In winter, many of us are reaching for more clothes and turning on the heat. Besides wearing a pair of long johns, increasing our food intake can help protect us against severe cold. So what food keeps us warm?

Red meat, such as beef, lamb and pork, is great when you find yourself in cold conditions because it is a fantastic source of iron, which is crucial for circulating your blood. Iron is an important mineral to help carry oxygen throughout your body. People with low iron may notice cold hands and feet or easily become tired. Eating red meat can also supply vitamin B12, which contributes to healthy nerves and a strong immune system.

Oats can keep you warm in winter. It's great thermogenic（生热的）food and is filled with nutrients that release energy slowly throughout the day to keep your body warm. You can start your day with a hot breakfast of oats or other types of porridge. Oats are a great source of whole grains and fiber. In addition to keeping you full and warm, oats are full of other nutrients.

Hot ginger tea can make you feel warm inside on a cold day. Ginger is known to be good for health. It's also a diaphoretic (发汗药), which means it will help your body warm from the inside. Ginger has the nature to produce heat and help blood circulation in our bodies, making it a great source of warmth.

Root vegetables like sweet potatoes need more energy to move through the digestion process, which raises your body temperature. High in vitamin A, vitamin C and potassium (钾), sweet potatoes add fiber and other nutrients to a warm winter meal. Sweet potatoes also have beta-carotene (β胡萝卜素) that is good for eye heath.

Two new community initiatives offering the opportunity to borrow everything from sewing machines to party supplies are aiming to reduce waste and consumption.

Tools n Things Library in Leederville, Perth is a community library designed to allow community members to get access to the things they might need around the house instead of buying them in a hardware (五金店) store.

"That's our philosophy — don't buy, borrow. Many people buy things just for a small task at home, and then they won't use them for a couple of years," library volunteer Rex Breheny said.

The project is run by volunteers who founded it in 2019, and after an interruption in 2020 because of the pandemic (大流行病), it has now grown to several hundred members who can come and borrow things twice a week. In a way it is a return to an old tradition of neighbors borrowing each other's tools and forming connections in the process.

Tools n Things Library is the first of its kind in Perth, and another called Share Shed has just started in Bassendean. Its co-founder Renee McLennan said they wanted to expand beyond tools to all sorts of things that people might use rarely, like camping equipment or entertaining needs.

"We're doing the kind of equipment you'd use for a party. Instead of everybody buying disposable plates, and cups and things like that, we've got quality glasses and cutlery (餐具), as well as decorations that people can use for those events that they might have once a year," she said.

The Share Shed is being considered as a way to tackle consumer culture. The world cannot continue to support our current level of resource consumption — at present overconsumption means that each year we consume 75 per cent more than the planet can regenerate.

"Borrowing items and shifting our thinking from an ownership to an access model helps to reduce the number of things that are produced and limits waste. At the same time, sharing the things that we use every now and then is a great way of connecting with people who live locally," Bod Anderson, an officer in Perth said.

Yu Zeling, an award-winning master of paper cutting, fills her studio with cutouts of anımals, people, and scenes that are so vivid that they seem to leap from the walls. Her art covers village life in Ansai, a rural district in Shaanxi Province.

Ms. Yu came to paper cutting in the late 1970s as naturally as she breathed the earthy air. "We were very poor, and when it was time to celebrate the New Year, we all put paper-cuts on the windows to decorate our houses," she says, recalling the holiday at her childhood home. Ms. Yu and others are working to keep the folk art alive, even as it evolves away from its roots as adornment for farmhouses.

The art originated in China in the centuries after paper was invented in A. D. 105. Full of auspıcıous（吉利的）symbols from daily life, the decorations represented good weather, many offspring, long life, wealth, and happiness.

Using newspaper, Ms. Yu first practiced cutting the image of a Chinese national flag that she saw in a school textbook. She cut it 100 times before she was satisfied. Then her aunt took over, introducing her to increasingly complicated traditıonal themes.

Ms. Yu was later invited to train in the Ansai's Cultural Center. After years of training, Ms. Yu became a master in her own right, wınning one award after another. Her works are on display ın museums. But she's humble about her achievements. "I was, and still am, a farmer," she says with a smile.

Hoping to carry on and grow the folk art, Ms. Yu volunteers to teach at free community training sessions. Paper cutting is also taught in Ansai's public schools. Ms. Yu is aware of the need to go beyond protecting traditions and embrace new paper-cut experiments.