Features

By Tara Ensour
Nutritionist

Nutrition and menstrual health Proper nutrition is very important for menstrual health and regularity. It is therefore important for a woman to understand the nutritional needs of her body to reach optimal health and help control unwanted symptoms.

Menstrual Phases (Days 1 - 5) This phase is typically from day one of menstruation.

Here, the uterine lining sheds, resulting in bleeding.

Oestrogen and progesterone are usually low during this initial stage. During the first few days, foods should be high in protein, fibre, healthy fats and minerals.

Follicular phase (Days 1 - 13) This phase begins on the first day of menstruation and lasts until ovulation. During this time, the follicle-stimulating hormone stimulates the development of follicles in the ovaries, one of which will release an egg during ovulation.

Here, oestrogen levels rise, therefore, during these days, magnesium-rich foods are encouraged as magnesium levels are typically at their lowest. Magnesium-rich

foods include spinach and nuts. Energy levels are often high at this stage and some women find that they enjoy exercising during their follicular phase.

Ovulation (Day 14) Ovulation usually occurs around the middle of the menstrual cycle (around day 14 in a 28-day cycle). This is when the matured egg is released from the ovary and is available for fertilisation by sperm.

Oestrogen, here, is at its peak during ovulation. Highfibre foods can help reduce oestrogen levels and get back hormonal balance. If you are trying to have a baby, proper nutrition can help increase your chances of pregnancy during this phase. Increase your intake of folic acid and Omega-3 fatty acids. Good foods to eat during this stage are berries, eggplant, spinach, red lentils, salmon, tuna, corn and tomatoes.

Luteal Phase (Days 15 - 28) After ovulation, the egg transforms into the corpus luteum, which produces progesterone to prepare the uterus for possible pregnancy. If pregnancy doesn’t occur, the corpus luteum breaks down, leading to a decrease in progesterone and the start of a new menstrual cycle.

During this phase, focus on foods high in magnesium and healthy fats. This includes white fish, chickpeas and brown rice.

PMS

To help alleviate premenstrual syndrome (PMS) symptoms, increase your intake of the following vitamins and minerals:

1. Calcium, through foods like nuts, dairy and green leafy vegetables

2. Vitamin B6, through foods like chicken, sea bass and avocado

3. Magnesium, through foods like spinach, nuts and whole meal bread

4. Omega-3 fatty acids, through foods like salmon, sardines and anchovies

5. Vitamin E, through foods like nuts and seeds

6. Fibre, through foods like fruit, unsalted nuts and pulses

Protein and Iron

When you are in your cycle, it is important to maintain your protein intake. Chicken and meat are not only good protein sources, but also high in iron.

Iron is a mineral of many functions within the body. It is found in red blood cells in your blood, making it an essential mineral to replenish during your cycle, as you lose iron-rich blood.

If blood loss is high and the iron loss is not replenished through sufficient iron intake, this causes a decrease in iron stores which then leads to overall tiredness and a reduced ability to focus.

If dietary intake of iron is not sufficient, supplementation may be required. Liaise closely with your healthcare professional before starting any iron supplements.

Calcium Another important mineral to focus on while in your menstrual cycle is calcium. Calcium is important for

healthy bones and muscles. During your menstrual cycle, if calcium intake is not sufficient, bone loss can occur because of the decrease in oestrogen levels. Insufficient calcium intake can cause cramps and PMS symptoms.

What foods to avoid

Try to avoid these three items during your cycle:

Salt: Salt can increase water retention and uncomfortable premenstrual syndrome symptoms like fatigue and bloating Caffeine: Caffeine increases cortisol, the stress hormone.

When you’re in your menstrual cycle, it is best to keep cortisol levels reduced due to the effect it has on misbalancing hormones and reducing the absorption of some nutrients

Alcohol: Alcohol can increase inflammation and worsen premenstrual syndrome symptoms. It also can affect the absorption of some nutrients, like magnesium

Tara’s top tip

During menstruation, it is normal to crave highly processed snacks, comfort foods, simple sugars and carbohydrate-rich food. It is completely fine to enjoy these foods and it is even encouraged that you listen to your body and what it needs during this physically and emotionally stressful time.

However, try to include highfibre and complex carbohydrates. These will help keep your energy levels and mood stable. Examples of high-fibre carbohydrates are fruits, vegetables and legumes.

Complex carbohydrates include wholegrains and oats.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

CANNES, France — Video games are likely to become the top source of story inspiration for Hollywood, producer and director Jonathan Nolan said on Monday, days before his adaption of the post-apocalyptic role-playing game “Fallout” is set to stream.

Streaming from Thursday, “Fallout” takes place 200 years after a nuclear war when the descendants of people who hid in bomb shelters are forced to return to the irradiated surface beset by violence, anarchy and mutants.

The series was developed by Nolan and his wife Lisa Joy who together produced the acclaimed series “Westworld” which won the Critics’ Choice award for most exciting new series in 2016.

Nolan, the brother of Christopher Nolan whose biopic “Oppenheimer” was the hit of this year’s Oscars, also directs the first three episodes of “Fallout”.

The series is airing a little more than one year after “The Last of Us”, another series inspired by a post-apocalyptic video game.

Acclaimed by the public and critics, “The Last of Us”, by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, has proven that a succesful transition from console to live action is possible.

“That was incredibly helpful that that show came out, that it was so brilliant, that it was so well received because it takes a lot of the pressure off,” Nolan told journalists at the Canneseries festival where “Fallout” was screened out of competition.

Video game adaptions to the big and small screen are not new, although they have often disappointed, from the “Super Mario Bros” film that came out in 1993 to the “Resident Evil” series on Netflix in 2022.

Gamer my whole life 

But that seems to be changing thanks to directors and producers who grew up playing video games.

“I have been a gamer my whole life,” said Nolan who remembers being mesmerised by “Fallout 3” when it was released 16 years ago.

“Those were the years in which I noticed that the storytelling of video games had become in many ways more ambitious, more avant garde, more punk rock” than films or television, he said.

Nolan pointed to video games like Half-Life, BioShock, and Portal as great examples of video games “filled with breathtaking moments”, some of which directors can hopefully transfer to film and television.

“You’re gonna have a lot of conversations in the next few years when they talk about games [on television and film] as genre, games aren’t a genre,” said Nolan.

Post-apocalyptic tone 

“Video games are a medium for telling stories and in many ways right now and for some time the biggest medium for storytelling if you look at the numbers, the amount of people who are playing and the size of the industry,” he added.

The global video game market was valued at $254 billion in 2022 and is expected to exceed $925 billion by 2032, according to market data firm Spherical Insights.

Nolan believes video games are likely to become the top source of inspiration for Hollywood in the years to come.

“You know we’re very timid in Hollywood, we’re conservative,” he said.

“You wait to see if... something works.”

Hollywood has long mined comics, including Nolan who co-wrote with his brother the Batman films “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises”.

While “The Last of Us” is closely based on the game, “Fallout”, which will be shown on Amazon Prime, creates new characters and a new story.

“The challenge was to try to find a story that struck at the essence of the games and that for me is obviously the post-apocalyptic setting but really more than anything else the tone,” said Nolan.

I have “never encountered anything quite like it — equal parts drama, emotion, but also dark comedy, satire, it’s political,” he added.

Nolan said “Fallout” creator Todd Howard was involved in every stage of the production, but insisted the show is not about fan service.

“I don’t think you can make a movie or a show for fans,” he said. “I think you can make it as a fan.”

By Sonia Salfity,
Desperate Dieter

When an object has the capacity to be elastic enough to spring back into shape it’s described as being resilient as well.

This is exactly what we can train ourselves to do. When the going gets tough, we can spring back sooner rather than later. No matter how difficult our journey is, being resilient will help us get to the other side.

Calling it quits?

The question I have for you is: What does it look like in real life for us desperate dieters to be resilient? How do we “spring back” after difficulties in managing our food issues?

Do we call it quits at the first sign of failure or do we dust ourselves off and press onward and forward?

I remember the first lesson I learned about horseback riding when I was a child; if you fall off the horse, right back on, otherwise the fear will keep you from ever having the courage to move on.

Fear has a way of paralysing us. It prevents us from reaching our fullest potential in every area of our lives. I have found in my own personal experience that the more I live in fear, the more I go to food to soothe my soul.

Facing our fears head on Therefore, part of becoming resilient is learning to face our fears head on instead of avoiding them. It’s fascinating how fears tend to shrink when we regularly face them. The opposite is also true. When we avoid our fears, they tend to grow. When that happens, it becomes difficult to contain them in one area and we find them seeping into every part of our lives.

Eventually, fear takes over our thoughts, which affect our actions. This happens unconsciously without us ever realising that our own thoughts have been taken captive by fear.

Divide and conquer

In line with our goal to be more resilient, we must “divide and conquer” as we tackle our fears one by one. Naming them is the first step. If soldiers don’t know who their enemies are, how can they possibly know what battles to fight? This is why we must make it our business to be well informed because the fears we have say more about us than about the things we fear.

Recognising the signs We must also recognise the signs, as fear can disguise itself in the form of anxiety, apprehension, timidity, agitation, alarm, doubt, nervousness and feelings of suspicion, just to name a few. When you can name it, you can tame it!

When we name our fears, their stranglehold loosens and eventually we can control them instead of them controlling us.

Tethered to our anchors We may never be able to fully have a complete grasp on the things we dread, but we can surely anchor ourselves enough to be more resilient, for our own good. One of the best ways to do this is to not procrastinate.

Saying things like ‘I’ll deal with this tomorrow’ is not the way to build resilience. The same is true when we tell ourselves we’ll start our diet tomorrow or next week.

We are smart and capable enough to seek long term solutions that begin in the present, and without delay.

Let’s focus on one goal at a time so we can be tethered to our anchors and not be blown by the wind that can unhinge us in every direction. Remember, we are more resilient than we think, so let’s start acting that way and believing we can do this one day at a time.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

NEW YORK — A diamond-covered edition of Truman Capote’s seminal novel “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is on sale for $1.5 million to mark the centenary of the author’s birth.

The one-of-a-kind volume, on display at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, is signed by the author and decorated with almost 30 carats of diamonds and a sapphire.

“The streets of London are paved with gold... the streets in New York are paved with platinum and diamonds,” said British artist Kate Holland who is behind the special edition of the 1958 novella.

Three years in the making, British jewelers Bentley and Skinner collaborated with US luxury bookseller, Lux Mentis, and the work is on display until Sunday at the book fair in the heart of Manhattan. The alignment of the more than 1,000 diamonds takes the form of the outline of Manhattan’s distinctive grid system.

The sapphire is positioned at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, location of the legendary flagship of jeweler Tiffany, which reopened in April 2023 under the ownership of French global luxury giant LVMH.

Tiffany, a beacon of New York luxury since 1940, was immortalised by the film adapted from the book of the same name directed by Blake Edwards and starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. The romantic comedy with a psychological edge, and the darker book about the character’s childhood traumas, tell the story of Holly Golightly, a whimsical young socialite who lives off her charms in New York and dreams of marrying a billionaire to shower her with jewels.

Holland described the novel as a “love story to New York”, a global hub for the arts, luxury and finance.

And while the artist admits the $1.5 million price tag “sits uncomfortably” — she believes the book can be displayed rather than sit “in a box on a shelf”. The work and life of Capote, as famous for his controversies as for his writing, have since his death in Los Angeles a month before his 60th birthday, been adapted for the screen.

Most recently his exploits were dramatized in Gus Van Sant’s “Feud: The Betrayals of Truman Capote” starring Tom Hollander, Naomi Watts, Diane Lane and Demi Moore.

WASHINGTON — The White House announced on Tuesday it is directing NASA to create a unified time standard for the Moon and other celestial bodies, as governments and private companies increasingly compete in space.

With the United States keen to set international norms beyond Earth’s orbit, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) instructed the US space agency to formulate a plan by the end of 2026 for a standard it is calling Coordinated Lunar Time.

“As NASA, private companies, and space agencies around the world launch missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, it’s important that we establish celestial time standards for safety and accuracy,” OSTP Deputy Director for National Security Steve Welby said in a statement.

He noted how “time passes differently” depending on positions in space, offering the example of how time appears to pass more slowly where gravity is stronger, such as near celestial bodies.

“A consistent definition of time among operators in space is critical to successful space situational awareness capabilities, navigation, and communications,” Welby said.

The aim, the White House says, is for Coordinate Lunar Time, or LTC, to be tied to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), currently the primary time standard used throughout the world to regulate time on Earth.

The White House directed NASA to work with the Departments of Commerce, Defence, State and Transportation to deliver a time standard strategy that will improve navigation and other operations for missions in particular in cislunar space, the region between Earth and the Moon.

The new standard will focus on four features: traceability to UTC, accuracy sufficient to support precision navigation and science, resilience to loss of contact with Earth, and scalability to environments beyond cislunar space.

There were few technical specifics for establishing a lunar time standard laid out in the memorandum, but OSTP suggested it could adopt elements of the existing standard on Earth. “Just as Terrestrial Time is set through an ensemble of atomic clocks on Earth, an ensemble of clocks on the Moon might set Lunar Time,” it said.

The United States is planning a return to the Moon in 2026, humanity’s first lunar landing since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

WASHINGTON — A digital tool considered vital in tracking viral falsehoods, CrowdTangle will be decommissioned by Facebook owner Meta in a major election year, a move researchers fear will disrupt efforts to detect an expected firehose of political misinformation.

The tech giant says CrowdTangle will be unavailable after August 14, less than three months before the US election. The Palo Alto company plans to replace it with a new tool that researchers say lacks the same functionality, and which news organisations will largely not have access to.

CrowdTangle has been a game-changer for years, offering researchers and journalists crucial real-time transparency into the spread of conspiracy theories and hate speech on influential Meta-owned platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.

Killing off the monitoring tool, a move experts say is in line with a tech industry trend of rolling back transparency and security measures, is a major blow as dozens of countries hold elections this year — a period when bad actors typically spread false narratives more than ever.

In a year where elections are taking place in dozens of countries that are home to almost half the global population, “cutting off access to CrowdTangle will severely limit independent oversight of harms”, Melanie Smith, director of research at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told AFP.

“It represents a grave step backwards for social media platform transparency.”

Meta is set to replace CrowdTangle with a new Content Library, a technology still under development.

It’s a tool that some in the tech industry, including former CrowdTangle chief executive Brandon Silverman, said is currently not an effective replacement, especially in elections likely to see a proliferation of AI-enabled falsehoods.

“It’s an entire new muscle” that Meta is yet to build to protect the integrity of elections, Silverman told AFP, calling for “openness and transparency.”

‘Direct threat’ 

In recent election cycles, researchers say CrowdTangle alerted them to harmful activities including foreign interference, online harassment and incitements to violence.

By its own admission, Meta — which bought CrowdTangle in 2016 — said that in 2019 elections in Louisiana, the tool helped state officials identify misinformation, such as inaccurate poll hours that had been posted online.

In the 2020 presidential vote, the company offered the tool to US election officials across all states to help them “quickly identify misinformation, voter interference and suppression”.

The tool also made dashboards available to the public to track what major candidates were posting on their official and campaign pages.

Lamenting the risk of losing these functions forever, global nonprofit Mozilla Foundation demanded in an open letter to Meta that CrowdTangle be retained at least until January 2025.

“Abandoning CrowdTangle while the Content Library lacks so much of CrowdTangle’s core functionality undermines the fundamental principle of transparency,” said the letter signed by dozens of tech watchdogs and researchers.

The new tool lacks CrowdTangle features including robust search flexibility and decommissioning it would be a “direct threat” to the integrity of elections, it added.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the letter’s claims are “just wrong”, insisting the Content Library will contain “more comprehensive data than CrowdTangle” and be made available to academics and non-profit election integrity experts.

‘Lot of concerns’ 

Meta, which has been moving away from news across its platforms, will not make the new tool accessible to for-profit media.

Journalists have used CrowdTangle in the past to investigate public health crises as well as human rights abuses and natural disasters.

Meta’s decision to cut off journalists comes after many used CrowdTangle to report unflattering stories, including its flailing moderation efforts and how its gaming app was overrun with pirated content.

CrowdTangle has been a crucial source of data that helped “hold Meta accountable for enforcing its policies”, Tim Harper, a senior policy analyst at the Centre for Democracy and Technology, told AFP.

Organisations that debunk misinformation as part of Meta’s third-party fact-checking programme, including AFP, will have access to the Content Library.

But other researchers and non-profits will have to apply for access or look for expensive alternatives. Two researchers told AFP under condition of anonymity that in one-on-one meetings with Meta officials, they demanded firm commitments from company officials.

“While most fact-checkers already working with Meta will have access to the new tool, it’s not super clear if many independent researchers — already worried about losing CrowdTangle’s functionality — will,” Carlos Hernandez-Echevarria, head of the Spanish non-profit Maldita, told AFP.

PARIS — A new three-part documentary, “Superpowered”, charts the 90-year history of DC Comics, which brought the world “Superman”, “Batman”, “Wonder Woman” and countless other superheroes.

Korean-born US comic-book artist Jim Lee has been one of the genre’s great stars since his early days at Marvel in the 1980s, working on “X-Men”.

When he switched to DC, he helped revive its iconic characters, eventually rising to be president and chief creative officer.

He sat down with AFP to talk about his inspirations, the risk of “superhero fatigue” and why he might have been a sort of “AI engine” in his early days.

Does the simplistic black-and-white morality of superhero stories still have a place in today’s world?

The black-and-white division between good and evil was more characteristic of the early decades at DC Comics.

From the 70s and 80s on, the rise of the anti-hero and establishing origin stories for the villains, where maybe they have a valid point of view... that’s helped keep the stories interesting... and there’s a greater degree of sophistication in the storytelling.

The value of comics... is to remind people that we’re all going to go through hardship and trauma, and it’s the choices you make that will define your future, as glib as that might sound.

Are you worried about “superhero fatigue” as fans turn away from the deluge of content?

There’s always a danger when you have too much content that people don’t have enough time to consume what’s going on. I definitely feel that way and I’m in the middle of it.

There might be fatigue for stories that don’t feel as special and unique... This year will be very interesting given the more divergent takes on superheroes in “Deadpool” and “Joker” (ed: both have sequels coming out).

You have to continually revitalise yourself... but as a fan I’d say we’ve been spoiled for many years in getting not just movies about the most iconic characters, but much deeper in the catalogue... These are things I would have killed for as a kid.

Is AI a threat to the comics industry?

We have to figure out a way to live in a world where it exists, and the source material from which it derives its content is properly credited and compensated.

But even if it were accepted and someone were going to pay me to use an AI engine to create work, I just wouldn’t do it.

I don’t create art just so I can have something to get paid for.

I love sitting down with a piece of paper and a pencil... I enter this fugue state, hours go by and it feels like 15 minutes, and at the end, I have this incredible sense of satisfaction because I went on this journey and I’ve created something.

Typing something into a prompt and getting something two minutes later?

I’m robbing myself of the whole point of why I got into this business.

What inspired you in the early years?

Different things from different artists. From Frank Miller (“Batman: The Dark Knight Returns”) it was the storytelling and how he composed the panels on the page almost like musical notes... John Byrne (“The Man of Steel”) and the way he depicted the human form... Mike Mignola (“Hellboy”), the way he placed shadows...

I was picking different elements from lots of different artists and trying to synthesise it into something I could call my own that didn’t feel derivative.

So maybe I was an AI engine back in the day, Lee said laughing. That’s an awful thought.

Is there too much violence in comics?

There’s some truth to that.

It can be a shortcut to have them physically duke it out to resolve a crisis and I’m not sure that’s the proper lesson you want readers to walk away with.

But I think in a lot of stories when it gets to that point, that’s the only way to resolve it and perhaps that’s a sad reflection on the state of the world today.

(But) there has to be deeper emotion and deeper concepts at work and those are the stories that make the most impact and are the bestsellers at the end of the day.

“Superpowered”, narrated by actor Rosario Dawson, is released on April 4.