. They’re THAT good.

Here’s a basic recipe to try. Please let us know what you think!

Kale Chips

1 bunch kale grapeseed or olive oil, for cooking
good-quality coarse salt

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Wash the kale and dry it in a salad spinner or between lint-free towels. (Dry all the moisture or else the chips won’t be crispy.) Cut or pull out the tough stems, tear the leaves into chip-sized pieces, and spread out on a rimmed baking sheet.
3. Drizzle with oil and toss with your hands to coat well. Arrange in a single layer and sprinkle with salt.
4. Roast the kale for about 10 minutes, until it is crispy and starting to turn brown on the edges, but not too dark. Serve immediately or cool completely and store in an airtight container until ready to serve.

One bunch of kale serves six people…or one very happy snacker. It’s up to you.

Essentials is a cutting-edge product which has been developed by the Akea team in order to provide something really effective which can bridge the gap between what most of us are getting and what we really need.  

We have been getting amazing results from Essentials from those who have been taking it – they have surpassed even our expectations! Click HERE to view some testimonials.

Essentials is a powdered blend of organic vegetables, fruits, superfoods and other nutrient-dense whole foods which have been fermented using probiotics so as to be highly bioavailable in the body.  Vitamins, minerals, trace elements and other nutrients are all present together with thousands of other phytochemicals just as they are in the foods found in nature.  

Essentials contains a wide range of the vitamins and minerals found in food, some in levels comparable to the Daily Values found in supplements.  For example, two scoops provides 40% of the Daily Value for zinc and 54% of the Daily Value for selenium.

Mostly, the vitamins and minerals in Essentials are not present in the high amounts you will find in supplements.  For that reason, in the short term, you may need to take additional supplements to correct any deficiencies you have.

However, because the vitamins and minerals in Essentials are working together in a complex matrix of other phytochemicals, they have greatly increased efficacy.  You may well find, therefore, that by taking Essentials as part of your daily regime, you have sufficient levels of vitamins, minerals and trace elements for optimum health, just as they do in the Hot Spots.

If you decide to take Essentials, remember to have it with the healthy diet outlined on the Akea website, and you will be pretty close to having all the Hot Spot ingredients for optimum health.

For more information on Essentials, click HERE.

If you have read all of the parts of this blog so far, hopefully you will know quite a lot about supplements by now and will be in a good position to judge whether or not to take them.

My advice for the long term is to try to get your micronutrients from food and to take a high-quality whole food powder such as Akea Essentials which provides not just vitamins and minerals but thousands of other phytochemicals just as they are found in food and which work synergistically in the body for maximum benefit.

Certain supplements may be helpful if you have a particular deficiency. These are likely to be in a high dose which can be used therapeutically to get you up to a level which you might not be able to achieve with diet alone. If you are going to take a vitamin and/or mineral supplement, choose a good food-based brand which includes cofactors for maximum absorption.

It is not necessarily a good idea to take multivitamin and mineral supplements in the long term because we don't yet know the full story of how they work in the body. It can also be harmful to health to take high doses of vitamins or minerals for too long; for example. vitamin A is stored in the liver (rather than excreted) and can be toxic in excess, whilst too much calcium can get 'dumped' in places where it should not be such as in joints or arteries. Taking high doses of antioxidants for a long time may be problematic because we actually need some free radicals in the body; this delicate balance is probably best achieved with a super-healthy diet such as that of the people in the Hot Spots.

Whole food powders and vitamin and mineral supplements will always work best when taken as just that – a supplement to a healthy diet. This is partly because the food in your diet will work with the nutrients synergistically so that they complement each other. It may be because of unhealthy diets of subjects that studies on supplements are often inconclusive. (It is not so important for a product such as Akea Essentials to be supplementary since it is such a complete nutrient package, but of course we still recommend that you use it along with a healthy diet).

Consuming the wrong things with supplements can even be harmful. For instance, one study from Finland showed that male smokers were more likely to get lung cancer when taking high doses of beta-carotene supplements. This may be because when antioxidants such as beta-carotene are taken, they turn into free radicals themselves and must be neutralised by other antioxidants present. In the case of the Finnish smokers, the beta-carotene antioxidants may have caused excessive amounts of free radicals.

Don't forget to eat your good fats

People on low-fat diets have a higher risk of cancer than people eating good fats, according to some studies. This is likely to be because we need the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) to protect the fatty parts of our cells from free radical damage. If there are no fats in our diet, we can't absorb these vitamins properly.

Cold-pressed nut and seed oils such as flax or hemp oil, extra virgin olive oil, and fish oils are good sources of healthy fats which won't cause weight gain. If you don't get these in your diet, it is a good idea to use ground flax or a supplement providing both omega 3 and omega 6 fats.

Protein and oil also work together. If you eat a lot of protein and no fat you can eventually suffer from protein toxicity (hyperaminoacidemia). Our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived on game and fish which had a good ratio of protein to healthy fats; the closest we can get to that nowadays is to eat organic grass-fed game and wild fish or to make sure we consume olive oil and essential fatty acids on a daily basis.

Tomorrow, in the final part of this blog, I will look more closely at Akea Essentials – what it is, and how it can work for you.

Here is a brief guide to some of the more well-studied functions performed by some of the vitamins, minerals and trace elements which are most commonly used in supplements. Everyone who cares about their health should aim to get these from foods, so the best food sources are also given.

Vitamin C

• boosts immunity
• anti-viral
• anti-bacterial
• builds collagen
• required for adrenal health
• anti-inflammatory
• antioxidant

Food sources of vitamin C: berries, citrus fruits, prunes, raw red peppers, raw cruciferous vegetables, raw cabbage.

Vitamin A/beta-carotene

• protects the fatty parts of cells from free radical damage
• protects the mucus membranes such as in the lungs and digestive tract
• required for immunity
• protects eye retina health
• anti-inflammatory
• antioxidant

Caution: Vitamin A in high doses can be toxic as it is stored in the liver. A teratogen in high levels so dose should be limited to no more than 2,000 iu in pregnant women. Beta-carotene is converted to vitamin A in the body and is safe to take (unless you are a smoker – see part 5 tomorrow).

Food sources of beta-carotene: red, yellow and orange fruit and vegetables such as carrots, pumpkin, squash, red peppers; dark green leafy vegetables such as spinach and watercress.

Food sources of vitamin A: liver, tuna, cod liver oil.

Vitamin E

• protects fatty parts of cells from free radical damage
• helps prevent blood from clotting
• protects collagen from damage
• prevents ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol from oxidising
• important for fertility and reproduction
• anti-inflammatory
• antioxidant

Food sources of vitamin E: nuts and seeds and their oils, olive oil, avocados, wheatgerm oil

B Vitamins

• metabolism of nutrients
• production of immune cells
• energy production in cells
• red blood cell production
• removal of homocysteine from blood (thus lowering heart disease risk)
• neurotransmitter (brain chemical) function
• thyroid function

Food sources of B vitamins: brewer’s yeast, whole grains, peanuts, sunflower seeds, legumes, avocados, sprouted seeds, vegetables, meat, fish

Food sources of vitamin B12: meat, fish, shellfish, and trace amounts in fermented soy products and chlorella

Vitamin D

• strengthens teeth and bones
• boosts calcium absorption
• required in immunity
• plays a role in cell differentiation
• possible anti-cancer role

Food sources of vitamin D: fish oils, fortified foods (eg breakfast cereals), egg yolk, liver, dairy products. Sunlight on skin is the best way to get the active form of vitamin D – we need around 20 minutes of sunlight daily.

Vitamin K

• reduces risk of internal haemorrhaging
• protects against bleeding problems after surgery
• helps to build strong healthy bones

Food sources of vitamin K: green leafy vegetables, pistachio nuts, molasses, seaweed

Calcium

• bone and teeth health
• muscle contraction
• immune system function
• nerve function
• involved in neurotransmitter and hormone function

Food sources of calcium: green vegetables, nuts, seeds, pulses, sprouted pulses, fish (especially with soft bones eg canned sardines). Dairy produce contains calcium but this is hard to absorb since there is no magnesium present in dairy which is required for the absorption of calcium.

Magnesium

• protects mitochondria in cells from free radical damage
• involved in energy production
• involved in neurotransmitter and hormone function
• lowers blood pressure
• improves symptoms of PMS
• works with calcium to keep bones healthy
• required for correct muscle function (including the heart)
• calms the system

Food sources of magnesium: whole grains, nuts, seeds, cocoa, green leafy vegetables, sea vegetables

Selenium

• powerful antioxidant
• thought to protect against cancer
• boosts the function of energy-making mitochondria in heart cells
• required for thyroid hormones
• required for healthy reproduction (especially in males)

Food sources of selenium: brazil nuts, garlic, mushrooms, asparagus, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, whole grains, meat, seafood

Zinc

• required for tissue healing and repair
• required for energy production
• required for synthesis of DNA
• required for reproductive health
• promotes apoptosis (‘cell suicide’) in diseased cells
• required for health of the thymus gland which oversees our immune systems
• antioxidant

Food sources of zinc: shellfish, organ meats, meat, wheat germ and bran, whole grains, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, mushrooms, okra, green leafy veg, peas

Copper

• antioxidant enzyme
• required for energy production
• required for iron metabolism
• required for health of connective tissue

Food sources of copper: dried apricots, sunflower seeds, whole grains, nuts, legumes, liver, duck, molasses, brewer’s yeast, avocados, olives

Manganese

• antioxidant enzyme
• required for energy production
• required for protein, carbohydrate and fat metabolism
• required for connective tissue health

Food sources of manganese: vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, sprouted seeds, spices, avocado, okra, blackberries, raspberries

Iron

• required for structure of hemoglobin which carries oxygen in the blood
• required for DNA synthesise
• required for neurotransmitters and hormones

Food sources of iron: red meat, dark green leafy vegetables, cocoa, molasses, raisins, prunes

Chromium

• needed for insulin’s effect on cells and therefore blood glucose levels

Food sources of chromium: nuts, seeds, whole grains, black pepper, molasses, mushrooms, asparagus, prunes, brewer’s yeast, artichokes, sage

Synthetic versus natural supplements

In nature, vitamins are found in plants and animals, whilst minerals are found in living organisms as well as in soil, rocks and water.

In order to be produced in the industrial quantities required by supplements companies, vitamins are usually either synthesised or cultured in a laboratory. Synthesised vitamins are mainly made by isolating molecules which already exist in nature, whilst cultured vitamins are grown and extracted from an original food source. For example, vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is usually synthesised from corn starch or cassava, whilst B vitamins are often cultured from yeast. Some synthetic vitamins are manufactured from coal tar derivatives.

In most cases, the molecular structure of synthetic vitamins is identical to that of their natural counterparts. The main exception to this is vitamin E. Vitamin E exists as d-tocopherol in nature and l-tocopherol when synthetic; in a supplement you will often find dl-tocopherol which combines natural and synthetic vitamin E. A good brand will always use d-tocopherol, extracted from nut or seed oil, since d-tocopherol is absorbed by the body whilst l-tocopherol is excreted, which means that fifty per cent of dl-tocopherol will be wasted.

Folic acid is another vitamin which differs from its natural counterpart, folate. Folic acid, which is usually obtained from yeast or liver, is much more bioavailable than folate. Folic acid behaves slightly differently in cells from folate, and there is some evidence to suggest that, unlike folate, it may increase the risk of cancer when used in very high doses, although this is not known for sure.

Other synthetic vitamins have the same molecular structure as those found in nature and should theoretically be used by the body in the same way. However, this is not the case, because in nature, vitamins are never found in isolation in the way that they are in the laboratory. In nature they are always bound with other plant chemicals which are loosely referred to as 'cofactors'. Vitamin C, for example, is found in fruit along with bioflavonoids. These cofactors enhance the bioavailability of the vitamin – bioflavonoids, for instance, increase the bioavailability of vitamin C by 30 per cent.

It is now known that the body will absorb vitamins much better when they are combined with cofactors found in food. Whole foods actually contain thousands of phytochemicals, all working together in a synergistic way, which vitamin supplements cannot provide. There are many micronutrients found in food which haven't even been identified yet, let alone produced in a laboratory.

Minerals and trace elements (such as iron, calcium and zinc) are not synthesised in laboratories because they can be harvested from rocks. However, the minerals found in rocks exist in their pure form, which cannot be absorbed by the body. In order to become bioavailable they must be combined with another substance such as citric acid. For instance magnesium will be combined with citric acid to become magnesium citrate. The minerals in plants and animals are already combined with other substances and so when we eat foods containing them we can absorb them.

A separate problem with synthetic vitamins and minerals is that cheaper brands are likely to use artificial colors, additives and fillers as well as salts such as palmitate. These substances are not food and may cause allergic reactions or undermine health if they are not properly metabolised in the body.

Food-based supplements

Since it is now recognised that isolated vitamins and minerals will not be well-absorbed, companies in the know are starting to produce 'food-based' supplements. These may obtain calcium from sea algae, beta-carotene from carrot concentrate, B vitamins from yeast, and so on. Food-based supplements may use vitamins which have been synthesised but they are then put into a food complex – for example vitamin C will come with bioflavonoids from bilberries.

Really good brands will use cultured whole-food vitamins and minerals, sometimes with added herbs and superfoods. This is a good step towards providing the micronutrients we need in a way that is similar to how they are found in nature and these high-end brands can provide a good supplement to a healthy diet.

If you want to use a vitamin and mineral supplement, always read the label carefully and if in doubt call the manufacturers. You generally get what you pay for, and are probably more likely to be wasting your money if you get a cheaper brand.

Akea Essentials

Moving one step on from supplements is Akea Essentials. Akea Essentials is a whole-food powder containing a wide range of concentrated nutrients derived entirely from food. It provides not just vitamins and minerals but also the thousands of phytochemicals found in nature which work synergistically and can therefore be powerfully beneficial for health. There are more details about Akea Essentials in part 6 of this blog.

The next part of this blog is about the individual vitamins and minerals most commonly used in supplements and what they can do for you.

–by Sally Beare

Studies about whether or not vitamin and mineral supplements work are, overall, inconclusive. Some suggest they improve health, some suggest they have no effect, and one, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2007, even suggested that taking antioxidant supplements increases mortality risk.

Studies on supplements are tricky, because it is impossible to get large numbers of people to eat the same things, have the same amount of stress, take the same amount of exercise, and have the same DNA, all of which factors can affect the result. There may also be vested interests at play.

However, some studies seem to reliably suggest that supplements can be of benefit. For example, the New England Journal of Medicine reported in 1993 that the well-respected Nurse's Health Study, which looked at over 87,000 women, showed that vitamin E when taken in the long term is associated with lower risk of heart disease in middle-aged women. Another study published in the British Medical Journal in 1997 showed that men who had low levels of vitamin C were three and a half times more likely to have a heart attack than those who did not.

Speaking from my own experience, certain good-quality vitamins and minerals can be very helpful. Magnesium can be very effective at combating insomnia and high doses of vitamin C seem to be able to ward off colds and flu. Multivitamins and minerals can help get an underfunctioning thyroid or adrenals out of a rut, zinc can give a real boost to the immune system, iron can effectively treat anaemia, and so on.

There may be times, then, when people can benefit from taking supplements. However, there is so much difference in quality between different products, that some may well be able to resolve a problem whilst others may make no difference at all. So what should you look for in a supplement?

In the next blog, I will look at where the vitamins and minerals in your supplement come from and the differences in quality between brands.

Part one – Introduction

Have you ever wondered, as you gulp down a handful of vitamin pills whilst family/colleagues/friends/pet dog look on with one eyebrow raised: Do I really need these – or are they just giving me expensive urine?

There are at least thirteen vitamins and seventeen minerals and trace elements which we need daily, each with a long list of duties to perform. For example, without B vitamins our cells can't manufacture energy, without iron we can't make blood, and without zinc our immune system can't work properly – and that's just for starters.

We should of course get these vitamins and minerals from our diet, but the junk-food based S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) has lost them somewhere along the way and even a high-veg diet is likely to be lacking in them thanks to today's depleted soil. An orange you buy in the supermarket today can actually contain no vitamin C, whilst magnesium levels in carrots have dropped by around 75 percent since 1940.

The rich and fertile soil in the Longevity Hot Spots and resulting high levels of micronutrients in the people who live there is a major factor in their robust health. But most of us don't live in Longevity Hot Spots, so what can we do?

Enter the multi-billion dollar vitamin and mineral supplement industry. The supplements they make purport to be there in order to fill the gap left by an inadequate diet. But do they really? Can a handful of pills really provide the same nutrients as a tree dripping with ripe fruit, a row of buxom cabbages, or a salmon leaping from a river?

Over the next six blogs, we'll guide you through the sometimes confusing (and money-wasting) world of supplements, so as to help you work out what you should or shouldn't be having...stay tuned!

What if you could learn a simple, four-step technique to let that worry go?

A little worry can be healthy. It can help you focus and get things done. But excess worry translates to long-term stress, and that's not good. Stress raises blood pressure, affects appetite, and can contribute to unhealthy inflammation. The Akea BluePrint for Life provides relaxation techniques that can help mitigate worry and return your body to a non-stressed state.

If you find it impossible to let a worry (or a set of worries) go, then consider trying this simple technique. Writing in the Living section of the Huffington Post, psychologist Hale Dwoskin suggests thinking of worries as memories—things that used to be true, but no longer are.

The reason that problems appear to persist through time is that whenever they are not here in this moment, we go looking for them. That's right; we actually seek out our problems. This means we filter our experiences based on the belief that we have a particular problem and—here's the kicker—we unconsciously censor anything that does not support the belief that we have this problem, including the fact that the problem is not actually here now.

As Dwoskin notes, worries put quite a burden on our daily (and, ugh, nightly!) lives. This is Dwoskin's four-step method for shifting those worries to memories that can be let go to their rightful place: the past.

Step 1. Think of a problem that you used to believe you had. I purposely phrased this question in the past tense because you are now considering all problems as memories. And, in fact, they are. If you're having a hard time accepting your problem as existing only in the past, then allow yourself to include the last 10 seconds as part of the past. And the last second. And the last.

Step 2. Now, ask: "Could I allow myself to remember how I used to believe I had this problem?" This shift in consciousness may make you laugh, it may make you tingle inside or it may simply open the possibility in your awareness that yes, even this is just a memory.

Step 3. Then ask: "Would I like to change that from the past?" If the answer is yes, ask yourself: "Could I let go of wanting to change that from the past?" Now, this may seem counterintuitive, but when you want something, you are holding in mind that you do not have it. In other words, want equals lack. And the feeling of desire actually keeps what you want at bay. Check it out for yourself. Would you rather want a million dollars in the bank, or would you rather have it? Would you rather want to change your problem from the past, or would you rather change it? Now let go as best you can.

Step 4.The completion question in this series is to ask yourself: "Just for now, could I let go of wanting to believe I have that problem again?" And then do your best to let it go.

At Akea, we are always open to new ways of relaxation and stress relief. Learning to live in the moment truly can enhance well-being and health. Is this a technique you would be willing to try?

If you do try it, please comment here to let the community know how it works for you.