Rather Be Healthy

Ten food label entries that should send you running

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/039502_food_labels_ingredients_avoid.html#ixzz2Ncqxtf9f

There are billions of consumers out there and only a few manufacturers of food. This means that to meet consumer demands, manufacturing companies need efficient processes in order to be in the competition. Enter food additives that serve to present and preserve packaged foods for consumer satisfaction. Thanks to federal laws, companies are now required to print all food ingredients on food packages. That means we are allowed to choose what we eat. Here are 10 of the food additives that we need to stay away from.

Sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite

What: Food preservative; helps retain red coloring in processed meat products.

Effects: Its chemical component contains carcinogens, and when accumulated in the body, can lead to stomach, prostate, and breast cancers. It has also been found to cause fetal deaths, miscarriages, and birth defects among animals in the laboratory.

Option: Seek for nitrate or nitrite-free meat products.

Butylated hydrozyttoluene (BHT) and Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA)

What: Common among processed foods and also in cereals, potato chips, vegetable oils, and chewing gums

Effects: Increases the risk of cancer development, liver enlargement, and hampers cell growth.

Propyl gallate

What: Found in stocked chicken soup, gum, and in a few processed meat products.

Effect: Still being suspected as a carcinogen, propyl gallate is found to cause gastrointestinal, kidney, and liver problems.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG)

What: An artificial flavor enhancer, MSG is found in canned soups, chips, crackers, salad dressings, and frozen foods. It is also disguised under label entries like “spices,” “natural flavoring,” and “seasonings.”

Effects: Found to cause dizziness and nausea.

Hydrogenated vegetable oil

What: Known as a trans fat, this can be found in microwave popcorn, chips, pastries, cookies, pies, cakes, lard, margarine, cottonseed oil, coconut oil, and palm kernel oil.

Effects: Cardiovascular diseases like stroke, kidney failure, and other heart diseases.

Options: Virgin olive oil and other monounsaturated fats.

Aspartame

What: An ingredient in gelatin, frozen desserts, yogurt, puddings, diet sodas, low-calorie diets, and children’s vitamins.

Effect: Can cause food poisoning and makes up the bulk of consumer complaints directed to the FDA.

Options: Xylitol and Stevia which are natural sweeteners.

Acesulfame-K

What: Food sweetener and has been recently approved by the FDA as a food additive in baked goods, diet soda, gelatin desserts, and chewing gums.

Option: Xylitol and Stevia as healthy sweeteners.

Food colorings 1, 2, 3, and 6

What: These are blue, red, green, and yellow. Used in beverages, baked goods, and candies, cherries, fruit cocktail, sausage, and gelatin.

Effects: Causes tumors in the different parts of the body like the kidneys and adrenal glands.

Olestra or olean

What: Artificial fat preventing healthy fat absorption in the digestive system and can be found in potato chips.

Effects: Found to cause diarrhea, intestinal problems, and other gastrointestinal problems.

Potassium bromate

What: Bleaching agent in white flour and can be found in pizza dough, breads, and rolls.

Effect: Found to cause cancer in both animals and humans.

Option: Un-bromated flour products.

As a supplement to the above, other additives that can be harmful are also high fructose corn syrup and sodium chloride.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Home

http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au

About the author:
Sandeep is an avid rock climber, Mountaineer, runner, and fitness coach. He shares his tips for staying in shape and eating healthy on several fitness sites.

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

Corn and soy—much of which are genetically engineered—are rapidly overtaking native grasslands in a number of US states. This is a trend that may have a not-so-insignificant impact on global climate change and subsequently, our ability to secure our food supply long-term.

As discussed in a recent Mother Jones article,1 this conversion of grasslands to crop fields is the exact opposite of what might be in our best interest.

“…to get ready for climate change, we should push Midwestern farmers to switch a chunk of their corn land into pasture for cows,” the featured article states.

“The idea came from a paper2 by University of Tennessee and Bard College researchers, who calculated that such a move could suck up massive amounts of carbon in soil—enough to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 36 percent.

In addition to the CO2 reductions, you’d also get a bunch of high-quality, grass-fed beef… Turns out the Midwest are doing just the opposite.”

Federal Policy Worsens Environmental Concerns

According to a recently published paper3 by South Dakota State University researchers, grasslands in the Western corn belt, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska, is being lost at a rate “comparable to deforestation rates in Brazil, Malaysia, and Indonesia.”

Between 2006 and 2011, nearly 2 million acres of friendly native grasses have been lost to corn and soy—two of the staples in processed foods that are driving chronic disease rates in an ever steepening upward incline. The same thing is happening in South America, where native forests are leveled in order to plant soy.

The researchers claim the land being converted into corn and soy fields is actually much better suited for grazing than crop agriculture, as it is “characterized by high erosion risk and vulnerability to drought.” So why would farmers opt to use such risky land for their crops?

According to the featured article:

“Simple: Federal policy has made it a high-reward, tiny-risk proposition. Prices for corn and soy doubled in real terms between 2006 and 2011, the authors note, driven up by federal corn-ethanol mandates and relentless Wall Street speculation.

Then there’s federally subsidized crop insurance, the authors add. When farmers manage to tease a decent crop out of their marginal land, they’re rewarded with high prices for their crop. But if the crop fails, subsidized insurance guarantees a decent return.

Essentially, federal farm policy, through the ethanol mandate and the insurance program, is underwriting the expansion of corn and soy agriculture at precisely the time it should be shrinking.”

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently released a report titled: “Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States.” According to the report, our current agricultural system, which is dominated by corn and soy, is unsustainable in the long term. Should temperatures rise as predicted, the US could expect to see significant declines in yields by the middle of this century.

Unfortunately, the USDA failed to analyze how reliance on monoculture might heighten our vulnerability to devastating crop loss. As a general rule though, the more crop diversity you have, the greater your food security, as different crops are affected differently. Our dependence on two primary crops is a recipe for disaster.

Monoculture—A Tremendous Threat to Global Food Security

The “faster, bigger, cheaper” approach to food is slowly draining dry our planet’s resources and compromising your health. The Earth’s soil is depleting at more than 13 percent the rate it can be replaced, and we’ve already lost 75 percent of the world’s crop varieties over the last century.

In the words of Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and a number of other bestsellers: “Mother Nature destroys monocultures.” What is a monoculture? Monoculture (or monocropping) is defined as the high-yield agricultural practice of growing a single crop year after year on the same land, in the absence of rotation through other crops. Corn, soybeans, wheat, and to some degree rice, are the most common crops grown with monocropping techniques. In fact, corn, wheat and rice now account for 60 percent of human caloric intake, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.4 According to an article on GreenFudge.org, monoculture is detrimental to the environment for a number of reasons, including the following:
•It damages soil ecology by depleting and reducing the diversity of soil nutrients
•It creates an unbuffered niche for parasitic species to take over, making crops more vulnerable to opportunistic pathogens that can quickly wipe out an entire crop
•It increases dependency on chemical pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics and genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
•It increases reliance on expensive specialized farm equipment and machinery that require heavy use of fossil fuels
•It destroys biodiversity

By contrast, polyculture (the traditional rotation of crops and livestock) better serves both land and people. Polyculture evolved to meet the complete nutritional needs of a local community. Polyculture, when done mindfully, automatically replenishes what is taken out, which makes it sustainable with minimal effort. Unfortunately, government subsidies and fervent lobbying to favor patented seeds drive the monoculture train; the goal of which is to maximize profits as quickly and for as long as possible… At stake is our entire food supply, not to mention farmers who don’t want to use patented seed.

Monsanto: Why We Sue Farmers Who Save Seeds

In a recent article in CropLife,5 Monsanto “provides the ‘justification’ they use to explain why they are forced to protect their innovation.”

“Patents are necessary to ensure that Monsanto is paid for its products and all the investments it puts into developing products. This is one of the basic reasons for patents. A more important reason is to help foster innovation. Without the protection of patents there would be little incentive for privately-owned companies to pursue and re-invest in innovation. Monsanto invests more than $2.6 million per day in research and development that ultimately benefits farmers and consumers. Without the protection of patents, this would not be possible,” the article reads.

Contrary to the “law of nature,” when you purchase patented seed, such as those sold by Monsanto, you have to sign an agreement confirming you will not save and replant seeds produced from the seed you buy. This means you have to repurchase new seed from them each season, opposed to the ancient practice of saving seed from one season’s harvest to plant the next. However, patented crops don’t know they’re not supposed to spread like natural ones… Farms can easily become contaminated by wind- or insect-carried pollen from GE fields, thereby opening farmers up to patent infringement lawsuits.

Monsanto has aggressively waged war against farmers whose only crime was to grow crops out in the open… According to a report6 by the Center for Food Safety (CFS), Monsanto had, as of December 2012, filed 142 patent infringement lawsuits against 410 farmers and 56 small businesses in more than 27 states. All in all, Monsanto has been awarded a staggering $23 million from their mafia tactics so far.7

According to Monsanto, only nine cases have gone through full trial, and in each of those cases, the jury or court decided in Monsanto’s favor. I’m sure it helps to have some of the most high-paid legal firms in the country representing them, and also to have insiders in the halls of justice… Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas,8 appointed to the Supreme Court in 1991, is in fact a former Monsanto attorney. And he has yet to rule against his former employer.

Monsanto vs. Bowman

Not all cases are related to contamination however. On February 19, the US Supreme Court began hearing the appeal of 75-year old Indiana soybean farmer Vernon Bowman, in which he disputes Monsanto’s claim that his farm used the patented seeds without authorization. The central issue in this case is the extent that a patent holder can control its use through multiple generations of seed.9 According to a recent press release:10

“Farmer Bowman legally purchased seeds at a grain elevator, which bought them from farmers who had, with Monsanto’s authorization, used the genetically modified Monsanto seeds to grow their soybean crops. Monsanto claims that Mr. Bowman infringed its patents on herbicide-resistant plants and seeds by using the grain elevator seeds to grow his soybean crops. Mr. Bowman asserts that Monsanto’s sales of the original seeds to authorized purchasers exhausted Monsanto’s patent rights and therefore Monsanto cannot enforce its patents against second-generation and later seeds that resulted from planting the original seeds.”

So far, none of the Justices have been impressed with Bowman’s appeal. In fact, just seconds into Bowman’s attorney’s opening arguments, Chief Justice Roberts interrupted him by asking “why anyone would ever patent anything if Bowman were to prevail?” And just moments after that, Justice Breyer openly stated that “Bowman had infringed” on Monsanto’s patent, as if the case was already decided. In a summary of the case, patent attorney and founder of IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn, writes:11

“Justice Breyer, harkening back to the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, said: ‘There are three generations of seeds. Maybe three generations of seeds is enough.’ Justice Breyer acknowledged that it was a bad joke. Certainly a politically incorrect joke. The ‘joke’ referred to Holmes’ 1927 decision in Buck v. Bell,12 which was a case of forced sterilization. Holmes concluded in that case: ‘Three generations of imbeciles are enough.’”

Indeed, making light of the government’s right to sterilize mentally handicapped people is not just a bad joke, it’s a sick one when you consider that the case in question (Buck vs Bell) basically concluded that it’s okay for the federal government to sterilize whomever they want—primarily those they consider ‘imbeciles.’ In Buck vs Bell, Holmes made the case that so long as government can force vaccination, it can force sterilization. If they can force medical procedures on your body, what rights do you really have? Now they are establishing that corporations have a right to patent not just one life, but the future generations as well

“We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.

The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes… Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

But, it is said, however it might be if this reasoning were applied generally, it fails when it is confined to the small number who are in the institutions named and is not applied to the multitudes outside. It is the usual last resort of constitutional arguments to point out shortcomings of this sort. But the answer is that the law does all that is needed when it does all that it can, indicates a policy, applies it to all within the lines, and seeks to bring within the lines all similarly situated so far and so fast as its means allow. Of course so far as the operations enable those who otherwise must be kept confined to be returned to the world, and thus open the asylum to others, the equality aimed at will be more nearly reached.”

Jokes aside about government’s rights to do with life as it pleases, the Court appears sold on protecting patent rights for seeds through multiple generations. The judges’ decision will come by the end of June 2013. My guess is the Supreme Court only took this case to clearly protect the future of genetic engineering, and the rights to their products and of future generations. Justice Breyer and Justice Holmes appear to have a lot in common, and Americans can expect another moral injustice to our laws.

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.

With food prices steadily rising over the last several years, by as much as five percent, families are scaling back and going without many staples just to put a meal on the table. Or worse, resorting to ‘bargains’ like fast food specials, subsidized SNAP junk food or just plain instant noodles to fill a hungry belly. We have reached the point where self-sufficiency is not a luxury any longer, it’s a real necessity. In response, many are carving out a small homestead niche, even in the middle of lively cities. An encouraging example is found with a micro-farm in the heart of Southern California.

The downward spiral of dwindling food supplies
It isn’t much of a stretch to see our food dollars are shrinking. A combination of droughts, erratic weather patterns and astronomical fuel costs have all contributed to an inflated food bill. The use of GMO seeds isn’t helping the matter either with horrible crop yields. Couple this with a nose dive of world economies and we have a recipe for wide spread shortages of quality, nutritious food. Individuals are waking up to these realities and taking matters into their own hands — not only growing their own food, but removing themselves from the grid as much as possible, even within the bounds of a bustling city. A shining model of exceptional self-sufficiency, survival and ecological action is the Urban Homestead.

The path to freedom
The tale begins in the mid-1980s when Jules Dervaes sold his property in rural Florida to head west and purchase a ramshackle fixer-upper in a low income Southern California neighborhood. Over the course of several decades, the property was transformed into a self-sufficient garden of Eden, providing over 6,000 pounds of fresh produce annually using sustainable, eco-friendly practices. As an authentic farm, chickens, ducks, dwarf rabbits and pygmy goats roam the property. Bees are also kept as well as an aquaponic pond with tilapia fish. The homestead embraces the following practices:

Garden:

– Growing 99 percent of produce

– Saving seeds

– Companion planting

– Intensive growing methods

– Polyculture/intercropping

– Composting

Food

– Handmade bread, cheese, butter and yogurt

– Canning and drying

– Sprouting, fermenting and brewing

– Buying organic, in bulk and locally

Water and energy conservation

– Grey water for landscape

– Clay pot irrigation

– Solar outdoor shower

– Growing food not grass — edible landscaping

– Bottom water bed irrigation

– 12 solar panels

– Rechargeable batteries

– Solar and cob ovens

The farm also offers an abundance of resources for other aspiring homegrown revolutionaries through their website, presentations, workshops, film screenings and eco-events. More information can be found here.

In order to avert massive food shortages and environmental disintegration, it’s our responsibility to take the initiative. Now is the time to create mini-havens of fresh food and sustainability. As observed by Dervaes, “Let’s face it. Our world is in deep, deep trouble and we are the ‘troublemakers.’ We have to make real, difficult changes yesterday. Despite the obvious benefits, we are not going to recycle, compost, or talk our way out of this. Our leaders, being politicians, are not leaders at all but are bound to be followers, who just won’t be there for us in a crisis. So, it’s up to me and you to make the choice of becoming responsible stewards of the earth.”

Sources for this article include:

http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.naturalnews.com/039158_farmers_gmos_crop_yields.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk

http://www.nytimes.com

http://urbanhomestead.org/about

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

http://urbanhomestead.org/urban-homestead-10-elements

About the author:
Carolanne enthusiastically believes if we want to see change in the world, we need to be the change. As a nutritionist, natural foods chef and wellness coach, Carolanne has encouraged others to embrace a healthy lifestyle of organic living, gratefulness and joyful orientation for over 13 years. Through her website www.Thrive-Living.net she looks forward to connecting with other like-minded folks who share a similar vision.

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

How Intermittent Fasting Stacks Up Among Obesity-Related Myths, Assumptions, and Evidence-Backed Facts

Is it a good idea to “starve” yourself just a little bit each day? The evidence suggests that yes, avoiding eating around the clock could have a very beneficial impact on your health and longevity.

What we’re talking about here is generally referred to as intermittent fasting, which involves timing your meals to allow for regular periods of fasting.

It takes about six to eight hours for your body to metabolize your glycogen stores and after that you start to shift to burning fat. However, if you are replenishing your glycogen by eating every eight hours (or sooner), you make it far more difficult for your body to use your fat stores as fuel.

It’s long been known that restricting calories in certain animals can increase their lifespan by as much as 50 percent, but more recent research suggests that sudden and intermittent calorie restriction appears to provide the same health benefits as constant calorie restriction, which may be helpful for those who cannot successfully reduce their everyday calorie intake (or aren’t willing to).

Unfortunately, hunger is a basic human drive that can’t be easily suppressed, so anyone attempting to implement serious calorie restriction is virtually guaranteed to fail. Fortunately you don’t have to deprive yourself as virtually all of the benefits from calorie restriction can be achieved through properly applied intermittent fasting.

Three Major Mechanisms by which Fasting Benefits Your Health

While fasting has long gotten a bum rap for being one of the more torturous ways to battle the bulge, it really doesn’t have to be an arduous affair. We’re NOT talking about starving yourself for days on end. Simply restricting your daily eating to a narrower window of time of say 6-8 hours, you can reap the benefits without the suffering. This equates to 16-18 hours worth of fasting each and every day — enough to get your body to shift into fat-burning mode.

Many studies have evaluated daily intermittent fasting, and the results are compellingly positive. Three major mechanisms by which fasting benefits your body, as it extends lifespan and protects against disease, include:
1.Increased insulin sensitivity and mitochondrial energy efficiency – Fasting increases insulin sensitivity along with mitochondrial energy efficiency, and thereby retards aging and disease, which are typically associated with loss of insulin sensitivity and declined mitochondrial energy.
2.Reduced oxidative stress – Fasting decreases the accumulation of oxidative radicals in the cell, and thereby prevents oxidative damage to cellular proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids associated with aging and disease.
3.Increased capacity to resist stress, disease and aging – Fasting induces a cellular stress response (similar to that induced by exercise) in which cells up-regulate the expression of genes that increase the capacity to cope with stress and resist disease and aging.

Is Daily Fasting the Key to Permanent Weight Loss?

As reported by George Dvorsky1 in a recent article, one of the most important studies in support of daily intermittent fasting was published just last year by biologist Satchidananda Panda and colleagues at Salk’s Regulatory Biology Laboratory. They fed mice a high-fat, high-calorie diet but altered when they were able to eat.

One group had access to food both day and night, while the other group had access to food for only eight hours at night (the most active period for mice). In human terms, this would mean eating only for 8 hours during the day. Despite consuming the same amount of calories, mice that had access to food for only eight hours stayed lean and did not develop health problems like high blood sugar or chronic inflammation2. They even had improved endurance motor coordination on the exercise wheel. The all-day access group, on the other hand, became obese and were plagued with health problems including:
•High cholesterol
•High blood sugar
•Fatty liver disease
•Metabolic problems

This suggests that your body may benefit from the break it receives while fasting, whereas constant eating may lead to metabolic exhaustion and health consequences like weight gain. Researchers said their latest work shows it’s possible to stave off metabolic disease by simply restricting when you eat with periodic fasting, or even by just keeping to regular meal schedules rather than “grazing” off and on all day. They concluded:

“[Time-restricted feeding] is a nonpharmacological strategy against obesity and associated diseases.”

What the Research Says about Intermittent Fasting

Dvorsky highlights other research into fasting that point to similar conclusions, such as:
•Research by Valter Longo3 at the University of Southern California’s Longevity Institute shows that intermittent fasting has a beneficial impact on IGF-1, an insulin-like growth factor that plays a role in aging. When you eat, this hormone drives your cells to reproduce, and while this is good for growth, it’s also a factor that drives the aging process. Intermittent fasting decreases the expression of IGF-1, and switches on other DNA repair genes. In this way, intermittent fasting switches your body from “growth mode” to “repair mode.”
•Krista Varady with the University of Illinois has been researching the impact of fasting on chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. Her work also compares the effects of intermittent fasting with caloric restriction, which is known to benefit health and longevity. Animal studies using alternate-day fasting4 have shown it lowers the risk of diabetes, at rates comparable to caloric restriction. Alternate-day fasting has also been shown to reduce cancer rates by reducing cell proliferation.
•Research by Mark Hartman and colleagues5 indicates short-term fasting can trigger production of human growth hormone (HGH) in men, and reduce oxidative stress that contributes to disease and aging; benefits brain health, mental well-being, and clarity of thought

Review Debunks Myths about Weight Loss, Obesity

Intermittent fasting is one of the latest weight management strategies to get a lot of press. Meanwhile, other weight loss myths are being debunked. Dr. David B. Allison, director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at the University of Alabama, and colleagues recently published a paper on Myths, Presumptions, and Facts about Obesity6, stating:

“Many beliefs about obesity persist in the absence of supporting scientific evidence (presumptions); some persist despite contradicting evidence (myths). The promulgation of unsupported beliefs may yield poorly informed policy decisions, inaccurate clinical and public health recommendations, and an unproductive allocation of research resources and may divert attention away from useful, evidence-based information.”

The team identified:
•Seven obesity-related myths concerning the effects of small sustained increases in energy intake or expenditure, establishment of realistic goals for weight loss, rapid weight loss, weight-loss readiness, physical-education classes, breast-feeding, and energy expended during sexual activity. These include:
◦Small things make a big difference. Walking a mile a day can lead to a loss of more than 50 pounds in five years.
◦Set a realistic goal to lose a modest amount.
◦People who are too ambitious will get frustrated and give up.
◦You have to be mentally ready to diet or you will never succeed.
◦Slow and steady is the way to lose. If you lose weight too fast, you will lose less in the long run.
•Six presumptions that have yet to be proven true or false about the effects of regularly eating breakfast, early childhood experiences, eating fruits and vegetables, weight cycling, snacking, and the built (i.e., human-made) environment, such as:
◦Diet and exercise habits in childhood set the stage for the rest of life.
◦Add lots of fruits and vegetables to your diet to lose weight or not gain as much.
◦Yo-yo diets lead to increased death rates.
◦People who snack gain weight and get fat.
◦If you add bike paths, jogging trails, sidewalks and parks, people will not be as fat.
•Nine evidence-supported facts that are relevant for the formulation of sound public health, policy, or clinical recommendations, including:
◦Heredity is important but is not destiny.
◦Exercise helps with weight maintenance.
◦Weight loss is greater with programs that provide meals.
◦Some prescription drugs help with weight loss and maintenance.
◦Weight-loss surgery in appropriate patients can lead to long-term weight loss, less diabetes and a lower death rate

What I feel is missing here is the focus on an all-around healthy lifestyle pattern. Can you lose weight on prescription drugs? Yes. Does the research support this as “fact”? Yes. But this does NOT automatically mean that recommending diet drugs is good public health policy! Will diet drugs have a beneficial impact on your health in the long run? Do potential side effects of the drugs outweigh the benefit of losing weight?

Ditto for bariatric surgery. Does it lead to weight loss? Yes! But the side effects can be severe, including death, and several studies have shown the long-term outcome in terms of overall health is not that great…

Some of the items listed as myths and presumptions are simply common-sense guidelines and “helpful tips” that can help you maintain a healthier lifestyle, which will inevitably form the foundation of good health. So I would advise you to differentiate between “established scientific fact” (such as: weight loss surgery leads to weight loss) and what amounts to holistic healthy lifestyle guidelines, as the two are not necessarily interchangeable.

If your goal is to promote health, then supporting the addition of bike paths in your communities is not a crazy idea at all. In fact, some of these myths and presumptions are sort of silly, as when you talk about things like “can adding jogging trails and parks promote healthier weight?” You also have to consider the fact that there is social conditioning at work, and people have to start to rethink how they live their daily lives in order to see a change. This can take time. Having a public policy that tells you to get bariatric surgery instead of going for a walk every day is nothing short of crazy if you really think about it…

Clinical Trial to Be Conducted to Test Whether Skipping Breakfast Leads to Weight Loss

According to the New York Times7:

“… people often rely on weak studies that get repeated ad infinitum. It is commonly thought, for example, that people who eat breakfast are thinner. But that notion is based on studies of people who happened to eat breakfast. Researchers then asked if they were fatter or thinner than people who happened not to eat breakfast — and found an association between eating breakfast and being thinner. But such studies can be misleading because the two groups might be different in other ways that cause the breakfast eaters to be thinner. But no one has randomly assigned people to eat breakfast or not, which could cinch the argument.

… The question is: ‘Is it a causal association?’ To get the answer, he added, ‘Do the clinical trial.’

He decided to do it himself, with university research funds. A few hundred people will be recruited and will be randomly assigned to one of three groups. Some will be told to eat breakfast every day, others to skip breakfast, and the third group will be given vague advice about whether to eat it or not.”

Is Intermittent Fasting Right for You?

If you’re already off to a good start on a healthy diet and fitness plan, then intermittent fasting might be just the thing to bring you to the next level. However, you need to pay careful attention to your body, your energy levels, and how it makes you feel in general.

Please keep in mind that proper nutrition becomes even MORE important when fasting, so addressing your diet really should be your first step. Common sense will tell you that fasting combined with a denatured, highly processed, toxin-rich diet is likely to do more harm than good, as you’re not giving your body proper fuel to thrive when you DO eat.

If you’re hypoglycemic, diabetic, or pregnant (and/or breastfeeding), you are better off avoiding any type of fasting or timed meal schedule until you’ve normalized your blood glucose and insulin levels, or weaned the baby. Others categories of people that would be best served to avoid fasting include those living with chronic stress, and those with cortisol dysregulation.

Signs and Symptoms of Hypoglycemia

Hypoglycemia is a condition characterized by an abnormally low level of blood sugar. It’s commonly associated with diabetes, but you can be hypoglycemic even if you’re not diabetic. Common symptoms of a hypoglycemic crash include:
•Headache
•Weakness
•Tremors
•Irritability
•Hunger

As your blood glucose levels continue to plummet, more severe symptoms can set in, such as:
•Confusion and/or abnormal behavior
•Visual disturbances, such as double vision and blurred vision
•Seizures
•Loss of consciousness

One of the keys to eliminating hypoglycemia is to eliminate sugars, especially fructose from your diet. It will also be helpful to eliminate grains, and replace them with higher amounts of quality proteins and healthful fats. However it will take some time for your blood sugar to normalize. You’ll want to pay careful attention to hypoglycemic signs and symptoms, and if you suspect that you’re crashing, make sure to eat something.The ideal food would be coconut oil as it will not worsen your insulin levels and is metabolized relatively quickly for energy. You can try some coconut candy, for example. Ideally, you should avoid fasting if you’re hypoglycemic, and work on your overall diet to normalize your blood sugar levels first. Then try out one of the less rigid versions of fasting and work your way up.

Fasting While Pregnant is Not a Good Idea…

As for pregnant and/or lactating women, I don’t think fasting would be a wise choice. Your baby needs plenty of nutrients, during and after birth, and there’s no research supporting fasting during this important time. On the contrary, some studies8 suggest it might be contraindicated, as it can alter fetal breathing patterns, heartbeat, and increase gestational diabetes. It may even induce premature labor. I don’t think it’s worth the risk.

Instead, my recommendation would be to really focus on improving your nutrition during this crucial time. A diet with plenty of raw organic, biodynamic foods, and foods high in healthful fats, coupled with high quality proteins will give your baby a head start on good health. You’ll also want to be sure to include plenty of cultured and fermented foods to optimize your — and consequently your baby’s — gut flora. For more information, please see this previous article that includes specific dietary recommendations for a healthy pregnancy, as well as my interview with Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride.

Finding a Lifestyle Plan that Works for You Requires Trial and Error

While intermittent fasting can provide valuable health benefits, remember that fasting does not mean abstaining from ALL food for extended periods of time. Rather it involves a dramatic reduction of calorie intake at regular intervals — whether you opt for a 16, 20, or 24 hour fast once or twice a week, or fasting every other day, or simply delaying certain meals, such as skipping breakfast.

Just remember, it takes about six to eight hours for your body to metabolize your glycogen stores and only after that do you start to shift to burning fat, but only if you are already adapted to burning fat by having your fat burning enzymes upregulated by the strategy discussed above, which takes anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, depending on how healthy you are.

Always listen to your body, and go slow; work your way up to 16-18 hour fasts if your normal schedule has included multiple meals a day. Also be sure to address any hypoglycemic tendencies, as it can get increasingly dangerous the longer you go without eating to level out your blood sugar.

If you have already addressed your diet, cutting out fructose and grains and replacing them with healthful fats, then intermittent fasting could further boost weight loss and provide additional health benefits. If you’re engaged in a regular fitness program and feel like you’ve hit a plateau, then working out in a fasted state might help rev things up. For more information about exercise while fasting, please see this previous article.

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They’re a common lunch item, especially among “weight-conscious” 9 to 5’ers because they’re quick, convenient, and boast low calories and sodium. They have no preparation required unless you count taking them out of their box, which is why people buy them.

Frozen vegetables are also now taking this quick-preparation route and are touted as easier to eat due to “steamer” technology plastic bags. In fact, two-thirds of our frozen vegetable aisle is now these plastic bags of veggies.

But just how safe are these plastic-contained microwave meals and vegetables anyhow? Even containers that claim to be BPA-free still have unknown health effects.

What is BPA?

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical produced in large quantities, mostly for the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins.

BPA is often found in human blood because it can leach into food from the protective internal epoxy resin coatings of canned foods and from polycarbonate tableware, food storage containers, water bottles, and baby bottles. The degree to which BPA leaches from containers into food may depend more on the temperature of the liquid or bottle, than the age of the container.

It’s been discovered that BPA can disrupt our normal hormonal make-up, giving it the label of an “endocrine-disrupter.” Since this discovery, most plastic food containers are now BPA-free, such as water bottles and baby bottles.

However, it’s not well known what other chemical constituents are found in plastic containers, which may also have hormonal-disrupting effects for humans.

Thankfully, scientists are continually working on this problem and have recently released a new study giving us insight into the safety of plastic meal containers.

New Research Exposes Chemicals Leaching From Plastic Food Containers

Researchers from Texas and Boston through the past 5 years have been sampling over 500 plastic food container components (microwave meals, baby bottle parts, plastic steam bags) and exposing them to common environmental stresses:

• Moist Heat (like your dishwasher)
• UV Light (leaving a plastic bottle in the sun)
• Microwave (heat and radiation)

After various extractions and several years, the scientists found that subjecting plastic containers to these types of stress caused them to leach chemicals with known estrogenic-activity, and a potential danger to human hormonal make-up.

Chemicals that mimic or antagonize the actions of naturally occurring estrogens are defined as having estrogenic activity (EA), which is the most common form of endocrine disruptor activity.

What this means is that even containers that claim to be BPA-free are not EA-free, which is what we should be ultimately concerned about.

Although this study did not directly test how much of these EA chemicals a person will actually be exposed to through food products, given that each stressor may not be exactly the same, and a person may not absorb or metabolize these chemicals at the same rate, it is nevertheless very important to remember that numerous scientific data overwhelmingly show that very low-dose exposure to EAs alters normal cell function, and consistent exposure to EAs alters the reproductive health of various human populations.

Many scientists who study EA chemicals feel that is it not worth risking the health of ourselves and our future population by using plastic products with EA activity. As such, there is a push to remove all EA components from plastic containers and continue researching the safest mode of food containing.

In the meantime, your best bet is to avoid microwaving, dishwashing, and exposing plastic containers to direct, continuous sunlight.

Instead, use non-plastic containers and cook your food on the stove or in the oven. Bring leftovers to work for your lunch, but either eat them cold, or warm them in a non-plastic container.

Remember: eating food in its most natural state possible is the best option. Meals and food items that come in ready-to-cook convenient plastic containers are not the most ideal choice. Choose food that you have to do a little leg-work to prepare, but will help you enjoy the fruits of your labor without risking your health.

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Just when you thought eating fish was iffy enough due to Fukushima radiation, the gulf oil spill, mercury and other toxins found in fish, one of the largest seafood fraud investigations in the world to date has found that 59 percent of the tuna Americans consume is not really tuna. Worse still, most of the fake tuna was found to actually be a fish known for causing gastrointestinal problems.

The non-profit ocean protection group Oceana collected more than 1,200 samples from 674 retail outlets in 21 states from 2010 to 2012 to determine if they were honestly labeled. DNA testing found that one-third of the 1,215 seafood samples were mislabeled, according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines.

The fish Oceana found to be most often mislabeled was red snapper, where 87 percent of the samples collected were actually one of several other varieties of fish – such as perch and tilapia. Perhaps the most disturbing finding was that 84 percent of the fake fish substituted for second place tuna was escolar – a fish which can cause explosive, oily, and orange diarrhea.

Escolar, often mistakenly labeled in raw form as a variety of tuna called “butterfish,” is a type of snake mackerel that is unable to metabolize the wax esters called gemplyotoxin which are naturally found in its diet. The esters are called gempylotoxin, and are very similar to castor oil or mineral oil and the esters are what gives escolar an oily texture similar to tuna. As a result of the esters, eating full portions of escolar can cause severe gastrointestinal problems.

The fraudulently labeled seafood was found at sushi bars, restaurants and grocery stores with sushi bars being found to be far more likely to have the mislabeled fish. Oceana did not find a single sushi bar which had no dishonestly labeled fish.

Though the Oceana investigation did not determine where the fraud occurred in the chain from ocean to consumer, the reasons for the labeling fraud are obvious: greed and availability.

In practically every instance of mislabeling, a cheaper variety of fish was substituted for a more expensive one. Often, price differences are due to availability. Red snapper supplies, for example, are very limited as the levels of the popular fish have been severely depleted far beyond demand. Likewise, popular varieties of tuna, including albacore, yellowfin and bigeye, have been significantly depleted from over-fishing. Even the most common type of tuna, skipjack, may soon be in danger due to increased fishing pressure.

Other highlights of the Oceana investigation:
• Mislabeling was found in 27 of the 46 fish types tested (59 percent)
• Salmon, snapper, cod, tuna, sole, halibut and grouper were the top collected fish types
• Only seven of the 120 red snapper samples were honestly labeled
• Between one-fifth to more than one-third of the halibut, grouper, cod and Chilean sea bass samples were mislabeled
• 44 percent of all the grocery stores, restaurants and sushi venues visited sold mislabeled seafood

Today, more than 90 percent of the seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported, and fewer than one percent is inspected specifically for fraud by the government.

Seafood is a popular, and theoretically healthy, food choice for many Americans. Both the American Heart Association and new dietary guidelines from the FDA recommend eating eight ounces of seafood, or two seafood meals, a week. Seafood is a global commodity and is one of the most commonly traded food items in the world.

As the Oceana investigation has revealed, it is also one of the most common food items likely to be used to defraud consumers.

Sources:

http://www.theatlantic.com

Home

http://wwf.panda.org

Home

http://www.tbyil.com/Mercury_Heavy_Metals_in_Fish.htm
http://www.thekitchn.com/use-caution-when-eating-escola-66602

About the author:
“See all articles by Tony Isaacs”

Tony Isaacs, is a natural health author, advocate and researcher who hosts The Best Years in Life website for those who wish to avoid prescription drugs and mainstream managed illness and live longer, healthier and happier lives naturally. Mr. Isaacs is the author of books and articles about natural health, longevity and beating cancer including “Cancer’s Natural Enemy” and is working on a major book project due to be published later this year. He is also a contributing author for the worldwide advocacy group “SANEVax Inc” which endeavors to uncover the truth about HPV and other vaccine dangers.

Mr. Isaacs also hosts the Yahoo Oleandersoup group of over 2600 members and the Utopia Silver Supplement Company and he and his partner Luella May recently began hosting The Best Years in Life Radio Show” on Wolf Spirit Radio.

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

More than 3,000 food additives — preservatives, flavorings, colors and other ingredients — are added to foods in the United States.

While each of these substances are legal to use in the US, whether or not they are safe for long-term consumption — by themselves or in combination — is a different story altogether. Many have been deemed too harmful to use in other countries.

When you consider that about 90 percent of the money Americans spend on food goes toward processed foods loaded with these additives, it’s no wonder most people are carrying a hefty toxic load that can wreak havoc on their health.

A list of ingredients that are banned across the globe but still allowed for use in America recently made the news. The list is featured in the new book, Rich Food, Poor Food, authored by nutritionist Mira Calton and her husband Jayson.

The banned ingredients include various food dyes, the fat substitute Olestra, brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate (aka brominanted flour), Azodicarbonamide, BHA, BHT, rBGH, rBST, and arsenic.

Seeing that the overall health of Americans is so much lower than other industrialized countries, you can’t help but wonder whether toxic ingredients such as these might play a role in our unhealthy conditions.

Meanwhile, Russia has announced that it plans to extend a ban on U.S. beef, pork and turkey imports coming into effect this month, due to the feed additive ractopamine in the meats. Ractopamine is a growth stimulant banned in several countries, including Russia.

Processed Foods Depend on Additives

When foods are processed, not only are valuable nutrients lost and fibers removed, but the textures and natural variation and flavors are also lost. After processing, what’s left behind is a bland, uninteresting “pseudo-food” that most people wouldn’t want to eat.

So at this point, food manufacturers must add back in the nutrients, flavor, color and texture to processed foods in order to make them palatable, and this is why they become loaded with food additives.

Most commonly, additives are included to slow spoilage, prevent fats and oils from going rancid, prevent fruits from turning brown, fortify or enrich the food with synthetic vitamins and minerals to replace the natural ones that were lost during processing, and improve taste, texture and appearance. When reading product packages, here are some of the most common food additives1 to watch out for:
•Preservatives: sodium benzoate, sodium nitrite, potassium sorbate, BHA, BHT, TBHQ
•Sweeteners and artificial sweeteners: fructose, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame potassium (acesulfame-K)
•Artificial colors: FD&C Blue Nos. 1 and 2, FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red Nos. 3 and 40, FD&C Yellow Nos. 5 and 6, Orange B, Citrus Red No. 2
•Artificial flavors
•Flavor enhancers: monosodium glutamate (MSG), hydrolyzed soy protein, autolyzed yeast extract

Top Offenders to Avoid

According to the Caltons, the following 13 additives are the worst of the more than 150 individual ingredients they investigated during their six-year long journey, which took them through 100 different countries.2

Ingredient

Found in

Health Hazards

Coloring agents: blue 1, blue 2, yellow 5, and yellow 6

Cake, candy, macaroni and cheese, medicines, sport drinks, soda, pet food, and cheese

Most artificial colors are made from coal tar, which is a carcinogen

Olestra (aka Olean)

Fat-free potato chips

Depletion of fat-soluble vitamins and carotenoids. Side effects include oily anal leakage

Brominated vegetable oil (aka BVO)

Sports drinks and citrus-flavored sodas

Competes with iodine for receptor sites in the body, which can lead to hypothyroidism, autoimmune disease, and cancer. The main ingredient, bromine, is a poisonous, corrosive chemical, linked to major organ system damage, birth defects, growth problems, schizophrenia, and hearing loss

Potassium bromate (aka brominated flour)

Rolls, wraps, flatbread, bread crumbs, and bagel chips

See bromine above. Associated with kidney and nervous system disorders, gastrointestinal discomfort

Azodicarbonamide

Breads, frozen dinners, boxed pasta mixes, and packaged baked goods

Linked to asthma

BHA and BHT

Cereal, nut mixes, gum, butter, meat, dehydrated potatoes, and beer

BHA may be a human carcinogen, a cancer-causing agent. BHT can cause organ system toxicity

Synthetic hormones: rBGH and rBST

Milk and dairy products

Linked to breast, colon, and prostate cancers

Arsenic

Poultry

EPA classifies inorganic arsenic as a “human carcinogen”

What’s With the Double-Standards?

The food industry has already formulated safer, better products for other countries, in which these and other harmful ingredients are banned. So why do they insist on selling inferior versions in America? For clear examples, take a look at a recent article on 100DaysOfRealFood.com.3 In it, Vani Hari shows the ingredient labels of several common foods sold in the US and the UK, such as Betty Crocker’s Red Velvet cake mix, McDonald’s French fries, and Pizza Hut’s garlic cheese bread. Amazingly, while these foods can be created using a bare minimum of additives in the UK (and sometimes none), in the US, they’re absolutely LOADED with chemicals.

“The food industry does not want us to pay attention to the ingredients nor do they care about the negative effects from eating them. They certainly don’t care about the astronomical medical bills that are a direct result of us eating the inferior food they are creating,” Vani Hari writes.

“…We as a collective nation must stop this trajectory of sickness and rising health care costs, by understanding the ingredients we are putting into our bodies. We must challenge the U.S. food industry to discontinue the use of banned ingredients that are not allowed elsewhere in the world. We deserve to have the same quality food without potential toxins.”

Russia Issues Long-Term Ban on US Meat

In related “questionable food” news, Russia recently banned US meat supplies after discovering it contains ractopamine—a beta agonist drug that increases protein synthesis, thereby making the animal more muscular. This reduces the fat content of the meat. As reported by Pravda,4 Russia is the fourth largest importer of US meats, purchasing about $500 million-worth of beef and pork annually.

Effective February 11, Russia will no longer allow US meat imports, stating the ban “is likely to last for a long time.”5 All meat suppliers wishing to sell their meat and meat products to Russia must certify their meat as ractopamine-free—a condition the US has so far refused to comply with.

The drug is banned for use in 160 countries, including China and Russia, but allowed in 24 countries, including Canada and the United States. While the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) considers ractopamine safe and doesn’t test for it, Russia’s chief health inspector, Gennady Onishchenko, claims there are “serious questions” about the safety of the drug. He previously told the New York Times:6

“For instance, use of ractopamine is accompanied by a reduction in body mass, suppression of reproductive function, increase of mastitis in dairy herds, which leads to a steep decline in the quality and safety of milk.”

Ractopamine is also known to affect the human cardiovascular system, and may cause food poisoning, according to Pravda.7 It’s also thought to be responsible for hyperactivity, muscle breakdown, and can increase death and disability in livestock. While other drugs require a clearance period of around two weeks to help ensure the compounds are flushed from the meat prior to slaughter (and therefore reduce residues leftover for human consumption), there is no clearance period for ractopamine.

In fact, livestock growers intentionally use the drug in the last days before slaughter in order to increase its effectiveness. According to veterinarian Michael W. Fox, as much as 20 percent of ractopamine remains in the meat you buy from the supermarket. Despite potential health risks, the drug is used in 45 percent of US pigs, 30 percent of ration-fed cattle, and an unknown percentage of turkeys.

What’s the Simplest Way to Avoid Harmful Food Additives?

Ditch processed foods entirely. (If you live in Europe you may have more options than Americans, as you may be able to find some processed foods that do not contain any synthetic additives.) About 90 percent of the money Americans spend on food is spent on processed foods, so there is massive room for improvement in this area for most people.

Swapping your processed food diet for one that focuses on fresh whole foods may seem like a radical idea, but it’s a necessity if you value your health. And when you put the history of food into perspective, it’s actually the processed foods that are “radical” and “new.” People have thrived on vegetables, meats, eggs, fruits and other whole foods for centuries, while processed foods were only recently invented.

If you want to eat healthy, I suggest you follow the 1950s (and before) model and spend quality time in the kitchen preparing high-quality meals for yourself and your family. If you rely on processed inexpensive foods, you exchange convenience for long-term health problems and mounting medical bills. For a step-by-step guide to make this a reality in your own life, simply follow the advice in my optimized nutrition plan along with these seven steps to wean yourself off processed foods.

When it comes to staying healthy, avoiding processed foods and replacing them with fresh, whole foods is the “secret” you’ve been looking for. Additionally, the more steps your food goes through before it reaches your plate, the greater your chances of contamination becomes. If you are able to get your food locally, you eliminate numerous routes that could expose your food to contamination with disease-causing pathogens.

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

Two Latest GE-Related Health Threats: ‘Monster Salmon,’ and Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria from GE Experiments Found in Chinese Waterways

Fish — and salmon in particular — has always been an ideal source for the animal-based omega-3 fats EPA and DHA, but as levels of pollution have increased, fish in general have become less viable as a primary source of healthful fats.

Soon, there will be even more to worry about as salmon is getting a genetic makeover.

Not only will you need to beware of inferior and poorly labeled farmed salmon, you’ll also have to contend with it possibly being genetically engineered (GE), since the US still does not require GE foods to be labeled as such.

On December 21, 2012, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took a giant step closer toward the final approval of the first genetically engineered (GE) food animal — a salmon designed to grow abnormally fast,1 and to an unnaturally large size.

It now appears the first GE fish could reach your dinner plate within the next year or two, unless a sufficiently strong opposition is mounted.

According to the FDA,2 the GE salmon is “as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon,” but many have brought up significant flaws and limitations of the environmental assessment (EA) on which this conclusion is drawn.

In recent years, mounting evidence shows that initial suspicions that GE foods might have unforeseen consequences were indeed correct — from alteration of soil composition, to contaminating waterways with antibiotic resistant bacteria linked to GE crops,3 to serious health consequences for animals and humans who consume GE products.

Latest GE-Related Health Threat: Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria from GE Experiments Found in Waterways…

The first-ever study4, 5 to address GE crop-related pollution of waterways discovered that Chinese rivers are contaminated with antibiotic-resistant genes from genetic engineering experiments, which (again) may have unforeseen repercussions for human health. According to the authors:6

“Antibiotic resistance poses a significant challenge to human health and its rate continues to rise globally. While antibiotic-selectable synthetic plasmid vectors have proved invaluable tools of genetic engineering, this class of artificial recombinant DNA sequences with high expression of antibiotic resistance genes presents an unknown risk beyond the laboratory setting.

Contamination of environmental microbes with synthetic plasmid vector-sourced antibiotic resistance genes may represent a yet unrecognized source of antibiotic resistance.

In this study, PCR and real-time quantitative PCR were used to investigate the synthetic plasmid vector-originated ampicillin resistance gene, β-lactam antibiotic (blá), in microbes from six Chinese rivers with significant human interactions. Various levels of blá were detected in all six rivers… The resistance spectrum of transformants from the Pearl and Haihe rivers, in particular, had expanded to the third- and fourth-generation of cephalosporin drugs, while that of other transformants mainly involved first- and second-generation cephalosporins.

This study not only reveals environmental contamination of synthetic plasmid vector-sourced blá drug resistance genes in Chinese rivers, but also suggests that synthetic plasmid vectors may represent a source of antibiotic resistance in humans.”

Monsanto ‘To the Rescue’ in the Face of Rapid Climate Change?

With “unforeseen side effects” sprouting like heads from a hydra, it’s no wonder Monsanto realizes it’s in dire need of an image makeover…7

Part of the PR tactic is to claim biotech companies, with Monsanto in the lead, are essential for mankind’s survival in the face of global climatic changes. In the following interview, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant vaguely discusses the company’s strategy of “modifying maturity zones” in the U.S. “to encompass climatic shifts.” Essentially, he claims that we need GE crops in order to adapt fast enough to rapidly altering climate.

If you haven’t seen the man in charge of running what many people believe to be the most evil company on the planet, you can get a look at Hugh in the video above. Although he was not in charge when the company first produced Agent Orange and dioxin, it still is the same pernicious organization.

I’m sorry, Hugh. You don’t get a free pass to pollute the world for generations and walk away with tens of billions of dollars. You don’t get to force your “horizontal gene transfer” into living organisms, allowing it to infect like a virus and thereby enslave these life forms and seeds for your profit. Plants, animals, people – where does it stop? Propagating, proliferating, mutating and migrating… Climate changes indeed pose a serious problem, but genetic engineering is not the answer — not when the technology itself threatens all life on the planet!

Monsanto lies in the bed that’s been made, and their dirty deeds are coming back to haunt them. Rest assured, people around the world will relentlessly continue this fight. Grant’s statements are even more ironic in light of the fact that genetically modified (GM) crops are actually failing around the world. So much for offering salvation. According to a recent article in Farmers Weekly:8

“Some US farmers are considering returning to conventional seed after increased pest resistance and crop failures meant GM crops saw smaller yields globally than their non-GM counterparts. Farmers in the USA pay about an extra $100 per acre for GM seed, and many are questioning whether they will continue to see benefits from using GMs.

‘It’s all about cost benefit analysis,’ said economist Dan Basse, president of American agricultural research company AgResource. ‘Farmers are paying extra for the technology but have seen yields which are no better than 10 years ago. They’re starting to wonder why they’re spending extra money on the technology.’ One of the biggest problems the USA has seen with GM seed is resistance. While it was expected to be 40 years before resistance began to develop ,pests such as corn rootworm have formed a resistance to GM crops in as few as 14 years.”

GE Crops are NOT the ‘Most Tested’ Product in the World

What good will GE foods do if they end up sending us into an early grave, riddled with disease, and/or result in widespread infertility one or more generations down the line, like animal studies have demonstrated? The fact is, GE foods have never been proven safe for human consumption over a lifetime, let alone over generations. Grant claims genetically engineered crops are “the most-tested food product that the world has ever seen.” What he doesn’t tell you is that:
a.Industry-funded research predictably affects the outcome of the trial. This has been verified by dozens of scientific reviews comparing funding with the findings of the study. When industry funds the research, it’s virtually guaranteed to be positive. Therefore, independent studies must be done to replicate and thus verify results
b.The longest industry-funded animal feeding study was 90 days, which recent research has confirmed is FAR too short. In the world’s first independently funded lifetime feeding study, massive health problems set in during and after the 13th month, including organ damage and cancer
c.Companies like Monsanto and Syngenta rarely if ever allow independent researchers access to their patented seeds, citing the legal protection these seeds have under patent laws. Hence independent research is extremely difficult or nearly impossible to conduct. If these scientists get seeds from a farmer, they sue them into oblivion as one of their favorite tactics is to use the legal system to their advantage. Additionally, virtually all academic agricultural research is controlled by Monsanto as they are the primary supporters of these departments and none will risk losing their funding from them
d.There is no safety monitoring. Meaning, once the GE item in question has been approved, not a single country on earth is actively monitoring and tracking reports of potential health effects

High-Priced PR should NOT be Confused with Science-Based Truth

All in all, if their genetically altered food products have something wrong with them that potentially could cause consumer illness, the biotech industry would rather NOT have you find out about it. Not through independent research, nor through a simple little label that would allow you to opt out of the experiment, should you choose not to take them on their word.

Why don’t they want labeling? Because it would clearly decrease their profits, just like it did in Europe once labeling was implemented.

Doesn’t this remind you of the public health debate that went on for decades over another multi-billion dollar industry — cigarettes? For decades the companies producing this cancer-causing product denied they caused any harm, denied nicotine was addictive, and even ran advertisements featuring doctors claiming cigarettes were good for your cough. They produced study after study by their own scientists claiming there was no health threat whatsoever from cigarettes.

Executives from every major cigarette company even lied to Congress under oath, claiming they had no knowledge cigarettes were addictive, when in fact they did know — they even manipulated the nicotine content9 of cigarettes to keep you hooked! Bet you didn’t know that, did you? Genetically engineered foods are just another wolf in the same old sheep’s clothing. The propaganda and the fraud has worked so well for so long, why bother changing something that works so well? Don’t fall for the same old scheme! Instead, read what the few independent researchers are really saying about the science behind genetically engineered foods. You can find all previous articles on this topic on my dedicated GMO News page.

Monsanto Heads to Supreme Court

Monsanto has long been trying to establish control over the seeds of the plants that produce food for the world. They have patented a number of genetically altered food crops, which can only be grown with proper license, and the seeds which must be purchased anew each year. Alas, genetically engineered (GE) crops cannot be contained. And rather than being found guilty of contaminating farmers’ property, Monsanto has successfully sued hundreds of unsuspecting farmers for patent infringement when unlicensed GE crops were found growing in their fields. Many farmers have subsequently, quite literally, lost their farms.

Few have had the fortitude necessary to stand up to Monsanto’s seemingly limitless power. According to a report10 by the Center for Food Safety (CFS), Monsanto had, as of December 2012, filed 142 patent infringement lawsuits against 410 farmers and 56 small businesses in more than 27 states. All in all, Monsanto has been awarded a staggering $23 million from their mafia tactics so far11.

Seventy-five year old Indiana soybean farmer Vernon Bowman is one of the few who is fighting back.12 On February 19, the US Supreme Court began hearing his appeal, in which he disputes Monsanto’s claim that his farm used the patented seeds without authorization. According to a recent press release:13

“Farmer Bowman legally purchased seeds at a grain elevator, which bought them from farmers who had, with Monsanto’s authorization, used the genetically modified Monsanto seeds to grow their soybean crops. Monsanto claims that Mr. Bowman infringed its patents on herbicide-resistant plants and seeds by using the grain elevator seeds to grow his soybean crops. Mr. Bowman asserts that Monsanto’s sales of the original seeds to authorized purchasers exhausted Monsanto’s patent rights and therefore Monsanto cannot enforce its patents against second-generation and later seeds that resulted from planting the original seeds.”

The central issue in this case is the extent that a patent holder (in this case Monsanto) can control its use through multiple generations of seed.14 Many hope the Supreme Court will deliver a decision that will curb the current system of patenting seeds and other life forms (especially food sources). According to Reuters:15

“The court battle has ballooned into a show-down that merges contentious matters of patent law with an ongoing national debate about the merits and pitfalls of genetically altered crops and efforts to increase food production. More than 50 organizations – from environmental groups to intellectual property experts – as well as the U.S. government, have filed legal briefs hoping to sway the high court.

Companies developing patented cell lines and tools of molecular biotechnology could lose their ability to capture the ongoing value of these technologies if the Supreme Court sides with Bowman, said Hans Sauer, deputy general counsel for the Biotechnology Industry Organization.”

Why Won’t President Obama Answer the American People?

So far, there have been two petitions relating to genetically engineered foods on President Barack Obama’s “We The People” petition website that have surpassed the signature threshold required for a response. But instead of addressing the sincere concerns of the American people, as promised, there has been no answer forthcoming. Only deafening silence. This despite the fact that Obama vowed to label GE foods all the way back in 2007, were he to be elected. He’s now into his second term, and has yet to make a single move to uphold his initial campaign promise.

The FDA too has failed in its core purpose to protect American citizens. FDA policies have instead lead to a lack of transparency, revolving doors with industry, market bullying, seed privatization, and widespread illness. This despite the many well documented risks of GE foods…

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.

U.S. dairy industry petitions FDA to approve aspartame as hidden, unlabeled additive in milk, yogurt, eggnog and cream

You probably already know that the FDA has declared war on raw milk and even helped fund and coordinate armed government raids against raw milk farmers and distributors. Yes, it’s insane. This brand of tyranny is unique to the USA and isn’t even conducted in China, North Kora or Cuba. Only in the USA are raw milk farmers treated like terrorists.

But now the situation is getting even more insane than you could have imagined: the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) have filed a petition with the FDA asking the FDA to alter the definition of “milk” to secretly include chemical sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose.

Importantly, none of these additives need to be listed on the label. They will simply be swept under the definition of “milk,” so that when a company lists “milk” on the label, it automatically includes aspartame or sucralose. And if you’re trying to avoid aspartame, you’ll have no way of doing so because it won’t be listed on the label.

This isn’t only for milk, either: It’s also for yogurt, cream, sour cream, eggnog, whipping cream and a total of 17 products, all of which are listed in the petition at FDA.gov.

As the petition states:

IDFA and NMPF request their proposed amendments to the milk standard of identity to allow optional characterizing flavoring ingredients used in milk (e.g., chocolate flavoring added to milk) to be sweetened with any safe and suitable sweetener — including non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame.

This is all being done to “save the children,” we’re told, because the use of aspartame in milk products would reduce calories.

Milk industry specifically asks to HIDE aspartame from consumers
Astonishingly, the dairy industry is engaged in extreme doublespeak logic and actually arguing that aspartame should be hidden from consumers by not listing it on the label. Here’s what the petition says:

IDFA and NMPF argue that nutrient content claims such as “reduced calorie” are not attractive to children, and 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. Further, the petitioners assert that consumers do not recognize milk — including flavored milk — as necessarily containing sugar. Accordingly, the petitioners state that milk flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners should be labeled as milk without further claims so that consumers can “more easily identify its overall nutritional value.”

In other words, hiding aspartame from consumers by not including it on the label actually helps consumers, according to the IDFA and NMPF!

Yep, consumers are best served by keeping them ignorant. If this logic smacks of the same kind of twisted deception practiced by Monsanto, that’s because it’s identical: the less consumers know, the more they are helped, according to industry. And it’s for the children, too, because children are also best served by keeping them poisoned with aspartame.

Consumers have always been kept in the dark about pink slime, meat glue, rBGH and GMOs in their food. And now, if the IDFA gets its way, you’ll be able to drink hormone-contaminated milk from an antibiotics-inundated cow fed genetically modified crops and producing milk containing hidden aspartame. And you won’t have the right to know about any of this!

The FDA confirms this “secret” status of aspartame, stating, “If the standard of identity for milk is amended as requested by petitioners, milk manufacturers could use non-nutritive sweeteners in flavored milk without a nutrient content claim in its labeling.”

FDA requests comments
The FDA is requesting comments on this petition. You have until May 21st, 2013 to submit your comments. Click here for instructions.

This is a clue to stop drinking processed milk and milk products altogether
There’s a bigger story here than just the industry hoping to get FDA approval to secretly put aspartame in milk products while not listing aspartame on the label.

The bigger question is this: If an industry is pushing to hide aspartame in its products, what else is it already hiding?

How about the pus content of its dairy products? How about its inhumane treatment of animals who are subjected to torture conditions and pumped full of genetically engineered hormones? How about the fact that homogenization and pasteurization turn a whole food into a dietary nightmare that promotes obesity, autoimmune disorders and cardiovascular disease?

There are lots of dirty little secrets in the dairy industry of course, and that doesn’t even get into the secret closed-door conversations to encourage the FDA to destroy the competition of raw milk.

The only rational answer to all this is to stop buying and consuming processed dairy products, period!

I gave up ALL milk products many years ago and have never looked back. I drink almond milk, not pus-filled pasteurized cow’s milk. (Click here for a recipe to make your own almond milk at home.) I don’t eat yogurt. If I want probiotics, I get them from tasty chewable probiotics supplements such as Sunbiotics. I parted ways with processed dairy products many years ago, and as a result, my cardiovascular health, skin health, digestive health and stamina have all remained in outstanding shape.

There’s also a philosophical issue here: Don’t buy products from an industry that habitually LIES about everything. The dairy industry is like a mafia. They actively seek to destroy the competition, keep consumers ignorant and monopolize the market. They run highly deceptive ads with ridiculous claims like, “drinking milk helps you lose weight” and other nonsense.

The U.S. dairy industry is steeped in deception at every level, and now they want you and your children to unknowingly drink aspartame that’s secretly blended into the product.

The dairy industry is to food as Lance Armstrong is to sports. It’s all a big lie, laced with secret chemicals and false claims.

Stop drinking milk. Stop financially supporting the food mafia.

Recommended videos:
Raw Milk Rover (hilarious animation)
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=273C2497DFDE9F61CB9E8867113CA5CA

Got a PUStache? (satire)
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=C463AA940B9AEBA5D294F87FF0716579

Jonathan Emord raw milk freedom speech:
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=F8DF9A42CC5479D8829A2445C56AFEF3

Farmageddon interview with Kristin Canty
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=3340FCCC93B2C17EEFA43C7E6296728D

Sources for this article:
This petition was originally brought to our attention by a reader who says it was covered on Activist Post. I haven’t yet read that article but may update this article with a link to that article once I identify the URL.

FDA petition page:
http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/02/20/2013-03835/flavore…

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/039244_milk_aspartame_FDA_petition.html#ixzz2Lzk1P0K2

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

Does a Mediterranean Diet Really Beat Low-Fat for Heart Health?

An article just published in the New England Journal of Medicine claims that a Mediterranean diet is much more effective than a “low-fat diet” in preventing cardiovascular disease. A careful reading of the study reveals that this is simply not true.

Here’s why:
•The comparison (control) group did not follow a low-fat diet. As the authors wrote, “We acknowledge that, even though participants in the control group received advice to reduce fat intake, changes in total fat were small.” This is not surprising, since they gave the control group virtually no support at all in following this diet during the first half of the study.

In the “low-fat” group, total fat consumption decreased insignificantly, from 39 percent to 37 percent (Table S7, appendix). This doesn’t even come close to the American Heart Association guidelines of a low-fat diet (<30 percent fat) or ours for reversing heart disease (<10 percent fat). So, they weren't comparing a Mediterranean diet to a low-fat diet, because the control group was not following a low-fat diet. And I'm not talking about a very low-fat diet that we found (with other nutritional and lifestyle changes) could reverse heart disease, but even a moderately low-fat diet. The authors should have concluded that the Mediterranean diet reduced cardiovascular risk when compared to whatever diet they were eating before, not when compared to a low-fat diet, since patients in the control group ("low-fat diet") were not consuming a low-fat diet. The authors might as well have concluded, "The Mediterranean diet reduced cardiovascular risk when compared to a randomized control group of patients who were asked to walk and chew gum at the same time" since they didn't do that, either. •Also, the researchers appear to have done everything they could to bias the outcome in favor of the Mediterranean diet by encouraging the "low-fat" diet to increase consumption of foods that are known to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, including bread, potatoes, pasta, and rice, and not to limit their intake of sodas (which also increase cardiovascular disease risk). See Table 1. •The "low-fat" diet group patients were discouraged from eating fatty fish that are rich in omega‑3 fatty acids that are highly protective from cardiovascular disease. (In my program, we have recommended for decades that patients take 4 grams/day of fish oil or flax oil to provide the omega‑3 fatty acids.) See Table 1. In contrast, both Mediterranean diet groups were consuming fatty fish such as salmon, which have significant omega‑3 fatty acids. Also, they were consuming either more walnuts and/or more olive oil, which have omega‑3 fatty acids. Because of this, the researchers found that omega‑3 fatty acid levels (alpha-linolenic acid) were significantly higher in both Mediterranean diet groups (Figure S5). •There was no significant reduction in heart attacks (myocardial infarction), death from cardiovascular causes, or death from any cause. They only found a significant reduction in death from stroke (Table 3). The authors wrote, "Only the comparison of stroke risk reached statistical significance." They only found a reduction in cardiovascular causes when these were pooled with deaths from stroke, because the reduction in strokes was sufficiently high that it "carried along" the average of the other conditions (Table 3). In summary, the most responsible conclusion should be, "We found a significant reduction in stroke in those consuming a Mediterranean diet high in omega‑3 fatty acids when compared to those who were not making significant changes in their diet." Over the past 36 years, my colleagues and I have published a series of randomized controlled trials showing that this diet can reverse the progression of even severe coronary heart disease and cause 2.5 times fewer cardiac events. Also, it can stop or reverse the progression of early-stage prostate cancer, improve gene expression, and increase telomerase. For this reason, Medicare is covering "Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease" in sites that we've trained. An optimal diet that I recommend for preventing and reversing heart disease is: •Rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and soy products in their natural, unrefined forms. •Low in total fat (<10 percent fat), saturated fats, and trans fats. •High in omega‑3 fatty acids (fish oil, flax oil, salmon). •Low in refined carbohydrates such as sugar, white flour (bread, pasta), white rice, and sugar-sweetened beverages. •Low in processed and refined foods. If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.