May 31st
Spring 2025
QueenieBrown
Magazine.com
for Today's Real Human BEING Extraordinary
BIG UP YourSelf!
Happy New Year!
As a queeniebrownmagazine.com reader, you know that we consider Spring our new year.
Like ancient civilizations and cultures around the globe today, we agree that the season of cleansing rains, budding blooms, first flowers, and vibrant sunshine is the true author of the new year - of course, celebrating two "New Years" in twelve months doesn't hurt, either!
This May has proven to be a most transitional one with ongoing armed conflicts across the globe, continuous threats from once upon a time allies, and, as if that was not enough, we are experiencing economic uncertainties not seen since Covid and the great depression. To say, "Much is turbulent" is an understatement, and the weather seems representative of that.
As dubious winds prevail, let's hold heart in the knowledge that unstable weather settles. As my mother used to say, "This too shall pass." A message that sounded more indifferent than hopeful, in my youth. But, as I mature, the message becomes obvious: even the worst of things end... Besides, 2025 is a Mathematical Wonder as a perfectly square (a symbol of balance) year; the first since 1936, and the only to occur this century. Numerically, 2025 reduces to 9 which is a powerful cycle of completion. Spiritually, 2025 is a time of introspection, compassion, and connecting to a higher purpose.
So, join us in countering the fatalistic influences determined to separate, threaten, scare and rob us by sending love and generosity to the world. Let us make the extra effort toward extending kindness both to ourselves and others.
I could use a little more kindness. Couldn't you?
Considered one of the most prominent fashion designers worn at the glamorous Met Gala this year,
Grace Wales Bonner continues to thrill.
Awarded the 2015 Emerging Talent-Menswear at the British Fashion Awards and the 2016 LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, this 40-something-year-old has held her own since presenting her first line a decade ago. These days, our British-Jamaican star stands alongside the likes of Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Valentino.
Invited to join the host committee of this year’s Met, Grace's celebrity clientele for the event included renowned race car driver Hamilton, and if you fancy keeping up with the Royals, Meagan - Sussex, that is - presented her firstborn in a Wales Bonner original.
Grace fans appreciate her unique vision of luxury as she inter-weaves classic Afro-centric with European influences. Her collaboration with clients tells their story in her original garments. Her commitment to historical connection, revealed through exotic fine detailing, keeps followers like Iman, Naomi, and Tracee Ellis Ross wanting more.
Don't take our word for it. Check out her insta, and be prepared to wonder.
Looks Delicious, Doesn't It?
If you are anything like I was, the items in the above image look tempting and delicious.
Confession: I indulge in fast food, take-out, order-in meals far too frequently. This I admit in spite knowing that such meals have proven contrary to good health.
Alas, hearing and believing holds little merit to actually seeing the truth first-hand. As much as I knew that fast food was "bad," I was ignorant of how very bad "bad foods" are - that is, until my brother introduced me to a mobile app "that helps assess the health impact of food and cosmetic products by scanning their barcodes." To say the truth behind foods we consider consumable is shocking, is an understatement. I thought I was aware of processed food toxicity but learnt I was grossly mistaken.
The first few days of scanning food barcodes in grocery stores - even at health food stores - became a compulsion because I could not believe the results I was reading. After a week of strolling grocery aisles, all I saw was poison, poison, poison instead of breads, juices, and cereals. My goto food staple, cheese, was particularly distressing. It became clear that foods I considered healthy were actually junk due to the HIGH RISK additives used as "texturizing, anti-caking agents," or "flavour, colour enhancers" or "preservatives." Sugar, sodium and saturated fats, were added at criminally high levels. I almost tackled a mother loading children's lunch snacks into her cart once, because I saw that she was buying poison to feed her innocent children! It was then, I believed the study that processed foods consist of more 70% of our diet worldwide, with children and teens consuming even greater amounts. No wonder 17 out of 34 common cancers may be affecting millennials and Gen-X more than they did baby boomers.
You and I know manufacturers manipulate food to enhance flavour, increase shelf life, and generally cheapen - yes, in spite of soaring grocery store prices, the overall cost of food items is cheapened - to improve profit margins, but the willingness to feed consumers ultra-processed foods, UPFs, for-profit - foods I now call poison - is truly disturbing.
Curious shoppers asked me why I was beeping items on the shelves, but when I explained the app and showed the results, they did not return said items to the shelf. Like I did, they thought they knew and or did not want to know what their food actually was. They didn't want to get "carried away" or overwhelmed chasing health because life is challenging enough; easy, fast, and simple is the trumpet-call. Unfortunately, the cost of getting sick from eating chemicals is ignored.
It is helpful to educate ourselves as to why something is bad - or good - for us because these apps are not perfect. So, taking care of ourselves can be a lot. Consider the advice the nutritionist who owns my fave health food store offered: "Proceed slowly." Change or adapt one food item a week until feeling better about food choices. I, for example, now purchase salmon and unpasteurized cheese from the health food store due to health and taste improvement; every meal includes vegetables, and I switched from gluten-free to good wheat pasta or Japanese noodles. The goal is to be rid of disease-influencing traps with ZERO nutritional value, i.e. empty calories that fill you but don't feed you.
Change takes time. Slowly, the new staple items will feel normal, and the garbage passing for food will no longer get your attention, let alone tempt you.