Rather Be Healthy

If you talk to the global warming crowd, carbon dioxide — CO2 — is the enemy of mankind. Any and all creation of CO2 is bad for the planet, we’re told, and its production must be strictly limited in order to save the world.

But what if that wasn’t true? What if CO2 were actually a planet-saving nutrient that could multiply food production rates and feed the world more nutritious, healthy plants?

CO2 is a vital nutrient for food crops
As it turns out, CO2 is desperately needed by food crops, and right now there is a severe shortage of CO2 on the planet compared to what would be optimum for plants. Greenhouse operators are actually buying carbon dioxide and injecting it into their greenhouses in order to maximize plant growth.

The science on this is irrefutable. As just one example, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food says:

CO2 increases productivity through improved plant growth and vigour. Some ways in which productivity is increased by CO2 include earlier flowering, higher fruit yields, reduced bud abortion in roses, improved stem strength and flower size. Growers should regard CO2 as a nutrient.

If you want to understand why CO2 is an essential nutrient for food crop growth, check out this informative slide show. It explains that “CO2 may be repidly depleted during crop production” daylight hours, because the plants pull all the CO2 out of the air and use it in photosynthesis.

The CO2 found in modern-day atmosphere is 340ppm. But food crops would grow far faster if the concentration of CO2 were closer to 1000ppm, or roughly 300% higher than current levels. In fact, most greenhouse plant production causes a “CO2 depletion” to happen, shutting down photosynthesis and limiting food production. As the “Carbon Dioxide in Greenhouses” fact sheet explains:

Ambient CO2 level in outside air is about 340 ppm by volume. All plants grow well at this level but as CO2 levels are raised by 1,000 ppm photosynthesis increases proportionately resulting in more sugars and carbohydrates available for plant growth. Any actively growing crop in a tightly clad greenhouse with little or no ventilation can readily reduce the CO2 level during the day to as low as 200 ppm.

Thus, greenhouse plants are “running out” of CO2. They are starving for it. And when you add it to food crops, you get higher yields, improved taste, shorter flowering times, enhanced pest resistance and other benefits.

Why we should pump carbon dioxide into greenhouses
This brings up an obvious answer for what to do with all the CO2 produced by power plants, office buildings and even fitness centers where people exhale vast quantities of CO2. The answer is to build adjacent greenhouses and pump the CO2 into the greenhouses.

Every coal-fired power plant, in other words, should have a vast array of greenhouses surrounding it. Most of what you see emitted from power plant smokestacks is water vapor and CO2, both essential nutrients for rapid growth of food crops. By diverting carbon dioxide and water into greenhouses, the problem of emissions is instantly solved because the plants update the CO2 and use it for photosynthesis, thus “sequestering” the CO2 while rapidly growing food crops. It also happens to produce oxygen as a “waste product” which can be released into the atmosphere, (slightly) upping the oxygen level of the air we breathe.

This is a brilliant solution because humans want to live on a world with low CO2 that supports frozen ice caps in order to keep ocean water levels low, but they want to eat a volume of food that requires high CO2 for production. The answer is to concentrate CO2 into greenhouses where food production is multiplied by CO2 nutrition.

I’ll bet you’ve never heard Al Gore talk about CO2 as “nutrition.” He declares it a pollutant and wants to tax you for producing it. But CO2 is actually a key nutritive gas for food crops. Without carbon dioxide, we would all have starved to death by now.

Shutting down power plants to destroy America’s power infrastructure
The U.S. government’s solution to power plant emissions, however, is to just shut down coal-fired power plants, causing rolling blackouts across the USA, especially during hot summer days. The EPA has forced hundreds of power plants to shut down across the USA, achieving a loss of power infrastructure that vastly exceeds what would even be possible by an enemy invasion of high-altitude warplanes dropping bombs.

The EPA, under the excuse of “saving the planet,” is destroying America’s power infrastructure and leading our nation into a third-world scenario where power availability is dicey and unsustained. It seems to be just one part of the overall plan to gut America’s economy, offshore millions of jobs, put everybody on welfare and destroy small businesses.

But what if we harnessed coal-fired power plants instead of shutting them down? What if we used them as “CO2 generators” that fed CO2 into vast greenhouse operations that produced organic, high-growth foods that could feed the nation? Coal-fired power plants can produce both electricity and food nutrition at the same time.

Better yet, if you combine this concept with aquaponics, you get simultaneous production of plants and fish while using no soil, no GMOs and one-tenth the water of conventional agriculture.

See, the solutions to all our problems already exist. The only reason we are suffering as a nation is because political puppets try to brainwash us into believing complete falsehoods like, “carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant” or “the people don’t need healthy foods; they need medications and vaccines.” When societies believe falsehoods, they crumble and collapse.

That’s where America is headed, of course. And it’s all being accelerated by deceptive bureaucrats who want to convince you that growing real food is bad and we should all be punished for exhaling carbon dioxide, an essential nutrient for food crops. Carbon dioxide is not the enemy it’s been made out to be. It’s actually plant nutrition that helps regrow rainforests, food crops and wetlands. In fact, higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere would make the planet more lush and abundant in terms of plant life, forests, trees and food crops.

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Dairy Fat Found to PREVENT Artery Clogging? (Study Results)

You’ve been told that dairy fat from butter, cheese and cream CLOGS your arteries… WRONG! Studies show 3 super-nutrients in certain dairy fat found to PROTECT you from heart disease

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of best-sellers: The Truth About Six Pack Abs & The Top 101 Foods that FIGHT Aging

For decades now, news reporters with zero nutrition education, government agencies using outdated information from the 1960’s, and well-meaning but misinformed dieticians have pounded into your head that dairy fat from butter, cream, cheese, and other full-fat dairy products is terrible for you and “CLOGS” your arteries… but what if they’ve been WRONG all along?

After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that the government, the media, and dieticians have been wrong about a nutrition topic… remember for years when everyone falsely believed that trans fat laden margarine was better for you than butter? Wow, were they ever wrong about that! And remember the years when everyone falsely believed that egg yolks were bad for you? Well, I think most of us are more educated now about that as well… At least I hope so!

Did you know that between the years 1910 to 2000, the average annual butter consumption per person in the US decreased from 18 lbs per year in 1910 to less than 4 lbs per year in 2000… Meanwhile heart disease rates between 1910 to 2000 QUADRUPLED.

Hmm… so let’s think about that for a minute…we ate almost 5x the amount of butter on average in 1910 and yet heart disease was RARE at the time. Clearly the argument that so many health “experts” make about dairy fat being “deadly” is not accurate and needs to be re-evaluated.

Let’s look at some more interesting examples…

With regards to dairy fat from butter, cheese, and cream, if you believed the media that dairy fat clogs your arteries, then why do the French stay leaner and have a much lower rate of heart disease despite a diet very high in full-fat cheese, butter, and cream compared to Americans that purposely try to reduce their butter intake and choose non-fat or reduced-fat dairy products most of the time?

Or why do the Swiss, known for their rich full-fat dairy products including lots of cheese display lower heart disease rates than Americans?

Or how about the natives of the Caucasus Mountains in Eastern Europe that routinely live to over 100 years old while drinking full-fat dairy almost daily throughout their lives in the form of Kefir?

We’ve also got the Maasai and Samburu tribes from Africa that eat a diet rich in full-fat dairy (4-5x the consumption of dairy fat on average than most Americans) and yet display robust health with a distinct lack of degenerative diseases like heart disease.

Hmm, what’s going on here?

We could go on and on with examples that show the opposite of what you’ve been told over the years about dairy fat, but the fact of the matter is that all of these “experts” that have told you to avoid dairy fat have been flat out WRONG for decades now!

The TRUTH is… studies are consistently showing that certain unique compounds in dairy fat actually PREVENT the clogging of arteries and reduce your risk of heart disease!

I’ll tell you in a second about the powerful compounds in some types of dairy fat that can help reduce your risk of heart disease, but first, please realize that if you eat a lot of inflammatory foods such as sugar, corn syrup, refined grains (wheat and corn cereals, breads, etc), artificial trans fats, refined vegetable oils (soybean oil, corn oil), etc, you will most likely still be clogging your arteries from the inflammation caused by what these foods do to your insides.

So aside from just simply observing certain cultures around the world and their dairy fat intake, what other evidence do we have that compounds found in dairy fat can actually protect you from heart disease and prevent clogging of your arteries? Well…

Studies involving 3 specific super-nutrients found in grass-fed dairy fat

Note that the 3 nutrients that I’m discussing here that help protect you from heart disease are found mostly in GRASS-FED dairy (pasture-raised) and not conventional grain-fed factory farm dairy that’s the majority of dairy found in the US. Also, realize that we’re talking about benefits from the fat portion of the dairy specifically here (yes, the cream and butterfat), so this means FULL-FAT grass-fed dairy is where the benefits will come from and NOT all of these silly skim, 0%, or 1% reduced-fat varieties of yogurts, cheeses, etc.

Note that most dairy from Europe and other parts of the world is typically grass-fed for the majority of their feed and only supplemented with smaller amounts of grain. For that reason, if you choose European cheeses, you’re generally going to get a healthier type of cheese. And if you can’t find butter or cream that’s labeled as grass-fed or pasture raised, realize that true Irish butter (Kerrygold is a good brand of Irish butter in the US) or any European butter is usually grass-fed and a better choice.

Although, as consumer awareness is increasing about the benefits of grass-fed dairy in the US, I’ve noticed that more and more US brands are offering grass-fed yogurt, cheeses, butter, cream, and kefir from small family farm operations that truly allow the cows to freely roam and forage on grass and herbs.

So let’s get to those super-nutrients found in the fat of grass-fed dairy:

Dairy Fat Super-Nutrient #1: Vitamin K2

Vitamin K1 is found in leafy greens and is definitely good for you. However, studies of vitamin K1 in relation to heart disease are neutral, meaning there’s no negative or positive response in comparing vitamin K1 and heart disease.

However, the story is quite different with vitamin K2! In one Dutch study reported in the Journal of Nutrition in 2004, people with the highest vitamin K2 consumption had a whopping 51% lower risk of heart attack mortality and a 26% lower risk of death from all causes compared to those eating the least vitamin K2! The study concluded that higher vitamin K2 consumption reduced arterial calcification.

The best sources of vitamin K2…

You guessed it: grass-fed dairy fat (butter, cream, certain cheeses), organ meats, egg yolks, and certain fermented foods that use a specific starter culture. In terms of cheeses, brie and gouda are apparently the highest in vitamin K2 due to the cultures that are used to ferment the cheese. And goose liver is extremely high in vitamin K2 as well.

Isn’t it ironic that so many health “experts” have been telling you for decades to avoid dairy fat, and yet dairy fat contains one of the most powerful compounds being studied that helps prevent arterial calcification and clogged arteries. As I always say, beware of who you trust when it comes to nutrition information!

One other important thing to note about vitamin K2…

Apparently, new research is proving what Weston Price knew all along many many years ago… in order for your body to properly utilize oral vitamin D, you need vitamin K2 as well. In many of Dr. Price’s experiments, he found that patients only had minor improvements in health parameters when given cod liver oil (a concentrated natural source of vitamin D), but when cod liver oil was combined with grass-fed butter for vitamin K2, the health improvements were significantly better, as the vitamin K2 and vitamin D worked together synergistically inside the body.

Also keep in mind that vitamin K2 is generally NOT found in multi-vitamins or other supplements, so you need to obtain it from grass-fed dairy fat or other animal foods such as egg yolks or organ meats.

For those choosing to go on a vegan diet, please realize that vitamin K2 deficiency is a very serious concern. Vitamin K2 deficiency can disrupt the balance and function that vitamin D and calcium play inside your body (causing inappropriate calcification in your body if you’re deficient in K2) and can lead to arterial calcification in vegans that ignore this important nutrient. Vitamin B12 is another important nutrient that vegans are typically extremely deficient in, and supplemental forms are not as well utilized by the body.

Dairy Fat Super-Nutrient #2: CLA (conjugated linoleic acid)

CLA is a unique type of healthy fat that’s found in the fat from grass-fed meat or dairy in ruminant animals such as sheep, goats, cows, deer, etc. In separate studies, CLA has been found to lower the risk for cancer and arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), in addition to improving fat loss.

Grass-fed dairy or meat has been found to contain 3-5x the amount of healthy CLA fats as grain-fed dairy or meat.

In one study in 2010, researchers studied the effects of consumption of a sheep’s milk pecorino cheese on atherosclerotic biomarkers (indicating risk for heart disease), and found that the dairy fat in this cheese improved the subjects markers! They concluded: “intake of the tested dairy product naturally rich in cis-9, trans-11 CLA appeared to cause favourable biochemical changes of atherosclerotic markers.”

A search of conjugated linoleic acid in relation to cancer and fat loss on pubmed also brought up dozens of positive studies showing relationship between CLA and reduced cancer risks and improved weight loss.

CLA is yet another example of an extremely healthy fat contained in dairy fat, and higher in grass-fed dairy compared to grain-fed. Yet another reason why I proclaim that most “experts” and dieticians out there telling you to choose skim or low-fat versions of yogurt, cheeses, or kefir are dead wrong. Enough with the fat-phobia! As we’re seeing, full-fat dairy can be healthier and taste better too!

Dairy Fat Super-Nutrient #3: Omega-3 Fats

I don’t think we need to go into great detail on this one, as most people are aware that omega-3 fatty acids are very important for heart health and almost every aspect of health related to inflammation with more benefits to your body than I could even list here.

And it’s no secret that pasture-raised dairy fat is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids. Just keep in mind that pasture raised dairy fat contains a MUCH better ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats than does conventional grain-fed dairy fat.

Most people already consume FAR too much omega-6 fats, and need to raise their levels of omega-3 fats. Grass-fed dairy fats can certainly help with that goal, just like fish oils do!

With everything in this article being about the health benefits of these 3 super-nutrients found in grass-fed dairy fats, are grain-fed dairy fats actually bad for you? Well, the way I see it is that the fats in grain-fed dairy are “neutral”, meaning I don’t believe they are terrible for you like hydrogenated oils are bad for you, but I wouldn’t call grain-fed dairy fats beneficial either.

Just be aware that pesticides and other harmful chemicals can accumulate in the fat portion of dairy, so if you choose to use grain-fed dairy, choosing organic is very important. On the other hand, if it’s grass-fed dairy you’re eating, it’s less important that it’s also labeled as organic since the cows will naturally be exposed to less chemicals in a pasture-raised environment.

Before we finish this article, let me also summarize my opinion of healthy vs unhealthy dairy products, since I know there’s so much confusion and misinformation about dairy out there…

Healthy Forms of Dairy with Super-Nutrients that Protect Your Health:
•Pasture-raised cream (aka, grass-fed)
•Pasture-raised butter
•Cheeses made from pasture-raised milk (European cheeses are generally grass-fed)
•Yogurt – only unsweetened, plain, or plain greek gets my vote (organic or grass-fed if possible)
•Kefir – fermented (cultured) milk with 2-10x more probiotics than yogurt. Kefir is the healthiest, most digestible form of dairy available and is known to heal many digestive problems (7 – 50 Billion probiotics per cup)
•Lassi – another form of fermented milk, Indian style, and similar to Kefir.

Unhealthy Forms of Dairy:
•Homogenized/pasteurized commercial milk – homogenized milk fat is thought to be harmful to health due to the microscopic fat particles that are formed from the homogenization processing.
•Yogurt that’s loaded with sugar or artificial sweeteners (which is most brands)
•Processed cheeses such as American cheese or cheese spreads

The bottom line…

Full-fat grass-fed dairy is NOT the “dangerous” fat that you’ve been led to believe by the media, the government, and some dieticians. As you can see in this article, there are at least 3 super-nutrients in the fat portion of dairy that are shown to PROTECT you from heart disease, as well as other health benefits.

Oh, and let’s not forget that dairy fat tastes great! I’ll take REAL cream in my coffee any day over fake coffee creamer laden with hydrogenated oil and corn syrup. I’ll take full-fat creamy yogurt over non-fat yogurt any day. I’ll enjoy a good full-fat aged cheese instead of some silly fat-free processed cheese any day too, knowing that the full-fat aged cheese actually does a body good.

I personally choose to cook with butter frequently (mixed with coconut oil many times), and I enjoy full-fat grass-fed cream whenever I drink coffee (Organic Valley has a good pasture-raised cream). I also drink full-fat Greek style Kefir most days of the week, and I enjoy all of these foods not just for their great taste, but also knowing that they only HELP protect my health.

And this daily ration of dairy fat is certainly not adding any body fat to my frame… I’m still as lean as ever. As you now know, the CLA in grass-fed dairy fat actually aids fat loss, and the healthy fats overall can help to reduce cravings, control appetite, and balance your hormones. So let’s all please stop being afraid of dairy fat, as long as you avoid that homogenized milk!

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Petition to get GMOs out of girl scout cookies goes viral For more than 100 years, the profits generated by their sale have helped make it possible for young girls all across the country to develop valuable life skills and make their communities better places. But today’s Girl Scout cookies are loaded with health-destroying ingredients like genetically-modified (GM) beet sugar, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and transgenic soy derivatives, and one young girl scout from California has had enough. After discovering that Girl Scout cookies contained all sorts of processed, GMO-laden ingredients, young Alicia Serratos from Orange County asked her mother why the cookies could not simply be reformulated with non-GMO ingredients. Not knowing the answer, Alicia’s mother initially thought of simply writing the Girl Scouts organization a letter asking it to remove the GMOs, but eventually decided that a Change.org petition might be more successful. So the two created one together, entitling it “Girl Scouts: Please make cookies with GMOs,” which quickly went viral gaining thousands of signatures from eager supporters. As of this writing, Alicia’s Change.org petition has 6,000 signatures and counting, and many more concerned Girl Scouts and their parents are signing on to the effort every single day. “GMO studies (in animals) have linked them to infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system,” states the petition. Girl Scouts organization claims GMOs are safe On its frequently asked questions (FAQ) page, the Girl Scouts organization admits that its cookies contain GMOs, stating the following: “Our bakers determine whether to use genetically modified agricultural crops (GMOs) in Girl Scout Cookies based on a range of market-related factors.” The organization goes on to claim that it “feel[s] confident in the safety of all the ingredients in Girl Scout Cookies, including GMO ingredients.” Apparently the Girl Scouts organization is unaware of the many recent studies showing the dangers of GMOs, including the widely-circulated review out of Europe showing that GMOs and the pesticides used to produce them can cause severe cancer tumors and early death. Surely those in charge of the Girl Scouts do not intend for their cookies to harm customers, but their insistence upon the alleged safety of GMOs without evidence is deeply concerning. And though a Change.org petition is not necessarily the most prudent way to spark real change at the Girl Scouts, it is, at the very least, a spark that will help raise awareness about this important issue, as millions of Americans purchase Girl Scout cookies every year. So to help this process along, we are encouraging our readers to check out the petition and sign it if they are in agreement: http://www.change.org Another powerful way to send a clear message to the Girl Scouts about their use of GMOs is to simply stop buying Girl Scout cookies. As tough as it might be to resist those enticing Thin Mints and Samoas as you walk out of the drug store or supermarket, especially with all those cute smiles wooing for your support, refusing to purchase Girl Scout cookies until the company reformulates a healthier, GMO-free product line is arguably the best way to promote change by voting with your wallet. You can also contact the Girl Scouts directly and ask the organization to reformulate its cookies without GMOs, and without toxic ingredients like HFCS, hydrogenated oils, and processed soy: http://www.girlscouts.org/contact/email.asp So as not to punish the actual Girl Scouts, since they are not the ones responsible for adding GMOs to the cookies they sell, you can support them in other ways such as purchasing magazine subscriptions through their Magazine Program: http://girlscouts.qsp.com/Magazines.aspx You can also offer a donation directly to the Girl Scouts without purchasing their cookies: http://www.girlscouts.org/support/ Sources for this article include: http://www.change.org http://gmoinside.org http://www.naturalnews.com If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

A growing number of organic consumers, natural health advocates and climate hawks are taking a more comprehensive look at the fundamental causes of global warming.

It has led them to this sobering conclusion: Our modern energy-, chemical- and GMO-intensive industrial food and farming systems are the major cause of man-made global warming.

How did they reach this conclusion? First, by taking a more inclusive look at the scientific data on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – not just carbon dioxide (CO2), but also methane and nitrous oxide.

Next, by doing a full accounting of the fossil fuel consumption and emissions of the entire industrial food and farming cycle, including inputs, equipment, production, processing, distribution, heating, cooling and waste. And finally, by factoring in the indirect impacts of contemporary agriculture, which include deforestation and wetlands destruction.

When you add it all up, the picture is clear: Contemporary agriculture is burning up our planet, and factory farms or, in industry lingo, Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), play a key role in this impending disaster.

The Global Impact of Factory Farming

The science behind global warming is complex. Without question, coal plants, tar sands and natural gas fracking have contributed heavily to greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, the major cause of global warming. We must unite to shut down these industries.

Similarly, consumer overconsumption of fossil fuels represents another big piece of the climate-crisis equation. We absolutely must rethink, retrofit and/or redesign our gas-guzzling cars and our energy-inefficient buildings, if we want to reduce fossil fuel use by 90 percent over the next few decades.

But we also must address the environmental impact of factory farming.

Today, nearly 65 billion animals worldwide, including cows, chickens and pigs, are crammed into CAFOs. These animals are literally imprisoned and tortured in unhealthy, unsanitary and unconscionably cruel conditions.

Sickness is the norm for animals who are confined rather than pastured, and who eat genetically engineered (GE) corn and soybeans, rather than grass and forage as nature intended.

To prevent the inevitable spread of disease from stress, overcrowding and lack of vitamin D, animals are fed a steady diet of antibiotics. Those antibiotics pose a direct threat to the environment when they run off into our lakes, rivers, aquifers and drinking water.

How Factory Farms Affect Global Climate

CAFOs contribute directly to global warming by releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – more than the entire global transportation industry. The air at some factory farm test sites in the US is dirtier than in America’s most polluted cities.

According to a 2006 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, including 37 percent of methane emissions and 65 percent of nitrous oxide emissions.

The methane releases from billions of imprisoned animals on factory farms are 70 times more damaging per ton to the earth’s atmosphere than CO2.

Indirectly, factory farms contribute to climate disruption by their impact on deforestation and draining of wetlands, and because of the nitrous oxide emissions from huge amounts of nitrate fertilizers used to grow the genetically engineered corn and soy fed to animals raised in CAFOs.

Nitrous oxide pollution is even worse than methane – 200 times more damaging per ton than CO2. And just as animal waste leaches antibiotics and hormones into ground and water, pesticides and fertilizers also eventually find their way into our waterways, further damaging the environment.

CAFOs — A Major Contributor to Poor Health

Factory farms aren’t just a disaster for the environment. They’re also ruining our health. A growing chorus of scientists and public health advocates warn that the intensive and reckless use of antibiotics and growth hormones leads to factory-farmed food1 that contains antibiotic-resistant pathogens, drug residues such as hormones and growth promoters, and “bad fats.”

Yet despite these health and environmental hazards, the vast majority of consumers don’t realize that nearly 95 percent of the meat, dairy and eggs sold in the U.S. come from CAFOs. Nor do most people realize that CAFOs represent a corporate-controlled system characterized by large-scale, centralized, low profit-margin production, processing and distribution systems.

There’s an alternative: A socially responsible, small-scale system created by independent producers and processors focused on local and regional markets. This alternative produces high-quality food, and supports farmers who produce healthy, meat, eggs and dairy products using humane methods. And it’s far easier on the environment.

Why We Need to Label Factory-Farmed Food

Consumers can boycott food products from factory farms and choose the more environmentally-friendly alternatives. But first, we have to regain the right to know what’s in our food. And that means mandatory labeling, not only of genetically engineered foods, but of the 95 percent of non-organic, non-grass-fed meat, dairy and eggs that are produced on the hellish factory farms that today dominate US food production.

In 2013, a new alliance of organic and natural health consumers, animal welfare advocates, anti-GMO and climate-change activists will tackle the next big food labeling battle: meat, eggs and dairy products from animals raised on factory farms, or CAFOs.

This campaign will start with a massive program to educate consumers about the negative impacts of factory farming on the environment, on human health and on animal welfare, and then move forward to organize and mobilize millions of consumers to demand labels on beef, pork, poultry and dairy products derived from these unhealthy and unsustainable so-called “farming” practices.

Opponents and skeptics will ask, “What about feeding the world?” Contrary to popular arguments, factory farming is not a cheap, efficient solution to world hunger. Feeding huge numbers of confined animals actually uses more food, in the form of grains that could feed humans, than it produces. For every 100 food calories of edible crops fed to livestock, we get back just 30 calories in the form of meat and dairy. That’s a 70-percent loss.

With the earth’s population predicted to reach nine billion by mid-century, the planet can no longer afford this reckless, unhealthy and environmentally disastrous farming system. We believe that once people know the whole truth about CAFOs they will want to make healthier, more sustainable food choices. And to do that, we’ll have to fight for the consumer’s right to know not only what is in our food, but where our food comes from.

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. As stated on LabelitWA.org:

“Calorie and nutritional information were not always required on food labels. But since 1990 it has been required and most consumers use this information every day. Country-of-origin labeling wasn’t required until 2002. The trans fat content of foods didn’t have to be labeled until 2006. Now, all of these labeling requirements are accepted as important for consumers. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also says we must know with labeling if our orange juice is from fresh oranges or frozen concentrate.

Doesn’t it make sense that genetically engineered foods containing experimental viral, bacterial, insect, plant or animal genes should be labeled, too? Genetically engineered foods do not have to be tested for safety before entering the market. No long-term human feeding studies have been done. The research we have is raising serious questions about the impact to human health and the environment.

I-522 provides the transparency people deserve. I-522 will not raise costs to consumers or food producers. It simply would add more information to food labels, which manufacturers change routinely anyway, all the time. I-522 does not impose any significant cost on our state. It does not require the state to conduct label surveillance, or to initiate or pursue enforcement. The state may choose to do so, as a policy choice, but I-522 was written to avoid raising costs to the state or consumers.”

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, regardless of what state you live in.
•No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.
•If you live in Washington State, please sign the I-522 petition. You can also volunteer to help gather signatures across the state.
•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

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Big Dairy Petitions FDA to Allow Unlabeled Use of Aspartame in Dairy Products

The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) have filed a petition with the FDA1 requesting the agency “amend the standard of identity” for milk and 17 other dairy products. This was done to provide for the use of any safe and suitable sweetener as an optional ingredient — including non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame to deceive you by not having to indicate its use on the label.

It’s a move that could endanger your health for decades to come, and disproportionally harm underprivileged children who rely on school lunches for the bulk of their nutrition.

If the amendment goes through, that would mean anytime you see the word “milk” on the label, it could include aspartame, sucralose, or any other dangerous artificial sweetener, but you could never be quite sure, since there will be no mention of it — not by listing the artificial sweetener used, nor with a no- or low-calorie type label, which is a tip-off that the product might contain a non-nutritive sweetener.

The IDFA and NMPF claim the proposed amendments would “promote more healthful eating practices and reduce childhood obesity by providing for lower-calorie flavored milk products” since many children are more inclined to drink flavored milk products than unflavored milk.

According to the Federal Register:

“[T]he proposed amendments would assist in meeting several initiatives aimed at improving the nutrition and health profile of food served in the nation’s schools. Those initiatives include state-level programs designed to limit the quantity of sugar served to children during the school day.”

As if that’s not nonsensical enough, the IDFA and NMPF argue that the proposed amendments would “promote honesty and fair dealing in the marketplace.” How could altering the definition of “milk” to include unidentified artificial sweeteners possibly promote honesty or fair dealing in the marketplace, you might ask? Read on…

When One Lie + Another Lie = ‘Honesty’

According to the IDFA and NMPF, nutrient content claims such as “reduced calorie” are not attractive to children and have led to an overall decline in milk consumption in schools. Essentially, as with the GMO labeling issue, they don’t want you or your child to be “confused” or perhaps “scared away” by truthful labeling…

The IDFA and NMPF actually maintain that “consumers can more easily identify the overall nutritional value of milk products that are flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners if the labels do not include such claims.”

They also state that consumers generally don’t recognize milk — including flavored milk — as necessarily containing sugar. Therefore, since you don’t realize that flavored milk might contain added sugar, sweetening the product with non-nutritive artificial sweeteners, while listing it as simply “milk” on the label, will make it easier for you to identify its overall nutritional value.

Get it? If not, you’re not alone.

In order to understand this twisted logic, you need to know that the FDA already allows the dairy industry to use the unmodified “milk” label for products that contain added sugar or high fructose corn syrup.2

Artificial sweeteners are allowed to be added, but must currently be listed on the label. Quoting Section 130.10 of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, the IDFA and NMPF claim no extra labeling is required for artificial sweeteners because sugar is added to milk without labeling it, and “the modified food is not inferior in performance,” and “reduced calories are not attractive to children.”

Therefore marketing products as such is neither of benefit or detriment to anyone… Knowing that nutritive sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup can be added without being listed as an ingredient, is it any wonder that people generally “don’t recognize” these products contain added sugar?

Going along with their twisted reasoning, since they don’t have to tell you there’s HFCS in that flavored milk or yoghurt — which leaves you ignorant of the fact that it’s there — it might “confuse” you were they to tell you another version contains an artificial sweetener. It also puts those products at a market disadvantage, since the HFCS-containing products don’t have to list it — the HFCS is simply hidden as part of the “milk” designation.

Hence, hiding ALL added sweeteners from you would “promote honesty” and “fair dealing in the marketplace.” Not only is this a perfect example of how you may be consuming hidden fructose in your diet, even if you are an avid label reader… it’s also a valuable lesson in just how little you’re allowed to know about the foods you buy.

Which Products Would Be Affected?

The petition also requests the FDA similarly amend the standards of identity for 17 other milk and cream products, to allow the use of any safe and suitable sweetener in the optional ingredients, without specifying the type of sweetener used on the label:

Acidified milk

Cultured milk

Sweetened condensed milk

Nonfat dairy milk

Nonfat dry milk fortified with vitamins A and D

Evaporated milk

Dry cream

Heavy cream

Light cream

Sour cream, and acidified sour cream

Light whipping cream

Eggnog

Half-and-half

Yoghurt

Lowfat yoghurt

Nonfat yoghurt

What Prompted the Request to Alter Standard of Identity of Milk?

Many are surely scratching their heads wondering WHY anyone would want to alter the definition of milk. One potential clue — besides sheer unbridled greed on behalf of the dairy industry who’d rather not give you the option of choosing — can be found in an April 13, 2011 letter from the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) to Julie Brewer, Chief of the Policy and Program Development Branch of the Child Nutrition Division of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).3

The letter was in response to the USDA’s proposed rule to revise the meal patterns and nutrition requirements for the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. One of the proposed changes was to limit flavored milk products to fat-free versions only — a change the NMPF claimed would have a negative impact on the goal of increasing overall milk consumption. The letter reads in part:

“The proposed rule will not be a success if milk consumption drops as a result of flavored milk choices that are not appealing (or at least not as appealing as competitive beverages students may bring to school from elsewhere). Flavored milk was included as an option in the proposed rule in recognition that the small amount of added sugar (flavored milk contributes only 2-3% of added sugars to the diets of children and adolescents) is an acceptable trade-off for the extensive nutrient contribution flavored milk provides.

Therefore, NMPF urges the Department to modify the proposed rule to include both low-fat and fat-free flavored milk as options available to schools. To limit the potential for additional calories in a low-fat flavored milk (as compared to a fat-free formulation) we urge the establishment of a calorie limit on flavored milk of 150 calories per eight-ounce serving.

This will provide schools the flexibility to procure milk products that maintain high levels of acceptability and nutrient intake, while also assuring that flavored milk fits within overall calorie limits for meals. Many milk processors have proactively committed to and met a goal of 150 calories per serving as a way to limit the amount of sugar in flavored milk, and have worked within this constraint to formulate products that have demonstrated acceptability among students in schools across the country.”

In essence, it has little to do with making your purchasing decisions easier, and more to do with:
•Fooling your kids into drinking otherwise unpopular fat free or low fat milk, and
•Allowing the national school breakfast and lunch programs to “look good” by successfully reducing overall calories of the meals while simultaneously helping the dairy industry protect profits

I’m not sure what’s more frustrating here, the fact that the USDA insists on using the flawed theory of calories as a measure of the “healthfulness” of school meals; their misguided insistence on fat free and low fat products to combat obesity; or their ignorant stance on artificial sweeteners.

When combined, what you end up with is a nutritional nightmare. How can anyone believe a fat free, hormone-laced pasteurized milk-like product from cows raised on genetically engineered corn, flavored with artificial flavors, colors and chemical sweeteners might actually do a growing body good? The nutritional illiteracy within these agencies is staggering… yet they’re responsible for making decisions that affect over 30 million school children across the US on a daily basis.

Take Action NOW! Let the FDA Know What You Think of the Proposed Rule

The FDA is currently accepting public comments on this petition. You have until May 21st, 2013 to submit your comments, and I urge you to do so right away. You can submit your comments electronically or via regular mail. For instructions, please see the following link to the Federal Register.

Milk Use Guidelines

While we are on topic of milk I would also like to add my latest recommendations. As always of course, the only acceptable dairy products would be raw unpasteurized organic varieties. Raw is more important than organic so don’t be fooled. Although raw milk is only available commercially in a few states in the US, nearly everyone can get it by going to RealMilk.com.

You should only drink whole milk; the lower the fat content the more processed and less wholesome it is. It is also probably wise for most adults, especially if they are overweight, have diabetes, hypertension, or high cholesterol to limit drinking milk because of the sugar (lactose) content. For those, fermented dairy like cheese and homemade yogurts are a better choice.

Aspartame — A Trojan Horse that Can Wreck Your Health

Aspartame is primarily made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. The phenylalanine has been synthetically modified to carry a methyl group, which provides the majority of the sweetness. That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a methyl ester, is very weak, which allows the methyl group on the phenylalanine to easily break off and form methanol.

You may have heard the claim that aspartame is harmless because methanol is also found in fruits and vegetables. However, in fruits and vegetables, the methanol is firmly bonded to pectin, allowing it to be safely passed through your digestive tract. Not so with the methanol created by aspartame; there it’s not bonded to anything that can help eliminate it from your body.

Methanol acts as a Trojan horse; it’s carried into susceptible tissues in your body, like your brain and bone marrow, where the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzyme converts it into formaldehyde, which wreaks havoc with sensitive proteins and DNA. All animals EXCEPT HUMANS have a protective mechanism that allows methanol to be broken down into harmless formic acid. This is why toxicology testing on animals is a flawed model. It doesn’t fully apply to people.

There IS an Obvious Biological Explanation for Aspartame Reactions…

The industry is fond of claiming that there’s “no biological explanation” for the health problems reported by so many after consuming aspartame. Of course this is meant to make you think such reports aren’t true, or are unrelated to aspartame. Alas, there is in fact an obvious biological explanation according to Dr. Monte:

“‘Here is the story: there is a major biochemical problem here,’ he says. ‘Methyl alcohol is known now, and has been known since 1940, to be metabolized differently by humans from every other animal.'”

Here’s how it works: Both animals and humans have small structures called peroxisomes in each cell. There are a couple of hundred in every cell of your body, which are designed to detoxify a variety of chemicals. Peroxisome contains catalase, which help detoxify methanol. Other chemicals in the peroxisome convert the formaldehyde to formic acid, which is harmless, but this last step occurs only in animals. When methanol enters the peroxisome of every animal except humans, it gets into that mechanism. Humans do have the same number of peroxisomes in comparable cells as animals, but human peroxisomes cannot convert the toxic formaldehyde into harmless formic acid.

So to recap: In humans, the methyl alcohol travels through your blood vessels into sensitive areas, such as your brain, that are loaded with ADH, which converts methanol to formaldehyde. And since there’s no catalase present, the formaldehyde is free to cause enormous damage in your tissues.

Download Interview Transcript

Symptoms from methanol poisoning are many, and include headaches, ear buzzing, dizziness, nausea, gastrointestinal disturbances, weakness, vertigo, chills, memory lapses, numbness and shooting pains in the extremities, behavioral disturbances, and neuritis. The most well known problems from methanol poisoning are vision problems including misty vision, progressive contraction of visual fields, blurring of vision, obscuration of vision, retinal damage, and blindness. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen that causes retinal damage, interferes with DNA replication and may cause birth defects.

A Historical Timeline of Aspartame

Aspartame is the number one source of side-effect complaints to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with over 10,000 complaints filed and over 91 symptoms documented that are related to its consumption. With that many reports of adverse effects, it’s hard to believe aspartame is still allowed on the market — let alone being weaseled in as an unlabeled ingredient in dairy products of all kinds.

Unfortunately, aspartame’s approval was and still is largely a political affair. Many readers have long forgotten what 60-Minutes’ correspondent Mike Wallace stated in his 1996 report on aspartame — that the approval of aspartame was “the most contested in FDA history.” And for good reason. At the time, independent studies had found it caused brain cancer in lab animals, and the studies submitted by G.D. Searle to the FDA for the approval were quickly suspected of being sloppy at best.

To get an idea of of how aspartame made it through the FDA approval process despite warning signs of potential health hazards and alleged scientific fraud, take a look at the historical timeline of aspartame:

The Most Dangerous Food Additive on the Market: Are You Being Affected?

Unfortunately, aspartame toxicity is not well known by physicians, despite its frequency. Diagnosis is also hampered by the fact that it mimics several other common health conditions. It’s quite possible that you could be having a reaction to artificial sweeteners and not even know it, or be blaming it on another cause. To determine if you’re having a reaction to artificial sweeteners, take the following steps:
•Eliminate all artificial sweeteners from your diet for two weeks.
•After two weeks of being artificial sweetener-free, reintroduce your artificial sweetener of choice in a significant quantity (about three servings daily).
•Avoid other artificial sweeteners during this period.
•Do this for one to three days and notice how you feel, especially as compared to when you were consuming no artificial sweeteners.
•If you don’t notice a difference in how you feel after re-introducing your primary artificial sweetener for a few days, it’s a safe bet you’re able to tolerate it acutely, meaning your body doesn’t have an immediate, adverse response. However, this doesn’t mean your health won’t be damaged in the long run.
•If you’ve been consuming more than one type of artificial sweetener, you can repeat steps 2 through 4 with the next one on your list.

If you do experience side effects from aspartame, please report them to the FDA (if you live in the United States) without delay. It’s easy to make a report — just go to the FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator page, find the phone number for your state, and make a call reporting your reaction.

Will You Allow the Industry to Poison Dairy with Aspartame?

Again, if this proposed amendment goes through, anytime you see the “milk” on the label, it could include any variety of artificial sweeteners. Who knows where it might end. Imagine if it goes further, and any processed food containing “milk” becomes permitted to include artificial sweeteners without listing them… This is a slippery slope I believe can only end in destruction of health.

The FDA is currently accepting public comments on this petition. You have until May 21st, 2013 to submit your comments, and I urge you to do so right away. You can submit your comments electronically or via regular mail. For instructions, please see the following link to the Federal Register.

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

If you’re like the average American, you waste more than 20 pounds of food every month. This is because 40 percent of the food in the US goes uneaten1 – that’s almost half.

While some of this food is lost during production and processing (such as produce that goes bad before it’s harvested), a significant amount is wasted in people’s homes simply because it goes bad before it’s eaten.

Wasted Food Costs US Families Thousands of Dollars a Year…

Not only does this amount to more than $2,000 in annual losses for the average US household of four, but all of that wasted food uses up precious stores of freshwater – about 25 percent of freshwater use is wasted on food that’s not even eaten!

Plus, this “throw-away” food takes up land space to grow it (which is then doused with chemicals) and generates increased methane gas emissions in landfills when it sits and starts rotting… it’s a massive unnecessary waste on all fronts.

Of course, you probably don’t set out to waste food. But if you purchase fresh produce in larger quantities — a must if you like to eat healthily but don’t have time to run to the market every day — it can be difficult to use it up before it goes bad.

Not surprisingly, these types of healthy fresh foods are the foods most likely to be wasted. For instance, more fruits and vegetables are wasted in the U.S. food system than are actually consumed (52% are wasted versus 48% consumed).2

The good news is that there are many tricks you can use to extend the “shelf-life” of your fresh foods; you don’t need to resign yourself to frozen or canned alternatives!

How to Make Your Groceries Last Longer: 27 Tips

When you invest the time and money into a trip to the grocery store, you want to be sure the foods you purchase last as long as possible. The featured article has compiled more than two-dozen tricks to keep up your sleeve to do just that:

Vegetables
1.Store onions in old pantyhose to keep them fresh for up to eight months (tie a knot in between each one to keep them separate).
2.Chop dry green onions and store them in an empty plastic water bottle. Put the bottle in the freezer and sprinkle out what you need when you’re cooking.
3.When storing potatoes, keep them away from onions (this will make them spoil faster). Storing them with apples will help keep the potatoes from sprouting.
4.Asparagus should be stored in your fridge upright in a glass of water (like cut flowers, cut the asparagus bottoms off first), and covered with a plastic bag.
5.Store salad greens in a bowel covered with plastic wrap, and add a paper towel to help absorb moisture. A salad spinner will also help remove excess moisture — a key culprit in wilting leaves — from your greens.
6.Mushrooms should be stored in a paper bag in a cool dry place, or in the fridge. Avoid storing mushrooms in plastic, as any trapped moisture will cause them to spoil.

Fruits
7.Swirl berries in a mixture of one part vinegar (white or apple cider) to 10 parts water. You won’t taste the vinegar but the solution will help keep your berries from getting moldy and soft.
8.When storing chopped avocado or guacamole, leave the pit in, spritz it with some lemon juice or olive oil, cover with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge. This will help keep it from turning brown.
9.If you spot a rotten apple, remove it right away, as one rotten apple really can spoil the whole bunch.
10.Put plastic wrap around the crown of a bunch of bananas to keep them fresh for days longer (and be sure to store them away from other fruits, as they emit a lot of ethylene gas which accelerates ripening).
11.Store tomatoes at room temperature away from sunlight, in a single layer with the stem side up (don’t put them in plastic bags, which will cause them to spoil faster).

Herbs
12.Store delicate herbs like parsley, basil, cilantro and chives upright in a glass of water (like you would arrange cut flowers) in your fridge. Put a plastic bag over the top and secure it around the glass with a rubber band for optimal freshness.
13.Bunch oily herbs like thyme loosely together, secure them with a string around the base and hang them in your kitchen for storage.
14.Fill an ice cube tray with olive oil, then add chopped herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme or oregano) to each cube. Pop one out when you’re cooking for instant herb-infused oil.
15.Store fresh ginger root in the freezer. You can grate it frozen (peel and all) when cooking.

Dairy and Nuts
16.Rub the cut side of a block of cheese with butter to keep it from drying out.
17.Cheese should be wrapped in cheese paper or wax paper, not plastic wrap, then put in a plastic baggie.
18.Store cheese in the warmest part of your fridge, such as the vegetable or cheese drawer.
19.Nuts can be stored in the freezer to keep them fresh longer. Ideally put them in Mason jars that have the air vacuumed out with a Food Saver and attachment.

Organization, Gadgets and Other Tips
20.Keep milk and other highly perishable items on the middle shelf in your fridge, NOT in the door where temperatures fluctuate.
21.Avoid mixing produce and meats in the same drawer, as cross contamination can lead to food waste.
22.Avoid over-stocking your fridge, as a crowded fridge will keep air from circulating properly leading to warm spots that can cause spoilage.
23.Avoid chopping up your fruits, veggies and meats before storage, as this will make them spoil faster.
24.Glass mason jars make a great food-storage option, and you can seal them with an automatic vacuum sealer like Food Saver for even more freshness.
25.Remove spoiled food from your fridge promptly to keep mold from transferring to fresh food.
26.Get an ethylene gas absorber for your fridge; they’re available online and can keep your produce fresh up to three times longer than normal. There are many types of bags that can do this. They are typically called “green bags.” One example would be Debbie Meyer Green Bags.
27.A gadget called the Herb Savor, which has a well for water and a plastic cover to keep herbs fresh, claims to make herbs last for up to three weeks.

Vacuum Packing: One of My Favorite Food-Storage Tips

One of my all-time favorite tricks, which works for most produce, is to create a “vacuum pack” to help protect it from oxygen and airborne microbes that will accelerate its decay. Leave the produce in the bag it came in from the grocery store, place it against your chest and use your arm to squeeze the excess air out of the bag.
Once the air is removed you can seal it with a twist tie and thus minimize exposure to oxygen. This simple technique can easily double or triple the normal shelf life of your vegetables by keeping air away from them. Alternatively, you can use an automatic vacuum sealer, like the FoodSaver available on Amazon, to do this automatically and create an even tighter, airtight seal.

However, I nearly always store my food in quart or pint glass Ball jars. The FoodSaver brand also has a wide-mouth jar sealer attachment, which is ideal for sealing your leftovers, fermented veggies, sauces and other liquids stored in a wide-mouth jar, and can keep your food fresh up to five times longer. I regularly use it for extending the life of my vegetable juice and making my juicing more efficient so I don’t have to juice every day.

Food Loss and Waste is a Global Problem

Curbing food loss and waste is something that should be a priority on both global food system and individual (consumption and behavioral) levels. As the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations reported:3

“In developing countries the problem is chiefly one of inadequate harvest techniques, poor post-harvest management and logistics, lack of suitable infrastructure, processing and packaging, and lack of marketing information which would allow production to better match demand. The advice is therefore to strengthen the food supply chain by assisting small farmers to link directly to buyers. The private and public sectors should also invest more in infrastructure, transportation and in processing and packaging.

In middle- and high-income countries food losses and waste stem largely from consumer behavior but also from lack of communication between different actors in the supply chain.

At retail level, large quantities of food are also wasted due to quality standards that over-emphasize appearance. Surveys show that consumers are willing to buy produce not meeting appearance standards as long as it is safe and tastes good. Customers thus have the power to influence quality standards and should do so, the report said.

Selling farm produce closer to consumers, without having to conform to supermarkets’ quality standards, is another suggestion. This could be achieved through farmers’ markets and farm shops. Good use for food that would otherwise be thrown away should be found. Commercial and charity organizations could work with retailers to collect, and then sell or use products that have been disposed of but are still good in terms of safety, taste and nutritional value.”

Planning Your Meals Can Cut Down on Food Waste in Your Home

The FAO report found that people in rich countries generally buy more food than they need, then end up throwing away the excess. They noted that “generally speaking, consumers fail to plan their food purchases properly … that means they often throw food away when ‘best-before’ dates expired.” I’ve long stated that planning your meals is important for a number of reasons, one of which is reducing the amount of food that will go to waste, since you’ll only buy what you need each time you visit the store, and you’ll have a plan in place to use it all up once you get home.

I also recommend buying your food locally, preferably from a small organic farming operation you can visit and inspect for yourself. This guarantees that you get the freshest foods right from the start, giving you a few extra days of leeway before they spoil.

Finally, for the packaged foods you do buy, they are often good beyond their expiration date. Unbeknownst to many, “best by” dates on many food packages are typically a measure of peak quality, not an indication of food safety. Typically, it is still safe to eat a food after the “best by” or “best before” date (the exception is infant formula, which has safety-based “use by” dates).

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Lycopene is a vital anti-oxidant that has been shown to have potent anti-cancerous activity. This compound is not naturally produced in your body, so it must be supplied via your diet.

Tomatoes, which are actually a fruit and not a vegetable, contain a number of valuable nutrients, and according to recent research, organically-grown tomatoes are even more nutritious than their conventionally-grown counterparts.

One of the most well-known nutrients in tomatoes is lycopene — the compound that gives tomato its deep red color.

Lycopene is a vital anti-oxidant that has been shown to have potent anti-cancerous activity. This compound is not naturally produced in your body, so it must be supplied via your diet.

Other fruits and vegetables also contain lycopene, but none has the high concentration of lycopene that the tomato boasts.

Interestingly, when cooked, the bioavailability of lycopene increases rather than decreases, as is the case with many other raw foods, as heat has a tendency to destroy valuable nutrients.

That said, you’re best off avoiding canned tomatoes and tomato sauces as can liners tend to contain potent estrogen mimics such as bisphenol A (BPA), which is also a toxic endocrine disrupting chemical. Your best bet is to make your own organic tomato sauce from scratch, or buy organic sauce sold in glass jars.

Organic Tomatoes have 139 Percent Higher Phenolic Content, Study Shows

It seems perfectly sensible that food grown in healthier soil with natural fertilizers and no synthetic agricultural chemicals would be more nutritious. This is common knowledge among farmers, yet this age-old, common sense wisdom is greatly suppressed in the United States in order to protect the large-scale industrial farming model.

According to a recent study published in the journal PLOS One,1 growing tomatoes according to organic standards results in dramatically elevated phenols content, compared to tomatoes grown conventionally, using agricultural chemicals.

The researchers compared total phenol content in organic and conventional tomatoes grown in nearby plots in Brazil. This allowed for a more accurate comparison of the tomatoes, as both varieties were grown in similar soil- and climate conditions that might otherwise affect nutrient content.

According to the authors:

“This study was conducted with the objective of testing the hypothesis that tomato fruits from organic farming accumulate more nutritional compounds, such as phenolics and vitamin C as a consequence of the stressing conditions associated with farming system.”

The organic tomatoes were found to contain 55 percent more vitamin C, and 139 percent more total phenolic content at the stage of commercial maturity, compared to the conventionally-grown tomatoes. According to the authors:

“[T]his seems consistent with the more than two times higher activity of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) we observed throughout fruit development in fruits from organic farming.

Taken together, our observations suggest that tomato fruits from organic farming experienced stressing conditions that resulted in oxidative stress and the accumulation of higher concentrations of soluble solids as sugars and other compounds contributing to fruit nutritional quality such as vitamin C and phenolic compounds.”

Today’s Vegetables Aren’t as Nutritious as They Used to Be…

There was a trade-off, and that was size. The conventional tomatoes were significantly larger. However, while many unaware consumers equate size with quality, this simply isn’t the case. At least in the case of organic tomatoes, you get more even though it’s in a smaller “package.”

This does tend to hold true for other organic produce as well though. According to research published in 2009, American produce, while larger than ever before, contains fewer nutrients and tastes worse than it did in your grandparents’ days.

In fact, the average vegetable found in today’s supermarket is anywhere from 5 percent to 40 percent lower in minerals such as magnesium, iron, calcium and zinc than those harvested just 50 years ago. As the featured study suggests, jumbo-sized produce contains more “dry matter” than anything else, which dilutes mineral concentrations.

Other Studies Have Also Shown Organic Fruits and Veggies Are More Nutritious

Previous research has also shown there can be a nutritional difference between organic- and conventionally-grown vegetables. For example, a 2003 study in the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry2 found that organic foods are better for fighting cancer. And in 2005, scientists found that, compared to rats that ate conventional diets, organically fed rats experienced various health benefits. Rats that ate organic or minimally fertilized diets had:
•Improved immune system status
•Better sleeping habits
•Less weight and were slimmer than rats fed other diets
•Higher vitamin E content in their blood (for organically fed rats)

Other studies assessing the nutritional composition and difference between organic and conventional produce include:
•A 2010 study conducted by PloS ONE3 (partially funded by the USDA), which found organic strawberries to be more nutrient-rich than non-organic strawberries
•In 2009, the American Association for the Advancement of Science featured a presentation on soil health and its impact on food quality.4, 5 Conclusion: Healthy soil leads to higher levels of nutrients in crops
•Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted their own behavioral study that found higher risk of ADHD in children with higher levels of organophospates (pesticides)6

But perhaps one of the best studies out there on the benefits of organic versus conventionally-grown foods is the 2007 Quality Low Input Food Project7 — a $25-million study into organic food, and the largest of its kind. The researchers grew fruit and vegetables, and raised cattle, on adjacent organic and non-organic sites, and discovered that:
•Organic fruit and vegetables contain up to 40 percent more antioxidants
•Organic produce had higher levels of beneficial minerals like iron and zinc
•Milk from organic herds contained up to 90 percent more antioxidants

The results were so impressive they stated that eating organic foods can even help to increase the nutrient intake of people who don’t eat the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Besides the potential for improved nutrition, other reasons for choosing organic, and ideally locally-grown food include better food quality, better taste and, in the case of local food: increased freshness since the food has not traveled over thousands of miles.

Another Important Boon of Organic = Reduced Toxic Load

Many “health” experts insist there is little difference between organic and conventionally raised produce, but their arguments are flimsy at best. For example, a 2012 meta-analysis by Stanford University8 received widespread media coverage, and with few exceptions, conventional media outlets used it to cast doubt on the value of an organic diet. You had to be a reader of alternative media to get the real scoop on this study…

In a nutshell, the meta-analysis, which looked at 240 reports comparing organically and conventionally grown food (including 17 human studies), found that organic foods ARE safer, and probably healthier than conventional foods — if you are of the conviction that ingesting fewer toxins is healthier and safer for you. Interestingly, the Stanford study also found that organic foods tend to have higher levels of phenols, specifically.

While I believe organic foods grown in healthy soils can be more nutritious than their conventional counterparts grown in depleted soils with synthetic chemicals, a major benefit of organically grown foods really is the reduction in your toxic load. Agricultural chemicals, such as synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, can cause a wide variety of health problems, including:
•Neurotoxicity
•Disruption of your endocrine system
•Cancer
•Immune system suppression
•Male infertility and miscarriages in women

The Health Benefits of Tomatoes

Tomatoes are rich in flavonoids and other phytochemicals that have anticarcinogenic properties. They’re also an excellent source of lutein, zeaxanthin, vitamin C, which is most concentrated in the jelly-like substance that surrounds the seeds, as well as vitamins A, E and B-complex vitamins, potassium, manganese and phosphorus. Other lesser known phytonutrients found in tomatoes include:
•Flavonols: rutin, kaempferol, quercetin
•Flavonones: naringenin, chalconaringenin
•Hydroxycinnamic acids: caffeic acid, ferulic acid, coumaric acid
•Glycosides: esculeoside A
•Fatty acid derivatives: 9-oxo-octadecadienoic acid

Getting back to lycopene — a carotenoid antioxidant that gives fruits and vegetables like tomatoes and watermelon a pink or red color — this is one nutrient you’ll want to be sure you’re getting enough of.

Lycopene’s antioxidant activity has long been suggested to be more powerful than other carotenoids such as beta-carotene, and recent research revealed it may significantly reduce your stroke risk (while other antioxidants did not). The 2012 analysis9 followed over 1,000 men in their mid-40s to mid-50s for more than 12 years.

After controlling for other stroke risk factors, such as older age and diabetes, they found that men with the highest blood levels of lycopene were 55 percent less likely to have a stroke than those with the lowest. Other antioxidants, including alpha carotene, beta-carotene, alpha tocopherol (vitamin E) and retinol (vitamin A), showed no such benefit.

The high blood levels of lycopene were said to be a marker for intake of tomatoes and tomato-based products, as these are a particularly concentrated source. It’s estimated that 85 percent of dietary lycopene in North Americans comes from tomato products such as tomato juice or tomato paste.10 In addition to lowering your risk of stroke, lycopene from tomatoes (including unsweetened organic tomato sauce) has also been shown to be helpful in treating prostate cancer.

Tomatoes Must be Eaten with Fat for Proper Absorption, and Two Other Caveats

Lycopene is a fat-soluble nutrient, which means eating it with some dietary fat is essential in order for it to be properly absorbed. So a slow-cooked tomato sauce that contains olive oil or another source of healthy fat, such as grass-fed beef, may be an ideal source.

One caveat: when making your tomato sauce, start out with fresh tomatoes, as canned tomatoes typically have a lining that contains bisphenol-A (BPA) which is a potent estrogen mimic that have been linked to a number of health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, neurological effects, reproductive problems and obesity.

The current US federal guidelines put the daily upper limit of “safe” exposure at 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight. According to endocrinologist Dr. Fredrick vom Saal, a tin can contains around 50 mcg of Bisphenol A (BPA), and when the cans contain acidic food such as tomatoes, it will leach more BPA from the liner into the food. According to Consumer Reports’ testing, just a couple of servings of canned food can exceed the safety limits for daily BPA exposure for children.

So, ideally avoid canned foods entirely and stick to fresh fruits and vegetables, or switch over to brands that use glass containers instead. One other point: if you eat a lot of ketchup, you might want to consider choosing an organic version (as well as one that is unsweetened, as regular ketchup is a common source of sugar and high fructose corn syrup). Organic ketchup has been found to contain 57 percent more lycopene than conventional national brands.11

Cooked Tomatoes May be Better than Raw

Tomatoes differ from many other raw foods in that cooking them may in fact be better than eating them raw. Research shows that cooked tomatoes (such as in tomato sauce or tomato paste) not only increases the lycopene content that can be absorbed by your body, but also increases the total antioxidant activity. In one study,12 when tomatoes were heated to just over 190 degrees F (88 degrees C) for two minutes, 15 minutes and 30 minutes:
•Beneficial trans-lycopene content increased by 54 percent, 171 percent and 164 percent, respectively
•Levels of cis -lycopene (which is a form easily absorbed by your body) rose by 6, 17 and 35 percent, respectively
•Overall antioxidant levels increased by 28, 34 and 62 percent, respectively

Return to ‘the Way Things Were…’

The simplest way back toward health is to focus on whole, organic foods, grown or raised as nature intended. Meaning, it’s grown using sustainable farming practices, and without the use of chemical additives, pesticides and fertilizers. You can even grow your own. Picking the types of seeds can go a long way in helping your garden be plentiful and even determines how juicy or hardy your vegetables are. Heirloom seeds are seeds that have been carefully cultivated to produce the best plants possible; they’re hardy and bountiful. You can find packages containing 26 of the popular heirloom seeds in my Heirloom Variety Seed Collection, available in my online store.

As the featured study attests, fruits and vegetables grown according to organic standards are typically nutritionally superior, but even if they weren’t, organic produce will limit the amount of toxic residues you end up consuming, which is a major benefit in and of itself.
As for tomatoes, they’re one of the most potent sources of lycopene, shown to have anti-cancerous activity and the potential to reduce stroke risk. Just remember to consume your tomatoes, whether raw or cooked, with some type of fat, such as olive oil, since lycopene is a fat-soluble nutrient. Also remember to choose organic varieties, whether whole tomatoes or tomato paste, ketchup or sauce, and avoid anything that comes in a can, since the acidity of the tomatoes will increase toxic BPA release from the liner in the can.

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The Top 20 Food Rules You NEED to Know to be Truly Lean & Healthy

Everything you wanted to know about protein, carbs, calories, probiotics, vitamin D, cooking oils, foods that burn fat, foods that make you fat, foods that can kill you slowly, and much more.

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of best-sellers: The Truth About Six Pack Abs & The Top 101 Foods that FIGHT Aging

This article is one that you’re going to want to bookmark to come back and reference at any time. And you’ll also want to share this page with all your friends and family to help spread what true healthy nutrition is all about. Seriously, there’s more great information about nutrition on this page than a lot of entire books.

I’m going to rattle off a bunch of random important facts (in no particular order) about food and eating healthy that you need to know. I’ll also refer to any of my previously published articles where appropriate, and where a more full explanation might be needed if you want more details on that topic. All references to other articles will open in a new window so that you can stay on this page when you’re done any of the other reference articles.

Before we start this list, let’s establish a big picture view first, before we dive into various smaller topics like specific foods…

The Big Picture View (most people have never thought of food in this way)

Let me give you something to think about, and this is VERY big picture and VERY important… if we took away modern society and plopped you on a deserted island, what is the #1 most important thing in your life at that point? That’s right… FOOD! What will I eat to survive and thrive. At that point, you can forget about careers, technology, video games, television, nightlife, cell phones, and just about every other aspect of modern life… the single most important thing you need to focus on at that point is what to eat.

However, in our modern day, most of us don’t have to think about what to eat at all, and in fact, most people NEVER think about what they put in their mouths… they just eat whatever they see in front of them that they know tastes good, without any thought about whether it’s an appropriate food for humans to eat.

You can call that the “See-Food Diet”… you “see” the food and you eat it.

Isn’t that a major disconnect? Food is quite literally one of the most important things in our daily lives, yet barely anybody thinks about the ramifications of what they eat and how it will affect their health and the quality of their life (until, of course, they lose their health).

Since food is one of the most important things in our lives for our quality of life, don’t you think that it should be a priority as one of the fundamental topics that children learn about throughout school? It should be a priority, but it isn’t. Kids get a thorough education on topics such as Math, History, Science, Languages, etc, but never get more than a couple hours in their entire 12 years in school about the most important thing in our lives…what to eat.

If you think about it, that’s absolutely insane… One of THE single most important aspects of our lives is never really taught to children in school. And parents don’t generally pick up the slack and teach kids nutrition because they were never taught about it either. This is a modern day phenomenon because the abundance of food all around us in modern day life means that we don’t have to think about what’s appropriate to eat.

If you want to be lean and truly healthy, obviously you NEED to think differently than the average person who eats the “SEE-food diet” where they eat without thinking.

There needs to be some simple rules to follow if you want to successfully navigate the current food landscape out there where so many foods are making you fat and sick.

And THAT’s why I wrote this page for you… to simplify and give you some simple food rules to be lean and healthy, yet still ENJOY food.

Food Rules Simplified

Okay, so let’s simplify nutrition a bit here… everyone out there seems confused about what is the best “diet” to be on. People seem to love to always jump from fad diet to fad diet such as low-fat diets, atkins diets, south beach diets, grapefruit diets, detox diets, vegetarian diets, and other sometimes ridiculous diets that most times are based on one person’s opinion or marketing scheme (or personal agenda) rather than based on actual science.

The only “diet” that’s actually based on real science is the study of paleolithic nutrition (aka – paleo diet). But I hate to call it “paleo diet”, because it’s not like any other fad diet, since it’s based on real archaeological nutritional science about what our ancestors ate before the agricultural revolution came around. The idea is simply that for the first 99.5% of our existence (ancestors back as far as 1.9 Million years ago, homo erectus), we only ate wild plants and animals, while for the last 0.5% of our existence (since the agricultural revolution in the last 5,000-10,000 years), humans now almost entirely eat farmed plants and animals. The biggest change this represents is the massive inclusion of grains in our current diet (and what our animals are fed) now compared to our Paleolithic ancestors.

There are lots of other changes this represents too, such as the presence of chemicals in our food supply (pesticides, herbicides, xenoestrogens, etc) that didn’t exist in the ancient diet, as well as the dramatic changes caused by hybridization of many of our foods, which creates versions of fruits and vegetables bred more for size, sweetness, and appearance as opposed to natural nutrition… this aspect has decreased micronutrient content in the modern day food supply (just look at wild blueberries vs cultivated blueberries as an example of that with wild berries coming in at more than DOUBLE the antioxidants from ORAC testing).

Many people think that we don’t know what ancient humans ate… but this is false.

Nutritional archaeologists know pretty convincingly what ancient humans ate as they study a lot of evidence such as ancient fossilized feces remains as well as studying isotope ratios in ancient human bone samples from all over the world through every time period in history to determine ratios of animals vs plants that ancient humans ate — which by the way, was always an omnivorous mixture of plants and animals, and a fairly high protein intake…there was no such thing as ancient paleolithic vegans…any Nutritional Archaelogist can confirm that ancient vegans simply didn’t exist. We were all omnivores that ate different ratios of plants and animals based on what part of the world, what latitude we lived, and the time of the year.

So what exactly did our Paleolithic ancestors eat for the first 99.5% of our existence, representing what we are still programmed to eat? Simple:
•Wild meat, fish, and seafood (animals that ate the right foods, unlike most of our current factory-farmed meats and farmed fish)
•fruits
•veggies
•eggs (various types)
•nuts
•tubers (potatoes, yams)
•seeds

Grains were only a very TINY fraction of the ancient Paleolithic diet as there was no way to process large amounts of grain back in that day into flour, so amounts of wild grain would have been small such as a handful or two of gathered grains added to an occasional soup or stew. As you can see, this is vastly different from the modern human diet that includes grain at almost every meal and in very large quantities in cereals, breads, pasta, muffins, bagels, etc.

One other note… I mention “wild meats” above, and for most people, that’s not realistic since you might not hunt. However, as you’ll see below in my 20 rules, grass-fed free-range meats can have the same health benefits as wild meats, while avoiding the harmful nutritional components that come with factory-farmed grain-fed meats.

So with that big picture explained…let’s get into the details of my top 20 food rules:

Food Rule #1. Not all carbs are bad, but…

Carbohydrates don’t need to be eliminated… they are not inherently “bad” in reasonable quantities. But grains and processed sugars in particular should be minimized. So to make things simple, you will be leaner and healthier if you get most of your carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables instead of grains and processed sugar.

The biggest problem with grains (breads, cereals, pasta, bagels, etc), aside from the abuse to your blood sugar regulation system (pancreas and insulin sensitivity), is that grains typically contain a lot of anti-nutrients which prevent your body from absorbing some minerals, as well as gluten and other substances that cause chronic gut inflammation and even possibly digestive system damage in some cases of severe gluten intolerance.

Please note that potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other tubers have less problems in terms of digestive system inflammation than grains do. Tubers were a more common part of the ancient human diet as a source of carbohydrates than grains ever were. Potatoes and sweet potatoes can be much better tolerated by very active people that have no problem burning off the extra carbohydrates.

What do I personally do? Well, I avoid grains as much as possible, except on 1 cheat day per week. That will always be a meal dining out, so that we’re never tempted with breads and cereals in our house. I eat whole fruits (never juice) and veggies daily, and might have an occasional potato or sweet potato once or twice a week.

I posted a controversial article on the topic of carbs and Paleo nutrition here that’s gotten a lot of attention… please make sure to read that one for my full opinion on Paleo nutrition.

Food Rule #2. Healthy vs deadly protein sources

Focus on quality protein sources such as wild game, wish fish and seafood, grass-fed meats, and free-roaming organically fed eggs, while trying to avoid most farmed meats and farmed fish that were fed mostly grains and kept in unhealthy “factory farm” environments. You can read my article about why grass-fed meats are superior to grain-fed meats here.

Food Rule #3. Your “Omegas” are out of whack

Most people need to be more aware of the omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio of the food they eat.

The ancestral human diet of the Paleolithic era appears that it had a ratio of approximately 1:1 to 2:1 omega-6 fats to omega-3 fats. The current average western diet contains anywhere from 20:1 to 30:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats due to the high consumption of grain and soy-based foods and derivatives like soybean oil and corn oil that is pervasive in the food supply (and don’t forget the corn and soy that’s used as the main animal feed component instead of natural forage). This is a major problem causing massive inflammation in most people, and one of the causes of many degenerative diseases.

In order to balance this out better, you need to AVOID corn oils, soybean oils, cottonseed oils (or anything cooked in these oils), and minimize grain-fed meats and farmed fish that were fed grains. Instead, focus on wild fish, grass-fed meats, grass-fed dairy, free-range eggs, as well as other foods that can help you get more omega-3’s like chia seeds, walnuts, hemp seeds, and fish oil and/or krill oil, which are vitally important sources of DHA and EPA. I personally take both fish oil and krill oil, as the fish oil has a larger quantity of DHA and EPA (and more omega-3 volume overall), while the krill oil has more antioxidant benefits from the astaxanthin and a higher absorption rate than the fish oil.

Take note that animal sources of omega-3 fats are MUCH more powerful to your health than plant sources of omega-3’s like walnuts, chia, and flax. This is because animal sources of omega-3’s already contain DHA and EPA already converted whereas plant sources don’t, and your body is very ineffecient at converting plant sources of omega-3 fats to DHA and EPA.

Food Rule #4. 80,000 species of plants, animals, and fungi?

Aside from processed sugar, if I had to pick 3 of the WORST foods in the average western diet that would be most important to start avoiding, it would be corn, soy, and wheat, and their derivatives such as corn syrup, corn oil, soybean oil, soy protein, etc. Do you want to hear an appalling statistic about what the average person eats… Currently, the average adult eating a typical modern western diet in countries such as the US, Canada, Australia, etc consumes approximately 67% of their total caloric intake from only 3 foods — CORN, SOY, AND WHEAT (and their derivatives).

Keep in mind that ancestral humans have historically eaten over 80,000 species of plants, animals, and fungi throughout human history, yet modern humans are getting 67% of their calories from only 3 foods. That’s a problem! Read this article to see why it’s a terrible idea to get most of your calories from corn, soy, and wheat and the health problems this is causing worldwide.

Food Rule #5. Beware of hidden sugars

Beware of hidden calories and inflammation-causing ingredients in condiments and dressings. You can read my article here on my vote for the top 5 picks for healthiest condiments as well as the worst.

Most people don’t realize just how many calories and metabolism damaging high fructose corn syrup they are ingesting in things like ketchup, salad dressings, cocktail sauce, marinades, etc. For example, 1 Tbsp of ketchup has 5 grams of sugar (usually from HFCS), but the average person uses 2-4 Tbsp of ketchup with a typical burger and fries meal. That’s anywhere from 10-20 grams of EXTRA sugar just from the ketchup alone, and not even counting the sweetened drink that most people have with the meal too.

Be a label reader and avoid HFCS! And despite deceptive advertisements out there from the corn refining industry that claim “HFCS is no worse than sugar and is natural”, this is far from the truth as you can read in this article that shows why HFCS is indeed worse than plain sugar, despite them both being terrible for you.

Food Rule #6. Sugar is TOXIC in your body

Speaking of sugar, most people don’t realize that they are addicted to sugar, and just how bad sugar is for your body internally. I hear people say things all the time when eating candy or drinking a sweetened drink that “oh, it’s just sugar, I can burn it off easy”. Oh, if it were only that simple. You can read the article (and video) here about why sugar is actually TOXIC in your body.

That’s right… not only does sugar make you fat, it’s one of the direct causes of diabetes, heart disease, as well as feeding cancer cells. Avoid sugar as much as possible with the exception of a small amount of natural sugars in a piece of daily fruit.

Food Rule #7. Do NOT eat these oils or foods with these added

AVOID soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, and other cheap “vegetable oils” as much as possible. These oils are highly inflammatory in your body, disrupt your omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid balance in your body, and also are typically made of genetically modified crops, of which the long term health consequences are not yet fully understood by scientists.

This article here details everything you need to know about which cooking oils to fully avoid and which oils are healthy for you. You might be surprised to see why fats you falsely thought were unhealthy such as butter, lard, and coconut oil are actually the healthiest fats/oils to cook with.

Avoid canola oil as much as possible… despite the false marketing claims that canola oil is “healthy” and contains lots of monounsaturated fats just like olive oil, canola oil is NOTHING like olive oil from a biochemical standpoint and how it reacts internally in your body. Read this article for the full story on why to AVOID canola oil at all costs. Note that most canola oil is genetically modified too, so yet another reason to avoid it.

Food Rule #8. Canola oil is terrible for you

Avoid canola oil as much as possible… despite the false marketing claims that canola oil is “healthy” and contains lots of monounsaturated fats just like olive oil, canola oil is NOTHING like olive oil from a biochemical standpoint and how it reacts internally in your body. Read this article for the full story on why to AVOID canola oil at all costs. Note that most canola oil is genetically modified too, so yet another reason to avoid it.

Food Rule #9. Why you should LOVE butter & cream!

Butter vs margarine? I have no idea why anybody is still debating this… I use grass-fed butter on a daily basis, but I would NEVER even touch margarine… not even the so-called “healthy” margarines, which usually still contain inflammatory soybean or corn oils. REAL butter is the only answer in this case. You can read my article here with more details about why real butter can actually HELP you to get lean.

Also, it’s not just butter that’s good for you… dairy fat in the form of grass-fed cream, aged cheeses, full-fat yogurts and other dairy fat has even been shown in some studies to PROTECT your arteries from clogging! Don’t believe me? Read this article for the full story:

Studies show dairy fat PREVENTS artery clogging (butter, cream & cheese can be great for you, but avoid ONE type of dairy shown in that article!)

Food Rule #10. STOP avoiding egg yolks — eat whole eggs

Egg whites vs whole eggs? Once again, I have no idea why anyone is still debating this. Most of the general population has still not gotten the memo that egg yolks are actually the healthiest part of the egg, with over 90% of the micronutrients and antioxidants, and 100% of the fat soluble vitamins that are so important for our health. Why anybody would only eat egg whites and avoid yolks is beyond comprehension. And no, the dietary cholesterol in eggs is not bad for your heart… in fact, it increases your good HDL cholesterol. I have a full article here on why whole eggs are much healthier than egg whites, help increase your fat burning hormones, and why I personally eat 3-4 whole eggs per day and how this helps to stay in single digit body fat range.

Food Rule #11. Beware of chemicals in your foods

Let’s start with this one to avoid: This additive makes you 3x more likely to be overweight.

Also, beware of the carcinogenic and estrogenic chemical BPA that is commonly found in some canned foods and bottled drinks. BPA has been linked to increased abdominal fat, birth defects, cancer, and more. Remember that canned tomatoes are one of the worst offenders with highest concentrations of harmful BPA because of the acidic leaching effect of the tomatoes. You can read all about BPA and canned foods and bottled drinks here to learn the best ways to avoid this harmful chemical.

Food Rule #12. Why I haven’t used a microwave in 10 years

In my opinion, it’s best to AVOID microwaved foods. Some scientists believe that microwaving food changes the the biochemistry of the food in ways that cause negative effects in the body compared to raw or conventionally cooked food. Think of this from a logical perspective… the human digestive system evolved over a period of approximately 1.9 million years (our ancesters homo erectus & neanderthal, as well as current homo sapiens) eating a combination of raw and cooked food that was cooked with either fire or hot water, not microwaves.

Microwaves are a new invention which cooks food in an entirely different way than hot water or fire, creating damaged molecules in food that were not found in nature previously, and that our body does not know how to deal with. Logically, it’s easy to understand how this could have health consequences. Read this article here for a full description of why I never eat microwaved foods anymore and have not for at least the last 10 years. We also show you how easy it is to live without a microwave and heat up your foods in healthier ways.

Food Rule #13. Add herbs and spices to everything (your body will thank you)

One of the healthiest things to include in your daily diet are herbs and spices. In fact, herbs and spices typically contain LOADS more antioxidants than most fruits and vegetables. Spices are extremely powerful, and almost medicinal for your body. Turmeric has been shown to have protective effects against cancer. Cinnamon has powerful blood sugar controlling effects. Many spices boost your immune system. Read this article to see our top 10 votes for the most powerful spices that boost your metabolism and protect your body from degenerative disease.

Bottom line…spices rule! Use them generously in all of your cooking for the best health benefits.

Food Rule #14. Saturated fats have been falsely accused

Remember that despite all of the bad nutrition information you hear from the government and the media, saturated fats have been falsely villified in the past, and are much healthier for you than most people realize. In fact, in recent years, scientists have become a lot more clear that saturated fats are actually important for health and hormone balance, your cell membranes, and many other vital functions in your body. You can read my article here about why saturated fats aren’t so bad after all, and can even be healthy sometimes depending on source.

If you’re interested in more of the actual science about why saturated fat can be healthy for you, I have an article below written by a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry called The Truth about Saturated Fat – it’s a must read if you want to understand the science about why saturated fats have been falsely villified and how to enjoy these foods that have always been part of the ancestral human diet.

Food Rule #15. Artificial sweeteners make you fatter (and damage your gut too?)

Always avoid artificial sweeteners! Just because they don’t contain calories doesn’t mean they don’t harm your body. In fact, many studies link artificial sweetener use to weight gain. New research is also showing that artificial sweeteners can “trick” your body into releasing insulin due to cells in your mouth and stomach that sense the sweetness and are expecting sugar. Remember that high insulin levels can cause body fat deposition. Also, triggering insulin in this way can cause more cravings for carbohydrates and sugar in the hours after eating or drinking the artificially sweetened product.

You can read my article here with more details about why artificial sweeteners are terrible for your health, including possible long term health consequences such as cancer.

Also, did you know that Splenda can DAMAGE your gut health.

Food Rule #16. Vitamin D controls your immune system, hormone balance, and makes you younger

Pay attention to your Vitamin D levels.

Vitamin D is one of the most important substances in your body. It’s one of the single most important things in your body that control your hormones as well as your immune system. If you get sick often or have hormone imbalances, it’s quite likely that the cause is linked to low vitamin D levels.

Unfortunately, it’s estimated that almost 90% of Americans are deficient in vitamin D. Get your blood levels of vitamin D tested. Your goal should be blood levels between 50-70 ng/ml, where hormonal balance and immune function seems to be maximized. Sadly, most people typically clock in with levels in the 20’s or 30’s or lower, and these sub par levels can cause a lot of health problems.

Mid day sunshine is the most important source of vitamin D as your body produces vitamin D from a reaction with oils in your skin and UVB rays from the sun. Fatty fish, egg yolks, and organ meats are the best sources of dietary vitamin D, but it is hard to get enough vitamin D from diet alone, so small doses of daily mid-day sun is also important for your health (without burning).

You can read my article here to see why our food supply has diminished vitamin D levels now compared to decades ago.

For lots more great info on vitamin D, and it’s powerful benefits to your body, you can also read a really interesting article here that shows why vitamin D can even make you the equivalent of 5 years YOUNGER!

Food Rule #17. Pay attention to your gut flora

Probiotics rock! And most people have a harmful imbalance between good and bad bacteria in their guts. This is made worse by things you consume that damange your gut flora such as chlorinated drinking water, artificial sweeteners, pesticides, and the worst of them all — antibiotics. One round of antiobiotics can permanently disrupt the balance of your gut flora and leave you susceptible to other infections and diseases. Antibiotics have their place for life-threatening injuries and medical situations, but are overused in western medicine to the detriment of our health. Take this quiz to see if you have a dangerous imbalance of microbes in your gut.

Along with vitamin D levels, probiotics are one of the single most important things you can do for your health. Probiotics are equally important to your immune system as your vitamin D levels. Probiotics are your first line of defense in keeping pathogens at bay and preventing sickness. They’re extremely important for your digestion too.

Your “microbiome” in your gut is made up of TRILLIONS of microbes in total and hundreds of types of these friendly probiotics. These serve so many more vitally important functions in your body than most people realize, and imbalance of good to bad bacteria in your gut can cause over 170 diseases and conditions.

Read this article to see how probiotics can improve your digestion and immunity as well as the best sources to build up your healthy colonies in your digestive system.

Food Rule #18. Counteract or minimize carcinogens

Beware of carcinogenic acrylamides in browned carb-based foods. This is yet another reason to minimize grains as much as possible as breads and cereals are some of the worst offenders with acrylamides. Read our full article here on acrylamides, everything you need to know, and how to counteract these chemicals to protect your health.

Another carcinogenic chemical you can minimize is HCA’s formed on the browned portion of meats… here’s how to minimize HCA’s in grilled meat.

Food Rule #19. Why I avoid GM foods

Avoid the unknown health consequences of eating genetically modified foods. Again, going back to the principle that we are most adapted to eating what our ancesters ate for almost 2 million years, that list of foods obviously did NOT include genetically modified foods, since these “frankenfoods” weren’t included in the human food supply until the 1990’s.

There are still no long term health studies proving that GM foods are safe to eat. Read this article to see the possible dangers of eating GM foods and which 4 foods are the worst offenders to look out for.

Food Rule #20. Beware of “healthy whole wheat”

In a groundbreaking new best-selling book called Wheat Belly, Dr William Davis, a well respected cardiologist has intensely researched the effects of wheat-based foods (cereal, breads, pasta, baked goods, etc) and what this so-called “healthy whole wheat” actually does to your body from a biochemical standpoint internally.

His findings are not pleasant… some of the problems that whole wheat or any wheat foods can cause for your health are summarized in this article:

11 Ways that “whole wheat” can HARM your body (including abdominal fat, acne, joint problems and arthritis, IBS and acid reflux, cravings, addictive behaviors, increased overall calorie consumption, diabetes, heart disease, accelerated aging, and autoimmune diseases)

Food Rule #21. Enjoy your food, eat slowly, savor each bite

Lastly, enjoy your food! And enjoy good company with food. Don’t just mindlessly eat food in front of the TV. Studies show that people unknowingly eat more calories and gain more weight when they mindlessly eat in front of the TV. Instead, focus on your meal instead of a distraction…savor each bite you have. Pay attention and enjoy the subtle flavors and aroma of each bite. This makes you enjoy your food more, while eating less calories.

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

3 So-Called “Healthy” Foods that You Should STOP Eating (if you want a lean healthy body)

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of the best-seller: The Truth About Six Pack Abs

I was reading a statistic in a nutrition book recently, and this is going to shock you…

Now before I tell you the statistic, let’s keep an important fact in mind… according to well renowned nutrition author Michael Pollan, and his amazing book called In Defense of Food, humankind has historically consumed approximately 80,000 different species of edible plants, animals, and fungi, and approximately 3,000 of those have been widespread foods of the human diet.

Now get ready for a shocking and appalling statistic…

Currently, the average adult eating a typical modern western diet in countries such as the US, Canada, Australia, etc consumes approximately 67% of their total caloric intake from only 3 foods — CORN, SOY, AND WHEAT (and their derivatives).

What would be considered a reasonably healthy amount of corn, soy, and wheat in the human diet? Based on hundreds of thousands of years of human history, and what the natural diet of our ancestors was (indicating what our digestive systems are still programmed to digest most effectively), this would probably be in the range of about 1% to 4% MAX of our total calories from corn, soy, and wheat.

Considering that modern humans are eating 67% of their total calories from corn, soy, wheat… you can see why we have massive problems in our health, and our weight!

It’s not a surprise that we have so many intolerances and allergies, specifically to soy and wheat (and gluten intolerance)… the human digestive system was simply never meant to consume these substances in such MASSIVE quantities.

Keep in mind that these massively high levels of corn, soy, and wheat in our modern human diet is a relatively new phenomenon that originated from the economics of the multi-billion dollar corn, soy, and wheat industries. It really HAS been all about the money… NOT about our health!

By “derivatives” of corn, soy, and wheat, this means the food additives such as:
•high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
•corn oil
•soybean oil (hydrogenated or plain refined)
•soy protein
•refined wheat flour
•hundreds of other food additives such as maltodextrin, corn or wheat starch, soy lecithin, mono and diglycerides, etc, etc

This doesn’t surprise me… consider how much soda or other sweetened drinks (with loads of HFCS) that the average person drinks daily… this is a LOT of calories from just 1 sole corn derivative. Even marinades, salad dressings, ketchup, breads, and 100’s of other foods contain loads of belly-fattening HFCS!

Also think about how many processed foods we have that are either fried in soybean or corn oil… and even if the foods are not fried in these oils, these oils are additives to almost every processed food… chips, candies, cakes, salad dressings, tomato sauces, burrito wraps, corn chips, breaded chicken, etc, etc. This is a LOT of calories from these 2 other corn and soy derivatives… both of them EXTREMELY UNHEALTHY!

On top of that, think about how much breads, cereals, pastas, muffins, and other highly processed wheat products that most people consume each day. Again, this is LOADS of unhealthy, blood-sugar spiking, nutrient-poor calories, that more than half of the population has some degree of intolerance to anyway.

It gets even worse!

Not only are we eating 67% of our total calories from corn, soy, and wheat… but because of the economics involved (specifically with cheap corn and soy) we are also feeding most of our farm animals corn and soy now too… again amplifying the amount of corn and soy that passes through the food chain and (from a biochemical standpoint) ends up in our bodies.

Probably the 2 worst examples of this blatant mismanagement of our food supply is how our factory farmed chickens and cows are fed.

Cows are fed mostly corn in factory feedlot farms, even though their digestive systems are only meant to eat grass and other forage. This makes the cows sick (hmm… E-coli anyone?), alters the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of the fats to unhealthy levels, and also diminishes the healthy CLA fats that would occur naturally in grass-fed beef. All of these problems go away if our cows are fed what they were made to eat naturally – grass and other green forage!

Our chickens are also fed a diet of mostly corn and soy and crowded in tight pens in horrendous conditions… when the fact is that a chicken was meant to roam around the outdoors eating a mixture of greens, insects, worms, seeds, etc. When chickens are kept inside in tight quarters and fed only grains, it leads to an unhealthy meat for you to eat, and less healthy eggs compared to free-roaming chickens allowed to eat an outdoors diet.

Our food supply has gotten so screwed up that we’re even feeding our salmon and other farmed fish corn and soy…again because of the economics involved. How ludicrous is this, considering that fish are meant to eat a diverse diet of smaller fish, worms, bugs, etc. Again this makes farm raised fish unhealthy in terms of nutrition compared to their wild counterparts. If you want to see something even scarier about farm-raised fish, watch this quick video about the toxic fish you might be buying.

So even when you’re eating chicken, beef, and fish, you’re still essentially getting even MORE corn and soy into your body (from a biochemical standpoint) …considering that the cows, chickens, and farmed fish ate mostly soy and corn.

So it’s actually WORSE than just 67% isn’t it!

Why is it so unhealthy to consume 2/3rds of our calories from corn, soy, and wheat?

Well, this section could encompass an entire book, so to keep this short, I’ll just throw out a few random reasons…
•Skews the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats in our diet to as high as 30:1, when a natural ratio of 1:1 to 2:1 in our ancestral human diet is considered healthy.
•Problems with gluten intolerance (related to heavy wheat consumption that is rampant)
•Problems with weight gain, blood-sugar swings, and reduced insulin sensitivity (and progression of diabetes) due to excessive refined corn and wheat flours, as well as HFCS in our diet
•Soy and corn are the most genetically modified crops (which also allows more pesticides and herbicides to be used, which are usually “xenoestrogens”)
•Many of the pesticide and herbicide residues in these crops are xenoestrogens, which can increase “stubborn” belly fat
•Soy products and derivatives contain a double-whammy of xenoestrogens as well as phytoestrogens… again creating an environment in your body for fat storage, carcinogenic effects, and even “man boobs” for some men in very severe cases
•The feeding of corn and soy to animals reduces the health and nutritional benefits (and micronutrient levels) of those animal products
•and the list could go on and on and on…

So how do you avoid all of this overwhelming amount of corn, soy, and wheat in our food supply, and finally take control of your weight and your health?

1. Don’t purchase processed foods! It all starts with your grocery cart discipline… choose only 1-ingredient foods such as fruits, veggies, beans, eggs (free roaming), nuts, seeds, and meats from grass-fed or free roaming animals that are raised correctly. Organic is preferred. Only resort to junk foods or processed foods on a 1-day per week “cheat day” but ONLY when dining out… that way, the processed foods aren’t in your house to tempt you.

2. Get most of your carbs from fruits and veggies instead of grains.

3. Avoid store bought salad dressings as they almost always contain soybean oil and HFCS (instead, try my homemade healthy salad dressing)

4. Make sure that your tomato sauces don’t have HFCS and soybean oils… look for sauces made with olive oil instead. Remember to avoid unhealthy canola oils too!

5. If you like guacamole (one of the healthiest snacks on the planet!), try veggie sticks with guacamole instead of genetically-modified, oil-soaked corn chips

6. If you like hummus, try veggies sticks with hummus instead of pita chips or other bread.

7. Reduce your cereal, bread, and pasta intake by having these foods only on “cheat days” and stick to more of the 1-ingredient foods I mentioned in #1 above. Try some of these healthy snacks as good alternatives (yes, I know that one of the 13 snacks on there has sprouted grain, which is fine on occasion).

I could go on with more examples, but I think that’s good for now.

So with all of this said… Is my diet perfect? Well, no of course not! Nobody is perfect, and I can give in to temptation on occasion just like anybody else.

However, I’d estimate that my corn/soy/wheat consumption is only about 2-4% of my total caloric intake compared to 67% for the average person. The way that I achieve this is to simply not bring any corn, soy, or wheat products into my house, so I’m never tempted by it. Therefore, at least 6 days/week, I eat virtually no corn/soy/wheat, except for the occasional piece of sprouted grain toast a couple times a week (which is a better option than typical “whole grain” bread).

I do, however, give in and sometimes eat breads, pasta, and even corn chips, etc. when I’m dining out. I see these as my cheat meals and try to do this no more than once per week. I still completely eliminate sodas and deep fried foods though…they are just TOO evil!

Please share this article with your friends and family on email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, forums, etc… this is one of the MAJOR reasons that we are so unhealthy and overweight as a society… 67% of our calories from just 3 foods (and their derivatives) is an appalling statistic! Don’t give in to the marketing machine that is the corn, soy, and wheat industries! Take control of your OWN health instead of letting big corporations take control of your health.

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How Cells from an Aborted Fetus are Used to Create Novel Flavor Enhancers

For several years anti-abortion advocates have been warning that a new technology for enhancing flavors such as sweetness and saltiness uses aborted fetal cells in the process.

The biotech company using this novel process, Senomyx, has signed contracts with Pepsi, Ajinomoto Co. (the maker of aspartame and meat glue), Nestlé and other food and beverage companies2 over the past several years.3

The primary goal for many of these processed food companies is to make foods and beverages tasty while reducing sugar and salt content.

While Senomyx refuses to disclose the details of the process, its patent applications indicate that part of the secret indeed involves the use of human kidney cells, known as HEK293, originating from an aborted baby.

It’s worth noting that no kidney cells, or part thereof, are actually IN the finished product.4 Rather they’re part of the process used to discern new flavors, which will be discussed below.

That said, to many, this is still “over the line.” Two years ago, anti-abortion groups launched boycott campaigns against Pepsi Co., urging them to reconsider using flavorings derived from a process involving the use of aborted embryonic kidney cells.

Whatever your personal convictions might be on the issue of using biological material from an aborted fetus, the issue of whether or not biotech-constructed flavor enhancers are safe or not remains…

Biotech Cooks Up New Flavors

Senomyx5 is a high tech research and development business that is “dedicated to finding new flavors to reduce sugars and reduce salt.” These include new flavors such as Savory Flavors and Cooling Flavors, as well as flavor modulators such as Bitter Blockers and enhancers of Sweet and Salt tastes.6

Senomyx is also engaged in a new effort to discover and develop high-potency sweeteners to replace high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and natural herb sweeteners like Stevia, which some people object to due to its aftertaste.

To accomplish this, Senomyx has developed patented “flavor enhancing” compounds using “proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems.” It’s a taste testing system that provides scientists with biochemical responses and electronic readouts when a flavor ingredient interacts with their patented receptor, letting researchers know whether or not they’ve “hit the mark” in terms of flavor. As described by Senomyx:7

“Flavors are substances that impart tastes or aromas… Individuals experience the sensation of taste when flavors in food and beverage products interact with taste receptors in the mouth. A taste receptor functions either by physically binding to a flavor ingredient in a process analogous to the way a key fits into a lock or by acting as a channel to allow ions to flow directly into a taste cell.

As a result of these interactions, signals are sent to the brain where a specific taste sensation is registered. There are currently five recognized primary senses of taste: umami, which is the savory taste of glutamate, sweet, salt, bitter and sour.

Senomyx has discovered or in-licensed many of the key receptors that mediate taste in humans. We created proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems that provide a biochemical or electronic readout when a flavor ingredient interacts with the receptor.”

According to an article in The New Yorker8 published in May 2011, Pepsi’s New York plant has a robot fitted with human taste buds to reliably “predict” what humans might like. To create this robotic taste tester, Pepsi Co. scientists injected the genetic sequences of the four known taste receptors into cultured cells, and then hardwired the cells to the robot’s computer. The robot (which has replaced human taste testers for the initial taste trials) can sample some 40,000 flavor assays per day.

What are These Genetically Engineered ‘Flavor Enhancers,’ and are They Safe?

According to a CBS News report from June 2011, 70 out of 77 Senomyx patents9, 10 filed at that time referred to the use of HEK 293.11 These are human embryonic kidney cells originally harvested from a healthy, electively aborted fetus sometime in the 1970’s. The “HEK” identifies the cells as kidney cells, and the “293” denotes that the cells came from the 293rd experiment.

These cells have been cloned for decades, as they offer a reliable way to produce new proteins using genetic engineering. Senomyx has engineered HEK293 cells to function like human taste receptor cells,12 presumably such as those used in Pepsi Co’s taste-testing robot. This was done by isolating taste receptors found in certain cells, and adding them to the HEK cells.

HEK cells are also widely used within pharmaceutical and cell biology research for the same or similar reasons. It is however the first time HEK cells have been used in the food industry, which carries a certain “ick” factor for many. There’s also the issue of just not knowing how these new flavors are created. As stated in another CBS news report:13

“So what exactly is this magic ingredient that will be appearing in a new version of Pepsi, and how is it made? Unfortunately, those questions are hard to answer. Senomyx… refers to them only as ‘enhancers’ or ‘ingredients’… The products work by triggering receptors on the tongue and tricking your taste buds into sensing sweetness — or saltiness or coolness, in the case of the company’s other programs…

So are Senomyx’s covert ingredients safe? That, too, is anyone’s guess… many of its enhancers have ‘been granted’ GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status, but all that means is that the company did its own assessment and then concluded everything was fine. We don’t know whether Senomyx did any testing since the company isn’t required to submit anything to the FDA.14

There’s no reason to think that Senomyx’s products will cause harm, but until or unless Pepsi decides to share details about how exactly it’s achieving a 60 percent reduction in sugar while keeping the taste the same, customers will be drinking their ‘scientifically advantaged’ sodas completely in the dark.”

The lack of labeling requirements is particularly troublesome and will probably become an issue in the future. Since these compounds (whatever they are) are used in such minute quantities, they don’t have to be listed on the label. They’ll simply fall under the generic category of artificial and/or natural flavors. What this means is that the product will appear to be much “healthier” than it might otherwise be, were a flavor enhancer not used.

According to a 2010 CBS report,15 Senomyx’s flavor enhancers were already being sold outside the US at that time. For example, Nestle was by 2010 using an MSG flavor enhancer in its Maggi brand soups, sauces, condiments and instant noodles, and Ajinomoto was also using a similar ingredient in products for the Chinese market. This means less of the artificial sweetener is needed to create the same sweet taste as before, but while one could argue that this is a good thing, I suspect we will ultimately learn that this flavor enhancement method has multiple unforeseen adverse consequences — metabolically, and biologically.

Consequences of Food Alteration are More the Rule than the Exception…

There are many reasons why you’re better off choosing natural whole foods in lieu of processed alternatives, but one of the primary ones is that junk foods contain additives that increase your toxic load, which in turn may increase your tendency to develop cancer. As of yet, there is NO medical research to back up the assertion that manipulating your taste buds in the way Senomyx’ products do is safe and healthy in the long term. As an example, I would point to the evidence now available showing that one of the reasons why artificial sweeteners do not work as advertised is because the taste of sweet itself is tied into your metabolic functioning in a way that we still do not fully understand… As a result, artificially sweetened products, oftentimes boasting zero calories, actually result in greater weight gain than sweetened products when used “in the real world.”

It’s easy to forget that the processed, pre-packaged foods and fast food restaurants of today are actually a radical change in terms of the history of food production. Much of what we eat today bears very little resemblance of real food. Many products are loaded with non-nutritive fillers — purposely designed to just “take up space” to make you think you’re getting more than you really are — along with any number of additives. Many additives have been shown to have harmful effects on mood, behavior, metabolic functioning and biochemistry.

Now, with the introduction of untested engineered flavor enhancers, you’re left wondering whether processed foods with “cleaner” labels really are safer and healthier or not… Remember, because Senomyx’ flavor enhancers are used in such low concentrations they are not required to undergo the FDA’s usual safety approval process for food additives.

The disease trends we’re now seeing are only going to get worse as much of the processed foods consumed today are not even food-based. Who knows what kind of genetic mutations and malfunctions we’re creating for ourselves and future generations when a MAJORITY of our diet consists of highly processed and artificial foods that contain substances never before consumed by humans in all of history.

How to Enhance Your Food’s Flavor, Naturally

When choosing what to eat, I highly recommend you focus your meals on real food, and remember “food” equals “live nutrients.” Nutrients, in turn, feed your cells, optimize your health and sustain life. To help you along, I’ve created a free optimized nutrition plan, which takes you step-by-step from the beginner’s through the advanced level.

When you eat real foods as opposed to “food products” like the ones being “enhanced” by Senomyx’ technology, you don’t need artificial, lab-created flavors or flavor enhancers, because real foods taste delicious. The fact that processed foods taste good is the culmination of a profitable science of artificial flavors, enhancers and additives, without which most processed food would taste and look like shredded cardboard.

Real food naturally has vibrant colors, rich textures, and is authentically flavorful. For times when you want to add even more oomph to your meals, nature has provided herbs and spices, which are not only incredibly tasty but also will make your real food even healthier.

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