Food and Nutrition Snips

Daily Snippet Archives

06/23/15 Fermented foods help the old attitude and even put the kibosh on anxiety disorders. Researchers recently found that young adults eating more fermented foods have fewer social anxiety symptoms than others who didn’t. This tells me that instead of looking to the mind and trying to bend it with drugs, we can actually help people with mental health and anxiety issues by grooming the gut with good bacteria and prebiotic enzymes. Not only do fermented foods have a profound effect on anxiety, mood and depression, they improve digestion and nutrient absorption, prevent allergies, boost immunity, fight disease, build a stronger immune system and put a whammy on bad bacteria. This is just a few great reasons to put more fermented foods on your menu. Remember that it is always best to choose healthy fermented foods like; organic pickles without food colors; yogurt without artificial sugars and flavors; naturally fermented sauerkraut and organic pickled beets. “You are what you eat” is more than just a throw-away line.

06/16/15In the latest study out of the University of Iowa, scientists found that adding high salt to a high-fat diet actually prevented weight gain in mice. In fact, mice fed a low salt/high fat diet gained the most weight out of several test groups and only the high salt/high fat diet held their own, actually testing comparable to the control group fed a normal mouse-chow diet. What the scientists surmised from their testing and observation was that varying levels of salt had a significant effect on both digestive efficiency and the amount of fat absorbed by the body. This goes to show you that you should literally take everything about diet you hear from mainstream with a grain of salt. Heck, make it two grains of salt thrown in with some healthy fats – just make sure you use quality sea salt and not the demineralized, twice-baked, iodized, free-flowing crap. Oh, and don’t think this means you can ‘frenzy-feed from the drive-thru menu’ your way into smaller pants because that kind of fatty diet will only plump you up and increase your risk for cardiovascular disease.

06/09/15 GMO subterfuge: Anti-GMO people might laud the possibility of the passing of The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015 – but, if they really knew the dirty little secrets behind the whole package they would sing a much different tune. Did you know that this proposed law is actually being backed and driven by Monsanto, Koch Industries and Dupont (among others)? In fact, their banner-child organization is named “The Coalition for Safe Affordable Food”. This little ole coalition has since written a letter to Congress saying that GMO labels would be misleading because GMOs are safe and the net-effect of labeling would mean “higher food prices for hard working American families.” One huge problem is that this bill actually contains a “prohibition against mandatory labeling” while allowing only for voluntary USDA certification and labeling. The absolute biggest problem is that this bill would override any and all state or local laws that require GMO labeling. Bottom line, it will specifically block any real GMO labeling efforts from ever happening – unless, perchance, the FDA determines that some particular GMO product is ever found to be unsafe – in that case, label that one only. Solution: If in GMO doubt – just leave the food out! Just don’t even buy it.

06/02/15 Did you know that the recommended three glasses of milk a day has been linked to shorter lifespans along with more broken bones? In fact, a large study in the BMJ 2014 showed that “high milk intake was associated with higher mortality in one cohort of women and in another cohort of men, and with higher fracture incidence in women.” That ‘three-a-day’ milk habit actually gave women a 60% increase in hip fractures, a 90% increase in death by cardiovascular disease and 44% more deaths by cancer as compared to the one-a-day glass of milk drinkers. Well, with milk sales in the tank, the dairy industry has recently locked arms with Coca-Cola to create the monster milk drink Fairlife which has an unnatural 50% more protein, 30% more calcium, 50% percent less sugar, and an amazing shelf life of 100 days. The fact is that normal cows’ milk already has three times more protein than human milk and when you toss back a glass of this stuff, a large amount of the protein is converted into acids – which actually leaches more calcium from the bones than was in the milk in the first place!

05/26/15 The genetic engineering of corn to produce its own Bt toxin has brought about serious concerns for human health – even though the US government gives it a huge thumbs-up and a wink. We GMO’d our corn to fight earworms and bore worms and guess what? We still have an earworm and bore worm problem! In fact, predictions made some 20 years were that GMO corn would only produce a new breed of super-worms – which brings us to a recent study out of Clemson University that shows that GMO corn is having little impact on crop pests. As another unfortunate result, pretty much all corn crops are now contaminated at some level with genetic modification because of cross-pollination. Think your organic corn is safe to eat? If there is a GMO corn field anywhere within 20 or miles or so, the winds carry the GMO plant pollen willy-nilly to settle on other crops. Bottom line; GMOs were developed under the partial pretense of “feeding the nations”, but in reality, it is just one small part of a sadistic money-grubbing ploy by Big Agriculture companies like Monsanto to control the sale of seeds.

05/19/15 So, more and more you find peanut allergies in the news and the latest study finds a huge connection between peanuts and childhood asthma. In fact, scientists have recently declared that peanut sensitivity reactions mimic asthma attacks including shortness of breath, wheezing and coughing. As it turns out, many children who supposedly have asthma also have an allergic sensitivity to peanuts – and almost nobody knows it. Nearly 44% of over 1,500 children with asthma studied for peanut sensitivity had positive IgE antibodies that indicated reactivity to peanuts. Back to the question: why do we have all these peanut allergies and asthma/peanut connections? Uh, could it be that most nut allergies have blossomed since 1964 when Merck introduced peanut oil and other nut oils into vaccines to hopefully extend temporary vaccine immunity against childhood diseases? When oils are injected into the muscle via a vaccine, they are labelled offensive by the body and fought off by the immune system. This provides a sustained release of immune system antibodies against the offending oil – rendering the victim totally sensitive to the ingestion of the food version.

05/12/15 Horseradish is a superfood! This root from the mustard family packs a goodly amount of dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants along with natural Vitamin C to fight viral infections and boost immunity. Horseradish contains many volatile compounds such as various isothiocyanates and sinigrin which tout some pretty awesome detoxification functions. Some of the phyto-chemical compounds in horseradish stimulate digestive enzymes that facilitate digestion and horseradish also has anti-inflammatory, diuretic (increases urine output), and nerve soothing effects. Top this off with the fact that horseradish helps remove free-radicals from the body to protect you from cancers. But wait, there’s more! Horseradish is a magnificent blood tonic that’s loaded with sodium, potassium, manganese, iron, copper, zinc, and magnesium. The biggest drawback here is that store-bought versions are all made with GMO soybean oil. But I get around that by grinding my own horseradish in a blender pouring in grapeseed oil and some white vinegar to bring it to the consistency and flavor I like. Feeling nauseous and sick? Do what I do; eat a healthy helping of horseradish straight up! Works for me every time.

05/05/15 So, if your junk food sales are lagging, invent something that appears nutritious to help recover the lagging dollars. That’s what Coca-Cola did. They teamed up with charlatan fitness and nutrition “experts” to get them to suggest that a soft drink is actually a healthy treat and a wise choice. Several of these paid “experts” even wrote online pieces for American Heart Month, promoting the mini-can of Coke or small soda as a nutritious snack idea. Coca-Cola also recently focused PR strategy with health experts in February to promote the theme of “Heart Health & Black History Month” complete with a radio segment and multiple online pieces. Business-as-usual for Big Food companies because this is how Big Money corporations work from the shadows to hype their products in a positive light – by using third party “authorities”. Ya, go ahead and pay more per ounce for your mini can of Coca-Cola if you really think it is a healthy idea – and I’ve got some oceanfront property in AZ that I can sell you next…

04/28/15 Organic corn? Good luck with that one… Corn relies on the wind to cross-pollinate. The problem is that organic corn can pollinate off of GMO corn crops many miles away. (Technically, if you plant “organic corn”, you get to call it “organic” even if it is contaminated by GMO crops growing downwind – and that’s what you get nowadays.) Europe tests all organic-grown corn before shipping and when transgenic contamination is found, it is refused. Well, how about you? Don’t you want to know if your “organic corn” is GMO contaminated? My guess is that it is. But, here’s where the plot twists: Researchers have developed a way to preserve the integrity of organic corn by isolating a genetic trait from popcorn that won’t allow the mutant ninja GMO corn to infiltrate other nearby corn crops. One developer, Frank Kutka, calls his corn breeding brain-child “Organic Ready corn”, a salvo against Monsanto’s genetically-modified Roundup Ready products. Now we wait for the marketing to catch up to the demand.

04/21/15 So, scientists fed two groups of mice with either coconut oil or soybean oil for 6 months. The unfortunate soy-fed mice grew three times larger than the luckier coconut-fed mice. Three times?? But that’s not all. The condemned soy-fed mice also had fattier livers along with higher rates of glucose intolerance, heart disease, cancer and early deaths. How does this relate to humans? This 6-month experiment that reeked metabolic havoc in mice equates to about 20 years of human life. Sounds to me like the exact same health problems soy-fed humans are experiencing… Did you know that cooking with and eating coconut oil not only helps control your weight but also gives you a healthier heart and brain? I like the sounds of that! Coconut oil is loaded with medium chain amino acids that your body requires for overall health. Coconut oil is also anti-fungal and is great for topical uses on rashes and general skin care. Sore muscles? Mix a little DMSO in some coconut oil and use it for a muscle rub. Oh, and avoid anything and everything that has any form of soy in it (unless it is organic natto). That’s what I do.

04/14/15 Do you want to know what can make your blood pressure rocket? Eat out, get high blood pressure. This is according to a new study at Duke-NUS Medical School that shows the correlation between meals eaten away from home and high blood pressure. Why? Because eating out brings higher caloric intake, higher saturated fat intake and higher processed salt intake – among things. So, do you think that this only applies to crusties (old folks)? Well, this study was done on otherwise healthy college kids and statistical analysis found pre-hypertension rates jumped by 6% with just one meal eaten out per week but climbed steadily to 38% with more than 12 meals taken away from home per week. The stats also showed that the more people eat out, the higher the body mass index rose, the lower the physical activity levels became and the likelihood of smoking escalated. What should all this information this tell us? That our pre-hypertension and hypertension problem is more about our lifestyles and modifying our lifestyles would bring a subsequent drop in blood pressure disorders.

04/07/15 Did you know that in 2012, consumers set a new record for buying highly processed foods? In fact, over 80% of food calories purchased in one study were ready-to-heat/ready-to-eat products which tend to be much higher in bad fats, GMOs, cheap sugars and over-processed salt than other less-processed foods. Unfortunately for consumers, Big Grocery food scientists have purposefully concocted the right combinations of sugars, fats, salt and “flavorings” in processed foods to actually promote overeating along with repeat purchases – which ultimately contributes to obesity and poor health. Convenience, perceived affordability and designer tastes prevail to win the average consumer over invest in highly processed foods over minimally processed foods. Here’s the hook: Because of this rampant problem, studies are now suggesting that to improve the overall poor food nutrient profiles in the US, food manufacturers need “incentives” to improve the nutritional quality of their products. How much money will this retrogressive thinking cost the hapless taxpayer to fix the unfixable problem that stems from corporate greed?

03/31/15 Organic lettuce packs some great health benefits health being rich in antioxidants. Antioxidants protect against free radical processes that cause cell damage in the body associated with various diseases. Lettuce contains several different antioxidants like phenolic acids, flavonoids, anthocyanins, along with vitamins A and C and other nutritious compounds. But not all lettuce is created equal. The color of the lettuce leaf actually tells you the speed at which their antioxidant compounds act. Recent study results show that the green-leaf lettuce contains water-soluble, antioxidant compounds that act at slow and intermediate kinetic speeds while the red-leaf lettuce has compounds with intermediate and rapid kinetic speeds. A semi-red-leaf has all three compounds; rapid, intermediate and slow speeds. The speeds the work at actually do not make one lettuce better than the other as we need all three antioxidants, but mixing all three together has an interesting potential for wonderful health benefits.

03/24/14 Salt is not bad for you. It is only the kind of salt that is bad for you. Humans cannot live without salt! In fact, the connections between salt and cardiovascular disease are only partially true for morbidly obese people. The former president of the American Society of Hypertension even says that for people who were not overweight, “the more salt you eat, the less likely you are to die.” The Lancet concluded that people “who eat lots of salt live longer than those who avoid it.” (In that study, 25% percent of people who consumed the lowest amount of salt also had a higher risk of death.) An eight-year study of hypertensives in New York shows that those on low-salt diets had over four times as many heart attacks compared to normal sodium intake. The bible requires offerings to be seasoned with salt and many societies have used salt for currency. The old expression “not worth his salt” comes from the slave trade in ancient Greece. IMO, take all low sodium advice with a health pinch of salt – just make it good ole unrefined sea salt and not the nasty processed junk that is chemically altered.

03/17/15 Artificial flavors and colors have been proven to cause hyperactivity long with other symptoms of ADD/ADHD. The heck of it is that there have been natural versions of these artificial additives all along. Which do you think came first anyhow? Meanwhile, Nestlé USA conducted its own marketing research to find that 60% of consumers actually prefer candy to be free of artificial flavors and colors and deem it important in food purchasing decisions. So, Nestlé decided that it will remove artificial flavors and colors from all of its chocolate candy products this year and relabel over 250 products “No Artificial Flavors or Colors”. Nice commitment there Nestlé (and it is fully appreciated by all) but how about removing the cancer-causing GMO-derived sugars and oils next? Are you still going to use chemical conditioners and other unnatural things in your chocolate? Making a product less poisonous than it already is does not a hero make.

03/10/14 People in Asian societies eat on average about 6-11 grams of soy a day – that is, 6-11 grams of non-GMO fermented soy according to a review in Nutrition and Cancer. Fermented soy eaten by Asians has been touted to lower cancer and dementia rates while promoting longevity. Meanwhile back in the good-ole USA, an overwhelming majority of soy that Americans eat is genetically modified, unfermented and stuffed into processed foods. Cancer-causing GMOs aside, unfermented soybeans actually contain anti-nutrients that cause serious gastric distress, reduced protein digestion and chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake. Unfermented soy contains potent enzyme inhibitors that block trypsin and other enzymes needed to digest protein which cause among things, enlargement and cancer of the pancreas and the prostate. Bad enough yet? Unfermented soybeans also contain goitrogens that suppress thyroid function and hemoglutinen, a clot-promoting substance that causes red blood cells to clump together. These health-destroying products are neutralized in the fermentation process.

03/03/15 The best reason for farming organically is for our health because organic foods provide much more antioxidant power, natural polyphenol levels and nutritious flavonoid levels than conventionally grown food. What’s more, if we want to keep our planet healthy for future generations we have to stop with the pesticides and other strong chemicals used on our crops. Conventional farming is not about nutrition and doesn’t improve the environment. The argument in favor of conventional methods is all about the money with the idea that intensive farming that will produce loads more of food for less money. But conventional farming is very short-sighted because of the physical harm and human diseases caused by farming chemicals. Add to this the blatant and growing lack of nutrition in mass produced foods, and of course catastrophic damage to the environment. Did you know that numerous studies show that organic farming can actually produce more crop output than regular methods? Did you know that we have known this fact for decades? Seems a wee bit silly, huh?

02/24/15 Artificial colors are not essential to the production of food products. So why are they there? Here is a brief overview of just a few studies that link artificial colors to ADD and ADHD: A 2004 study review on artificial food colorings declared that “neurobehavioral toxicity may characterize a variety of widely distributed chemicals”. A 2007 study stated that “artificial colors or a sodium benzoate preservative in the diet result in increased hyperactivity in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the general population.” A 2011 advisory committee to the FDA said that children with ADHD “and other problem behaviors…may be exacerbated by exposure to a number of substances in food, including, but not limited to, synthetic color additives.” A recent report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest examined the currently approved food dyes and lists health concerns for each and every one. They said that the most popular Red 40 “may accelerate the appearance of immune-system tumors in mice,” and causes “hypersensitivity (allergy-like) reactions… and might trigger hyperactivity in children.”

02/17/15 The USDA says that the average American now eats and drinks over 170 pounds of refined sugars a year! That would be 34 five-pound bags of sugar a year or 1/2 pounds of sugar daily – compared to the `1700s when 4 pounds of sugar per year was average. This glut of sugar in our diets has largely contributed to an out-of-control epidemic in cancer. Malignant tumors are pretty much dependent on glucose consumption to grow and when we eat refined sugars (or white flour for that matter), the body releases insulin accompanied with insulin-like growth factor (IGF) that allows glucose to enter the cells and stimulate cell growth as well as trigger inflammation in the body – the perfect fertilizer for tumors. Spikes in insulin along with the release of IGF promote the growth of cancer cells and stimulates their ability to invade surrounding tissues. So, what does man in his finitesimal wisdom do? He develops a new class of drugs to reduce peaks in insulin to fight cancer. This way we can keep our inordinate tryst with sugar instead of reducing the amount of sugar (and white flour) we eat. Uh…

02/10/15 The etiology of a fast-food French fry from the local McDonald’s restaurant: (Please note that some ingredients are listed twice because they are added twice)…Potatoes, canola oil (GMO), soybean oil (GMO), hydrogenated soybean oil (GMO, hormone wrecking and obesity-causing), natural beef flavor (from a healthy cow or a sick one?), hydrolyzed wheat (allergen magnified and addictive additive), hydrolyzed milk (hormone milk?), citric acid (GMO source?), dimethylpolysiloxane (polymeric silicone compound used to make caulking), dextrose (sugar), sodium and pyrophosphate (hazardous chemical warranting its own CDC warning page), salt (more sodium), canola oil (again), corn oil (GMO), soybean oil (again), hydrogenated soybean oil (again), TBHQ (tertiary butylhydroquinone- form of butane that keeps the fries from rotting – ever…), citric acid (again), and dimethylpolysiloxane (again). What you get at the restaurant has 510 calories, 6g of protein, 24g of fat (mostly really bad fats, 67g of carbs and 290mg of sodium. Wanna supersize that order?

02/03/15 French fries can’t be all that bad for you, right? A word of advice: Ask what kind of oil a restaurant cooks them in before you blindly order up. More likely than not, the French fries are dumped into a GMO fry oil because the most common French fry oils are cottonseed, corn (vegetable), and soy. Did you know that foods deep-fried in these oils are also found to be high in acrolein – a toxic chemical found in herbicides? If this doesn’t give you pause enough to reconsider your lunch order, men who eat deep fried foods just one time a week have up to a 37% increased risk of prostate cancer. Women aren’t exempt here because deep frying any food triggers the formation of carcinogens that increase cancer risk. In French fries and other high carb foods, the carcinogenic compound acrylamide forms. Deep frying any meat products adds cancer-causing heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and aldehyde to them – and the more the oil is reused, the more these poisons compound. High heat cooking in general generates high levels of advanced glycation end products (AGES) that are associated with chronic inflammation and oxidative stress. Do you hate cancer and disease enough to pass on the French fries?

01/27/15 What you eat affects your eating decisions by influencing your brain via the vagus nerve, which wires some 100 million nerve cells from the digestive tract to the brain. Microbes in food actually manipulate both mood and behavior by altering the signals in the vagus nerve to change taste receptors, produce toxins to make us feel either good or bad, and release chemical rewards to make us eat more of certain food – good or bad… One study found that certain strains of bacteria can increase anxious behavior and another study found that the probiotic Lactobacillus casei improves mood in depression. But, the more bad foods you eat, the more bad foods you want. Conversely, the more good food you eat, the more of it you want. The digestive microbiome can change for the better very quickly by changing the diet with healthier food choices and targeted supplementation. The choice is yours!

01/20/15 Green drinks are rich in thylakoids which curb “hedonic hunger”. Hedonic hunger is insatiable cravings for sweets, fast food and other unhealthy things to eat or drink. Hedonic hunger is a common cause of obesity and bad health that result from eating habits. Drinking a green smoothie with these thylakoids helps your body produce more satiety hormones which suppress hedonic hunger, leads to better appetite control, healthier eating habits, weight loss and better health over all. The effects of a green drink taken before breakfast reduces cravings to keep you feeling more satisfied all day. In a recent study, just adding 5g of spinach powder to a breakfast drink helped people lose over 10 pounds in three months – without any other instruction and without going on any structured diet.

01/13/15 The skinny on shrimp: According to Oceana magazine, some two-thirds of NYC grocery stores visited sold “misrepresented shrimp. In Washington DC, Oceana found that about half of all restaurant menu shrimp was misrepresented. Furthermore, some 30% of supermarket shrimp nationwide lacked details for the country of origin and didn’t even disclose whether the shrimp was wild-caught or farmed. Whiteleg shrimp is a common farmed shrimp that is easily and often sold as wild caught shrimp to unsuspecting consumers. But the problem doesn’t stop there as shrimp is a very popular protein eaten in the U.S. and the shrimp industry is rife with problems that range from rampant slave labor to unsustainable business practices, unbelievably bad feeding sources, severe environmental pollution generated by shrimp farms and, of course, fraud. An informed consumer is the best weapon we have to correct these problems. If in doubt – pass on the shrimp.

01/06/15 Eating a high-protein diet can lower your risk for developing high blood pressure by an amazing 40%! A recent study by Boston University School of Medicine found that eating an average of 100 grams of protein a day brought a 40% lower risk of having high blood pressure compared to people eating the lowest intake levels. Interestingly, these protein benefits worked for both normal weight and obese people. But wait, there’s more! Now add in high fiber to the diet and the risk for high blood pressure can drop another whopping 20%! Seems like a rather wonderful way to naturally avoid the doctor’s office – spend your medical money on good food instead.

02/28/14 A very sweet counterfeiting business indeed! More than 75% of honey on grocery store shelves – and even in health food stores – have the pollen filtered out. This hides the country of origin from the consumer and the authorities. Different countries have different standards about pesticides and antibiotics used in hives and there are strict US laws that forbid 3rd rate honey importing from some countries – such as China. Not only is China the world’s leading producer of honey, but they also have been known to dump cheap, toxic, excess honey on markets well below world prices. When the US banned China honey, other countries bought it up, removed the source-revealing pollen and promptly started selling it into the US at premium prices. Real solution: know your local beekeeper and buy their honey.

02/27/14 What have strawberries done for you lately? Study volunteers ate just over a pound of strawberries every day for a month to see what this would do to their blood parameters. One month later, their bad cholesterol and triglycerides reduced significantly, the general plasma lipid profile, antioxidant biomarkers, antihemolytic defences and even the platelet function all improved. Eating strawberries also protects against UV radiation, reduces alcohol damage to the gastric mucosa, strengthens red blood cells, and improves the antioxidant capacity of the blood. Strawberries are simply loaded with anthocyanins, the health-giving, antioxidant pigments that make them red. Buy them organic to avoid loading your body up with pesticides.

02/26/14 The Department of Agriculture compared conventional eggs with pastured eggs to find that pastured eggs have: 1/3 less cholesterol, 1/4 less saturated fat, 2/3 more vitamin A, 2X the omega-3 fatty acids, 3X the vitamin E, 7X more beta carotene and up to 6X more vitamin D. Pastured chickens literally live outdoors, eating a natural diet of insects, worms, seeds and grass – humanely raised with plenty of sun, fresh air and space to roam. However, the term “free-range” can simply mean a chicken has access to a limited outdoor space to stroll around a concrete slab for a few minutes a day. Cage-free chickens are merely squeezed into an indoor room. Omega-3 and DHA eggs are usually factory raised – living indoors and caged – but their feed is “enriched”. Organic eggs are from hens not treated with hormones or antibiotics and the feed is organic. We won’t even bothering covering conventional eggs here…

02/25/14 The lie that butter is bad for you and margarine is good has been circulating for more than 50 years. That is, ever since all saturated fat was wrongly declared a precursor to heart disease. Scientific and nutritional studies have long-since debunked not only the link between saturated fat and heart disease, but also the myth that butter is bad for you. Butter (let’s go with grass-fed, organic butter here) is rich in nutrients that increase the body’s metabolism, transport other nutrients, vitamins, hormones and minerals, protect the digestive system, and actually lower the risk for serious illness. A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that whole, natural butter reduced the risk of heart disease by 69% and synthetic margarine actually increased heart disease risk!

02/24/14 One reason that canola oil is not good for you is that it ALL goes through a chemical “deodorizing” processing to remove the “stink” of rapeseed. Want to hex your health? Eat some canola oil made with hexane. Hexane is actually a gasoline vapor used to process oils since around World War II. So how is canola organic? It’s NOT… Canola oil doesn’t come from any natural plant named “canola”. It actually stands for “Canada Oil”. The touted omega-3 fatty acids that show up in processed canola oil are chemically transformed during the deodorizing process into trans-fatty acids. These monster trans-fatty acids are actually unsuitable for human consumption and contain a very-long-chain fatty acid called erucic acid, which is associated with fibrotic heart lesions. Did you know that in 1985, the FDA outlawed canola oil in infant formulas because it retarded growth? How is this even good for you?? Avoid it like the plague it is.

02/21/14 A preschooler’s mom was recently fined $10 by a daycare for not providing a grain in the child’s home-made, leftover roast beef and vegetables school lunch. So what else did the school do? They gave the child some Ritz Crackers. Ritz Crackers are not healthy for man or beast! These are franken-crackers that are made with GMO partially hydrogenated soybean oil, GMO Roundup Ready beet sugar, GMO Bt Toxin cottonseed oil, GMO Bt toxin and/or Roundup Ready high fructose corn syrup and GMO Bt Toxin and/or Roundup Ready soy lecithin. Oh, and let’s not forget the “fortified” wheat and barley gluten. The child’s lunch was much safer without the highly processed, cheap and highly superficial crackers. Which lunch was more balanced?

02/20/14 When healthy humans eat sick food – well, they get sick too… Feedlots use chemicals called beta-antagonists as an “approved” USDA feed supplement that causes cattle to convert feed into more lean muscle. Big Pharma Merck makes one of them called Zilmax, that has recently been withdrawn from markets because it grossly affected the cattle’s ability to move. There is a word for this – “cattle fatigue syndrome.” But this only the bovine version of “pig fatigue syndrome” that comes about when farmers feed beta-antagonists to pigs. Market animals on beta-antagonists arrive at the processing plant 20% heavier but stiff, mouth breathing, with blotchy skin, muscle tremors, elevated heart rates and obviously going through stress. There is even an industry term for that condition: “NANI”, meaning non-ambulatory, non-injured. And we wonder why we humans who eat these sick animals have the same symptoms…

02/19/14 Don’t be fooled by the food label word organic. There are three different categories for a food label to state the term “organic” according to the USDA. There are 100% organic foods that have no non-organic ingredients at all. These can be labeled as “100% organic”. Now it gets trickier: Foods that are simply labeled “organic” must contain 95% organic ingredients with the other 5% percent not containing growth hormones. Then there is the deceptive “made with organic ingredients” label. These foods have at least 70% organic ingredients but can contain up to 30% non-organic ingredients. Obviously, if you are concerned about going organic, you need to know this. You’ve got to watch their every move peeps.

02/18/14 Bet you didn’t know that yogurt can help prevent diabetes! A new study published in Diabetologia shows that the more yogurt and other fermented dairy products you eat, the more you reduce your risk of new-onset type 2 diabetes. The scientists found a 28% reduction in new-onset type 2 along with a 24% overall diabetes reduction. This wasn’t a study of just a handful of people either. More than 25,000 men and women detailed daily records of all the food and drink consumed for 11 years to examine the risk of diabetes in relation to the consumption of dairy products. The overall impact of yogurt on diabetes was realized best by people who ate more than 500 grams of yogurt a week. Fresh and unadulterated yogurt supplies high quality protein, vitamins, friendly bacteria, minerals and healthy saturated fat.

02/17/14 Well, here’s a big-time no-brainer: Children residing in communities that are surrounded by fast food stores are more likely to be overweight and/or obese. This comes from a very recent study of weight data from more than a million children compared with the availability of unhealthy fast foods including fish and chip shops, burger joints, pizza places, and sweet shops. Older children in particular are more likely to become overweight when living in close proximity to fast food outlets. In fact, the more unhealthy food shoppes there are in a neighborhood, the greater the number of overweight and obese children. Of course, this obesity association reversed in areas with more healthy food options available.

02/14/14 What you eat can speed up or slow down your reaction times. In a traffic emergency, the driver who has recently eaten spinach or eggs can actually react and sop faster than the driver who ate cereal for breakfast or pizza for lunch. This is because of the high amounts of the amino acid tyrosine found in spinach, eggs and other food products. Scientists have tested this in the lab with tyrosine against a placebo to see which one brought better reflexes. Tyrosine food supplements and tyrosine-rich food can also improve intellectual capabilities. Tyrosine foods are much preferred to Ritalin and Modafinil to improve student academic performance. Tyrosine is safe, doesn’t have negative side-effects, and doesn’t need a prescription.

02/13/14 Fats – that is, healthy fats – are an important part of our diets. Fat in the diet is very satiating when paired with low-carb eating – in fact, it is very difficult to overeat on a high-fat, low-carb diet. But if you pair dietary fat with large amounts of carbohydrates, you make it difficult for your body to turn the fat into energy. Studies show that high-fat, low-carb diets reduce weight and can even increase lean mass. Always avoid any fat that is hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated. Great sources for nutritious fats are from olive oil, coconut oil, nuts, seeds, avocado, wild-caught fish and free-range animal products such as butter, cheese, yogurt, beef and poultry. Fat doesn’t make you fat! High intakes of processed foods and cheap carbs – that can make you fat.

02/12/14 While carbohydrates fuel muscles, in order to build muscle, you need protein. Did you know that muscle plays an important role in protecting you from diabetes? The more healthy muscle you have, the more efficiently your body uptakes glucose from the bloodstream. It is very important to consume protein daily as the body does not easily store protein. Antibodies are another protein that helps your body fight infection. For every different antigen that enters the body, there is a distinct antibody to fight it by immobilizing and sequestering antigens until white blood cells can destroy them. Small amounts of animal proteins in the diet are the easiest way to insure a supply of complete protein. Plant-based proteins can be combined to make complete proteins as well but sometimes lack essential amino acids to make them work properly. Without good protein assimilation, your internal organs grow weak to the point of failing.

02/11/14 Every time you move a muscle you are burning carbohydrates. Carbohydrates also fuel the central nervous system and keep vital organs energized. The body breaks down carbs into sugars to store them in one of three places; in the muscles, in the liver, or excess carbs are stored as fat in the body. Too much of wheat and corn carbohydrates in the diet sets up inflammatory responses in the body and lead to GI disorders and even arthritis – particularly when carbohydrate consumption levels are at or above 75% of the diet. Foods like whole, minimally processed grains, fresh vegetables, fruits and good old beans are great sources of carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates include sugars founds in fruits, vegetables and milk. Complex carbohydrates include starches in whole-grain breads, cereals, starchy vegetables and legumes.

02/10/14 A gateway drink to drugs? About one-third of adolescents in the US consume high-caffeine energy drinks. A new study in the Journal of Addiction Medicine reports higher rates of alcohol, cigarette, and/or drug use with teen energy drinkers. The young people attracted to energy drinks are labeled in this study as “sensation-seeking or risk-oriented”. This makes them more likely to use other substances as well. This research was done with some 22,000 US eighth, tenth, and twelfth graders. 30% of these teens reported drinking caffeine-containing energy drinks. Boys were more likely to drink energy drinks than girls and usage was also higher for teens with single parents. Eighth graders were most likely to drink energy drinks.

02/07/14 Did you know changing your meal times can have a significant effect on the triglyceride levels in your liver? Metabolic and biological processes follow timetables and slow down and speed up at certain times of the day. Disruptions in these cycles cause imbalances that lead to obesity, metabolic syndrome and fatty liver. Triglycerides are no exception to this rule. Triglyceride levels peak about eight hours after sunrise. Night eating for humans in particular will upset this rhythm of triglycerides. Restricting your meals to daytime and making breakfast your biggest meal could drop the night-eaters triglycerides by as much as 50% in as few as 10 days. No drug out there can change lipid accumulation as efficiently and drastically as simply adjusting meal times.

02/06/14 From the CDC: People who get more than 21% of calories from “added sugar” actually double the risk of dying from heart disease. Even though added sugar consumption is actually down almost 2% in five years, some 10 of people still get 25% or more of their daily calories from added sugar. The WHO says that we should all get less than 10% of our daily calories from added sugar but the Institute of Medicine recommends a whopping 25%. Those two are not on the same page… But you should get your own page and stick to it. Our palates are trained to sugar, which makes is desire even more sugar. If you are going to add sugar to anything, make it small amounts and make it non-GMO, organic sweeteners like Cane Sugar. Skip the artificial sweeteners too. Those are just designer drugs that hook you into needing another fix.

02/05/14 Is the demand for organic food outstripping the supply? Some major grocery chains are reporting shortages of organic and cage free eggs because they are becoming more and more popular. Some varieties of organic produce are also becoming harder to find because of demand. Could it be that Americans are finally waking up the food disaster they are living? While the demand for more organic foods grows, the producers are also tooling up to cash in. Good news for the healthy diet seeker. If you want to be a healthy human you will have to eat healthy foods. Sick, poisoned and nutrient deficient food brings sick poisoned and nutrition deficient humans. It’s logic peeps.

02/04/14 Sodium benzoate is a food additive used to preserve foods and drinks. Many studies, including a damning 2007 Lancet study, link sodium benzoate with increased hyperactivity. Did you know that sodium benzoate in soft drinks or other food with added vitamin C can react with the vitamin C to make benzene – which is a cancer-causing substance? The FDA tested a sample of almost 200 beverages that contained sodium benzoate and vitamin C and found that some of these beverages had benzene levels that were above federal safety standards (like a low level is acceptable). Here’s an idea! Skip the stupid over-processed food and beverages and try eating completely healthy like your life depends upon it.

02/03/14 Junk-food diets have been proven in many studies that relate a poor diet to be associated with cognitive deficits. In one PLoS One longitudinal study of 2054 adolescents, the crappy diet of chips, chocolates, and sweets, pizza and soda was associated with a worsening of mental health status over a 2-year period. Another study involving over 23,020 women and children in a Mother and Child Cohort Study showed that mom’s feasting on junk foods during pregnancy – during the first 5 years of life for the child, brought a documented spike in the child externalizing problems, such as aggression, hyperactivity, or tantrums. Eat crap – think and do crap. Pretty simple, eh?

01/31/14 A new university study shows that teens eating poor breakfasts also had a higher incidence of metabolic syndrome 27 years later when compared to teens that ate substantial breakfasts. Metabolic syndrome is a list of factors that linked to increased cardiovascular disorders and encompasses abdominal obesity, high levels of harmful triglycerides, low levels of good HDL cholesterol, high blood pressure and high fasting blood glucose levels. Young people who neglected to eat a quality breakfast had a whopping 68% higher incidence of metabolic syndrome. So, who the heck is in charge of feeding these kids? We need to educate these parents.

01/30/14 Don’t love strawberries? You will in a moment! There is a natural chemical called fisetin in strawberries that stops memory loss that accompanies Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists at the Salk Institute discovered that mice that usually develop Alzheimer’s symptoms can be treated to prevent the progressive memory and learning impairments with a daily dose of fisetin. Even when Alzheimer’s plaques are progressing, fisetin is able to prevent the advancing symptoms Fisetin can also improve memory in normal people while it helps protect neurons in the brain from the effects of aging. Make it organic strawberries though or buy DRs Best brand fisetin supplement.

01/29/14 What’s next in GMO foods? How about an apple that won’t turn brown after you cut it open? Now scientists have produced an apple that does not brown to lure consumers looking for a more appealing apple. The company is confident that food companies will jump on board to save the cost of spraying sliced apples with an antioxidant chemical that drives up packaging costs by up to 40%. This novel genetically engineered, non-browning apple would supposedly cut costs by 30%. But what about the scientific fact that with the introduction of GMOs to the food supply correlates with a rise in food allergies and chronic disease? The genetically engineered non-browning apple has already been introduced to Granny Smith and Golden Delicious varieties.

01/28/14 Tartrazine – AKA FD&C yellow # 5, E102, Acid Yellow 23, Food Yellow # 4 is one bad mama jama food color made from coal tar that will cause all kinds of health problems. So bad that the FDA requires it labeled or they will seize the products. The kicker? Most food products that are target marketed to children contain the brilliant color Tartrazine. Tartrazine is also found in medications, cosmetics and personal care products. It is even fed to chickens to make egg yolks more yellow. Now for some of the side-effects of Tartrazine: thyroid cancer, allergic reactions, anxiety, migraines, asthma attacks, blurred vision, eczema and other skin rashes, Eosinophilia, clinical depression, ADHD, hyperactivity, hives, permanent DNA damage, heart palpitations, rhinitis, sleep disturbances/insomnia, fatigue, hot flashes and OCD.

01/27/14 Want to know what common food product helps prevent breast cancer? Quality olive oil does! Hydroxytyrosol is a major component of olive oil that helps change the breast density in both pre- and postmenopausal women for a significant decrease in breast cancer risk after one year of consuming olive oil daily. Hydroxytyrosol is one of the most powerful food antioxidants that has very low toxicity at very high doses. Previous research has shown that olive oil provides many other health benefits including lowering the risk for heart disease, relieving high blood pressure and even fighting against stroke risk. Make yours extra virgin olive oil – it should gel completely when refrigerated.

01/24/14 Are saturated fats good for you? Saturated fats contain fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K2, which are largely deficient in the Standard American Diet (SAD). Did you know that the deficiency in fat-soluble vitamin D brings crooked teeth during child development? Healthy beef and poultry along with organic eggs, raw milk, butter, cheese, and nuts are natural sources for healthy saturated fats. So, where did our good saturated fats go? The have been replaced by highly processed, inflammation-causing vegetable oils, GMO grains and other cheap carbohydrates, sick animals, mass-produced eggs, lowfat, pasteurized dairy products – bringing with this substitute, rising rates of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, autoimmune disorders, mood disorders and food allergies.

01/23/14 Mindless eating is consuming food out of sheer habit, even when you’re not hungry, putting both your waistline and health at risk. Poor eating habits mean that many people eat more than they know. Making changes in the way you eat can help take off pounds, keep them off and also help stabilize your general health. Here are some handy dandy tips: Only buy and keep healthy foods, keep the kitchen counters clear of food, never eat from food packages – but rather dish out portions of food onto a plate, eat something hot and substantial for breakfast within your first waking hour, graze healthy snacks during the day, not letting yourself go more than three or four hours without having a small snack, put down your fork between bites to slow down your eating.

01/22/14 Watch out for this food additive: Acesulfame potassium is a potassium salt made with methylene chloride, a known cancer causing agent. You will see this on food and drink labels because acesulfame potassium is some 200 times sweeter than regular sugar. Early testing found acesulfame potassium to cause bladder cancer and leukemia. Consequent studies were made that were much shorter in duration and even used genetically engineered “resistant” mice and declared acesulfame potassium to be “safe”. Reported side effects of methylene chloride are nausea, headaches, mood problems, impairment of the liver and kidneys, problems with eyesight and possibly cancer. Your choice now peeps!

01/21/14 Do diet beverages help you lose weight? The answer is a big-fat-NO! Part of the problem is that overweight and obese adults who drink diet beverages also consume more calories from food than obese or overweight adults who drink regular soda or other sugary beverages. Now isn’t that interesting! In the past few decades, diet soda drinking has blossomed to 20% of soda drinkers today. The artificial sweeteners in high doses in diet soda are associated with a greater activation of reward centers in the brain to skew the drinker’s perception of the reward they experience from sweet tastes – resulting in increased food intake overall. Artificial sweeteners are designer drugs inserted by mad food scientists.

01/20/14 Switching from white rice to brown rice can prevent and even help control diabetes in rice-eating populations. A new study also shows that substituting brown rice for white rice in overweight/obese individuals significantly reduced glucose levels and lower serum insulin. This is, of course, in populations where polished white rice is a staple food and makes up over 50% of the calories consumed. Bottom line, you can cut fasting glucose by 20% and insulin by about 60% in just 5 days with brown rice. Well, polished white rice has the goodies removed, like folate and essential minerals where brown rice does not have it removed.

01/17/14 Raw milk rap: Approximately 5,000 people are killed EVERY YEAR by foodborne illness. A new CDC study report concludes that raw milk is bad for you because from 1998 through 2009, there were 1,837 illnesses, 195 hospitalizations and two deaths from drinking raw milk. What they didn’t report was that one previous decade had some 200,000 of “pasteurized” dairy illness incidents. Let’s see, 1,837 reported over 10 years compared to 200,000 in ten years. In 2007 alone there were 3 deaths from “pasteurized” dairy and two major outbreaks that make raw milk look like a stroll down 5th avenue. This CDC report stinks like a bad dairy-air to me. Your actual chances of getting sick on raw milk are about 0.00011%.

01/16/14 Scientists have known for over two decades that a high fiber diet helps protect you against obesity and diabetes. Until recently, they did not know why. The real mechanism between optimal health and high fiber foods is in the ability of the intestinal flora of the intestines to produce glucose between meals. Most fruit and vegetables are rich in fermentable fibers that cannot be digested, but are instead fermented by intestinal bacteria to turn them into short-chain fatty acids. These byproducts of fermentation are then assimilated by the body. This is how the intestines synthesize sugar and release it into the blood stream between meals and through the night. Without enough fiber in the diet, there is an increased sensation of hunger, energy expenditure becomes limited and the liver produces more glucose.

01/15/14 Quinoa is one of the rare complete protein foods that contain all nine of the essential amino acids that our bodies cannot manufacture. Quinoa is also rich in phytonutrients like quercetin and kaempferol and quinoa is a natural anti-inflammatory that can help ward off infection and illness. Even better, quinoa has double the amount of bio-available calcium and fiber than whole grains. Quinoa helps keep blood sugar levels in balance and its low glycemic index makes it perfect for diabetics. Its high-fiber content will help lower cholesterol and curb appetites for weight loss. Rich with riboflavin (B2), quinoa helps stimulate metabolism and reinforce energy production in the brain and muscles. Of the some 120 varieties of quinoa, red quinoa enhances salads, while black quinoa is nuttier and sweeter. Always rinse your quinoa thoroughly before cooking to remove the toxin saponins which coats quinoa.

01/14/14 Researchers feeding soy lecithin in the diets of pregnant and newborn rats brought impaired reflexes and swimming ability, along with cognitive deficiencies. Soy lecithin is a mixture of phospholipids and soybean oil. To make soy lecithin, soybean oil is extracted from the raw soybeans using hexane (a chemical solvent). After that, the soy oil enters a degumming process where water is mixed with the soy oil until the lecithin becomes hydrated and separates from the oil. The lecithin is dried and bleached using hydrogen peroxide. My biggest problem with soy lecithin is the GMO factor. Not cool in my world.

01/13/14 Pesticides are used on food crops several times from planting all the way to the supermarket to kill insects that would otherwise eat the food. Most pesticides target the neurological system of bugs and some pesticides target the digestive system of the bug. BUT! Pesticides used on foods do not just evaporate. The residue soaks into the grain, fruit or vegetable and also hangs out on the food. These pesticides go on to target the human central nervous system and the digestive system when we eat them. Then, some foods are sprayed with a coat of wax to make them look shinier and last longer. Not only is the wax a petroleum product, but the wax seals in pesticide residue and make it impossible to safely remove either the wax or the pesticides without peeling off the nutrient-rich outer layer. Organic is always best – if not for just these reasons alone.

01/10/14 Which is more overwhelming? Learning which foods are healthy and which cause cancer and other diseases, or taking rounds of chemotherapy with an average 2.1% “survival rate”? How many people live in denial today over the food connection to disease? The real problem is that cancer treatments and medications for chronic diseases do not remove the problem, they just mask the symptoms. If you keep on eating toxic and disease-causing foods, the problems will persist and actually warp your cells to cause even more disease. If you are overwhelmed by all the sci-tech terms and confusing studies concerning the food you eat, if you give up on trying to figure it out, you will lose out on your precious health. If in doubt about a certain food – pass on it.

01/09/14 According to the BMJ, for the first 7 grams of fiber a day that you eat, you lower the risk for cardiovascular disease by 18%. For every additional 7g of daily dietary fiber eaten, the risks of cardiovascular disease are lowered by an additional 9%. 7g of fiber can be found in two or so servings of fruits and vegetables or one serving of whole grains with a portion of beans. Adding in a healthy mix of additional dietary fiber foods daily also impacts general eating habits to lower diabetes rates, obesity and help alleviate depression. The better you feel, the higher the quality of life. Make your fiber intake organic foods for optimal health impact.

01/08/13 The new “GMO-free” Cheerios is still not a safe choice for several reasons. One good reason is that Cheerios still uses corn starch which is cross-contaminated in the field by cross-pollination with nearby GMO corn crops. The other problem is that organic corn and non-gmo corn are harvested, shipped and processed on shared equipment that handle gmo corn and other grains. The caveat printed below the ingredient label explains it: Add to this the gluten/wheat factor and you have something that is still bad. Oh, and what is their sugar source? Is it GMO beets? More GMO corn? I don’t know on that one and they don’t say and nobody certifies. I will say that this is a start in the right direction. But only a start…

01/07/14 Milk, rice milk, soy milk, almond milk… What’s next? How about “vegetable milk”? It’s not what you think though. Plant-based vegetable milks are actually novel products that are fermented with probiotic bacteria from grains and nuts. These are making a viable alternative to conventional yogurts when someone is allergic to cow’s milk or are lactose or gluten intolerant. In vitro studies show that some of these new products have anti-inflammatory properties in the intestine that can alleviate allergic reactions caused by food while also increasing the bioavailability of iron. Plant milks are loaded with potassium, vitamins B and E, antioxidants and dietary fiber. Plant milks also have lots of healthy fatty acids and carbohydrates that are even suitable for diabetics.

01/06/14 So, scientists studied two different ways to eat to rediscover, once again, what we already know: How long you take to eat affects how much we eat. Two different groups ate their meals in a lab setting. One group ate at a slow speed – with no time constraints, taking small bites, chewing thoroughly, and pausing and put the fork down between every bite. The second group ate quickly – on a deadline, taking large bites, chewing rapidly, and not pausing to put their silverware down. Of course, the study investigators found that slow eaters consumed an average of 88 calories less. The slow eaters were also significantly less hungry and more satisfied 60 minutes later. So what did we learn from this?

01/03/14 Want to hear something funny? McDonald’s Restaurants had (until days ago) a site called McResource that gives advice to its employees. So what do they helpfully tell their hapless employees? To avoid the “unhealthy choice” of a typical fast-food McDonald’s meal – that is – a hamburger and fries. They said: “While convenient and economical for a busy lifestyle, fast foods are typically high in calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt and may put people at risk for becoming overweight.” McDonald’s consequently took down the site McResource, citing problems with irrelevant or outdated information, along with outside groups taking elements out of context. Uh, irrelevant information?? Stay focused peeps.

01/02/14 Munching on broccoli produces cancer-fighting sulforaphane. But, if you nuke the broccoli or boil the stuffings out of it then you destroy the natural goodness in broccoli to eliminate the sulforaphane along with other nutrients. The best way to capture the much-desired goodness is to steam it until it turns bright green according to the latest study. I vapor cook ours in Saladmaster cookware or eat it raw. Although broccoli is the best source for anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer sulforaphane, it can also be found in other cruciferous vegetables, such as Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage.

04/23/14 So, the big stink in the school lunch program is that since banning the awful chocolate milk in some cafeterias, children drink 10% less milk and now waste 29% of the milk. Of course, the food police think that the skim milk replacement for the horrible chocolate stuff is going to be great for health but it’s not. All that aside, have your read the label on a carton of chocolate swill – er, milk? Here’s one: Lowfat Milk, Corn Sweeteners (GMO), Cocoa (cheap and over-processed stuff), Cocoa Processed with Alkali (?), Starch (more GMO corn?), Dextrose (derived from GMO corn, wheat or who-knows-what other plants), Salt (overprocessed white poison no doubt), Caramel Color (made with ammonia – yes, ammonia), Carrageenan (a bowel irritant), Vanillin (an artificial flavor – major yucky), Artificial Color (from coal tar?), Vitamin A Palmitate (synthetic vitamin A – toxic for adults in small amounts), and Vitamin D3 Added (because homogenization destroys natural D).

04/22/14 Rats fed GMO foods had inflamed prostates and stomachs, smaller livers, hearts, testicles and brains, damaged immune systems, and structural changes in the white blood cells making them more vulnerable to infection and disease compared to rats fed non-GMO food. Soon enough after the testing began, the thymus and spleen became damaged and the pancreas, intestines, stomachs and prostates became inflamed. Then, there was a significant proliferation of stomach and intestines cells upping the future risk of cancer. How long did it take for this process to hit full-swing? These results started appearing after a mere 10 days of feeding the rats with GMO food. But these deleterious effects also persisted 110 days after the diet was changed back to GMO-free. 110 days of a rat’s life is about the human equivalent of 10 years. Better quit all GMOs now…

04/21/14 There is a huge correlation between diet drinks and cardiovascular problems. Of course, scientists found the correlation very evident but the money-hungry soft-drink industry (that doesn’t give a rat’s you-know-what about your health) claims that the causation can’t be proven. So, diet drinkers have more heart trouble but no-one knows why… I know why: because they drink diet sodas! It doesn’t take causation to know that women who drink two or more diet drinks a day are 30% more likely to have a heart attack and 50% more likely to die from it than women who rarely touch diet drinks. Some of them drink diet because they think it is healthier for them than regular sugared drinks. Well, would you rather be shot to death or stabbed to death? – Because it is very near the same risk between drinking diet and regular sugared drinks. Either one helps you pack on pounds and become sick. Bottom line, man does not die, he kills himself.

04/18/14 Read the ingredient label before you plop the Easter candy on the checkout belt. Watch out for high fructose corn syrup as it is often the first and main ingredient. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is some 10X sweeter than sugar, is only metabolized in the liver and causes one heck of a toxic burden on the body. As if your liver didn’t have enough to do trying to rid you of chemicals and poisons that hit it daily… So, the liver tucks the HFCS away in fat until it can get around to processing it someday. Another problem with HFCS is that it is made with GMO corn that is engineered to destroy the guts of bugs that eat it – or the humans that eat it also – just a little slower. Finally, some manufacturers use mercury (yes, mercury) to process the corn to make it give up the fructose. Some of this mercury is “lost in process” and ends up – wait for it… – in your liver.

04/17/14 A lesson in sugar: When you take in sugars, in about 20 minutes or so, blood glucose levels spike as the sugar floods the bloodstream. With this sudden spike in blood glucose comes the pancreas pumping out large amounts of the hormone insulin to help the cells take up the glucose. Some of this glucose is immediately converted to energy but the excess is stored as fat for later use. Insulin works very hard to balance the blood sugar levels and the more sugar you take in, the more insulin your body produces. High levels of insulin are not healthy when extra insulin causes the body’s blood sugar to crash and the body now requires more sugar to balance out the insulin. Chronic exposure to high insulin levels causes cells go numb to insulin – a condition called insulin resistance which is a precursor to diabetes. In this case, the sugar in your blood has nowhere to go and blood sugar levels sky rocket.

04/16/14 If you really love your child, would you poison them? Most people do. When you buy your kiddos cheap and highly superficial Easter candy, you are most likely filling them up with large doses of GMO-High Fructose Corn Syrup. How about all the carcinogenic food colors that not only cause cancer but also cause neurological problems? Just watch what happens 20 minutes after your kiddo slams down some gluten-laden, GMO soy-saturated, chemically flavored candy eggs and tell me that it doesn’t directly affect their behavior. Then watch out at school on Monday! If you really love your child you will become informed as to the dangers of regular candy. Smart parents will buy their children toys instead of candy, or at least some organic eggs, GMO-free, all-natural candies and/or nuts – and then limit how much the child eats. That’s what we do.

04/15/14 There is a new looming crisis at hand – soaring food prices! Food prices have jumped almost 20% since December of 2013 – a mere 5 months. And, the experts are saying that it will probably get worse before it gets better – if it ever does get better. This blows the doors off of the dire USDA prediction of a whopping 3% rise in food prices for 2014. Food prices went up, but did your income increase at all? In the midst of glowing economic growth reports and fluffy unemployment numbers, did anyone factor in runaway inflation? A few reasons for this exorbitant rise in food prices are that California produces the most vegetables in the good old US of A and is going through the worst drought in its history, fuel prices are on the rise again – plus – the grand-total US cattle herd is also the smallest it has been since 1951. Time for some good old urban chickens and planter-box veggie gardens if you ask me.

04/14/14 Energy drinks are touted to improve energy, alertness, concentration, and athletic performance. These energy drinks can be gateways to other risky behaviors – especially among teens and young adults – and can have serious health consequences, Energy drink sales in North America account for 36% of global sales, ringing in at some $20 billion in the US alone in 2013. With their frenetic lives, up to 50% of adolescents and young adults claim to regularly consume energy drinks as they seek to increase energy levels and to “stay-awake” while studying. Many energy drinks pack around 500mg of caffeine and don’t even have to label the amounts of this key ingredient even though they are some 5 times higher than what is found in one standard cup of coffee. Resultant caffeine toxicity from energy drinks is on the rise among adolescents as reported by poison centers.

04/11/14 Did you know that a strict vegetarian lifestyle can both save your life and wreck it? When you are ill, a drastic diet change can turn the tides on chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, major depression and almost any other ill. But, a long-term strict vegetarian diet can actually be dangerous – leading to poorer general health, diminished quality of life and both physical and mental problems. On one hand, vegetarians smoke less, drink less alcohol, exercise more, eat less fat, eat more fruits and veggies, get more exercise, have lower BMIs, avoid vaccines more and have higher socioeconomic achievement. On the other hand, vegetarians suffer both heart attacks and cancer at 50% higher rates, have double the allergies, require more medical treatment and suffer significantly more mental health problems then omnivores. Bottom line: correlation is not causation. The average vegetarian lives 6-9 years longer because they have a generally healthier lifestyle than the average omnivore. Something to ponder…

04/10/14 Did you know that eating just one serving a day of beans, peas, chickpeas or lentils can reduce bad cholesterol by 5% or more? This equates to a 5-6% reduction in cardiovascular disease or more – per serving – according to researchers. These magical foods are known as pulses. One serving of pulses is about ¾ cup and the fact is that people in the US average less than half a serving of these a day. Pulses are low in the glycemic index and break down slowly to help displace trans-fats. Pulses are rich in protein, fiber, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc and are also a superb carbohydrate and excellent source of dietary fiber. Pinto beans are among the highest antioxidant-packing pulses being loaded with protein, fiber, and B vitamins.

04/09/14 When you spend money on anything, you are helping to shape the world you live in. Spending money is just like voting. Every dollar you spend on GMO food tells the industry that you don’t mind eating their genetically modified garbage. If the majority of people suddenly started “voting” for organic, nutrient-dense food, the markets would change overnight. Call your congressman daily, lobby all you want to the government, pass all the labeling laws you can, but money is the only vote that will turn the tides on our sickened food supply. Who says GMOs are safe anyhow? Monsanto says they are safe in spite of independent studies to the contrary. When it comes to genetically modified crops and foods, we are seriously gullible and have only a clue as to what the long term effects will be. I know where to spend my vote!

04/08/14 Are you tired and sedentary? A not-so-shocking study from UCLA shows us what we already knew – that being overweight makes you tired and sedentary. The real news is that junk food caused the whole problem in this study when a basically unprocessed diet went head-to-head with the junk food diet. To add to the injury, researchers also found that fatigue may result from a junk food diet. “One diet led to obesity, the other didn’t,” says professor Blaisdell of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute. Not surprisingly, the researchers also found that the junk food diet brought more and larger cancer tumors. The more nutritious diet had fewer and smaller cancer tumors. Conclusions from this study was that there is no “quick-fix” for this problem but it takes discipline, commitment and time to break out of unhealthy patterns.

04/07/14 Postmenopausal women who slurp down two 12oz diet drinks a day are 30% more likely to have a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular problems compared to women who don’t do the diet drinks. The diet drinkers are also 50% more likely to die from one of these diseases. This wasn’t a study of two people either but a study of 59,614 participants for just three years. Think of the trouble they’d find in a 10 year study! Diet drinks bring on metabolic syndrome in age and any sex people that are ignorant enough to guzzle them. The secret is out! Time to stop it. NO MORE EXCUSES! People who drink this poison have a higher prevalence of diabetes, hypertension and higher body mass index. Don’t even think about coming to me with your health problems if you haven’t stopped the sugared and/or the diet drinks. You’ll be wasting both of our time.

04/04/14 Always eat your organic potatoes with the skin. Most of the minerals iron, calcium, fiber and especially potassium, lie in the outer one-eighth inch of the potato – AKA, the skin. Ounce for ounce, the skin is the most nutritious part of the potato. Need a potassium boost? Peel some potatoes, throw away the insides and cook the peels!. While you are prepping your potatoes, pare away any green areas, trim the bruises/blemishes and gouge out the eyes (sprouts). The green parts on a potato are from the presence of chlorophyll and too much solanine. Solanine is not only bitter tasting but it can bring headaches, cramps and diarrhea if eaten in large quantities. The eyes of the potatoes also contain lots of solanine, so you want to avoid them altogether.

04/03/14 High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is the single most popular sweetener used by food manufacturers. It is cheaper and much sweeter than regular sugar but is also much more dangerous to your health than sugar. The average American consumes up to a half-cup HFCS every day. Interestingly, the spike in the consumption of HFCS has paralleled the spike in obesity over the last 30 years. The cheapest way to manufacture HFCS is by the low-cost, mercury-cell technology. This outdated method leaves mercury present in half of the foods that are made with HFCS according to a 2009 study. Furthermore, HFCS is metabolized exclusively by the liver which leaves the burden of detoxing the body of HFCS totally on liver – like it has nothing better to do… The problem really compounds when the liver sluffs the GMO-rife HFCS into fat cells when it can’t keep up with the toxic load.

04/02/14 – 42%. That’s the rate of risk of death reduction you gain by eating seven or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day. A recent 12-year study of over 65,000 people found that the more fruits and vegetables people ate, the less likely they were to die at any age. Eating seven or more portions of fresh fruits and vegetables reduced cancer by 25% and death by heart disease by 31%. Just eating up to three portions a day brought a 29% reduction in death from all causes. Interestingly, this study also showed that vegetables brought quadruple the benefits over fruit. Processed fruit juice brought no benefit at all and canned fruit increased risk of death by 17% per portion. Moral of this story? Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables.

04/01/14 The absolutely most important dietary change with the Paleo diet is the elimination of all grains. Gone are the breads, pastas, rolls, cereals, pastries, cakes, cookies and even beer. These processed products not only contain problematic gluten and killer GMOs, they also have excessive amounts of cheap sugars and starches that lead to disease-causing inflammation and unhealthy weight gain. The heck of it is that none of go to live in caves and no one can really mimic a true “Paleo” diet without eating some grub worms. Even though the critics are rallying against this diet, the people who adhere to it lose their digestive ailments, chronic fatigue, headaches, arthritis pain, asthma, diabetes, even their cancer. So, laugh at the cave man diet if you want to but don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it!

03/31/14 Want healthy arteries in 20 years? Eat your fresh fruits and veggies today! Young women who ate a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables are much less likely to have arterial plaque build-up 20 years later as compared with the typical diet that is low in fruit and vegetables. How much difference did it make? A whopping 40% less plaque! How many servings a day made this difference? – 9 servings a day. Middle aged adults who eat a diet high in the proportion of fruits and vegetables are also less likely to have a heart attack or stroke. Researchers watched the dietary intake of fruits and vegetables in young adults for 20 years while watching for coronary artery calcification. Lifestyle choices, such as healthy diet and consistent exercise are two foundational principals for the foundation of cardiovascular health and disease prevention.

03/28/14 Is that really ham on your pizza or is it a poultry “meat emulsion”? Imitation shrimp from fish protein? Analogue “cheese” made with vegetable fat? High-priced mozzarella made with ½ fake cheese? How about chocolate cookies without a trace of chocolate? Did you know one company got caught selling vodka that wasn’t vodka? It was actually carefully flavored isopropyl alcohol. Fraud or deceptive labelling? Food and beverage producers often use deceptive advertising messages, misleading images and confusing labels. For instance, if you want to make a flavorful soup labelled “MSG free” then you might buy “soup stock” from another company that is made with MSG. This way you can add the soup stock but only have to mention “soup stock” and not MSG. Most of this is perfectly legal but by no means legitimate. Consumer beware if you are looking for the bargain prices while food shopping. Good things aren’t cheap and cheap things aren’t good.

03/27/14 What has the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) done for you lately? How about scheming with Big Agriculture to criminalize state-by-state GMO labeling laws? But why stop there? Not only is the GMA pushing legislation at the federal level to outlaw GMO labeling laws at the state level, but they are also campaigning to have the FDA declare GMOs as “natural”. Wow! Then foods made with GMOs could claim to be “all natural” and the consumer would be ignorant – or more ignorant than the majority is already… Does anyone else remember this same GMA that got caught running an illegal money laundering scheme in Washington State to secretly funnel money from big food manufacturers into a campaign to defeat the GMO labeling initiative I-522? The real power here lies in the wallet of the consumer. If we quit buying suspect GMO food today it would literally go away tomorrow. It’s all about the money.

03/26/14 Did you know that 19% of high school cafeterias serve branded fast food daily? Further research shows that middle and high schools with a higher number of low-income students also have more exclusive vending beverage contracts than other schools. A full two-thirds of elementary schools had out fast food coupons to students. According to the FTC, food and beverage companies spent $149 million on marketing to school kids while they were in school in 2009 alone. So, you do your best to teach your school kid to eat healthy and then they get fed garbage and peer pressure at school telling them that junk foods are delicious… Junk food, candy and sugary drinks are even used as rewards and positive reinforcement for things like reading or doing well in school. What is the message we are sending to our kids? The goal of the fast food companies is to make a customer for life and they really, obviously don’t give a rat’s behind about your child’s health.

03/25/14 Want to decrease your odds for dementia by 90%? Better start now – not later. Choosing healthy foods in midlife dropped the dementia in people around by almost 90% in a 14-year follow-up study. Vegetables, berries, fruits, fish and healthy fats were pitted against sausages, eggs, sweets, sugary drinks, salty fish and saturated fats. Other studies have only focused on the impact of single dietary components when nobody’s diet is based on a single food. There are always interactions between food nutrients in the whole diet. In a 21-year study, a higher intake of saturated fats was linked to poorer cognitive functions along with an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s. The best time to seek your health is while you still have. It is so much harder to gain it back once you lose it…

03/24/14 Yeah for Kroger and Safeway! They have joined a growing list of supermarkets that are saying NO to Frankenfish. This news comes on the heels of the news that the FDA wants to allow free license for the world’s first genetically modified animal protein. These Frankenfish grow to market size in nearly half the time as what God designed salmon to grow. There have been absolutely NO human studies to see how we will assimilate a freak of nature. Will we humans grow to market-size twice as fast? Will we be more likely to produce cancer cells like lab rats fed GMO corn, soy and other products? Of course, the producers say their salmon is safe to eat, environmentally friendly and can feed more of the population with less resources as compared to other farmed fish. Time to do your own study – stay away from all GMOs and stay healthier. Oh wait, that’s not a study. That’s a fact…

03/21/14 Dark chocolate benefits have been known about for hundreds of years. But why it is so good for you has been hidden from us until now. The real spark in chocolate benefits comes from a boost in friendly bacteria in the gut that ferments it into major anti-inflammatory compounds that are great for health. Bifidobacterium and lactic acid bacteria are two of these good bacteria that thrive on chocolate. The cocoa powder in chocolate contains compounds such as catechin and epicatechin which are not easily digested and absorbed – that is, until they reach the colon and the good guy bacteria take over. The fiber in cocoa is also a prebiotic that feeds the good bacteria so it can increases and outcompete the bad guys. You can multiply the benefits of dark chocolate when you combine it with solid fruits like pomegranates and acai.

03/20/14 Decaffeinated coffee is here for people that enjoy the taste of coffee, but don’t want the extra caffeine. Keep in mind that there are several different processes used to remove caffeine from coffee and some of them aren’t very nice. The worst process steams and then applies the chemical solvent benzene to the beans. The “direct method” steams the beans and then rinses them with ethyl acetate or methylene chloride. The “Naturally decaffeinated” process should use ethyl acetate derived only from fruit or vegetables – but you’d better check the source. Most processes today use water decaffeination by soaking the beans in water and then adding chemical ethyl acetate or methylene chloride (which is supposed to evaporate as the beans are roasted). Not sure what method your favorite blend uses? Give the manufacturer a call. FYI: Decaffeinated coffees usually retain a residual amount of about 3% of the original caffeine content.

03/19/14 Honey, I love you! Honey is a sweet solution to the ever-growing bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Honey applied as a topical dressing to wounds helps fight bacteria while promoting healing on several levels and making it virtually impossible for bacteria to develop resistance. Honey combines natural hydrogen peroxide, antioxidants, extra acidity, osmotic effects that dehydrate bacteria cells, high sugar concentration and polyphenols together. Honey also inhibits bacterial biofilms, stymies the release of bacterial toxins and disrupts quorum sensing, which weakens bacterial virulence. Remarkably, all of these actions actively kill bacterial cells on their own but honey provides them in a unique concentration that man can’t patent. That’s why you don’t hear much about healing honey – follow the money!

03/18/14 Microwaved foods elevate both cholesterol and physical stress factors while they also decrease white blood cell counts and cause anemia. Microwaving forces atoms reverse polarity at a super high rate creating violent friction to heat up food molecules. This process deforms, impairs and tears molecules apart and forms dangerous radiolytic compounds that harm the body in many ways. Microwave radiation destroys and deforms food nutrients and actually changes the blood chemistry. Microwaving human breast milk destroys lysozyme activity, reduces key antibodies, promotes dangerous bacteria and loses a full 96% of all immunoglobulin-A antibodies, which fight invading microbes. Besides all of this, aging oven seals cause radiation leaks that damage human cells and tissues. BTW, the TSA now uses microwave technology to scan you…

03/17/14 Grapefruit goodness: Grapefruit has long been known to help with weight loss. Now they are found to help fight kidney cysts and polycystic kidney disease. The grapefruit diet is not a myth. Eating half a grapefruit or drinking a glass of fresh grapefruit juice with every meal helps the body processes food more efficiently bringing a smaller the blood insulin spike after a meal. Grapefruit also helps the body use more of your meal as energy and store less as body fat. This also promotes weight loss – 10lbs and more for most study participant in one 12 week study. People eating grapefruit were filled up sooner with food and more satisfied overall with their eating. Most recently, scientists discovered that grapefruit can also prevent kidney cysts from forming. Did you know that eating a grapefruit a day can also help drop high blood pressure?

03/14/14 Baking powder is basically a mixture of baking soda, acid, and GMO cornstarch (just one more hidden source of GMOs in our food supply). Here’s another big problem: the acids used are often monocalcium phosphate and sodium aluminum sulfate. Notice the word ‘aluminum’ in there anywhere? This is why is very important to know your food sources at all times to avoid GMO contamination and heavy metal toxicity. The purpose of baking powder is that baking soda and the acid neutralize each other during baking to cause carbon dioxide bubbles to help the recipe rise. Want to make your own gluten-free, aluminum free, GMO free baking powder? Simply mix 1 tsp baking soda with 2 tsp cream of tartar to make a full tablespoon of baking powder. That’s it!

03/13/14 Eating a junk-food diet does not a healthy human make…Healthy humans absolutely have to have clean, nutrient-dense food to stay healthy. Researchers at the University of Colorado have come to the conclusion that our food’s nutritional profile has plunged up to 60% in the last century. Heck, the food we eat today isn’t near as nutritious as our grandparents ate. In the last 5 decades our food has turned from reasonably healthy to over-processed industrial foods rife with health-altering GMOs, soaked in toxic high fructose corn syrup, loaded with deadly trans/hydrogenated fatty acids and preserved with enough chemicals to allow food to not rot in the open air. Heck, even bugs know better than to try getting nourishment from our dead food. If left untreated, our diseased food industry will end up killing us all. Time for damage control peeps.

03/12/14 As we age, the digestive system slowly deteriorates until many people experience things like celiac disease, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, heartburn, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic bloating, food allergies and food sensitivities. What happens though is that a vast majority of people take their digestive issues and go through a never-ending cycle of doctor visits and drugs and some even revert to surgery. A lot of this damage to our systems is self-inflicted and preventable. What often destroys our digestion is common culprits including GMO foods, pesticides, processed refined foods, food additives, food preservative chemicals, antibiotics, medications, vaccinations, fungus, alcohol, lack of exercise and other things. Did I mention that a lot of this is preventable? The best time to seek your health is while you still have it.

03/11/14 Wheat that was grown 40 years ago was very different from the wheat we eat today. The wheat of yester-year was over 4 feet tall with smaller heads of grain. The wheat of today is about 2 feet tall and has huge heads of grain. New and improved? Not on your life! To accomplish this feat of farming and produce these monster-sized grain heads took years of selectively crossing wheat with non-wheat grasses, introducing altogether new genes. Furthermore, techniques like irradiation of seeds and embryos with chemicals, gamma rays, and high-dose X-rays brought purposeful mutations. The end result is that intense crossbreeding has changed the amino acids in wheat’s glutenproteins, bringing with it a 400% increase in celiac disease in just 40 years. That’s just one angle of our wheat woes.

03/10/14 So, you trust the USDA with your life obviously, right? I wouldn’t if I were you. Especially after the USDA just recalled almost 9 million pounds of meat from “diseased and unsound animals”. That’s well over 1,000 big-truck loads of meat that carries a “reasonable probability” that it could kill you. The USDA’s explanation: a full year’s supply of meat from Rancho Feeding failed to have the “full benefit of federal inspection.” Rancho is a processor of both older dairy cows and other beef cattle and has since ceased operations. Some of this killer beef was sold nationwide to Kroger, Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer and Raley’s. Nestlé also is recalling certain Hot Pockets sandwiches over this debacle. You’d think that for 150 billion bucks a year the USDA could do a better job of actually protecting your health… nah, that’ll NEVER happen.

03/07/14 Pregnant women who eat lots of fruits and vegetables and drink plenty of god water have a significantly reduced risk of preterm delivery. Due in part to today’s processed food and fast food diet, childbirth delivery before 37 weeks of pregnancy are accomplished, accounts for almost 75% of all newborn deaths and is associated with significant bad health problems. Many studies show that a mother’s dietary habits directly affect the unborn child. Analyzing some 66,000 births, a recent study found 5.3% of them were preterm births. The study team also determined that a high fruit and vegetable diet significantly reduced preterm as well as late term delivery risks. Love your baby before it is born – eat right!

03/06/14 Big Agriculture has succeeded in duping the public into buying the foodstuffs produced by combining genetically engineered plants with the accompanying toxic chemical application of Roundup (glyphosate). The plants are engineered to withstand a life-killing dousing in glyphosate that destroys other plant and weed life by disrupting the plant’s shikimate pathway. The big whopper claim is that humans have no shikimate pathway and therefor, glyphosate can’t harm the human. But oh are they wrong! The shikimate pathway thrives in our gut bacteria which is responsible to help digest food, synthesize vitamins and minerals, hold our gut cells together, produce neurochemicals, build the immune system and many – many other biological processes. Ever wonder where that pandemic of inflammatory bowel disease, depression, allergies, cancer, metabolic syndrome and other diseases comes from?

03/05/14 Sprouted garlic has bright green shoots emerging from the cloves and is usually destined for the trash can. Now scientists are finding that this sprouted garlic has even more heart-healthy antioxidant activity than the un-sprouted garlic. Garlic has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years and is an integral part of natural medicine and herbal remedies today. Eating fresh garlic and taking garlic supplements is a great natural way to normalize cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure and reduce heart disease risk. Garlic even boosts the immune system, is antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial and helps fight cancer. Garlic sprouted for five days has a higher antioxidant activity level that improves the antioxidant potential of garlic.

03/04/14 Xanathan gum is made by fermenting food sources with the bacteria Xanthomonas campestris – the same bacteria that makes black spots on broccoli and cauliflower. Xanthan gum is listed in the top 30 most popular food ingredients. You find it in salad dressings, sauces, ice cream, gluten free foods and many other processed food products. BUT! Xanthan gum is most often made by fermenting GMO corn sugar with the aforementioned bacteria. I recommend that you put all xanthan gum on your watch list – at least until you confirm its source because xanathan gum can be derived from a variety of sources such as GMO corn, GMO soy and even wheat. It’s getting to where there are no safe processed foods out there. Back to the basics peeps!

03/03/14 Black raspberries – not the red ones – are now the focus of cancer scientists because they have distinct antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that inhibit tumor growth. Of course, the scientists’ goal is to produce a Big Pharma drug to introduce as a chemo drug for cancer treatment, but so far they cannot reproduce the total effect of good-ole fresh black raspberries. The scientists even admit that it is 100% fruit that retains the chemopreventive bioactives and not their drug counterfeits. The best they can come up with is gummy candies and a concentrated fruit juices being used in current cancer studies – but the candies only retain 75% of the fresh-berry potency. Your best bet is always the way God made things – fresh and whole.
06/20/14 This is how Monsanto faked their way to get approval for the genetically modified soybean that is tolerant to Roundup. When they planted the test crop, they simply didn’t spray it with Roundup herbicide in their cultivation. In fact, all of the soybeans used in the safety experiments were not sprayed with Roundup. But the reason for this is not stated in any of the research documents. In other words: America was sold a bill-of-goods that in no way represented the actual safety of GMO soybeans ingested by human and animals. But what did happen in these fake tests was still highly significant in that rats fed the GMO soybeans NOT sprayed with roundup had 13% less body weight along with significantly smaller kidneys than the group fed regular feed for just 28 days. GMO foods are deadly IMO. Form your own opinion, don’t borrow mine.

06/19/14 Good yogurt is good for you, but who thinks all yogurt is good for you? Most of the more popular yogurt brands actually have more sugar in them per serving than a Twinkie or other junk food that you would never consider healthy. Sugar naturally occurs in yogurt and even lowfat yogurt is notoriously high in sugar, topping in at 17 grams of sugar per serving. Greek yogurt though has as little as 6 grams in the plain flavors. Add in some syrupy fruit mixed into the usual store-bought yogurt, throw in candied nuts and/or sweetened granola and the sugar count sky-rockets! Now swirl some chemical food colors into the mix and swill in some chemical sweetener and all the health benefits are swallowed up with toxic waste. Fruit-on-the-bottom yogurts are usually “pretty OK” if there are no other additives. Read your labels peeps! I make my own from raw-organic milk so I know exactly what my loved ones are eating.

06/16/14 So, who is the gluten-free nutcase now? Not me! A new medical university study finds that reducing carbohydrate intake can also reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence. Wheat, barley and rye are especially bad carbohydrates that have strong associations between obesity, diabetes, and even cancer risk. The fact is that there are distinct biological similarities among obesity, diabetes and cancer where certain carbohydrates produce an over-activation of the insulin/insulin-like growth factor (IGF) axis, which increases the availability of IGF in the blood. These receptors are supposed to be active in growing children but not-so-much in adults. A Harvard study way back in 1999 found the association between carbohydrates and high levels of IGF that significantly increase the risks of colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer – but no one was listening then… Can you hear me now?

06/13/14 Americans drink up to 45 gallons of soda a year on average and consume more High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) per capita than any other nation. In fact, soda consumption has doubled over the last thirty years while diabetes rates have tripled. We can blame most of this increase on sodas, sports drinks and energy drinks. Well, it turns out that soda drinkers are actually getting a much higher dose of harmful fructose than they have been led to believe, according to the Childhood Obesity Research Center (CORC). CORC analyzed the composition of 34 popular beverages to find that consumers are drinking neither natural sugar nor HFCS, but instead a fructose-intense concoction that can increase the risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and liver disease. Of course, this is not what the Corn Refiners Association tells you. Even soda labels that claim to be made with real sugar actually contain more than 50 percent fructose, which is not disclosed on their labels.

06/12/14 When a Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program gave participants vouchers to buy fruits and vegetables at area farmer’s markets, the recipients actually ate a greater variety of vegetables and chose fruits and vegetables as snack items instead of the usual processed food fare – a whopping 57% more likely to choose fruits or vegetables as snacks. The USDA uses farmer’s market vouchers nationwide for WIC mothers to purchase more vegetables than they could otherwise afford. Even though the local farmer’s market might be a little bit pricier than the Big-Box Grocery chains, farmer’s markets are a great place to find fresh and appealing produce. AND, you can often find cooking demonstrations along with free nutrition education while you get to know your local farm peeps.

06/09/14 Researchers took diabetics and divided them into two groups. One group was put on the standard low-fat diet and the other group was put on a high-protein, low-carb diet. The low-fat dieters didn’t change but the low-carbers had a decrease in inflammation and in the deadly markers of both diabetes and heart disease. Cambridge University researchers quickly concluded that a diet of saturated fats and low-carbs actually improved the diabetic patients’ health. Part of this equation is that man’s digestive system is not built to digest a bunch of grains with every meal. Too much grain in the diet causes inflammation in the body. With a high-protein, low-carb diet, you too could improve your health and can turn back clock on some of today’s deadliest diseases. Even the American Diabetes Association has come around to admitting that low-carb diets can help people fight diabetes.

06/06/14 Baking soda generally does not contain aluminum these days, whether or not the package says “aluminum-free.” If you buy “pure baking soda” it is most likely aluminum free anyhow. There is a big difference between the brand labelled “aluminum free” and the unmarked brands though. Arm & Hammer baking soda, along with other brands, use a chemical process to make their baking soda by turning a certain ore into soda ash and then infusing it with carbon dioxide to produce baking soda. I’m not convinced either way at this point as to how good or bad this processed baking soda is for human consumption. Bob’s Red Mill and Frontier brands however, dig their baking soda straight out of the ground – in its natural state. In light of this, I can buy the big bag of Arm & Hammer baking soda for general use, but buy the naturally mined stuff for bodily uses.

06/05/14 Is locally grown food organic food? A lot of people confuse the term “organic food” with the term “locally grown”. These two are NOT interchangeable. Just because something is locally grown does not mean it is organic, GMO-free, pesticide-free – or better in any way than other foods for that matter. In fact, the University of Florida found that 22% of consumers incorrectly thought “Locally Grown” means non-GMO. All in the world “Locally Grown” means is that it was grown nearby – supposedly… Organic food does not have to be produced locally to be organic but it does have to be GMO-free and pesticide free. One huge advantage of buying organic is that it reduces toxic exposure to synthetic pesticides. Another huge advantage to buying “Locally Grown Organic” is that better quality food can be grown and transported less expensively from elsewhere. “Get to know your local farmer” is my mantra.

06/02/14 Want a little chlorine in your sweetener? Sucralose – in the yellow packet – was discovered while scientists were designing bug poison. Sweet enough to attract bugs, yet deadly enough to kill the bugs… The problem was that the bugs didn’t die quickly enough, so they sell it to humans. Both Splenda and Equal Sucralose are made from sugar that is chemically enhanced with three chlorine atoms. Chlorine in sucralose is a known human carcinogen that is also linked to a number of health problems because it reduces the amount of good bacteria in the intestines by 50%, raises intestinal pH, stimulates appetite, increases food cravings, candida formation, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, stimulates fat storage and weight gain, causes migraines, seizures, dizziness, blurred vision, allergic reactions, blood sugar increases, obesity, cachexia, both hypo and hyperthyroidism, damages the thymus gland and inflames the liver and kidneys.

05/30/14 A majority of Americans have an up-side down meal schedule. They tend to eat little to no protein for breakfast, a bit of protein for lunch and an excess of protein at dinner. If the recommended daily dietary allowance for protein is around 60 grams, then you’re good no matter when you eat it, right? Wrong! Eating this way does not provide a healthy metabolic environment for healthy aging and maintenance of muscle mass and strength. The Journal of Nutrition goes on record to show that muscle growth is less than optimal when protein consumption is eaten toward the evening meal. When test subject spread their protein out evenly, they had a 25% more efficient muscle protein synthesis than those who ate protein late. We need our protein for muscle building and repair during the day but towards evening, this protein gets oxidized and ends up as excess glucose and fat. My advice is to eat like a king for breakfast, a prince for lunch and pauper for supper.

05/29/14 From infancy, our palates are trained to love sugar, which gives us a sweet tooth that desires more and more sugar. You do not have to be overweight for sugar to give you heart disease. Weight and heart disease do have a correlation but sugar is one common factor to both of these. Consuming sugar has a direct effect on risk factors for heart disease and impacts blood pressure and blood cholesterol – regardless of weight gain status. People who consume more than 21% of daily calories from “added sugar” actually double the risk of dying from heart disease. High sugar intake also brings inflammation throughout the body along with blood glucose spikes within 20 minutes of sugar consumption. Then comes the deadly spike in the hormone insulin to help our cells take up the glucose. If you are going to add sugar to anything, make it very small amounts and make it non-GMO, organic sweeteners like Cane Sugar and local honey.

05/28/14 You know what else causes obesity and keeps the weight on? Cheap food does. A new review out in A Cancer Journal for Clinicians points and finds one factor fueling the obesity epidemic: Americans now have the cheapest food available in history. A whopping two out of three Americans are now overweight or obese and the rates have been climbing steadily over the past several decades and aren’t slowing down. Various other factors are snack food, automobiles, television, fast food, computer use, vending machines, suburban housing developments, and food portion size. But after a close look at the available evidence, the authors say widespread availability of inexpensive food appears to have the strongest link to obesity. Truth be told, we are spending a smaller portion of income on food than any other society in the history of the world. Americans spend well under one-tenth of their incomes on food.

05/27/14 Tomato technicalities: So, is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? Scientists and cooks have different takes. Scientifically, a tomato is a fruit and a true fruit only. Fruits all develop from the ovary in the base of a flower. Blueberries, oranges and even some nuts are true fruits. The strawberry is one exception as it is not developed from an ovary and still called a fruit. But, if a tomato is a fruit, why don’t we use it in a fruit salad? As far as cooking is concerned, some fruits, such as tomatoes or bean pods, can be called ‘vegetables’ because they are used in savory rather than sweet cooking. The term ‘vegetable’ is more loosely used to mean other edible plant parts, such as cabbage leaves, celery stalks, and potato tubers. Rhubarb however, is a fine example of a vegetable that is called a fruit by cooks as it is used in baking sweets. So pick one or both, I don’t care. I love cooking so I will call the tomato a vegetable unless I am at the clinic with my lab coat on.

05/26/14 GMO crops dominated production last year with sugar beets making up 95% of US beet crops. GMO soy hammered 94% of US soybean crops, canola at 90%, cotton 90% and corn 88%. The scary part is that these numbers increase steadily every year. GMO foods are constructed using biotechnology techniques such as, genetic splicing and microinjection of viral and bacterial carriers to create plant varieties that could never occur naturally. These mad food scientists can even inject genes of completely unrelated species into food producing plants. These “Frankenfoods” are scientifically proven to consistently cause disease, cancer and death in plants, insects, animals and humans. The only way to hopefully avoid these killer foods is by buying foods with an organic label, growing your own food and/or avoiding any suspect food species entirely. Just a little food for thought…

05/23/14 The nutrient content of our country’s main food crops have dramatically decreased in the last hundred years. There has been a 40% or more decrease since the 1940s. This is due in part from hybridization. When you cross-pollinate two plants with dominant favorable traits, the resulting fruit has both of those traits. The major downfall is that their seeds don’t result in identical plants and fruits like heirloom varieties do and hybrid seeds cannot be saved. Hybrid foods are blended to produce higher yields of larger fruits and vegetables but more chemical fertilizers are applied to support their larger than normal growth. This results in nutritional losses. Most breeding programs for modern hybrids have sacrificed taste and nutrition for profits at the scale. Oh sure, we see an abundance of big, beautiful fruits and vegetables at the grocery store, but their nutritional value has never been lower.

05/22/14 Heirloom varieties of plants pollinate openly and ripen when they are ready to, not when man sprays them with a chemical. The seeds of heirloom plants are harvested and replanted every year, making them perfectly sustainable. In fact, the farmer doesn’t have to purchase those particular seeds ever again. This is one reason why seed companies treat seeds chemically to produce seedless fruit and vegetables or food that won’t reproduce – to keep a captive market buying their seeds every year. One drawback with heirloom varieties is that they are not always perfect and uniform like engineered and cloned varieties. Commercial hybrid and GMO growers always strive for the higher yields and ship-ability of foods but for the home-grower, a smaller yield is no price to pay at all for the fuller flavor and higher nutrition in heirloom fruit and vegetables.

05/21/14 High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a bad deal on any level – unless you are killing rats! Then you can make them obese and stupid according to a recent Princeton study. Not only is HFCS made from GMO corn, the body can’t metabolize it. HFCS is shuffled to the liver as a toxin to be dealt with. When the liver is overwhelmed by too much HFCS, it converts this junk to liver fat, which also increases insulin resistance (a precursor to diabetes), hardening of the arteries and heart disease. But, here’s where food science scores a coup-de-grace: HFCS suppresses the hormone leptin, which tells you when you’re full. Now you can stuff more of this poison down your maw. Another thing leptin does is to normalize peripheral pain sensation inside the spinal cord, while pain signals are en-route to the brain. This action is spelled F-I-B-R-O-M-Y-A-L-G-I-A.

05/20/14 One of the charms of buying local food is getting to know the farmers who sell directly to actual humans rather than some commercial institution. Grocery stores give very little information for where their food comes from or who grows it. Just the same, commercial farmers don’t often have a clue where their food ends up. There is a “local food movement” that is growing across America. Meet the person who grew the lettuce, visit the pasture where the milk goats graze, let your children hold a chicken that lays the eggs you eat. If you want to be a healthy human, you had best find and eat healthy food. The best way to do this is to shorten the distance between where your food is grown and where it gets eaten. Modern times have disassociated us from our foods. It is way past time we put the personal touch back into our diets.

05/19/14 Cashews, whether roasted, salted, or covered in chocolate, have amazing health benefits. Cashew nuts are actually seeds growing on the end of the cashew apple. The cashew apple itself is far too fragile to export from its native South American home – but the seeds can make trip anywhere. Cashews are also known as ‘nature’s little vitamin pill’ and are the #1 nut crop in the world. Cashews, cashew tree’s leaves and bark and even the cashew apple are well-known for their ability to kill bacteria and germs, stop diarrhea, heal dry weeping sores, increase libido, and reduce fever, blood sugar and blood pressure. One ounce of cashew nuts packs 5 grams of protein along with high levels of iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, copper and manganese. Cashew nuts also contain phytosterols, tocopherols, and natural squalene which lower heart disease risk. Cashew nuts are a high energy density and high dietary fiber food when for healthy weight loss when eaten in moderation.

05/16/14 How will you know if it is frankenfish or not? The FDA (Fatal Drugs Allowed) has said it likely will not require GMO fish to be labeled. IF a retailer carries this untested food, consumers will not be told which is which. Last year, during the FDA’s public comment period, some 1.8 million people sent messages to the FDA opposing the approval of the AquAdvantage genetically modified organism. The fact is that most consumers do want to know what they’re eating along with the health and environment impact of what they’re eating. Over nine thousand stores have said they are not selling this brand of salmon. Where Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Safeway, Kroger and Target, have stepped up to say “NO WAY”, Walmart – among some – remains silent. Here is where we get to vote with our wallet peeps; Not buying a GMO food product says “NAY” and if you don’t give a rip and buy it anyway, you are voting “YEA”. Let’s reject GMOs out-of-hand.

05/15/14 Did you know that a gluten-free diet in a nursing mother can help protect the infant from type I diabetes? New experiments and preliminary tests show that a gluten-free diet in humans has a positive effect on children bringing the distinct possibility that a gluten-free pregnancy and lactation can be enough to protect high-risk children from developing diabetes later in life. The latest experiments show that a gluten-free diet changes the intestinal bacteria in both the mother and the progenies. The intestinal flora is a major key for the developing immune system in infants. A bad balance of bacteria plays a big role in the development of type I diabetes, and studies suggest that a gluten-free diet has protective effect against diseases that are the result of certain intestinal bacteria. The big disadvantage of a gluten-free diet is the inconvenience of having to avoid gluten. The rest is all benefits!

05/14/14 Fructose is the sugar form found in fruit, in table sugar (sucrose) and also in high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Fructose is a simple sugar that is sweeter than glucose. Common table sugar is made up of 50/50 glucose and fructose. HFCS contains more fructose than glucose and is some 10X sweeter than table sugar and much-much cheaper, making it the industry sweetheart for sweetening processed foods. One major problem with HFCS is that there is no hormone produced in the human body to metabolize fructose to remove it from our body. HFCS is ultimately shuffled to the liver to remove it as a toxic waste product. Even though HFCS is very harmful to your health in general, it causes a lower blood sugar spike than sucrose or glucose, and therefore has a low glycemic index. Because of this misnomer, manufacturers are allowed to claim that fructose is ‘healthier’ than the other two.

05/13/14 The very latest Parkinson’s research shows that good old blueberries do more good than the best drugs insurance can buy (IMO). According to the USDA, a diet including blueberries can improve motor skills and reverse the short-term memory loss that comes with both aging and age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Besides this, blueberries daily can expand your lifespan an extra 8 healthy years! Blueberries have more antioxidants than any other fresh fruits or vegetables tested to strengthen the immune system by neutralizing free radicals. Blueberries also improve night vision while promoting quicker adjustment to darkness and faster visual clarity after exposure to glare. Did you know that eating fresh blueberries daily helps reduce the risk of cancer? Do yourself a huge favor and only eat organic blueberries to avoid the toxic effects of pesticides. Eat them fresh for all the best enzymes that maximize your benefits.

05/12/14 A piece of fruit a day can keep a stroke away: You can reduce your stroke risk by a whopping 32% just by eating a measly 200g of fresh fruit a day according to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Stroke. Bottom line; in order be healthy, you will need to eat healthy foods and a diet rich in healthy fruits and vegetables is necessary to meet micronutrient, macronutrient and fiber requirements to fuel health in your body. A high daily fruit and vegetable consumption can lower blood pressure, improve microvascular function, normalize body mass index, slim waist circumference, drop cholesterol, sooth inflammation and reduce oxidative stress. Stroke is the number 4 cause of death in the US but is also the leading cause of disability.

05/09/14 Are trans-fats good or bad for you? Back in 1911, Procter and Gamble gave life to the hydrogenated nightmare named Crisco. Process food companies have ever since used artificial trans-fats to add years to food shelf life, bring oil stability during deep frying, and encourage flavor in bland foods. Trans-fats are very prominent for these reasons in most processed snack and deep-fried foods, baked goods, margarine, and especially crackers. Artificial trans-fats are mostly made of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils that have hydrogen blended into them. The fact is that trans-fats naturally exist in small amounts in meat and milk fat, but by far, most trans-fats in our foods are added by food manufacturers. Trans-fats are hard on the digestion, increase the risk of coronary heart disease, raise inflammatory factors and raise blood cholesterol. Other countries have banned trans-fats beginning in 2003 but our country is still mulling the idea over – even though a ban could prevent up to 20,000 coronary events and 7000 deaths a year.

05/08/14 Conventional foods are commonly grown with organophosphate pesticides. These pesticides are actually chemical neurotoxins that bugger the nervous systems of insects by blocking critical enzymes – causing death. Well, humans have nervous systems too and these same chemicals do the same thing to us – just a little slower. These deadly chemicals are found in the urine of pretty much all humans these days. Did you know that just 7 days exclusively on organic foods lowers the pesticide load in humans by a whopping 90%?? Recent studies have shown the deleterious health effects of even low levels of pesticides in the body. Even if you think that organic food has no more nutrients than conventional (but they do!), going organic to remove pesticides from the body is a great idea.

05/07/14 Eating a high-fiber diet suppresses the appetite. And now we know why! The latest study discovered the anti-appetite molecule called acetate that is naturally released when our intestines digest fiber. When the intestinal bacteria ferment the fiber, it releases large amounts of acetate as a waste product. Newly formed acetate is quickly transported to the brain where it signals us to stop eating. We’ve always known the natural benefits of increasing the amount of fiber in our diets to reduce appetite – we just didn’t know why. Processed foods have low dietary fiber and helps compound overeating – but the companies already know that. Maybe that is why they don’t add good fiber to the highly superficial and over-processed foods. Cave men supposedly ate about 100g of fiber per day compared to our wimpy 15g average.

05/06/14 Papaya is known as the ‘fruits of angels’. Papaya is loaded with vitamins, minerals, fiber and enzymes combined perfectly to bring amazing health benefits. Papaya is even used in natural medicine and also in facials and skin care. Papaya treats acne, pimples and other skin conditions by opening the pores of the skin and dissolving dead cells. The enzymes in papaya kill parasites, improves bowel movements, regulate the appetite, break down food proteins, help with weight loss and also help comfort digestion woes. As a wound poultice, papaya heals wounds and prevents blood clots inside and out. Papaya is used in natural cancer treatment because of its flavonoids which are powerful antioxidants. The carotenes in particular fight cancer and protect the epithelial tissues of the lungs, intestines, oral cavity and skin. Buyer beware! There are now GMO versions of papaya so stick with the non-GMO Mexican Red, Mexican Yellow and Orange Queen varieties.

05/05/14 Another reason to buy organic: Regular apples sold in the U.S. are often coated with the chemical diphenylamine (DPA), a controversial chemical banned in Europe. It was banned there when manufacturers both failed to prove that it did not pose any human health risks and scientists found that DPA-treated fruit also has potent carcinogens. Back in the good-ole USA, packers drench most conventionally-raised apples with DPA to prevent ‘storage scald,’ or a blackening and browning of fruit skin during the months of cold storage they go through. 80% of conventionally grown apples in the US have DPA residue as well as showing up in apple juice and applesauce as well as some pear products. EWG.org reports that our own EPA’s Pesticide Office said they were “unaware of the new European ban and import restrictions,” on DPA. Conventionally grown apples have topped the EWG’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ list for the last several years because they contain higher levels of pesticides than other fruits and vegetables.

05/02/14 Iron sources from vegetables are handled much different than iron sources from meat. The body can control absorption of iron from vegetable sources much better than from meat. A recent study found a definite link between red meat consumption and heart disease that goes along with the absorption of heme iron found only in meat. The study found a 57% increased the risk for coronary heart disease but absolutely no increased risk from plant and other non-heme iron sources. This study followed 292,454 participants for some 10 years of follow-up. The simple fact is that heme iron is absorbed at a rate of 37% compared to 5% absorption with non-heme iron. Too much heme iron works in the oxidation of LDLs, causing tissue-damaging inflammation. The other part of the factor is that heme iron accumulates in the body over time. Heme iron can be reduced by old-fashioned bloodletting, donating blood or menstruation.

05/01/14 You can lead a sheep to water – but you can’t make it read the food label… I guess we the sheople are pretty much lazy duffers – too dang lazy to pick up a package of food, turn it around and read the label. It must be so because the FDA (Foot Dragging and Alibis) wants to require food companies to move nutrition labels to the front of their packages. This is our tax dollars at work because food companies actually put harmful chemicals in food and nobody is paying much attention to it. Bottom line, if you are filling your grocery buggy with Cheetos, Orioles and microwave foods, you really don’t want to be reading the labels anyhow. Stick to buying organic foods that don’t carry an ingredient label in the first place.

04/30/14 The benefits of fresh lemon juice: Do you have indigestion? Try a wedge of lemon and see if the burning goes away. If it does, you had too little acid in your stomach to keep the esophageal sphincter closed. Take some lemon juice in warm water before meals for optimal digestion. The liver loves lemon juice also because lemon juice helps keep it clean and fat-free. Lemon juice thins the liver bile to help keep the liver from congesting with toxins and sluggish bile. The bile that is stimulated with lemon juice also helps burn body fat and turn up the metabolism. Lemon juice is packed with awesome enzymes to aid digestion and lemon juice is full of vitamin C and all the cofactors to make it work. Lemon juice can be very effective in treating acne and promoting healthy skin and hair.

04/29/14 If you are buying watermelons, always choose the organic ones with seeds in them. Foods without seeds lack the vital chi in what Chinese medicine is called “jing”. Traditional Chinese Medicine says that if you chew watermelon seeds, they nourish your kidney energy. Besides, watermelon seeds are loaded with fatty acids, essential proteins, thiamine, niacin, folate, magnesium, potassium, manganese, iron, zinc, phosphorus and copper. The melons actually have a fresher, purer taste with seeds IMO. Keep in mind that a watermelon that is “certified organic seedless” may be grown organically, but chemicals were used to damage the original seeds to alter them genetically. Seedless watermelons are not technically a GMO food product but they are chemically modified foods. Now you know!

04/28/14 Did you know that liking Cheerios on Facebook or by downloading a General Mills coupon means that you cannot sue General Mills for any reason now? General Mills, Bisquick, Betty Crocker and other companies are rushing to add language to websites to the effect that you now give up your right to sue the company once you download a coupon, join them in the social medias, or simply enter a company-sponsored sweepstakes or contest. The new language requires any complaints to be resolved through “binding” (email) arbitration. The only notice you will get about surrendering your legal rights to sue is the small print on the home pages that tells you the company “updated our Privacy Policy.” So, the company is neglectful, cuts corners, poisons a host of people and nobody can sue them. Welcome to Amerika…

04/25/14 The Virginia Senate gave a 26-2 vote this week for a bill requiring genetically modified food ingredient labeling. Of course, with this bill comes the expense of defending it in court from Monsanto and other food companies that will sue for dismissal of the bill. It’s just a small start though as the law will not take effect (if it survives) until July 2016. Even then it will take years to bring compliance. Sixty countries, including the European Union, require GMO food labeling, but not in the land of the free and uninformed. I’ve got a simple solution: vote with your wallet and stop buying anything suspect of containing GMO food. As long as Americans pussyfoot around the issue, nothing will happen. Even the uncaring and evil corporation called Monsanto will change its whole operation to accommodate what the consumer buys.

04/24/14 The latest of the artificial sweetener chemicals coming out is Sweetmyx. What’s in it you ask? Can’t say and nobody knows – because it is a “proprietary blend”. But it is GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) for whatever that is worth, which is worth nothing. Who says it’s safe? Why, the manufacturer says it’s safe, so it’s just gotta be safe to consume. The FDA doesn’t say it’s safe but a third party did say it’s safe. Did you know that a company can make an independent GRAS determination without even notifying the FDA? Bottom line, Sweetmyx is actually a “flavor enhancer” which means, use this chemical and you will use less sugar to make things taste sweet. This can’t go well for consumers IMO. PepsiCo has bought the exclusive rights to this so-called flavor modifier in many of its drinks.

10/23/14 Scientists reported in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that olive oil beat corn, soybean and sunflower oil for frying because olive oil withstands the heat better than most seed oils and also brings with it a healthier food quality. Frying food is one very popular way to prepare food. Fried chicken, French fries, pancakes, eggs, hamburger – along with whatever the latest carnival fad food is from butter to ice cream… The fact is that when any frying oil is reused it always degrades; which leads to the formation of harmful compounds that are potentially toxic and also lowers the nutritional value of the food being fried. Besides this, who wants to cook with and eat GMO oils? If you are eating out, ask what your fries are dunked in before you order them. GMO cottonseed oil is one of the more popular fryer oils out there.

10/16/14 “Let’s skip the GMO animal studies and go straight to GMO human studies” says a GMO banana project. For $900 each, Iowa State University students will eat GMO bananas developed with grant money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. How extensive is this study? This banana study will include the equivalent of three bananas in three study periods per study victim – er volunteer… Of course, they will also have their blood tested to see how their bodies are reacting. OK, that should prove a lot. The purpose of the GMO banana is to make a banana that has large amounts of beta carotene for conversion to vitamin A in the body. But, did you know that there is already a natural banana that is loaded with this extra vitamin A? Sounds like a patenting problem to me. Follow the money peeps. Anyone recall the Porton Down experiment?

10/09/14 Has anyone else noticed how doggone expensive it is getting to eat healthy? How about this little factoid: Healthy food prices have tripled the gap between standard food prices in 10 years. The net result is that healthy foods are three times more expensive per calorie than less healthy “Standard American Diet (SAD)” foods. PLOS One tracked 94 key food and beverage items from 2002 to 2012 to show that more healthy foods were consistently more expensive than less healthy foods but have risen dramatically in price. This equates to the average family having to increasingly turn to less healthy food to survive – if you can call that surviving… The increase in the price difference between healthy foods and standard fare is contributing to increasing health inequalities and a general deterioration in the health of the population. Time to prioritize our spending peeps.

10/08/14 Another point for probiotics: Yogurt that has naturally occurring probiotic bacteria can actually help protect you from heavy metal exposure according to a recent Canadian study. The Lactobacillus rhamnosus bacteria in particular has an affinity for binding toxic heavy metals to move them out of the body and regularly consuming this probiotic strain could prevent heavy metals from being absorbed from the diet. The study utilized people in an area known to be polluted with pesticides and toxic metals including mercury. They distributed this particular yogurt strain to a group of pregnant women and a group of children and measured the baseline and post-yogurt levels of toxic metals to find a significant protective effect against mercury and arsenic in the pregnant women and lower toxin levels in children. What’s in your yogurt?

10/07/14 Do you think that sodas are the worst thing for your teeth? Think again because researchers immersed teeth (the hardest substance in the body) into 13 popular beverages including sodas. What the study found was that non-cola energy and sports drinks, along with commercial lemonade brought the most damage to tooth enamel in the shortest amount of time – actually being up to 11 times more erosive than sodas! Americans are always trying new products and looking for more ways to become “energized” by turning to energy boosting drinks like Amp and Red Bull. Gee, what happened to good ole water? Too boring I guess…

09/16/14 School snack Obamanation: The latest Michelle Obama “Smart Snack” rules for schools is giving federal dollars to entice schools to ditch bottled teas and other sugary drinks while recommending that they are replaced by drinks like Gatorade G2 (GG2). This idea is as useless as a parachute without a ripcord because GG2 is about the worst thing any health-minded person should drink – let alone a developing child. First off, GG2 contains the synthetic sweetener Splenda made with sucrose bound to three chlorine molecules. Because humans cannot digest covalently bound chloride, Splenda’s side effects include gastrointestinal problems, dizziness, seizures, blurred vision, allergic reactions, blood sugar increases, and weight gain. Splenda is also known to wipe out up to 50% of the beneficial bacteria in the intestines while chemically altering blood levels of glucose, insulin and glucagon-like peptide-1. Diabetes anyone? Secondly, GG2 contains acesulfame potassium, which is a zero-calorie sweetener 200 times sweeter than sugar that causes hypoglycemia, breast cancer, organ tumors, leukemia and chronic respiratory diseases. Add in some artificial colors and a bone-brittling dose of monopotassium phosphate and I’d have say that the sugary drinks might actually be the lesser of both evils.

09/09/14 Resistance training… Blood sugar levels tell you how much sugar -AKA glucose- is circulating in the bloodstream. When you get too much glucose in the blood, the body releases insulin, which enables cells to absorb the excess glucose. The more sugary foods or drinks you consume, the more insulin is released. The problem arises when too much insulin trains cells to become resistant to insulin. The net effect is that it takes more and more insulin to force the cells to remove excess glucose from the blood. At that point blood sugar levels stay elevated, insulin levels stay elevated and you become pre-diabetic. One of the best ways to prevent or reverse this deleterious process is to avoid high glycemic foods like white flour, sugar, white rice and white potatoes. Instead, consume low glycemic foods that have lots of fiber and protein like beans, whole grains, lean proteins and nuts.

09/08/14 The latest on soy is that it alters the expression of genes associated with breast cancer – and not in a good way… The Journal of the National Cancer Institute recently published a randomized, placebo-controlled study of the effects of soy supplementation on gene expression and markers of breast cancer risk among women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. The study showed that soy ingestion brought changes in not just one but several genes that promote cancer cell cycle progression and cell proliferation. Soy is not only full of phytoestrogens, but it also has large quantities of potent enzyme inhibitors, which block the action of enzymes that both humans and animals need to digest protein. Consuming soy can drive certain cancers and also cause gastric distress, reduced protein digestion and chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake. Don’t fall for the soy-ploy! Soy is on my cancer no-no list.

09/04/14 Are you allergic to antibiotics? You’d best take heed to the food you eat because it’s possible to have an allergic reaction to antibiotic residues in food. Fruits and vegetables are often sprayed with antibiotics and the blueberry in pie can set off an anaphylaxis reaction. Streptomycin is commonly used as a pesticide in fruit, and combats the growth of bacteria, fungi, and algae. Penicillin given to cows shows up in the milk and can also trip the allergy trigger. A lot of European countries have banned the use of antibiotics for growing foods, but no the good old USA or Canada. What’s even perhaps worse than allergic reactions is the fact that antibiotics use for food is strengthening the deadly antibiotic resistance we see so much of these days. One more case and point for buying only organic foods!

09/02/14 A recent court decision in Mexico ruled that the Yucatán region’s honey trade simply cannot co-exist with Monsanto’s genetically modified soybeans. The Yucatán’s honey production is crucial to the local economy and Europe refuses to buy the honey contaminated with GMO crop pollination. I guess it is only a problem because Europe is the primary buyer of Yucatán honey. The Mexican judge overseeing the case has consequently revoked Monsanto’s GM soy permit. Monsanto claims that GM crops can help increase production to meet the demands of a growing population while studies show that yield increases from GMO’s are problematic and don’t meet expectations. Meanwhile, the U.N. food agency’s chief of research says that current food production is adequate to feed the entire global population. But, instead of listening and learning, the U.S. is asking Europe to relax GMO restrictions – the EU has refused to change its policies and continues to shun US agriculture goods contaminated by GMOs.

08/28/14 Cook your shrooms! Mushrooms have very tough cell membrane walls and are basically indigestible in the raw. In order to release beneficial nutrients, mushrooms must be cooked. I’ll bet that you didn’t know that some of the everyday supermarket variety raw mushrooms actually contain small amounts of a carcinogenic toxin called agaratine that can lead to bladder cancer. The good news is that these toxic compounds are destroyed through cooking. Mushrooms have been proven to contain health-promoting benefits and many varieties are noted for immune system boosting ability, weight management, improving vitamin D levels, increasing ATP production, strengthening endurance, fighting cancer, offsetting the ravages of aging, protecting the liver and kidneys, repairing stroke damage and so much more. I like my shrooms sautéed in real organic butter.

08/26/14 There sure is a lot of disinformation out there about hypothyroidism and cruciferous vegetables. The hype is that if you are on thyroid meds you should avoid all cruciferous vegetables. Well, partially true that… The truth is that if you are iodine deficient you will be hypothyroid AND cruciferous vegetables will make iodine deficient hypothyroidism worse. The truth is that if you are hypothyroid you more likely than not need iodine/iodide desperately. Take iodine and iodide until you are no longer deficient and then you can eat all the healthy cruciferous vegetables you want – AND I seriously doubt you will be hypo-thyroid any more. It’s all about treating the causes of the symptoms of hypothyroid rather than drugging the symptoms. Did you know that in 19 years as a nutritionist I have never seen a cancer case that had a normal thyroid?

08/15/14 Messing with Joe… A good old cup of coffee is becoming harder to find and you may not even know it! Coffee producers are cutting their goods with – well, stuff – to increase profits of course. Droughts and crop diseases have knocked down coffee supplies and now surprise ingredients could very well be hiding in your coffee because of this increasing coffee shortages. These “fillers” range from bark to dirt, GMO corn and soybeans, glutenous barley and wheat, soybeans, rice, beans, acai seed, brown sugar and starch syrup. Once these counterfeit items are roasted and ground along with the coffee it becomes nearly impossible to tell that they are there. A recent study predicts that some 70% percent of the world’s coffee supply could disappear by 2080. This year alone, Brazil’s coffee production has dropped by over 10% this year alone. I don’t have to worry because I grind my own whole organic coffee beans when I make coffee.

08/14/14 Most of us saw the shocking Séralini study that came out of the University of Caen last year. You remember, the one where they found that groups of rats fed Monsanto’s NK603 corn or exposed to Roundup herbicide in drinking water died earlier and had higher rates of tumors and organ damage than non-GMO fed rats? Well, this study has come under a serious all-out attack from the money-bags corporations who are losing bug bucks over it. Opponents are shouting that the experiment did not use enough rats and should therefore be shredded for- well, rat litter paper… The opponents further try to discredit the study by saying that the industry standard Sprague Dawley lab rats used in the study develop tumors if allowed to live long enough – ignoring the obvious fact that control groups of rats still had much less cancer, lived longer and generally fared much better overall. The opponents say all this while shoving their crappy 90 day studies at us that say “GMOs are safe (even though their studies were less thorough). The chief editor of the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology even offered for Séralini and his team to voluntarily retract the study. Sounds like Snot Stew to me but I’m siding with Séralini on this one.

08/13/14 Most diet sodas are sweetened with aspartame. Aspartame is made up of aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol and is 200 times sweeter than table sugar. Did you know that Dr. M. Adrian Gross (a former senior FDA toxicologist), stated before Congress: “Beyond a shadow of a doubt, aspartame triggers brain tumors”. Aspartame toxicity is often overlooked as a disease with chronically worsening conditions and over 92 different health side effects. Soda consumption – sugared or diet, enhances kidney stone formation and radical mineral imbalances when your body attempts to buffer the acidity of soft drinks with calcium from the bones. Scientific studies prove that soft drinks in general are directly related to weight gain. Researchers calculate that for each additional soda consumed daily, the risk of obesity multiplies by 1.6 times.

08/06/14 Baked, broiled or fried? Baked or broiled fish contain higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids than fried fish because the fatty acids are more damaged by the high heat of frying. A recent study out in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows that people who have a diet that includes baked or broiled – but not fried – fish have larger brain regions associated with memory and cognition. Just eating baked or broiled fish once a week brought up to 14% greater grey matter brain volumes in the areas of the brain responsible for cognition. The strange part is that they found no relationship between actual circulating blood levels of omega-3 and better brain health. The conclusion was that eating baked or broiled fish once a week is just plain good for the brain. Bottom line, your diet today contributes to brain health later in life.

08/05/14 Did you know that palm oil is used in almost 50% of everyday goods? Of course, palm oil is a saturated fat – wrongfully condemned by latter-day scientists who have bashed saturated fats for decades because of a study hypothesis long ago. Well, a 2010 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that there wasn’t a link between saturated fat for either heart disease or stroke. In fact in 2006, the Women’s Health Initiative found that eating less saturated fat hasn’t lowered rates of heart disease or stroke. The key is to pay attention to where those saturated fats come from and what they are found in. Palmitic acid found in palm oil, butter, and eggs along with myristic acid found in cheese, milk, butter, and beef raise both LDL and HDL cholesterol making the net effect neutral. Stearic acid in foods like chocolate and beef doesn’t even raise LDL one bit. Lauric acid found in coconut oil is a superfood. The real culprits are the bagels, pizzas, factory eggs and other processed foods that contain both saturated and trans fats.

08/01/14 One of the best ways to prevent some of the most serious foodborne illnesses caused by pathogenic bacteria is found in the common cooking spice – cinnamon. Cinnamomum cassia oil can work effectively as a natural antibacterial agent directly in food and can help improve food safety and reduce or even eliminate cases of food poisoning and related deaths. A recent study found cinnamon oil to be highly effective in low concentrations against the top six strains of food-borne bacteria. For a natural food wash for meats and vegetables, a mere 10 drops per liter of water works. For food packaging the oil can be incorporated into films and coatings to eliminate deadly microorganisms. Think of what this oil can do to freshen your dishwasher and clothes washer! Beats toxic chemicals hands down.

07/31/14 Inorganic arsenic is considered a first level carcinogen with negative effects on human health. There are no safe levels for inorganic arsenic found in rice and rice-based foods. This poses major health concerns for infants and young children because rice is a popular carbohydrate source during child weaning. Exposure to high levels of arsenic raises the risk for cancer and heart disease. Young children who ingest too much arsenic have lower IQs and poorer intellectual function and infants and young children typically have 2 to 3 times the inorganic arsenic levels than adults. Rice naturally has higher arsenic concentrations than other grains because it is grown in flooded rice paddies and has a unique physiology that takes up arsenic. High concentrations of inorganic arsenic are usually found in the bran layers – making a higher arsenic risk for rice bran products. But the bran is where the folate and other vital nutrients in rice thrive. Take away the bran and you are pretty much left with starch.

07/28/14 The pitfalls of popcorn: Popcorn by itself is a great snack. Pop some organic popcorn in some organic grapeseed oil, slather on some melted organic butter and dust it with sea salt. Yummeh! Bags of popcorn nuked up in 2 minutes are a whole nuther story. The chemical butter flavoring in microwave popcorn alone contains a very harmful nasty called diacetyl, which is linked to a rare form of lung disease. And that’s just the start! The actual popcorn bags are made with non-stick Teflon and can cause cancer, thyroid disease, child development problems, birth defects and increases infertility by 154%. Nuking the microwave popcorn sends the Teflon chemicals into the popcorn and into the blood. Most of the cancers from this Teflon madness manifests in the liver, pancreas, testicles, prostate and mammary glands. And movie popcorn… don’t even get me started on how bad that one is. When we go to the movies, we take our own organic delish popcorn with us. No one has turned us away from the theater yet.

07/25/14 Only about one out of four children actually eat enough fruits and vegetables in their daily diet. Less than half of children in a recent study eat fruit every day and a little over half of children eat vegetables on a daily basis. Children should get between 3-5 servings of vegetables along with 2-4 servings of fruit daily. Children do however usually eat more fruit than vegetables and researchers believe that this is due to fruit being more readily available and tastier. Child or adult; including plenty of fruit and vegetables in your diet reduces the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and even some forms of cancer. The World Health Organization recommends a daily intake of at least 400 grams of fruit and vegetables. I’d say that this is a minimum to maintain health – if you are already healthy…

07/24/14 Take your blueberries and freeze them and what happens? You actually improve the already powerful antioxidant punch according to the latest study. The blue in the blueberry is from anthocyanins which are a group of antioxidant compounds and freezing the blueberries actually improves the availability of these antioxidants. This is because the ice crystals that form during freezing restructure the plant tissues, making the anthocyanins more available. Want to know the best part? Blueberries frozen for 5 months still retained their original potency. Blueberries help eliminate cancer-causing free radicals in the body and are great for your brain and nervous system along with the cardiovascular system, eyes and even the urinary tract. Could blueberries be one of the world’s healthiest food? Some people say they are. Make mine organic!

07/21/14 Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and cabbage are anti-estrogenic and help block environmental xenoestrogens in the body. Xenoestrogens cause side effects like facial hair in women and moobs (man-boobs) in men – not to mention making people hypothyroid along with making it very difficult to lose weight. These xenoestrogens come mostly from plastics and not only cause women to store more belly fat, but are also responsible for chronically low testosterone levels in men. Xenoestrogens are associated with many different cancers. Cruciferous vegetables contain naturally occurring 3,3′-Diindolylmethane or DIM for short. DIM blocks the bad estrogens that accumulate in the body. DIM is a double whammy against estrogen-driven cancers as it is also a powerful immunostimulant. On a side-note, DIM is fat soluble, meaning you should consume it along with healthy oils and friendly fats to enhance the absorption of these healthful nutrients.

07/18/14 So, what happens when you eat GMO food? Does the unique DNA of the genetically modified organism affect you, the eater? Monsanto and other companies say a resounding NO! The amount of DNA from food that makes it past the intestines is not often looked at because it does not have significant nutritional value. But animal feeding studies show that some dietary DNA resists the digestive process and can make it past the intestinal barrier and into the blood. Proteins and DNA are generally thought to be completely broken up into smaller constituents of amino acids and nucleic acids to be absorbed and distributed to throughout the body via the circulation system. In a new study, scientists have found that large DNA segments can actually pass from food to the circulatory system in humans. This means it will ultimately integrate with your own DNA. You are what you eat people. Make it something wholesome and natural.

07/17/14 When you make a diet of cheaper conventionally grown food your body starts to starve – even though you eat a lot and gain weight. When the body is lacking proper nutrition, it sends out the call for you to eat more food, hoping to find nutrition somewhere… Conventionally grown food is fertilized with high levels of synthetic nitrogen, which forces the plant to produce more than normal levels of sugars and starches bringing lower concentrations of nutrients and antioxidants. Organic crops produce up to 69% more phenols and polyphenols to defend against pest attacks and injuries. This wholesome goodness transfers to people who eat these crops. Did you know that though organic food costs more, you will eat less and still get more nutrients than eating conventionally grown food?

07/14/14 When the food ingredient label says “sugar” – and that’s all it says about it – you can pretty much bet it came from a GMO crop like corn or sugar beets. How do I know this? There are two good reasons to suspect the product: The first being that cane sugar is more expensive than GMO corn or beet sugar and no manufacturer in their right mind would forget to label their product with the healthy buzzwords “made from cane sugar”. The second reason is that to make a product “GMO-free”, it takes GMO-free food ingredients. If the sugar comes from GMO sources then that wipes out any GMO-free food claim. Well over half of the sugar today in the US comes from sugar beets and over 90% of all sugar beets grown are genetically modified. Now, which is worse for you; GMO sugar or artificial sweetener? Let me ask you this: Would you rather be shot to death or stabbed to death? Dead is still dead…

07/11/14 Food marketers are banking on buzzwords to sell their products. And they are banking on consumers being pretty much stupid when it comes to health-related buzzwords. When people see the words “antioxidant,” “gluten-free” and “whole grain,” splashed across the front of a package, they are hornswoggled into thinking that packaged food labeled with those words is healthier than it really is. You can say that Cherry 7-up has antioxidants but it doesn’t make it healthy for you to drink. You can say a cake mix is gluten-free but pack it out with GMO soy/corn and load it with food chemicals and artificial sweeteners. You can say something is made with whole grains and still bulk it up with processed grains bolstered with a minimum of whole grains. This is how food marketers generate a false sense of health – while cutting your purse and stealing your money AND your health…

07/10/14 Believe it or not, vegetable oils are some of the most chemically altered foods in our diets. Vegetable oils and margarines are made from oils extracted from seeds like the rapeseed, soybean, corn, cottonseed and etc. Vegetable oils were pretty much non-existent until the early 1900s. Most vegetable oils are not like real butter or coconut oil that can be extracted pressing or separating naturally. Most vegetable oils are chemically separated, deodorized, and ultimately altered. How can these chemically altered foods be promoted as healthy for you? Even worse yet, if the vegetable oil made into shortening or margarine, it is hydrogenation to make it solid at cold temperatures. During the process of hydrogenation is where those deadly trans fats are created. Americans, on average, consume around 70lbs of vegetable oils every year. Unless it is cold pressed or expeller pressed, don’t trust it!

07/07/14 A majority of vegetable oils are made in a factory from genetically modified crops that have been heavily and repeatedly sprayed with pesticides and herbicides. Canola oil is one of worst ones you can buy, made from a hybrid version of the rapeseed plant that has since been genetically modified. As if the GMO, pesticides and herbicides weren’t enough, canola oil is produced by processing the plant with a petroleum solvent to extract the oil which is then reheated and soused with acid to remove waxy solids. But wait, there’s more! The newly concocted canola oil must now be treated with even more chemicals to improve color and separate the different parts of the oil. But the end results still smells so bad that it cannot be eaten – so one more chemical process is performed to deodorize the oil. OK, who wants some pesticide and herbicide laden, GMO, petroleum produced, chemically treated, heated, reheated and overheated, oxidized, and chemically deodorized canola oil salad dressing for supper? Yuck!

07/04/14 Even though research links GMO foods directly to allergies, organ toxicity, cancer and other health issues, the FDA (Further Delays Ahead) does not require safety testing for GMOs. Up to 70% or more of processed foods in the local supermarket now contain genetically modified food ingredients. That is a low estimate IMO because there’s just no way to document the actual percentage because no labeling of GMO foods is required to inform consumers about the presence of GMOs in food. A whopping 88% of all corn is now GMO corn. GMO corn is added to innumerable processed foods and GMO corn is a staple for animal feed. 93% of all US soy is GMO and along with being used in almost all processed foods, it also hides under names like: hydrogenated oils, lecithin, emulsifiers, tocopherol (a vitamin E supplement) and proteins. 94% of cotton is GMO and hides out in common vegetable oil, margarine and shortening production as well as being used to fry and deep fry many foods. This is just the beginning of sorrows though when you consider the dozens of other GMO foods now pressed upon us.

07/03/14 A calorie counting lesson: One donut will have somewhere around 195 calories to subtract from your daily calorie count. But that one donut will leave you nutrient deficient, insulin resistant and starving for more. Now take one avocado and eat 234 calories to count against your daily totals that gives you vital nutrients, live enzymes, doesn’t whack your blood sugar and fills that little hunger spot nicely. One cookie might have fewer calories than a small handful of nuts, but the nuts are going to protect your heart and brain, while the cookie will damage your health.Bottom line – calorie-counting doesn’t do a dang thing for your health if you are eating processed foods and drinking low-calorie diet swill. Good nutrition brings good health – not low calorie diets! When it comes to losing weight, you should worry more about eating a healthy diet with specific foods that are good for you than boiling the garbage over counting calories.

06/30/14 So, you buy “organic tea” and you are happy to drink it. Aside from the tea itself, did you ever consider what the bag is made of? The teabag is often made from plastics that give off toxic plasticizers when heated or boiled. But what if your teabag is “biodegradable”? In that case look-out for GMO corn-based bags. How about just plain paper teabags? They won’t stand up to boiling water and get treated with low levels of wet strength chemicals such as polymerized epichlorohydrin (insecticide and potential carcinogen). Maybe this is good time to switch back to coffee then? Not so fast… You’ll have the same problem with coffee filters. Either way, coffee or tea, avoid the bags and filters and do like I do: use loose-leaf and strain it through a stainless steel strainer. If you want to use up your old teabags of your favorite tea, simply tear them open and use the loose tea. I think you’ll even like the flavor better.

06/27/14 Glucoraphanin and sulforaphane are two of the great and well-known cancer fighting compounds found in broccoli. Now scientists have documented that broccoli also fights lung damage from air pollution. In the latest study, a daily dose of broccoli sprout juice helped the lungs expel significant amounts of the pollution chemical benzene (a known carcinogen) along with other lung irritants. Excretion of cancer-causing benzene actually increased 61% in this study. Air pollution causes some seven million global deaths a year according to the WHO. Of course we need to stop air pollution now, but in the meantime, a diet rich in cruciferous vegetables (like our champion broccoli) can reduce chronic diseases like degenerative lung diseases – including lung cancer and other cancers.

06/26/14 If you are a label-reader, you’ve already noticed the words “Fair Trade” on certain food packages. Although there are different “Fair Trade” organizations and no officially official definition for the words that I know of, the basic tenets of Fair Trade is to support a trading partnership that seeks greater equity in international trade. This contributes to sustainable economic development in world areas that have populations of marginalized producers and workers. Economic fairness from far-away farms all the way to your shopping cart, products that bear the “Fair Trade” label come from producers and workers who are justly compensated. The Fair Trade model also requires protection of local ecosystems for sustainable agriculture. Fair Trade also encourages farmers to practice organic agriculture for worker safety, cleaner environments and healthier consumers.

06/23/13 Great news for ice cream lovers! Ben & Jerry’s ice cream has gone GMO-free. The iconic ice-cream maker has transformed all 50 of its flavors to non-genetically modified ingredients and Fair Trade certification. Things like the Heath Toffee Bar has to go to meet both non-GMO and Fair Trade standards. Ben & Jerry’s had to source out 110 new non-GMO ingredients to meet this challenge. If you remember, two years ago, Ben & Jerry’s spent over $450,000 to try to defeat the California GMO labeling ballot initiative. A growing number of image-conscious companies (if not health conscious companies), are shucking the GMOs to help lead the GMO-free food revolution. One very helpful book for going GMO-free is the national Non-GMO Sourcebook by Ken Roseboro – a manual that helps food producers find GMO-free ingredients.

02/26/13 Bet you didn’t know that the radish is a kidney and a liver cleanser? Radishes help prevent urinary tract infections and radish juice eases the burning sensations of UTIs while shortening the duration of the infection. Radishes stimulate bile production in the liver. The liver and gallbladder both depend on bile to keep them running smoothly. Sulfuric properties in radishes also flush bilirubin out of your blood to help remove excess from your blood (excessive bilirubin results in jaundice). The amazing radish also increases oxygen in the blood to protect red blood cells from damage. The indigestible fiber in radishes helps regulate bowel movements to prevent constipation.

02/25/13 Should we spend extra money to buy organic tomatoes? Heck yes! Not only are the pesticide loads on our bodies reduce by eating organic, but tomatoes that are organically grown pack more vitamin C than the conventional tomatoes. But don’t take my word for it as this came out last week in PLOS ONE. According the latest research, tomatoes grown on organic farms accumulate higher concentrations of natural sugars, vitamin C, lycopene and other compounds that benefit the eater. Organic tomatoes are naturally 40% smaller than the “customized” tomatoes as the organic tomatoes spend their efforts on preserving quality nutrients and not making horrendous growth.

02/22/13 Did you know that Purina Foods and Jenny Craig are both owned by Nestle? Look at the first seven ingredients in Purina’s “diet” dog chow: (GMO) whole grain corn, (GMO) corn gluten meal, (GMO) soybean hulls, (GMO) soybean germ meal, (GMO) soybean meal, pea fiber, and wheat gluten. Wonder why your pets are ill? Do you feed them the same way you eat? I know people who spend thousands on vet bills and fudge the budget with cheap and highly superficial pet feeds. Doesn’t make sense in my world.

02/21/13 Vanilla fraud: Ever heard of coumarin? This is a chemical that is closely related to the blood-thinning rat-killer, Warfarin. Did you that vanillin is made with coumarin? Did you ever buy the cheap stuff in Mexico that was labeled “vanilla”? Cheap things aren’t good and south-of-the-border vanilla fraud is rampant. True vanilla is made when vanilla pods are soaked in milk or stored in sugar to impart the vanilla scent to foods. Most commonly, the pods are soaked in alcohol to make vanilla flavoring.

02/20/13 The magic word for the junk-food/fast-food industry is “Fresh”. The only thing the word actually means though is “Profit”. A few years ago, the word “fresh” was a clue about the quality of ingredients – like, “unprocessed” and “healthy,” but it is meaningless now. Mark Crumpacker, the chief marketing officer of Chipotle, says: “I don’t think there are rules around ‘fresh.’ You can just say it with impunity.” All the national Big Fast Food chains tout their “fresh” food products and neglect to mention how the ingredients were processed and then shipped on refrigerated trucks from other parts of the country. Americans are not ready to eat healthy – they just want the perception of “healthy foods” – even if they are not actually healthy for them.

02/19/13 GMO honey fakers. Honey is a high-end product that is easily faked by substituting a less expensive source of sugar for the expensive honey – in the name of greed, of course. GMO-laden high-fructose corn syrup used to be the counterfeit of choice until the FDA caught on. So honey counterfeiters got tricky and started using GMO-laden beet sugar which is much harder to catch as its isotope profile is similar to honey. Either way, you’ve been sold a pig-in-a-poke. You have to get to know your honey producer! These criminals steal your money and kill you with diabetes and cancer. They have no conscience.

02/18/13 Diet sodas DOUBLE the risk of diabetes! Diet sodas marketed as “healthier than sugar-sweetened beverages,” but the whole world has bought into this lie. They are actually worse than the regular drinks! A new study from France finds the problem of diabetes risk exists with both regular and diet drinks. Prior to this recent study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the relationship between artificially sweetened beverages, diet sodas and type 2 diabetes has produced conflicting results. Now you know something new. Change your life accordingly.

02/15/13 So you buy the best olive you can find. But this heart-healthy oil is subject to much food fraud. What if you found out that your “extra virgin olive oil” was 90% GMO soybean oil? Connecticut recently began testing olive oils. “We were coming across a lot of products labeled as extra-virgin olive oil that contained up to 90% soybean oil,” says Jerry Farrell Jr., Connecticut’s commissioner of consumer protection. In California, testers have found as much as 70% of the olive oil sold as extra virgin to be a lower-quality olive oil. Most fakers add 10% vegetable or GMO soybean oil to their extra virgin oil. The biggest fraudsters sell off-brands to discount stores. Faked oil is a big problem in restaurants.

02/14/13 Fishy foods… Fish is the most frequently faked food in America. Often called “species adulteration”, this fish-fraud is accomplished by selling cheaper fish, like farm-raised Atlantic salmon as the more expensive wild-caught Alaska salmon. Consumer Reports tested 23 “wild-caught” salmon fillets to find that only 10 were wild salmon and 13 were farmed. So, how do, the consumer, tell the diff? Farmed salmon is naturally pale and farmers treat the fish with toxic food dyes added to the feed. Wild salmon obtains its redness naturally from plankton. Wild salmon will retain its color when cooked but fraud-fish will lose color when you cook it.

02/13/13 Eggzactly good for you! The media continues to link eggs to high cholesterol and heart disease but science continues to show evidence to the contrary. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has recently released a study finding no connection between eggs and an increased risk of heart attack or stroke. What else they found was that eggs can help prevent blood clots and actually decrease the risk of heart disease. Fighting acne? Eggs are rich in vitamin A and copper to boost the body’s ability to fight acne and repair damaged skin cells and NIH even released a study proving eggs fight skin infections. Got a burn? Seal it with egg white and watch it heal faster.

02/12/13 PepsiCo Inc. is rolling out a new drink called “Kickstart” this month. It is Mountain Dew flavor with 5% juice and Vitamins B and C, topped with an extra jolt of caffeine. The promise of “energy” is a big seller in the beverage industry. Now combine that with a breakfast favorite to make a juice replacer. Don’t let the juice content fool you though Kickstart can “kickstart” diabetes and other major health problems. Don’t fall for this chemical laden crap or the cheap and highly superficial “vitamins” they use in this juice replacer. Get your real vitamins from real organic food and your juice from fresh-squeezed fruits. Americans apparently aren’t ready to eat healthy if they’ll buy into this.

02/11/13 According to the CDC, chicken is the food most likely to kill you, but salad greens are the most likely to make you ill. “While this study found produce accounted for nearly half of food poisoning illnesses, everyone should still eat plenty of fruits and vegetables,” says dietitian Rachel Begun. Food poisoning is caused by eating contaminated foods that bear disease-causing bacteria or viruses. About 1 in 6 people will suffer from food poisoning each year with a total of 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. Good sanitation and food handling practices will reduce your risk of food-borne illness.

02/08/13 How food affects your sleep. A new study found that short sleepers also eat the most calories. Researchers found that short sleepers also had a low intake of drinking water, low lycopene (found in red- and orange-colored foods), less vitamin C and a deficiency in selenium (found in nuts, meat and shellfish). People who sleep either too long or too short had lower food variety. The variety of food was highest in normal sleepers, and lowest in short sleepers. Sleeping too much or too little can impact your health negatively – but what if it all starts with a bad diet?

02/07/13 About sugar: “The dose makes the poison” ~ Paracelsus. Sugars provide us with quick energy and organic sugar in moderate amounts can even help us stay healthy. On the other hand, sustained high levels of sugars damages our cells, causes diabetes and is once again shown that it can also increase our chances for cancer. The diabetic population has up to double chances to suffer pancreatic or colon cancer among others, according to epidemiological studies. Scientists have uncovered a key mechanism that links obesity and diabetes with cancer: high sugar levels.

02/06/13 If you’re eating a typical Standard American Diet (SAD), you are eating far more fructose than your body can handle and stay healthy. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is not only a GMO product but it also has a higher percentage of sugar than table sugar. The real problem is that 100% of HFCS is processed by the liver and converted directly to fat – whereas sugar is not. Our bodies can burn sugar for fuel but not HFCS. Fruit contains fructose, but not concentrated fructose. Besides, eating fruit brings along with it critical minerals, vitamins and enzymes that are good for you. HFCS actually contains NO nutrients at all. In just three decades, Americans have gone from 15 grams of fructose daily to a high of over 125 grams a day. Anyone here still wondering why we are fat and sick?

02/05/13 Partially digested food in an adult intestine is capable of killing cells within 5 minutes because of the presence of free fatty acids (FFAs). Most obese people have elevated plasma levels of FFAs which are known to cause peripheral (muscle) insulin resistance. FFAs have a “detergent” capacity that damages cell membranes. The intestines of healthy adults and older children have a mature mucosal barrier that helps prevent damage due to free fatty acids – that is, until that barrier is compromised. The intestine is leakier at birth and food given too early on in life can be harmful and even deadly to infants and particularly for preterm infants.

02/04/13 High in vitamin C is the amazing cherry. They are anti-inflammatory and help prevent heart disease. Cherries also boost your memory. Having trouble sleeping? Cherry time! It has been discovered that tart cherries contain a high amount of melatonin. A hormone that is produced naturally by the body, melatonin helps regulate sleep and slows the process of aging. So if you’ve been having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, try some cherry juice before bed.

02/01/13 Bacteriophages to the rescue in your food! In 2006, the FDA approved the use of bacteriophages against listeria microbes on lunch meat, wieners and sausages (listeria kills dozens and dozens of people a year). But for you non-biologist majors, the word “bacteriophages” means VIRUSES. Actually a combination of 6 viruses brought to you by the company, Intralytix. So, the bologna in your lunch sandwich has likely been sprayed with this concoction of viruses to fight listeria. But, I actually approve of this product as there are no negative side effects or reactions that I’ve heard of, even when given as a therapeutic dose to fight infections – bacteriophages do a much better job than antibiotics!

01/31/13 Chicken soup for the, er, flu? The latest research confirms that grandma’s remedy of cooking down the chicken – bones and all, not only helps fight the flu, but it boosts the immune system to fight off other viral invaders also. The soup du jour for the study contained chicken, onions, sweet potatoes, parsnips, turnips, carrots, celery stems, and parsley. The real healing in the soup actually comes from the carnosine, trace minerals and other nutrients in the broth that is from the bones, marrow and cartilage of the chicken. The secret is to simmer it at about 190 degrees all day and never boil it. Of, course, organic, non-soy-fed chickens are the best soup makers out there.

01/30/13 We can say “NO-DUH” to this study. The latest out yesterday shows that regular consumption of deep-fried foods is associated with an increased risk of cancers. Men who ate deep fried foods just one time a week had up to a 37% increased risk of prostate cancer. Deep frying foods triggers the formation of carcinogens that increase cancer risk like, acrylamide (found in carbohydrate-rich foods such as French fries), heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (chemicals formed when meat is cooked at high temperatures), aldehyde (an organic compound found in perfume) and acrolein (a chemical found in herbicides). Of course, this poison compounds with the re-use of oil and increased length of frying time. High heat cooking also generates high levels of advanced glycation endproducts, or AGEs, associated with chronic inflammation and oxidative stress.

01/29/13 Distracted eating brings more eating while reducing bite sizes can counter this effect according to the journal PLOS ONE. Many studies have shown that smaller bites helps people eat less. And yet other research shows that people eat larger meals when distracted. The authors of the latest study found that people who ate pre-specified ‘small’ bites ate about 30% less than those who ate what they wanted. Interestingly, the all-you-want eaters under-estimated how much they had eaten. Distractions during the meal led to a general increase in food intake across the board. Study results: reducing sip or bite sizes during a meal may help those trying to lower their food intake, even if they are eating while distracted.

01/28/13 Artichokes are superfood! A recent study found that artichokes have more antioxidants than any other vegetable. Other studies with artichoke leaf extract found that they induce apoptosis (cell death) in cancer cells while reducing proliferation of many different forms of cancer. The pulp of artichoke leaves increases bile flow and is very beneficial to the liver and even helps regenerate liver tissue. Artichokes have traditionally been used in alternative medicine for treating liver ailments. Artichokes are a natural diuretic, aid digestion, improve gallbladder function and, as mentioned above, are of great benefit to the liver. Now ingredients in artichokes are even shown to reduce cholesterol by raising good cholesterol and lowering the bad. One medium artichoke has more fiber than a cup of prunes.

01/25/13 Food concocting is a big problem for binge eaters. Have you ever mixed mashed potatoes and Oreo cookies, frozen vegetables mixed with mayonnaise, chips with lemon, pork rinds, Italian dressing and salt? This is called food concocting and a new study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham suggests that food concocting is common among binge eaters. According to the study, people who concoct are more likely to binge eat than those who overeat without binge eating. Concocting food utilizes the same emotions as drug users has during the act. Unfortunately, the binge-eating concoctors also reported feelings of shame and disgust after the episode. The UAB study also found that dietary restraint and food deprivation uniquely accounts for the pervasiveness of concocting.

01/24/13 A Berry-Rich diet overflows with anthocyanins, a class of heart-friendly flavonoids that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. The berry eaters in a recent study had a 32% drop in the risk of Myocardial Infarction. This is not an overnight fix and the study had an 18-year follow-up among those with the highest versus the lowest consumption level of blueberries, strawberries, eggplants, blackberries, and black currants. One caveat though: people who eat more of these healthy berries also smoked less, were more physically active, had lower body weights, had less history of high plasma cholesterol concentrations and blood pressure, and habitually ate a healthier diet.

01/23/13 Boosting metabolism is easy with a simple technique called “food separation”. This will also ensure that you are digesting food efficiently. First rule of separation: Only eat carbohydrates with other carbohydrates and never with proteins and fats. Second rule of separation: Only eat proteins and fats together but never with carbohydrates. (This excludes greens and non-starchy vegetables – eat those anytime). Yes, it’s that simple. Food separation can help your body to automatically and rapidly shed fat and weight. Food separation is far more effective than “dieting,” for those who can’t seem to keep the weight off by dieting. Diets do not often lead to sustained weight loss or health benefits – but food separation does!

01/22/13 So you try to buy the best food and spend the most only to find it is garbage. Pepperidge Farm won’t tell you the ingredients online for their Soft Honey Whole Wheat Bread Made because if you could find it, you wouldn’t buy it! This stuff is a gluten bomb for anyone sensitive to gluten, plus it has GMO soybean oil, sugar from unnamed sources (which probably includes GMO beet sugar) and then comes the stomach-wrecking Calcium Propionate which also causes behavior changes in children. Now add some unnamed salt from who-knows-where and then more wheat, Mono and Diglycerides (from what animal and form?). Now here’s a baddy; Datem (Dough Conditioner) which is Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Monoglycerides… Who wants Popcorn Lung? Get it with your Datem. Finally there is even more GMO soybean in the form of Soy Lecithin. Supermarket breads are generally losers sold to suckers.

01/21/13 20,000 ER visits a year because of this type of drink. A study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, found a staggering rise in emergency room visits because of energy drinks rising from 10,000 episodes in 2007 to 20,000 in 2011. In those visits, 42% of admissions had mixed an energy drink with Adderal, Ritalin, alcohol or other stimulant. Dr. Allen Taylor, at Georgetown University Hospital, explains the scenario: “Blood pressure goes up. Heart rate goes up and then they’ll start to feel the effects… Heart racing, heart skipping, panic-attack symptoms. Irregular heart symptoms and worse.” Of course, the American Beverage Association rebutted by saying that the drinks were safe and denounced the study. ~ That’s like shouting “NUH-UH!!” and doesn’t explain the 20,000 ER visits…

01/18/13 Vegans beware! Pretty much all refined sugars and even some fructose is processed using bone char from dead cows. Natural sugar is usually brown, but Americans and other stupid people prefer whiter than white sugar. To make any sugar and other products whiter, food refiners use bone char to strip foods of color. Bone char is made mostly from the bones of cows from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Bones are dried and bleached in the sun and sold to marketers who, in turn, sell them to the US sugar producers and other food industries – after they’ve been used to make gelatin for food, drugs and even vaccines. Florida Crystals Corporation actually does not use bone char to make their sugar.

01/17/13 Food colors: Almost all food colors approved for use in food are derived from coal tar and actually may contain up to 10ppm of lead and arsenic. Coal tar colors are carcinogenic and should never be allowed in the diet. There is no debate about the safety of natural food colorings but there are many studies that link artificial colors with behavioral problems in children, impaired brain function, allergic reactions and even cancer. The best thing for anybody to do is to eliminate food colors from your pantry and read ALL labels. There’s a rainbow of colors out there that are not there for good but rather to cover up deficient foods – even food rot. They take your money and steal your health.

01/16/13 Did you know that blueberries and strawberries are the most-eaten berries in the US? Scientists from Harvard found the eating three or more servings of blueberries and strawberries a week can reduce their risk of a heart attack in women by as much as one-third. Blueberries and strawberries contain awesome levels of flavonoids, which are also found in grapes, blackberries, eggplant, and many other fruits and vegetables. Anthocyanins are flavonoids that dilate arteries and scrub plaque while providing other great health benefits. According to Eric Rimm, Associate Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard, “This simple dietary change could have a significant impact on prevention efforts.”

01/15/13 Sweeter than sugar – cheaper and deadlier too! High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is crammed with “unbound” fructose and glucose molecules – plus toxic metal! Study after study has shown that the reactive carbonyl molecules in HFCS can cause liver damage and other tissue damage. HFCS leads to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. To add insult to injury, HFCS is made from genetically modified corn thrown together with genetically modified enzymes. Mercury is used in process to “free up” the glucose molecules and some of that mercury is “lost in process”. Recent studies have revealed that about 50% of tested HFCS samples contained mercury. None for me or my family thanks!

01/14/13 Next time you buy the regular cereal: Did you know that Butylated Hydroxytoluene is a product used in embalming fluid? That won’t mean a thing until you see the acronym “BHT” on the list of ingredients . This chemical additive can stop dead human flesh from rotting and is used to prevent oxidation in quite a range of foods and cosmetics. The National Toxicology Program (NTP) actually labeled this crap as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen” as it causes cancer in experiments with animals. The Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) warns that BHT should not be allowed to enter the environment, can cause liver damage, and is harmful to aquatic organisms. Contrary to this, the FDA (Federal Denial Agency) says it’s not bad for you. I wouldn’t eat this stuff if I were you!

01/11/13 In the United States, lettuce is one of the top most popular fresh vegetable and Americans eat an average about 30 pounds of lettuce every year. That’s about five times more than what we consumed 100 years ago. Of all lettuce, iceberg lettuce is one of lesser nutritious and romaine is the most nutritious. The darker green the lettuce leaf, the better it is for you. All green lettuce contain phytonutrients and antioxidants but romaine lettuce contained the highest quantities of Vitamin C, potassium, folic acid and lutein along with over 3,000 mcg of beta carotene per 100 g serving. What most people don’t know is that lettuce is actually a member of the sunflower family.

01/10/13 Love me some Orange Juice! Antioxidants in OJ help protect your heart by fighting the inflammation that can cause blood vessel damage. Consider this: People who ate fast food with a glass of orange juice had fewer artery-harming free radicals in their blood afterward than those who had their burger and fries with water, a study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition indicates. Fresh squeezed is what I drink (and I don’t eat the fast food either). Processed OJ is pasteurized and often has hidden chemicals and high fructose corn syrup or GMO beet sugar in it.

01/09/13 Sick on sodas: One can of soda pop reduces your immune response by 50% for a period of six hours! And if that’s not enough, one can of soda has almost thirteen teaspoons of sugar, most of which is fructose from high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS doesn’t actually exist anywhere in nature. It is a manufactured product created by using enzymes and even MERCURY to increase the fructose content of corn syrup to about 90%. The artificial sweeteners used in sodas are even worse for your health and also carcinogenic. If you want to improve your health but still drink sodas you are only halfway there and fighting a losing battle.

01/08/13 Cholesterol: Dietary fats consist mainly of triglycerides, which are split into glycerol and chains of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen to make fatty acids. Fats in the body are either storage fat or structural fat. Storage fats are a storehouse of fuel for the body. Structural fats are part of the cell membranes which are essential for all cells and occur in cell membranes, mitochondria and interior organelles. Fats are also referred to as lipids. Cholesterol is a lipid present in every cell membrane. Cholesterol has a critical role in fat transport and is the precursor from which brain structure, bile salts, adrenal hormones and sex hormones are made. Without enough cholesterol, you are in deep doo-doo.

01/07/13 The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension or DASH diet was found to help decrease the risk and incidence of kidney stones, according to a recent study. The study also found that the urine of those on a DASH-style diet contained higher concentrations of citrate, an important inhibitor of calcium kidney stones. This is because the DASH diet recommends liberal use of fruits, vegetables, legumes, dairy products, and whole grains, and very limited use of sweetened beverages and red and processed meats. Personally, I recommend more of a Paleo Diet – If you can pluck it or spear it, you can eat it.

01/04/12 Nanoparticles in your food: These are engineered particles to make sauces slide out of the container, breads shine, foods taste “better” and fruits and veggies last longer and taste “better”. Unregulated! Possibly very dangerous as these engineered particles change your DNA. Believe it or else, the FDA (Federal Denial Agency) says there aren’t any nano-containing food products sold in the U.S. But this is not true, say FDA’s own safety experts. Rule of thumb: If it is processed food – it is likely not fit for human consumption.

01/03/12 Olives contain an antioxidant compound called hydroxytyrosol (HTS) which has been found to protect the mitochondria inside retina cells in humans that have been exposed to the type of oxidative damage which is at the root of AMD. This discovery was made by researchers from the University of California. Olives also contain lots of healthy omega 3 fatty acid. Here’s a little known olive fact: Did you know that olive actually help fight motion sickness? Pack some along on your next motor trip with the kiddos!

01/02/13 An apple a day… Researchers suggest that the strong antioxidant flavonoid compounds found in apples-quercetin, epicatechin, epigallocatechin, kaempferol and other polysyllabic wonders-play a key role by preventing “bad” LDL cholesterol from oxidizing and triggering a series of events that result in the buildup of plaque in arteries, as well as inhibiting inflammation and even preventing cancer. Apples just happen to be rich in pectin, a form of soluble fiber known to help lower cholesterol and even chelate heavy metals from the body. Apples also provide a decent amount of vitamin C which is another antioxidant. Make mine organic.

04/30/13 Tart cherries are better for you than drugs! The latest study out of the University of Michigan finds that for the millions of Americans at risk for heart disease or diabetes, tart cherries worked better than what the doctor prescribed. Not only do tart cherries provide similar cardiovascular benefits as medications, but tart cherries can also reduce the risk of stroke. The red pigment found in the Montmorency tart cherry activates PPAR isoforms (peroxisome proliferator activating receptors) in the body’s tissues. PPARs regulate fat and glucose metabolism, and can help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. The Big Pharma version works the same way but comes with major cardiovascular side effects.

04/29/13 Hemp seeds contain all 20 amino acids – including the 9 essential amino acids our bodies cannot produce. Eating hemp seeds helps immune deficiency diseases and also treats nutritional deficiencies brought on by tuberculosis. Hemp seeds contain a high percentage of the simple proteins that strengthen immunity and hemp is a superior vegetarian source of easily digestible protein. But there’s more! Hemp seeds contain nature’s highest botanical source of essential fatty acid – more than flax or any other nut or seed oil with a perfect 3:1 ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3. Top it off with the fact that hemps seeds are a rich source of phytonutrients that benefit your immunity, bloodstream, tissues, cells, skin, organs, mitochondria and overall health.

04/26/13 GMOs have NOT increased yield potential of any crops. In fact, the most widely grown GMO crop – GM soya – has actually reduced yields. A new report by DR Gurian-Sherman concludes that “Traditional breeding outperforms genetic engineering hands down.” Peer reviewed research shows that in 13 years of growing, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase US crop yields. The US government data shows that GMO crops have also caused an overall increase in pesticide use compared to conventional crops. “The promise was that you could use less chemicals and produce a greater yield. But let me tell you none of this is true.” – Bill Christison, President of the US National Family Farm Coalition.

04/25/13 Like to eat? You are going to need pollinators. Insects provide pollination services to about 75% of crop species and enable reproduction in up to 94% of wild flowering plants. There is a cocktail of multiple causes that are combining to kill off pollinating insects, starting with deadly GMOs, pesticides, diseases, climate changes, alien species invasions and over-farmed lands. Pollinator declines are threatening both food supplies and ecosystem functions. We have to eliminate GMOs now to save our pollinators along with using organic farming methods to naturally strengthen our plants against opportunistic insects rather than using pesticides that indiscriminately kill all insects.

04/24/13 Mushrooms supply as much vitamin D as supplementing! The latest study consisted of healthy adults who either took 2000 IU vitamin D3 or 2000 IU of mushroom powder once a day for 12 weeks during the winter. The serum 25(OH)D levels of both groups gradually increased and plateaued at seven weeks and then maintained for the following five weeks. After 12 weeks, there was no statistically significant difference in the groups. Vitamin D is critical for good bone health and muscle strength. Vitamin D is a known cancer fighter that also plays an integral role in modulating the immune system. Vitamin D fights infections like the flu and reduces the risk of many diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, depression and diabetes.

04/23/13 A genetically modified (GM) food study found that an astounding 55.6% of the offspring of female rats fed genetically engineered soy flour died within three weeks in female rats that received 5-7 grams of Roundup Ready soybeans, beginning two weeks before conception and continuing through nursing. Offspring of the GM-fed group were significantly stunted by 36%. Rats fed a diet of GM corn developed smaller kidneys and had blood abnormalities. This particular study was conducted by Monsanto and according to the 1,139-page report, these health problems were absent from the non-GM control group.

04/22/13 The eyes have it! They even beat out the tongue, nose and brain in determining the taste and allure of food. Of course, this study came from the American Chemical Society to describe how people “see” flavors in foods and beverages before they taste them. The artificial color industry knows very well that flavor depends on parts of the brain that involve vision, taste, odor and texture blended together with past experiences. The result is our perception of flavors to help determine whether we like or dislike specific foods. Interestingly, hashes, chilies, stews and cooked sausages can look like vomit or feces – but people savor these dishes based on the memory of eating and enjoying them in the past. Our inborn desire for new taste experiences also helps us to ignore what the eyes see so we can listen to the tongue and nose.

04/19/13 A new study model determines that putting infants on solid foods early in life increases their likelihood of obesity by adolescence. Baby marmoset monkeys put on solid food earlier than their peers were significantly more likely to be obese at 1 year of age, resulting in metabolic damage such as insulin resistance and poor blood sugar control. A one-year old marmoset is equivalent in age to an adolescent human. Obesity patterns begin at 5- to 8-months-old in the human infant and are reinforced with the introduction of regular grown-up food too early on. Good rule of thumb: No teeth – no solid food.

04/18/13 Beet juice helps high blood pressure better than meds! People with high blood pressure who drank just 8 ounces of beet-root juice had a blood pressure drop of about 10 points. Beets have a high natural nitrate content, as do green leafy vegetables and 8oz of beet juice contains about 2,000mg of dietary nitrate which is equivalent to one large bowl of lettuce. Nitrate is converted in the body to nitrite and then to nitric oxide in the blood. Nitric oxide dilates blood vessels and aids blood flow. A little nitrate has a large effect, according to the latest study. The beet juice effect was most pronounced three or so hours after drinking but still present 24 hours later.

04/17/13 I often refer to the Paleo Diet as the “caveman diet,” but I think it might be said better naming it the “ancestral diet.” The Paleo diet is simple: eat meat, vegetables and seasonal fruit. Avoid all processed foods, bread, pasta, rice, corn and refined sugar because these are foods our body is not meant to eat. The Paleo Diet is what our predecessors ate prior to agriculture and animal husbandry. The Paleo diet reconnects you to a more natural diet. But it’s not easy to convince someone who has tried 10 different diets and failed at them all that the Paleo food list and basic lifestyle changes will make them better.

04/16/13 Scientists found out that a component of egg whites may have the beneficial effect of reducing blood pressure. This study was disclosed at the National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), and found that egg white has a certain peptide that reduces blood pressure about as much as the Big Pharm drug Captopril, a high-blood-pressure drug. Another recent report in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, showed that fried egg protein, cooked at high temperatures, actually showed greater ability to reduce blood pressure than eggs boiled at 212 degrees F. Of course, the race is now on for Big Pharma to concoct a synthetic version of egg white that they can patent and sell as a pharmaceutical drug. Problem is, when you counterfeit what God made naturally there is always side-effects.

04/15/13 Food and nutrition: Want to add 2.2 healthier years to your life? I do! Raise your blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids by eating fatty fish and seafood. The latest study out of Harvard shows that this may lower overall mortality risk by as much as 27% and reduce heart disease mortality close to 35%. The study found that the biggest bang-for-the-buck was from going from no fish to two servings of fatty fish per week. Previous studies have found that protein-rich fish, which is high in heart-healthy fatty acids, reduces the risk of dying from heart disease. This study related fish consumption to lower all-cause mortality. Make it wild-caught fish.
04/12/13 Too much red meat and not enough friendly bacteria is bad for health. There is bad bacteria in the gut that feeds on carnitine in red meat. Carnitine is broken down into a gas and converted to a chemical called TMAO in the liver. TMAO is strongly linked with the build-up of fatty deposits in blood vessels, leading to heart disease and death. Using a probiotic yogurt can change the balance of bacteria in the gut to reduce or eliminate the carnitine action. Vegetarians naturally have fewer bad bacteria that break down carnitine than meat-eaters.

04/11/13 Did you know that eating the wrong fish can up your diabetes risk by 65%? A new study finds that the main source of mercury in humans comes from eating fish and shellfish, which nearly all contain traces of mercury. But a healthy diet contains the lean protein and other nutrients found in fish. Published in the journal Diabetes Care, the study found that people with the highest levels of mercury also seemed to have healthier lifestyles, lower BMI, smaller waist circumference and exercise more. They common factor for the mercury levels is that they ate more fish. The solution is to select fish with low levels of mercury, such as shrimp, salmon and catfish, while avoiding larger swimmers like swordfish and shark.

04/10/13 Anyone out there drinking Advocare Spark? You know, the healthier energy drink with the misleading motto “we build champions”? Advocare Spark is horrible stuff but still calls itself “the most nutritionally advanced energy drink on the market”! This is a GMO-laden energy drink that tries to fly under the auspice of “healthy” while poisoning the drinker with artificial flavor, sucralose, silicone dioxide, GMO corn-based vitamin C, the wrong forms of niacin and vitamin E and even a cyanide-based vitamin B12… Well, Advocare Spark may only use about half the caffeine as a regular drink but they also put in a natural neuro inhibitor GABA that will help counter the caffeine jitters. If you NEED an energy drink to get going, your adrenal glands are in trouble already. If you consume energy drinks, you are putting more and more stress on your adrenal glands. STOP IT! Drink water, eat healthy.

04/09/13 Did you know that energy drinks can increase your blood pressure and disturb your heart’s natural rhythm? This is according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism, 2013 session. Energy drinks prolong the QT wave rhythms in the heartbeat and this is associated with life-threatening arrhythmias. Of course, this finding hand-in-gloves with a correlation to reports of sudden cardiac death and energy drink consumption. This research study concluded that patients with high blood pressures or long QT syndrome should “use caution and judgment” before consuming an energy drink. I say, “None for me!”

04/08/13 If you are taking medications, you probably already know that grapefruit will interfere with the “effectiveness” of statins, antibiotics, and other pharmaceutical drugs. But instead of treating the disease causes and get rid of the unnatural drugs with side effects, researchers chose to rather spend their time and money to develop a drug-friendly grapefruit. Is this accommodation at its finest? The new grapefruit hybrid contains far lower levels of a class of furanocoumarins than normal grapefruits. Furanocoumarins are a natural insecticide and fungicide that repel predators to protect the grapefruit. Furanocoumarins inhibit the body from naturally breaking down chemical compounds in medications to cause higher doses of dangerous chemicals in the blood than intended.

04/05/13 Smart is as smart does: The level of education that the parents achieve influences the foods linked to obesity that they give their children. The parents with low and medium levels of education feed fewer fruit and vegetables and more processed foods and sweetened drinks to their children. The journal Public Health Nutrition confirmed that parents with a lower level of education feed their children food rich in sugars and fats more often than those parents with a higher level of education, who feed their children more products of a higher nutritional quality. This study implies a greater risk of developing overweight and obesity in children from less advantaged socio-cultural groups.

04/04/13 Baby and toddler foods pack way too much processed salt. Just one more reason to spend the extra money and take the time to prepare healthy, organic foods for your child. Nearly 75 percent of commercial pre-packaged meals and “savory snacks” for toddlers are high in sodium, according to research by the American Heart Association. Researchers defined a product as high in sodium if it had more than 210 mg of sodium per serving. Toddler meals had significantly higher amounts of sodium than baby meals, coming in as high as 630 mg per serving. This kind of insane levels helps predispose the child to a lifetime of preference for salty foods laced with unhealthy, highly processed salt.

04/03/13 Good news for food contaminant detection. Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University have developed a new DNA screening method to determine the amount of animal, plant and microbial ingredients in foods. It could be used by the average consumer to find hidden gluten, chemicals and even GMO particles in food once it is developed. All processed food contains the genetic material of the animal and plant species used in their production and the new DNA method can detect the presence of a 1% content of horse meat in products and even the actual amount. The new screening procedure is called ‘All-Food-Seq’ by its developers.

04/02/13 So, you think that a tiny nibble of the bad food every once in a while is OK? Some people can’t resist a tiny bite of chocolate cake or a nibble of an Oreo Cookie. Some of the most health-conscious people I know still indulge every once in a while. Well, maybe this will help enlighten you: New research finds that even tiny amounts of occasional junk food can produce significant changes in genetic expression impacting physiology and health. The researchers identified at least 87 genetic changes in their test subjects with a little bit of bad things added in. Is there any surprise that these changes lead to metabolic imbalances that may have a direct correlation to human genetic diseases?

04/01/13 Don’t even think about skipping breakfast – the most important meal of the day. Yet up to 60 percent of American young people do skip it. The latest study says, eating a breakfast rich in protein significantly improves appetite control and reduces unhealthy snacking on high-fat or high-sugar foods in the evening. In this study, overweight or obese adolescent females ages 18-20 either skipped breakfast, consumed a high-protein breakfast, or ate a “normal” breakfast of ready-to-eat cereal. The consumption of the high-protein breakfast led to increased fullness along with reductions in brain activity responsible for food cravings. This reduced evening snacking on unhealthy foods compared to the skipped breakfast and the cereal breakfast.

03/29/13 Mafia protection for Monsanto: Recently, at the last-minute, anonymously and without proper hearings, the US House of Representatives quietly passed a “backroom deal” addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 – including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks. If GMOs are good for you, then WHY is protection needed? The rider is officially known as “the Farmer Assurance Provision” but should be dubbed the “Monsanto Protection Act.” This bill strips federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of GMO seed crops regardless of health concerns.

03/28/13 Milk does NOT the body good. Conventionally raised cows’ milk wreaks havoc on our health and the evidence just keeps mounting. You should already know about rBST, a synthetic growth hormone injected into masses of dairy cows, causes an unnatural increase milk production. The use of rBST in dairy cows has been clinically associated with increased breast, colon, prostate, and lung cancers in humans. Well, how about this? A study out of Harvard shows that a hormone, called estrone sulfate, is in milk from factory farm dairy cows. This hormone is also causing cancers, particularly hormone-dependent cancers of the testes, prostate, and breast. Choose wisely my friends.

03/27/13 Would you eat poison ivy? Just imagine what that would do to your intestines! Yet daily we eat a common food additive that is mislabeled “healthy”. Carrageenan is a highly process seaweed derivative that, although is “natural”, it does unnatural things to your insides. According to Dr. Joanne Tobacman, at the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine, carrageenan is hazardous to human health. Did you know that Big Pharma use carrageenan to produce inflammation when testing drugs? Carrageenan helps cause heart disease, symptoms of MS, IBS, Altzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, cancer and many other inflammation related diseases.

03/26/13 According to one new study, drinking sugary beverages tallies 180,000 deaths a year. Most of these deaths caused by slurping these drinks were related to diabetes according to Medscape Medical News. Of course, they falsely lay the responsibility off on the clinicians and the soda pop industry wasn’t even brought into the picture. Beyond that though, with this kind of information out there, who would want to drink themselves into a slow death? Apparently, quite a few… All sweetened drinks, sugared or artificially sweetened, cause the BMI to go up and also bring diabetes, cardio vascular disease, obesity-related cancers (such as breast, uterine, esophageal, gallbladder, colorectal, kidney, and pancreatic cancer).

03/25/13 Alligator pears, AKA avocados, are a fruit that contain the vitamins and minerals of vegetables, the protein of meat and the healthiest forms of beneficial fat. Just one medium size avocado contains 15 grams of fiber. The fat in avocados is the heart healthy monounsaturated fat and avocados are high in beta-sitosterol, a phytochemical that actually reduces the amount of cholesterol absorbed from foods. Avocados contain the antioxidant lutein that strengthens eyesight, along with a healthy dose of vitamin E that can lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease

03/22/13 Cranberries: For decades people have been drinking cranberry juice to treat urinary tract infections. Mounting evidence suggests that cranberries have other beneficial properties as well. Recent research shows that cranberries and cranberry juice contain antioxidants that can protect against certain types of cancer, heart disease and chronic illness. Quercetin is one of the many phytochemicals found in cranberries and Cornell University has found that quercetin is more potent than even vitamin C in protecting against Alzheimer’s disease.

03/21/13 Eat healthy for a better mood and self-image! The researchers that presented findings at the American Psychosomatic Society conference in Miami, found little change in the study participants’ moods prior to unhealthy eating but afterwards, negative moods and self-images were worse after any binge or disordered eating. Healthy eaters had no changes in moods or self-images before or after any eating – including binge and disorder behaviors. The researchers studied everyday people and their diets rather than performing a laboratory controlled study.

03/20/13 People are buying “light” and reduced fat products thinking they are avoiding weight-gain. But these food-fakers leave the consumer hungry for more! Reduced-fat food products are losers that are causing weight gain and nutritional deficiencies. A new study shows that people eating “light” overcompensate by eating more food because they do not feel full. But natural, full-body oils and good fats regulate the sensation of feeling full, with olive oil leading the way. How long the feeling of satiety lasts is dependent upon blood sugar levels. The faster it falls, the sooner the person will start to feel hungry again. “Light foods cause a quicker fall in blood sugar where olive oil in particular slowed that process down. Just don’t fall for cheap knock-off oils.

03/19/13 Quinoa is not a grain and technically is a seed but is not related to the grass family. It is a species of goosefoot (Chenopodium – a pseudo-cereal) and is actually more closely related to a tumbleweed! The Spanish pronunciation is keenwa. This sacred food of the Incas is loaded with antioxidant phytonutrients and two flavonoids, quercetin and kaempferol. The concentration of these nutrients in quinoa actually surpasses the berry content in cranberry and lingonberry – the highest of the berry family. Furthermore, quinoa is one of the most protein-dense foods that also contains almost twice as much fibers as most grains. Quinoa also comes packing manganese, tryptophan, magnesium, folate, and phosphorus.

03/18/13 Recently, the Vermont House Agriculture Committee passed H.112, or the “GMO labeling bill,” by an 8-3 vote. This bill requires producers to label all raw agricultural and processed, packaged food products that are genetically engineered. “It’s a consumer bill,” said Rep. Will Stevens. “It lets people have information that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.” Currently, most of the state’s feed crops grown for animal consumption come from GMO seeds. Milk and meat are exempt from labeling, as are prepared-to-eat products such as fresh bakery items. In the event that an animal itself is genetically modified, it would have to be labeled.

03/15/13 Gluten sensitivity: Wheat products are complex carbohydrates that have fermentable sugars which are polyglycols, fructans and galactans. When you remove these fermentable sugars from the diet, people often have immediate improvement in symptoms such as bloating, gassiness, discomfort, and diarrhea. Aside from this, wheat sensitivity and celiac disease have increased many times over in the past several decades. This comes as a result of hybridization of wheat and related grain products along with the ubiquitous presence of gluten products in almost all processed food products. With this overuse of gluten, we are actually sensitizing more and more people, causing gluten-sensitive enteropathy or non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

03/14/13 Quaker Oatmeal to Go Apples & Cinnamon – A very bad breakfast choice. The very first ingredient is actually oats but the second ingredient is high-fructose corn syrup (GMO). Of course, there are more sugars in various guises that would probably, when combined with the HFCS tip in at number one for ingredients. Then there are two, count them, two types of partially hydrogenated oils, plastic-like margarine, artificial colors and chemical preservatives. This evil health-disser has only one more gram of protein than a candy bar, but packs almost twice as much sugar and more calories. If you have these in your cupboard, do the right thing and take them back to the store and don’t buy them ever again.

03/13/13 Honey, don’t bring home the bacon! In one of the largest studies of high consumption of processed meat by middle-aged adults found a near doubling of the risk of all-cause mortality, compared with low consumption. But that’s not the bad figure. Cardiovascular death was increased by more than 70% among people eating more than 160g/day of processed meats. Risk of death by cancer was 43% higher also with high consumption of processed meats. This study followed about 500,000 men and women for 12 years and found that red meat brought a much lower risk than processed meats. Processed meats carry more saturated fat and processed salt as well as more cholesterol and carcinogenic additives than unprocessed meats.

03/12/13 Sweet potatoes are actually a completely different vegetable than potatoes – Not even in the same botanical family. While each is an important vegetable, these two feature different tastes and unique nutritional benefits. Both are very good sources of vitamin C and sweet potatoes are a good source of copper, fiber, vitamin B6, and potassium. Sweet potatoes are a better source of manganese and also pack more iron. Sweet potatoes offer more antioxidants than potatoes and have more vitamin A in the form of carotenoid phytonutrients, such as beta-carotene which teams up with vitamin C help eliminate free radicals that damage cells and cell membranes which is associated with the development of colon cancer, atherosclerosis, and diabetic heart disease.

03/11/13 A few weeks ago, without fanfare, the USDA officially deregulated Monsanto’s Round Up Ready Alfalfa. This means two things. One: Our cows, deer, sheep, goats and other herbivores are now going to be on a GMO diet. Two: All alfalfa nationwide will be completely cross-contaminated within a very short amount of time. This fateful decision smashed the opposition who at least wanted geographic restrictions on Roundup Ready Alfalfa to prevent organic and traditional alfalfa from being contaminated by transgenes spread by cross-pollination and other factors. This all happened in spite of one USDA agent’s finding of a pathogenic virus that has been created with GMO crops. DR Don Huber warns, “I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency.”

03/08/13 Did you know that drinking three diet sodas a week ups the diabetes risk 59% – as compared to drinking regular sodas? Drinking even just one lousy diet soda a week will up the odds of diabetes by 15% compared to a regular soda. Well, how about these apples? A mere 20 ounces a week of diet OR regular soda doubles the risk of diabetes as compared to drinking no soda at all. Sodas – diet or otherwise, are a real loser when it comes to protecting your health. Of course, most people don’t find this out until it is too late… Some people find this out and still choose to gamble with their health. Not me says I.

03/07/13 Finally, a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, dietary rechallenge trial for gluten sensitivity and IBS brought surprising results (but not surprising to me). Patients with irritable bowel syndrome who were proven negative for celiac disease, and whose symptoms were under control on a gluten-free diet were given either gluten or a placebo. Almost a third of the gluten-bomb participants dropped out in the first few days because of discomfort and other intolerable problems and 60% overall of the gluten eaters had trouble. During the entire study period, scores for pain, satisfaction with stool consistency, and tiredness were significantly worse in the gluten group than in the placebo group.
03/06/13 Egg Beaters eaters are missing the egg’s most nutrient-rich part – the yolk! This yellow goodness is loaded with bio-available zinc, iron, vitamins A and D, choline and all the wonderful hunger-busting protein. Yolks may have all the cholesterol in the egg, but several studies, including a 2011 one published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, debunked the myth of eggs causing heart disease. Did you know that one hard-boiled egg has just 70 calories, and keeps your tummy full for hours? Diet and processed foods can never come close to that one.
03/05/13 I challenge you to find a salad dressing or mayonnaise that is both soy-free and GMO-free. Yes, an overwhelming majority of salad dressings contain soybean oil. Soybean oil is bad enough by itself but more than 93% of our soybeans in the US are Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). Monsanto tested their soy on lab rats for 90 days to prove that they were safe for human consumption. Other studies went beyond the 90 days to find tumors caused by the soy forming at 120 days of testing. Smell a rat here? Well, 120 days in a rat’s life equals about 10- 12 years of human life. Now, why is cancer up to 1 in 2 females and 1 and 3 males today? https://realhealthtalk.com/Is_soy_good_for_you_or_not.html

03/04/13 Cancer-killing starches are found in peas, legumes (like beans), green bananas, and in cooked and cooled starchy products (like sushi rice). Eat this stuff in quantity and it actually kills pre-cancerous cells in the bowels, fights obesity and helps prevent breast cancer. These are called “digest resistant starches” that make it through the stomach and into the bowels pretty much the same form you shoveled it in. Once in the bowels, resistant starches decrease bowel pH, shorten transit time and increases the production of short-chain fatty acids. These starches are also “prebiotics” that promote the growth of good bacteria in the gut that keep bad bacteria at bay. Hint: You should eat these starches at room temperate or below. Heat it up and resistant starches break down and lose beneficial qualities.

03/01/13 Get ready for a good mad: The International Dairy Foods Association and the National Milk Producers Federation are petitioning the FDA (Food Drugging Allowed) asking for a “new and improved” definition of milk. This will be new to improve their profits but not to protect the hapless consumer. The proposal is to secretly allow chemical sweeteners to be added to the milk – such as aspartame and sucralose. Sweet deal? Not if you want to avoid the brain damage, diabetes and cancer risk that comes with these sweet drugs, er, I mean chemicals. Think that’s bad? It also includes dairy products like yogurt, cream, eggnog, and 14 other products in the grocery store. America loves her sweets – enough to even die for them…

02/28/13 Food marketers deploy tobacco industry tactics to increase profits while undermining health. Multinational food and drink companies are actually “unhealthy commodity” companies while self-regulation is failing according to the Lancet. Researchers claim that the aggressive marketing of ultra-processed food and drink are now major drivers of the world’s growing epidemic of chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Unscrupulous companies actually spend collective billions to lobby politicians to oppose health reforms, reshape health legislation and avoid regulation. Published research receives major and systematic bias from industry funding bringing up to eight times more likelihood of conclusions favoring the companies that sponsor them. Government will have to divorce its public health activities from industry money to do anything about this.

02/27/13 Low-salt BULL: Take a computer analysis and program the computer with the misconception that all salt is bad for you and then extrapolate the numbers. What do you get? A worthless outcome based on bad input. Yet that is what the American Heart Association’s journal Hypertension and the CDC came up with – 850,000 pretend, computer simulated lives saved by reducing salt intake. This is Deja Moo peeps. Yes, get rid of the processed salt as it is a killer. The real salt problem is all the highly processed foods that people consume because they only want to pretend to eat healthy. Salt is required for life – and good blood pressure. Make sure you are getting good ole Himalayan or Celtic salt and you won’t become a real number in a pretend scenario.
07/10/13 Did you know that drinking sodas increases you risk for malignant prostate cancer by 40%? That’s only drinking about a 1/5 of the Double Gulp size drink – just 11oz a day is all it takes. 11oz is actually less than a regular can of soda. Turns out that malignant tumors love soda as much as the fat kid loves chocolate cake… And don’t think you ladies are off the hook on this one. If you are drinking sodas at all then right now is the best time to stop – cease and desist with all sweetened drinks; artificially sweetened or otherwise. Remember what I always say: “the best time to seek your health is while you still have it”. Soda drinking is just a habit. One that can kill you dead…

07/09/13 In 2012, a Johns Hopkins University study examined the feathers of imported chickens to figure out what the birds ate before slaughter so we could eat them. What they found was not nice. In our chicken are antidepressants, painkillers, arsenic, banned antibiotics, and allergy medications. Because stress can slow a chicken’s growth and hurt profits, Prozac is actually fed to chickens to offset anxiety common in factory farm conditions. The scientists also found caffeine in about 50% of the samples taken. Caffeine keeps chickens awake so they can eat more, grow faster and go to the slaughterhouse quicker. Antibiotics make the chicken swell up for more end-weight and arsenic bursts the blood vessels so you have nice pink chicken meat. IF you are going to eat chicken, make it free-range organic or none at all…

07/08/13 Did you know that beet juice can help preserve brain function, fight wrinkles and skin conditions and prevent age-related macular degeneration? Beets are naturally packed with natural nitrates, vitamin A, folate and many other vitamins, minerals and nutrients in very high concentrations. The benefits of beet juice have been backed by countless studies – including cancer studies. Beets contain a high concentration of betacyanin for its red pigment which can shrink tumors. But don’t buy just any beet because a majority of beets today are genetically modified.

07/05/13 Want to double your child’s vegetable intake – voluntary intake?? Researchers took nutrition storybooks written by Gripshover and Markman that elaborate on nutrition-related themes and studied their effects on children. Some preschool classrooms read these nutrition books during snack time for about 3 months, while other classrooms conducted snack time as usual. Of course, the children with the nutrition books actually understood food nutrients and their importance for various bodily functions. Surprisingly, these children also MORE than doubled their voluntary intake of vegetables during snack time after the three-month intervention. The poor old control groups just stayed about the same.

07/03/13 Try living without gluten and see what happens. Leptin and Ghrelin are two hormones that impact health and body weight. Leptin regulates the body’s energy supply long-term by signaling fat cells to be burned for fuel, suppresses hunger which induces weight loss and also regulates peripheral pain sensation and integration in the spinal cord. Ghrelin is the hormone produced in the lining of the stomach and in the pancreas that is a fast acting hormone that signals the brain for both hunger and satiation. Ghrelin levels peak before a meal – bringing hunger, and craters right after a meal -signaling fullness. Did you know that gluten grains like wheat, barley and rye interfere with these critical hormones causing weight gain, inability to burn fat and even causes fibromyalgia symptoms?

07/02/13 ConsumerLab.com tested brewable teas and green tea supplements to find out the levels of beneficial EGCG and also the levels of unwanted lead contamination in various products. Green tea supplements and other tea products contain beneficially active compounds like EGCG and other catechins that can lower the risk of certain types of cancer and aid in weight control. Furthermore, drinking green tea is associated with a lower cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk. They found that the amounts of these compounds in green tea supplements, brewable teas, and bottled drinks can vary enormously. Green tea supplements provided up to about 300 mg of EGCG in a suggested daily serving but bottled green teas contained under 47mg per cup to as low as 4mg. Brewable green tea brought 25 to 86mg of EGCG per serving. The analysis found that green teas from the mall chain Teavana contain oodles of polyphenols, and no lead.

07/01/13 Supermarket chicken can fuel urinary tract infections. Researchers investigating disease-causing bacteria on grocery store meat compared it to urine samples of women with UTIs. What they found was that in 71% of cases, the E. coli bacteria collected from women with UTIs matched the strain collected from supermarket chicken. “People are eating a lot more chicken because it’s often perceived as healthier,” says Amy Manges, PhD, at McGill University in Montreal. “But what people don’t realize is that chicken is pretty heavily contaminated with bacteria in general, and those bacteria tend to be drug resistant.” Supermarket chicken is fed arsenic and antibiotics to plump them before market for more weight at the meat counter. Eating supermarket chicken will plump you up the same way and could give you some nasty infections ta boot.

06/28/13 Cap’n Crunch Original Cereal is loaded with GMOs. It starts with the first ingredient in – GMO corn flour – which causes cancer in test rats. Then comes sugar, but is it GMO beet sugar or corn sugar? Doesn’t say, so just assume it is. Then comes oat flour and more sugar. This additional sugar might just make “sugar” the number one ingredient. A few more ingredients in finds the cancer-causing Yellow Dye. Why Yellow Dye? -because it makes dull processed food look healthy. Look a little further and you find another dose of deadly Yellow Dye listed. But the chemical concoction doesn’t stop there as they also add BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) which is an embalming chemical/preservative that also causes cancer. This is NOT food peeps. If you buy this to save grocery money, you should put the savings back to give to your oncologist later- plus some extra money.

06/25/13 Fermented foods boost the healthy bacteria in our guts to improve digestion and nutrient absorption, prevent allergies, boost immunity, fight disease, and also have a profound effect on mood and depression. The Standard American Diet (SAD) and lack of healthy eating promote an unhealthy environment in our bodies that destroys good bacteria in our guts, increases the growth of bad bacteria, and lowers the enzyme content from our food causing a deterioration of health and allergies, increasing the aging process, causing bloating, gas and poor digestion, while decreasing nutrient absorption.

06/24/13 When you think of mushrooms, do you think of zinc? Mushrooms contain a healthy dose of the immune system-boosting mineral, zinc. People who are zinc deficient also have fewer immune system white blood cells to fight off disease. Zinc deficiency can lead to a reduced immune response and more downtime from illness. Add to this a healthful punch of vitamin D and serve them up at your next meal because mushrooms are the only non-animal food with naturally occurring vitamin D. Some wild mushrooms pack up to 60mcg in a 3.5 oz. serving That’s six times the amount of vitamin D required by healthy adults under 50. Buyer-beware because cultivated mushrooms have significantly less vitamin D. Vitamin D is essential for calcium absorption, bone growth, neuromuscular and immune function.

06/21/13 An animal study recently showed that a high fructose diet rapidly caused liver damage – even without weight gain. Liver damage more than doubled in the animals fed a high-fructose diet after just 6 weeks of the study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In a previous study, monkey allowed to eat as much of a high-fructose diet as they wanted gained 50% more weight than the control group and developed diabetes at triple the rate and also developed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. In a study comparing a total calorie to calorie diet of high fructose vs no high fructose found extensive liver damage at a much higher rate in just 6 weeks of high fructose-laced diet. Liver damaging bacteria leaked from the intestines to the liver at a 30% higher rate in the fructose group.

06/20/13 Eating more protein can raise metabolic rates for up to12 hours and requires more calories to metabolize than eating carbs and fats. The equation is simple: to lose weight you must have a caloric deficit which is achieved by eating fewer calories and burning more calories. But weight loss is always a combination of burning muscle and body fat and when someone says that they want to lose weight, what they mean is that they want to lose fat but not muscle. Impossible… However, a diet high in protein and low on carbs can reduce muscle loss in proportion to fat loss. A high-protein diet also satisfies hunger better than fats or carbs. Weight loss through a protein rich diet can be amplified with exercise.

06/19/13 The seasons of food: In spring we harvest scores of tender, leafy vegetables, representing fresh new growth of the season coming after a long winter of eating heavier foods. This greening of spring refreshes and cleanses our bodies with a season of renewal – like the greens on our dinner plates. Spring foods cleanse the winter body to prepare it for the warmer months of summer. Spring foods include lettuces, asparagus, citrus fruits, artichokes, leeks, mung beans, bok choy and broccoli. Sprouted grains, beans and nuts are also great spring foods. Autumn is a time of transition, introspection and abundance where we should store extra nourishment for the cold days of winter. Normally at this time we feel the intuitive urge to enjoy the rich, compact foods of warming harvest eating, like mushrooms, pumpkin, winter squash, sweet potato, dark leafy greens, fresh figs, persimmon, apples, plum and mulberry. Fall spices are ginger, peppercorns and cinnamon. This is part of the natural order of eating that nature intended for us.

06/18/13 Foods for all seasons: Nature’s laws cannot be ignored when we pick our body’s nourishment through the seasons of the year. For instance: Strawberries in the dead of winter are a violation of this law. In summer, our bodies need cooling and cleansing foods like fresh fruits and vegetables. Eating raw foods during the summer helps keep our bodies from overheating. In the summer we should avoid heavy animal proteins and avoid overeating in general. Steer clear of hard to digest foods like chocolate and sweets in the heat. Foods that take longer to grow are naturally more warming than foods that grow quickly and make better winter foods. Organic animal proteins are winter-warmers as well as root vegetables like carrot, parsnips, potato, onions and garlic. Raw dairy products, buckwheat and nuts are great in the winter.

06/17/13 Ignorance is deadly when it comes to making food choices. But we seem to turn a blind eye to evil foods when the price for them is so low while the price or healthy food is so high. Take for instance, the Thai seafood industry which provides some 90% of all the shrimp on American plates. Shrimp in Asia is grown on farms using high levels of antibiotics and chemicals that not only hurt the consumer but also damage the surrounding ecosystems. How about the untested and unlabeled Frankenfish on the market which are now predicted to destroy our natural fish population? Did you know that the ever-greedy Monsanto views industrial aquaculture as a growing source of revenue for their cancer-causing genetically modified soy feed? Ignorance proliferates on a pretense of bliss, but we have to wake up to the health and environment impact of our food choices.

06/14/13 Did you know that sulfur compounds in the broccoli family bind to toxic heavy metals in your body? These sulfur compounds also trigger increased glutathione, which also helps in both metal detoxification and free radical neutralization. Broccoli contains many nutrients that are extremely good for your health including vitamins A, C, folate, fiber and calcium. Broccoli also packs a lot of health benefits like: Preventing cancer with glucoraphanin by hindering prostate, cervical and breast cancer development, eliminating H. pylori, improving liver health being rich in the antioxidant indole-3-carbinolful, maintaining a healthy nervous system and improving brain function, promoting growth of muscles, regulating blood pressure, reducing cholesterol and helping eliminate digestive problems and constipation, curbing overeating and maintaining a lower and healthier level of blood sugar.

06/13/13 NY City has gone crazy over butter! Not a healthy crazy but a maddening ignorant crazy that only a government agency or two can pull off. Seems that they have banned ALL butter from any school kitchens and replaced it with GMO vegetable oils mixed with other plant oils. The “free-lunch” program will cost a child’s health quicker than ever now. Nutritionists and even most chefs know that butter is both healthy for you and delicious. One school chef was caught ordering butter and written up and fired if he was caught again, according to the New York Daily News. There is more than one clinical trial in which natural butter was replaced by plant oils in the diet. Results: Patients fed plant oils instead of butter had a significantly higher risk of death. Time to write up and fire the ignorant administrators.

06/12/13 Mango is the “king of the fruits” with its unique flavor, fragrance, taste, and health benefits. You might even go so far as to call the mighty mango a “super fruit.” Grown in the tropics, the mango tree originates from the family that includes cashew and pistachio. Mangos pack over 20 different vitamins and minerals and are very low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends up to 13 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. One cup of mango provides about 100 calories, supplies a healthy boost of vitamin C, one-third of a day’s vitamin A, blood-pressure-lowering potassium, and a great amount of fiber. For an added bonus, mango is one of the fruits least likely to have pesticide residues.

06/11/13 Sweet lies: The National Confectioners Association (NCA) just put out a “study” that shows that sweets do not affect your health. The NCA is actually a trade association that represents candy companies. This “research study” was a bunch of meaningless calculations funded by the NCA and based on one government food and nutrition survey. The end report makes candy out to be health food and found no link between candy consumption and increase in BMI, waist circumference, skinfold thickness, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, triglycerides, and insulin resistance. So, go ahead and eat all the Mars, Nestle, Hershey, and Jelly Belly that your lil’ ole pea-picking heart pleases but keep in mind that this bad work of fake and irresponsible science was brought to you by – take a guess – Mars, Nestle, Hershey, and Jelly Belly. Real science shows that sugar does cause weight gain, diabetes and even cancer. Which science are you choosing?

06/10/13 By now, everyone is talking about Townsend Farm’s recall of a frozen fruit mix for smoothies because they might be contaminated with the hepatitis A virus. This outbreak has affected five Western states with dozens of people being infected – possibly from the Townsend Farms Organic Antioxidant Blend. The outbreak is traced to pomegranate seeds from Turkey in the fruit mix. Hepatitis A symptoms typically don’t appear for a few weeks and include: fatigue, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, low-grade fever, dark urine, muscle pain and yellowing of the skin and eyes. Typically, hepatitis A lasts less than two months. Solutions? Support the liver! 10grams or more a day of GMO-free vitamin C, dandelion tea, choline, astragalus and daily coffee enemas all help overcome hepatitis in any form.

06/07/13 Big Mac heart attack: Studies actually show that after having a Big Mac, heart and endothelial function deteriorates rapidly and you lose about 50% of endothelial function within 3 hours which can precipitate a heart attack. Endothelial function can be measured by heart brachial reactivity. The PREDIMED study of 7500 patients showed about a 30% reduction in cardiovascular events with a Mediterranean diet. But what they really wanted to prove that olive oil had extra benefits, but the results were the same with or without high amounts of olive oil or mixed nuts in the diet. How you eat, what you eat, how you exercise, whether you watch television or videos all affects your endothelial function very quickly.

06/06/13 What’s good for the goose… A farmer is now suing Monsanto for contaminating his organic crops with their GMO products. The fact is that GMO crops cross-pollinate with other crops and ALL organic crops are now cross-contaminated because of this. The goose is Monsanto who is accused of abusing intellectual property rights by suing small farms when its “patented crops” blow seeds and pollen onto their properties. Monsanto has been caught trying to bribe officials in Canada and Indonesia. This company is also the one responsible for spraying Agent Orange all over our soldiers in Vietnam, leading to cancer, birth defects and other ailments. Monsanto is not here to bless you peeps. They want your money.

06/05/13 Raw milk choices: “People in a democracy should be free to make food choices if they do not hurt others,” says Wisconsin Raw Milk Association’s Margo Redmond. She added that public health agencies such as the Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection should draw a line between protecting consumers and controlling them. These statements follow the acquittal of a farmer accused of selling raw milk to educated consumers. Of course, raw milk farmer Vernon Hershberger was put through three years of harassment and finally a court hearing before being found innocent by a jury. The jury must have known that raw milk has many healthful properties that are destroyed by pasteurization. Pasteurized milk is just plain bad food.

06/04/13 Studies are showing that as little as an extra 10 pounds of body weight could predispose you to a tumor or fatal heart attack in the future. A gluten-free diet is the best way I’ve seen lately to shed the pounds, eliminate inflammation and generally lower disease and death risk. Did you know that celiac disease and gluten sensitivity can have a negative effect on reproductive health? Men and women with unexplained infertility, women with recurrent abortions, intrauterine growth retardation, low birth weight babies and menstrual disorders are almost never screened for celiac disease or considered for gluten sensitivity. Best test for celiac and sensitivity? Cut it completely out for a while and see if you get better.

06/03/13 Recent studies show that some artificial sweeteners do more than just making foods taste sweeter. The GI tract and the pancreas can detect sweet foods and drinks and are activated by artificial sweeteners to increase the release of insulin. A recent study analyzed the sweetener sucralose (Splenda®) in severely obese people who did not have diabetes or use artificial sweeteners regularly. The findings in the journal Diabetes Care, were that this artificial sweetener was not “inert” as the manufacturer would lead consumers and scientists. The researchers gave the study subjects either water or sucralose to drink followed by a glucose challenge test (GCT) – AND tested every participant twice. Those who drank sucralose peaked blood sugar at a 20% higher level than those who drank only water before the GCT. When people routinely secrete more insulin, they can become resistant to its affects which leads to type II diabetes.

05/31/13 The Happy Meal McDonald’s (junk food restaurant- my words) CEO Mr. Thompson told a “whopper” while trying to debate food with an educated 9 year old child by telling her that a Happy Meal isn’t bad for her. You should try to feed the “Happy Apples” from their plastic encasement to squirrels. If it’s food then it should be good for wildlife? They won’t eat it and that product is NOT wholesome goodness. I just happen to have a McDonald’s hamburger and fries in a bag – with the original receipt from 1997- at the clinic to show people. Guess what? It has never rotted, never smelled bad and it has kept all of its original shape and color. That’s not food people. If you truly want good health then you will absolutely have to eat good food and drink good water.

05/30/13 Zymology is the science and practice of fermenting foods. Foods are fermented by the chemical conversion of sugars into ethanol by bacteria or yeast. But the amazing health benefits from fermented foods come only from unpasteurized and raw foods. Most commercial fermented food producers use pasteurization to stop the fermentation process – killing off all beneficial yeast and bacteria. A vast majority of US-made pickles, sauerkraut, beer, wine, soy sauce, yogurt, milk, bread, cheese, and other fermented foods are rapidly fermented with vinegar instead of using traditional methods. The health benefits of fermented foods are only available when beneficial strains of yeast and bacteria are used in the fermenting process.

05/29/13 There is a new product out there for dieters called the HAPIfork which has tines but otherwise resembles an electric toothbrush. The rechargeable fork helps remind you to wait at least ten seconds (more or less as desired) between bites. The HAPIfork detects when it makes contact with your mouth. For an even more technical eating experience, the fork has Bluetooth to send the data it collects wirelessly to iPhone, Android and computer apps. Once you’ve uploaded the data, you can analyze how many bites you’re taking per meal and how often you take a bite without adequate pause. The HAPIfork unfortunately can’t track the calories you eat but can make you more conscious of how much you eat.

05/28/13 High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is basically any corn syrup that has undergone enzymatic processing to convert some of its glucose into fructose for more sweetness. Some companies actually use mercury in the process and some of that mercury is “lost in process” – meaning, you just drank it. In the US, HFCS is significantly cheaper than sugar and is the principal sweetener for processed foods and beverages. Regular sugar is about 50/50 glucose to fructose but some HFCS contains up to 90% fructose and 10% glucose. ALL HFCS is processed by the liver making it especially deleterious to one’s health. Besides all this, HFCS is made from GMO-laden corn which causes early cancer, early death, prostate trouble, kidney failure, liver trouble and more.

05/17/13 Did you know that peppers contain a small amount of nicotine? Did you also know that eating peppers can reduce the risk for Parkinson’s disease? Peppers are in the same botanical family as tobacco. This new study came out in May in Annals of Neurology. Peppers also cleanse the blood, aid digestion and promote weight loss. Both hot and sweet peppers increase the body’s heat production and oxygen consumption for about 20 minutes after eating, helping your body to burn extra calories. The capsaicin in hot peppers can decrease blood cholesterol and triglycerides, boost immunity, and actually reduce risk of stomach ulcers.

05/16/13 Arsenic-based drugs are fed to chickens to make them swell up (for more weight) and burst blood vessels (for pinker meat). In 2011, in a typical sleight-of-hand movement, Pfizer voluntarily removed the arsenic-based drug Roxarsone from the US market but still sells the arsenical drug Nitarsone – which is chemically similar to Roxarsone. Unless it is certified organic chicken, you are most likely consuming arsenic with your chicken. Remember that arsenic causes the chicken to swell up and blood vessels to burst. What do you think happens when you eat this drug-altered chicken? Currently there is no law prohibiting the sale or use of arsenic-based drugs in poultry feed except in Maryland – the first state to ban the use of most arsenicals in chicken feed.

05/15/13 How about a sugar company bailout? Not only is sugar just plain bad for you but the government is now getting involved to keep the ailing sugar industry “healthy”. In a madcap plan to raise sugar prices, the US government loaned sugar processors some $862 million under the price support program. These “loans” were used to secure about 4.1 billion pounds of sugar that companies expect to produce from this year’s current harvest. Problem is that the loans didn’t help as sugar prices have fallen 18% since the loans last October. Sugar-in all forms-is the primary cause of type 2 diabetes. Sugar suppresses the immune system, is linked to cancer, and leads to cognitive problems. I think our government is on sugar…

05/14/13 Corn is just generally bad for humans. Add to that cancer-causing GMO corn and the troubles multiply. What could be worse? How about the cancer-causing aflatoxin mold that ravaged the 2012 corn crops? Well, this summer farmers get to blend this toxic concoction of GMOs and aflatoxin into the feed supply. Aflatoxin can sicken humans and animals when eaten and is carcinogenic. Even now, the contaminated corn is being fed to hogs and beef cattle. Did you know that cows cannot digest corn properly and quickly become diabetic? When the human eats sick animals, they become sick. When humans eat healthy food, they are in-turn healthy. Make sense? Sure it does!

05/13/13 Sweet pea flour made from yellow peas improves insulin resistance in overweight people while lowering body fat levels. Also, according to Medical News Today, research has found that pea protein powder can help reduce hypertension and even chronic kidney disease. This is a wonderful, gluten-free alternative to enrich your healthy diet. Sweet pea protein is absorbed in the body very easily and also provides the body with a substantial supply of beneficial amino acids. Taking sweet pea protein after a vigorous workout helps restore muscle mass. Good stuff, that sweet pea powder.

05/10/13 Feeding male rats Monsanto’s MON863 GMO corn caused smaller kidneys with significant inflammation and disruptive kidney filtration and function problems. Metabolic rates changed in the liver altered body weights occurred and female genital cancers increased in the second generation. In 2010, the California Department of Food and Agriculture found that at least 70% of processed foods in supermarkets are loaded with GMO ingredients. In 2010, some 93% of soy, 86% of corn and 93% of cotton and canola planted in the U.S. were GMO. Simplest solution: STOP BUYING THEM! They only sell GMOs because people buy them.

05/09/13 Plants synthesize amino acids from simple inorganic chemical substances. Animals however do not have this ability and rely on consuming plants or animals to derive the amino acids necessary for building protein. Animals have differing abilities to convert one amino acid into another and in humans this ability is limited. All proteins are made of large molecules which form amino acids which are linked in chains, called peptide linkages. There are many different amino acids in the human body making up many different proteins. Shortages in essential amino acids that cannot be constructed in the human liver but must be consumed in their complete form cause deficiency diseases resulting in fatigue, immunodeficiency, muscle wasting, dementia, memory problems, seizures and more.

05/08/13 Frankenmeats: Scientists have successfully managed to make lab-grown meat. I reported this over a year ago when one Dr. Mark Post invited reporters to see his methods for producing lab-grown meats. Of course, no one is happy with the taste or texture – yet, so he’s still working on it. So far the first lab-grown burger tops in at a price-tag close to $345,000. DR Post believes that his synthetic meat will hit the supermarkets in the next 10 years. Meat grown without the God-breathed life in the animal or the normal biological process. What could go wrong with that? Of course, the madness doesn’t stop there as scientists are also using technology to grow food by cloning meat. Our bodies cannot survive without genetic diversity and modern wheat gluten has already proven this with the epidemic of gluten sensitivities and intolerance.

05/07/13 Skipping breakfast makes weight control more difficult. Breakfast skippers tend to eat even more food at the next meal and nibble on high-calorie snacks in between. People actually accumulate more body fat when they eat fewer, large meals than people who eat the same number of calories in smaller, more frequent meals. Kids who skip breakfast are tardy and absent from school more often than children who eat a regular breakfast. Kids who eat breakfast tend to eat healthier overall and are more likely to participate in physical activities, have lower blood cholesterol levels and make fewer trips to the school nurse with stomach complaints.

05/06/13 Worried about wrinkles? Eat sugar? Got some news for you! The latest research studies have now proven that sugar causes wrinkles. In fact, the more you indulge in both sweets and overly processed foods that contain sugar the faster you’ll lose your healthy “glow” and wrinkle up. In a process called glycation, sugar damages proteins in your blood, making you more vulnerable to skin damage and premature wrinkles. The glycation end products (AGEs) eventually damage the proteins nearby as well. Collagen and elastin are proteins that support your skin and keep your skin smooth and flexible. Collagen naturally declines in most people after their mid-thirties and a diet high in sugar damages the precious collagen reserves. Want less wrinkles? Start by getting rid of processed sugars.

05/03/13 Energy deficits can be caused by fluctuations in blood sugar. Low blood sugar = low energy, depression, irritability and lack of concentration. White sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white rice, and white flour are so highly processed that they need almost no digestion to be absorbed by the body. They deliver their fuel in a burst with a quick high and quicker let down – AKA: “The Crash.” Proteins, healthy fats and complex carbohydrates, like whole grains, fruit, and vegetables are digested slowly, releasing their energy in a steady stream.

05/02/13 Menopausal women who eat high-sugar, high-fat diets are 23% more likely to experience hot flashes and night sweats. Over a nine-year study, women who ate fruit and followed the Mediterranean diet reported fewer hot flashes, after accounting for other lifestyle habits. But vegetables, meat and dairy, were not associated with either a higher or lower chance of having menopausal symptoms. Low-fat, high-fiber diets helped stabilize estrogen levels and ease hot flashes and night sweats. Eating a Mediterranean-style diet can also help keep blood sugar within optimum ranges which can lower a woman’s chance of menopausal symptoms.

05/01/13 Corn oils are NOT good for you! Not only are they GMO but they are made using high-heat processing, which wipes out the antioxidants, phytochemicals and other nutrients while causing polyunsaturated fats to spoil when exposed to oxygen. Then these nutrient-dead oils are treated with toxic chemicals such as chlorine so the oils are “shelf stable” and have an “appetizing color” and are deodorized. Several studies prove that corn oil actually blocks natural enzymes in your body that fight cancer and increases mortality rates, as noted by several Japanese studies. Finally, the BMJ found that inordinate amounts of unbalanced omega-6s found in corn oil promotes the growth of prostate cancer while increasing the risk of cancer reaching the bone.
09/09/13 Want to know what’s in your Caramel Syrup? It may look and taste something like caramel, but industrial caramel in a vast majority of our processed foods and drinks is way different than the old-fashioned kind grandma used to make. The currently preferred chemical process to make “caramel color” is with ammonia and 4-methylimidazole – both which are both known carcinogens. The big kicker? Companies aren’t required to disclose whether they use either of these when they make or use caramel color. Here’s the ingredient list of one “caramel product”: Corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sweetened condensed skim milk (skim milk and sugar), water, contains 2% or less of: disodium phosphate, sodium citrate, salt, artificial flavor, caramel color, xanthan gum, artificial color (yellow 6, yellow 5). Did they list ammonia? Your guess peeps…

09/06/13 Loaded with nutrients like enzymes, minerals, natural vitamins and other wholesome goodness, organic strawberries go great with anything – even your teeth! Strawberries pack an awesome dose of malic acid which is a natural astringent for removing discoloration for brighter smiles. Who’d a thunk it? Eat something bright-red that stains every other thing and whiten your teeth. Just make sure that your strawberries are organic and pesticide-free as strawberries are one of the highest pesticide-poisoned foods out there. I even wash my fresh organic strawberries in a solution of water, vinegar and hydrogen peroxide to remove the settlement dust and chemicals – like those particles left from contrails and maybe overspray from other nearby non-organic farmers.

09/05/13 When you eat your calories is important for weight loss. A recent 12-week study of obese women took two groups and fed them both the same amount of calories. The remarkable thing was that they got different results depending on when they ate them. The first group ate 700 calories at breakfast, 500 calories at lunch and 200 calories at dinner. The second group ate their calories the other way around: 200 calories at breakfast, 500 calories at lunch and 700 calories at dinner. On that low amount of calories, both groups lost weight, but the big breakfast eaters lost about an extra 11 pounds over 12 weeks. The big breakfast eaters also lost on average of 3.3 inches off their waistlines versus 1.5 inches in the skimpy breakfast eaters.

09/04/14 AGEs are Advanced Glycation End products that are products of a chemical process called glycation which happens in the blood stream when glucose comes into contact with proteins and fats to become cross-linked together. Have you seen the sear marks on a grilled steak? The hardened black marks on grilled foods are AGEs that happen when the sugars in the food cross-link with the proteins and fats resulting in hardened tissue. Inflexible tissues from AGEs cause hardening of the arteries, leading to high blood pressure. AGEs are also implicated in a wide range of age related conditions ranging from cataracts to arthritis and Alzheimer’s Disease. Reducing your sugar intake can have a huge effect on reducing blood pressure by consequently lowering AGEs. Pretty much all chronic inflammatory conditions can be improved by reducing sugar consumption.

09/03/13 Polysaccharides from foods like rice, corn, wheat and even cassava are starches that are broken down by the intestines into monosaccharide molecules. Monosaccharides of all kinds are used to produce energy, carbon dioxide and water in the body. Surplus monosaccharides are fused together to form the polysaccharide, glycogen which is present in small amounts in muscles and in the liver. So what’s the big problem here? Surplus polysaccharides formed this way can activate and over-stimulate the immune system causing inflammation. This is why some people have to eat grain-free and sugar-free diets to be healthy.

09/02/13 Fructose, such as found in fruit and honey, is an example of a monosaccharide. Your body uses monosaccharides for energy. Sucrose (which is table sugar), is a disaccharide that the body has to break down to use. Glycogen, cellulose and starches, such as bread, pastas and cereal, are polysaccharide, meaning they have 3 or more monosaccharides bonded together. The higher the number of monosaccharides, the more trouble your body has to go through to break them down.

08/30/13 Gluten intolerance, sensitivity and Celiac disease is much more prevalent than you might guess. I’m not just saying this as a nutritionist on an anti-gluten agenda. In a hot new study of over 2500 people, researchers found more than half of them had risk factors for developing celiac disease. All it takes is an overload of gluten and BAMMO! – Health trouble that your doctor will never put together with food in your diet. Besides that, a majority of doctors are only interested in drugging your troubles away or cutting parts out of your body. Rather than opt for the standard invasive bowel biopsies and expensive genetic testing, go completely gluten-free on your own for three weeks and see what happens. It will likely change your health and your life for the better.

08/29/13 Once again breast is best! If you feed your baby the “doctor recommended formula”, they will be 50% more likely to be overweight by 8 years old. If you breastfeed for at least 6 months, there is a 50% less-likely chance for the child to be overweight. Of course, Big Grocery has the blessings of Big Pharma when they say that infant formulas are just as good OR BETTER than what God intended when He invented boobs. Infant formulas are rife with unnatural chemicals, GMO products and even food colors and synthetic preservatives. NOT good for baby. Breastfed babies are healthier overall than kids given formula, have higher IQs, fewer ear infections, stronger bones and are less prone to allergies, among many benefits. Besides, mothers that breastfeed slash the risk of postpartum depression and have a lower risk of metabolic syndrome, diabetes and cancer.

08/28/13 Fruit and veggie codes explained: Four numbers in the Price Lookup Code (PLU) means that this produce was grown conventionally with the use of pesticides. The four digits in the PLU code simply tells what kind of vegetable or fruit it is. For instance: All bananas are coded 4011. Organic produce carries a five number PLU code starting with the digit “9? which tells you that the produce was grown organically and is NOT genetically modified. An organic banana code would be 94011. HOWEVER: If the 5-digit code begins with an “8” – run from it! This tells you that the item is a genetically modified fruit or vegetable. A GMO banana code would be 84011.

08/27/13 Americans drink more soft drinks than people in any other country. These sugared-up drinks are imbibed by all ages, including very young children. And don’t think for a moment that the “sugar-free” versions are any better – because they are worse. The sugar-free chemicals are actually designer drug chemicals. All kinds of soft drink consumption are associated with aggression, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Until recently, this deadly relationship has not been evaluated in young children. A new study in The Journal of Pediatrics finds that aggression, attention problems, and withdrawal behavior are associated with soft drink consumption in young children

08/26/13 Organic is better! In yet another study of children comparing the consuming of conventional produce to organic, researchers found higher levels of pesticides in the urine of conventional diets. When the researchers switched these little ones to organic diets, urinary pesticide residues dropped drastically to almost non-detectable amounts in just five days. Sadly, the levels of urinary pesticide residues first found in the children on a conventional diet were similar to the levels found in the babies of pesticide-exposed farm workers which also have lower mental development scores and ADD/ADHD problems by five years of age. Organic foods definitely offer benefits in terms of a reduced exposure to disease-causing pesticides.

08/23/13 Scientists studied what happened to mice on a human equivalent of sugar in a healthy diet plus the equivalent of three cans of soda pop daily. Well… females died at double the normal rates. Males were less likely to defend their homes and reproduce. Other sugar studies have used disproportionate amounts of sugar, but this study attempted to reproduce the effects of sugar intake on a human-relevant level. Even though these mice didn’t become obese or show many signs of metabolic symptoms, this study shows that levels of sugar considered safe by regulatory agencies damage the health.

08/22/13 Have mandatory menu labeling in chain restaurants helped people cut back on the calories in their orders? A new study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, finds that consumers are unfazed by calorie counts listed with their favorite menu items. Recently, King County in Washington State, required restaurants to make nutrition information and calorie counts visible. One year later, the affect was nil. Even still, consumers nationwide will start seeing these numbers on menu boards as part of the new health care reform law. An associate professor Eric Finkelstein, at Duke University said: “The fact that it was zero change was a little surprising. This information just doesn’t change their behavior”.

08/21/13 Want to lose weight? Don’t skip breakfast! If you think that skipping breakfast to knock out one whole meals’ worth of food intake will help you lose weight – you are wrong. Study volunteers ate a big breakfast one day and skipped breakfast completely another day. The no-breakfast day made them hungrier and they craved more junk food. At lunch they wolfed down 20% more food than when they ate a full breakfast. They were also given brain scans as they viewed photos of foods before lunch. On no-breakfast days, the brain lit up more at the sight of high-calorie junk food. Bottom line, people who eat no breakfast at all more than make up for it later in the day by eating more food, and worse food.

08/20/13 Telling us more of what we already know is a hot new study over soda pop drinking and aggressive behavior. The mothers of some 3,000 five-year-olds reported their child’s soft drink consumption and completed the Child Behavior Checklist. Shockingly, 43% of these little children consumed at least one soft drink a day and some consumed four or more. What they found was that aggression, withdrawal, and attention problems were associated incrementally with soda consumption. Children who drank four or more soft drinks per day were more than twice as likely to destroy things belonging to others, get into fights, and physically attack people. This is NOT society’s fault and DON’T blame the school system. Accept the responsibility if you are allowing this into your child’s life.

08/19/13 Many cancer chemotherapy drugs are discovered first in natural sources like broccoli and cabbage. A recent study found that how much raw cruciferous vegetables you eat in your diet correlates with your risk of bladder cancer. Sulforaphane is a dietary isothiocyanate found in cruciferous vegetables that is both preventive and therapeutic against solid tumors. The anti-cancer effects of these wonder-filled veggies are converted from food to medicine in the human gut by friendly bacteria. Other studies have found that individuals who consume a diet rich in cruciferous vegetables also have lower incidences of breast, lung, prostate, and colon cancer. You can lower the cancer-causing pesticide load on the body by eating only organic foods.

08/16/13 Why do some athletes drink watermelon juice after working out? Because it relieves muscle soreness, that’s why! Not only that, but if you drink it before a workout it increases overall performance. Watermelon juice just got the scientific backing for its reputation to relieve post-exercise muscle soreness and enhance athletic performance, according to a new report in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The study attributes most of watermelon’s effectiveness to the amino acid L-citrulline. Of course, watermelon juice is also packed with antioxidant properties and increases muscle protein during performance. The study tested unpasteurized watermelon juice against an L-citrulline enriched juice and a placebo drink. Of course, the natural juice had the best results.

08/15/13 Mediterranean diet to the rescue once again! Genetic predispositions are turned on and off – up or down, by either nutrients or poisons. Healthy nutrients suppress unwanted genetic expressions like type II diabetes, stroke, heart disease, autism and even cancer! A recent study found a gene variant associated with the expression of type II diabetes that can be prevented with the Mediterranean diet. These results, published in Diabetes Care, are a significant advance for nutrigenomics – the study of the links between nutrition and gene function and chronic disease risk. Conversely, a crap diet of highly processed food will turn on undesirable genetic expressions. Pretty simple, eh?

08/14/13 Pasteurized, commercially produced cow’s milk is a lose-lose. A study comparing diet and cancer rates in 42 countries found a significant correlation between cancer and dairy consumption. Switzerland and Denmark not only had the highest dairy intake but they also had the highest incidence of testicular cancer among men aged 20 to 39. Algeria had one of the lowest dairy rates and testicular cancer rates were quite low. 50 years ago, the rate of deaths from prostate cancer was near zero out of 100,000 men. Today, that rate has multiplied many-fold. A Harvard health study of over 20,000 males reported that those who ate 2 servings of dairy or more each day also had a 34% higher chance of developing prostate cancer than the non-dairy users.

08/13/13 Carrageenan is a food additive derived from seaweed. It is used as a thickener and stabilizer for some dairy products like cottage cheese and yogurt. Even though carrageenan is a “natural food additive”, carrageenan causes intestinal inflammation. This inflammation goes unnoticed by a majority of people but carrageenan produces a notably high correlation to colon cancer, systemic inflammation, and a depressed immune system. The USDA knows this and only allows it in certified-organic food when carrageenan is deemed “essential” to the manufacture of a given product. But, how can it be essential when some organic dairy companies don’t use it – proving that you can make all dairy products without carrageenan. Horizon and Whole foods 365 use carrageenan in their cottage cheeses but Organic Valley and Nancy’s do not.

08/12/13 ALL POINTS BULLETIN: Be on the lookout for Sodium Benzoate. KNOWN HANGOUTS: Sodium Benzoate lurks around in soft drinks, energy drinks and processed foods. This armed and dangerous “preservative salt” is made by mixing sodium hydroxide and benzoic acid. Sodium Benzoate is strongly linked to neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD as well as inflammatory disorders like asthma and arthritis. But if this seedy character is found in the company of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) it reduces to the highly carcinogenic (cancer-causing) evil partner – benzene, which is linked to many killer cancers. If you encounter Sodium Benzoate mentioned on any food label – do not attempt to engage this foe! Set the article down carefully and back away slowly. Warn others that you love of this danger as soon as possible.

08/09/13 The SAD (Standard America Diet) is considered by most people to be safe and promote health. We consider alcohol and tobacco to have negative effects on human health and fetal development but fail to recognize the common dangers in tuna, canned foods, processed foods and beverages, ubiquitous food additives and others that are associated with lousy health and developmental defects. For instance: Canned tuna contains methylmercury that has been associated with numerous health and developmental deficits. Staggering levels of PCBs are found in farmed salmon bringing health problems and mental impairment. Food cans lined with BPA has been linked to gender confusion, hyperactivity, aggression and reproductive problems. To have healthy humans we need to eat healthy foods.

08/08/13 Sucralose is an artificial sweetener marketed as if it came straight from natural sugar. Biochemist Dr. James Bown says “sucralose is simply chlorinated sugar.” There is nothing natural about anything that is so highly processed that it contains three chlorine atoms. Chlorine is a halide that blocks the iodine pathways causing both hypo and hyperthyroidism. The chlorine in Sucralose will damage the microflora within the human gut – and the more you ingest, the worse the damage. But the problems do not stop there as Sucralose has also been shown to damage the thymus gland and inflame the liver and kidneys. Eating too much Sucralose leads to candida formation, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, obesity and cachexia. Now you know! Do something about it.

08/07/13 Diabetic? Cut out the gluten and other carbs and regain control of your blood sugar! But this recommendation I am making cuts right across the American Diabetes Association diet recommendations of 55-60% carbs, 30% fat and 10-15% protein. Researchers recently made two sets of diabetic diets. The first group got low-carbs and high-fat, and the other got the ADA diet of low-fat and high-carbs. The results: Six months later, the low-fat, high carbs lost a little weight – and that’s all they got. The low-carbs, high fat dieters not only lost weight but they also regained control of their blood sugar and slashed overall insulin use by 30%! Oh, and they also raised their good cholesterol. So, WHY are still doing the ADA train-wreck diet?? Follow the money and look who is kicking in the big-bucks to find the companies that make diabetes drugs kicking in millions of ADA dollars a year.

08/06/13 Honey for nighttime coughs is more effective than a placebo. This includes controlling coughing in children with upper respiratory infections, according to a new randomized placebo-controlled, double-blind trial published in Pediatrics. All honey groups of 10g of eucalyptus honey, citrus honey or labiatae honey had significant improvement compared with patients treated with placebo. There were no significant differences among the different types of honey – but watch out for the honey fakesters! These guys put HFCS and GMO-beet sugar in your honey bears to profit off your ignorance. Cheap things aren’t always good and good things aren’t cheap. Get to know your local honey producers.

08/05/13 Two apples a day keeps cholesterol at bay! Women who ate two dried apples daily for one year had a decrease in their cholesterol levels. Among those who ate dried apple, total cholesterol dropped by 9% and LDL cholesterol also dropped by 16%. This was compared to women who ate prunes daily to maintain their current cholesterol levels over the year. This latest study was published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. And this was not the first study looking at the positive health effects of apples and other fruit.

08/02/13 The chemical aspartame used as an artificial sweetener is 200 times sweeter than sugar. Originally approved for use in food in 1981, aspartame is 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid and 10% methanol. Too much phenylalanine disrupts normal serotonin levels in the nervous system leading to depressive, emotional & psychotic disorders. The fact is that people who continually consume aspartame will have elevated phenylalanine – and the associated psychological disorder in the brain. Too much aspartic acid causes more aramtose in the body, which drives up estrogen levels in both men and women – making a higher risk for estrogen-driven cancers. And methanol – Blech! Just blech…

08/01/13 There have been over 68 published studies that found the connection between eating family meals and children’s health. Of course they found that eating meals at home brought healthier eating and children who ate family meals the most also ate more fruits, vegetables, fiber, and vitamins. Naturally, these home-fed children also had lower body mass index (BMI) scores compared to the kids who ate alone or out and consequently got more French fries, soda, and super-sized sandwiches. At the end of your life are you going to say “Gee, I wish I had let little Johnny eat out more”. Anybody out there that doesn’t get this yet?

07/31/13 Drink a soda, eat ketchup, tank your energy! High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) depletes levels of liver adenosine triphosphate (ATP) which is involved in the energy transfer between cells. HFCS also raises uric acid levels to cause hyperuricemia – associated with even more severe ATP depletion. Fructose is a simple sugar found in fruits and vegetables. High fructose corn syrup is found in a laboratory mixture of glucose and fructose and is used as a sweetener in processed food products. So what’s the big deal? The average fructose intake has increased from 15g a day 100 years ago to 55g in 1994. Still no big deal? This inordinate affair we have with sweets has brought an explosion in obesity and metabolic diseases like diabetes.

07/30/13 Xylitol can cut your cavities by more than half! In a double-blind study, chewing xylitol gum reduced school-aged children’s cavities by 59% over 5 years. Of course, the first year was impressive too. The best results were found in kiddos who chewed the gum at least one year before the permanent teeth came in. Permanent teeth that erupted during the second year of xylitol gum chewing had a 93% reduction in cavities – even if they stopped chewing xylitol gum after the first year, they had an 88% cavity protection. Although the research on xylitol for tooth decay prevention has all been done with children, adults benefit from chewing gum as well. Just make sure your xylitol gum is gluten-free and corn-free. Spry brand comes to my mind.

07/29/13 GMO rice engineered to contain human genes was approved for production in 2007 and is currently being grown in open fields instead of in a laboratory. The problem is that genetically modified plants migrate out of their target plots via cross-pollination and contaminate other crops. According to crop scientist Danielle Nierenberg, “most of these GM-enhanced varieties of crops don’t really address the root problems of poverty and disease.” In other words, GMOs are pushed on everyone – including the poor consumers who lack the financial ability to say ‘no’ to GMOs. When GMOs first hit the market they were going to out-produce conventional crops at every turn – but they never did… Organic crops still out-produce GMO crops. And splicing in human genes to make medicines with more side-effects was a lousy idea in the first place IMO.

07/26/13 Tetrasodium pyrophosphate is a mixture of phosphoric acid and sodium and is found in chicken nuggets, marshmallows, puddings, crab meat, imitation crab meat, canned tuna, soy-based meat alternatives, baked goods, baking powders, toothpaste and even dental floss. Being a chemical compound it comes with an MSDS which says: “WARNING! HARMFUL IF SWALLOWED OR INHALED. CAUSES IRRITATION TO SKIN, EYES AND RESPIRATORY TRACT.” A partial potential side effect list includes: Causes irritation to the gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms may include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, lethargy, blood chemistry effects, heart disturbances and central nervous system effects. Do you really want to eat this chemical??

07/25/13 Want to keep your memories? A Mediterranean diet is positively linked to a reduced incidence of cognitive decline. A population study of over 30,000 people found that this diet is also a factor in weight and appearance, long-term mental health and cardiovascular health. In this diet you increase consumption of fresh fruit, raw olive oil and oily fish, such as salmon. Avoid all fried foods – even if frying with olive oil. The Mediterranean diet is very anti-inflammatory and naturally rich in antioxidants that slow the progression of disease along with improving cognitive health. But don’t wait for more scientific evidence, try it now and see for yourself.

07/24/13 Skip breakfast, snack late -die early! A rather large study on men who skip breakfast found a 27% higher risk of heart attack or death from coronary heart disease than breakfast eaters. Bad enough? How about men who eat midnight snacks after going to bed that had a whopping 55% higher coronary heart disease risk than those who didn’t? The timing of meals and skipping breakfast or eating very late at night can cause adverse metabolic effects. Just one more piece of hard evidence as to why breakfast may be the most important meal of the day according to a recent study in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

07/23/13 There is a huge connection between cows’ milk and cancer according to the National Cancer Institute. Scientists at Kaiser Permanente studied the relation between dairy foods and cancer by focusing on dairy fats in the diet. They tracked the dairy intake of almost 2,000 women diagnosed with early-stage invasive breast cancer for close to 12 years and found that women who had more than 1 serving daily had a 49% higher risk of dying from breast cancer than those who consumed less than half a serving daily. They named the likely culprit responsible for the increased risk to be the sex hormone estrogen. Cows’ milk – and especially milk from pregnant cows – contains natural estrogens which are 100,000 times more potent than environmental estrogens. Late pregnancy cows produce up to 300% more estrogen in their milk.

07/22/13 A recent analysis conducted by researchers found GMO food toxins in the blood of 100% of pregnant women AND the unborn babies. This proves that GMO food science absolutely lied to consumers when they insisted that transgenic materials are not broken down but rather eliminated during digestion. Furthermore, ALL non-pregnant women also had high levels of GMO food toxins in their blood. Concerned? You ought to be! These “untested” chemicals are bypassing the digestive systems and persisting in our bloodstreams for who-knows-how-long. The long-term health effects of this in humans is unknown, but existing studies suggest that gluphosinate, the precursor to 3-MMPA, can cause cancer, DNA damage, and reproductive toxicity. Rats fed a lifetime of GMO corn developed horrific tumors all over their bodies and females died prematurely at a 250% higher rate.

07/19/13 Eating more beans, chickpeas and lentils while avoiding gluten as part of a low-glycemic index diet can improve glycemic control according to a research team from the University of Toronto. Legumes in general reduce coronary heart disease risk in patients with Type II diabetes and improve blood sugar levels. This study provides one more example of how diet impacts chronic disease risk and how much greater health improvements can be gained by eliminating hydrogenated foods, fried foods, refined carbohydrates and also eliminating sugar. Of course, add back healthy foods including legumes, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds to optimize your health while dramatically lowering you risk of chronic diseases.

07/18/13 New research from the University of Texas Health Science Center found that that eating just 2oz a day of walnuts can help ward off prostate cancer. Tumors were less frequent by 26%, slower growing, and also only one-fourth the size with a walnut rich diet. A previous study found similar results for walnuts to reduce breast cancer incidents. Walnuts are one of the best foods in the world with an unusually high level of vitamin E in the form of gamma-tocopherol for cardiovascular health as gamma-tocopherol has been found to provide significant protection from heart problems. The benefits of walnuts are far too extensive to list here but I do need to mention that another recent study has shown that 1oz of walnuts daily over a period of 2-3 months reduced Metabolic Syndrome-related problems – including a decrease abdominal fat.

07/17/13 Want to know which foods are pretty much guaranteed to contain GMO products? How about ANY conventional product that contains sugar, soy or corn… Pretty much all sugar in the U.S. is from GMO beets or corn. So, anything labeled with: sugar, fructose, dextrose, glucose, caramel color, mannitol or maltodextrin are out. The only safe one (for now) is 100% sugar cane, evaporated cane juice or organic sugar. But, Monsanto is launching a Roundup Ready/Bt variety of sugar cane in 2015. Even our honey is now contaminated as honey bees feast on GMO vegetation. For any conventional product that contains soy or derivatives like soy oil, soy lecithin, protein, isolate, and isoflavone, as well as, tofu, tempeh, and soybean oil are thoroughly contaminated. This includes most vitamin E and other supplements derived from soybean oil. Conventional products containing corn like popcorn, corn muffins, fresh corn, high fructose corn syrup, modified food starch and corn starch products, infant formula, Cheerios, Corn Flakes and a majority of vitamin C supplements now contain GMOs.

07/16/13 Raw pineapple is full of the enzyme bromelain which is a natural food that can prevent cancer, fight cancer and even minimize the horrible effects of radiation therapy that damages healthy cells. But bromelain destroys cancer – not your body! Bromelain actually has “selective cytotoxicity” to shrink and kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone. So far, science has been unable to duplicate this process that God designed. Bromelain is found in the stem and the fruit of the pineapple and in particular, in the core of the fruit. Eating or juicing lots of raw, organic fruits and vegetables helps take the enzyme production stress off your body – so the unused enzymes can seek and destroy cancerous cells.

07/15/13 So, what happens when we feed livestock with antibiotics? Bottom line, the animals are less healthy and swollen with inflammation (which makes them weigh more on the sales side). So, we are now eating unhealthy foods and becoming unhealthy humans. Dumb – dumb… Did you know that starting in 1994, Denmark (the world’s leading pork exporter) reduced antibiotics in livestock production by 60% and actually increased production by half since? But here is an even bigger concern for human health in livestock feeding: Superbugs like MRSA. US public health officials already know that routine antibiotic use in animal food production worsens the growing epidemic of resistance in invasive bacteria. If you want to be a healthy human, you must eat healthy foods!

07/12/13 My mixed feelings about Zeal: I am of the belief that there is no great product out there for the scoop-a-drink market. For Zeal I found that each serving of 1 scoop has about 7 teaspoons of sugar and 2grams of fat – with 1/6 of that being saturated fats. It also contains the synthetic retinyl palmitate vitamin A that causes a toxic release of free radicals in the body which can damage DNA and cause cancer. GMO vitamin C is next on this hit list followed by the isolated form of vitamin E that can short your body of other forms of vitamin E. Of course, the niacin listed isn’t really niacin and the omega 6 to 3 ratio is grossly horrible. I’ve got to hand one good thing them as they did use methylcobalamin B 12 instead of the cyanide form.

07/11/13 Would I drink Advocare Spark? Not even on a bet… Here is the ingredient list and my assessment of it ~ Vitamin A (great form of beta-carotene), Vitamin B-6 (acceptable form), Vitamin B-12 (UNNACCEPTABLE cyanide form), Vitamin C (GMO-based), Vitamin E (Isolated form that will short overall body E levels), Thiamine (as HCl), Riboflavin, Niacin (Not even niacin!), Pantothenic acid, Zinc (good form as zinc monomethionine), Copper (good form as copper glycinate), Chromium (good form), Choline, L-Tyrosine, Taurine, Caffeine , Glycine, Citrus flavonoids, Gamma-aminobutyric acid (to counteract caffeine), L-Carnitine, Inositol, Maltodextrin (GLUTEN – MSG), citric acid, sucralose (CHLORINATED SUGAR!), silicon dioxide (known for kidney damage).
11/08/13 Wild blueberries can reduce chronic inflammation, improve lipid profiles, prevent pathologies and influence genetic expressions associated with Metabolic Syndrome (MetS). This brand-new research, published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, shows that wild blueberry addition to diets can also improve cardiovascular disease and diabetes. With lots of polyphenols found in fruits like wild blueberries, the recipient of these little wonders can improve the vascular wall responses which affect blood flow and blood pressure regulation. 2 cups per day is enough to do the trick in about 8 weeks. Listen to your nutritionist on this one as many foods have the potential to prevent MetS – while the medical idiocy just keeps on medicating the problem under the rug.

11/07/13 Autolyzed yeast extract is next to the worse food additive ever approved for human consumption. Autolyzed yeast extract is one more of numerous code-words used to disguise monosodium glutamate (MSG) in processed food. Autolyzed yeast extract has many side effects include: allergic response, asthma, brain cell injury and death, digestive system trouble, ear ringing, headache, high blood pressure, hypoglycemia, irregular heartbeat, retinal damage, taurine deficiency, and more. Autolyzed yeast extract, like MSG, affects the hypothalamus of the brain which regulates hunger, body temperature and the functioning of the pituitary gland. The pancreas is also stimulated by this wicked flavor-enhancer and long term exposure can lead to Type 2 diabetes.

11/06/13 Does the “gluten-free” label really mean gluten free? The FDA (Foot-Dragging and Alibis) has NOT regulated the food labels that read “no gluten,” “free of gluten,” or “without gluten.” Well, that is up to now – er, soon, ish, maybe… The FDA (Further Delays Ahead) is finally cracking down on these posers by giving these criminal liars a “grace period” to reform their ways – but the new label standards don’t go into effect for one year or so. For gluten intolerant and celiac disease victims, eliminating ALL gluten from the diet is imperative to heal the gut. With the food-label-liars out there, some hapless people are suffering additional gut damage along with increased risk for lymphoproliferative malignancy (cancer). Why wait? I say “jail the liars – NOW”.

11/05/13 Did you know that the dining room has the biggest influence on your weight status? How many times families gather at the dining table to discuss their day – VS activities like, eating with the TV on – is linked to lower BMIs for both children and parents. Boys in particular, who have more social dinner experiences, also have lower BMIs, especially when everyone stayed at the table until all were finished eating. This, of course, proved true in parents and girls as well. Watching television during meals brought higher BMIs and more-so in the parents. Want a healthier family all the way around? Start by eating together with the television off and asking each other to list the highlights of their day.

11/04/13 Pizza is not good food! Out of 25 recently tested pizzas, some were really bad but none of the pizzas tested satisfied even basic nutritional requirements. Most of today’s pizzas are made with increasing numbers of two extra dangerous ingredients – processed salt and saturated fat. These two ingredients enhance the flavor of nutritionally dead pizza while extending the shelf life. Add this fact to your pizza: many essential vitamins and minerals are completely absent from some pizzas making an old fashioned favorite – hazardous junk food. None of the 25 pizza met recommended values for iron, vitamin C and vitamin A. Pizzas are often erroneously regarded by people as complete meals in themselves, and their nutrition impact on health has never been studied.

11/01/13 Here’s a food additive for you: Azodicarbonamide. This chemical is used in many bread products , in fact, if you dine at places like Dunkin’ Donuts or McDonald’s and other fast-food traps, you will be eating it as a synthetic yellow-orange dough conditioner without reading a label. Azodicarbonamide is actually a deadly chemical used most frequently in the production of yoga mats and sneakers. It is banned as a food additive and in food packaging in the United Kingdom, most other European countries, Australia and in Singapore (where the penalty for using it in food carries up to 15 years in prison and a $450,000 fine). Yet you will find it freely served up in restaurants and bakeries in the good old USA.

10/31/13 The problem with “Gluten-free” foods: You’ll find that many gluten-free foods are made with GMO corn, soy, canola and beet sugar and corn sugar. Unless it is certified non-GMO – it likely has hidden sources of GMOs. Other things that make gluten-free choices bad choices are the usual list of processed food chemicals like, food colors, artificial flavors, BHA, BHT, autolyzed yeast extract, partially hydrogenated oils, MSG, potassium bromate, caramel, sulfite, sulfate, azodicarbonamide, carrageenan, ammonium sulfate, propyl gallate, polysorbate, propylene glycol, vanillin, modified starch, and dozens upon dozens of other tricky names. The longer the ingredient list – the more difficult the words – the more likely that you are viewing a chemical concoction that is not healthy for you.

10/30/13 New university studies find that a majority of people want labels placed on food products that use nanotechnology in food or food packaging – and they are willing to pay up to 25% more for this information. Nutrition-wise, health-conscious people want to know what is in their food and food packaging. But not all the pro-labeling people were particularly concerned over the actual health effects of nanotech in food but still wanted to know about it. Nanoparticles are put into food to enhance the flavors of processed foods as well as to extend the shelf life. Face it peeps, food was made to rot once plucked or speared – so eat it fresh. The only way I want to catch you eating highly preserved food with nanotech crap in it is from the inside of a long-term fallout shelter…

10/29/13 Food is now so plentiful, has it become something we can become addicted to? Today, up to 20% of obese individuals have Binge Eating Disorder. So, what’s the difference between alcohol addiction, drug addiction and Binge Eating Disorder? You can live without alcohol, cocaine, gambling or Internet gaming but you won’t last long without food. Food and binge eating actually share the same brain reward pathways involved in alcohol and drug addiction, including elements of the ghrelin responsive circuit. But so far there is no clinical syndrome of food addiction recognized even though Binge Eating Disorder actually made it into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Obesity has reached global epidemic proportions, and Big Pharma is racing to find the magic drug that will treat the symptoms of obesity.

10/28/13 A recent study tested 30 different popular infant formulas to find that every one of them had high and unsafe levels of aluminum content. The study conclusion was that: “Clearly the manufacturers of infant formulas are not concerned about reducing their content of aluminum…” So, why are they so doggone high? It’s about the extensive use of aluminum-based packaging for infant formulas. If the manufacturers care so little about babies that they refuse to address the aluminum content problem then it is up to us to wait for new safety regulations to eventually, maybe, someday, or not, come out. Can you imagine giving an infant chronic aluminum intoxication during the earliest weeks and months of their lives? Here’s a clue mom and dad: DON’T WAIT FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO ACT. You have to act now.

10/25/13 Soy is just not good for you – and the rap sheet of damage just keeps growing. Scientists recently discovered that Parenteral Nutrition (PN) – AKA IV feeding – causes PN-associated liver disease because it is manufactured from soy. PN is a life-saving option for patients with severe intestinal problems or pancreatitis by providing food intravenously. The liver damage risk is especially high for premies and children depending on intravenous feeding. One derivative of soy in particular, called stigmasterol, prevents the flow of bile from the liver. If you are going to eat any kind of soy at all make it nutritious Natto made from fermented soy.

10/24/13 Yellow is not the color for a healthy sweetener packet: Both Splenda and Equal Sucralose are “made from sugar”. That part is true. What they aren’t telling you is that these sugars are chemically enhanced with chlorine. HUH? Did you know that Sucralose was discovered during insecticide research? While looking for a new way to kill bugs, scientists discovered the ultimate bate for pests (and humans) – sugar! Chlorine not only kills bugs but it is a known human carcinogen. Chlorine in Sucralose has been linked to a number of gastrointestinal problems, reduces the amount of good bacteria in the intestines by 50%, raises intestinal pH, stimulates appetite, increases food cravings, stimulates fat storage and weight gain, causes migraines, seizures, dizziness, blurred vision, allergic reactions, blood sugar increases and more.

10/23/13 Pink packets of sweet death: If the newest pink packets of Equal Saccharin look familiar, it’s because they follow the same packaging color scheme as the Sweet ‘N Low packets. Now this chemical contrivance of sweet is marketed as “It’s better than aspartame…”. Well, would you rather be stabbed to death or hanged? Not much difference there. Saccharin was originally chemically boiled out of coal tar. In 1977 all saccharin containing products were forced by Congress to carry cancer warning labels. The Sweet’N Low warning was, “Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This product contains saccharin which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals.” However, in 2000, Congress let this dire warning go by the wayside. Saccharin can cause mild to deadly allergic reactions and spikes in insulin levels.

10/22/13 “Natural” or “All Natural” on the food label means more sales and revenues for Big Grocery. But it does NOT mean better food for the consumer. With the demand from better foods, consumers eating more natural and organic diets, food companies are liberally sprinkling misleading terms like “Natural” or “All Natural” all over their product labels. But according to the FDA (Federal Denial Agency) website; the “FDA has not developed a definition for use of the term natural or its derivatives.” That makes these words unregulated terms. Always ignore the hype and do your own research to determine if the ingredients in these products are things you want even want to consume in the first place. Never assume!

10/21/13 Diet is most often the biggest factor in developing cancer – and the biggest factor for fighting cancer. Probably the best anti-cancer food family is cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, kale and cabbage. Eating broccoli regularly is linked to lower rates of prostate, colon, breast, lung and skin cancers. In cruciferous vegetables, there are glucosinolates (GSs) that break down to help the body fight carcinogens. Agronomists are looking closely at traits that make superior broccoli to breed even more healthful broccoli plants. Always choose organic broccoli. One of the major influences in the amount of cancer fighting properties found in broccoli is environmental conditions during growing.

10/18/13 Which is more addictive: Oreo Cookies, morphine or cocaine? Seems like a silly comparison but the study results are stunning. Turns out that lab rats given the choice between the three had trouble deciding which one they preferred more. It seems that the pleasurable effects of eating Oreos actually activated more neurons in their brain’s “pleasure center” than did exposure to drugs of abuse. The underlying theory is that high-fat/high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in much the same way that drugs do. This conclusion explains why some people just can’t resist junk foods despite the fact that they consciously know they are bad for their health.

10/17/13 If this doesn’t convince you drop the energy drinks like they are hot, then you may be suicidal. Severe liver damage, and even failure, has been associated with energy drinks, according to reports presented at the latest American College of Gastroenterology’s meeting. Part of the problem is the high content of high fructose corn sugar that is exclusively metabolized by the liver – causing liver inflammation and congestion. These drinks by themselves are bad enough, but another part of the equation is drug side effects are compounded by these concoctions and patients do not disclose energy drink consumption and the docs don’t ask. Crazy, huh!

10/16/13 Over 5 million adults work at US hospitals and eat multi-millions of meals in this setting. A new study assessed the various food outlets in hospitals and graded them. Looked at were Cafeterias, Vending Machines, and Gift Shops to quantitatively describe consumer nutrition. The average hospital achieved only 29% of the possible 100% score for cafeteria food, 33% average for vending machines and a lousy less than 1% for gift shops. The not-so-surprising study conclusion was that the average consumer nutrition environment of hospitals was minimally conducive to healthful eating. Isn’t this where people go “to get better”? If a hospital is to exude health, it should start with the health and diet of the workers. Ya, that’ll happen… (NOT)

10/15/13 Don’t ever be fooled by snappy food packages with vibrant pictures of fruits and vegetables covering them. A colorful picture doesn’t even mean that that particular food is included in the ingredients. Often the pictures only tell you what chemically derived flavor and color to expect. When you learn to read the labels on packaged foods you will quickly learn that most of them have a base of corn syrup, wheat and other baddies. For instance, a fruit juice carton will picture sumptuous apples flourishing on a tree but have absolutely no real apples. Read the ingredients label and you will probably discover that a cocktail of corn syrup and artificial fruit flavoring was used instead. Oh, and don’t fall for the peaceful farm meadow pictured on the meat packages because most meat products came from places that don’t even remotely resemble anything peaceful – or clean for that matter.

10/14/13 Polyphenols are found in fruits, vegetables, coffee, tea, nuts, legumes and cereals. There are over 8,000 different polyphenol compounds in plants that have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic and other amazing health benefits. Eating more of these life-giving, life-saving foods has now been associated with a 30% reduction in mortality in older adults. This research published in the Journal of Nutrition, is the first study to evaluate the total dietary polyphenol intake using a nutritional biomarker instead of relying solely on a food frequency questionnaire. The real numbers of added polyphenol goodness that brought this amazing benefit was a diet with over 650mg a day of fruits and vegetables compared to eating 500mg or less a day. A little goes a long way!

10/11/13 A package that says “Low Calorie” actually is likely saying it is sweetened with a chemical sweetener. No one on the SAD – Standard American Diet wants to taste bland and unflavored processed foods so the go-to chemicals for some “zap-in-the-crap” are sucralose, acesulfame potassium, saccharin, aspartame or other chemical sweeteners. “Low Calorie” most certainly does NOT mean it’s healthier for you in any way. Low-calorie foods like diet sodas contain other extremely damaging ingredients such as phosphoric acid, an industrial etchant that can literally eat away your teeth and bones. If you want to be a healthy human, you must eat healthy food.

10/10/13 The bad news is that just because the label says “organic” does not automatically make the whole product organic. The worse news is that some “organic” products sold today are described as organic but only a fraction of the ingredients are organic. Come on! Either it is organic or it is not. The term “organic” is supposedly highly regulated by the FDA (Facts Decidedly Absent) and carries a specific meaning – as long as 95% or so of the contents are organic. USDA organic foods allows up to 5% by weight for GMO contamination. The Non-GMO Product Verified label allows for 0% GMO contamination.

10/09/13 Big Grocery can make some really wild nutritional claims about nutrient deficient junk food. So, they take dead, non-nutritious and even toxic foods and “fortify” them by adding back in some more dead stuff like isolated and chemically derived vitamins. Fortified foods are often sold in boxes, cans, plastic, foil wrap and other artificial containers with heavy advertising leaning on the word “fortified”. These foods are altered from their living state by chemical alterations, heating, boiling, pressure-pulsing, oxidation, osmotic inhibition, pasteurization and even with the use of carbon dioxide. If you want health, you have to eat healthy foods – no way around that one peeps…

10/08/13 5 meals a day will help keep obesity away! That’s what a new population-based study of more than 4,000 participants found. Eating breakfast, lunch, dinner and two healthy snacks a day can protect adolescents from obesity. This included children with a genetic predisposition to obesity. According to this birth to age 16 study results, a steady five-meal a day pattern brought a reduced risk of overweight and obesity in both sexes while skipping breakfast brought greater BMI and waist circumference. The study also found the risk of obesity was extra high in adolescents whose parents both had a BMI of 25 or higher all the way through the 16-year study.

10/07/13 Levels of arsenic in American-grown rice have up to 16 times the safe levels for arsenic in water. But never fear! The FDA (Foot Dragging and Alibis) has just ruled that these otherwise poisonous levels of arsenic in water are safe for you to eat in rice. Somehow, this magical pronouncement must neutralize the poison I guess. To cover their own assets and dodge the whole point, the FDA (Federal Denial Agency) admits they have no clue to what the long-term effects of that much arsenic would be and call the rice levels “very low”. Arsenic in the long-run will cause brain and heart damage and also cause cancer. Too much too fast and it causes death in the short-run. Rice isn’t the only food that has arsenic in it as chickens are routinely fed dangerous amounts of it to make their flesh pink with ruptured blood vessels and make them weigh more from inflammation.

10/04/13 Did you know that “Organic” foods can still contain GMOs? GMOs have virtually contaminated our entire food supply. The USDA says that there are no specific tolerance levels in the USDA organic regulations concerning GMOs. The National Organic Program even states that trace amounts of GMOs do not mean that a farm is in violation of the USDA organic regulations but may just be hapless victims to cross-pollination from neighboring GMO crops. I daresay that corn, soy and beets are now permanently contaminated with GMO materials. Nevertheless, organic products are still far healthier for you than conventionally-grown foods.

10/03/13 Eating fish during pregnancy has a positive effect on the IQ and eyesight development during childhood. Concerns about the deleterious effects of mercury on fetal development have brought official warnings against eating too much fish during pregnancy. But! There are other foods that are high in mercury and bring more mercury to the body than fish ever did. Believe it or not, two foods that help top off the mercury list are herbal teas and alcoholic beverages. The latest study concludes that the advice to pregnant women to limit seafood intake is unlikely to reduce mercury levels substantially as fish contribute only a small amount to blood mercury levels. Eating fish during pregnancy has more health benefits than problems.

10/02/13 Beware of “organic” foods that come from China. China is a heavily polluted country that routinely supplies the US with “organic” foods along with more and more supposedly organic foods, superfoods and nutritional supplement materials. Testing shows that foods grown in China are consistently higher in heavy metals than US-grown foods. “Organic farms” in China can even grow crops in fields heavily polluted with cadmium, lead and mercury because there is no standard for heavy metals levels in soils growing USDA certified organic foods. Buy local and get to know your farmer!

10/01/13 Trans-Fat Free on the label does not mean that the food is free from trans fats. Huh? You mean they lie to us? The FDA allows foods with 0.5g or less of trans fats per serving in order to claim ZERO grams of trans fats per serving. NEWSFLASH! 0.5 does not equal 0. In math class this would be rounded up to 1.0 – not rounded down to 0.0. And have you ever paid attention to the serving sizes listed on the labels? They are purposefully ridiculously small in order to comply with the 0.5 equals 0.0 formula rule to keep the Zero Trans Fat label. Trans fats contribute to heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes and trans fats and cause up to 100,000 premature heart disease deaths annually.

09/30/13 A diet that is rich in fruit and vegetable intake can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease mortality by 15%. With elevated vegetable consumption alone, there is a reduced all-cause death risk by 16%. Of course, the benefits of fruit and vegetable consumption are not a new discovery. According to the latest 13-year study results, a combined fruit and vegetable consumption of 569 grams or more per day reduces the risk of all-cause mortality by 10% and delays the risk of death by 1.12 years when compared to a usual diet of less than 249 grams per day – and the death risk falls by 6% for every 200 gram increase in daily fruit and vegetable consumption. People with lousy diet and lifestyles actually plunged their death-risk by up to 40% by eating more fruits and veggies.

09/27/13 Almond milk is rich in vitamins and minerals and can help lower cholesterol levels, prevent cancer and even slow the aging process. Almond milk and is a great choice for lactose intolerance and an excellent choice for a vegan diet. Almond milk is a source for the antioxidant vitamin E while packing a healthy dose of vitamin D and vitamin A. But watch out for almond milk that contains the additive carrageenan. Carrageenan can aggravate IBS, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and possibly contribute to cancer. Do not feed almond milk to baby though or you may cause tree nut allergies to develop.

09/26/13 You’ve heard me say before that artificial sweeteners are designer drugs. Well, the latest study concludes that consuming sweet-tasting but noncaloric or reduced-calorie food and beverages interferes with the body’s normal responses to glucose intake. In another study of 641 normal weight 4-11 year olds, given either a sugar-sweetened or artificially sweetened drink once a day for 18 months, found the artificially sweetened group gained more weight and fat accumulation than the sugar sweetened kids. Scientists have long correlated rising obesity and the consumption of artificially sweetened beverages. The real trap is that these chemical drug sweeteners hook the victim into dependency. That’s a designer drug in my world.

09/25/13 Independent studies on genetically modified foods (GMOs) have found numerous health risks, including sterility, low birth weight, organ inflammation, kidney injury, prostate trouble, undersized organs, stomach problems, unusual growth in intestinal cell walls, cancer, more cancer, even more cancer and other problems. The Institute for Responsible Technology lists 65 concerns over GMOs based upon research. Many countries banned GMO crops to allow time for long term safety studies to be conducted. Not so in America! This is on account of the rich and powerful biotech and pharmaceutical lobbies that keep it from being banned in the United States. How about a personal ban on GMOs?

09/24/13 The word “fortified” on a food label actually means “drop it like it’s hot”! The fortified label is misleading because consumers think that food scientists magically added nutrition by inserting it into food that needs nutritional help. But, food fortification actually can do just the opposite of this and damage the body. Our bodies cannot assimilate individual and isolated vitamin and mineral fortifications. Top that with the fact that many fortified foods not only have things your body could never use, but now contain synthetic additives that wreak havoc on your cells. Processing foods and the subsequent fortification has multiplied our cancer woes by aiding cancer mutation in healthy cells. Fortified does not bring health!

09/23/13 Scientific American had a recent editorial titled “Labels for GMO Food Are a Bad Idea.” This supposedly science-based media giant has sided with Big Agriculture to argue: “Instead of providing people with useful information, mandatory GMO labels would only intensify the misconception that so-called Frankenfoods endanger people’s health.” This whole article reeks of GMO seed corporations by using only biotech industry talking points. The article even said that the FDA has tested ‘all the GMO varieties on the market’ and subsequently found them to be free of allergenic and toxic effects. REALLY? I haven’t seen that one before. Monsanto, Syngenta and other big seed companies do extremely limited and unauthorized “research” to submit to the FDA (Foot Dragging and Alibies). This article was highly unprofessional and sloppy.

09/20/13 Canola oil doesn’t exist in nature but is commercially produced from toxic rapeseed oil. Yet you can buy “organic” Canola oil just about anywhere. “Organic” by definition means there is no irradiation, no synthetic chemical inputs or additives and absolutely no GMOs. Canola oil is made by a process using hexane, a chemical made from crude oil, in the solvent extraction method. But the FDA (Fatal Drugs Allowed) says “that’s OK” because most of the hexane evaporates during the de-stinking process of heating the oil to 300 degrees. All Canola oil inhibits the body’s enzyme function and in one study, “heart healthy” canola oil actually created a deficiency of vitamin E. The extra-long fatty acid called erucic acid in Canola oil is associated with fibrotic heart lesions.

09/19/13 Carbonation in soft drinks actually “tickles” your brain. Not in a laughter funny way, but in a “brain’s perception of sweetness” sort of way. This is designer-drug food tweeking at its finest using science to get you hooked on more soda pop product. Carbonation alters the brain’s perception of sweet, making it difficult for the brain to determine the difference between sugar and artificial sweeteners. The exact right combo of carbonation and your brain is helpless to discern the difference. But, the combination of carbonation and sugar can also stimulate increased sugar and food consumption with less brain perception of sugar intake – leaving the body’s energy balance impaired. This is why there is a prevalence of eating disorders, metabolic diseases and obesity among diet-soda drinkers.

09/18/13 Did you know that you can prevent and even treat depression solely through diet? A new study shows that depressed people often have a poor quality of diet along with a decreased intake of critical nutrients. A healthy diet dominated by vegetables, fruits, berries, poultry, fish and cheese was found in this study to bring a lower prevalence of depression – even later on, after study completion. In this three-year lifestyle intervention study, a significant reduction in the body weight was also found to go along with a reduction in depressive symptoms. One of the study conclusions was that junk food, sugar and processed meats could increase depressive symptoms.

09/17/13 The phrase “All Natural” on a food label actually means absolutely nothing at all – except higher sales and bigger prices. This sales-pitch “All Natural” is not even regulated by the FDA and foods containing artificial colors, chemical sweeteners, chemical preservatives and even GMOs, can be labeled “All Natural.” Feeling a bit mislead? You should be. Read and understand your labels peeps – because Big Grocery is not in the health business. They are in the money-making business and will allow you and your kids to die a slow and agonizing death from bad nutrition and chemical food additives while taking your money.

09/16/13 Man is what man eats. The word kosher comes from the Hebrew word, “Kashrus,” meaning suitable, fit or pure for consumption. The rules of “Kashrus” define permitted and forbidden foods. The only meats to be eaten by these rules are cattle and game that have cloven hooves and chew cud and are prepared a certain way. Poultry and eggs are in but the eagle, owl, swan, pelican, vulture, and stork along with their eggs are out. Only fish with fins and scales can be eaten and shellfish are forbidden. All foods grown in the soil are kosher. Just because a food is labeled “Kosher” does not make it GMO-free, pesticide-free, heavy metal-free or organic. The fact is that over 80% of kosher food products contain pre-processed ingredients that don’t have to be labeled. Time to rethink what foods we deem “fit”.

09/13/13 New research published in Archives of Disease in Childhood finds that regular homemade family food given to an infant during weaning has about double the nutrient value of commercial baby food. Commercial baby foods are predominantly sweet foods with almost no nutritional goodness compared to breast milk. Big Grocery and medical idiocy both promote baby foods for infants from the age of four months when infants should actually still be on an exclusive breast milk diet. The weaning process should never even start until the infant has developed some teeth, indicating that the digestive system is ready for some chomping on solid foods.

09/12/13 Celiac disease and gluten sensitivity are caused by an inappropriate immune response to wheat, barley and rye gluten. Gluten reactions cause chronic tiredness, iron deficiency, osteoporosis, itchy rash, headaches, various digestive symptoms and more. Gluten damages the lining of the small intestine and can lead to complications such as autoimmune disease, infertility, liver failure and even cancer. Over half of the population now has genetic risk factors for developing Celiac disease. A significant number of people have never been diagnosed and don’t have a clue about gluten. Take a three-week vacation from ALL gluten and see if your health improves.

09/11/13 Some 50% of adolescents and young adults drink energy drinks on a regular basis according to the journal Pediatrics. Caffeine levels in these drinks blast up to 242mg per serving as compared to 100mg in an average cup of coffee. But here’s a curve-ball… Some energy drink containers have more than one serving. Some risks associated with drinking energy drinks include heart arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, toxicity, seizures, diabetes and death. More young adults and teens are landing in the ER when they drink these beverages. In light of this, the American Medical Association is calling for a ban on the marketing of energy drinks to children under 18. Why stop with the marketing? Have you ever read the label on one of these things? Pure crap.

09/10/13 Do you eat regular mayonnaise? The common store-bought mayo is both an impostor and a huge consumer mistake. Oh, it looks white and tastes like we now expect it to. Technically, the definition of mayo says it should have at least 65% vegetable oil. But what the vast majority of them have is GMO laden soy bean oil, GMO corn oil and GMO Canola oil. What you see on the shelf is actually a toxic white spread or “dressing.” Here is a common ingredient label from the Big Grocery store shelf: Water, soybean oil, vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, modified cornstarch, sugar, eggs, salt, natural flavor, mustard flour, potassium sorbate as a preservative, paprika, spice, dried garlic. That’s more chemistry than food peeps… Oh, and good luck finding a GMO-free mayo.
Food and Nutrition Daily Post Archives 2013
Daily blog posts about food, health and nutrition

12/31/13 Organic milk contains significantly higher concentrations of heart-healthy fatty acids than conventional dairy milk. Organic/pasture-fed cows naturally have the exact omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio that humans need for brain and body development. But the grain-fed cows have more than double the bad ratio of fatty acids. Right after fruits and vegetables, dairy products are the largest category of the organic food sector sold, topping in at $2.622 billion this year alone. Consuming the unhealthy fatty acid ratio is a well-known risk factor for a variety of health problems, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, excessive inflammation, and autoimmune diseases.

12/30/13 Want to raise a child that is not allergic to nuts? Two things you need to do. The first thing to do is eat lots of peanuts and other nuts while you are pregnant. This is just the opposite of what the uneducated-educated muckymucks say to do. According to the latest JAMA study, women need not fear eating peanuts during pregnancy. The study actually showed that peanut consumption by pregnant mothers who weren’t allergic to them brought a lower risk of peanut allergy in their offspring. Even though the AAP endorsed avoiding nuts while prego or nursing without ANY supporting research, the number of peanut allergy cases in the U.S. tripled from 1997 to 2007. The second thing to do is to avoid vaccines because they are often made with nut oils and injected into the muscle. This is the real cause of most nut allergies.

12/27/13 Big Grocery has developed a nefarious system of inexpensive, high volume commodities, along with a complex network of farming, storage, transportation, processing, manufacturing, and marketing capabilities that all favor sales of highly processed food products for maximal industry profit. The same would hold true if they really cared about your health. They could just as easily create a similar infrastructure to produce and sell healthier foods to increase availability and reduce the prices.

12/23/13 The good news: Research shows that new federal rules have prompted public schools to serve an extra $5.4 million worth of fruits and vegetables every day. The bad news: The school children throw some $3.8 million of that goodness in the garbage each day. You see, the new school lunch standards require a serving of fruits or vegetables on every student’s food tray – whether the child will eat it or not. Reports show that school kids toss 70% of the extra fruits and vegetables. Oh, there’s a minor increase in kids eating the items, but there has got to be a better way. BYU economics professor Joe Price says to pay students to eat a fruit or vegetable for both less expensive and better results – and it works to increase fruit and vegetable consumption by 80% while reducing wasted goods by 33%.

12/20/13 Health is not about dietary supplements. Good health is about eating nutrient-dense foods that meet your nutrition needs. Consuming a wide variety of nutrient-dense foods is the absolute best way to obtain the nutrients that are proven to reduce the risk of chronic disease. If you are healthy and have a wholesome diet with targeted nutrition, you will not have a need for daily supplements. Small steps now will take you closer to the bigger steps it takes to build a healthier life and start down a path of health and wellness. Don’t stop the vitamins and supplements until you get completely healthy. Supplements are designed to “supplement” the lack of nutritious foods – not replace them.

12/19/13 An apple a day would prevent and/or delay around 8,500 heart attack and stroke deaths a year – just in the UK. This is close to the same number of deaths that Big Pharma says they could prevent by issuing statin drugs to every person over 50. But, an apple a day doesn’t come with side effects like Big Pharma counterfeits do. Lifestyle changes should be the main push to prevent heart disease, but this is not what happens at the doctor’s office. Big Pharma wants their statin drugs put in the water supply so everyone gets them- whether they want drugs or not. The big problem is that side-effects from statins for everyone over the age of 50 is predicted to lead to over a thousand extra cases of muscle disease (myopathy) and over TEN THOUSAND extra diagnoses of diabetes.

12/18/13 You’ve all seen the quaint little farm pictures on food labels that show peaceful animals surrounded by butterflies and daisies. These pictures are all around the meat and dairy sections at the supermarket. Cute little farms with red barns, picket fences and rolling green hills. Make you just want to buy the product so you can get a piece of that wholesome goodness, right? Rest assured though that these animal products did NOT come from a place that looks even remotely like that! I suggest getting to know your local producers and take a look at the reality of what you are buying. It will change your view of the food you eat.

12/17/13 It’s the holiday season and time for eggnog! Back in the 1600s, eggnog was nectar for the wealthy and was made of eggs, milk, and sherry (which were notoriously expensive). Eggnog back then was a symbol of wealth. But today when you read the labels on your grocery store “eggnog” you will find that you are actually drinking GMO “soy-nog”. Not exactly the same thing…Your best bet is to make your own Eggnog with your favorite ingredients to mix and match for organic recipes, egg-free recipes or you could go dairy-free with coconut milk. We found Organic Valley Eggnog at Whole Foods.

12/16/13 Pork is one of the most consumed meats in the world and China is the largest producer of pork. Pigs were actually first domesticated in China around 7500 B.C. The CDC says that more than 100 viruses come to the US every year from China through pork grown there. Among the viruses that make their leap from pigs to humans is the notorious H1N1 “swine flu.” Pork is also loaded with more toxins than other meats like beef and chicken because the pig’s digestion is very fast and not very thorough. Another reason pork is so toxic compared to other meats is that a pig doesn’t have any sweat glands to shed toxins. Pigs also carry a large variety of parasites in their bodies and flesh. Some of these parasites do not even die with normal cooking.

12/13/13 Where do you want to spend the most money? Would you want to spend more on a healthy diet or on consequent medical bills? Harvard researchers recently looked into the cost of a healthy diet versus an unhealthy. What they found was that healthier diets rich in fruits, vegetables, fish, and nuts – VS the one loaded with processed foods, meats, and refined grains actually cost on average, a mere $1.50 more per day (kinda hard to believe). Even if the real price difference is higher, it is still very small in comparison to the economic costs of diet-related chronic diseases that are dramatically reduced by healthy diets.

12/12/13 Nuts are simply loaded with nutrients, such as unsaturated fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals, fiber and so much more! The wholesome goodness of nuts can confer cardio-protective, anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties to the one who eats them. Scientific studies show that nut consumption has beneficial effects on blood cholesterol, inflammation, and insulin resistance, coronary heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The frequency of nut consumption is even inversely associated with total mortality rates from any cause according to the New England Journal of Medicine. People who eat nuts daily have a 20% decrease in mortality risk.

12/11/13 Energy drinks are high in caffeine and taurine and significantly increase heart rates within one hour of drinking them. A 2013 government report shows that from 2007 to 2011, the number of emergency room visits related to drinking energy drinks nearly doubled and that most of the cases were among the 18 to 25 age group. The amount of caffeine in energy drinks is up to three times higher than in other caffeine drinks like coffee or cola. Some of the many side effects associated with a high intake of caffeine, including rapid heart rate, palpitations, a rise in blood pressure and even seizures or sudden death.

12/10/13 Sugar highs: Sugar infested snacks – and especially sodas, are toxic to the brain. The latest study out shows in living color how sugar alters critical proteins inside the brain causing actual brain damage – and this not just with one or two isolated proteins, but literally with hundreds of them… Sugar highs bring hyperactivity on the outside but that is nothing like what is going on inside as these damaged and altered proteins bring Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, schizophrenia, cancer and many other major diseases of the brain. Don’t dork around on this one waiting for the USDA to warn you about sugary snacks, quit while you still have the mind to.

12/09/13 A win against GMOs: There is a new ordinance on the Big Island of Hawaii that bans any more genetically engineered crops from being grown on the Big Island. The mayor that signed the bill into law said: “With this new ordinance we are conveying that instead of global agribusiness corporations, we want to encourage and support community-based farming and ranching.” Now the Big Island will launch research and data collection to investigate factual claims concerning biotech. Unfortunately, this is a mixed win as transgenetic pineapple and papaya have been grandfathered in and are considered legal. Only buy organic non-GMO food peeps.

12/06/13 As if I haven’t already harped enough about gluten! Researchers at Mayo Clinic have shown how consuming gluten in the diet can modify the intestinal bacteria to increase rates of Type I Diabetes. A gluten-free diet dramatically reduced the incidence of Type I Diabetes in non-obese Type II diabetic subjects to protect against Type I Diabetes. But when researchers added gluten back into the diets, it reversed the protective effect the gluten free diet provided and caused Type I Diabetes numbers to again rise. Researchers concluded that dietary interventions may be crucially important in protecting against the development of Type I Diabetes. Can I hear a “Well, Duh”?

12/05/13 Interesting turkey tryptophan fact: People trust more in others after eating foods rich in the amino acid tryptophan. Tryptophan is found in high amounts in turkey, fish, eggs and spinach and triggers the feel-good production of serotonin that also plays a role in influencing mutual trust and also in mutual co-operation. Researchers gave test subjects orange juice with added tryptophan or just orange juice to test how trusting they were with others. Of course, the tryptophan people gave significantly more trust with their money compared to the placebo group. The food one eats has a bearing on the state of mind and can act as a cognitive enhancer that changes the way one thinks and perceives the physical and social world.

12/04/13 The sugar trap: Obese people have an impaired the ability to detect sweets on the tongue. The plumper you are, the fewer taste cells you have on the tongue that respond to sweet stimulus. Even then, the cells you still have respond weakly. Obesity also leads to alterations in the brain and the peripheral taste system. Of course, this leads to indulging in even more sweets to generate the desired endorphins and satisfaction levels. Past research has shown that obese people yearn for more sweet and savory foods than others because they do not taste flavors as well as thinner people. When a person can appropriately taste things, they can more easily regulate what they eat.

12/03/13 You can spend high dollars on organic foods and then destroy the nutrients in seconds. Such a waste…The fastest way to rob food of flavor, texture and nutrition is to toss it into the microwave. Microwaves are literal incinerators for essential nutrients. Take broccoli for instance. If you nuke your broccoli you absolutely destroy an enzyme called myrosinase that your body uses to activate the cancer-fighting nutrient sulforaphane. Sulforaphane especially fights breast cancer and then keep it from coming back. Boiling your broccoli also destroys the myronase. The best way to claim the cancer-champion sulforaphane and myronase is to gently steam the broccoli until it is bright green. If you have the right cookware, you can cook the broccoli to perfection in vapor temperatures around 180 degrees.

12/02/13 Our modern hybrid wheat varieties now pack up to 40 times more gluten than traditional heirloom varieties and a whopping 1/3 of the US population is going gluten free because of health-related wheat problems. Selective breeding, hybridization and genetic modification have been used to “improve” wheat crop yields and protein values. Around 105 million Americans are gluten free because of allergies, sensitivities and intolerances to wheat, barley and rye gluten. A growing body of evidence shows that up to 70% of the population suffers from gluten intolerance or sensitivity. Simply going gluten-free has helped millions recover from intestinal disease, neurological disorders, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, rashes and even schizophrenia.

11/27/13 If you feed your baby with dry infant formula powder and other fortified baby foods, there is a risk of making your baby sick with the often fatal Cronobacter sakazakii – an environmental contaminant and pathogen that seems to only affect babies. A very recent study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, found that two compounds in garlic – diallyl sulfide and ajoene – significantly reduce the contamination risk of C sakazakii. Just a trace of these two garlic components are enough to kill this C sakazakii in baby food. One drop of garlic oil in a serving of baby food ought to do it. Garlic is super great for the digestion anyhow.

11/26/13 You can actually get high levels of arsenic from drinking tap water, consuming alcohol, Brussels sprouts and dark-meat fish. Arsenic exposure through food is linked to many health problems, including cancer, heart and vascular diseases and even low birth weight. Scientists examined toenail clippings for biomarkers of long-term exposure to arsenic to find that arsenic found in toenail clippings is most strongly linked with consumption of alcohol and secondly, Brussels sprouts. Combine Brussels sprouts and alcohol consumption and those people had even more arsenic showing up in their toenail clippings. Researchers also found increased toenail arsenic in people eating tuna steaks, mackerel, salmon, sardines, bluefish and swordfish. Again, combine alcohol and dark-meat fish and you get more arsenic in the body.

11/25/13 Cattle were made to eat grass and not grains. But, if you feed a cow corn, soybeans and chicken manure (like a majority of operations do) they fatten up faster for slaughter. That is, fatten up with inflammation and diabetes… But the more money that these farmers get for fatter animals means a lot less nutrition for humans. If you are a meat-eater, you had best be consuming healthy animals and not sick ones – if you want to stay healthy. Besides, a recent USDA study found that, compared to grain-fed, grass-fed beef has more natural beta-carotene, vitamin E, omega-3s, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), calcium, magnesium, potassium and is lower in inflammatory omega-6s.

11/22/13 Could the American Dairy Association be wrong? Would they admit it if they were? – Prolly not… A new Harvard study found a definitive association between teenage milk consumption and later hip fracture risks. This was a study of over 96,000 men and women for over 22 years that found for each additional glass of milk, the risk of fracture bumped up another 9%. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, recommends consuming three cups of milk or equivalent in other dairy foods per day for maximal bone mass in adolescents. This study showed that higher milk consumption during the teenage years does not lower the risk of hip fractures in older adults.

11/21/13 According to a new study, customers actually do use nutritional labeling on restaurant menus to make healthier food choices. Since the mandatory menu labeling laws there has been a large difference in calories between customers who dined at labeled restaurants compared to unlabeled restaurants. A significant 80% of customers at labeled restaurants actually reported seeing labels and consequently made selections with 400 fewer calories, 370mg less sodium and 10 grams less saturated fat than the overall average purchases. Americans buy a third of the food calories they consume on food prepared away from home. Nutritional labeling encourages consumers to make healthier choices.

11/20/13 Even the FDA Commissioner says that trans fats “provide no known health benefit” and that “there is no safe level of consumption.” Eating trans fats raises the bad cholesterol level to the risk for coronary artery disease. Bottom line, trans fats kill and maim and the FDA knows this but is sitting on this one trying to figure out how to ban it. Tran fats abound in microwave popcorn, frozen pizzas, margarines, and coffee creamers – even when these products can be made without trans fats. Want to know the really big problem here? Products with less than 0.5 g of trans fats per serving are rounded down to zero. Top that with the fact that the “serving sizes” are ridiculously low to reach the 0.5g level. Do Oreo eaters eat just 3 cookies that top in at 0.5g of trans fats?

11/19/13 Grain in the brain! All carbs, including whole grains, are actually devastating to our brains. This medical fact tells us one more BIG reason why we are suffering a terrifying rate of increase in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia rates. Genetics are not causing all of our dementia, chronic headaches, depression, epilepsy and other grain-related troubles – it’s the food we eat. One neurologist even calls Alzheimer’s disease a third type of diabetes according to the latest research. Want to keep your brain? Keep your health? Then let’s go back the cave man diet: Spear it or pluck it – you can eat it. The fact is that the average US citizen eats about 60% carbs, 20% fat and 20% protein when what we should eat is closer to 75% fat, 20% protein and 5% carbs.

11/18/13 Titanium dioxide is a common ingredient in food products, toothpaste, cosmetics and sunscreen that carries significant potential health risks according to the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology. – And, millions of tons every year are used for the global market. While titanium dioxide is GRAS (generally regarded as safe), it can have toxic effects when exposed to even a tiny bit of ultraviolet light, which is what is in the sun’s rays. One form of titanium dioxide called Anatase, damages cells – even in low ultraviolet light, like household light bulbs. In food containers, titanium dioxide makes the product slip out easier – like the ketchup bottle that almost empties itself when you turn it over. Titanium dioxide generates free radicals, which are associated with aging.

11/15/13 GIGO: It doesn’t take a brainiac to see that what you eat affects how you feel and how you think. More and more scientific evidence shows the impact of diet on brain function, while identifying patterns of brain activity during binge eating and purging. Millions of people who suffer from anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating also have an increased risk for psychiatric disorders and chronic diseases. It is impossible to separate the effects of food from their impact on the mind. What you eat shapes the brain and your emotional health for better or for worse. The brainiac who knows this but doesn’t practice it is really not very smart after all…

11/14/13 When you see a product label that blares “Made with…” get skeptical real quick. Oh, sure they might have a dab of something that seems healthy but you have to look at the overall ingredient list for all the bad stuff. A quarter ounce of something good will never overcome four ounces of bad stuff. Just because a product claims that it is “made with” some desirable ingredient doesn’t mean it even contains any appreciable amount of that exact ingredient. This is often a marketing ploy to distract you from the bad junk. A bread package might say “made with whole grain” but is loaded with refined flours – at a much higher level than the whole grains. Always ignore the front of packages and start by reading the complete ingredients list. Or, do like I do and pass on the highly processed foods.

11/13/13 All this crazy stuff about cutting salt out of your diet is maddening. Salt is not the basic problem, but rather highly processed and fast-foods that are uber-high in processed salt. Foods that are high in processed salt (alongside other deadly additives) contribute to hypertension and heart disease and even in autoimmune disease. Junk food that is high in salt is also implicated in the rise in alopecia, asthma, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and eczema. In fact, people who eat at fast food restaurants more than once a week have significantly more destructive inflammatory cells raging throughout their bodies. But, our bodies are made of salt – healthy salt with real minerals in them. Stay away from processed salt and use a Celtic Sea Salt or the pink Himalayan salt to stay healthier.

11/12/13 Non-celiac wheat sensitivity (NCWS) is an actual disease process characterized by symptoms that can involve the gastrointestinal tract, the nervous system, the skin and other organs. The same symptoms of Celiac disease but maybe not quite as amplified. The common denominator of NCWS and Celiac disease is gluten-containing wheat, barley, rye consumption. The best test and only true test for NCWS is when the symptoms disappear on exclusion of gluten from the diet that will reappear on gluten consumption. The reason this is so hard to figure out is that with Celiac disease, there is a definite IgE allergic immune response and with NCWS there is no IgE allergy response. – Very hard to map out as the sensitivity response in the body could be up to 72hrs later.

11/11/13 Artificial Trans fats are so bad for you that the FDA (Federal Denial Agency) is actually taking baby steps to have them banned from processed foods! The FDA (Fatal Drugs Allowed) announced today that this decision to “eventually” remove them could prevent 20,000 heart attacks and 7000 deaths a year. Really?? It will save that many lives but I guess it’s too bad – so sad for those victims who die while waiting for this to happen. But, I digress… Anyhoo, the FDA finally admits that partially hydrogenated oils are no longer GRAS (generally recognized as safe). If they are not safe then WHY are they allowed one more day? Is it murder to knowingly leave this obviously deadly poison in foods another year or two or three? 7,000, 14,000, 21,000 more deaths?
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02/27/12 How many diet drinks and sugar free sweets are you having a day? Aspartame poisoning accounts for 75% of the complaints the FDA receives every year. Worse than that, aspartame poisoning mimics the symptoms of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. The symptoms of aspartame poisoning are: muscle spasms, shooting pains, numbness, cramps, vertigo, depression, blurred vision and memory loss. According to a study by the Annals of Pharmacotherapy, aspartame increases pain for people who have fibromyalgia. Who’d of thought that consuming synthetic food items would cause supposedly incurable disorders?

02/24/12 Cancer in your tofu? Over 93% of all U.S. soy products are from Monsanto GMO seeds, which are carcinogenic. You can find this organ altering product in the grocery store as: vegetable oil, lecithin and soy lecithin, soy protein concentrates, tofu, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, tamari sauce, soy flour, soy nuts, soy nut butter, soy isoflavones, soy milk, hydrolyzed vegetable protein (listed as HVP), hydrolyzed soy yeast, soy-based infant formulas, non-dairy frozen yogurt, and soy isolate fiber (listed as SPF). Did you know that soy protein isolates contain up to 92 percent protein and have the most dangerous levels of highly refined protein GMOs in any soy products?

02/23/12 “Milk builds strong bones” is a lie. Cow’s milk causes osteoporosis! Cow’s milk has three times more protein than human milk but when drinking cow’s milk, a large amount of protein is converted into acids which actually leach more calcium from the bones than was in the milk in the first place. Pasteurize it and 50% of the calcium is not even absorbed. Did you know that pasteurization does not even kill all bacteria in the milk? Proportionately, more people get sick from pasteurized milk than ever did with raw milk. Any farmer knows that if you try feed out a calf on pasteurized milk it will die. Go raw or go without!

02/22/12 A study on poultry in the Netherlands found that both chickens that were raised without antibiotics and wild fowl had lower incidents of MRSA than meat from conventional factory farmed birds. Another US study found MRSA in four out of nine pigs from conventional factory farms, but didn’t find any of the bugs in alternative antibiotic-free farms. If this doesn’t make you choose free-range and antibiotic-free meats, what will? Money? The farmer with a gun said: Your money or your health…

02/21/12 Recent samples of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) were tested and mercury was found in nearly half of the samples. One study, published in Environmental Health, found mercury in nine out of 20 samples of commercial HFCS. A second study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy detected mercury in nearly one-third of brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first or second labeled ingredient. Mercury was most prevalent in HFCS-containing dairy products, followed by dressings and condiments, according to the IATP study. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons of HFCS each day.

02/20/12 Betty Crocker Super Moist Carrot Cake Mix is a poser that is actually a carrot-free product. It does however have “carrot flavored pieces” brewed up from corn syrup and artificial colors Yellow 6 and Red 40. If you read the sickening ingredient list you see propylene glycol right there on the label along with aluminum phosphate and if you add together the sugar to the corn syrup (number two and three on the list) they might just beat out enriched flour as the number one ingredient. What happened to good old fashioned baking at home from scratch with the kiddos anyway?

02/17/12 According to Food Safety News 75% of the honey on our shelves is ultra-processed and devoid of all medicinal properties. 60% of our honey now comes from Asian countries, and 76 percent of the honey in major grocery stores contains no pollen but 100 percent of the honey in drugstores and honey packets produced by chains like Smuckers, McDonald’s and KFC have no pollen. Honey shipped from China is notoriously contaminated with illegal antibiotics such as chloramphenicol-an antibiotic that has been linked to cancer and DNA damage along with heavy metals such as lead.

02/16/12 A new study claims that eating more often makes a slimmer study volunteer. Data from studies on eating habits of obese people and slim people, find that the skinnies are more likely to eat three squares a day plus two snacks. The not-so-skinnies are more likely to skip meals but rather eat more at each sitting and actually eat more overall. In the end, I say “eat organic, unprocessed and eat healthy and you won’t have to count your calories or your meal passes”.

02/15/12 A recent study followed diet soda drinkers for 10 years. The diet soda group gained 70 percent more weight in their waists than non-drinking group. If that’s not enough to make you trash your stash, those who drank two or more diet drinks a day had five times faster waist gain than non-soda drinkers. Along with this fact also came an increase in heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic medical conditions. In another study, the ingredient contributing to weight gain was aspartame. This poison also raises blood sugar levels and increases risk of diabetes.

02/14/12 I was at Sprouts and just happened to read the expiration date on the organic milk cartons and was surprised (but not very) to see that their expiration dates were 4 weeks away and the non-organic milk about 2 weeks. The overpriced organic stuff doesn’t sell as fast, so the industry solution is to give it an “ultrapasteurization” to make it last longer. Even if it is organic, they just wiped out all major benefits and pretty much the flavor too. I guess that at least it may be hormone free… Do what I do, find an organic raw supply! If you are going to drink milk, make it the good stuff.

02/13/12 Are you eating GMO food? If you are buying food at the supermarket you are. Various GMO feeding studies have found pre-cancerous cell growth, damaged immune systems, smaller brains, livers, and testicles, partial atrophy or increased density of the liver, odd shaped cell nuclei and other unexplained anomalies, false pregnancies and higher death rates. How long does the madness continue? You know, its all our fault. If we wouldn’t buy this crap they wouldn’t grow it.

02/10/12 What do you get when you mix gas and rocks together? Why a Twinkie of course! But to make a human eat one you have to add in copious amounts of sugar, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup, blend in some chemicals like Polysorbate 60, artificial colors and flavorings made from petroleum and whip them up with limestone to make them airy enough to surround that creamy filling made from shortening and sugar and there is a best seller. The Twinkie might survive til the end of time but you won’t if you make a diet of these.

02/09/12 All hail to the maple syrup! This natural sweetener offers lots of anti-oxidants and it also contains a newly identified substance called Quebecol, which is formed when the sap is boiled. Findings, presented at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, showed that this substance derived from the sap of maple trees can help protect against both diabetes and cancer.

02/08/12 Mission’s Garden Spinach Wraps: Mistaken identity? Nope, identity theft: because there is no spinach here. Start with enriched flour, which is bad for you, add in hydrogenated soybean oil, a dash of spinach powder, artificial flavor, sodium aluminum sulfate, a few other ingredients, and presto… Green tortillas! No, not yet. The still require FD&C Yellow #5 Lake, FD&C Blue #1 Lake to bring in that spinach green look. If you buy into this, you have either not read the label or just don’t care.

02/07/12 Researchers discovered that eating moderate amounts of flavanol-rich dark chocolate has a blood-thinning effect, benefits cardiovascular health, boosts the immune system and reduces inflammation. The Kuna people of the San Blas islands, off the coast of Panama, have a rate of heart disease that is nine times less than that of mainlanders. The reason? The Kuna drink lots of cocoa. But, the more you heat it the more you destroy its’ magic.

02/06/12 Sunny D = Diabetes in a bottle! Sweetened and artificially flavored is not “liquid sunshine”. They call this a “nutritious alternative to orange juice” which is criminally false advertising. Harsh words? Read the label peeps! Most of this swill is water and corn syrup from GMO corn, and less than two percent concentrated juice along with artificial colors, sweeteners, canola oil, and sodium hexametaphosphate and possibly some unlabeled ethyl butyrate.

02/03/12 Congress has decided that pizza is a vegetable! Did you know that smearing two ounces of tomato sauce onto a pizza, according to Congress, will magically transubstantiate the humble but worthless pizza into a prized vegetable? This whacked out decision is part of the $11 billion National School Lunch Program that was included in the FY 2012 Agriculture Appropriations Bill signed by President Obama in November 2011.
Clues for the clueless… PIZZA IS NOT A VEGGIE AND NEITHER IS TOMATO SAUCE!

02/02/12 First the bad news: In the last 20 years, kidney disease has doubled in America and researchers suspect drinking diet soda may play an integral role in this. Wanna double the bad news? Yet another study found that drinking diet soda doubles your risk of developing kidney problems. You don’t have to be a statistician to do this simple math. Moreover, women who drank two or more diet sodas a day lost 30 percent of their kidney function during the study. The good news? You can toss these deadly things in the trash NOW! Do not give them away to someone you love please.

02/01/12 “Don’t the Dew”: Did you know that Mountain Dew and other soft and sports drinks have toxic flame retardant in them to keep the artificial flavoring from separating from the rest of the liquid? Brominated Vegetable Oil, listed as BVO, is a hazardous ingredient and can cause bromide poisoning symptoms like skin lesions and memory loss, as well as nerve disorders. Bromine is a halogen that alos competes with iodine to cause hypothyroidism. Now are still going to buy this poison for your kids to drink? You’ve just been put on notice.

01/31/12 Musselman’s Original Applesauce Multipacks: Oh, they say apples for the first ingredient but then they add high fructose corn syrup AND corn syrup to the mix for a 19 gram per serving sugar shock. If you add the high fructose corn syrup AND corn syrup together they almost rival the amount of apples in this concoction. Considering this sauce is a number one seller, I guess apples must need help being sweet enough to please the average American. High fructose corn syrup is metabolized exclusively by the liver but the overload is stored in fat cells.

01/30/12 The simplest of carbohydrates are monosaccharides, or simple sugars. Glucose, also called dextrose, is in fruit, sweet potatoes, onions and other plants. Glucose is oxidized to produce energy, heat and carbon dioxide. Fructose is present in honey and some fruit juices. Galactose is a monosaccharide that is formed along with glucose when milk sugar, lactose, is broken down by the digestive enzymes.

01/27/12 Fruits, veggies and cheese are snacks, but how does Dunkin’ Donuts 400-calorie, cheese-“flavored” Bagel Twist or McD’s Angus Chipotle BBQ Bacon Snack Wrap count as a snack? Food items labeled “snack, snackable, or snacker” have increased by 170 percent. And who is buying into this gimmick? A sick and dying nation of sheople who can’t think beyond a clever advertisement, that’s who.

01/26/12 Ethyl-butyrate: Is it in your orange juice? According to author Alissa Hamilton, “Most of the juice sold in North America contains flavour packs that have especially high concentrations of ethyl butyrate”. You may never know as it is a secret chemical additive not required to be listed on the label. Ethyl-butyrate is a man-made solvent and plasticizer. Maybe we should eat our oranges and drink them from a can?

01/25/12 White Castle’s Haas Chocolate Frosted Donuts (Twin Pack), 113 grams per serving. For nutrition details on this crap, look under “garbage” because there is no good to be had in dunking even one of these into your maw. Aside from getting artificial flavor what you do get is real killer trans fats – a heart stopping 9 grams! The first ingredient into this real junky food is, of course, 52 grams of sugar (almost half of the whole serving) to round out 460 calories. And where would we be without the included 970mg of sodium? Better off if we get it somewhere else.

01/24/12 Guess those kids showed us who’s boss… LA Schools tried to “healthy up” the lunch menu but met mass resistance. Students are going hungry rather than being forced to eat healthy meals like vegetarian curry or quinoa salad instead of the usual corn dogs, chicken nuggets, and sugar-laden flavored drinks. Students now smuggle in snacks while throwing away entire meals. The kids that are unable to snag a prize from the junk food black market are simply not eating, leading to widespread malnutrition at many of the district’s schools.

01/23/12 A recent study found that 28 percent of Americans purchased more “natural” foods last year. To cash in on this, manufacturers are slapping a “natural” label on everything. Frito Lay alone tagged “all natural” on half its snacks in 2011. But there are no regulations for the “natural” claim. A Cornucopia Institute study found pesticides and GMOs in a variety of so-called “natural” cereals. The worst thing is that this false advertising ploy leads consumers to ignore nutrition labels. I don’t care how “natural” it shows on the front of the package, read the label peeps.

01/20/12 Artificial trans fat promotes heart disease more so than saturated fat. Trans fats raise “bad” cholesterol, and lowers “good” cholesterol that protects against heart disease. A recent survey of the marketplace and found unsafe levels of trans fat in many products you might have in your kitchen. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has asked the FDA to ban partially hydrogenated oil altogether. Don’t wait for it holding your breath though. Make your own ban of trans fats.

01/19/12 Long John Silver’s Breaded Clam Strips are 53% fat including 7 deadly grams of trans fats. Not even including the batter this is what you’ll find in these little gluten bombs; bleached wheat flour, modified food starch, a generous portion of salt, plus sodium aluminum phosphate, plus sodium tripolyphosphate, plus MSG, then add partially hydrogenated soybean oil, hydrolyzed wheat gluten, autolyzed yeast extract and artificial flavor. I just couldn’t make this stuff up, so I got it off of LJS’s website.

01/18/12 How’s your rice? During the 1890s, Christian Eijkman noticed that when he fed chickens the same diet normally consumed by his beriberi patients, they developed weakness in their legs and other signs similar to beriberi. The diet of beriberi patients had mainly highly milled, polished and refined rice. Eijkman changed the chickens’ diet to whole-grain rice and they recovered. This shows that there are nutrients in the outer layers and germ of the rice grain that you lack with the polished rice

01/17/12 A review in the British Journal of Cancer shows a link between processed meats, like bacon and sausages and increased pancreatic cancer. Eating one sausage, 50 grams a day of processed meat can raise pancreatic cancer risk by 19 percent. But the troubles double at 100 grams of processed meat a day to the cancer risk by 38 percent. Some of the chemicals that preserve processed meats can affect our DNA and increase the chance of cancer.

01/16/12 Time to pick on Macdonald’s 100% Angus beef sandwich :-). The burger meat has “100% Angus beef” PLUS additives. According the Macdonald’s own website, the list includes a paragraph of added things from artificial flavors, to maltodextrin, to autolyzed yeast extract, dried beef extract, and corn syrup. The 100% tricky advertising award might well belong to this not-so-great-meal-deal additive. But all this is only slight poisoning compared to the bun…

01/12/12 At one time, sausages were stuffed into the same animal’s intestinal casing. Now some sausages are stuffed into either inedible synthetic or into collagen casings. Collagen is the main protein in connective tissue in humans and animals. To make collagen casings they use hides of the animals chopped up, mixed with water, lactic acid and plant fiber which is then homogenized and pressed into sheets, salted and finally “plasticized” with glycerin and dried. Now what do you think of your sausage?

01/11/12 Hungry-Man Select Classic Fried Chicken doesn’t list the complete ingredients! Missing from the ingredient list is gluten and who-knows-what else? The kinds of salts aren’t even listed but you can bet your health that the 1,610 mg of sodium isn’t all the good kind. It’s bad enough that the calories and fat equal 5 Crispy Crème Donuts, but Hungry-Man also fails to list transfats on its nutrition label, despite federal regulations requiring it. Every part of this evil concoction except maybe the corn contains partially hydrogenated oil.

01/10/12 Nuts are chock-full of vitamins, minerals, heart-healthy monounsaturated fats and low levels of saturated fats. Research suggests that people who eat nuts-walnuts, pecans, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, pine nuts and peanuts (which actually are legumes)-two to four days or more per week have a lower incidence of heart disease than people who eat them less often.

01/09/12 Marie Callender’s Cheesy Chicken Pot Pie: This poison-pie starts off on the bad foot with the portion of serving being half of a pie. So take every bad thing here and double it! Who out there is going to split a single-person dish? To take off on the worst foot, chicken fat is one of the first ingredients, followed by a volley of oils and capped off with a litany of unpronounceable chemicals that sound a lot like hazardous wastes. If you are not opposed to eating one of these, we need to talk.

01/06/12 Parsley contains volatile oil components – particularly one called myristicin. These oils have shown to inhibit tumor formation in the lungs. Myristicin also activates glutathione, which is involved in liver detoxification. Parsley’s volatile oils qualifies it as a “chemoprotective” food that can help neutralize carcinogens. The flavonoids in parsley are strong antioxidants to protect against free radical damage in the cells. Parsley has a legendary ability to freshen your breath at the end of a meal.

01/05/12 Jimmy Dean Breakfast Bowls Pancakes & Sausage Links packs a whopping 35 grams of sugar along with a whole lot of sodium. Did you know this bad breakfast has more syrupy sugar than a liquefied Snickers bar? You’ll get a big belly full of corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors with this loser. Just add extra carcinogens when you microwave this for some cancer at no extra charge. Eating this kind of devitalized, “enriched” foods is killing Americans slowly.

01/04/12 Remember eating Sugar Smacks growing up? Well, they quietly changed the name to “Honey Smacks” to get away from the not-so-popular sugar identity even though this poison is actually 55.6 percent sugar by weight with “less than 2% honey”. Forget the allergenic gluten bomb and you still have corn syrup on top of sugar blended with some hydrogenated soybean oil and a highly questionable preservative called BHT. Rats and bugs won’t eat this crap and neither should you.

01/03/12 The Institute of the German Economy (IW) notes that a Big Mac sandwich is increasingly being used by economists around the world as a measure of a currencie’s relative purchasing power. An American can buy five Big Macs for 11 dollars but if he changed the money into 18 Deutsch-marks, it will barely buy 4 Big Macs concluding that the dollar is undervalued. In Moscow the sandwich costs about 59 cents but Russians work nearly two days to afford this – longer than people in any other country, the IW said.

01/02/12 Dr. Chris Wheeler blames SIDS on margarine in the diet of nursing mothers. Margarine multiplies the loss of trans-cholesterol, calcium, fat-soluble vitamins and is atherogenic (causing atherosclerosis) and carcinogenic (cancer-causing). This ultimately increases the body’s need for vitamins C and B-6, deepening any shortages both in the mother and the infant. He’s only partly right though as vitamin C, B-6 and Zinc shortages are common to all SIDS but are first caused by vaccines and only worsened by oleo.

05/09/12 Our diet intake of added fats and oils has grown by over 60% during the past 35 years. The use of hydrogenated oils and shortenings to prolong shelf-life has resulted in a huge increase in trans fatty acid (TFA) consumption. TFA consumption has been linked to the increased risk of obesity, inflammation, coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes. One recent meta-analysis found that a 2% increase in TFA was associated with a 23% increase in the incidence of coronary heart disease. The damaging effects of Trans-fat has even prompted several countries to regulate TFA production. How about this plan? Don’t buy it when you find it on the label. That doesn’t take a government regulation peeps.

05/08/12 Members of the cabbage family, AKA cruciferous vegetables, help boost your defenses against cancer. This is accomplished thanks to the high amount of antioxidants which are compounds that neutralize cell-damaging free radicals along with needed enzymes that help rid your body of carcinogens that damage your DNA. Cruciferous veggies include things like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, and turnip greens. I tell my kids to “eat your veggies so you can grow big and strong and make your kids eat their veggies”!

05/07/12 Dr. Thomas Shea at the University of Massachusetts studied the apples’ effects on human brain health and concluded that by drinking apple juice three times per week, would reduce your chances of Alzheimer’s by 75%. His study volunteers were Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) patients aged 72 to 93 and given four ounces of apple juice twice daily for thirty days. There were reported improvements with memory and emotional moods associated with AD victims. Other studies show that apples protect the heart, increase lipid metabolism, and reduce inflammation. In yet another study, women ages 45 to 65 with a heavy diet of apples reduced their bad cholesterol by 23% in six months while losing three and a half pounds on average. But don’t go for store bought-devitalized-pasteurized apple juice. Go organic, raw and unfiltered.

05/04/12 Did you know that hamsters fed with GM soy were unable to have pups by the third generation and also suffered a high mortality rate? I guess that is scary enough but the third generation pups that did make it had hair growing in their mouths and damaged sperm among things. Well what about humans? We are not exempt from the genetic damage occurring from eating frankenfoods. Our commercial soy (91% of our US crops) has been genetically modified to resist herbicides. Soy is in almost everything these days from processed foods to skin care products, vitamins and even drugs! If it has soy in it and doesn’t say “organic” on the label – toss it.

05/03/12 Ever eat a tree? Sure you have! It’s in your processed food, meats and even listed in certified organic foods. It is called cellulose. Cellulose is made from virgin wood pulp that is chemically processed to separate the cellulose from the pulp. If they do it “right”, the minimal processing allows the filler-powder to be classified organic. But it is still chemically processed and there’s more of it used in junk food than organic food. When you see the word cellulose on the ingredients list or microcrystalline cellulose(MCC), cellulose gel, cellulose gum or carboxymethyl cellulose you are eating a tree. They do this to your food for profit, not for your health. Don’t buy into it peeps!

05/02/12 Chicken in America: Caffeine stimulates chickens to stay awake longer and eat more. The drawback is that a caffeinated – stressed-out chicken is just too dang tough to eat. So what do we now find in the production chicken feather meal from China? PROZAC! I guess those sad little stressed out birdies needed something for their moods. This also might explain Benadryl and acetaminophen also found in the American feather-meal. These drugs are the new tenderizers of an un-well industry. Now feed these sick chicks low levels of arsenic to cause weight gaining inflammation and give the meat that pink glow we think is healthy, and there you have it; chicken in America. If this doesn’t spur you to buy only organic chicken, you need more help than I can give you.

05/01/12 Feeding the food flavor enhancer Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) has shown to result in obesity, stunted heart growth and hypoplasticity in rodents. It is now evident that maternal administration of MSG can penetrate the placental barrier and distribute to the embryonic tissues of the fetus. MSG tagged with the tracer 3H- Glu and fed to pregnant mice resulted in marked elevations of 3H- Glu in the placenta, fetal brain, liver and kidney. MSG consumption has increased globally recently and it is estimated that the current average daily intake is up to 10 g/day. Let’s make it zero grams by avoiding all processed foods.

04/30/12 Safeway’s Vanilla Crème Wafers: First off, these extreme death bombs pack in 3.5 grams of transfats per serving! FYI, one serving = 4 wafers. Yeah, right… who eats just 4? Sugar is the first ingredient; but get this, sugar (corn derived dextrose – GMO?) is also the second ingredient in. Then comes the bleached wheat flour (no nutrition there) enriched with the wrong forms for vitamins and minerals. Top it off with two bad artificial colors and artificial flavor and it just can’t get any worse. Oh, wait. Yes it can get worse. There is (GMO?) soy also on the list.

04/27/12 Ever eaten hospital food? It’s a wonder the visitors make it out alive let alone the sick. The difference between a dietitian and a nutritionist is that the dietitian has a budget to feed a group of people (like a hospital) with very little regard (and sometimes blatant disregard) to nutrition. A good nutritionist will find what YOU need as an individual and recommend diet and lifestyle changes. For one example of piss-poor dietitian choices consider this: The group Corporate Accountability International recently sent a formal letter to 21 U.S. hospitals that serve fast-food McDonald’s, urging them to “stop fostering a food environment that promotes harm, not health.” Hospitals are just another part of disease management system and for the most part haven‘t a clue to the meaning of nutrition, proving my point by serving up devitalized, nutrient deficient and processed “foods”.

04/26/12 To make Genetically Modified food, scientists insert a gene from one organism into another to change the organism. Bt-toxins are now engineered into 60% of our crops to kill the bugs that eat the plants. The EPA “assures” us out-of-hand that genetically engineered toxins such as Bt-toxin are safe – but they come from Bacillus Cerus which causes food poisoning in humans… Bt-toxin in plants is 3000 times more concentrated than the spray and fails all 3 GM allergy tests prescribed by the WHO. Health risks include: Infertility Lung damage Cancer Immune Impairment Premature Aging Damaged Insulin Regulation Liver, Kidney, Heart and Spleen Dysfunction Higher Rate of Mortality. Label us GM-stupid.

04/25/12 An ounce of nutty prevention: Scientists reported a link between eating nuts and consequent higher levels of serotonin in patients with metabolic syndrome. Serotonin is a brain chemical that helps transmit nerve signals, decreases hunger, makes people feel happier and improves heart health. The really great part is that it only takes eating one ounce of mixed nuts (raw unpeeled walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts) a day for these results!

04/24/12 A high-fiber diet lowers blood cholesterol levels and helps maintain bowel integrity and health. Soluble fiber found in beans, oats, flaxseed and oat bran may help lower total blood cholesterol levels by lowering low-density lipoprotein, or “bad,” cholesterol levels. Epidemiologic studies have shown that increased fiber in the diet can reduce blood pressure and inflammation, which is also protective to heart health. Fiber in the diet also lowers your risk of developing hemorrhoids, and diverticular disease. The bulk and scrubbing action of fiber helps keep your colon clean and toned up.

04/23/12 What are nitrites and why are they used in hot dogs and other deli meat products? Sodium Nitrite and Potassium Nitrite, are chemical preservatives traditionally used in processing cooked and smoked deli meats. Their primary purpose is to prevent bacteria, improve color and enhance flavor in cured meat products like bologna, hot dogs and bacon. Sodium nitrite has carcinogenic effects but by itself is not a carcinogen as it occurs naturally in vegetables. It does become cancer forming when it is put into meats and combines with amines in protein-rich foods to form the carcinogenic agent nitrosamine. Read your labels peeps! Always buy the nitrite free products.

04/20/12 Antibiotics are fed to poultry in the US to spur growth and increase profits, not treat disease. The FDA tightly controls this now (so they say) to help prevent drug resistant bacteria in humans. Well, feather-brained Big Ag whizzes figured out that you can shovel up all the free bird feathers you can find, grind them up and feed them to production animals. “So what” you may ask? Researchers in April found illegal fluoroquinolones in eight of 12 samples of feather meal from different states. This bad antibiotic was outlawed in 2005 but poultry are still getting it somehow. They are feeding drug-contaminated feathers to our food supply which means they’re feeding them to us as well.

04/19/12 Broccoli contains powerful anti-cancer compounds. The plant also contains the enzyme myrosinase which is crucial to the conversion of glucoraphanin into the bioactive anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory compound sulforaphane. Recent research shows that eating broccoli can also protect our bodies against the ravages of osteoarthritis. Again the sulforaphane has been shown to block the primary enzyme responsible for joint destruction caused by this crippling disease. But overcooking broccoli destroys this sensitive enzyme so eat it raw or lightly steamed.

04/18/12 Puff’n Corn dangers: Utz Hulless – Cheese Flavored Puff’n Corn basic ingredients: Popcorn is the first ingredient in (halleluiah!), but then comes GMO ridden vegetable oil and the seemingly required partially hydrogenated (GMO you can bet) soybean oil , maltodextrin (chemically broken down starch), salt, more salt, monosodium glutamate, 4 artificial colors (yellow 5 lake, yellow 6 lake, yellow 5, yellow 6), disodium phosphate (chemical cleaner?), artificial flavor, and – of course – synthetic (and toxic) vitamin A palmitate. But wait… Holy Transfats Batman! This crap serves up a killer 5 grams of transfats per 2 cup serving. Don’t even go there peeps!

04/17/12 One study showed that the offspring of rats fed genetically modified soy had lower birth weights, higher infertility rates and a mortality rate 5 times greater than those fed a non-GMO diet. Another animal study suggests that genetically modified potatoes may cause cancer in rats, and additional research established a link between genetically modified peas and lung damage in mice. Shop wisely my peeps. Choose organic products only and step out of the “rat race – human experiments” in our food markets.

04/16/12 Bee friendly to your local apiary! In the past 18 months the US has imported 208 million pounds of honey. A hefty 60 percent of our imported honey came from Asian countries, where there are “laundering” locations where funny-honey brokers switch labels, counterfeit country of origin papers, embellish the honey or even make completely fake honey. One trick they use is to filter out all traces of nutritious pollen to prevent tracking the supply to its origin. Honey shipped from China is notoriously contaminated with illegal antibiotics such as chloramphenicol (which is linked to DNA damage and even cancer) as well as with lead.

04/13/12 Gluten sensitivities – Why do we have so many problems with gluten? The wheat that is eaten today is bioengineered to have almost 90% more gluten than the type our grandparents ate! Gluten sensitivity is not a disease and therefore there are no cures. The only true test for gluten sensitivity is to avoid gluten completely for three weeks to see what the effects were. Then the only way to avoid its complications is to stay away from any foods and skin products containing gluten. Obviously everyone who is gluten sensitive must avoid all wheat, barley and rye products.

04/12/12 Martin’s Kettle-Cook’d Jalapeno Potato Chips. These little devils may be hand cooked but they are fried in (GM you can bet) soybean oil and doused with monosodium glutamate and treated with hydrolyzed soy protein (more MSG). Then they add two more forms of MSG for the one-two knockout punch of disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate. Disodium inosinate is not safe for babies and can trigger asthma attacks in children and adults. Disodium guanylate can trigger gout as it comes from fish proteins that are metabolized to purines. You also get 3 grams of transfats per 1 oz serving, which is over the daily limit. So, let’s recap: GM soybeans, four kinds of MSG and 3 grams of transfats per serving. Not on a bet thank you!

04/11/12 Don’t even think about buying those cute little honey bears at the supermarket! Did you know that over 75% of all commercial honey is knock-off honey? Some of these cheap counterfeits are nothing more than a mixture of sugar, water, malt sweeteners, corn syrup and other crappy additives that burden the liver and make you sick. Yet others are both ultra pasteurized and contain no pollen. Food Safety News researchers analyzed 60 jars, jugs and plastic “bears” of honey from the shelves of food stores and found out that we the consumer are being duped… once again…

04/10/12 Love your eggs! A study tested cholesterol levels of egg-eaters with two levels of egg intake; one egg versus zero egg intake a day, in a group of 24 women. Cholesterol levels actually rose in the zero egg group while it didn’t budge in the egg partaking group. Lutein and zeaxanthin (good guy antioxidants) levels rose in egg-eating group but did not rise in the non-eggers. Don’t listen to the mainstream medical egg-head mucky-mucks. Always check things out for yourself.

04/09/12 Did you know that GM corn damages the intestines and soy damages the reproductive system in study mice? From News With Views: Foods that often contain GM soy or corn derivatives or GM vegetable oil include: infant formula, salad dressing, bread, cereal, hamburgers and hotdogs, margarine, mayonnaise, crackers, cookies, chocolate, candy, fried food, chips, veggie burgers, meat substitutes, ice cream, frozen yogurt, tofu, tamari, soy sauce, soy cheese, tomato sauce, protein powder, baking powder, alcohol, vanilla, powdered sugar, peanut butter, enriched flour and pasta. Why do we put up with this deadly practice?

04/06/12 Our SAD Western diets are grossly deficient in omega-3 fatty acids with excessive amounts of omega-6 fatty acids. Because of all the oils and transfats in our processed foods we run about 16/1 in our omega 6 to 3 ratio. This imbalance has promoted many diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. When you increase the omega-3 to a ratio of 4/1 (omega 6 to 3) there is a 70% decrease in total mortality. A 2.5/1 ratio reduces rectal cell proliferation in colorectal cancer. 2/1 ratio decreases breast cancer risk. A 2/1 ratio suppresses inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis. A mere 5/1 benefits asthma but a 10/1 complicates asthma.

04/05/12 Don’t fear the reaper, fear the drug resistant bacteria… E. coli bacteria, resistant to 3 or more antibiotics is now found in 28.6 of chicken breast samples and a killer 55.3% of ground turkey samples. If that’s not bad enough, almost 29 percent of ground-beef samples carried Salmonella strains that were resistant to six antibiotics. This new report by the FDA via the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System should be a wake-up call. Now hear this: Since the fluoroquinolone ban in September 2005, ciprofloxacin resistance in C. coli has decreased in chicken breast from 29.1% to 13.5%. This shows that we have to quit feeding our food with antibiotics OR ELSE…

04/04/12 Did you know that microwave popcorn can contain up to 6 grams of trans fat PER SERVING? (Act II serving portion is 1 cup…) Trans fats are a very common ingredient in many baked and fried foods and should be avoided by everyone. Oh, this additive may make foods taste better and last longer, but it comes with a number of health risks like raising your “bad” cholesterol level and increasing your risk of heart disease. It is recommended to limit the daily amount of trans fat to 2 grams. BUT, deceptive foods labeled as “trans-fat-free” or “0 grams-trans-fat” can still contain up to 0.5 grams per serving.

04/03/12 Remember the recent flap over Pink Slime? Well, places like McDonald’s have been tripping over themselves to distance their reputation from former use of this crap. Pink slime is the refuse meats, heated and doused in ammonia and then sold as meat to you, the consumer. Sounds like the meat industry is going to have to stop making pink slime if nobody buys it. WRONGO! Thanks to the USDA befriending the forlorn meat industry, pink slime will continue unabated – in the school lunchroom. Guess what these bureaucrats have gone and done? They ordered 7 Million Pounds of pink slime to feed our kids in school lunches. Lesson learned: You should control what your kids eat, not the government.

04/02/12 Deep frying destroys nutrients and multiplies the fats. Well, DUH! Roasted chicken has 142 calories and 3 grams of fat. But bread and deep fry that bad boy and it now has 364 calories with 18.5 grams of fat! Anyone else see a problem here? But the problem doesn’t stop there. Deep fry them French fries and potato chips and you generate acrylamide – a carcinogen that increases the risk of breast cancer by 10 times! Using the same cooking oil over and over causes more byproducts that boost the oxidative stress in your body that cause inflammation and cellular damage.

03/30/12 It’s one BIG mistake to not read the food labels peeps! Quaker Instant Oatmeal Peaches & Cream: Second ingredient in is sugar, but check this out! The fourth ingredient is corn syrup solids. Oops, the seventh ingredient is MORE SUGAR! Then they list artificial colors, and count them; one, two, three or four different artificial flavors! When the company says “Bursting with peach flavor” it’s the artificial flavor. Oh; and there are two kinds of soy that are not guaranteed to be GMO free and one of them is hydrogenated… There are also other chemicals thrown in for whatever reason. If your kid eats this for breakfast it’s your fault, not theirs.

03/29/12 Klondike Mint Chocolate Chip Bar has polysorbate 80 in it. This is a feminizing vaccine adjuvant that has a litany of effects on the human body. It is even being studied as a birth control product. 2nd ingredient in is SUGAR, followed closely by CORN SYRUP, then there is some antifreeze chemical – PROPYLENE GLYCOL MONOESTERS, artificial colors YELLOW 5 and BLUE 1, Now put on a FLAVORED COATING with more sugar and some more ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR and then dunk this bad-boy directly in the trash can before it trashes your health.

03/28/12 Hidden Valley Classic Ranch Dressing is not a nutritious choice. It starts with Soybean oil that is not guaranteed to be GMO free. Now blend in some salt and then some teeth-eroding, bone leaching phosphoric acid. Modified food starch is next which simply means MSG – but the very next ingredient is even more MSG followed by the good old ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS. The last two ingredients are really kind of sneaky – disodium inosinate with disodium guanylate; this combination is known as disodium 5′-ribonucleotides, a potentially deadly combo of hydrolyzed starch, MSG, disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate which are known to cause “Ribo-Rash”, accelerated heart rates and panic attacks. It’s not food peeps, so just don’t eat this stuff.

03/27/12 Ever wonder why ketchup and salad dressings now slide right out of the bottle where it used to be a major pain to get them to flow? Thanks to nano-technology those days are gone. But this is not a good thing for your health. A two-year study at UCLA found nano-titanium dioxide – the most common nanoparticle – causes DNA and chromosome damage. The researchers say this kind of severe damage could lead to cancer, heart disease and brain disease… and yet these nano-particles are turning up in everything from fruit and vegetable coatings to salad dressing to ice cream.

03/26/12 The odds of getting sick on raw milk are 1 in 80,357 if you include the “incidences” of smuggled queso from across the border Mexico. The latest CDC made-up crisis comes from a study that claims raw milk is behind “most dairy-related outbreaks.” Outbreaks? Want the real numbers? From the apparently random dates of 1993 and 2006, there were 112 actual illnesses a year linked to raw milk (including those scary queso ones in southern CA), as compared to 203 linked to pasteurized dairy. But if you jump to 2007 there were three deaths from pasteurized dairy and two major outbreaks that make raw milk look like a stroll down 5th avenue. The CDC spin doctors didn’t want that pesky fact skewing their numbers though. Before the study dates there was 200,000 pasteurized dairy incidents in the 1980s. Who is behind this trash reporting?

03/23/12 Sweetened to death! The American Heart Association journal Circulation has reported that men who drink just one 12 oz sugared beverage a day have a 20% greater risk of heart disease than those who don’t. The extra sugar is converted by the liver into the undesired triglycereides and then stored in fat cells. High Fructose Corn Syrup is metabolized almost exclusively by the liver which overburdens this vital organ. Along with the extra jiggle in the middle comes an increased risk of diabetes, dementia, stroke, liver necrosis, fatty liver and obesity.

03/22/12 GMO food madness!(USDA) The newest of the fast-tracked GMOs is the “drought-resistant” corn produced by, you guessed it, Monsanto. But it admittedly grows no better under drought conditions than natural varieties. According to the Washington Post, this corn, AKA MON87460, was approved without an appropriate environmental risk analysis to determine if the corn is even safe for humans or the environment. This Big Industry money maker was even approved after data exposed it as a complete failure. This means that the safety trial is on the sheople.

03/21/12 Jimmy Dean’s Sausage, Egg & Cheese On A Croissant: With 3 grams of deadly transfats, this is not the biggest problem with this bad-breakfast choice. It is laden with enriched, over-processed wheat, high fructose corn syrup, then corn syrup, then sugar, MSG, artificial flavors and colors, stomach damaging calcium proprionate (calcium proprionate has an MSDS sheet…) several kinds of salts and where would we be without the artificial butter flavor and then more artificial flavors and colors. My advice? Now that you know some of what’s in this wrong-turn-breakfast-choice don’t ever eat one o these health bombs.

03/20/12 Wanna be the first one to bite into the new Frankenbeef from the stem cells of cows? It will cost you a measely $317,000 to be there in line at a Frankenbeef publicity stunt planned for this fall. Cow stem cells are electrically stimulated to grow cow muscle and when there is enough tissue, they grind it into a burger. Oh, they admit the end product doesn’t even look, taste, smell or feel like beef, they think that this process is somehow healthy for you even though it lacks most of the constituents of the real deal.

03/19/12 Food Madness: Did you know that Pepsi uses human embryonic kidney (HEK-293) in the flavor enhancer process for their drinks? Sounds wild but the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) recently ruled that PepsiCo’s business doings with Senomyx, which produces the flavor chemicals using human embryonic kidney tissue to test flavor response, to be “ordinary business operations.” Pepsi shareholders filed a resolution to “adopt a corporate policy that recognizes human rights and employs ethical standards which do not involve using the remains of aborted human beings…” But the SEC shut that down. If you are drinking Pepsi, or any flavored/carbonated drinks, you’ve got more troubles on your hands than just this fetal tissue-issue…

03/16/12 Did you know that the FDA doesn’t regulate use of the word “natural,” except for some meat products? This leaves a highly untrustworthy food industry free to define it any way it wants too. Back in 2008, “natural products” reached $22 billion in sales, which is four times that of organic products. Read for yourselves! If you can’t pronounce an ingredient, put it back.

03/15/12 Lean Cuisine’s Roasted Turkey Breast Entrée has a whopping 7 teaspoons of sugar in it! You heard me correctly. 7 teaspoons of sugar does not make for “lean” cuisine and BTW, what is all that sugar doing in a turkey entrée? I guess what makes it lean is that the first ingredient in is water… This trash food is jacked up with high fructose corn syrup, 16 different MSG additives, salt, salt and more salt along with sulfites, A NON-NARCOTIC ANESTHETIC!!! AKA Ammonium Sulfate, more salt (for a grand total of 890 mg) along with numerous hydrolyzed products. This is not food peeps! This is death by diet. You have been put on notice.

03/14/12 According to Cornell University’s website Genetically Engineered Organisms, Public Issues Project (GEO-PIP), honey can be produced from bees that Genetically Modified (GM) crops. What this will do to the honey bee and what this will do to you who eats the honey also has yet to be seen. Some Canadian honey comes from bees collecting nectar and pollen from GM canola and the Europeans are wise to this and shut down imports of Canadian honey. You have to find your local honey producer guys and get to know them. Find out where their bees go to collect pollen and nectar peeps.

03/13/12 Waiter, give a medium diet cola and a stroke please! A study with about 2,500 people for over 9 years found that those who drank at one diet soda a day had a 48 percent bigger risk to have a stroke or heart attack compared to those who rarely or never drank sodas. Diet drinks do NOT help you lose weight unless you count post-mortem weight loss…

03/12/12 Non-organic fruits and vegetables are grown with pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers whose chemical residues are on the skin of the fruit veggies but are also absorbed into the inside. Even at low levels, these chemicals harm the consumer over time. A study in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, for instance, found that people who had been exposed to low levels of pesticides were 1.13 times as likely to have Parkinson’s disease as those who had never been exposed. Other studies link pesticides to health problems including: cancer, fertility problems, brain tumors, childhood leukemia, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, birth defects, irritation to skin and eyes, hormone or endocrine problems and nervous system damage.

03/09/12 Eat this and be sad: Saturated fats, trans fats and refined carbohydrates have a deleterious effect on the immune system, increase oxidative stress, and escalate neurotrophic decline. A study by Akbaraly and colleagues shows that a diet rich in high-fat foods, fried, refined, and sugary foods significantly increases risk for depression. A well known fact is that women with a diet high in processed foods have more clinical major depression. Research published last year also showed that quality of adolescents’ diets was linked to mental health. Can it be any plainer than this: -> The Standard American Diet is SAD.

03/08/12 Marie Callender’s Dutch Apple Pie is definitely not a desert dish, it is a biological weapon! At least the first ingredient in is apples but this is closely followed by, modified food starch, sugar and “enriched” wheat flour (which is a very bad thing for anyone) and then salt. Partially hydrogenated soybean oil comes next along with wheat starch, more salt, more partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil, sodium bisulfate (another word for salt), yet more salt. Then they top it off, literally, with crumb topping of more “enriched” wheat flour, brown sugar, even more partially hydrogenated soybean AND cottonseed oils, some more sugar, and don’t forget – more salt. Serving size is 1/10 of this little pie and 1 serving has 15g of fat with 4g of them being the dreaded trans fats.

03/07/12 Are your veggies giving you what you need? “You would have to eat 40 servings of today’s spinach in order to get the same nutrients as you would from one serving of spinach 50 years ago.” ~ Dr John Berardi 2007. Supplements are meant to fill in the gap for deficiencies, not replace the original item. If you can find the real-deal organic, nutrient rich foods then you will not need to supplement. Eat out of today’s supermarket and you will definitely need to supplement.

03/06/12 If you find autolyzed yeast extract on the label it is actually another word for MSG that causes neurological problems in some people, rashes and bowel trouble in others. MSG is believed by many health experts to be a major hidden factor in the obesity explosion happening to America because it over-stimulates the appetite among other things. Are you reading your food labels?

03/05/12 Want a kidney stone with that sports drink? Sports drinks are all high in sodium which causes high levels of calcium to form in the urine. The calcium it takes to bind to the extra sodium comes right out of the bones. This loss of calcium makes bones weaker and increases risk of osteoporosis. Imbibing a sports drink while taking calcium can result in hypercalcemia and interfere with brain and nerve function, muscle contraction and the release of hormones. Besides this, sports drinks often have artificial colors, chemical sweeteners, corn syrup from GMO corn and other crap. A great alternative is coconut water or a mixture of some kind of fruit juice and water at one part juice to two parts water.

03/02/12 Pop Secret Premium Popcorn is trouble. Not only do you NEVER want to use a microwave for food, this bad boy has artificial flavors in it with “colors added”. It’s no secret that those nasty trans fat per 4-cup serving come in at 5 gm, but the big secret here is the preservative. Propyl Gallate is an artificial food additive that can cause stomach irritation and duhn-duhn-duhn CANCER! It is even banned for being carcinogenic in some countries. But not in good old America where FDA means “Fatal Drugs Allowed… Do what we do at my house: Heat some popcorn in the pan with grapeseed oil and pop it, salt and butter it, and enjoy it additive-free!

03/01/12 Energy Drinks are flavored, over-sweetened drinks that claim to enhance energy and performance. These drinks contain as much as 360 mg/L of caffeine (about 4 cups of coffee worth), combined with other stimulants. The number of ER visits associated with nonalcohol energy drinks jumped 10 fold recently according to a report from the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Symptoms range from mild nausea and palpitations to severe, protracted vomiting; cardiac dysrhythmias; dehydration: seizures and risky behaviors. These little evils are marketed to youth and are consumed by up to 50% of children, adolescents, and young adults. NOT in my house!

02/29/12 A study in the January 19th issue of Plos One covers the largest ever sampling of raw meat products tested for MRSA in the US. Researchers pulled 395 raw pork samples from grocery store shelves in 36 different stores across Iowa, New Jersey, and Minnesota. 26 samples that were tested had MRSA. This means that 7% of the meats tested from the every day in the grocery store are carrying the MRSA superbug. I wonder why there are more vegetarians now than ever?

02/28/12 In a recent issue of the Journal of HortScience, there is a smoking report on the sorry state of American fruits and veggies. Today’s produce not only doesn’t taste as good as it did 50 years ago, it also has fewer nutrients according to Donald R. Davis, a former research associate with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. Davis claims the average vegetable found in today’s supermarket is anywhere from 5% to 40% lower in magnesium, iron, calcium and zinc than those harvested just 50 years ago.
Daily Food and Nutrition Health Archives 2012
Daily blog posts about food, health and nutrition

12/31/12 Garlic to the rescue! A garlic clove a day can reduce cholesterol by an average of 9 percent AND destroy the fungus amungus. Candida albicans is a gastrointestinal fungus that is a normal part of the GI environment. Under certain conditions of GI stress or imbalance, candida can proliferate to the point of being pathogenic. Allicin in garlic has the ability to decrease biofilm production related to candida more effectively than the anti-fungal drug fluconazole. Allicin is a powerful and active metabolite of garlic. Kyolic garlic is lower in allicin than raw cloves but can still help without the garlic breath challenge.

12/28/12 Starch is an important source of energy for the body that occurs in cereal grains and root foods such as potatoes and cassava. Starch is liberated for use during cooking when the starch granules rupture because of heating. Starches require a few hours to digest as compared to sugars. This is because starch has to be broken down into sugars in the stomach and the intestines, whereas sugars are readily available as fuel for the body but burn up quickly. Of course, digestible carbohydrates eaten in excess of what your body needs are converted by the body into fat and is laid down as adipose tissue beneath the skin and at other sites in the body.

12/27/12 No one thinks of cinnamon rolls as health food. Well, the store-bought kind of rolls are definitely NOT good for you – tasty maybe, but not good. Each serving (just one roll) of Pillsbury Grands! Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll with Icing has 310 calories and 2 grams of saturated fat plus 2½ grams of trans fat (more than a day’s worth) and 5 teaspoons of sugar. The first ingredient in is processed white flour, then there is high fructose corn syrup and other GMO laden corn products, artificial flavors and colors and even the cancer causing polysorbate 60. This is just the short rant on ingredients because it would take 600 words for me to go through the bad stuff.

12/26/12 Propyl Gallate, You can find it in: some processed meat products, chicken soup stock and gum. Why you should avoid it: Propyl Gallate is a suspected carcinogen. It is also known to cause kidney, liver and gastrointestinal problems. We need to read our labels to keep from being slowly poisoned. You should also avoid all processed foods if we want to live to be old and healthy nowadays. Every day the ingredient lists get a little longer with more chemicals added to either enhance/preserve taste, improve texture or preserve color.

12/24/12 The BMJ reports this week that recipes produced by popular television chefs contain significantly more energy, protein, fat, and saturated fat and even less fiber per portion than the ready supermarket meals. A team of researchers analyzed the nutritional content of both meals according to the guidelines and standards set out by the World Health Organization (WHO). Both sets of meals came up short of the standards but the chef recipes failed worse. If you desire maximum nutritional benefit from the food you purchase then rely on home cooking of nutritionally balanced recipes using organic, GMO-free and raw ingredients, rather than buying the quick-fix or relying on recipes by television chefs.

12/21/12 Organic sweet potatoes are GMO-free and loaded with good stuff! These spuds are a nutritional All-Star and one of the best vegetables to eat. Sweet potatoes are chock-full of carotenoids, which according to the British Nutritional Journal, “people consuming diets rich in carotenoids from natural foods, such as fruits and vegetables, are healthier and have lower mortality from a number of chronic illnesses.” Also on-board with sweet potatoes are vitamin C, potassium, calcium and fiber. My kids mix them with some unsweetened applesauce for extra moisture and sweetness.

12/20/12 Sin taxes on foods: Some states have actually increased the sales taxes on sugary foods to “promote healthier food choices among grocery store shoppers”. But this cash-cow ploy is highly unlikely to be effective because many consumers are unaware of the tax differences on certain food items. Cornell University found that the tax is added at the register and is not reflected in the shelf price, so consumers do not recognize the impact of increased taxes on items they had previously purchased. Most consumers don’t even realize that there is a tax difference at all. This does not serve to educate the consumer but rather blindly punishes them….

12/19/12 Eating GMO food is causing cancer, liver and kidney failure and leaking guts – to name a few of the ones we know from animal studies. Animal studies show the problems beginning in rats at the equivalent of 10-12 human years. How long have you been eating GMO foods? Kidney injury deaths in humans have doubled in 10 years and doctors are baffled. The only way around this problem is to stop eating GMO foods. If you cannot tell if a product has GMO products in it – pass on that product. 2009 commercialized Genetically Modified (GM) crops in the U.S. included soy 91%, cotton 88%, canola 88%, corn 85%, Hawaiian papaya more than 50%, zucchini and yellow squash small amount, and tobacco Quest® brand. About half of the sugar beets grown for sugar in 2008 were GM. Over 90% of all US food grown in 2011 was from GM sources.
07/26/12 MiO Liquid Water Enhancer is poison with poison in it. Water is the first ingredient (for flavoring water?), followed by citric acid second, but check out this third ingredient – Propylene Glycol (antifreeze anyone?-used for color preservative during storage). Next comes malic acid (for tartness),and then it contains less than 2% of Natural Flavor (well – duh! This stuff is garbage). Now comes Sucralose and the Acesulfame Potassium (a fake sweetener that is potentially carcinogenic), potassium citrate, and then RED 40 and BLUE 1. Peeps, they advertise this as “natural flavors” but it has chemical colors in it? Can you spell “hyperactivity”?

07/25/12 Bad for the human but great for profits: Trans fats are great for food producers and fast-food sellers because they taste great – they’re easy to come by, cheap to make, and have a long shelf life. For consumers, though, it’s another story. Trans fats actually lower your good cholesterol level AND raise your LDL or “bad” levels. Fried foods and commercially baked goods often contain trans fats like margarine and shortening. Any product labeled “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” contains trans fats, so be on the label lookout. Trans fats contribute to heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

07/24/12 Remember to eat – to remember to eat your nuts, salmon, vegetable oils and other sources of healthy fats. They’re good for you and they can help you to remember, especially if you eat them right before an experience you don’t want to forget. These food items have oleoyl-ethanolamide (OEA) which has attracted a great deal of interest because of its biological properties and memory enhancement abilities. Fat starts being absorbed-and OEA is at its peak-10 to 20 minutes after a meal. Then your gut and brain are primed to strengthen memories.

07/23/12 Drink this – eat this and die – – slowly: Due to the extremely high acidity of High Fructose Corn Syrup combined with the phosphoric acid used in sodas, people who drink sodas often lose bone minerals and end up being diagnosed with osteoporosis, since their bodies seek out the minerals in their bones to be used as “buffers” in their blood. In other words, to prevent the soda… from killing them, their bodies forfeit their bone minerals in order to stay alive! My suggestion is to eliminate anything with corn syrup of any kind from your diet.

07/20/12 Of the large number of amino acids, 20 are common in plants and animals. Of these, eight are deemed “essential amino acids”, namely: phenyl-alanine, tryptophan, methionine, lysine, leucine, isoleucine, valine and threonine. A ninth amino acid, histidine, is required for growth in infants and children and is also necessary for every day tissue repair. Some non-sessential amino acids include glycine, alanine, serine, cystine, tyrosine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, proline, hydroxyproline, citrulline and arginine. Proteins from beef, fish, poultry, cheese, eggs, yogurt, and milk are complete proteins. Proteins from legumes, grains, and vegetables tend to be limited in essential amino acids.

07/19/12 Walnuts are high in omega-3. Our bodies do not produce omega-3, but depend on the food we eat for this essential nutrient. Research has shown that walnuts have an abundance of potent phytonutrient quinone juglone, which destroys cancer and precancerous cells and leaves healthy cells intact. Walnuts are also high in vitamin E – but not the stupidly common alpha-tocopherol form found isolated in cheap vitamins because walnuts are loaded with the gamma-tocopherol form of vitamin E which provides enhanced antioxidant activity that significantly reduces the risk of heart disease..

07/18/12 POWERADE Mountain Berry Blast Sports Drink: Are you sure you want to get me started? First off, the second ingredient in on all Powerade drinks is High Fructose Corn Syrup which is solely processed by the liver and most likely from GMO corn. Then there are the isolated vitamins – most of them in the wrong form to begin with… at least they got the Potassium Citrate right but the rest is all questionable chloride or cyanide forms which are not-so-good for the humans that drink them. Now find the Modified Food Starch which is code-word for MSG and then there’s the chemical derived Blue #1 used in conjunction with Sucrose Acetate Isobutyrate (which is a chemical color stabilizer). Now, WHY do you want your children drinking this stuff??

07/17/12 The Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity unit, (ORAC value) was developed by scientists at the National Institutes of Health. ORAC is a method of measuring the antioxidant capacity of different foods and supplements. Foods that are higher on the ORAC scale will more effectively neutralize free radicals than the lower scoring foods. According to the free-radical theory of aging, antioxidants slow the oxidative processes and free radical damage that can contribute to age-related degeneration and disease. Of course, the all-knowing FDA (Fatal Drugs Allowed) and the European Food Safety Authority don’t allow food product labels to claim or even imply an antioxidant benefit.

07/16/12 “All natural” does not mean organic. A troubling trend in organics today is the calculated shift on the part of certain large formerly organic brands from certified organic ingredients and products to so-called “natural” ingredients. With the exception of the grass-fed and grass-finished meat sector, most “natural” meat, dairy, and eggs are coming from animals reared on GMO grains and drugs and entirely confined. Many well-meaning consumers are confused about the difference between conventional products marketed as “natural,” and those nutritionally and environmentally superior products that are “certified organic.”

07/13/12 Ahh, the virtues of cocoa! High in phenols and flavonoids, cocoa has twice as many antioxidants as red wine and almost three times as many antioxidants as green tea according to researchers at Cornell. The flavonols in cocoa stimulate the body’s production of nitric oxide-boosting blood flow to your heart, brain, and other organs, treats blocked arteries, congestive heart failure, stroke, dementia, even impotence! Unsweetened cocoa comes in packing a whopping 28,000 on the ORAC value list where one powerful apple-a-day-that-keeps-the-doctor-away comes in at 3,903. But sweeten cocoa naturally if you must to avoid trashing the benefits with other junk.

07/12/12 DR Edward Fujimoto talks about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. Fujimoto also said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Not good for the human! Well, neither is the microwave. The minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all microwaved food are reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no benefit. If the body actually does absorb something the nutrients become altered compounds that cannot be broken down correctly.

07/11/12 Before California approved methyl iodide for strawberry fumigant, independent scientific reviews said the chemical could alter DNA, taint groundwater and also linked it to birth defects, thyroid tumors, nerve damage, and brain and lung problems. Still, California knuckled under to political chicanery and approved it, saying it was safe and urgently needed by strawberry growers. Earlier this year the Japanese producer of this nightmare chose to withdraw it from American markets because of the weighty litigation against it for the problems methyl iodide causes. Too bad for humans that methyl iodide is still used in other countries. Oops, we still import strawberries from these countries… Where do your strawberries come from?

07/10/12 Buying or growing, preparing and eating healthy foods is a commitment to healthy living. Preparation of natural snacks and meals takes more forethought and planning than running to the local Burger Barn for fast food. Insuring optimal freshness and nutrition requires extra trips to the store and knowledge of preservation techniques. The good news is that once we’ve established better habits of health eating with natural foods, it becomes about as easy to eat healthily as to eat unhealthily.

07/09/12 No low-fat for me. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study found that people who eat the most dairy fats have the lowest heart risk. Women can slash their odds of a heart attack by more than 25% and men by 9% by enjoying more fatty milk and cheese. When researchers tested for pentadecanoic acid and heptadecanoic acid, two biomarkers of milk fats, they found that people with the highest levels had the lowest heart risk. Make mine raw-organic.

07/06/12 You’re a good parent that wouldn’t feed your child poison, right? A 2008 study out of Emory University found that when parents of children switched them to organically grown fruits and vegetables, urine levels of pesticide compounds dropped to undetectable or close to undetectable levels. In a study published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers studied children for measurable residue of pesticides commonly used on fruits and vegetables and found that for every tenfold increase in the urinary pesticide residue, there was a 35% increase in ADHD.

07/05/12 The amino acids tyrosine, phenylalanine and tryptophan are aromatic amino acids that are necessary to produce both serotonin and melatonin. Serotonin is needed for healthy and restful sleep and elevates and stabilizes the mood. Serotonin also helps modulate processes like human sexuality, appetite, and metabolism. Melatonin is important in the regulation of the interior body clock and is a cancer fighter and powerful antioxidant associated with the protection of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. We get these three amino acids by eating healthy foods. Supplements are good to take up the slack until you fix deficiency problems caused by lousy diets.

07/03/12 High fiber content in the diet is an important factor in the prevention of certain diseases that are more prevalent in people with a low fiber diet. Because fiber facilitates the passage of materials through the intestine, fiber helps avoid diverticulitis, appendicitis, hemorrhoids and even heart disease and some cancers. Two clear advantages of a high fiber diet are less constipation and the fact that the bulk in the high fiber diet lends to a feeling of fullness which helps reduce the likelihood of obesity. Dietary fiber from raw fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes are the best.

07/02/12 Quinoa (KEEN-wah) is a type of seed of the goosewort plant, a relative of spinach and chard. Quinoa provides a complete protein, making it especially valuable for vegetarians. Quinoa contains all the essential amino acids, including lysine, which is critical for growing and repairing body tissues. One cup of quinoa has more protein than one egg and is high in magnesium, folate and riboflavin (B2). Quinoa is a prebiotic that feeds beneficial bacteria in your digestive tract and is a great source of insoluble fiber that promotes healthy elimination, helps maintain colon health and prevent the formation of gallstones. Your body can easily digest and access the vitamins and minerals and quinoa making this a most excellent addition to a healthy diet.

06/29/12 A study of cancer patients found a significant association between the consumption of pasteurized whole milk and increased risk of oral, stomach, rectum, lung and breast cancer. Milk contains more than 50 hormones and growth factors including the insulin-like growth factors (IGF) which is intended to assist suckling calves to grow and produce new tissue through the prolific reproduction of cells. When this hormone is ingested by the adult human (who is no longer growing), cells can sometimes reproduce at the wrong time or place resulting in cancerous growth. Think skim milk is better? In another study it was found to be worse than whole milk at causing cancer.

06/28/12 A carrot a day keeps the cognitive aging away. Researchers from Harvard found that men who consumed more beta-carotene over 18 years had significantly delayed cognitive aging. Carrots are a tremendous source of this pre-vitamin A antioxidant. Carrots may have high sugar content but they are a very good blood sugar regulator. They are a super source of high quality vitamin C, D, E, K, B1 and B6. Carrots are rich with biotin, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, organic sodium and some trace minerals.

06/27/12 Fatty food munching is linked to lack of sleep! Sleep scientists have recently found that the sleepier you are, the less the prefrontal cortex – the inhibitory area of the brain – is activated when it’s shown high-calorie foods. Eating heavy food less than 2 hours before going to bed is asking for trouble. A meal high in protein will make you feel more alert. You will want to avoid all that.Studies find that a lack of quality sleep can shorten your life. Failing to get at least seven hours of sleep or sleeping only at odd hours heightens the risk of major illnesses including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

06/26/12 Cherries- are full of antioxidants which help fend off heart disease, cancer, and aging. Tart cherry juice and dried cherries have more antioxidants than even blueberries. Every cherry you munch is full of vitamin C, vitamin B, and potassium. With a handful of cherries, you can give your immune system, heart, and eyes a healthy boost, promote healthy cell and cell growth, help your body maintain its muscle tone and ensure the proper functioning of your kidneys, heart, muscles, nervous and digestive system.

06/25/12 Omega-3 is an “essential” fatty acid because our bodies require bodies this polysaturated fat for proper function properly. Every week I see new studies published that attest to more and more discovered benefits of omega-3. Salmon is very good for you as it is loaded with omega 3s, but omega 3 is damaged from heat, light and air. Not only is the flavor and smell altered but also the creation of free radicals is increased. You cook your salmon don’t you? I recommend a high quality fish oil like Carlson’s Salmon oil, Nordic Naturals or Krill Oil. Take them daily for optimal health.

06/22/12 A study at Harvard of 124,000 men and women showed that those who ate the most tomatoes reduced their chances of getting lung cancer by 25%. Even though the tomato contains great vitamins and nutrients, this upside isn’t enough to salvage the tomato’s reputation because the high acid content of the tomato can cause heartburn no matter how it’s prepared. Tomatoes contain both malic and citrus acid and both of these acids are heartburn triggers. For some people, once the acids of tomato-based foods are mixed into the meal, their bodies begin to produce too much gastric acid. In this case try drinking ½ tsp of baking soda with water.

06/21/12 White button mushrooms contain a potent cancer-fighting substance called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). CLA minimizes the effects of the enzyme aromatase, which reduces cancer risks that come with high estrogen levels. Other than in mushrooms, CLA is found exclusively in animal foods such as milk, cheese, and meats. Mushrooms in general offer protection against chronic inflammation which increases the risks of many other health problems like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. You can eat whole fresh mushrooms, supplement with mushroom extracts, and powdered/dried mushrooms to help block the production of pro-inflammatory molecules.

06/20/12 For most Americans, any raw food in their diet consists of an occasional salad or piece of fruit. A majority of veggies that make the plate are of the cooked variety. Raw foods (including raw milk) are loaded with beneficial enzymes that are needed for digestion and other processes in the body. Keep in mind that all enzymes begin to be destroyed above 115 degrees. If your food is broiled, boiled cooked, pasteurized or heat processed in any way, it may not contain any enzymes whatsoever. That’s a very bad thing…

06/19/12 Avanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) are produced when meats are cooked at high temperatures, such as while grilling, frying or broiling. AGEs are also made when foods are pasteurized or sterilized. According to researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, AGEs in your body build up over time leading to oxidative stress, inflammation and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease. Cooking your foods at lower temperatures helps preserve nutrients and limits the chances of generating harmful compounds. Vegetable oils like soybean, corn and canola are easily oxidized by the heat making them a health risk when overheated.

06/18/12 Chlorophyll in green veggies is a bad breath deodorizer: All green vegetables contain chlorophyll, especially leafy greens such as romaine lettuce, collard greens, parsley and turnip greens. Spinach contains a very high concentration of chlorophyll weighing in at over 300 milligrams per ounce. A small serving of raw spinach every day can help out with the bad breath. Stick with it though as it may take a few weeks to work completely.

06/15/12 A damning report on findings in the current issue of BioScience, notes: 21 different weed species have evolved resistance to the GMO glyphosate crops – 3/4 of which have been documented since 2005. Did you know that the industry research vowed that the resistance would never occur? Who is fooling who now? To multiply ignorance with madness, in response to the increasing number of weeds resistant, companies are developing new generations of seeds genetically modified to resist multiple herbicides. Didn’t work the first time, won’t the second time either and it will only get worse from here.

06/14/12 For you dark chocolate lovers: Raw cacao is the number one antioxidant food in the world coming in at about thirty times higher than red wine and twenty times higher than green tea. This awesome favorite provides magnesium, chromium, iron, fiber and is high in vitamin C. Antioxidants in raw and dark chocolate help prevent heart disease, reduce blood pressure, enhance brain function, lift depression, improve blood sugar levels, ease chronic fatigue syndrome, suppress coughs, and more.

06/13/12 Drinking pasteurized milk can cause digestive problems such as celiac disease, gluten intolerance/sensitivity, Crohn’s disease and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Pasteurization also destroys the enzyme phosphotase making it difficult for the body to absorb calcium. When a person drinks milk from a cow which has been given BGH, they receive excess insulin-like growth factor (IGF). IGF is normally produced by the body but in excess provides fertile conditions for cancer cells to proliferate.

06/12/12 Stress in a bottle: Sales of non-alcoholic energy drinks in the United States are expected to hit $9 billion dollars this year alone with kids and teens accounting for half of those sales. Energy drinks are bad for you and even worse for kiddos: “Children never need energy drinks,” Says Dr. Holly Benjamin of the American Academy of Pediatrics, “They contain caffeine and other stimulant substances that aren’t nutritional, so you don’t need them.” Who is the parent here anyhow?

06/11/12 Go with grapeseed oil: Researchers found that oleic acid – a monounsaturated fatty acid found in grapeseed oil – protects against ulcerative colitis, an intestinal disorder characterized by ulcers or sores. Researchers followed 25,000 subjects for 11 years and those who consumed the most oleic acid showed a 90 percent lower incidence of getting ulcerative colitis. Grapeseed oil cooks at a higher temperature and with much less smoke than olive oil making it a better choice for deep frying than other oils.

06/08/12 Gorilla Munch! Want a tasty cereal that you can feed the kiddos for part of a nutritious breakfast? I’m always telling you what not to eat so here’s a good one for the pantry: Envirokidz Organic Gorilla Munch Cereal. Ingredients are organic/non-GMO corn meal, organic evaporated cane juice and sea salt. That’s it! Three, count them, three ingredients! Nothing else. No artificial additives, preservatives or insecticides. It’s even GLUTEN FREE! My kids love it as a side-dish to a complete breakfast. Now this is a company I don’t mind supporting. Pay the extra? No problem here.

06/07/12 Omega-3 is “essential” because our bodies need this polysaturated fat in order to function properly. There are new studies published almost weekly that attest to even more recently discovered benefits of omega-3. Salmon is very good for you as it is loaded with omega 3s. But omega 3 is damaged from heat, light and air. When exposed to these, rancidity occurs. Not only is the flavor and smell altered but also the creation of free radicals is increased. You cook your salmon don’t you? Taking fish oil helps this problem. Try taking some Evening Primrose Oil if you are vegan.

06/06/12 Fats are a four-letter word today, but the right fat in the right amount will feed your skin, brain and cellular membranes. Olive oil in the diet helps lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. Extra virgin olive oil is a rich source of natural polyphenols that alters the nature of bad cholesterol associated with plaque build-up in the arteries. Besides being among the healthiest types of fats, olive oil is rich in polyphenols, which are antioxidant, antifungal and antibacterial agents. Essential fatty acids and other healthy fats keep us hydrated, supple, youthful and beautiful.

06/05/12 Gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley, interferes with leptin: Leptin is our satiety hormone that signals our brain that our tummies are full. Leptin also alters our metabolism to burn fat. It seems that you cannot starve fat off, you only starve muscle which lowers metabolism and causes metabolic havoc in your body. You have to make diet changes and exercise to burn the fat off. Start with walking daily for exercise and eliminate gluten from your diet as gluten interferes with leptin, the fat burning hormone.

06/04/12 Amino acids link together to form peptides and peptides link together to form proteins. There are thousands of different proteins in our bodies but only 20 basic amino acids. Proteins aren’t our concerns as our body makes those if we just give it the 20 basic “building blocks” called amino acids. Our body normally makes 11 of these amino acids from chemicals already present in our body. The other 9 are called essential amino acids because we have to find them in our diets or we get sick. That is why they are called “essential amino acids.” The essential 9 are: Lysine, Methionine, Tryptophan, Phenylalanine, Isoleucine, Leucine, Arginine, Threonine and Valine.

06/01/12 The additive stearic acid is a saturated fatty acid used as an emulsifier (binds oil and water) and emollient(softens the textures). It’s found in saturated oils like palm and coconut and can also be made from animal sources. It’s created by treating oil with water at high temperatures – going through the hydrogenation process. Test animals given just small amounts of stearic acid showed neurological side effects as well as organ toxicity and skin irritation in lab tests. Most stearic acids are blended with palmitic acid, a chemical that according to the EWG formed tumors in animals at high doses. Heavy metals are also commonly used in the processing of these chemicals.

05/31/12 Maltodextrin is a food additive-filler often added to junk foods like candy, soda, and potato chips. It is considered “safe” by the FDA, but safe is not the same thing as healthy. Maltodextrin is a food additive that’s derived from starches from potatoes, corn and other sources and has no real nutritional value. Maltodextrin has a limited range of side effects, but is notorious for its habit forming tendencies. Maltodextrin helps drive junk food sales, which makes it an industry sweetheart for Big Grocery companies.

05/30/12 Research shows that added sugar from sweetened beverages increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes. In fact, the American Heart Association recommends we get no more than 6.5 teaspoons of added sugar daily, but most of us eat way more than that. In fact, many people pollute themselves with about 20 teaspoons of added sugar or more a day making them 77% more likely to have blood pressure levels of 160/100 or greater. The more added sugar equals the highest blood pressure, according to a study in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

05/29/12 Carbs explained: Carbohydrates are compounds of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in the proportions 6:12:6. Carbs are used during metabolism to produce energy, which reduces to carbon dioxide and water. Carbohydrates in our diets are mainly in the form of starches and sugars. Carbohydrates can be divided into the three groups of monosaccharides (glucose, fructose, galactose), disaccharides like sucrose (sugar)/lactose (dairy)/maltose(grain), and polysaccharides like glycogen (animal starch), and cellulose (plant starch).

05/28/12 Shore Lunch’s Creamy Potato Soup Mix – Made from Scratch Quality?? That statement has me scratching all right… It’s no wonder you can’t find the ingredient list on the company website when you pick up the actual package to find partially hydrogenated oils, corn syrup solids(GMO?), corn starch(GMO?), modified corn starch(MSG/GMO?), salt, methylcellulose (tree pulp?), monosodium glutamate(more of…), wheat flour, hydrolyzed corn(more GMO corn boiled in acid?) soy protein(GMO again?), Titanium Dioxide (for Pete’s sake!), sodium caseinate (milk dissolved in lye), disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate(another MSG one-two punch), contains sulfites and finally, has 3.5 grams of deadly transfats. Don’t even feed this to your worst enemy peeps!

05/25/12 The fatty acids in human diets are divided into saturated and unsaturated. Saturated fatty acids have the maximum number of hydrogen atoms that their chemical structure will permit. All fats and oils eaten by humans are mixtures of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. Fats from land animals contain more saturated fatty acids than do those of vegetable origin. Fats from fish have more unsaturated fatty acids along with plant products. Excess intake of saturated fats is one of the risk factors associated with arteriosclerosis and coronary heart disease.

05/24/12 Did you know that habanero, jalapeño, and cayenne peppers have negative food calories? They speed up metabolism and increase the heart rate so you burn more calories while you eat them than they contain. Of course they are guaranteed to make you sweat a bit too. An old food study proved that eating a spicy meal can boost your metabolism by up to 25%. A new study proves that the capsaicin in these peppers drives prostate cancer cells to kill themselves. Cayenne has actually been used to treat obesity, chronic infections, diabetes, pain and headaches, osteoarthritis and now cancer.

05/23/12 How do cows get such strong bones? From plants of course! According to notmilk.com, American women consume an average of 2 pounds of milk per day and yet 30 million of these women have osteoporosis. Milk products do not prevent bone loss. Bone loss is actually exacerbated by consuming excess protein. Besides that, store-bought milk can have up to 20 different kinds of painkillers, antibiotics, growth hormones, anti-inflammatory drugs, ibuprofen, lipid regulators, anticonvulsants, beta-blockers, antibiotics, ethinylestradiol and estrone. Most cows’ milk has detectable amounts of herbicides, pesticides with dioxins up to 200 times the safe level. Make mine raw-organic or make it none at all.

05/22/12 Polyphenols found in darkly pigmented fruits, berries and vegetables slow cognitive decline. Berries contain lots of polyphenols for helping oxidative stress. A 2010 study shows that a diet high in strawberry, blueberry, or blackberry extract leads to a reversal of age-related deficits in nerve function involving learning and memory. High concentrations of strawberry, blueberry, and acai berry extracts help the cells clear wastes linked to mental decline and memory loss. But the berry benefits don’t stop there as berries also reduce cardiovascular disease risk and so much more!

05/17/12 Sugar in all forms, from the refined stuff in the sugar bowl to high fructose corn syrup, is a key contributor to obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and other diet-related diseases. About 16 percent of the total calories in American diets now come from added sugar in the form of soda, energy drinks, and sports drinks, cakes and cookies, sugar-sweetened fruit drinks, ice cream and other desserts and candy. Loaded with calories and almost no nutrients, this crap pushes the good food out of our way. Solution: Don’t buy that stuff anymore. How hard is it to choose an apple over a candy bar?

05/16/12 According to researchers at Harvard, eating more blueberries, apples and pears help lower the risk of diabetes. These and other fruits are loaded with flavonoids, which are natural compounds with other health benefits such as a lower risk of heart disease or cancer high blood pressure. Blueberry-lovers enjoy a 23 percent lower risk of developing type II diabetes compared with those who do not eat blueberries. In the Harvard study, people who ate five or more apples a week also had a 23 percent lower diabetes risk compared with those who didn’t eat apples. But don’t think that bottled juices or canned or frozen fruit will get you there because fresh, raw organic is always best.

05/15/12 Sucralose is the chlorinated form of sugar. Chlorine!! Sucralose comes with this partial list of “side effects” of gastrointestinal problems, bloating, nausea and diarrhea, decreased red blood cell count, skin irritations, rashes, hives, swelling and itching, breathing difficulties, wheezing, runny nose, cough, heart palpitations, chest muscle pain, itchy eyes, anxiety, depression, mood swings, sudden onset of anger, dizziness, enlarged liver and kidneys, growth rate plummets, atrophy of lymph follicles in the thymus and spleen, hyperplasia of the pelvis, decreased fetal body weight, decreased placental weight, longer pregnancy, longer periods, aborted pregnancy, stillbirth and DEATH! That’s some list of effects, eh?

05/14/12 Again with the amazing egg! Eggs are loaded with carotenoids. Carotenoids are colorful plant pigments that give foods amazing colors. The brighter to food the higher the carotenoids like the bright yellow in corn and squash, the brilliant orange in oranges, pumpkins and carrots and the magnificent green in spinach, kale and collard greens. Always remember that carotenoids are more than just nature’s wonderful food coloring; they are a big source of necessary antioxidants that help prevent aging, many diseases and nourish your eyes. Go figure this one: eggs are actually good for your healthy cholesterol.

05/11/12 Deep doo-doo: The #1 GMO crop in America is corn – making corn products #1 to avoid. This includes high fructose corn syrup added to just about everything from applesauce to drugs and vitamins. Even a bulk of our vitamin C is made from GMO corn grown in China and should all be suspect. GMO corn has been modified to create its own insecticide which is up to 3,000 times as potent as the traditional application. Even Monsanto admits that half of the US’s sweet corn farms are planted with genetically modified seed. But this means that open field GMO crops are cross-pollinating with our normal crops. We are in deep doo-doo and don’t know it yet…

05/10/12 Sulforaphane can beat cancer, and it’s in your broccoli! Women who love to eat cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, and cauliflower are 62 percent less likely to die of breast cancer and 35 percent less likely to have a recurrence of cancer than women who avoid veggies. And sulforaphane actually lowers death rates from all causes. It’s all about the enzymes and sulforaphane switches on certain phase II enzymes that help DNA stay healthy and can stop tumors from growing.
10/11/12 The best part of waking up…is reducing cancer with your cup o java. A cup-a-day (or two) lowers the risk of neurodegeneration, depression, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. This recent study in the NEJM found that moderate coffee consumption lowered all-cause mortality by over 10% in a 13-year follow-up. Coffee beans contain antioxidant compounds that reduce oxidation of good cholesterol and reduce inflammation markers. Women who drank 2 to 3 cups a day enjoy a 15% decreased risk for depression compared with drinkers of less than 1 cup per week. BUT… All is not roses without thorns here. Excess coffee can increase blood pressure, incite or worsen anxiety, insomnia, tremors and can elevate glaucoma risk.

10/10/12 Revisiting the tomato: Tomatoes are high in the antioxidant lycopene and eating tomatoes brings a lower risk of stroke, according to new research published in Neurology. Big news? Not really, just old news made fresh. Once again we have evidence that a diet high in fruits and vegetables benefits by preventing disease. The mucky-mucks recommend that people get five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, which alone would provide a major reduction in the number of strokes and other diet related diseases. Why stop at 5? Make them all fresh, organic servings.

10/09/12 Trans fats are in bakery muffins and crispy crackers, microwave popcorn and French fries and even stick margarine. Trans fats were once touted as a cheap replacement for butter, lard and coconut oil but now trans fats have been denounced by one Harvard nutrition expert as “the biggest food-processing disaster in U.S. history.” Research shows that trans fats are twice as dangerous for your heart and cause up to 100,000 premature heart disease deaths annually. Read the ingredient list for “partially hydrogenated, fractionated, or hydrogenated” fats. If you find these words mentioned – toss ‘em out.

10/08/12 The rich get richer and the poor – well, they buy processed foods. Most households spend their meager food budget on cheap and over-processed foods. Packaged foods have completely taken over the diet of poor Americans and a vast majority of these cheap and highly superficial foods are first stripped of nutrients and then filled with additives, laden with sweeteners, salts, more salts, artificial flavors, man-made fats, artificial colorings, nasty chemicals and toxic preservatives. The big trouble is that processed foods are all stripped of nutrients that God designed to protect your health. Combine that with additives for a recipe for health disaster.

10/05/12 Walnuts are now treated as drugs and the FDA is not on your side peeps! In yet another overt attempt to enslave Americans to Big Pharma drugs and suppress our freedom of health choices, the FDA issued a warning to Diamond Foods stating that their claims for the study-backed, health-promoting qualities of walnuts is breaking the law by making health claims that only approved drugs can make. They did the same thing to study-backed astragalus that defeats the seasonal flu by making demands on Dr. Weil to IMMEDIATELY cease and desist making such claims. When is enough enough? These idiots work for you – the American people – or do they?

10/04/12 Approximately 95% of soybean and over 85% of corn planted are genetically modified to be herbicide resistant. So how are those GMOs working out? Not very well… Actually, it is the weeds that are winning out and adapting to the poisons, forcing farmers to increase herbicide application rates, spray more often and even add new herbicides. “Resistant weeds have become a major problem for many farmers reliant on GE crops, and they are now driving up the volume of herbicide needed each year by about 25 percent,” says professor Benbrook from the USDA. So, cancer and other human defects aside, GMO are a huge LOSE-LOSE. The only one winning is Monsanto.

10/03/12 Ice cream companies are using nanomaterials to make their products “look richer and better textured.” Bread makers are spraying nanomaterials on their loaves “to make them shinier and help them keep microbe-free longer.” But what is this doing to our bodies? There are hundreds of products containing nanoparticles on the market before they have been proven safe. A two-year-long examination of nanoparticles at UCLA shows DNA and chromosome damage after lab animals drank the particles in their water. Nanoparticles are also linked to cancer in test animals.

10/02/12 If it smells bad – toss it out! Trust your nose-smeller and your brain. Don’t even taste food which smells a little bad. If you smell it but are still uncertain as to whether or not a food is still safe to eat, toss it out! Reheating foods cannot destroy the toxins of SOME bacteria if a food has been handled incorrectly – but not all of them. If you are eating canned food, you’d better be in a nuclear fallout shelter. Regardless – never eat canned food if the can is bulging in the top or looks like it has had a leak. The consequence of food-borne illness is not worth the $1.39 you might save trying to salvage questionable food.

10/01/12 According to representative Kucinich, “In 1992 the Food and Drug Administration decided that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are the functional equivalent of conventional foods. They arrived at this decision without testing GMOs for allergenicity, toxicity, anti-biotic resistance and functional characteristics. As a result hundreds of millions of acres of GMO crops were planted in America wi
thout the knowledge or consent of the American people: no safety testing and no long term health studies. The FDA has received over a million comments from citizens demanding labeling of GMOs. Ninety percent of Americans agree. So, why no labeling? … Americans have a right to know if their food is genetically engineered. It’s time for labeling and for people to know how their food is being produced.”

09/28/12 A plus for good old family values and a few home-cooked family meals: An Ohio State study found that preschoolers were less likely to be obese if they shared an evening meal with their families more than five times per week, got at least 10½ hours of sleep per night and watched less than two hours per day of TV on weekdays. I’ve got more than enough time for the 5 meals, but who has time to watch two hours of TV a day? Incongruous to my mind…

09/27/12 Do you want to know what it takes to be healthy and full of vim and vinegar? Do you want to avoid being sick? First thing to do, above all else is to eat right to develop and maintain optimal health. Here are some quick tips for healthy eating: * Don’t over-eat. * Shop carefully for fresh, organic whole foods. * Avoid all processed foods. * Read the labels to avoid preservatives, additives and artificial colors, sweeteners and flavors * Eat healthy fats and avoid transfats. * Drink plenty of water. * Supplement with vitamins and minerals from natural food sources.

09/26/12 Nanoparticles are linked to cancer and chromosome damage in test animals.The government scientists, who are actively attempting to evaluate the risk of introducing nanotechnology to food, say that only a handful of corporations are collaborating with the FDA and USDA to help develop regulations that will both protect the public and permit their products to reach market. Most companies submit little or no information unless forced. Even then company health studies are withheld by corporate lawyers claiming confidential business information.

09/25/12 By now you all have read the headlines: “Little evidence of health benefits from organic foods, Stanford study finds.” But if you look at the record, Stanford also found in another study that non-organic meats contain more drug-resistant bacteria with one third more likelihood to contain three or more different killer bacteria than organic meats. Stanford studies also find that organic fruits and veggies contain much lower levels of pesticides. DID THESE EDUCATED IDIOTS EVEN READ THEIR OWN STUDIES?? The fact remains that organic meats have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients and organic fruits and vegetables have more antioxidants and vitamins.

09/24/12 God designed cows to eat grass and not grain. What we get for the grain fed cows is a diabetic meat at the meat counter. Diabetes in cows causes delicious marbling of the flesh after all. Never the less, we eat way too much protein meat in America. The rising consumption of proteins has had a direct correlation to heart disease, diabetes and other diseases. The adverse health impacts of excessive meat-eating stem in large part from what nutritionists call the “great protein fiasco”–a mistaken belief of many Westerners that they need to consume large quantities of protein.

09/21/12 Our brains need quality salt! Salt is vital to the communication and information processing nerve cells from the moment of conception to death. Salt is vital to the extraction of excess acidity from the cells in the body, particularly the brain cells. Did you know that twenty-seven percent of the body’s salt is in the bones. Osteoporosis results when the body needs more salt and takes it from the body. Make mine Himalayan salt.

09/20/12 Organic row to hoe: Organic foods cost more than conventional food products. The higher cost is due to more expensive farming practices, stricter regulations and lower crop yields. Organic farmers don’t use the commercial herbicides and pesticides that conventional producers use to control weeds and pests making these efforts very labor intensive. For example, when an organic grower hand weeds the vegetables to control weeds, you end up paying more for these vegetables.

09/19/12 Two good reasons to go organic: PESTICIDES: Conventional food producers use pesticides to protect foods they handle from molds, insects and diseases. Farmers also spray poisonous and neurotoxic pesticides on crops that leave residues on produce. Buying organic foods will help limit your body’s exposure to these poisons. ENVIRONMENT: Organic farming benefits the environment by reducing pollution, keeping a balanced ecosystem and conserving water and soil.

09/18/12 Natural beats drugs… again: Penn State scientists discovered that honey is a powerful cough suppressant. When parents of sick children doled out honey or dextromethorphan (the active ingredient in over-the-counter cough medicines) honey was better at lessening cough frequency and severity. But you had better know who is selling the honey as some honey bears sourced from China should actually be called “corn syrup and artificial sweetener bears.” You want local honey for healthy eating so shop carefully and avoid the honey bear.

09/17/12 Nothing fishy about this study! Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health say that eating fish at least twice a week lowers heart-disease risk by more than 30 percent. The magic ingredient is omega-3 fatty acids. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which is the omega-3 fatty acid found primarily in cold water fish and fish oil, was also found to increase activation of the pre-frontal cortex and improve reaction time with tasks requiring sustained attention. Now will you eat more fish? Make mine wild-caught.

09/14/12 High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) generates Advanced Glyction Endproducts – a major factor in aging and diseases. 100% of all HFCS is processed in the liver and turned into VLDL, Free Fatty Acids and triglycerides. Due to the extremely high acidity of HFCS combined with the phosphoric acid in sodas, people often lose bone minerals to end up with osteoporosis, as the body uses minerals from the bones as acid “buffers” in the blood. In other words, to prevent the sodas from killing you, the body forfeits bone minerals in order to stay alive.

09/13/12 Caramel coloring: We used to make caramel with water and sugar, on top of a stove. Caramel coloring as a food additive wouldn’t be dangerous made the old-fashioned way. But the Big Grocery industry uses a different recipe: They treat sugar with ammonia! This produces some nasty carcinogens. How carcinogenic are these compounds you ask? A Center for Science in the Public Interest report asserted that the high levels of caramel color found in soda account for roughly 15,000 cancers in the U.S. annually. This is just one more good reason to scrap soft drinks and never again lift one to your lips.

09/12/12 Nitrites and nitrates are used in meats to inhibit botulism-causing bacteria and to help retain processed meats’ pink hues. Of course the FDA (Fatal Drugs Allowed) approves of their use. Unfortunately, nitrites fuse with amino acids (of which meat is a prime source) to form nitrosamines, powerful carcinogenic compounds. Ascorbic and the isolated form – erythorbic acids-are essentially vitamin C antioxidants that help decrease the cancer risk. Most manufacturers now add one or both to their products because of this. Don’t take the poison and then rely on the antidote…. The best way to reduce risk is to avoid added nitrites and nitrates.

09/11/12 Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) is a very nasty preservative used to prevent spoilage of oils and fats in processed food. Did you know that while the FDA allows this carcinogen in your food you can use it to kill rats with a slow cancerous death? In my world this is reason enough to avoid any and all food products that contain BHA and its first cousin – butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT). BHA is found in butter, meats, cereals, chewing gum, baked goods, snack foods, dehydrated potatoes, beer, animal feed, food packaging and cosmetics. BHT is also used to prevent rancidity of fats along with preserving food odor, color, and flavor.

09/10/12 Hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) is used as a flavor enhancer. It is plant protein that has been chemically broken down into amino acids. The most common being glutamic acid, releases free glutamate which joins with free sodium in your body. HVP forms monosodium glutamate which is a food additive known to cause headaches, nausea, and weakness – among many other “side effects”. When MSG is added to products directly, the FDA (Foot Dragging and Alibis) requires labeling it on the ingredient statement. But when MSG occurs as a byproduct of HVP, the FDA (Federal Denial Agency) permits it to go unrecognized.

09/07/12 High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) doesn’t exist in nature. It is a manufactured product created by using enzymes and in some processes, MERCURY to increase the fructose content of corn syrup to about 90%. HFCS generates Advanced Glyction Endproducts reaction with proteins. 100% of all HFCS is processed in the liver alone and turned into bad cholesterol and Free Fatty Acids (FFAs). Researchers have recently suggested that high fructose corn syrup, “should be considered an environmental toxin with major health implications”, as it has been associated with a dramatic rise in individuals developing metabolic syndrome and the development of kidney disease.

09/06/12 Grape seed oil is the quiet champion among other oils like olive and canola oil. Many nutritionists believe grape seed oil to be the healthiest oil of all. Grape seed oil makes for a wonderful, all-purpose, high temperature cooking oil for use in baking, frying and sautéing. Grape seed oil has a light, neutral taste that doesn’t compete with other food flavors and is a delicious addition to salad dressings. Studies show grape seed oil and grape seed extract can heal a variety of health issues, including heart disease.

09/05/12 You are what you afford to eat! Adam Drewnowski, an epidemiology professor who studies obesity and social class, says people who can pay $6 for a pound of radicchio at Whole Foods are obviously better able to afford a healthy diet than those who buy $1.88 packs of pizza rolls at Albertson’s to feed their kids. “If people wanted a diet to be cheap, they went to one supermarket”. Drewnowski told MSNBC. “If they wanted their diet to be healthy, they went to another supermarket and spent more.” Only 15 percent of shoppers choose a store based on proximity. The others choose a store based on price or quality.

09/04/12 Eating fat won’t make you fat any more than eating money will make you rich. But eating foods with the wrong kinds of fat will make you fat. Trans-fats are found in pie crusts and almost any other baked goods, while saturated fats are found in processed and grain-fed meats. Both of these add calories and harm your body nutritionally. Healthy fats do exactly the opposite: They fill you up while cutting the number of calories consumed. Healthy fats work to improve heart health while stoking your metabolism.

08/31/12 Well Duh! Researchers from the California State University in Chico found that grass-fed beef had healthier fats of higher quality, higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, more of vitamins A and E, and higher levels of antioxidants. They also found grass-fed beef had double the levels of conjugated linoleic acid which is linked to weight loss, a lower risk of diabetes and may even help fight cancer. Grain-fed cows are diabetic and also pumped full of hormones and antibiotics before being trucked off to massive slaughterhouses where germs and disease-causing bacteria are routinely packed with the meat.

08/30/12 Lightly cooked carrots, spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, cabbage, peppers and many other vegetables supply more antioxidants, such as carotenoids and ferulic acid, to the body than they do raw. A report in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry studied the impact of the various cooking techniques on compounds such as carotenoids, ascorbic acid and polyphenols and found that boiling and steaming were better cooking methods to preserve antioxidants – particularly carotenoid, in carrots, zucchini and broccoli. Frying them was a loser with all the free radicals generated.

08/29/12 Food for thought: Amino Acids are the chemical units or “building blocks” of the body that make proteins. Protein is the substance that in turn makes your muscles, tendons, organs, glands, nails, and hair. Growth, repair and maintenance of all cells are dependent upon protein and next to water, protein makes up the greatest portion of our body weight. Amino Acids that must be obtained from the diet are called “Essential Amino Acids” other Amino Acids that the body can manufacture from other sources as-needed are called “Non-Essential Amino Acids.”

08/28/12 BRAN REDUCES MORTALITY IN DIABETICS: A 26-year study on thousands of diabetic women has found a higher intake of bran, a whole grain component rich in vitamins, minerals and fiber, lowers the risk of death from cardiovascular disease among women with type 2 diabetes by 35 percent. Also, for this group, bran intake reduces the overall risk of death from all causes by 28 percent. This summary was found in the May 10, 2010 issue of the journal, Circulation. Bran is great for just about everyone. Choose gluten free bran though to avoid any gluten sensitivities.

08/27/12 Gluten interferes with healthy fat cells! And we all need healthy fat cells. When the signals from healthy fat cells are working, you don’t get hungry as often and your fat gets burned naturally. When things are running smoothly, your body produces leptin. This messenger sends out three signals: One, it tells your brain you’re full to shut down your hunger. Two, it tells the fat inside your cells to break down into a kind of fat that can be burned as energy. Three, leptin normalizes peripheral pain sensations in the spinal cord (think fibromyalgia). Gluten is found in almost everything these days and human tolerance for this grain protein is falling like a rock.

08/24/12 Molasses is concentrated minerals and goodness! Molasses is produced as a waste product from the sugar refining where they remove as much as 98% of the nutrition from natural sugar. Molasses contains vitamins, minerals, and uridine. Uridine influences levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine which are two important brain chemicals that regulate your mood and behavior. New research shows that molasses can help prevent depression. Eating molasses is part of a healthy food strategy that can beat antidepressant drugs.

08/23/12 Green tea may keep your weight stabilize. Mice that exercised and drank green tea were 22 percent less likely to gain weight than those who only exercised or only had tea, according to the International Journal of Obesity. Polyphenols in the drink help rev your metabolism and make it easier for your body to eliminate fat. Plus, the tea has plenty of good antioxidants to slash your risk for cancer and heart disease.

08/21/12 For poor countries where people eat few animal products, reaching self-sufficiency in food grains requires just 170 kg (Taiwan) of cereals per person per year. But that number quickly rises when people switch from a grain-based diet to a meat-based one. To produce animal products requires more than doubling the kg per person to 390 kilograms. Taiwan, for instance, increased per-capita consumption of meat and eggs six-fold from 1950 to 1990. Taiwan could only keep up with the demand for feed by turning to imports from abroad. In 1950 Taiwan was a grain exporter; in 1990, the nation imported 74 percent of the grain it used.

08/20/12 Margarine is very high in trans fatty acids and triples the risk of coronary heart disease, increases total cholesterol along with bad cholesterol while lowering the good cholesterol, increases the risk of cancers up to five times, lowers quality of breast milk, decreases immune response, decreases insulin response… Need I say more? There’s nothing like the real thing baby! Butter is natural and has many nutritional benefits where margarine is manmade has few purported benefits and even then only because they are added.

08/17/12 Disaccharides are simple sugars that are converted into monosaccharides before they can be absorbed and utilized in the body. Disaccharides are actually two sugar molecules fused together. Examples are sucrose, lactose and maltose. Sucrose is common table sugar made from the monosaccharides glucose and fructose – mostly produced from sugar cane, beets and is present in carrots and pineapple. Lactose is the disaccharide present in milk made from glucose and galactose. Maltose is found in germinating seeds and is a disaccharide composed of two glucose residues – the fundamental structural unit of glycogen and starch.

08/16/12 Strawberries, are good for more than just desert. Strawberries have the highest total antioxidant power among major fruits to protect the body from cancer-causing, blood vessel-clogging free radicals. They make a refreshing summer treat, but what you may not know is a paste made of this ripe fruit also soothes aching, sunburned skin. “Strawberries are cooling in nature and generate body fluids which are helpful after too much fun in the sun”, says Kristen N. Burris, acupuncturist and herbalist. Make a paste from mashed strawberries and apply to burned skin.

08/15/12 Cave man diet: “If you can pluck it or spear it, you can eat it”. Man’s body was not designed to eat grains except on rare occasions. Meat requires a far less complicated gut to convert meat to protein thus tigers have shortened guts (four times their body length). Goats have 4 stomachs and 100 foot of intestinal tracts. Man’s gut is 23 foot long – about the average meat-eater’s length. Animal tissues are much easier to digest than plant tissues which are encased in tough polysaccharide walls. Technically, when we eat meat we should only eat medium rare to rare meats. We cook our meats to kill bacteria.

08/14/12 Beets are anti-cancer! According to The World’s Healthiest Foods recent lab studies found that betanin pigments in beets can impede tumor cell growth in tissues throughout the body. Betanin is one of the most researched betalains found in beets to have anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and detoxifying effects. The blood red color in beets comes from betacyanins, which are natural compounds that are extremely powerful cancer-fighting agents. Beets also contain an amino acid called betaine and unique phytochemicals called betalains. Be careful to start out slow with beets or beetroot to not overwhelm your liver’s waste disposal system. Start with small quantities and gradually increase.

08/13/12 A genetically modified (GM) food study found that an astounding 55.6% of the offspring of female rats fed genetically engineered soy flour died within three weeks in female rats that received 5-7 grams of Roundup Ready soybeans, beginning two weeks before conception and continuing through nursing. Offspring of the GM-fed group were significantly stunted by 36%. Rats fed a diet of GM corn developed smaller kidneys and had blood abnormalities. This particular study was conducted by Monsanto and according to the 1,139-page report, these health problems were absent from the non-GM control group. Dr. Mercola says that 7 out of 10 items in a conventional produce department are now GM.

08/10/12 Smart Balance oil spray = dumb lies! The FDA says that if there’s less than 1/2 gram of fat in a serving size, a food company can round down to zero and call the product “Fat-Free.” Furthermore, if it has less than 5 calories a serving, that number also rounds down to zero. Consider this peeps, the hidden serving size for most of oil sprayss is ONE-THIRD OF ONE SPRAY!! That’s a potential of 1.5 grams of fat and 15 calories per spray. Who uses one-third of one spray? These dumber than dumb cooking choices also have artificial ingredients, such as polysorbate 60, that are linked to cancer according to EWG.org. You won’t find this garbage in my cupboards.

08/09/12 Fructose is another type of sugar that occurs naturally in fruit. It is found in most fruits in the relatively small amounts that don’t pose a health risk. But in large amounts, as in processed foods and high fructose corn syrup, fructose spells BIG trouble. In fact, fructose can wreck your health. Spanish researchers gave healthy men fructose for two weeks and recorded changes in their health that were quite dramatic. Blood pressure shot up – the levels of triglycerides in their blood went up while the good cholesterol levels plummeted. Insulin levels shot up and their livers started working harder. And according to the researchers, their chances of long-term blood sugar problems increased by as much as one third!

08/08/12 Go on, eat your spinach and grow up big and strong so you can make your kids eat their spinach! Green leafy vegetables supply almost half of the vitamin K for the majority of Americans. But most foods considered rich in vitamin K are shown to have less vitamin K than previously thought. Most multivitamins don’t contain any vitamin K at all – and those that do don’t contain enough. Unlike the other fat-soluble vitamins, vitamin K is not stored in significant quantities in the liver and toxic levels are rarely achieved. Most produce, including spinach, has at least 10 times less nutrients now vs. 50 years ago.

08/07/12 Yoplait light yogurt; is it good for you? I know people who are addicted to it -literally. The bad ingredients are high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), modified corn starch, natural flavor (could be MSG or gluten based), and aspartame. The 2nd ingredient in this junk is HFCS which is bad enough by itself until you add the aspartame. So you burden the liver with HFCS (100% of HFCS is processed in the liver) and poison the neurology with aspartame. You would have to be tougher than nails to eat this daily and survive for any length of time without health consequences showing up…

08/06/12 Dietary guidelines recommend that we get a large portion of our calories from complex carbs. Of course, not all complex carbohydrates are created equal. The best sources of complex carbohydrates are: legumes, brown rice, whole grains, potatoes, corn, broccoli and spinach. During digestion, complex carbohydrates break down into simple monosaccharides, proteins break down to form amino acids and fats break down into fatty acids. Glucose and other simple sugars can pass easily through intestinal walls and into the blood, causing immediate reactions in the body.

08/03/12 Americans waste up to half of their food! Since 1974, the food that each American throws away has escalated to by 50 percent. The average American tosses out about five pounds of trash a day with 12 percent of trash being food-based waste. Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland, says that Americans waste as much as half of the food produced every year; the equivalent of filling a 90,000 seat football stadium to the brim at least once every single day.

08/02/12 Journal of General Internal Medicine: Stats show that people who eat the least salt suffer from the highest rates of death as a result of heart disease. The patients in the study who ate the least salt were 80 PERCENT more likely to die from cardiac issues than those who consumed the MOST salt. Salt is NOT the key factor in the development of high blood pressure and hypertension. The real problem here is the bleached, devitalized, nutrient free junk you buy at the grocers or eat in processed food. Make mine Himalayan Sea Salt please!

08/01/12 Cool Whip ingredients are not so Cool: Water is the first ingredient followed closely by hydrogenated vegetable oil (Very bad for your cholesterol and increases heart risks). Third in is the awful high fructose corn syrup (which is processed exclusively by the liver – if it has time). Not sweet enough yet though as the fourth ingredient is corn syrup (GMO corn?), then skim milk (A1 cows’ milk with opioids?), light cream (again with the opioids) and less than 2% sodium caseinate (linked to autism, brain malfunctions and allergies), natural and artificial flavor (can contain gluten or chemicals, can be various forms of MSG), xanthan and guar gums, polysorbate 60 (cancer anyone?), sorbitan monostearate (synthetic wax) and the final ingredient – beta carotene (as a coloring).

07/31/12 Almond milk is made when roasted almonds are crushed to make almond butter, the left-overs are mixed with water, vitamins, stabilizers and a sweetener, such as evaporated cane juice. Almond milk is especially low in calories: A cup of original-formula Silk Pure Almond contains 60 calories. I make our almond milk using 1 cup of almonds soaked in the blender full of water overnight. In the morning I blend it for two minutes on high and add in some xylitol. Squeeze it through a nut filter bag (from the pool supply house) and then drink. I dehydrate the dregs for almond flour. Winner!

07/30/12 We have the wrong cows! Black and white milk cows produce milk that contains a small amount of beta-casein type A1, which behaves like an opiate. Studies implicate this bad-for-human protein in heart disease, cancer, Type I diabetes, autism and schizophrenia. This maverick protein causes milk addiction also. Dr. Thomas Cowan, co-founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation says “Raw and cultured dairy products from healthy grass-fed cows are one of the healthiest foods people have ever eaten. It is the very foundation of western civilization (not that this is necessarily so good). On the other hand, pasteurized, particularly low-fat, milk products have caused more disease than perhaps any other substance people are generally in contact with.”

07/27/12 The American Academy of Environmental Medicine states, “…several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.” Did you know that some 98% of all vitamin C comes from GMO corn from China? So, why are we even buying this? Go organic peeps, if you know what’s good for you…
12/18/12 The case against infant formula feeding: Free fatty acids are generated during the baby’s digestion of infant formula that cause cellular death that contribute to necrotizing enterocolitis, a severe intestinal condition that is often fatal and occurs most commonly in premature infants. But not so with breast milk! This is according to a study by University of California, San Diego and was based on in vitro tests comparing the digestion of fresh human breast milk and nine different infant formulas, published in the journal Pediatric Research.

12/17/12 Got food allergies? Now you can use your cell phone to test your foods to find out if there are allergens in them. Consumer-protection laws regulate the labeling of ingredients but cross-contaminations can still occur during processing, manufacturing and transportation. The new iTube is a light-weight, portable device that weighs in at less than two ounces and attaches to your cell phone to analyze an allergen-concentration by a test known as a colorimetric assay. This was developed by a research team at UCLA. Allergic reactions can be severe and life-threatening. Known food allergies affect around 8% of young children and 2% of adults.

12/14/12 Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages and contains a variety of antioxidants, polyphenols, and other active compounds that actually can help protect against cancers. The American Cancer Society found a strong inverse association between drinking caffeinated coffee and lower oral/pharyngeal cancer mortality. People who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee per day have about half the risk of death from these cancers compared to those who drink occasionally or not at all. The study was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The findings were based upon fatal cases of oral/pharyngeal cancer occurring over a 26-year period.

12/13/12 Plasticizers in your food: Researchers measured phthalate levels in the urine of 319 pregnant women, and then tracked the kids for three years. What they found was that the kiddos with the highest prenatal exposure were more likely to have behavioral problems and delays in motor skills. This crap is turning boys into girls and turning the girls dumber. This is not going to get any better because the researchers say phthalates levels have almost tripled recently. They put this chemical in food containers, plastic dishware and baggies and then they leach into your food.

12/12/12 Childhood memory gone GMO: Good old Cracker Jacks is now loaded with bad stuff and is a GMO nightmare. The first ingredient in the label is sugar. Is that sugar from GMO beets? Doesn’t matter because the second ingredient is corn syrup and that one is GMO. This makes sugar and syrup the prime ingredients in Cracker Jacks! Well, you still need popcorn (another GMO plagued product) and peanuts (the first non-GMO product here – for now) and those are the third and fourth ingredients. Next comes salt (not the good kind either) and then GMO-based corn or soybean oil followed by soy lecithin (if you guessed GMO-based soy lecithin you are correct). I wouldn’t eat this crap on a bet…

12/11/12 Make a connection between what you eat and the ensuing heartburn and avoid those foods. When it comes to heartburn, three of the most common triggers are large meals, fatty foods and lower esophageal sphincter (LES) relaxers like gluten, sugar and alcohol that allow acid to seep into the esophagus. If you suffer from heartburn, you should avoid eating just before bed which puts pressure on the LES. Avoid eating until you are too stuffed because this stretches your stomach, which places pressure on the LES muscle. Fatty foods are another cause of heartburn like a big juicy hamburger and French fries, foods with a high fat or oil content that stay in your digestive tract for a longer period causing your stomach to produce greater amounts of acid.

12/10/12 Diet foods are lower caloric versions of their high-calorie cousins, made by reducing the sugar and/or fat content and replacing them with chemical substitutes. Another baddie is reduced sugar foods and beverages are often loaded with highly processed, chemically-derived sugar substitutes; reduced fat foods usually have a lot of added sugars. Any of these options require nasty chemicals and additives and extra processing that are best avoided if you want to get healthy and stay healthy.

12/07/12 The FDA quietly raised the radiation levels allowed meat. Now there’s nothing you can do about higher irradiation levels – and they are not labeled anyhow. So your store-bought chicken can glow with 50% more radiation as the FDA increased the amount of ionizing radiation limits applied to poultry products from 3.0kGy to 4.5kGy of radiation. One kilogray is 100,000 rads and is literally equivalent to millions of chest x-rays. Do you really want to eat radioactive damaged foods? To avoid irradiated foods you will have to buy only organic or locally-grown and verified foods. Did you know that electron beam irradiators deliver up to 40kGy to your mail daily?

12/06/12 Hydrogenated vegetable oil sometimes goes by the name “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.” It is more commonly known as a trans-fat. You can find it in: Processed chips, microwave popcorn, crackers, cookies, pastries, pies, cakes, most fast foods, butter, margarine, lard, coconut oil, cottonseed oil & palm kernel oil etc… Why you should avoid it: Trans fats raise levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol and lower levels of “good” HDL cholesterol, which increases your chances of developing heart disease, having a heart attack, stroke or kidney failure.

12/05/12 Carrots not only protect and improve your vision, but carrots also give your immune system an instant boost. Your skin is the first line of defense against foreign invaders in your body and the immune-boosting power of carrots lies in the abundance of beta-carotene in them. Carrots are also helpful in a cancer battle and being studied by researchers just for that purpose. Want a quick energy boost? Munch a raw carrot. The ones with the tops still on them are usually the sweetest and the best. For the best effect, eat your carrots raw or better yet, juice a bunch of them.

12/04/12 There are more than 300 varieties of asparagus but less than 20 are edible. This flavorful vegetable is one of the most powerful antioxidant-rich, nutrient-dense foods for the fight against chronic illness and disease. Scientists know that chronic inflammation is the root cause of cancer and many other diseases like heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and autoimmune diseases and that eating foods with high anti-inflammatory properties lowers inflammation. The more purple-colored a bunch of asparagus is, the more health benefits it contains and the sweeter its taste. The best time of year to buy asparagus is in the spring and early summer. Always store asparagus upright in a glass jar of water in the fridgy. Eat it within two days of purchase.

12/03/12 A new university study shows that children eating more fast food meals will grow up to have a lower IQ than those who regularly eat freshly-cooked meals. Researchers found that according to a study, by the age of eight the junk food kiddos children lagged by up to two points in IQ than their healthy counterparts. Childhood nutrition has long lasting effects on IQ and the type of main meal that children eat daily has an impact on their cognitive ability and growth. Dr von Stumm from the study said: “Mothers and fathers from less privileged backgrounds often have less time to prepare a freshly cooked meal from scratch for their children.”

11/30/12 Fishy business: According to the National Seafood Inspection Laboratory, an agency also tasked with monitoring mercury levels in fish, determined that 34% of all fish sold in the United States wasn’t really the species we think we are buying. But only 2% of all imported fish is inspected by the FDA and one of the few States of the US where a seafood safety testing program is implemented is Alabama. The Alabama laboratories have found imported fish often contain illegal food substances such as “Malachite Green” which is known to cause cancer and birth defects. Foreign fish growers also give antibiotics to fish produced in overcrowded ponds. Consumers take in these antibiotics with their seafood dinners.

11/29/12 Olestra is a synthetic fat – yes, a synthetic fat for you to eat (or not) that actually prevents fat from absorbing into your digestive system. But, the bad news is that Olestra also blocks all your fat-soluble vitamins (A,D,E & K) along with carotenoids from being absorbed by the body. You can find this bad-boy mostly in some brands of potato chips. You should always avoid this junk-science monster as it has brought with it over 15,000 consumer complaints saying that Olestra has caused health problems- gas, diarrhea and abdominal cramps so severe that they had to go to the ER.

11/28/12 Eating unhealthy carbs, such as white bread, cookies and pastries, signals the pancreas to send out surges of insulin that change hormone levels in the body, tells cells to multiply, increases oil production and also jams pores. Gluten is a complex protein found in wheat, rye, barley and some oats that can actually feed cancer growth. Gluten is increasingly becoming a sensitivity/intolerance problem for many people because it is in so many things and we are exposed to it in every meal and snack. Try cutting gluten completely out for a few weeks and watch your health improve. I dare you!

11/27/12 Tomato basics: Tomatoes contain large amounts of vitamin C – 40% percent of the RDA, 15% of vitamin A, 8% of potassium and 7% of the RDA of iron for women and 10 percent RDA for men. A Harvard study found that out of 48,000 men surveyed, those who ate 10 or more servings of tomatoes a week reduced their risk of prostate cancer by more than 33%. What’s more, they lowered their risk of aggressive prostate tumors by HALF! Tomatoes contain a potent antioxidant called lycopene that’s been proven to reduce the risk of certain cancers – in particular, prostate cancer.

11/26/12 Refined Vegetable Oil can include soybean oil, corn oil, safflower oil, canola oil, and peanut oil that is found in most processed foods. Refined cooking oils are made by mechanical and chemical processes including using toxic chemical solvents and high temperatures and then deodorizing and bleaching the oils. Processing oils kills any natural vitamins and minerals from the seeds and creates a product that causes free radical formation and inflammation – bringing DNA damage elevated triglycerides, and impaired insulin response. To top it off, many refined vegetable oils are then hydrogenated, which contribute to heart disease and even cancer. If it is soy, corn, cottonseed or canola oil – it is likely GMO. I’d avoid these for certain.

11/23/12 Caramel color is found in many foods, like beverages, candy, baked goods, cereal, energy bars, puddings, jams, bread, macaroni and cheese, deli meat, icings, condiments, fast food, ice cream, sherbet, sorbet and even put in meats and fish to make them appear “fresher”. The problem is, caramel color is a chemical called either 2 or 4-methylimidazole, which forms when sugar is mixed with ammonia and sulfites. Caramel color is also many food colors, from FD&C Blue #1 to Red Number 3 and Yellow 5. This crap is known to cause lung, liver and thyroid cancer and other problems. If you see “Caramel Color” on the label – take it back to the store and get your money back.

11/21/12 A report by researchers at the University of Minnesota claims that regular consumption of charred meats boosts the risk of pancreatic cancer by 60 percent. Overcooking meats generates heterocyclic amines (H.A.s), which contribute to increased risk of pancreatic cancer, an especially lethal cancer. H.A.s are made by the high-temperature immolation of amino acids. Always maintain low heat while grilling, frying or barbecuing in order to cut down on excess burning or charring of the meat. This will help cut down on the cancer risk, since the burned portions have the highest HA concentrations.

11/20/12 Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) is produced by Monsanto and is a genetically-engineered version of the natural growth hormone in cows used to boost milk production in dairy cows. But rBGH milk has high levels of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) which causes breast, colon and prostate cancers. Cows on rBGH have increased incidences of mastitis and therefor, pus and blood are secreted into the milk. Did you know that rBGH milk also causes antibiotic resistance linked to virulent staph infections such as MRSA? These feminizing hormones are also linked to early onset of puberty in girls. This junk is found in all dairy products that aren’t specifically labeled “No rGBH or rBST.” rBGH milk is not required to be labeled.

11/19/12 Potassium Bromate is a toxic form of the halogen bromate which gets into the thyroid pathways to block the life-sustaining iodine. Short story: bromate is an endocrine disruptor that is used as an additive to increase the volume in breads, rolls, and flours. This junk-poison has been shown to cause cancer in animals and is even banned in the EU, Canada, and several other countries. The FDA is really on top of this one (NOT), though as the FDA (Foot Dragging and Alibis has gently requested that bakers voluntarily stop using it. In California there is even a cancer warning is required on the label. Also Known As: Bromic acid, potassium salt, bromated flour and “enriched flour.” It is used liberally in almost all commercial baked goods in the US, including Wonder Bread, Sunbeam, Home Pride (but not in Pepperidge Farm, Arnold, Entenmann’s, and Orowheat brands). Watch out because it is also a common hidden ingredient in flour that also shows up in some toothpaste and mouthwash brands as an antiseptic.

11/16/12 Sodium Nitrite and Sodium Nitrate are two closely-related chemicals used to preserve meat. But nitrates are converted to nitrosamines to increase the risk of certain types of cancers. The World Cancer Research Fund says that eating 1.8 ounces of processed meat every day increases your cancer risk by 20%. Also known as soda niter and Chile saltpeter, nitrites and nitrates are found in cured meats, bacon, ham, salami, corned beef and hot dogs, pate, pickled pig’s feet, canned meat (Vienna sausages, deviled ham), smoked salmon, dried fish, jerky.

11/15/12 Killing our kids by diet: Researchers at UC Davis and UCLA found that preschool children are at high risk for exposure to arsenic, dieldrin, DDE (a DDT metabolite), dioxins and acrylamide (often found in processed foods like potato and tortilla chips). All of these have been linked to cancer, developmental disabilities, birth defects and many other conditions. All 364 children in the study exceeded cancer benchmarks for arsenic, dieldrin, DDE and dioxins with 95 percent of preschool children exceeding cancer risk levels for acrylamide. The study also points to dietary modifications that could mitigate risk.

11/14/12 BHA and BHT are chemical food preservatives used in many foods to prevent oxidation and extend shelf life. But, BHA and BHT are oxidants that form cancer-causing reactive compounds in the body. The State of California even has listed it as a known carcinogen. This poison is found in packaging materials, cereals, sausage, hot dogs, meat patties, chewing gum, potato chips, beer, butter, vegetable oils, cosmetics, and animal feed. You surely don’t want to eat this stuff. Go through your cupboards and find everything with BHA or BHT listed in the ingredients. Don’t throw them out though, take them back to the store and demand your money back. That’ll learn ‘em!

11/13/12 Artificial Food Coloring is used if food is over-processed or isn’t naturally colorful. Chemical colorants tint the food much like dyes that color clothing. Artificial food dyes are generally synthesized from coal tar or derived from petroleum. Many dyes have been banned because of killer effects on laboratory animals. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI) study on food dyes, “The three most widely used dyes, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6, are contaminated with known carcinogens. Another dye, Red 3, has been acknowledged for years by the Food and Drug Administration to be a carcinogen, yet it is still in the food supply.” CPSI further reports that these nine food dyes are linked to health issues ranging from cancer and hyperactivity to allergy-like reactions.

11/12/12 The good egg! 33% of study participants over the age of 60 ate just one egg a day for 5 weeks and their cholesterol levels remained the same. But their levels of life-saving lutein increased by more than 25% and zeaxanthin increased almost 40%. Lutein and zeaxanthin are carotenoid antioxidants necessary for health and reduced risk of age related macular degeneration. Free-range, pastured hens produce more nutritious eggs than commercially-raised hens. Eggs from pastured hens contain 1/3 less cholesterol, 1/4 less saturated fat, 2/3 more vitamins, 2 times more omega-3 fatty acid, 3 times more vitamin E and 7 times more beta-carotene than regular store-bought eggs.

11/09/12 Feeling blue? Then eat more reds, greens, and yellows. Researchers studied the dietary habits of 80,000 people to find that as daily intake of fruits and vegetables increased, so did their happiness and well-being. This pattern peaked at seven servings per day with no extra mood benefits with more than seven servings. Experts have long recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables per day for optimal health but this new study from the University of Warwick and Dartmouth College recommends upping your fruit and veggie intake to seven servings daily to promote happiness and improved mental health.

11/08/12 Agave Nectar is a highly-processed sweetener derived from a cactus plant. Most agave sold in the US comes from Mexico. Most people believe agave syrup is a healthful sweetener but agave nectar contains the highest amount of fructose (up to 97%) of all commercial sweeteners, – including HFCS (which comes in at 55% fructose). All fructose has been shown to increase insulin resistance that leads to type II diabetes. Fructose is mainly broken down in the liver and then stowed in or converted to fat. Excessive fructose greater than 25 grams a day, can elevate uric acid levels to cause chronic, low level inflammation throughout the body, cause fatty liver disease, weight gain, elevated blood sugar and triglycerides, plus high blood pressure.

11/07/12 Zevia: Not as bad as the other pops – but still bad enough. Carbonated water is listed first, but is this natural spring water or poisonous tap water with the usual laundry-list of chemicals? Carbonation knocks phosphorous and calcium out of bones, acidifies the body and the added carbon dioxide complicates kidney and other body functions. Next ingredient in is the highly GMO laden product – erythritol followed by caramel color – often made using sulfuric, sulfurous, phosphoric acids or ammonium, hydroxide. Then there is tartaric acid, which in high doses can cause renal failure. Finally we find Stevia and then fumaric acid (high doses causes GI upset, reduced kidney function and white blood cell abnormality). Next is the caffeine followed by the highly unregulated word “Natural Flavors” topped off with some good-for-you nutmeg oil. None for me thanks…

11/06/12 The Mayo Clinic flaunted a new study last month that shows seniors who consumed high carbohydrate diets were more likely to suffer from mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition that easily progresses into Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. High carbs like breads, pizza, pastas and sugars can actually cause brain inflammation to start the spiral downward to memory problems – or worse! But those who ate the highest level of protein reduced their risk of MCI by 21% and patients who ate the highest level of healthy fats reduced their risk of MCI by 42%. Start your memory protection by changing your diet and lifestyle now.

11/05/12 High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is a highly-refined sweetener in which corn starch is converted into corn syrup through a process called acid hydrolysis. Nearly all HFCS is made from genetically-modified corn and has become the number-one source of calories in our diets. HFCS contributes to weight gain and the development of diabetes while contributing to cardiovascular disease, arthritis, insulin resistance, and high cholesterol. In 2009, the Environmental Health Journal reported finding mercury in 9 of 20 samples of commercial HFCS. Other names for HFCS are corn sugar, glucose/fructose (syrup), high-fructose maize syrup inulin, iso-glucose, and fruit fructose. It hides in: soda, salad dressings, breads, cereals, yogurt, soups, lunch meats, pizza sauce and condiments. On average, Americans consume 12 teaspoons of HFCS per day.

11/02/12 Aspartame is an excitotoxin, carcinogenic, and produces neurotoxic effects of headaches, dizziness and blurry vision along with gastrointestinal disturbances. Aspartame is 10% methanol, which breaks down in the body into formic acid and formaldehyde (a potent nerve toxin and carcinogen itself). Aspartame accounts for more FDA of adverse reactions reports than all other foods and food additives combined. Aspartame hides as NutraSweet, Equal, Canderel, Spoonful, Natrataste, AminoSweet, and others. It is found in over 6,000 products including diet and sugar-free sodas and drinks, sugar-free chewing gum, yogurt, breath mints, instant breakfasts, frozen desserts, juice beverages, and gelatins.

11/01/12 Occasional junk food diet is out! Even one junk food meal is detrimental to the health of the arteries, while there is absolutely no damage when consuming Mediterranean meals – according to researchers at the University of Montreal. Junk food does immediate damage but good food has a positive effect on the arteries. Not surprisingly, the junk food diet had higher blood triglyceride levels but high cholesterol lowered more from the healthy meals. “We believe that a Mediterranean-type diet may be particularly beneficial for individuals with high triglyceride levels, such as patients with metabolic syndrome, precisely because it could help keep arteries healthy” said Dr. Nigam from the study.

10/31/12 MSG is an amino acid/flavor-enhancer used in processed foods. MSG is a known excitotoxin that harms nerve cells by overexciting them to death. Regular consumption of MSG destroys significant numbers of brain cells while leading to serious health problems and has even been shown to stimulate the appetite and contribute to weight gain and obesity. MSG hides by other names on the food label, such as Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, Hydrolyzed Plant Protein, Vegetable Protein Extract, Yeast Extract, Glutamate, Glutamic Acid, Sodium Caseinate, Textured Protein, Soy Protein Isolates, Barley Malt, Calcium Caseinate and Malt Extract. MSG can be found in most processed foods.

10/30/12 Artichoke is useful for gallbladder problems, nausea, indigestion, and abdominal distension. Artichoke, AKA Le bonne fleur, artichoke studies have shown that blood cholesterol levels actually dropped after eating artichoke. An anticholesterol drug called cynara is actually made from this plant. In 1940, a study in Japan showed that artichoke not only reduced cholesterol but it also increased bile production by the liver and worked as a good diuretic. But remember, the longer and hotter you cook a food, the more you’ll lose certain heat- and water-sensitive nutrients, especially vitamin C and thiamin.

10/29/12 The Corn Refiners Association has been asking the FDA to play “spin doctor” and change the negative High Fructose Corn Syrup name to the healthier-sounding “Corn Sugar”. This is highly unfair to consumers who have known this crap by name since 1983. The Corn Refiners Association has many reasons for wanting the change. NONE of them involve your health… just the negative public perception. Aside from likely being made from GMO corn, 100% of high fructose corn syrup is metabolized by your liver. When your liver gets overburdened it stores the toxins in fat cells. I say get rid of it completely…

10/26/12 Sorry peeps, there is NO shortcut to optimal health… Your health starts with proper digestion of nutrient dense, non-GMO foods. Normal dietary fats contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. These fats are chemically soluble in the laboratory with ether, chloroform and benzene. Your body uses enzymes known as lipases, found primarily in the pancreatic and intestinal secretions, to break down fats. Bile salts from the liver also help emulsify fatty acids to make them absorbable. As you age, your enzyme production grows weaker. You should add in some digestive enzymes to your daily regimens to help out.

10/25/12 Besides warding off vampires and making your breath smell like…well, garlic, eating garlic is particularly beneficial in lowering your risk for stomach and colorectal cancers because of its anti-bacterial properties. What anti-bacterial properties you ask? Garlic contains compounds that aid your immune system in fighting cancer, help break down carcinogens and also slow tumor growth. Garlic can help lower blood pressure, fight fungus, and heal skin disorders from the inside. Just one raw clove a day will actually help ward of mosquitos.

10/24/12 Gardetto’s Special Request Roasted Garlic Rye Chips is a prime example of what NOT to buy. The ingredient list starts off with the biggest loser – enriched flour bleached. And you thought it might be rye? (They have to enrich the flour because test animals die without it on processed flour). The second ingredient is the GMO ridden, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, then comes rye flour, salt and sugar (GMO corn?). Then comes MSG, yeast, Worcestershire Sauce (vinegar, molasses, GMO corn syrup, water, MORE salt, caramel color [sugar treated with ammonia], garlic powder, MORE sugar, spices, tamarind, natural flavor), maltodextrin, caramel color (even more sugar treated with ammonia), onion, garlic, caraway, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, sesame seed, GMO soy flour, nonfat milk and BHT. Oh and these killers pack 3g of saturated fat in about a one-ounce serving. Who eats just one ounce of these?

10/23/12 About that diet… According to the WHO, 63% of the deaths that occurred in 2008 were from chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, Type II diabetes and obesity. Poor diets are always a contributing factor. People that eat healthy, plant-based diets have far and away fewer problems with these diseases and research has shown for decades that high consumption of plant foods lowers incidents of chronic disease. Foods that can help prevent chronic diseases include artichokes, black pepper, cinnamon, garlic, lentils, olives, pumpkin, rosemary, thyme, watercress, and more. For a more comprehensive list of medicinal foods, read “The Chronic Disease Food Remedy” in the October 2012 issue of Food Technology.

10/22/12 Your food can prevent disease. And once again, scientists have found that bioactive compounds in plant foods control both genetic and biological factors that lead to chronic disease. We all know that antioxidants in plants fight free radicals that damage cells and cause inflammation. Other compounds in plants control genetic links to cardiovascular disease and plaque buildup in arteries. Some compounds actually prevent cancer or help kill tumors. William W. Li, M.D., President and Medical Director of the Angiogenesis Foundation in Cambridge, Mass., says that all consumers should look at their diets as if food is the medicine necessary to maintain healthy, disease-free lives. “

10/19/12 Do you ever feel “routed” through a grocery store? “Herded” may be a better word. Did you know that the produce department is where they attempt to steer you first as it is full of tantalizing aromas and supposedly healthy colors that put you in a great mood that makes you just want to shop ‘til you drop! The path is laid out and very strategically clear and easier to follow than trying to cut against the flow and go somewhere else first. My suggestion is to purposefully avoid the wide road to destruction and cut through the straight and narrow (some of the lesser isles) first. Once you are “desensitized”, then start your shopping trip with veggies, then dairy and end up with the frozen foods (if you even go there) last.

10/18/12 Woohoo broccoli! Specific compounds in broccoli were found to decrease the damage caused by UV radiation to skin in mice thus decreasing the likelihood of developing skin cancer. Skin tumors that did develop on some of the mice were up to 70% smaller than those that developed on the mice that were not fed broccoli compounds. Researchers also discovered a natural antioxidant called thiocyanate, which is found in broccoli that protects cells from damage generated during the body’s inflammatory response to infection and injury.

10/17/12 OK fiber nuts, cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and gums are often called unavailable carbohydrates because we simply cannot digest them. Cellulose and hemicellulose are plant polymers that make up the main components of cell walls – plant fibers. Cellulose is a polymer of glucose (sugar) in fibers of green plants. Hemicellulose is a polymer of other sugars like hexose and pentose. Lignin is the main component of wood and is totally non-digestible. But we use this non-digestible stuff to form healthy stools and exercise and scrub the bowels. Big Food Industry uses wood fibers for cheap fillers and bulking agents. Pectins found in fruit on the other hand, are present in plant tissue and sap and are colloidal polysaccharides which are 90% digestible.

10/16/12 Royal-hued foods to the rescue! The purple potato has been touted by Dr. Oz as a game-changer. USDA measurements show these potatoes to have 4 times more antioxidant potential than the average potato and actually score in the antioxidant scale with foods like kale and spinach. The substance responsible for the purple color in foods belongs to a family of natural chemicals called flaminoids (from anthocyanins) that boast a very powerful anti-cancer effect. Soyoung Lim, is a Kansas State University researcher who says that purple foods can fight cancer. Purple cabbage cole slaw comes to mind just now.

10/15/12 Algae may not sound very appetizing but spirulina is a superfood that packs many total body health benefits. If all you had was water and spirulina, you would thrive quite well. Spirulina is one of the oldest living organisms on earth, that is similar to chlorella, kelp, nori, kuma, arame and wakame. What sets spirulina apart is that it is more bio-available, meaning it is more readily absorbed and digested by the body. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization calls spirulina is a beneficial remedy for worldwide malnutrition. Dr. Mercola calls spirulina “Nature’s nearly “perfect” whole food.”

10/12/12 Fish! In a study from Denmark, women who didn’t eat fish had triple the risk for heart disease compared to women who ate fish every week. Pregnant women can benefit from 3 or more servings a week of fish and can actually cut their risk for preterm birth. Even young women who also eat fish – high in omega-3 fatty acids – can cut their risk for heart disease while older women can cut their risk of heart failure by eating dark-meat fish. In the study follow-up to the Women’s Health Initiative, those who ate 5 or more weekly servings of broiled or baked fish had a 30% lower risk for heart failure compared with women who ate less than 1 serving a month. It all comes up really nice until you fry them rascals. Fried fish was linked to increased heart failure risk.

11/18/11 You can assume that “trans-free” products still contain a small amount of trans-fat if partially hydrogenated oil is listed as an ingredient. In addition, recent research shows that palmitic acid, a saturated fat found in palm oil (and beef, butter and cheese) caused mice to become resistant to the appetite-suppressing hormones leptin and insulin, which in theory could make them eat more. The best bet is to choose natural products that contain neither added palm oil nor trans fats. Coconut oil is what I use.

11/17/11 A recent survey determined that less than 10 percent of Americans consume a recommended daily amount of fiber by less than half the suggested amount. A high fiber diet can help you maintain your heart healthiness while keeping your digestive health and regularity while providing food for your beneficial bacteria to support a healthy immune system.

11/16/11 Almonds have phenylalanine which aids in the development and maintenance of cognitive function. They are nutrient rich which keeps you full longer and can aid in weight loss. Almonds are loaded with vitamin E/magnesium which are paramount for heart and muscle health. Almonds are also a good source of calcium, phosphorous, iron, magnesium, zinc, selenium, copper, niacin, manganese, riboflavin, folic acid and more.

11/15/11 Cauliflower is absolutely full of carotenoids and other phytonutrients including kaempferol, ferulic acid, cinnamic acid and caffeic acid. These nutrients help protect your body against free radical damage. Add to that arsenal sulforaphane for a cancer fighting agent and omega-3 fatty acids to reduce inflammation. Cauliflower is also a good source of vitamin C, manganese, glucosinolates, vitamins B1 thiamine, B2 riboflavin, B3 niacin, B5 pantothenic acid, B6 pyridoxine and B9 folic acid, phosphorus and potassium, indole-3-carbinol and more.

11/14/11 Quinoa is not a grain but is a seed related to the spinach family. It cooks and tastes like a grain, making it a great replacement for gluten grains that are difficult to digest or that feed candida. Quinoa is a fiber packed, complete protein containing all 9 essential amino acids required as building blocks for muscles. Comparing it to other grains, quinoa is higher in calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, iron, copper, manganese, and zinc than wheat, barley, or corn.

11/11/11 Eat peanuts to get your Co-Enzyme Q10 to protect the heart and resveratrol, a bioflavonoid that improves blood flow in the brain and lowers your LDL cholesterol. With peanuts you also get niacin to assist in recovery of cell damage, and protection against Alzheimer’s disease and age-related cognitive problems. Peanuts are also a good source of calcium, iron, riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B-6, folates, copper, manganese, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, selenium, vitamin E, antioxidants (polyphenols p-coumaric acid) and more.

11/10/11 Amazing broccoli! Broccoli has glucoraphanin which the body easily converts into sulforaphane to help your skin to detoxify and repair itself. Broccoli can knock out H. pylori which increases the risk of gastric cancer. It has beta-carotene, zinc and selenium to strengthen your immune system and indole-3-carbinol which is a powerful antioxidant and anti-carcinogen, to hinder the growth of breast, cervical and prostate cancer. Broccoli is also a good source of folic acid, vitamin C, calcium, lutein and zeaxanthin, B6, folates and more.

11/09/11 Oatmeal has selenium to boost immunity and mood, as well as for fighting cancer. Oatmeal helps with weight loss by keeping blood sugar levels even while providing a high level of fiber to keep you full longer. Oatmeal supplies magnesium for energy production and strong bones along with phosphorus to assist with bone health, boost energy and jumpstart healthy digestion. Oatmeal is a good source of tryptophan, iron, calcium, B vitamins such as thiamin, riboflavin and niacin; vitamin E, zinc, copper, iron, manganese, magnesium and more.

11/08/11 I’ll bet you didn’t know that spinach is my favorite dish! It’s because spinach has neoxanthin and violaxanthin which are anti-inflammatory epoxyxanthophylls. (Say that one real fast 5 times). It also has lutein and zeaxanthin that will protect the eyes against cataracts and age-related macular degeneration along with vitamin K to ensure a healthy nervous system, brain function and healthy bones. Did you know that there is 1000% of the RDA of vitamin K in each full cup of spinach? Spinach is also a good source of vitamin C and other antioxidants, flavonoids, beta-carotene, manganese, zinc and selenium vitamin A and more.

11/07/11 Huh? More Foot Dragging and Alibis: Before the FDA decided to allow GMOs into food without labeling, FDA scientists had repeatedly warned that GM foods can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems. They urged long-term safety studies, but were ignored. The FDA apparently makes their decisions about financial interest and not about your health.

11/04/11 Frederick Banting who shared the 1923 Nobel Prize for the discovery of insulin, suspected that sugar causes diabetes based solely on the observation that the disease was rare in populations that didn’t eat refined sugar and rampant in those that did. But, you know what? The correlation between sugar consumption and diabetes is what defense attorneys call – circumstantial evidence.

11/03/11 Then why do we do this? Pasteurizing milk destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamin B12, and vitamin B6, kills beneficial bacteria and promotes pathogens. More people die every year from pasteurized milk then non-pasteurized.

11/02/11 In your food now! BPA is used in plastic bottles, linings of beverage and food cans, inks in store receipts, printers, paper money and even in cosmetics and clothing. BPA is a “gender bender” because it is a known endocrine disrupter and estrogen mimicker. BPA consumption causes hormone disruption, gender confusion, diabetes, cancer and infertility. In 2004, the CDC reported that BPA has appeared in the urine of over 90% of people tested. Do you think it is less now?

11/01/11 Uridine is found in a variety of foods that are high in ribonucleic acid, also known as RNA, most notably whole sugar cane and the molasses made from sugar cane, tomatoes, broccoli and organ meats and brewer’s yeast. Uridine influences levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine which are two important brain chemicals that regulate your mood and behavior.

10/31/11 Researchers found that eating apples, pears and other white-fleshed fruits and vegetables can lessen stroke risk by 52%! The fiber found in apples and pears is beneficial for cardiovascular health, plus, apples and pears have a high amount of a flavonoid called quercetin, which is shown to reduce inflammation. The anti-inflammatory benefits of white-fleshed fruits are super since inflammation is associated with hardening of the arteries

10/28/11 Overweight and starving to death? Your body depends on food for energy, but if you’re eating garbage foods, you could very well be malnourished. Junk foods that you eat will cause you to become malnourished and can also make you fat. If your diet consists of heavily processed-refined foods, fast food, candy, sodas, white bread, cookies, potato chips, ready-made meals and frozen pizzas, your body is starving for nutrients and starving to death while becoming fat.

10/27/11 Let your food be your medicine! An article in the American Academy of Neurology shows that regular consumption of olive oil can help lower the risk of stroke. Olive oil taken as part of a healthy diet can lower the risks of a stroke by 41% in the elderly. People with the highest oleic acid plasma levels have a 73% lower risk of stroke.

10/26/11 To be healthy, you have to shift your perceptions and perspectives. You can spend your money on good food or spend it on health care. Food is an investment in your body and your health. Remember, the best time to seek your health is while you still have it!

10/25/11 To digest food and take in the nutrients you need enzymes. Enzymes in your saliva start to break down starches and carbs, while those in your stomach break down proteins. Enzymes in your intestines finish the job by breaking down the fats and readying all of your food for nutrient absorption. The best way to get more enzymes in your diet is to eat more raw foods. Add in raw milk and raw-milk cheese and yogurts and you have a winning combo to help you stay healthy and disease free.

10/24/11 Kids who drink raw milk have HALF the risk of hay fever and a 41 percent lower risk of asthma than children drinking pasteurized milk! A study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology identifies the specific whey proteins responsible for the raw-drinking-children breathing better as BSA and alpha-lactalbumin. Don’t believe the pasteurized milk lies. If you are going to drink milk, make it raw.

10/21/11 Still trust your “organic” label? In February the USDA uncovered a Chinese company exporting inferior products under the guise of the organic label. Among the counterfeit goods was a shipment of ginger that had a dangerous pesticide, called aldicarb. They only caught them because of bad documents. Mischa Popoff, author of Is it Organic? said “because of the US government lack of objective standards, consumers of organic food have a big sign on their foreheads that says, ‘I’ll buy anything if it says organic.'”

10/20/11 Raw sugarcane is rich in calcium, chromium, cobalt, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, zin, vitamins A, C, B1, B2, B3, B5, and B6, plus phytonutrients (including chlorophyll), antioxidants, proteins, soluble fiber and many other healthy compounds. This whole food has been studied for its role in fighting cancer, stabilizing blood sugar levels in diabetics, assisting in weight loss, reducing fevers, clearing the kidneys, preventing tooth decay, and a host of other health benefits.

10/19/11 Sulforaphane, a phytochemical found in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cabbage, has been shown to selectively target and stop the growth of cancer cells. Scientists have shown that this powerful plant based compound kills prostate and colon cancer cells while leaving normal healthy cells untouched.

10/18/11 Coconut oil is a superior health choice compared to most other oils. Olive, safflower and sunflower oil are all built from a long chain of fatty acids but coconut oil is comprised of medium chain fatty acids which immediately become available as energy. These smaller, easily absorbed medium chain molecules supply the cells with essential fatty acids without glucose and without inhibiting insulin production.

10/17/11 Eating refined foods is like trying to keep a bonfire going with paper. Your body devours the junk foods very quickly, but doesn’t get any solid sustenance to keep it fueled for long. Eating junk food causes a brief energy boost but your energy levels soon crash, leading to fatigue and even lethargy. The, to top off bad with worse, you then eat more refined foods to keep going. Eventually, even an unlimited amount of refined foods will not keep your body fueled. You will gain weight while starving to death.

10/14/11 Starting your day with a jolt of java may be great for alertness and temporary energy but don’t rely on it throughout the day. Instead of the “repeat more coffee” game, rely on your own natural supply of energy. Drinking coffee all day creates highs and lows in energy and can drain your adrenals. That could be the reason for fatigue later in the day.

10/13/11 Ever read an ingredient label on an egg? Guess what? The only ingredient in an egg is… well, egg! Whole foods are fresh fruits and vegetables, high-quality meats, eggs, nuts, seeds, dairy products and other similar foods. Whole foods do NOT come with a paragraph of ingredients or reside in a microwavable bag.

10/12/11 Flour used to bake white bread and make food products is chemically bleached with benzoyl peroxide, nitrosyl, oxide of nitrogen, chloride and/or chlorine. Then there are various chemical salts added to them to enhance the whole bleaching process. Nutrients which are devitalized from the flour during bleaching include Vitamin E, potassium, phosphorus, copper, niacin, calcium, thiamin, pantothenic acid and pyridoxine.

10/11/11 Creatine in our diet can be obtained from the muscle of meat and fish. During digestion, creatine in these foods is released into the blood and transported to our muscle for absorption. Cooking foods reduces the creatine content and increases the amount you’ll need to eat to obtain a given amount of creatine. About 3 pounds of raw meat or fish will contain 5 grams of pure creatine monohydrate powder.

10/10/11 Metallic ignorance: Aluminum is a common additive found in processed cheeses, table salt, baking powders, pickles, bleached flour, prepared dough, cake mixes, non-dairy creamers, vanilla powders and even in some donuts and frozen waffles. Ultimate worst: Milk formulas for babies can contain up to four hundred times more aluminum than breast milk. Excess aluminum is found in cancer tissues and diseased brain tissues.

10/07/11 Sodium benzoate extends shelf life, but shortens your life. Is sodium benzoate on your product label? Even if it is on your “organic” label, it is synthesized in a lab… This carcinogen is formed from a reaction of benzoic acid with sodium hydroxide making it the sodium salt of benzoic acid. When you eat, or apply this poison to your skin, it is taken to the liver to be filtered and expelled in urine. But before it gets there, sodium benzoate deprives mitochondria cells of oxygen and sometimes just shuts them down. Your cells need oxygen to be healthy, function properly, win against infections and fight off cancer.

10/06/11 Consuming either sugar or fructose means more work for the liver than if you consumed the same number of calories of starch. If you drink these in liquid form – soda pops or fruit juices – the sugar and fructose hit the liver more quickly than if you eat them in something like apples for the equivalent dose of sugar. When fructose and sugar hits the liver too fast, the liver converts much of it to fat because it can’t keep up with the burden. This causes insulin resistance.

10/05/11 Skipping breakfast can slow your metabolism, actually increasing body weight. Studies show that breakfast eaters are less likely to be overweight than those who don’t. Quite often, skipping breakfast leads you into eating larger-than-normal portions and making “desperate,” hungry food choices later in the day from experiencing the empty stomach grumblings. ~ Alisha Chasey

10/04/11 White flour is a real killer! Along with allergenic gluten, another ingredient found in white flour is alloxan. This unrenowned toxin destroys the beta cells in the pancreas by causing free radical damage to the DNA. A vast majority of the population would live much healthier without wheat products, and more especially, processed white flour.

10/03/11 Contrast this: White food products become white when all fiber, minerals and vitamins have been stripped away leaving devitalized food containing empty calories. What is left has NO nutritional value. Eating refined foods and white food products has shown to increase the risk of heart attacks by 30%. In direct contrast, several studies show that people who eat wholegrain and unprocessed food products have a 30% lower risk of heart disease than those who eat white food products.

9/30/11 You know whose fault this really is… Not the children’s! The Santa Clara County, California Board of Supervisors just approved a new ordinance banning the use of toys to encourage children to eat the garbage meals sold at restaurants. This is the first move I know of by government to try to address the obesity epidemic in our children. Approximately 12.5 million children over 2 years of age are currently considered obese. That’s one out of every six kiddos.

9/29/11 Coconut sugar is harvested from the sap of unopened coconut blossoms, then boiled under controlled heat to drive off the water and condense the liquid to a dark brown sap. There are no additives used, no bleaching, and absolutely no stripping of minerals or other nutrients. It tastes like intense fudge! The glycemic index is 35 which is amazing in itself.

9/28/11 Beets are a natural superfood for the liver and health in general, as they are a high-antioxidant vegetable and contain betaine, betalains, fiber, iron, betacyanin, folate, and betanin. Pectin, which is also found in beets, helps clean the toxins that have been removed from the liver, allowing them to be flushed out of the system instead of reabsorbed by the body.

9/27/11 Do you think the problem just went away? Back in April, the US Environmental Protection Agency had found radiation in Hawaii milk supplies that exceeded EPA maximums by as much as 2000 percent. Solution: raise the limits – problem solved?

9/26/11 Drinking pasteurized cow’s milk has been strongly associated with an increase in hormone-dependent cancers. A large meta-analysis found that high intake of dairy products and calcium was associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer. The more dairy consumed, the higher the rates of prostate cancer. Another study found that milk consumption was most strongly associated with mortality rates of prostate cancer along with a strong link between dairy consumption and testicular cancer.

9/23/11 Celery contains a high level of calcium, magnesium, potassium and active compounds called phthalides, which have been found to lower blood pressure and promote a healthy circulatory system. According to a recent study published in Cancer Prevention Research, the compound called apigenin found in celery can stop certain breast cancer tumor cells from multiplying and growing.

9/22/11 Gatorade is not a healthy “sports drink” – it is high fructose corn syrup in artificially flavored water and it is making both kids and adults fat. Add in some food colors and there is nothing remotely healthy about Gatorade for sports related drinking. High fructose drinks such as soda pop and juice drinks are loaded with empty calories which are known to be in direct relation to weight gain and obesity.

9/21/11 Saturated fats are “saturated” with hydrogen. Unsaturated fats are not. Fats are made up of fatty acid chains or sets of atoms linked together. When these chains contain at least one double bond and no hydrogen atoms they are considered unsaturated. Saturated fats are also solid at room temperature, while unsaturated fats are liquid. Generally, saturated fats are considered to be agents of high cholesterol while unsaturated fats are not.

9/20/11 Eggs are an excellent source of healthy nutrients, including choline, a B vitamin that may help reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer, dementia and more. Egg yolks also provide the most readily absorbed form of lutein, a yellow-hued carotenoid that may help fight everything from cancer and cataracts to macular degeneration and aging. Recently out from Harvard: “the egg-cholesterol ‘theory’ is a myth.” Make mine free-range cage-free eggs.

9/19/11 Eating a few walnuts a day cut the cancer incidence in mice by 50%! Healthy Omega fats from walnuts displaces unhealthy fats and balances Omega-3 to Omega-6 ratios to lower systemic inflammation and oxidized LDL cholesterol levels that result in cancer development. Studies using 2 oz a day of walnuts have shown that there are multiple health benefits achieved from the unique blend of fats, vitamin E, other vitamins and minerals in walnuts.

9/16/11 Pasteurized pus!?! Dairy cows are commonly sick with infections such as mastitis and the USDA claims that this “pus” (which is passed on to milk) doesn’t have an effect on health. The US dairy industry continues to demand that American milk allows the highest permissible “somatic cell” (pus) concentration in the world in spite of known health risks. The dairy industry claims that this “pus” is pasteurized so it cannot hurt you… I don’t want to feed my wife and children pasteurized pus.

9/15/11 Avocados are high in fat, but it’s a healthy monounsaturated fat that can lower cholesterol and keep your heart healthy. Avocados also contain the antioxidant lutein that strengthens eyesight, along with a dose of vitamin E in avocados that can lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease this is a real winner!

9/14/11 Food is our body’s fuel. If you want some more get-up-and-go, start with high octane food, like lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats. A person who thinks nothing of paying $8.00 for a Starbuck’s and a sugar laden gluten bomb will still complain about the price of a healthier snack, like a bag of raw almonds or a pint of blueberries.

9/13/11 Are Genetically modified foods safe? The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) doesn’t think so. The Academy reported that several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food,” including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. The AAEM asked physicians to advise patients to avoid GM foods.

9/12/11 Lactose intolerance is a condition in which the body cannot digest the sugar, lactose efficiently or not at all. This leads to poor gut health and excess mucus, acidosis and gas. People with lactose intolerance also experience reduced nutrient absorption in the digestive system. 75% of the world’s population has a level of lactose intolerance. The inability to digest lactose is exacerbated by pasteurization which destroys all the enzymes in milk that normally help with the digestion of milk.

9/9/11 Eat a high-fiber breakfast! Fiber helps slow down the absorption of food in the stomach, which keeps your blood sugar levels steady to sustain energy levels for a longer period of time. A Cardiff University study found that those who ate a high-fiber cereal, like gluten free oats, in the morning showed a 10% reduction in fatigue, lower incidence of depression, and better cognitive skills.

9/8/11 A study in the journal “Appetite” found that when women added either three apples or pears to their daily meals, they lost more weight than people who added three oat cookies daily — even though the fruit and the cookies contained the exact same amount of dietary fiber.

9/7/11 Eggs are one of the best nutritional bargains around. They are protein packed and a great source of choline, an essential vitamin shown to promote brain health. Eggs are loaded with lutein and zeaxanthin, which are potent antioxidants and have been shown to enhance eye health. Most of the vitamin and minerals in eggs are stored in its yolks and if you think that they cause high cholesterol then you are badly mistaken.

9/6/11 Did you know that the FDA (Fatal Drug Allowed) is hiding the facts surrounding GMO salmon-Frankenfish from you the consumer by labeling it as a “drug”? Yessir, it’s true. This allows the industry to hide the transgenetic facts from the consumer by calling them “trade secrets”. Even today, there are no laws requiring a label to tell you if the store-bought product you eat is modified genetically to grow to market size in 1/3 the normal time. Heck, they don’t even know what happens to the fish in the consequent generations let alone the human who eats it.

/2/11 Researchers in Europe ran tests on samples of moo juice, goat milk and human breast milk and of the three, they found that cow’s milk contained the most drugs and hormones with trace amounts of painkillers, antibiotics, steroids, sex hormones, anti-malaria meds and up to 20 different contaminants in all. Do you think the FDA can pull that testing off? Nope – too much big industry money interest here.

9/1/11 Pinto beans are among the highest antioxidant legumes and pack a huge nutritional punch being loaded with protein, fiber, B vitamins and heart-helping antioxidants. How much money would you pay for magical fruit? About 13 cents a cup.

8/31/11 Did you really believe the egg nonsense years ago? Did you know that your stomach takes the cholesterol in natural chicken eggs and converts it directly into a peptide (a natural ACE inhibitor) that lowers your high blood pressure? Free range/fertile eggs are of course the best ones

8/30/11 Dried cranberries have about the highest antioxidant contents of any fruit. Not only do they contain unique compounds that help prevent urinary tract and other infections they are full of antioxidants, which means they may help reduce cancer and heart disease risk. These beauts will set you back by a whole 50 cents a cup.

8/29/11 A study, performed on teen girls who habitually skip breakfast, demonstrated the importance of not only eating breakfast but also how protein consumption at that meal can play a key role in modulating key brain centers that control eating behavior. It appears that consuming breakfast that incorporates a significant amount of protein can reduce activation in the areas of the brain primarily responsible for appetite and reward driven eating behavior.

8/26/11 A new study out of the University of Texas Health Science Center found that diet sodas do not help with weight loss, but they actually cause both weight gain and health problems. Those that consumed two or more diet sodas a day experienced waist size increases six times greater than those who did not drink diet soda.

8/25/11 MSG is a sodium salt of glutamic acid. Glutamine is a non-essential amino acid that works in the brain and central nervous system. The sodium glutamate form is from gluten and fermentation of wheat, starch, sugar beets, sugar cane or molasses. MSG mimics glutamine but over-excites the nerves and causes collapse and cellular death. It might take 20-30 years or more to cause enough neuronal destruction for early onset Dementia, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s to show up. By then you are mucho trouble.

8/24/11 Some people think that milk tastes better in pretty glass bottles, but actually it’s best stored in opaque containers to help prevent milk’s riboflavin from breaking down as riboflavin is an extremely light-sensitive B vitamin. Make mine raw milk! If you are going to drink milk you should too. Pasteurized milk is a “sacred cow” (pun intended) of both the dairy industry, politicians, law enforcement and misguided health experts.

8/23/11 Death by diet and the USDA folly: “Get 25% of your daily calories from corn syrup”… After only two weeks of chowing on the USDA recommended 25 percent of daily calories from fructose or high-fructose corn syrup, study volunteers were experiencing heart-damaging effects. They not only didn’t feel quite so well but their triglyceride levels went through the roof along with a dramatic increase in apolipoprotein-B.

8/22/11 Yay beets! Red beets and their leaves are a great source of folate to help build tissue and red blood cells. Beets contain lutein and zeaxanthin and phytonutrients called betalains for antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and detoxification support. Beets can lower blood pressure, maintain blood vessel elasticity, and even help eliminate varicose veins. Beets have high fiber, potassium, magnesium, niacin, calcium, iron, and biotin.

8/19/11 Eat your grapes! The right amount of sun is good for you. Too much sun is bad. Antioxidants found in grapes help prevent skin cells from being damaged by too much sun exposure and effectively limit the sun’s harmful effects. Skin creams made with grape flavonoids might be the natural alternative to conventional sunscreens, as they could protect the skin against harm while also allowing the sun’s UV rays to penetrate skin and produce vitamin D.

8/18/11 Melatonin added to food becomes a drug !?? The FDA has warned the manufacturer of melatonin-laced brownies called “Lazy Larry” that the government considers them unsafe and could seize them from store shelves. The feds do not consider melatonin to be a safe food additive and calls the additive a drug. But come on peeps! Don’t get your supplements in a sugar loaded gluten bomb. Get them naturally in good food.

8/17/11 Beet juice is alkaline and helps stave off acidosis and also stimulates liver cells to cleanse and protect bile ducts. Beets help relieve the kidneys to help cure gout while relieving constipation.

8/16/11Frankenbean Faker: Monsanto wants to introduce a GM soybean oil called Soymega. Monsanto intends to use its omega-3-enhanced oil in basically every processed food product out there. This GM soybean oil is genetically made by injecting soybeans with two specific enzymes genes from a flower and a common bread mold. These new beans make gamma-linolenic acid and SDA. What will your body make of it?

8/15/11 Rolled oats have essential minerals like immune-boosting zinc, magnesium and iron as well as being full of antioxidants called flavanoids that help reduce inflammation in the body. By far the best benefit of oats comes from loads of fiber. Oats are a great sources of soluble-fiber that can help remove cholesterol out of the body and keep blood sugar from rising too quickly.

8/12/11 Kale is full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Kale has tummy filling fiber, bone-building calcium and heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids which have been shown to help support the body’s natural detox system by eliminating harmful compounds that are thought to cause cancer, heart disease and other serious ills. Can’t not afford it at about 60 cents a cup.

8/11/11 Jello shots nightmare for vegans: Conventional gelatin is made from animal skin and bones but a group of researchers have managed to replace that with a human one. The process the researchers perfected actually involves taking human gelatin genes and inserting them into a strain of yeast. Human-based gelatin on a supermarket shelf is not on my bucket list of things to try…

8/10/11Diet sodas = diabetes. Aspartame in diet foods and beverages is actually responsible for raising blood sugar levels. Studies using mice found those eating added aspartame experienced elevated blood sugar levels compared to mice eating regular feed. These results find that aspartame exposure might directly contribute to the risk of diabetes in humans.

8/09/11 MSG is not an allergen… it is a toxin! MSG damages that nucleus in the hypothalamus of the brain concerned with weight gain and also damages cells in the brain that have to do with memory and learning. MSG can have a lot to do with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), cancer tumor growth and lead to diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and pulmonary problems.

8/08/11 Here’s a trick food companies use to fool you about the sugar content in a product. The first ingredient is the most prominent ingredient, the second listed is the second highest, and so on. So, when you see a label that reads, for instance: “Whole grain wheat, sugar, corn syrup, corn syrup solids…” they are hiding the fact that sugar is the most prominent ingredient by relabeling the “different” sugars to bump them down the list…

8/05/11 New Fresh Express salad wash: Peracetic acid is the agent used here and is not new on the scene. The process application for washing veggies is what is new. Peracetic acid is produced by reacting acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide. It can safely kill anthrax! IMO, for a veggie wash it is much safer than chlorine. I would like to see the study to form a better opinion here but given the choice of two veggie washes, I’ll take the Fresh Express hands down.

8/04/11 De-ja-moo… The Coca-Cola Company and the American Dietetics Association are launching a campaign to try to ensure that dietitians are “taught” that food additives do not have any harmful effects. The additives being singled out are dyes, sugar, fake sweeteners and fluoride; such concerns, according to the Coca-Cola Company Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness, are simply urban myths. Believe this if you want to peeps but I strongly advise against it.

12/29/11 Chocolate Hostess Pudding Pie… Adding all the sugar, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup together will make sugar one of, if not the top ingredient in this item. Starting with enriched flour and water here’s what else you get: shortening, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, sugar, modified corn starch, then some more partially hydrogenated vegetable and/or animal shortening, titanium dioxide, artificial flavors, and on and on. Then they clinch it all together with a few artificial colors. Take one or two of these ingredients in a product and it makes it a No-No, but add them all together and it is insanity to choke one of these down.

12/28/11 A real killer if you want slow death by diet: Pasta Roni Fettuccine Alfredo is Rice-a-Roni’s version of a glutenous health bomb. This is not food but rather nutritional negligence sopped in corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oil, monosodium glutamate, and various artificial colors. The 3rd largest ingredient is salt and yet they still smear it with MSG and then more MSG as autolyzed yeast extract. Anyone who serves this horrible stuff didn’t read the ingredients and/or really doesn’t care about their health and the health of the ones they love.

12/27/11 Death in a lunch-box – for your child… Lunchables with Juice, Nachos, Cheese Dip + Salsa: If your school lunch program is bad enough, don’t stoop to what is in this box. The ingredient list reads like a college organic chemistry final. It has a laundry-list of bizarre preservatives, fillers, sweeteners, and partially hydrogenated oil. The hardest part is deciding which part of the Lunchable is the worst: the sugary Capri Sun, the Nestle Crunch bar, the several listed high fructose corn syrups, food colors. I’m going with the neon-orange cheese goo. Peeps, how about spending five extra minutes of your life to make sure your child gets nutrition instead of crap and poison?

12/26/11 Lies in advertising: Healthy Choice – Roasted Sesame Chicken… It says “roasted chicken” but the only thing “roasted” here is the flavor sauce full of who-knows-what. It may say roasted on the front but the fine print says it is fried chicken, coated in flour and cooked in vegetable oil. To go bad to worse, Healthy Choice soaks the glutenous pasta in pineapple juice and coats the fruit side dish in sweetened syrup. Is it really a “Healthy Choice”? Read your labels peeps.

12/23/11 Depression and anxiety are linked to gut health: Eating antibiotic-laden meats and produce sprayed pesticides will lead to poor digestion and damaged gut health. Eating organic foods along with supplementing with probiotics will help your gut health and ultimately help to overcome depression and anxiety.

12/22/11 Sweet poison: The US FDA (Fatal Drugs Allowed) adverse event reports for decades indicate that artificial sweeteners are responsible for destroying brain neurons and causing chronic headaches, seizures, strokes, vascular disorders, heart disease, premature birth, dementia, other brain disorders, and cancer.

12/21/11 According to a study published in Stroke Magazine, women who eat diets rich with fruits, vegetables, and whole grains have an amazing 17% reduced risk of stroke, even if they have a history of cardiovascular diseases. This study highlights the impact of antioxidants and their role in fighting free radicals, which are linked to heart disease and strokes along with a number of other health concerns.

12/20/11 Sadly, nearly all school lunch programs currently serve schoolchildren meat products containing sodium nitrite. Hospital cafeterias also serve this cancer-causing ingredient to patients. Sodium nitrite is found in literally thousands of different menu items at fast food restaurants and dining establishments. The use of this ingredient is widespread and it is part of the reason we’re seeing skyrocketing rates of cancer in every society that consumes large quantities of processed meats.

12/19/11 Home remedy for coughs: Cut an onion in half and take one half to bed with you. Well, not in bed with you but on the nightstand next to your bed. The vapor an onion emits when cut could help stop coughing. It may sound like an old wives’ tale but it works and is a popular adjunct in Spain and France.

12/16/11 Many of our diseases are caused by the accumulation of uric acid in the body and are related to the over consumption of foods too high in phosphorus but deficient in sulphur. Foods high in phosphorous and low in sulphur are cereals, milk, nuts, cheese and eggs and should be well balanced with plenty of fruits and vegetables.

12/15/11 Between 1970 and 2005 the average American’s intake of added sugars (cane sugar, beet sugar, high fructose corn syrup, honey, or agave) jumped by 20%, and the biggest jump in that increase came from beverages. Most people today consume 22 to 30 teaspoons of added sugar daily, which adds up to 350 to 475 empty calories every day.

12/14/11 A study involving the Yup’ik people of Alaska shows that eating fish rich in omega-3 fatty acid can protect against diabetes. Interestingly, 70% of the Yup’iks are obese yet only 3.3% of them have diabetes. Fish that have omega-3 fatty acids include mackerel, salmon, lake trout, herring, tuna and salmon.

12/13/11 Yeah yams! Sweet potatoes are awesome thanks to their high concentration of beta carotene, the healthful antioxidant that gives this spud its orange hue. Beta carotene, which has been shown to help every cell in the body stay healthy, also happens to be a skin-targeted nutrient that neutralizes wrinkle and sun spot-spurring damage from the sun and helps generate new, healthy glowing skin cells. Full of fiber and B-vitamins, these spuds log in at about 43 cents a serving.

12/12/11 Cauliflower, Broccoli, and Brussels Sprouts are cruciferous vegetables that are packed with antioxidant vitamins for an immune system booster. These wonder-buds contain choline to help your normal cellular functions and support healthy gastrointestinal bacteria Cauliflower, is especially high in glutathione content to help fight infections in the body.

12/09/11 Foot Dragging and Alibis (FDA): In 1985 an FDA toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross, told Congress that aspartame violates the Delaney Amendment, which forbids anything in food that causes cancer. In Dr. Gross’ own words: “And if the FDA violates its own laws, who is left to protect the public?” Dr. Morando Soffritti, of the renowned Ramazzini Institute, has completed three independent peer-reviewed multi-year studies with thousands of rats proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that aspartame is a “multipotential carcinogen”.

12/08/11 When choosing cereal, always choose a ones that lists whole grain as its first ingredient. When you eat more whole grains you have higher energy levels and lower risk of heart disease and diabetes. Whole grains also lower your chance of becoming overweight. Foods listing whole grains are loaded with bran, making them high in fiber and rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.

12/07/11 Bananas have amazing nutrients that have been scientifically proven to help with depression. They contain tryptophan and phenylalanine, which are essential for the brain to produce serotonin and dopamine transmitters that stimulate physical and mental activity and act as natural antidepressants. Dates, almonds, peanuts, sesame and pumpkin seeds also contain tryptophan.

12/06/11 When isolated nutrients and even fake vitamins are added to processed/incomplete foods, the new version of food is often called “fortified”. Fortified does not mean “improved” at all because an incomplete food causes digestive deficiencies. Eating fortified foods are a big no-no if we want to recover and maintain our good health. Complete foods are a must to battle the symptoms of cancer.

12/05/11 With refined grains, the bran is removed leaving behind starchy carbohydrates and fewer nutrients. Refined grains are usually listed as “enriched wheat flour” or “all-purpose flour.” There are essentially no health benefits to be found in refined grains, but rather, they contribute to weight gain and lower energy levels and even cancer.

12/02/11 Your body doesn’t store protein like it can store carbohydrates and fats, so you need to replenish your protein supply every day. Lack of protein can lead to failure to grow, suppressed immune system, muscle loss, and a weak heart and lungs. In America we consume twice as much protein a day as we need, however, our protein choices aren’t always from the best sources. Recommended amounts of daily protein by age and sex. ~ Infants: 10 grams, Teenage Girls: 46 grams, Teenage Boys: 52 grams, Adult Women: 46 grams, Adult Men: 56 grams, Pregnant or Nursing Women: 71 grams

12/01/11 A Welsh research group successful bred a natural, non-GM potato three years ago with natural resistance to blight. This blight-resistant potato, now available in more than six different varieties, is safe for both you and the environment and it does not require the yearly repurchasing of terminator seeds and expensive chemical pesticides in order to grow like the GM ones.

11/30/11 The Cancer Research Center of Hawaii and the University of Southern California reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that they studied 190,000 people, ages 45 to 75, for seven years. Those who ate the most processed meat (bacon, ham, cold cuts) had a 68% higher risk of pancreatic cancer than those who ate the least.

11/29/11 It’s true! You are what you eat! Studies of people with diets of naturally occurring foods and supplement extracts are beginning to explain the importance of the foods we eat on our genetic health. Good and bad genes are either expressed or repressed immediately following each meal by the contents of your food. This directly influences the progression/regression of health or disease and can cause or prevent chronic conditions.

11/28/11 Studies have reported that eating up 3 grams of phytosterols/-stanols from plant foods a day can reduce total cholesterol levels up to 17 per cent, and cause a significant reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease. Phytosterols, or plant sterols, are cholesterol like molecules found in plants, such as whole grains, fruits, legumes, and vegetables. Phytosterols are minimally absorbed from the small intestine, so they do not enter the bloodstream and they slow absorption of dietary cholesterol and can even stop the cholesterol made by the liver.

11/23/11 Excess fructose, including corn syrup and especially high fructose corn syrup is found in many common food items. This ubiquitous sweetener is up to 10 times sweeter than sugar but can cause non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, leading to liver injury and increased lipid peroxidation. Read your labels carefully and avoid this slow killer for a healthier body and longer life.

11/22/11 Fall bounty: Pumpkin Seeds! Not only are pumpkin seeds antiparsitic, but they have Tryptophan the neurochemical that fights depression and glutamate to make GABA to help relieve anxiety and other related conditions. On top of that these seeds have zinc to boost immune function and fights osteoporosis. Pumpkin seeds are also full of manganese, phosphorous, copper, vitamin K, vitamin E, B vitamins such as thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine), folates, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc and selenium and more!

11/21/11 Asparagus is often considered the number one plant-based source for Vitamin K for preventing osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. It is also loaded with vitamin A and folate for anti-aging, anti-inflammatory, heart healthy, and is indicated in the prevention of birth defects. Need a diuretic? Again with the asparagus! Asparagus is also a good source of potassium, glutathione, vitamin C, the antioxidants glumatic acid, glycine and cysteine and more.