Cave News

Keep coffee grounds from invading your cup

Does your drip coffee maker allow grounds to invade your coffee?

Try rinsing the basket of the coffee maker with water. Put in the coffee filter and rinse again before adding the coffee grounds.

This should prevent the filter from collapsing.

Do gin-soaked raisins really help joint pain?

Radio news commentator Paul Harvey is said to have recommended gin-soaked white raisins to relieve joint pain. Mr. Harvey is said to have recommended taking seven gin-soaked raisins at one time.

Some kinds of pain that have claimed to have been relieved or eliminated after taking the gin-soaked raisins include migraine headaches, gout and arthritic pain in joints.

If it works, the raisins probably do more good than the gin. Grapes and raisins contain many pain relieving, anti-arthritic and anti-inflammatory chemicals.

The following was taken from the Internet (the URL has been missplaced).

Looking over the long list of compounds that occur naturally in grapes, I see such pain relievers as ferulic acid, gentisic acid, kaempferol-glucosides and aspirin-like salicylic acid.

Grapes and raisins also contain several anti-inflammatory compounds: ascorbic acid, cinnamic acid, coumarin, myricetin, quercetin and quercitrin.

And in 1997, there was a flurry of interest in resveratrol, yet another anti-inflammatory compound of which grapes are the best source. Ounce for ounce, raisins contain more of all of these compounds than grapes because they contain less water.

All of these pain relievers occur at low levels in raisins, so how would a mere seven gin-soaked raisins (that Paul Harvey touted) contain significant doses.

The user may have benefited from a placebo effect: Believing enough in a remedy really can help it work. But a large quantity of raisins might well provide significant pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory benefits.

As a non-drinker, I would probably be repulsed by the gin. Using raisins, however, does make sense based on the quoted text above.