Rather Be Healthy

Under the guise of protecting public health, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection targeted Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger, who was charged with four criminal misdemeanors for supplying a private buying club with raw milk and other fresh produce grown on his farm.

State prosecutors tried to convict Hershberger for operating a retail food establishment, a dairy farm and a dairy plant without a license. However, since he only supplies food to paid members in a private buying club, he maintained that he was not subject to state food regulations.

The trial has become a symbol for the war being waged against raw milk in the US, where aggressive regulators are attacking small farmers producing wholesome raw food products for loyal customers.

Fortunately, the trial ended mostly favorably for Hershberger and made such an impact on the jurors that several are now interested in getting their own raw milk from Hershberger’s farm.

Jurors Angered Over Injustices Against Hershberger, Want to Join His Buyer’s Club

On May 25, Hershberger was acquitted of three charges of producing, processing and selling milk without state licenses. Then the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion to revoke Hershberger’s bail and instead send him to jail for a fourth charge of violating a holding order.

This required that he not sell any food or milk from his store as a condition of his bail. Hershberger openly admitted that he had violated the order and broke seals to get into his coolers, in part to retrieve food to feed his own family.

As a result, jurors had no choice but to find him guilty of this charge, and he was sentenced to pay a $1,000 fine plus $513 in court costs. Hershberger avoided jail time and the maximum possible fine of $10,000, but several of the jurors noted that state prosecutors and the county judge withheld key information that would have exonerated him of even the hold-order charge.

Specifically, the jury only determined whether Hershberger had violated the hold order… not whether the holding order was valid. Since he had been acquitted of the charges that led to the holding order being placed, it means that the state had no right to be barring Hershberger from accessing his food in the first place.

Baraboo News Republic reported:1

“’… we weren’t allowed to judge whether the holding order was valid,’” [juror Michele] Bollfrass-Hopp said. She added that since Hershberger was acquitted of the other charges that the state used as its basis for placing the holding order, the order itself should have been been a moot point. ‘You have to have common sense when you apply the law.’”

Several of the jurors were so moved by the case that they now want to join Hershberger’s buying club to be able to access raw milk for their families, noting that this is an issue of food freedom.

“The trial was about freedom, Bollfrass-Hopp said. ‘That’s what it comes down to. It was about our freedom to choose the food that goes into our mouths. That was the underlying theme,’ she said.”2

Regulators Are Worrying About the Wrong Kind of Milk…

If you believe that you have the right to choose what type of food you’re ‘allowed’ to purchase and eat, then you can understand just how much is at stake when state and federal regulators start attacking this very basic right.

Farmers and consumers should be able to engage in private agreements for food without regulatory oversight of any kind, yet states like Wisconsin have rather successfully disguised their attacks on freedom by claiming they are ‘protecting’ consumers from the villainous raw milk.

Assuming it is produced with high standards, however, raw milk is no more a threat to public health than sunshine or natural supplements (against which similar “public-safety” wars have been aged). You’re actually more likely to get sick from pasteurized milk than from raw milk!

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data shows there are about 412 confirmed cases of people getting ill from pasteurized milk each year, while only about 116 illnesses a year are linked to raw milk.3 And research by Dr. Ted Beals, MD, featured in the summer 2011 issue of Wise Traditions,4 the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, shows that you are about 35,000 times more likely to get sick from other foods than you are from raw milk!

That federal and state regulators are wasting time and resources prosecuting farmers supplying consenting customers with wholesome food is just outrageous, especially when they allow truly dangerous foods – like poultry, beef, pork and eggs raised on CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) – to be sold freely…

Dr. Beals wrote:5

“From the perspective of a national public health professional looking at an estimated total of 48 million foodborne illnesses each year [from all foods]… there is no rational justification to focus national attention on raw milk, which may be associated with an average of 42 illnesses maximum among the more than nine million people (about 0.0005 percent) who have chosen to drink milk in its fresh unprocessed form.”

Should You Really Be Afraid of Raw Milk?

The same regulators who defend the use of mercury in your dental fillings and fluoride in your drinking water want you to be afraid… very afraid… of a wholesome food known as raw milk. Personally I don’t drink much milk, raw or otherwise. However, I currently use about one pound of raw butter a week. But for those who choose to drink raw milk, it is:
•Loaded with healthy bacteria that are good for your gastrointestinal tract
•Full of more than 60 digestive enzymes, growth factors, and immunoglobulins (antibodies)
•Rich in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which fights cancer
•Rich in beneficial raw fats, amino acids, and proteins in a highly bioavailable form, all 100 percent digestible
•Loaded with vitamins (A, B, C, D, E, and K) in highly bioavailable forms, and a very balanced blend of minerals (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron) whose absorption is enhanced by live lactobacilli

Pasteurized milk is another food entirely, as the price of killing the pathogenic bacteria with pasteurization is that you also kill the good bacteria that helps digest milk, fight infection and make it such a nourishing food. Plus, proteins and enzymes are completely destroyed or denatured, made less digestible and less usable by your body. Not to mention, cows raised in CAFOs, from which most pasteurized milk comes, are NOT raised in a manner that makes their milk suitable for drinking raw (or at all, in my opinion).

CAFO cows are typically raised on high-protein, soy-based feeds instead of fresh green grass, and instead of free range grazing, they stand in cramped, manure-covered feed lots all day. These conditions are perfect for the proliferation of disease, and yes, this milk MUST be pasteurized in order for it to be safe to drink.

These cows also need antibiotics to keep them well, and some are also given genetically modified growth hormones to increase milk production. Needless to say, these hormones and antibiotics also wind up in the milk. Quite simply, the Big Dairy business depends on pasteurization, and that is why their powerful lobbyists will stop at nothing to persuade government agencies to keep raw milk bans in full force.

This Is About Much More Than Milk; Your Food Freedom Is at Stake

It’s encouraging that Mr. Hershberger’s trial had a mostly positive outcome, and was so overwhelmingly unjust that even the jurors are angry about it. Still, right now your food freedom is on the chopping block. In North Dakota, a new bill threatens to make herdshare illegal. In New Mexico, a bill has been introduced that would ban the sale of raw milk, while a proposed regulation in Illinois that is currently in the drafting stage would similarly restrict access to raw milk.

But this fight for food freedom isn’t just for those who love raw milk – it’s for everyone who wants to be able to obtain the food of their choice from the source of their choice. So please, get involved! I urge you to embrace the following action plan to protect your right to choose your own foods:
1.Get informed: Visit www.farmtoconsumer.org or click here to sign up for action alerts.
2.Join the fight for your rights: The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) is the only organization of its kind. This 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization provides a legal defense for farmers who are being pursued by the government for distributing foods directly to consumers. Your donations, although not tax deductible, will be used to support the litigation, legislative, and lobbying efforts of the FTCLDF. For a summary of FTCLDF’s activities in 2012, see this link.
3.Support your local farmers: Buy from local farmers, not the industry that is working with the government to take away your freedoms.

Not a lot of attention is paid to prescription drug abuse. But nearly 20 percent of Americans have used prescription drugs for nonmedicinal reasons. Three quarters of those may be abusing prescription drugs.

Between 1992 and 2002, the number of prescriptions written increased by 61 percent. In that same period, the number of prescriptions written for opiates increased by almost 400 percent.

The Baltimore Sun reports:

“According to a report … by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hospitalizations for poisoning by prescription opioids, sedatives and tranquilizers jumped 65 percent from 1999 to 2006. One-third of new addicts report that their first drug experience was with prescription drugs.”

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

Remember the Reagan-era anti-drug ads, “Just Say NO!”?

Well, since then, street drugs have taken the backseat to a far greater threat – prescription drugs, especially pain killers.

Contrary to the popular belief propagated by the drug industry, taking prescription drugs is a health RISK – not a healthy treatment to a health problem. This backwards ideology has created a nation of extremely sick people, and a whole new generation of drug addicts.

In fact, prescription drugs are now the preferred “high” for many, especially teens, as they are typically used legally, which eliminates the stigma of being a “junkie.” And even if you don’t have your own prescription, drugs of all kinds can be found in the nearest medicine cabinet in most homes.

If you don’t believe drugs have become extremely easy to get a hold of, take a look at the latest drug use statistics from the Kaiser Health Foundation.

The average American, aged 19 to 64, now takes close to 12 prescription drugs!

The average senior typically fills over 30 prescriptions every year, and even children, between the ages of 0-18, are taking an average of close to 4 prescriptions annually!

This brings up yet another problem, which is the exponentially increased health risk of mixing multiple drugs.

Both of these issues – prescription drug abuse, and drug overuse – have a major impact on the health, well being, and longevity of the American population, as well as our health care system.

The Baltimore Sun quotes R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, as saying:

“With drug use accounting for tens of billions of dollars per year in health care costs, and drug overdoses ranking second only to motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of accidental death, the nation needs to discard the idea that enforcement alone can eliminate our drug problem.”

Reflect on this for just a moment…

Drug use accounts for tens of billions of dollars per year in health care costs… That’s tens of billions of dollars IN ADDITION TO the close to one TRILLION dollars those same drugs cost our health care system in the first place!

This is about as close to insanity as you can get when thinking that “more and better drugs” are the answer to our nation’s failing health…

Folks, it’s time to wake up from our collective slumber and cease to fall prey to this predatory type of “health care.”

Big Pharma has Succeeded where Drug Mafias have Failed…

With numbers like these, it’s no wonder prescription drug abuse and poisoning deaths are skyrocketing. And since it’s all legal, no one is really cracking down on this growing drug problem that is wrecking lives each day.

How could they, really? The US government has done everything in their power to aid Big Pharma’s influence and profits, and you can’t increase drug sales while dissuading people from taking them at the same time.

But make no mistake, prescription drug use is one of the most significant health dangers facing Americans of all ages today.

The number of overdose deaths from opioid painkillers alone — opium-like drugs that include morphine and codeine — more than tripled from 1999 to 2006, to 13,800 deaths that year. This despite the fact that the FDA increased the restrictions for consumer drug ads in 2005, especially for COX-2 painkillers like Celebrex and Bextra.

In the past, most overdoses were due to illegal narcotics, such as heroin, with most deaths in big cities. But prescription painkillers have now surpassed both heroin and cocaine as the leading cause of fatal overdoses.

In addition, more than 700,000 people visit U.S. emergency rooms each year as a result of adverse drug reactions to all drugs, not just the opioids. Adverse drug reactions from drugs that are properly prescribed and properly administered cause about 106,000 deaths per year, making prescription drugs the fourth-leading cause of death in the U.S.

They kill more than twice as many Americans as HIV/AIDS or suicide.

Fewer die from accidents or diabetes than adverse drug reactions.

Compare all of this to the death toll from illegal drugs — which is about 10,000 per year — and you begin to see the magnitude of the problem that the pharmaceutical industry is propagating.

You’ve Been Mislead. What are You Going to Do About it?

It’s truly heart wrenching, but children and teens have become indoctrinated to believe that prescription drugs are safe, and are now using a variety of drugs recreationally, under the false assumption that they are not dangerous.

The desire to solve problems by taking drugs is a product of our culture, perpetuated by everyone, from drug manufacturers, to doctors, to government health officials, to you.

When you teach your child that the appropriate response to pain or discomfort is to take a pill, the obvious result is that he will seek comfort by taking drugs when faced with the challenges of adolescence.

The Baltimore Sun writes:

“According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, prescription drugs are second to marijuana as the drug of choice for today’s teens.

In fact, seven of the top 10 drugs used by 12th-graders were prescription drugs.

More than 40 percent of high school seniors reported that painkillers are “fairly” or “very” easy to get. They also reported that they believed that if they were to get caught, there was less shame attached to the use of prescription drugs than to street drugs.

This mirrors the perceptions of their parents, who when queried said that they felt prescription drugs were a safer alternative to drugs typically sold by a drug dealer.”

If this reflects your thinking, then you too have fallen for the false promises of the pharmaceutical industry, and the longer you cling to this dangerous attitude, the longer the harm will continue to be perpetuated.

Prescription Drugs Can be MORE Dangerous and Addictive than Street Drugs!

The first step toward meaningful change is realizing that prescription drugs are JUST as addictive and dangerous as illegal street drugs.

In many cases, they are identical. The only difference is their legal status.

For example, hydrocodone, a prescription opiate, is synthetic heroin — indistinguishable from any other heroine as far as your brain and body is concerned.

So, if you’re hooked on hydrocodone, you are in fact a good-old-fashioned heroin addict. And if you keep this drug in an unlocked cabinet in your house, you are leaving your children an open invitation to experiment with something that is identical to a “street drug.”

Who cares that you got it from someone wearing a white coat, opposed to dark shades?

The morticians who prep tens of thousands of people for burial due to drug overdoses each year certainly don’t.

How to Treat Your Pain without Causing More Grief

It’s completely understandable to want to get rid of pain. However, please understand that there are many options to prescription painkillers that are much safer, even though they may require some patience.

Here are several guidelines that can help reduce, or potentially even eliminate, your pain, depending on its severity:
•Start taking a high-quality, animal-based omega-3. My personal favorite is krill oil. Omega-3 fats are precursors to mediators of inflammation called prostaglandins. (In fact, that is how anti-inflammatory painkillers work, they manipulate prostaglandins.)
•Eliminate or radically reduce most grains and sugars from your diet. Avoiding grains and sugars will lower your insulin and leptin levels. Elevated insulin and leptin levels are one of the most important reasons why inflammatory prostaglandins are produced. That is why stopping sugar and sweets is so important to controlling your pain and other types of chronic illnesses.
•Optimize your production of vitamin D by getting regular, appropriate sun exposure, which will work through a variety of different mechanisms to reduce your pain.
•Retool your diet based on your body’s unique nutritional type. Understanding your nutritional type is a tool I have seen work in thousands of patients to reduce their pain. If you are not yet aware of your nutritional type, you can take our free online test now.
•Use effective energy psychology tools, such as the Meridian Tapping Technique (MTT). MTT can address your previous emotional traumas that cause bioelectrical short circuiting, predisposing you to immune dysfunction.
•Use safer alternatives for temporary relief, while you are in the process of implementing the above strategies. For several safe and effective suggestions, please see this link.

As you can see from the list above, there is no “quick fix” to treating pain, but rather it is a lifestyle change that will be well worth the effort.

Please, if you take only one fact away from this article, let it be the importance of thinking twice before taking a prescription drug.

It is your body, not your doctor’s and not your pharmacist’s, so it is up to you to make the decision of what drugs to take, if any. Be SURE you are aware of the risks of any medication prescribed to you, and weigh them against any possible benefit. Then you can make a well-informed decision of whether it’s a risk you’re willing to take.

And as always, keep striving to Take Control of Your Health so that you require fewer doctor’s visits, and drugs, to stay in top condition.

Deaths from prescription drug overdoses have been called the “silent epidemic” for years, and now, with one American dying every 19 minutes from an accidental prescription drug overdose,1 it’s being described as “the biggest man-made epidemic in the United States.”2

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital and CNN’s chief medical correspondent, recently highlighted the gravity of this issue, as many Americans don’t think twice about taking powerful pain-relieving drugs like morphine and Oxycontin.

But if you thought there was a chance they might kill you… the situation would most certainly change, and that’s why getting the word out about this leading cause of death is more important now than ever before.

Prescription Drugs are Killing People Every Day

The face of drug addiction in the United States is changing, and a significant number of older adults, particularly those in the baby boomer generation, as well as teens and young adults are struggling with both illicit and prescription drug abuse.

One of the most commonly abused drug classes are painkillers (opioids) like morphine, codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and fentanyl. These drugs are not only addictive, they can lead to slowed breathing and death if too much is taken, and the risks are compounded if you add alcohol to the equation.

Congressional testimony from the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians stated that Americans consume 80 percent of the pain pills in the world,3 and once you start, they set off a cascade of reactions in your body that make it difficult to stop.

Dr. Gupta reported:4

“ …after just a few months of taking the pills, something starts to change in the body. The effectiveness wears off, and patients typically report getting only about 30% pain relief, compared with when they started. Even more concerning, a subgroup of these patients develop a condition known as hyperalgesia, an increased sensitivity to pain.

As you might guess, all of this creates a situation where the person starts to take more and more pills. And even though they are no longer providing much pain relief, they can still diminish the body’s drive to breathe.

If you are awake you may not notice it, but if you fall asleep with too many of these pills in your system, you never wake up. Add alcohol, and the problem is exponentially worse. People who take pain or sleeping pills and drink a couple glasses of wine are playing Russian roulette.”

Two Tragic Stories of Prescription Drug Deaths

Fatal prescription drug overdoses actually surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of accidental death in 2007.5 Many of the overdoses (36 percent) involve prescription opioid painkillers, which were actually the cause of more overdose deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. To put this into perspective, in 2009, nearly 29,000 people died from unintentional drug overdoses, which is the equivalent of losing an airplane carrying 150 passengers and crew every day for nearly 6.5 months – a scenario that would simply be absolutely unacceptable in terms of public health risks.6

Since it’s all legal, no one is really cracking down on this growing drug problem that is wrecking lives each day. How could they, really? The U.S. government has done everything in their power to aid Big Pharma’s influence and profits, and you can’t increase drug sales while dissuading people from taking them at the same time.

Overdose deaths are highest among men and those aged 20 to 64. Steve Rummler, 37, for instance, received a prescription for hydrocodone to address his back pain, along with clonazepam, an anti-anxiety medication, for injury-related anxiety. He soon became dependent on the drugs, and then addicted, noting that while at first the drugs were a lifeline, “now they are a noose around my neck.”7

Hydrocodone, a prescription opiate, is synthetic heroin. It’s indistinguishable from any other heroin as far as your brain and body is concerned. So, if you’re hooked on hydrocodone, you are in fact a good-old-fashioned heroin addict. But most people assume that because it’s a “prescription” drug, it’s safe, or should not carry the same negative stigma as a street drug.

This is, sadly, far from the truth. Even after completing two addiction treatment programs, Rummler had a relapse and died at the age of 43 from mixed drug toxicity.

In other cases, the damage occurs much more quickly. Eighteen-year-old Emily Jackson took a single Oxycontin pill while drinking with a cousin, and that night died of respiratory depression; she stopped breathing while she slept.8

75 Percent of Patients Taking Popular Blood Thinners Are Given Wrong Dose

It’s not only people who are addicted to painkillers who die from accidental overdoses. Some are also harmed when taking drugs at doses prescribed by their physicians. In a study presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2012, researchers from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute revealed that 75 percent of patients taking Plavix or Effient, two common blood-thinning drugs, may be receiving the wrong doses, which would put them at risk of uncontrolled bleeding or blood clots.

Earlier this summer, Dr. Barbara Starfield from Stanford, who was responsible for deriving the data for the headline, Doctors are the Third Leading Cause of Death, tragically died from the wrong dose of Plavix.

While a simple blood test could determine whether patients’ blood is clotting properly, an indication the medication’s dose is appropriate, the test is not widely used.

The fact of the matter is, adverse drug reactions from drugs that are properly prescribed and properly administered cause about 106,000 deaths per year,9 making prescription drugs the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States. And more than 2 million others will suffer serious side effects. When you compare these statistics to the death toll from illegal drugs — which is about 10,000 per year — you can begin to see the magnitude of the problem the legally prescribed drugs versus recreationally used drugs, it is TEN times worse.

Make Drugs the Last Resort for Your Pain

Many of those succumbing to prescription drug overdoses started taking the drugs not to get high, but to control pain – often back pain. If you are suffering from pain, I suggest you work with a knowledgeable health care practitioner to determine what’s really triggering your pain, and then address the underlying cause.

Remember, along with exposing you to sometimes deadly risks, medications only provide symptomatic relief and in no way, shape or form treat the underlying cause of your pain. But you don’t need to suffer unnecessarily while you get to the bottom of your pain issues. The following options provide excellent pain relief without any of the health hazards that prescription (and even over-the-counter) painkillers carry:
1.Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which is a drug-free approach for pain management of all kinds. EFT borrows from the principles of acupuncture, in that it helps you balance out your subtle energy system.

It helps resolve underlying, often subconscious, negative emotions that may be exacerbating your physical pain. By stimulating (tapping) well-established acupuncture points with your fingertips, you re-balance your energy system, which tends to dissipate pain.
2.Astaxanthin: One of the most effective fat-soluble antioxidants known. It has very potent anti-inflammatory properties and in many cases works far more effectively than many anti-inflammatory drugs. Higher doses are typically required and one may need 8 mg or more per day to achieve this benefit.
3.Ginger: This herb has potent anti-inflammatory activity and offers pain relief and stomach-settling properties. Fresh ginger works well steeped in boiling water as a tea or grated into vegetable juice.
4.Curcumin: In a study of osteoarthritis patients, those who added 200 mg of curcumin a day to their treatment plan had reduced pain and increased mobility.10

A past study also found that a turmeric extract composed of curcuminoids blocked inflammatory pathways, effectively preventing the launch of a protein that triggers swelling and pain.11
5.Boswellia: Also known as boswellin or “Indian frankincense,” this herb contains specific active anti-inflammatory ingredients. This is one of my personal favorites as I have seen it work well with many rheumatoid arthritis patients.
6.Krill Oil: The omega-3 fats EPA and DHA contained in krill oil have been found by many animal and clinical studies to have anti-inflammatory properties.
7.Bromelain: This enzyme, found in pineapples, is a natural anti-inflammatory. It can be taken in supplement form but eating fresh pineapple may also be helpful.
8.Cetyl Myristoleate (CMO): This oil, found in fish and dairy butter, acts as a “joint lubricant” and an anti-inflammatory. I have used this for myself to relieve ganglion cysts and a mild annoying carpal tunnel syndrome that pops up when I type too much on non-ergonomic keyboards. I used a topical preparation for this.
9.Evening Primrose, Black Currant and Borage Oils: These contain the essential fatty acid gamma linolenic acid (GLA), which is useful for treating arthritic pain.
10.Cayenne Cream: Also called capsaicin cream, this spice comes from dried hot peppers. It alleviates pain by depleting the body’s supply of substance P, a chemical component of nerve cells that transmits pain signals to your brain.
11.Methods such as yoga, acupuncture, meditation,12 hot and cold packs, and even holding hands13 can also result in astonishing pain relief without any drugs.

The six decades’ old fast food franchise KFC recently rolled out Original Recipe boneless chicken in its 4,500 US locations.1 The new slogan: “No mess. No fuss. No bones about it.”

The company is so convinced boneless chicken is the way of the future that they’re actually considering eliminating on-the-bone chicken from its menu altogether. According to the featured article:

“McDonald’s execs began experimenting with a range of non-burger options: chicken pot-pies, bone-in fried chicken, deep-fried onion chunks. None of them were successful, until they offered customers deep fried chicken chunks. The McNugget was born.

That was 1980, when about 80 percent to 85 percent of chicken consumed in the US was unprocessed… Ten years later, the numbers had almost reversed…

While the rotisserie chicken made a bit of a comeback in the mid-‘90s, the idea of eating the whole bird was, for the most part, a thing of the past… According to internal KFC surveys, nearly four out of five servings of chicken in the US today are off-the-bone, the inverse of 30 years ago.”

Why might this be “a big deal”? Well, for one, processed chicken nuggets, regardless of brand, are far more likely to contain all sorts of additives and fillers you’d be better off without.

For example, I wrote about the questionable ingredients of McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets back in 2010. Only half of Chicken McNuggets are actual meat. The other 50 percent includes corn derivatives, sugars, leavening agents and completely synthetic ingredients.

In a 2003 lawsuit against McDonald’s, Federal Judge Robert Sweet2 even questioned “whether customers understood the risks of eating McDonald’s chicken over regular chicken.” But there’s yet another reason for my questioning the trend of going boneless, and it’s even less savory than that…

The Future of Food: Bioengineered Meat

Few are talking about this, but scientists have been working on bioengineering “cultured” meat for the past decade. According to a September 2011 Huffington Post article,3 scientists at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands claimed to be as little as 12 months away from delivering the world’s first bioengineered synthetic hamburger.

As of this writing, the hamburger has yet to be presented, although I doubt that means the plan has been abandoned.

The article also pointed out that London’s Royal Society had released a global food supply report, in which they called for a synthetic meat solution to feed the world’s growing population without causing environmental destruction.

“The only barriers? Overcoming the social stigma and the RS scientists say it could take another decade before it rolls out to the masses,” the article states.

Then, in February 2012, The Economist4 followed up on the research. Other Dutch scientists, led by Dr. Mark Post at the Eindhoven University in the Netherlands, expressed hopes of decimating animal husbandry altogether by altering how meat for the masses is produced. The article explains how this laboratory-created meat is created:

“Dr. Post’s cultures, grown from stem cells, are sheets 3cm long, 1.5cm wide and half a millimeter deep. To make the world’s most expensive hamburger 3,000 of them will be needed. The stem cells themselves are extracted from cattle muscle and then multiplied a millionfold before they are put in Petri dishes and allowed to turn into muscle cells.

When they have done so, they are encouraged to exercise and build up their strength by being given their own gym equipment (pieces of Velcro to which they can anchor themselves in order to stretch and relax spontaneously). The fatty cells of adipose tissue, needed for juiciness, are grown separately and then combined with the muscle cells before the whole thing is cooked.

Producing meat in Petri dishes is not commercially viable, but Dr. Post hopes to scale things up—first by growing the cells on small spheres floating in tanks and ultimately by using scaffolds made of biodegradable polymer tubes, which would both add the third dimension needed for a juicy steak and provide a way of delivering nutrients and oxygen to the steak’s interior.”

Sure, companies like KFC may have a point when they say they’re just changing their meals to meet the needs of the “chicken nugget generation.” But a side effect of getting used to the idea that chicken meat doesn’t have bones is that, at any point, the meat used in these processed nuggets could be exchanged for bioengineered meat, and no one would be the wiser…

I sincerely doubt bioengineered meat would be advertised, since it’s hardly a selling point—at least in the beginning. What the potential health ramifications might be from eating such meats are completely unknown, but it’s clearly not going to be identical to meat from an animal.

More Data Ties Human Illness to Farm Antibiotics

Seeing how commercially available bioengineered meat is still a ways away from being a reality you have to contend with, let’s bring the focus back to something more relevant to the present day, namely antibiotics in CAFO meats. Animals are often fed antibiotics at low doses for disease prevention and growth promotion. These agricultural uses account for about 80 percent of all antibiotic use in the US,5 so it’s a MAJOR source of human antibiotic consumption.

According to a recent NPR report,6 data published by a joint government program7 from tests conducted on supermarket meat samples collected in 2011 by the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System, reveals the presence of several disease-causing bacteria, including the super-hardy antibiotic-resistant versions of salmonella, Campylobacter and E. coli. According to NPR:8

“The implications were significant — that the bacteria had become resistant to antibiotics back at the farm because farmers were overusing them. The findings, released through the joint program of the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, got little attention when they were published in February. But this week, the Environmental Working Group, which opposes some of the livestock industry’s use of antibiotics, analyzed the government data and highlighted some of their startling implications in a report.”

The report9 in question, aptly named “Superbugs Invade American Supermarkets,” points out that many of the meats tested contained “startlingly high levels” of antibiotic-resistant bacteria on:
•81 percent of ground turkey
•69 percent of pork chops
•55 percent of ground beef
•39 percent of chicken breasts, wings and thighs

Want Safer Meat? Buy Organic Pastured/Grass-Fed

Writing for the New York Times,10 David A. Kessler, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 1990 to 1997, also recently sounded warning bells over the rise of antibiotic-resistant pathogens in livestock, urging the FDA to take the matter seriously. So far, the agency has only restricted on class of antibiotics, cephalosporin, from routine use in livestock.11

“While the FDA can see what kinds of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are coming out of livestock facilities, the agency doesn’t know enough about the antibiotics that are being fed to these animals,” he writes. “This is a major public health problem, because giving healthy livestock these drugs breeds superbugs that can infect people. We need to know more about the use of antibiotics in the production of our meat and poultry. The results could be a matter of life and death.”

The misuse of antibiotics in livestock has now become “a direct source of foodborne illness,” EWG points out. Worse yet, because animals are given these antibiotics continuously, in low doses, pathogens are becoming increasingly resistant to the drugs, which means they no longer work to treat human disease either. The end result is that people are dying from infections that were once easily treatable.

Despite this, organic foods, which are by law produced without such pathogen-promoting methods, are the ones being consistently targeted “for safety reasons.” The truth of the matter is, conventionally grown mass-produced foods pose the greatest danger to your health, in multiple ways, and are the ones to be avoided if you’re at all concerned about food safety.

“To be safe, consumers should treat all meat as if it may be contaminated, mainly by cooking thoroughly and using safe shopping and kitchen practices (see EWG’s downloadable Tips to Avoiding Superbugs in Meat),”12 EWG suggests.13

One of the best ways to avoid contaminated meat is to avoid meat from animals raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), aka “factory farms,” and buying organic, pastured or grass-fed meats instead. Growth promoters such as antibiotics are not permitted in organic animal farming, and organically-raised animals are also healthier as a result of being pastured, so overall you’re getting far “cleaner,” healthier meat.

Organic, Cage-Free, Free-Range, or Pasture-Raised?

When it comes to chicken, there are a number of designations floating around, such as “organic,” “free-range,” “pastured” and “cage-free.” But while you may think these are interchangeable, they’re actually not. In many ways these labels are little more than creative advertising.

The definitions of “free-range” are such that the commercial egg industry can run industrial farm egg laying facilities and still call them “free-range” eggs, despite the fact that the birds’ foraging conditions are far from what you’d call natural. For example, regulations on the use of the term “free-range” do not specify the amount of time the hens must spend outdoors or the amount of outdoor space each hen must have access to. Nor do they indicate that the hen must have access to a pasture diet.

True free-range hens (and eggs), now increasingly referred to as “pasture-raised,” are from hens that roam freely outdoors on a pasture where they can forage for their natural diet, which includes seeds, green plants, insects, and worms.

Large commercial egg facilities typically house tens of thousands of hens and can even go up to hundreds of thousands of hens. Obviously they cannot allow all of them to forage freely. They can still be called “cage-free” or “free-range” though, if they’re not confined to an individual cage. But these labels say nothing about the conditions they ARE raised in, which are still deplorable. So, while flimsy definitions of “free range” and “cage-free” allow such facilities to sell their products as free range, please beware that a hen that is let outside into a barren lot for mere minutes a day, and is fed a diet of corn, soy, cottonseed meals and synthetic additives is NOT a free-range hen, and simply will not produce the same quality meat and/or eggs as its foraging counterpart.

Certified organic poultry is also the only poultry product that is 100 percent guaranteed to be antibiotic-free.14

So to summarize, what you’re really looking for is chicken and eggs that are both certified organic and true pasture-raised. Barring organic certification, which is cost-prohibitive for many small farmers, you could just make sure the farmer raises his chickens according to organic, free-range standards, allowing his flock to forage freely for their natural diet, and aren’t fed antibiotics, corn and soy. Last year, I visited Joel Salatin at his Polyface farm in Virginia. He’s truly one of the pioneers in sustainable agriculture, and you can take a virtual tour through his pasture-raised chicken farm operation in the following video.

Shopping Guidelines for Real, Health-Promoting Food

It is very difficult to control the quality of your food if you’re eating in a restaurant, which is why I recommend that you prepare the vast majority of your food yourself. If you’re going to occasionally dine out, you would be best served to avoid fast food places. Reclaiming your kitchen is part and parcel of healthful living, so you know exactly what you’re putting in your body. Whether you are grocery shopping or looking for dining options, the table that follows lists criteria to look for in identifying high-quality, health-promoting foods. If the food meets these criteria, it is most likely a wise choice and would fall under the designation of “real food.”

Grown without pesticides and chemical fertilizers (organic foods fit this description, but so do some non-organic foods)

Not genetically modified

Contains no added growth hormones, antibiotics, or other drugs

Does not contain any artificial ingredients, including chemical preservatives

Fresh (keep in mind that if you have to choose between wilted organic produce or fresh conventional produce, the latter may be the better option)

Did not come from a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO)

Grown with the laws of nature in mind (meaning animals are fed their native diets, not a mix of grains and animal byproducts, and have free access to the outdoors)

Grown in a sustainable way (using minimal amounts of water, protecting the soil from burnout, and turning animal wastes into natural fertilizers instead of environmental pollutants)

If you’re “hooked” on fast food and other processed foods, please review my article about how to wean yourself off fast food in seven easy steps. If you’re currently sustaining yourself on fast food and processed foods, this is probably the most positive life change you could ever make.

And if you have children, remember that feeding your children home cooked meals can have far reaching benefits, extending even to your future grandchildren. Yes, that’s right! It is now well known that dietary changes can prompt epigenetic DNA changes that can be passed on to future generations. For instance, pregnant rats fed a fatty junk food diet had daughters and granddaughters with a greater risk of breast cancer. Making wise food decisions can literally “override” genetic predispositions for disease.

Vani Hari, better known as “Food Babe,” is a blogger and food activist in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her blog, FoodBabe.com1, and her “leading by example” style of activism is an inspiration to a growing number of people not just in the US but around the world.

One of her most celebrated achievements is her participation in the Democratic National Convention, in which she drew massive media attention by standing up with a makeshift “Label GMOs” sign in the front row, during Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack’s speech.

This interview was taped a week after the March Against Monsanto where I participated in one of the local marches and had a chance to witness first-hand people working in the activist movement. It really helped me understand that there’s a widespread opportunity for virtually anyone to participate, get inspired, and to really make a difference.

Vani’s personal story is a perfect example of just how influential a single person can be, not just in educating others, but also in enticing major food chains to do the right thing and make positive changes.

The Painful ‘Birth’ of a Food Activist

Perhaps she was destined for the role of the activist, as her name actually means “voice” in Hindi. Indeed, a nationally ranked debater during her school years, Vani does not shy away from voicing her beliefs and sharing her ideals, and there’s little doubt the world is becoming better for it.

“Shortly after college, realizing that debate wasn’t really going to get me a job, I ended up switching my major to computer science and did what everybody else did. I entered the rat race,” she says.

“I got picked up by one of the top consulting firms in the country… managing large-scale projects, mergers, acquisitions, and integration work. I was travelling Sunday through Thursday, and quickly, at the age of 22 to 23 years old, I became really sick…

It was that life-changing moment that I realized, ‘Wait a minute, I gained 25 to 30 pounds within a three-month period, and then I had appendicitis?’ There’s something seriously wrong with what I’ve been doing and what I’ve been eating. What’s in the food, and what caused my body to be so out of whack?

Everyone says appendicitis is this random occurrence… But I don’t think it’s random, because it’s definitely related to your digestive system. And I was overloading my digestive system with tons of toxins.”

So, when she was 22, Vani made the decision to make her health her number one priority, vowing not to let work get in the way. By doing her own homework, she quickly realized that, first of all, not all calories are created equal—a concept clearly described by Dr. Robert Lustig, who states that fructose is “isocaloric but not isometabolic.”

This means you can have the same amount of calories from fructose or glucose, fructose and protein, or fructose and fat, but the metabolic effect will be entirely different despite the identical calorie count. This is largely because different nutrients provoke different hormonal responses, and those hormonal responses determine, among other things, how much fat you accumulate.

She also realized that not only are the vast majority of American food products loaded with toxic ingredients, from pesticides like glyphosate to artificial additives banned in many other countries, the food she was eating also fell short in terms of healthful nutrients—especially healthy fats like saturated fat.

“I’d been duped by the food industry,” she says. “I thought that eating a six-gram fat or less; 250-calorie or less Subway sandwich was healthy for me. I didn’t realize that the nine-grain bread had over 50 ingredients, with one ingredient that’s banned in Singapore. If you get caught using it, you get fined 450,000 dollars. I didn’t know that information. I ate those things because of the calories.

I thought, ‘Oh, look at all these vegetables inside.’ But I didn’t realize that the jalapenos have been dipped in petroleum-based dyes: Yellow #5 and Yellow #6. I didn’t realize that all of these buildups of chemicals in my body were causing these issues. And it wasn’t just appendicitis. I had asthma and allergies growing up. I was on three or four asthma medications… I had to see the doctor on a very frequent basis, even put on steroids to control my asthma. Now I have zero asthma. I’m on zero medications right now.”

The Power of One

Her corporate work, which involved loads of travel, forced her to perfect the art of eating organically while on the road—a feat that can be quite challenging. Her solution was to travel with a cooler stocked with her own food, and looking for organic food sources in the various cities she traveled to regularly. Spurred on by friends and coworkers who wanted to learn more, she started blogging about her discoveries in 2011. The following story is a potent example of just how influential a blogger can be:

“One day, I saw this frozen yogurt company at the mall, and their sign said, ‘Organic tastes better.’ I thought, ‘Oh, organic frozen yogurt at the mall. This is fabulous!’ I went in and asked for the ingredients, and they couldn’t give them to me. I went through my same investigative research that I developed in high school and tried to find out exactly what was in the ingredients.

I found out that they were using a little bit of organic milk, but then they were adding a slew of other chemicals, including trans fat and Blue #1 and Blue #2 to color my favorite flavor that I thought was organic… I started writing about that. It went viral. This was a local so-called organic yogurt company [with] about 30 or 40 stores. The CEO wrote me a letter, and they took down the signs. I said right then, ‘Wait a minute, hold on. I have this power as a blogger. I have this power as an activist to change the food system. If I can get a yogurt company to take down a sign, what else can I do?’”

This was the beginning of a series called “Food Babe Investigates,” where she digs deeply into the products sold by major food companies, such as Starbucks, Subway, and Chipotle. The latter resulted in another “one-woman victory” for Vani. Chipotle did not have a list of ingredients on their menus or website, and the corporate headquarters refused to supply her with one when she contacted them directly2.

“I said, ‘But your label says ‘Food with Integrity.’ How am I going to know that it’s food with integrity if I can’t know the ingredients and I can’t read them for myself?’” she says.

Shortly after her article appeared on her blog, Chipotle called her. The chain recently made the decision to not only release the lists of ingredients, but also started labeling genetically engineered (GE) ingredients for full transparency. They’ve also swapped out some of the GE ingredients, such as soybean oil, replacing it with rice bran oil.

Food Babe Takes on Kraft

These successes inspired her to take on Kraft, one of the biggest food corporations in America. Kraft, like many other companies, uses toxic ingredients in the products made for the US market, while formulating the exact same products differently for other countries. It’s quite eye-opening to compare the labels of the same food sold in the US compared to the exact same food sold in, say, the UK.

“For example, McDonalds French fries here in the United States are made with genetically engineered ingredients, trans fat oils that clog the heart (people say you shouldn’t even have 40 calories of that a day and that it increases your risk of heart disease by 23 percent), and they have this ingredient that is the key ingredient in Silly Putty to prevent the foaming of the oil.

In the UK, they have the exact same French fry. It’s made with basic ingredients: sunflower oil, potatoes, salt (actually, they add the salt after they cook it, so you control the salt), and a little dextrose, which is sugar. Completely different ingredient list, the same exact product. The same goes for Betty Crocker cake mix,” she says.

Clearly, food companies have the capacity to simply switch over to selling the same formulations in the US as they do in other countries. But they consciously choose, depending on the market, what is the most economical and profitable approach to use. In this case, Americans get the synthetic additives because it’s cheaper to make and we don’t demand “the good stuff.” Many other countries also seem to have more health conscious regulators who actually have a modicum of concern for their citizens’ welfare.

“Exactly. I found out that they did this for Kraft macaroni and cheese,” she says. “They actually took out two petroleum-based dyes [from the European version] because they didn’t want to put a label on their product that says, “May cause adverse effects on activity and attention in children.

The European version of Kraft macaroni and cheese has paprika and beta-carotene, but the one here [in the US] has Yellow #5 and Yellow #6. Attention deficit disorder, autism, and all of these things linked to hyperactivity disorder have increased dramatically in the United States. Nobody’s really looking at the chemicals, and kids everywhere are eating this Mac & Cheese. It’s really not fair that Kraft figured out that this ingredient was causing harm—because they found out when the Europeans told them: “You’re going to have to put this label on there, or you’re going to have to reformulate it.” They reformulated it, so it’s not like we’re asking them to reinvent the wheel.”

Why Won’t Kraft Give American Kids a Safer Mac & Cheese?

To address the issue and raise awareness, Vani started a Change.org petition3 asking Kraft to remove artificial dyes from American Mac & Cheese. The petition went viral, collecting more than 200,000 signatures within the first couple of days. A month later, she hand-delivered about 270,000 signatures to Kraft’s Chicago headquarters. Yet to this day, Kraft has not responded to the petition that has gathered 336,000 signatures as of this writing, and the company has not in any way indicated that it’s considering changing their formulation to protect American children from the well-known harms of these ingredients… Instead, Kraft responded by stating that:

“We carefully follow the laws and regulations in the countries where our products are sold. So in the US, we only use colors that are approved and deemed safe for food use by the Food and Drug Administration.”

Again, Kraft clearly knows the ingredients in question have been linked to adverse effects on activity and attention in children because regulators in Europe have informed them of this. The moral thing would be to acknowledge the discrepancy and apply the precautionary principle. Just because the FDA says it’s okay doesn’t mean they have to use those ingredients!

Still, there is hope. By inspiring people to collectively act together, our voices can be heard, because we clearly outnumber the people running these food companies. The challenge is that we’re not effectively organized to let them know our views and understand the intention of those views. Yet this is the transformative power that we have, and Vani is an excellent example of how we can make a difference.

Americans are Denied Fundamental Right to Make Informed Food Choices

As I’ve stated on many occasions, over 90 percent of processed foods sold in the US contain genetically engineered (GE) corn and soy. These two ingredients are so pervasive they’re in foods you’d never expect, including baby food and condiments of every sort.

“They can actually mimic other real food ingredients using corn and soy,” Vani says. “The majority of the food that I’d been eating was either GE corn or soy. No wonder my entire body was acidic, not alkaline, and was completely overrun with the lack of nutrition, because I was getting my nutrition from one or two ingredients. I wasn’t getting my nutrition from kale, superfoods, and good sources of nutrition.”

And then I found out that not only is it in the 90 percent of the processed foods, it’s in 90 percent of the restaurants. It’s in almost all foods in America, but not in other countries. They require a label in other countries. Over 65 countries right now require some type of regulation [on GMOs]. And the United States does not. Our fundamental rights are being denied right now as Americans.”

Indeed, Monsanto has repeatedly demonstrated its cleverness, sophistication, and overwhelmingly successful lobbying efforts, to prevent GMO labeling in the US and to keep Americans in the dark about what we’re eating. Monsanto now controls virtually every single federal regulatory agency that has governance over their ability to do their business. They’ve effectively circumvented all the possibilities of regulating them through the federal process.

That’s why we’re so excited that last year’s ballot initiative in California was able to act as such a tremendous springboard to catapult Americans into greater awareness. We’re now seeing this explosion of states taking local measures to counteract the willful ineptitude and corruption within our federal agencies. So although it looked like we lost, and Monsanto undoubtedly uncorked quite a few bottles of champagne when Prop 37 failed, I believe we actually won the war despite losing that battle. Prop 37 catalyzed a tremendous amount of interest and activism that has since inspired a whole network of grassroots action.

“I think voting with your dollars is such a powerful movement,” Vani says. “I love seeing people starting to boycott Kraft in general, because they haven’t listened to over 336,000 people on our petition [at the time of this writing].”

How Vani Made Headlines at 2012 Democratic National Convention

Vani became a delegate for North Carolina at the 2012 Democratic National Convention on the platform of genetically engineered foods. She’d previously helped get President Obama elected in 2008, and as you may recall, in 2007 Obama promised to label genetically engineered foods should he get into the White House.

Vani was outraged to realize that not one single activist group was represented at the Democratic National Convention. So, just as Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture and staunch Monsanto proponent, was about to speak, she made a makeshift sign out of her program leaflet by writing on it with her lipstick. “LABEL GMO’S” and then she stood up, in the front row, holding her sign high as Vilsack took to the podium.

“Within 20 seconds cameras besieged me,” she says. “I mean, completely took the focus off of his speech and completely besieged me. I was on C-SPAN, and people were writing on my Facebook page. ‘Oh, my God! Food Babe’s protesting at the Democratic National Convention.’ It was crazy.

My whole delegation behind me who were elected from other districts and who hadn’t heard my spiel during my district run were all confused. They’re like, ‘What is she doing? She’s causing a ruckus here?…’ It wasn’t until all of that commotion was of over that I realized the impact of what I did that day: I educated my entire delegation… People started reading about this labeling issue because the reporters were capturing it and it was being broadcasted across the nation. …. I got a personal security guard for the rest of the convention dedicated to me. He gave me a really hard time for the rest of the convention and I was banished to the back.”

The theme of last year’s Democratic Convention was “Moving Forward.” But how can we move forward as a country when our farm policy and our food policy are so backward and American citizens are getting increasingly ill from the food we eat, the water we drink, and pollutants in our immediate environment?

“The bottom line is that food is medicine. If our food is sick, we’re going to be sick,” she says.

What Can YOU Do to Create Change?

Here are a few of Vani’s tips to start becoming a food activist, starting with leading by example. Truly, one of the most powerful ways to inspire others to change is to demonstrate your beliefs by walking the talk and being the healthiest, happiest, most empowered version of yourself that you can be. This way, when people ask how you lost all that weight, or how you got that fabulous complexion, or how you’re able to keep your energy levels up all day without two pots of coffee, you can simply share what you know rather than preach to those who might not be open to hearing what you have to say.

“It’s really important for all of us – the people who are reading the blogs, participating, and caring about what they put in their food – to tell their friends and family about it. Do it from a loving, giving standpoint, not from a critical or judgmental standpoint,” Vani says

Other tips for cleaning up your own diet and reaching out to others to share what you’ve learned include:
•Figure out healthy replacement foods. “I think that’s one of the questions I get on the blog the most: ‘Food Babe, you’re taking away all my food. If I can’t eat all this stuff, what can I eat instead?’” she says. Rest assured, while it may not be immediately obvious for people who have grown up relying on ready-made, pre-packaged foods and snacks, you can replace those foods with something equally satisfying that will support, rather than wreck, your health.
•Swap out your local grocer. Swapping out your local grocery store for a natural health food store is one way that can help you find better replacement foods, since many of health food stores like Whole Foods and Earth Fare do not allow certain ingredients to begin with. Also, start shopping at the farmer’s market, and eliminate processed foods from your diet.
•Shop online. “That has been one of the most fascinating things to me: if I can’t find an ingredient in my town, I can usually get in on the Internet,” she says
•When eating out, ask your server about ingredients, such as: “Are you using any corn or soybean oil in these products that you’re feeding me today? My salad dressing, does it have soybean or corn oil?” You can open the conversation up in a positive way by asking questions about the foods you’re about to order at a time when everyone’s looking at ingredients anyway.
•Throw organic dinner parties. “Having people come over to your house and trying organic food has really helped inspire my friends to realize that you can eat really healthy and have organic food that tastes great,” Vani says. It’s also a great way to, again, lead by example and show how to cook without processed foods and questionable ingredients.

‘Pay the Farmer, or Pay the Hospital’

Vani brings up a point that I too have shared on countless occasions, which is that you can either spend your money on healthy foods now, or you can spend it on medical bills down the road. According to Vani:

“There’s this great young individual Birke Baehr, a 14-year-old genius who wants to be a farmer. He’s spreading his message. He came up with that. He says, “You can either pay the farmer, or you can pay the hospital.

I think people, when they start to eliminate processed foods, eliminate GMOs, buy organic food, eliminate the toxins and the chemicals in their food, and start feeling well… the people around them are going to say, ‘I want some of that. I want to feel like that person. Wow, look at her. Look at all the energy. And look what she’s giving back to the world.’ There is no way I would be able to have become a consultant, live that lifestyle, and started a blog, had I not been taking care of myself 100 percent. There’s no way I would have been able to give back to society that way. I wouldn’t be able to do it.

I think feeling good should be everyone’s kind of number one priority in life. What’s the point of living life, traveling the world, and doing things that you want to do, if you can’t feel good?

As someone who has spent the greater portion of my adult life making my health a priority in my life, I cannot think of anything that could possibly compete with feeling good and aging well. What’s your take?

Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people’s initiative 522, “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,” will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients.

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn’t have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let’s not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can.
•No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.
•Sign up to learn more about how you can get involved by visiting Yeson522.com!
•For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
•Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative.

Natural Curcumin Extract Outshines Parkinson’s Drugs

Most spices have powerful medicinal properties, which is precisely why they’ve been used to promote healing for thousands of years prior to the advent of modern, synthetic drug-based medicine.

One such spice is turmeric, the yellow-pigmented “curry spice” often used in Indian cuisine. Turmeric contains curcumin, the polyphenol identified as its primary active component and which exhibits over 150 potentially therapeutic activities, which include antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.1

Curcumin is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, which is one reason why it holds promise as a neuroprotective agent in a wide range of neurological disorders. Researchers have investigated curcumin for its potential role in improving Parkinson’s disease .

Preliminary results indicate that it may hold even more promise than the drugs currently used for this disorder, many of which (ironically) have serious neurotoxic side effects, including dyskinesia – a movement disorder identical to the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

Natural Curcumin Extract Outshines Parkinson’s Drugs

Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disease caused by a steady depletion of dopamine-producing nerve cells, particularly in the area of your brain referred to as the substantia nigra. Most of the current drug treatments for Parkinson’s disease, known as dopamine agonists, focus on replenishing dopamine.

Although such treatments provide symptomatic relief during early Parkinson’s disease, they are ineffective in the long term where they may actually increase symptoms such as tremor, postural instability and cognitive deficits that are common with this disease. They are also associated with motor complications and a laundry list of other strange and disturbing side effects, including:

Euphoria

Nausea

Hallucinations

Insomnia

Causing or worsening psychosis

Unusual tiredness or weakness

Orthostatic hypotension (a dizzy spell caused by a sudden drop in blood pressure)

Dizziness, drowsiness, lightheadedness, or fainting

Increased orgasmic intensity

Twitching, twisting, or other unusual body movements

Weight loss

Pathological addiction (gambling, shopping, internet pornography, hypersexuality)

As researchers noted in the journal Current Pharmaceutical Design:2

“Most of the current pharmacotherapeutic approaches in PD [Parkinson’s disease] are aimed at replenishing the striatal dopamine. Although these drugs provide symptomatic relief during early PD, many patients develop motor complications with long-term treatment. Further, PD medications do not effectively tackle tremor, postural instability and cognitive deficits.

Most importantly, most of these drugs do not exhibit neuroprotective effects in patients. Consequently, novel therapies involving natural antioxidants and plant products/molecules with neuroprotective properties are being exploited for adjunctive therapy.”

Unlike Parkinson’s drugs, curcumin is neuroprotective and several studies strongly support its use for the treatment of Parkinson’s. For example:
•Curcumin showed neuroprotective properties in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease; the beneficial effect was thought to be related, in part, to its antioxidant capabilities and its ability to penetrate the brain.3
•Curcumin alleviated the effects of glutathione depletion, which causes oxidative stress, mitochondria dysfunction and cell death – and is a feature of early Parkinson’s disease.4
•The c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway is involved in dopaminergic neuronal degeneration, which is in turn associated with Parkinson’s. Curcumin prevents dopaminergic neuronal death through inhibition of the JNK pathway, and thereby offers a neuroprotective effect that may be beneficial for Parkinson’s.5
•Slow-wriggling alpha-synuclein proteins can cause clumping, which is the first step for diseases such as Parkinson’s. Curcumin helps prevent the proteins from clumping.6

Curcumin Is a Powerful Ally for Your Brain Health

For years now turmeric, and its active ingredient curcumin, have shown powerful benefits to your brain health. One of the ways that it works, similar to vitamin D, is modulating large numbers of your genes; in fact, curcumin has been shown to influence more than 700 genes.

The potential healing power of this spice, which is an important part of Eastern cultural traditions including traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, perhaps first came about when it was noticed that the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease among older adults in India is more than four times lower than the rate in the United States.

Why such a significant difference?

Some researchers believe the answer for this drastic disparity in Alzheimer’s disease prevalence is a direct result of curcumin. Research has shown that curcumin may help inhibit the accumulation of destructive beta amyloids in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients, as well as break up existing plaques. People with Alzheimer’s tend to have higher levels of inflammation in their brains, and curcumin is perhaps most known for its potent anti-inflammatory properties. The compound can inhibit both the activity and the inflammatory metabolic byproducts of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2) and 5-lipooxygenase (5-LOX) enzymes, as well as other enzymes and hormones that modulate inflammation.

And that’s not all. The growing interest in curcumin over the past 50 years is understandable when you consider the many health benefits researchers have found when studying this spice. According to an ever-expanding clinical body of studies, curcumin may help:

Reduce cholesterol levels

Prevent low-density lipoprotein oxidation

Inhibit platelet aggregation

Suppress thrombosis and myocardial infarction

Suppress symptoms associated with type 2 diabetes

Suppress symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis

Suppress symptoms of multiple sclerosis

Suppress symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease

Inhibit HIV replication

Suppress tumor formation

Enhance wound healing

Protect against liver damage

Increase bile secretion

Protect against cataracts

Protect against pulmonary toxicity and fibrosis

Two More Important Tools for Parkinson’s: Vitamin D and Omega-3

There is a correlation between insufficient levels of vitamin D and the development of early Parkinson’s disease, and research has suggested that long-term deficiency may play a role in the pathogenesis of the disease. There are three major points you want to remember about vitamin D:
1.Your best source for this vitamin is exposure to the sun, without sunblock on your skin, until your skin turns the lightest shade of pink. While this isn’t always possible due to the change of the seasons and your geographic location (and your skin color), this is the ideal to aim for. A safe tanning bed is the next best option, followed by oral vitamin D3 supplementation.
2.If you do supplement with vitamin D, you’ll only want to supplement with natural vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol). Do NOT use the synthetic and highly inferior vitamin D2, which is the one most doctors will give you in a prescription most of the time unless you ask specifically for D3.
3.Get your vitamin D blood levels checked! The only way to determine the correct dose is to have your blood tested since there are so many variables that influence your vitamin D status. I recommend using Lab Corp in the U.S. Getting the correct test is the first step in this process, as there are TWO vitamin D tests currently being offered: 1,25(OH)D and 25(OH)D.

From my perspective, the preferred test your doctor needs to order is 25(OH)D, also called 25-hydroxyvitamin D, which is the better marker of overall D status. This is the marker that is most strongly associated with overall health. You’ll want to optimize your levels according to the chart below. If you currently have Parkinson’s disease you will want to keep your vitamin D level in the higher 70-100 ng/ml range to help fight the disease.

Animal-based omega-3 fats are also a powerful defense against Parkinson’s, as they contain two fatty acids crucial to human health, DHA and EPA. Most of the neurological benefits of omega-3 oils are derived from the DHA component rather than the EPA component.

In fact, DHA is one of the major building blocks of your brain. About half of your brain and eyes are made up of fat, much of which is DHA — making it an essential nutrient for optimal brain and eye function. Your brain activity actually depends greatly upon the functions provided by its outer, fatty waxy membrane to act as an electrical nerve-conduction cable. In your brain alone, DHA may help to ward off Parkinson’s by:
•Reducing brain inflammation
•Stimulating neuron growth, and development and repair of synapses. (Your brain is a vast complex system of nerve cells sending and receiving electrical impulses across junctions called synapses. The small space between the two cells is where the action occurs. One neuron may synapse with as many as 1,000 other neurons.)
•DHA protects your brain’s function by supporting optimal glutamate function. Glutamate and GABA are considered your brain’s ‘workhorse’ neurotransmitters. They work together to control your brain’s overall level of excitability, which controls many body processes.

I believe krill oil is your best option for getting animal-based omega-3 fats because of the fact that the omega-3 is attached to phospholipids that dramatically increase its absorption, especially into brain tissue.

Lifestyle Changes to Help Prevent Parkinson’s

Parkinson’s disease is related to lifestyle factors, including the following:

Environmental toxins and pesticides

Aspartame consumption

Petroleum-based hydrocarbon solvents, like paint and glue

Deficiencies in vitamin D and vitamin B folate

Excess iron in your body

Pasteurized milk

In addition to avoiding these toxic exposures, I recommend lifestyle adjustments including:
•Exercise regularly, including high-intensity exercise like Peak Fitness. It’s one of the best ways to protect against the onset of symptoms of Parkinson’s disease
•Get plenty of sunshine to optimize your vitamin D levels
•Avoid pesticide and insecticide exposure (as well as exposure to other environmental toxins like solvents)
•Eat more organic vegetables, which are high in folate, the natural form of folic acid (folate after all comes from foliage)
•Make sure your body has healthy levels of iron and manganese (neither too much nor too little of either)
•Consider supplementing coenzyme Q10, which may help to fight the disease. But remember, the oxidized form of coenzyme Q10 called ubiquinone or plain CoQ10 is actually found in elevated levels in neurodegenerative conditions involving enhanced oxidative stress, as it is a residual marker of lipid peroxidation (brain rancidity). This is why ubiquinol, the reduced form that is capable of donating electrons to quench brain-damaging free radicals, while at the same time providing a boost to brain mitochondrial function, is the only logical choice in Parkinson’s disease and related neurodegenerative conditions.

As for getting the full benefits that curcumin has to offer, look for a turmeric extract that contains 100 percent certified organic ingredients, with at least 95 percent curcuminoids. The formula should be free of fillers, additives and excipients (a substance added to the supplement as a processing or stability aid), and the manufacturer should use safe production practices at all stages: planting, cultivation, selective harvesting, and then producing and packaging the final product.

Unfortunately, at the present time there really are no formulations available for the use against cancer. This is because relatively high doses are required and curcumin is not absorbed that well. There is much work being done to provide a bioavailable formulation in the near future.

In the event you need higher doses (such as in the case of treating cancer), use the curcumin powder and make a microemulsion of it by combining a tablespoon of the powder and mixing it into 1-2 egg yolks and a teaspoon or two of melted coconut oil. Then use a high-speed hand blender to emulsify the powder (be careful when doing so as curcumin is a very potent yellow pigment and can permanently discolor surfaces if you aren’t careful).

Another strategy that can help increase absorption is to put one tablespoon of the curcumin powder into a quart of boiling water. It must be boiling when you add the powder; it will not work as well if you put it in room temperature water and heat the water and curcumin. After boiling it for 10 minutes you will have created a 12 percent solution that you can drink once it has cooled down. It will have a woody taste. The curcumin will gradually fall out of the solution, however. In about six hours it will be a 6 percent solution, so it’s best to drink the water within four hours.

Powerful Antioxidant Found Useful for Most Common Cause of Death

A new study on marine carotenoids – nutritive properties of marine plants – shows that two carotenoids in particular, astaxanthin and fucoxanthin, have strong antioxidant properties, and possible anti-cancer effects. According to Marine Drugs:

“They are substances with very special and remarkable properties that no other groups of substances possess and that form the basis of their many, varied functions and actions in all kinds of living organisms. … The potential role of these carotenoids as dietary anti-oxidants has been suggested to be one of the main mechanisms for their preventive effects against cancer and inflammatory diseases.”

Scientists have found yet another positive property in another antioxidant, resveratrol, a chemical compound found in certain plants like grapes, blueberries and cranberries. In a study published in the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, scientists reported that cardiac stem cells treated with resveratrol in mice helped cardiac function that lasted several months, and improved heart cell regeneration.

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

If you could view the inside of your body at a molecular level, you would see free radicals and antioxidants engaged in an ongoing dance. With virtually every step you take, and every bite you eat, free radicals are generated; they are actually a result of normal metabolism and energy production. Other influences, like cigarette smoke, exercise, chemicals, sunlight, and cosmic and manmade radiation, also generate free radicals in your body, and if they’re allowed to overwhelm your system, they can and do result in age-related deterioration.

Antioxidants are nature’s way of defending your cells against attack by these free radicals, thereby helping you resist aging and disease. If you don’t have adequate antioxidants to step in and combat free radicals, then oxidative stress tends to lead to accelerated tissue and organ damage. This is what makes antioxidants so crucial to your health.

Now, just as it’s important to consume a wide range of vitamins and minerals because each plays a different, essential role in your ongoing health, it’s important to cover your bases and consume a variety of antioxidants as well, because each has a little something different to offer you.

Two Types of Antioxidants You Need to Know: Water-Soluble vs. Fat-Soluble

There are many experts who believe that one of the main benefits of following a Paleo type diet is related to the enormous amount of antioxidants that were consumed by eating nearly half of our food as vegetables and fruits. Please note that these were NOT the cultivated fruits we consume today but are their wild ancestors, which are much closer to a blueberry today.

They were much smaller than today’s fruits and thus had a much larger proportion of their volume as skin and seeds, which is where most of the antioxidants are located. They are NOT located in the sweet part of the fruit that is loaded with fructose.

Since most of the wild type fruits are not commercially available to us we need to be very careful about making sure we have a full complement of antioxidants that replicated our ancestors’ dietary patterns. For most of us this will mean supplementation since we simply do not have access to these types of fruits today.

Antioxidants are often lumped together into one category in how they protect your cells from free radicals, but they are actually very different. For instance, certain antioxidants are water-soluble while others are fat-soluble. Why is this important? Because the interior of your cells and the fluid between them are composed mainly of water, whereas your cell membranes are made largely of fat.

Free radicals can strike both the interior of your cells and the cell membrane, so you need to be sure you’re consuming both water-soluble and fat-soluble antioxidants to protect you.

If you consume only water-soluble antioxidants, such as anthocyanins, polyphenols or resveratrol, your cell membranes will still be vulnerable to free radical damage. Likewise, if you consume only fat-soluble antioxidants, such as astaxanthin and ubiquinol, the interior of your cells are still vulnerable. Consume them both, and you’re giving your cells a far more comprehensive shield against free radical damage.

Marine Carotenoids: Antioxidant Powerhouses for Your Optimal Health

When you hear carotenoid, you might automatically think of beta-carotene and carrots, and this is probably the most common, well-known member of the group. But there’s much, much more to carotenoids than carrots! Specifically, marine carotenoids are among the most exciting substances in the antioxidant realm, and, as their name suggests, they come not from a garden patch but from the sea. As researchers wrote in the journal Marine Drugs:

“They are substances with very special and remarkable properties that no other groups of substances possess and that form the basis of their many, varied functions and actions in all kinds of living organisms.”

Carotenoids are the compounds in your foods that give you that vibrant cornucopia of color—from green grasses to red beets, to the spectacular yellows and oranges of your bell peppers. They also exist in algae and seaweed and the marine and aquatic animals that consume these foods. There are two major marine carotenoids, astaxanthin and fucoxanthin.

Astaxanthin: The Pigment That Makes Salmon and Flamingos Pink

Natural astaxanthin is produced only by the microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis when its water supply dries up, forcing it to protect itself from ultraviolet radiation. It’s the algae’s survival mechanism—astaxanthin serves as a “force field” to protect the algae from lack of nutrition and/or intense sunlight. There are only two main sources of natural astaxanthin—the microalgae that produce it, and the sea creatures that consume the algae (such as salmon, shellfish, and krill).

Astaxanthin is fat-soluble and is FAR more potent than beta-carotene, alpha-tocopherol, lycopene and lutein, other members of its chemical family. It exhibits exceptionally powerful free radical scavenging activity and protects your cells, organs and body tissues from oxidative damage.

Astaxanthin’s unique “antioxidative artillery” provides for an impressive array of health benefits, including improving cardiovascular health, stabilizing blood sugar, boosting your immune system, fighting cancer, reducing inflammation, improving eye health—and even helping protect you from sunburn. Most of astaxanthin’s benefits come from its powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

You may recognize the name astaxanthin because I have mentioned it in reference to krill oil, my favorite source of animal-based omega-3 fats. One of the reasons I am such a fan of krill oil is that it naturally contains astaxanthin. And our krill oil has the highest concentration of astaxanthin of any krill oil on the market today.

But, as high as it is, new research suggests you could enjoy even MORE benefits by further increasing your astaxanthin, even if you are already taking a krill oil supplement. If you decide to give astaxanthin a try, I recommend starting with 2 mg per day. If you are on a krill oil supplement, take that into consideration; different krill products have different concentrations of astaxanthin, so check your label.

Fucoxanthin: A Powerful Antioxidant in Brown Seaweed

Fucoxanthin exists naturally in brown seaweed, a type of kelp. Preliminary animal research performed in Russia and Japan suggests that fucoxanthin may help rev up your metabolism and burn fat. Although it’s not fully understood how fucoxanthin works, it appears to target a protein called UCP1 that increases the rate at which belly fat is burned.

Evidence is emerging showing that fucoxanthin is also a powerful antioxidant that can protect your cells from free radical damage, thereby helping to support your heart and a healthy immune response, as well as fight cancer. As researchers wrote in Marine Drugs:

“Both these two carotenoids [astaxanthin and fucoxanthin] show strong antioxidant activity attributed to quenching singlet oxygen and scavenging free radicals. The potential role of these carotenoids as dietary anti-oxidants has been suggested to be one of the main mechanisms for their preventive effects against cancer and inflammatory diseases.”

Fucoxanthin is found in brown seaweed, such as the kind used in traditional miso soup. It is not found in significant amounts in other kinds of edible seaweed, such as green or red seaweed. You can also find it in supplement form.

The Antioxidant that Can Actually Help Regenerate a Damaged Heart

Another antioxidant powerhouse that’s worth becoming familiar with is resveratrol. Recent research actually showed that treating damaged heart cells with resveratrol triggered regeneration leading to improvement of cardiac function. One of the serious complications of free radical damage is hardening and thickening of your arteries. There is a “vicious cycle” of free radicals, artery damage, and narrowing due to scar tissue, which, in turn, promotes more free radical activity and more damage.

Resveratrol’s antioxidant action helps stop free radical damage and also opens your arteries by enhancing nitric oxide. It also stops the proliferation of cells in blood vessels that narrow your arteries and keeps blood cells from sticking together. Both are very important for helping prevent heart attacks.

As a water-soluble antioxidant, resveratrol deeply penetrates the center of your cell’s nucleus, giving your DNA time to repair free radical damage.

Resveratrol is found in abundance in red wine, and it’s highly soluble in alcohol, meaning your body may absorb more of it from red wine than from other sources. I do not, however, suggest drinking large amounts of red wine, as the alcohol is a poison to your system.

You can get some resveratrol from your diet by eating grapes (muscadine grapes have the highest concentration of resveratrol in nature because of their extra thick skins and numerous seeds where it is concentrated), cocoa, dark chocolate and peanuts, but it will likely be difficult to get a therapeutic dose, especially since these are all foods I recommend you eat only in moderation.

The other option is to take a resveratrol supplement, and in this case be sure to look for one made from a whole food complex.

How Can You Get All the Antioxidants You Need?

Your body can manufacture certain antioxidants, but not others. And your body’s natural antioxidant production tends to decline with age. Fortunately, most of the vegetables you eat are loaded with potent phytochemicals that act as antioxidants. The closer they are to being harvested, the more potent these antioxidants will be—which is why consuming plenty of raw, locally harvested, organic vegetables is one of the best ways to get antioxidants. Juicing is a convenient way to increase your intake, especially if you eat the pulp.

Additionally, reducing your sugar and fructose intake will decrease your antioxidant stress so that you will need less, and the ones that you have will work better and last longer. So limit sugars, including fructose, and processed foods. You can also wisely select targeted nutrients to supplement your food choices.

I think Richard A. Passwater, Ph.D. explains it best in his book, The Antioxidants:

“Combinations of antioxidants are like a balanced symphony working together. A symphony orchestra produces sounds so much more harmonious than merely having 20 drums playing. It is not the quantity, but the blend. The same is true with antioxidant nutrients: you get better results with moderate amounts of a full complement than you get with using very large amounts of just one nutrient…

For this reason, most of us in the field recommend that a person take a variety of antioxidants (a “cocktail”), not just a single substance.

The importance of synergism is that the antioxidant nutrients each contribute to the total protection. They work together in the antioxidant cycle and reach all body compartments — fat and water-based, blood and internal cell. They protect against all types of free radicals and reactive oxygen species. No one antioxidant can do all of this.”

Dr. Boyd Eaton talks about ancestral health.

I was introduced to the Paleo Diet concept over 25 years ago in 1985 when I read Dr. Boyd Eaton’s seminal New England Journal of Medicine paper Paleolithic Nutrition. This was among the first to suggest that our genome evolved according to the nutrition requirements of ancient man, and modern-day dietary changes have occurred much too rapidly for adequate genetic adaptation.

The result is that the Standard American Diet now in no way resembles that of our ancestors, and this mismatch may be triggering some of the common “diseases of civilization,” such as:

Heart disease

Type 2 diabetes

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Hypertension

Lung and colon cancers

Obesity

Diverticulosis

Dental caries

Ancestors’ Diet Was Far Richer in Antioxidants

There are many experts who believe that one of the main benefits of following a Paleo-type diet is related to the enormous amount of antioxidants that were consumed. Our ancestors’ diet was made up of 50 percent fruits and vegetables, compared with just 13 percent today — and fruits and veggies are, of course, excellent sources of antioxidants.

As the generations have gone by, modern man has largely replaced fruits and vegetables with cereal grains, to the detriment of our waistlines and our health. According to Dr. Eaton, our antioxidant intake would be 4.5 times higher if we ate as many fruits and vegetables as our ancestors, and nearly 7 times higher if we ate wild fruits.

Why Fruit Used to be Healthier

You probably know that one of the primary ways you can improve your health and weight, and reduce your risk of chronic disease, is to limit your intake of fructose, including that found in fruit.

As a standard recommendation, I strongly advise keeping your TOTAL fructose consumption below 25 grams per day. But for most people it would also be wise to limit your fructose from fruit to 15 grams or less, as you’re virtually guaranteed to consume “hidden” sources of fructose in processed foods.

The truth is that even though fruit is obviously much healthier than soda, too much of it can be nearly as detrimental to your health as soda. It is a quantity issue and once you exceed a threshold limit when you have insulin resistance, you are asking for trouble.

This was much less of an issue in ancient times because they were consuming wild fruits. The wild fruits of our ancestors were smaller and resembled most closely what a blueberry is today. Modern cultivated fruits are much larger, which means they have a lot more sweet inside and less skin. The sweet “pulp” or “flesh” of the fruit is where much of the fructose is, whereas the skin holds the antioxidants.

Since wild fruits were much smaller than today’s fruits and thus had a much larger proportion of their volume as skin and seeds, they provided a healthy source of antioxidants with limited amounts of fructose.

Since most of the wild type fruits are not commercially available to us today we need to be very careful about making sure we have a full complement of antioxidants that replicate our ancestors’ dietary patterns. For most of us this will mean supplementation since we simply do not have access to these types of fruits today.

Why it’s So Important to Eat a Wide Variety of Antioxidants

Antioxidants are nature’s way of defending your cells against attack by these free radicals, thereby helping you resist aging and disease. If you don’t have adequate antioxidants to step in and combat free radicals, then oxidative stress tends to lead to accelerated tissue and organ damage. This is what makes antioxidants so crucial to your health.

It’s important to understand, though, that there are different types of antioxidants.

Antioxidants are often lumped together into one category in how they protect your cells from free radicals, but they are actually very different. For instance, certain antioxidants are water-soluble while others are fat-soluble. Why is this important? Because the interior of your cells and the fluid between them are composed mainly of water, whereas your cell membranes are made largely of fat.

Free radicals can strike both the interior of your cells and the cell membrane, so you need to be sure you’re consuming both water-soluble and fat-soluble antioxidants to protect you.

If you consume only water-soluble antioxidants, such as anthocyanins, polyphenols or resveratrol, your cell membranes will still be vulnerable to free radical damage. Likewise, if you consume only fat-soluble antioxidants, such as astaxanthin and ubiquinol, the interior of your cells are still vulnerable. Consume them both, and you’re giving your cells a far more comprehensive shield against free radical damage.

Consuming plenty of raw, locally harvested, organic vegetables is one of the best ways to get the antioxidants your body needs, in levels that most closely replicate the Paleo diet. Juicing is a convenient way to increase your intake, especially if you eat the pulp.

Additionally, reducing your sugar and fructose intake will decrease your antioxidant stress so that you will need less, and the ones that you have will work better and last longer. So limit sugars, including fructose, and processed foods, and increase your intake of veggies to optimize your antioxidant intake. You can also wisely select targeted nutrients to supplement your food choices.

By Dr. Mercola

This is an area that has absolutely captured my passion and attention. The last six months I have been devouring as much information as I can about high-performance agriculture using natural methods.

As you know, I have been one of the leaders in warning of the dangers of GMOs but I am now convinced that we need to offer the world a safe and superior alternative to GMOs. I am convinced that this is not only possible, but also less expensive both in the short and long term.

Part of the reason for this is that the nutritional content of the conventional food supply has been rapidly declining for the last 50 years as a natural consequence of increasingly poor soil conditions on modern farms, and it is getting worse.

But food has actually been getting gradually less nutritious for far longer than that, as a direct result of humans’ preferences for sweeter, starchier and less colorful fruits and vegetables.

As written in the New York Times:1

“Unwittingly, we have been stripping phytonutrients from our diet since we stopped foraging for wild plants some 10,000 years ago and became farmers.”

I believe that natural high-performance agriculture techniques such as optimizing soil microbiology through composting, and mineral balancing and the use of sea solids in the soil are exciting alternatives, and I plan on updating you soon on this project.

Sweeter Plants Were More Appealing to Ancient Farmers…

Ancient wild plants provided an astounding level of phytonutrients that are largely absent from our modern cultivated fruits and veggies. For instance, wild dandelions contain seven times more phytonutrients than spinach, and purple potatoes native to Peru contain 28 times more anthocyanins than commonly consumed russet potatoes.2

In general, you can identify the healthiest superfoods simply by looks and taste: the more bitter and the more colorful a natural food is, the more potent antioxidants and other phytochemicals it’s likely to contain.

But disease-fighting bitter or astringent foods, such as arugula, mustard greens and Brussels sprouts, are often avoided by consumers today,3 and they were similarly avoided by our ancient ancestors as access to sweeter foods increased. So, too, was the case with colorful foods, which have slowly fallen out of favor in many cases.

The evolution of corn provides one of the most telling examples. The richly colored “Indian corn” now mostly used for holiday decorating was once widely consumed, and contained far more disease-fighting antioxidants and less sugar than today’s popular pale yellow sweet corn.

The New York Times explains it well:

“Throughout the ages, our farming ancestors have chosen the least bitter plants to grow in their gardens. It is now known that many of the most beneficial phytonutrients have a bitter, sour or astringent taste. Second, early farmers favored plants that were relatively low in fiber and high in sugar, starch and oil.

These energy-dense plants were pleasurable to eat and provided the calories needed to fuel a strenuous lifestyle. The more palatable our fruits and vegetables became, however, the less advantageous they were for our health.”

Even Fruits Are Sweeter and Less Nutritious Than They Used to Be

The wild fruits consumed by our ancestors were smaller and resembled most closely what a blueberry is today. Modern cultivated fruits are much larger, which means they have a lot more sweet pulp inside and less skin. The sweet “pulp” or “flesh” of the fruit is where most of the fructose is, whereas the skin holds the antioxidants.

Since wild fruits were much smaller than today’s fruits and thus had a much larger proportion of their volume as skin and seeds, they provided a healthy source of powerful antioxidants with limited amounts of fructose. According to Dr. Boyd Eaton, our antioxidant intake would be nearly seven times higher simply if we ate wild fruits…

Stunning Corn Comparison: Genetically Modified (GM) Vs. Non-GM

Genetic modification is also making our modern food less nutritious than it used to be, according to a report given to MomsAcrossAmerica4 by an employee of De Dell Seed Company (Canada’s only non-GMO corn seed company). It offers a stunning picture of the nutritional differences between genetically modified (GM) and non-GM corn. Clearly, the former is NOT equivalent to the latter, which is the very premise by which genetically modified crops were approved in the first place. Here’s a small sampling of the nutritional differences found in this 2012 nutritional analysis:
•Calcium: GMO corn = 14 ppm / Non-GMO corn = 6,130 ppm (437 times more)
•Magnesium: GMO corn = 2 ppm / Non-GMO corn = 113 ppm (56 times more)
•Manganese: GMO corn = 2 ppm / Non-GMO corn = 14 ppm (7 times more)

GMO corn was also found to contain 13 ppm of glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup Ready herbicide) compared to zero in non-GMO corn, along with extremely high levels of formaldehyde, which is a well-known carcinogenic byproduct of glyphosate metabolism. Perhaps it’s no wonder that animals, when given a choice, avoid genetically modified food. Yet, in the US upwards of 85 percent of all corn grown is now genetically modified.

There is no question that one wants to start with the highest quality seed and GMO seeds are vastly inferior to most ancient seeds. However, I believe epigenetic expression is every bit as valid in plants as it is in humans and if we optimize the plant’s nutrients through soil microbiology, we can improve the nutrient density of even GMO seeds to near optimal levels. And if these techniques are used for seeds with good genes you can far exceed those levels.

USDA Is Developing New Plants Without Regard to Nutritional Content

Unfortunately, the USDA is oblivious to this reality. Author Jo Robinson writes in the New York Times:5

“I’ve interviewed U.S.D.A. plant breeders who have spent a decade or more developing a new variety of pear or carrot without once measuring its nutritional content. We can’t increase the health benefits of our produce if we don’t know which nutrients it contains. Ultimately, we need more than an admonition to eat a greater quantity of fruits and vegetables: we need more fruits and vegetables that have the nutrients we require for optimum health.”

Antioxidants are nature’s way of defending your cells against attack by these free radicals, thereby helping you resist aging and disease. If you don’t have adequate antioxidants to step in and neutralize free radicals, then oxidative stress tends to lead to accelerated tissue and organ damage. This is what makes antioxidants so crucial to your health.

Your diet is one of the key ways to make sure you’re getting the antioxidants, as well as the other critical vitamins and minerals, your body needs to function optimally. Yet, in developing new plant varieties, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is far more focused on creating disease-resistant plants than they are on enhancing, or even protecting, their nutritional content.

Is There a Secret to Finding More Nutritious Food?

As I said initially, I firmly believe the solution for more nutritious food is to optimize the microbiology of the soil so the microbes can provide the optimal nutrients for the plant and maximize their genetic expression. Composting, vortexed compost tea and mineral replacements are far superior to commercial fertilizers and also improve rather than degrade the quality of the soil. Ideally, you can grow these yourself or find someone locally that can do it for you. I will be going into far greater detail in future articles.

In the meantime, consuming plenty of raw, locally harvested, organic vegetables is one of the best ways to get the key nutrients your body needs, in levels that most closely replicate those found in the wild foods of our ancestors. For starters, this will ensure that you’re avoiding all GM produce, which now appears to not only be far less nutritious than non-GM food but also less contaminated with agrichemicals and their toxic byproducts. Beyond this, there are several additional measures you can take to make sure you’re getting the most nutritious food available:
•Choose brightly colored foods: Produce in shades of blue, red, purple and dark green are among the most antioxidant-rich foods available.
•Eat more bitter foods: Many of the most potent, disease-fighting compounds in food (phenols and polyphenols, flavonoids, isoflavones, terpenes, and glucosinolates) are bitter, acrid or astringent in flavor. Expanding your diet to include these bitter-tasting foods is one of the healthiest moves you can make. Examples include grapefruit, arugula, collard greens, parsley, dandelion leaves, radicchio, cranberries, endive and pomegranates.
•Indulge in herbs and spices: Many herbs and spices remain largely unchanged from ancient times. Along with containing some of the highest antioxidant levels of all foods, herbs and spices are also very dense in other nutrients such as vitamins and minerals, and they also have medicinal properties. As a general rule, you really can’t go wrong when using herbs and spices and I recommend allowing your taste buds to dictate your choices when cooking. However, you can also choose spices based on their medicinal benefits.
•Grow your own foods from heirloom seeds, including sprouts: This is one of the best ways to access nutrient-dense food, especially if you use heirloom seeds that have been carefully cultivated to produce the best plants possible. You can plant an organic veggie garden even in small spaces, and sprouts, which are also among the most nutrient-dense foods available, can also be grown easily at home.
•Forage for wild, edible plants: Some of the “weeds” in your backyard or local environment are incredibly nutritious and very close to the wild plants consumed by our ancestors. Dandelion, stinging nettle, prickly lettuce, chickweed, sow thistle, red clover, burdock, cattails, Japanese knotweed, and sheep sorrel are examples of wild nutrient-rich foods. While you should only consume plants you are entirely sure are not poisonous, learning to gather safe, wild edible plants is quite simple.

•Sunscreen in a pill?
•Prevention of wrinkles, dry skin, age spots and freckles?
•Reversing the visible signs of aging?

If you think checking “all of the above” seems too good to be true, you’re not alone.

But there just happens to be a natural compound that clinical studies are suggesting does ALL of the above—without a hefty price tag or side effects. This is a little miracle your plastic surgeon won’t want you to hear about.

It’s a relatively unknown carotenoid called astaxanthin, which is now believed to be the most potent antioxidant nature has to offer.

Scientists long ago discovered that a class of naturally occurring pigments called carotenoids held powerful antioxidant properties that are crucial for your health. Carotenoids are the compounds that give foods their vibrant colors—from green grasses to red beets, to the spectacular yellows and oranges of your bell peppers.

There are more than 700 naturally occurring carotenoids, but most people are familiar with only a few. Right now, you probably have about ten different carotenoids circulating through your bloodstream.

As a source of antioxidants and vitamin A, carotenoids are critical to the photosynthetic process and protect a plant or organism from damage by light and oxygen. By consuming plants or organisms that contain these pigments, you gain a similar protective benefit.

Astaxanthin has recently jumped to the front of the line in terms of its status as a “supernutrient,” becoming the focus of a large and growing number of peer-reviewed scientific studies.

One of the benefits of astaxanthin that has piqued the interest of researchers is its ability to help protect your skin from the sun, reducing the signs of aging.

However, ataxanthin’s benefits to your health are more than skin deep—in fact, so many benefits that I’ve had to write several articles just to cover the jaw-dropping activities of this amazing nutrient.

Astaxanthin is in a League of Its Own

Astaxanthin is produced only by the microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis when its water supply dries up, forcing it to protect itself from ultraviolet radiation. It’s the algae’s survival mechanism—astaxanthin serves as a “force field” to protect the algae from lack of nutrition and/or intense sunlight.

It is this “radiation shield” that underlies how astaxanthin can help protect you from similar radiation.

Many carotenoids are easily obtainable through a good diet rich in fresh organic produce. However, this powerful carotenoid is harder to come by. There are only two main sources of astaxanthin—the microalgae that produce it, and the sea creatures that consume the algae (such as salmon, shellfish, and krill).

Astaxanthin is the reason salmon have the strength and endurance to swim up rivers and waterfalls for days on end—their diets are high in this pigment, which concentrates in their muscles and makes them one of the “kings of endurance” of the animal kingdom.

This pigment is the most commonly occurring red carotenoid in marine and aquatic animals and is what gives salmon and pink flamingos their characteristic pink color. Most people don’t realize that baby flamingos are actually white and don’t turn pink until they receive astaxanthin, primarily from shrimp and algae.

Astaxanthin is leaps and bounds more powerful than beta-carotene, alpha-tocopherol, lycopene and lutein, other members of its chemical family. It exhibits VERY STRONG free radical scavenging activity and protects your cells, organs and body tissues from oxidative damage.

Astaxanthin’s unique “antioxidative artillery” provides for an impressive array of health benefits, including improving cardiovascular health, stabilizing blood sugar, boosting your immune system, fighting cancer, reducing inflammation, improving eye health—and even improving your athletic abilities.

What Makes Astaxanthin Special?

There are many properties that make this carotenoid unique. Here are the main differences:
•Astaxanthin is by far the most powerful carotenoid antioxidant when it comes to free radical scavenging: astaxanthin is 65 times more powerful than vitamin C, 54 times more powerful than beta-carotene, and 14 times more powerful than vitamin E.
•Astaxanthin is far more effective than other carotenoids at “singlet oxygen quenching,” which is a particular type of oxidation. The damaging effects of sunlight and various organic materials are caused by this less-stable form of oxygen. Astaxanthin is 550 times more powerful than vitamin E and 11 times more powerful than beta-carotene at neutralizing singlet oxygen.
•Astaxanthin crosses the blood-brain barrier AND the blood-retinal barrier (beta carotene and lycopene do not), which brings antioxidant and anti-inflammatory protection to your eyes, brain and central nervous system and reduces your risk for cataracts, macular degeneration, blindness, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
•Astaxanthin is soluble in lipids, so it incorporates into cell membranes.
•It’s a potent UVB absorber and reduces DNA damage.
•It’s a powerful natural anti-inflammatory.

And how about some more great news? There have been no adverse reactions found for people taking astaxanthin.

Sunburn is Inflammation

If you are physically active, you have probably spent a fair amount of time in the sun. The sun offers enormous benefits to you in terms of vitamin D. But too much of a good thing can be—well, too much of a good thing.

Many athletes complain of feeling ill from overexposure to the sun after long trainings outside. However, many report astaxanthin has allowed them to stay in the sun for longer periods of time, without feeling ill and without burning. Less burning also means lower skin cancer risk.

How does it do this?

The answer lies in how the Haematococcus pluvialis protects itself from intense ultraviolet radiation by producing astaxanthin as a natural sunscreen. When you consume this pigment, you are creating your own “internal sunscreen.” In other words, the same powerful antioxidants that protect the algae from the sun’s rays can help protect YOU as well.

Sunburn is actually an inflammatory process. Although the exact pathway by which astaxanthin protects your skin from burning is not yet known, it is almost certain that its anti-inflammatory properties are involved.

Dr. Nicholas Perricone and Dr. Robert Childs, a physician in Hawaii, are both fans of astaxanthin.

Dr. Childs, born and raised in Honolulu, was always extremely sensitive to the sun, until he started taking astaxanthin. He now finds he can go out in the midday Hawaiian sun for four hours without burning, whereas he used to burn within a half hour. He also discovered that, within a few weeks of starting astaxanthin, his morning stiffness and soreness had disappeared.

Astaxanthin as an Internal Sunscreen

Besides copious testimonials and anecdotal evidence, scientific studies have substantiated these skin protective effects.

Cyanotech Corporation funded a study through an independent consumer research laboratory to measure the skin’s resistance to both UVA and UVB light, before and after astaxanthin supplementation.

The result was that in only three weeks of taking 4mg per day, subjects showed a significant increase in the amount of time necessary for UV radiation to redden their skin.

Animal studies lend further evidence to astaxanthin’s effects as an internal sunscreen.

Consider the following:
•In 1995, hairless mice were fed various combinations of astaxanthin, beta-carotene and retinol for four months. After irradiation, astaxanthin alone or in combination with retinol was substantially effective in preventing photoaging of the skin (as measured by markers for skin damage). [Savoure, N., Briand, G., Amory-Touz, M., Combre, A., Maudet, M. (1995). “Vitamin A status and metabolism of cutaneous polyamines in the hairless mouse after UV irradiation: action of beta-carotene and astaxanthin.” International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research. 65(2):79-86.]
•In a 1998 study with rats, astaxanthin was found to be 100 times stronger than beta-carotene and 1000 times stronger than lutein in preventing UVA light-induced oxidative stress.
•The Journal of Dermatological Science published a study in 2002 finding astaxanthin is able to protect against alterations in human DNA induced by UVA light exposure.

A Topical Paradise: Help in Preventing Collagen Damage, Wrinkles, Freckles and Age Spots

But astaxanthin might not even need to be ingested in order to protect you from the sun. In 2001, Arakane performed a study on hairless mice to explore whether or not astaxanthin offered topical benefits.

The mice were exposed to UVB radiation for 18 weeks to simulate photo-aged skin. The mice that had astaxanthin applied to their skin demonstrated reduced wrinkles when compared to the control group, as well as younger-appearing collagen. In fact, the collagen of the astaxanthin mice looked as if it had never been exposed to radiation.

Researchers concluded that astaxanthin “can significantly prevent UV-induced collagen degradation, wrinkles, lipid peroxidation, sunburn, phototoxicity and photoallergy.”

The same study also discovered that topical astaxanthin can act as an effective “skin whitening agent,” which is a tremendously popular trend in Asia. Astaxanthin was found to reduce melanin by 40 percent, greatly reducing freckles and age spots.

Beauty From Within

Although it appears that astaxanthin does indeed offer topical benefits, your greatest gifts will come from taking astaxanthin internally.

There have been three studies demonstrating that taking astaxanthin can improve the way you look. All of these studies combine astaxanthin with other substances, such as omega-3 fatty acids or vitamin E, but all three had positive findings when astaxanthin was present.
1.In Japan, a study was done in 2002 by Yamashita with women around age 40 who consumed 2mg astaxanthin daily for four weeks. Researchers were surprised that after only 2 weeks, almost every aspect of the women’s skin had improved; after 4 weeks, there was even more improvement. [Yamashita, E. (2002). “Cosmetic Benefit of Dietary Supplements Containing Astaxanthin and Tocotrienol on Human Skin.” Food Style. 21 6(6):112-17]

Benefits included fewer fine lines, better moisture, increased skin tone and elasticity, smoother surface, fewer freckles, and less under-eye puffiness.

2.In 2003 a Canadian study involving female subjects ages 35 to 55 were given astaxanthin combined with omega-3 fatty acids and marine glycosaminoglycans. They were divided into three groups using different combinations of these agents, all showing improvements in the areas measured.

Due to the design of the study, researchers were limited in the conclusions they could draw, but said it was clear that astaxanthin does offer benefits as an internal beauty supplement.

3.The third study was done in Europe and was similar to the Japanese study discussed above. However, subjects were given 5mg per day astaxanthin along with two other ingredients. Treated subjects showed improvements in fine lines, an increase in dermis density of up to 78 percent, and visible improvement in overall skin appearance.

Can Eating Colorful Vegetables Make You MORE Attractive and Help Snag You a Mate?

One of the most interesting studies to date was headed by Dr. Ian Stephen at the University of Nottingham who investigated what skin tones were perceived as most healthy and attractive to humans.

He discovered that red and yellow skin tones make you more attractive.

People take on redder tones when they are flushed with blood, particularly if the blood has lots of oxygen in it, and from a biological/anthropological perspective, this signals health and vitality.

Scientists have believed that we evolved by selecting potential mates whose appearance signaled good health. According to coauthor of the study, David Perrett, PhD:

“This is something we share with many other species. For example, the bright yellow beaks and feathers of many birds can be thought of as adverts showing how healthy a male bird is. What’s more, females of these species prefer to mate with brighter, more colored males. But this is the first study in which this has been demonstrated in humans.

Together our studies link skin carotenoid coloration to both perceived health and healthy diet, establishing carotenoid coloration as a valid cue to human health which is perceptible in a way that is relevant to mate choice, as it is in bird and fish species.”

Healthier Looking Than a Tan !!

And here’s the kicker…

Dr. Stephen found that, given the choice between skin color caused by suntan and skin color caused by carotenoids, people preferred the carotenoid skin color.

So if you want to be more physically attractive, make sure you use a regular source of astaxanthin. Not only will it allow you to look healthier it will also help protect you when you are tanning and optimizing your vitamin D levels.

Make Sure Your Astaxanthin is the Natural Variety from Marine Algae—NOT Synthetic

Synthetic (laboratory-made) astaxanthin is now commonly used worldwide to supplement fish feeds in order to obtain the desired pinkish to orange-red color. You really should avoid synthetic astaxanthin because it’s made from petrochemicals.

Some aquaculture companies are beginning to use natural astaxanthin instead of synthetic, even though it costs more, because it’s better for the health of the animals, and it’s far superior for pigmentation. Animals fed fish food with natural astaxanthin have higher survival rates, better growth rates, better immunity, fertility and reproduction.

Unfortunately, synthetic astaxanthin still dominates the farmed salmon industry worldwide.

If your salmon label does not read “wild” or “naturally colored,” you’re probably going to be eating a coloring agent somewhat closer to motor oil than antioxidant. Natural astaxanthin is more than 20 times stronger as an antioxidant than synthetic astaxanthin.

Wild salmon are 400 percent higher in astaxanthin than farmed salmon, and100 percent of their pigment is natural astaxanthin, rather than synthetic. Plus, wild salmon have much higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids than the farmed version. But even if you are successful in purchasing genuine wild salmon, there is the problem with high levels of mercury and other unwanted toxins, not to mention the skyrocketing prices.

Final Recommendations

If you decide to give astaxanthin a try, I recommend starting with at least 2 mg per day. I have been taking 8 mg per day this year. Krill has some astaxanthin in it, but not enough to provide full benefits.