The history of April Fools’ Day has been debated since at least 1808, when the British magazine Apollo, asked, ”Whence proceeds the custom of making April Fools?” But the practice of making someone feel foolish or sending them on a “fools’ errand” on April 1st has been around a lot longer. So, what is the origin of this day that celebrates foolishness with hoaxes and pranks? Read on and find out about the foolish history of April Fools’ Day.

The origins of April Fools’ Day are about as murky as The Mighty Mississippi, but one thing is clear, people all over the world celebrate what is essentially a non-holiday by playing practical jokes on their unsuspecting and gullible friends.

Unlike other holidays, such as Halloween or even Mardi Gras, April Fools’ Day doesn’t seem to be grounded in any religious precept, or even a remembrance of heroes or past presidents.

Some have speculated that the tradition came about when, in 1564, France’s King Charles IX declared that the Julian calendar was out, and the Gregorian calendar was in. The change shifted the celebration of the new year to January 1st, while adding the February leap year. It has been posited, by those who embrace this event as the origin of April Fools’ Day, that those who failed to keep up with the new fashion were called passé and deemed “April Fools.”

The tradition seems more likely to have originated in Great Britain, because it was actually the British, not the French, who observed the Christian Feast of Annunciation and held that New Year’s Day actually occurred on March 25th, to coincide with the annual feast.

But, while there seems to be solid support for the British theory, Shakespeare, writing in the 16th century, (and a man generally enthralled by fools of all kind) never so much as mentions April Fools’ Day in any of his works. Curious, right?!

There are a few other theories about the origin of this silly holiday tradition. Hilaria, also called Roman Laughing Day, celebrated the Anatolian goddess Cybele, and was celebrated around March 25th. And the Feast of Fools was a term given to many medieval festivals celebrated between the fifth and sixteenth centuries in Europe. These celebrations developed a tradition of practical jokes, especially when observed in Spain.

The earliest written reference to April Fools’ Day is found in a poem, written in 1508 by Eloy d’Amerval, a French choirmaster and composer. The poem, titled Le livre de la deablerie, is a dialogue between Satan and Lucifer, in which they plot future evil deeds, but are continuously interrupted by the author, who records accounts of earthly and divine virtue, and contemporary musical practice.

The poem’s only interest would be to music historians, were it not for the line, “maquereau infâme de maint homme et de mainte femme, poisson d’avril.”

The phrase “poisson d’avril” translates from the French to April Fish and is the French term for an April Fool. To bad for anyone who happens to be in France on April 1st, too, because the French celebrate by going around on April Fools’ Day hanging fresh fish off the back collars of unsuspecting tourists and others.

Another written reference to April Fools’ Day is in “Refereyn vp verzendekens dach / Twelck den eersten April te zyne plach”, a comical poem written in 1561 by the Flemish writer Eduard De Dene. The poem tells the tale of a nobleman who hatches a mischievous plan to send his servant back and forth on absurd errands on April 1st, supposedly to help prepare for a wedding feast. The servant quickly recognizes his master’s April 1st joke, and each stanza of the poem ends with the harried servant quipping, “I am afraid that you are trying to make me run a fool’s errand.”

The tradition of celebrating April Fools’ Day with practical jokes, however, was well established by 1632, when legend states that the Duke of Lorraine and his wife escaped a prison at Nantes by dressing as peasants and walking right out the front gate. When the guards were alerted to the escape, they laughed at what they thought was an April Fools’ prank.

Oh well, at least they didn’t have to walk around with a fish hanging from their collar.

This is Part 2 on Seasonal Allergies.  Part 1 covered the basics. Now, let’s talk about some simple strategies that can definitely help during allergy season.  I’ve picked 6 of my favorite holistic medicine “non-medicine” strategies:

#1  –  Take off your shoes in the house.  During your hay fever days, the pollen that is causing your allergies is all over the place, including the ground.  Tracking the pollen in the house on your shoes brings the outdoor problem into the house!

#2  –  Wash your hair before bedtime, especially if you have lots of hair.  Our hair is like a pollen magnet!  And our hair rubbing on the pillow creates a great overnight exposure to all those allergy triggers.  The longer our hair, the more important it is to wash out the pollen.  It takes some planning, I know  …. but the results can make the effort worthwhile.

#3  –  Inhale steam or use saline nose drops.  The whole idea here is to wash the pollen and allergens out of our noses so that we have less exposure to trigger our allergy symptoms.  Holding your head over a steaming pot of boiling water (at a safe distance so you don’t get burned by the steam) for even a few minutes can help a lot.  If you don’t like the steam idea, purchase saline nasal spray.  Any brand is fine. I use Ocean Saline Nasal Spray.   Saline is totally safe and can be used as much as necessary. It just helps wash the allergens out of our noses.

#4  –  Eat local raw honey.  This theory has been around for a long time with the idea being that the local bees gather local pollen and the honey that they make can gradually help desensitive our bodies to some of the pollens that may be triggers for our hay fever.  In my personal experience, it definitely has helped in my family.  Local and raw is best for the allergy problem. A study published in 2011 looked at the effect of no honey vs. regular honey or honey with birch pollen added for seasonal allergy sufferers.  The honey was started during the winter months (pre-allergy season).  The results found that either the plain honey or the honey with birch pollen added had a 60% reduction in total symptoms, twice as many days with no symptoms and 70% fewer days with severe symptoms than the control group (the no honey group)! So, if local honey is OK with you and your doctor, it is worth a try.

#5 –  Drink Nettle with Peppermint Tea.  Both Nettle and Peppermint have evidence that they can be helpful for seasonal allergies by naturally decreasing histamine release. Make a strong tea from nettle leaf tea and from peppermint tea brewed together. Try using the local honey to sweeten it!

#6  –  Try EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique).  EFT is commonly called “tapping”.  Have you heard of it? It is an extremely easy technique that is used as a self help aid.  Much of the data about EFT is strictly about mental benefits, however, a study published last month looked at veterans with chemical lung injuries and found that EFT improved immune function as well as all sorts of quality of life factors. With allergies, EFT can help ease some of the anxiety associated with the whole “bad day” experience and might even calm down emotional triggers associated with our allergies.  Many people report great improvement in the allergy symptoms with EFT!

OK, so there you have it, some of my favorite non-medicine allergy aids!  Oh, and of course, if you plan to try any or all of these ideas, run them past your own doctor first ….

Now that National Nutrition Month is drawing to a close, one might ask what the significance of the occasion actually is.

Well, in case you weren’t paying attention, it’s supposed to be a yearly focus on making better food choices. This year’s theme was “Bite into a Healthy Lifestyle.”

It originally started in 1973 as National Nutrition Week. Then, in the early ‘80s, the founding sponsors, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formally known as the American Dietetic Association), decided to expand it to fill the entire month of March.

But it looks like from the very start, the business of making better food choices has been an uphill battle. And that’s in large part thanks to the sneaky way some really bad ingredients have crept into the food supply. And I’m not just talking about “junk” food, either, but everyday food staples that somehow became hazardous to our health.

Let’s consider some of the key pieces of evidence:

Exhibit A: High fructose corn syrup

Right around the time the first National Nutrition Week kicked off, a new sweetener secretly started being used in foods and drinks. First it was just in soda – but now it’s in almost every imaginable food you can think of.

So much so that in 2011 the Corn Refiners Association reported that over 19 billion pounds of the stuff was shipped out.

But over the last five decades we’ve learned a lot more about HFCS. For instance:

• Countries that consume large amounts of this sweetener have a 20 percent higher occurrence of Type 2 diabetes than in places where it isn’t used.
• HFCS can increase your levels of cholesterol and triglycerides.
• A diet high in fructose slows down the functioning of the brain, hampering memory and learning.
• Excess fructose, especially in the form of HFCS, can contribute to weight gain and obesity as it has little effect on the parts of the brain that regulate appetite.

Exhibit B: The war on fat

Sometime at the end of the ‘80s, two big reports came out pointing the finger at dietary fat. As author Marion Nestle describes it, the message was supposed to be about reducing saturated fat, “but the assumption was that it was too complicated,” she said.

So instead of sorting through the different aspects of the issue and trying to explain us what’s involved, the “experts” merely instructed us to go the “NO FAT — LOW FAT” route.

And that push probably brought more disastrous foods and food additives to the table than anything before or since. Things like Olestra, the fat-free marvel that will send you running to the bathroom. Or the rise of butter substitutes filled with heart-attack causing trans fats. Or all those fake creamers, eggs and ersatz meat products. Or the “flavor enhancers” like MSG that make bland, low-fat food tastier, but can cause some really serious side effects.

Dr. Walter Willett, Chair of the Nutrition Department at the Harvard School of Public Health remarked recently that the low-fat campaign “has had some pretty disastrous consequences.”

And it seems that we’re only just recently trying to take that fat-free genie and stuff him back in his bottle – and being told the real story: that not all fat is bad — it’s the KIND of fat you’re eating.

Which brings me back to National Nutrition Month. I think it’s much too important a topic to just give one month to. After all, we eat 12 months out of the year, so why just stick nutrition away in March. What about April, May and June?

And why not take this year’s theme: “Bite into a Healthy Lifestyle” and really make it happen?

One of the easiest ways to do that is to incorporate as much organic food into your diet as possible. We know how good fresh veggies and produce are for us. But the big advantage in choosing organic processed foods is that they don’t contain any artificial colors, flavorings, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, or partially hydrogenated oils. When you buy organic, you might even be able to leave your label-reading glasses at home!

And that will make a biting into a healthy lifestyle a whole lot easier.

Spring cleaning time is here! Dusting, tossing, organizing, rearranging – where to even start? Let’s first focus on the kitchen. Have you made it to your pantry yet? Share with us some tips on how you’ve organized, or plan to organize your pantry for a chance to win a Wild Oats prize pack. Comment or reply with your tips on our Twitter or Facebook page and you’re automatically entered!

To share your suggestions through Facebook, simply comment on our Mission Monday post by 8:59pm PT/11:59pm ET tonight to be entered to win!

To share your suggestions on Twitter, tweet them to us including #wildoatsmission and #sweeps by 8:59pm PT/11:59pm ET tonight to be entered to win!
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Salad lovers, vegetarians, pho-fanatics, rejoice! Growing your own sprouts at home is one of the easiest DIYs I’ve ever come across, as well as being one of the most cost-effective. Odds are you have everything you need to get started right now, and seeds for sprouting are less costly than buying pre-packaged sprouts at the store. Added bonus? Sprouts pack quite a nutritional punch, and the varieties offer a wide range of taste profiles.

What you need (and likely have):

• A wide-mouthed glass jar (think apple sauce or pasta sauce jars, for example)
• Cheesecloth or mesh (I reuse the mesh that garlic and some vegetables frequently come in, cut to size)
• Rubber Band(s)
• Filtered Water

What you need (and may need to purchase):

• Beans or sprouts (mung beans can be purchased dried in bulk for cost savings, seeds for sprouting alfalfa, broccoli, and radish among others should be certified organic and microbial tested)

Optional:

• Something to rest your jar(s) on, at a slight angle, to allow drainage (there are a variety of options- I use an empty planter pot, others hang theirs, and still others DIY stands out of old wire hangers)

Prep:

First up- clean everything. Wash your containers thoroughly. Wash your hands. Clean your mesh, if recycling. Rinse your elastics for good measure.

Next, place roughly a tablespoon of seeds or 1/3 cup beans in your sparkling-clean jar. You will need to soak them in fresh, filtered water overnight- a at least 3x the amount of seeds/beans you used. Place the mesh over the mouth of jar, and secure with rubber bands.

In the morning, drain completely, and then rinse again with filtered water. Find a sunny spot (this is easily done indoors, though I have mine on my balcony), and place the jars at an angle to allow drainage.

Maintenance:

There is only one habit you need to develop to ensure the tastiest and most plentiful sprouts, especially if you live in a hot and/or dry climate: rinse your beans twice a day.

Now just sit back, relax, and watch your sprouts… well, sprout.

One final note- there have been some concerns in recent years about sprouts carrying bacteria (read more here and here for food safety tips on sprout consumption), and many suggest cooking your sprouts thoroughly to avoid all risk. If you have a compromised immune system, or are preparing sprouts for small children or the elderly, this advice particularly applies. If you prefer your sprouts raw and crunchy (as I do), ensuring your seeds are of high quality, your water is filtered, and your utensils are clean are key.

(Credit for this happy-homemaking tip go to my cousin and his lovely lady, who stopped by on their way back into the country from years of traveling, living and working abroad; they shared some economical healthy-eating tricks as well as stories that make one want to buy a plane ticket immediately. Sri Lanka, anyone?)