Sorry!! I Couldn’t Help Myself… and for those of you senior dudes scrambling for the zoom-in function on your computer, let me end with on of my favorite phrases… “No Fool Like An Old Fool!!!”
I’m looking for a Scott Brown Eye Chart for us ole Gals… ;-)
I've been fond of using an unprintable word to describe soda. Let's just say it has the same number of letters as "poop" and means the same thing.
Well, it turns out that may be more than just a colorful description, because a nauseating new study finds that fast food soda fountains are crawling with fecal bacteria.
You read that right -- in one end, out the other...and right back in again.
A study on 30 soda machines in Virginia's Roanoke Valley revealed coliform bacteria -- an indicator of fecal contamination -- in nearly half of the samples. And 70 percent of the beverages tested had some form of bacteria present -- including E. coli and species of Klebsiella, Staphylococcus, Stenotrophomonas, Candida, and Serratia.
I'm not going to quiz you on the names -- trust me, they're all sickening germs and you don't want them anywhere near your mouth.
I'm not done yet -- it gets worse. Researchers tested 11 kinds of antibiotics on these bacteria, and found most of them were resistant to at least one, according to the study published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology.
The researchers suggest eliminating self-service soda fountains -- as if low-wage fast-food workers are any cleaner than Joe Public. In fact, one of the researchers says workers may be contaminating the machines -- get this -- when they take them apart for "cleaning."
So what else do they suggest? More cleanings! If these things are being contaminated during rinsing to begin with, won't more cleanings make them even worse? Trust me, the kid at Taco Heaven who didn't wash his hands yesterday isn't going to change his filthy habits tomorrow.
Here's an obvious solution: Stop drinking soda. Period. There are plenty of reasons to skip this garbage, and this is just the newest -- and by far most disgusting -- one. The sugar alone is enough to rot your brain and body...and the fake sugars in the diet drinks are even worse.
And that's only the beginning.
Coke and other sodas contain phosphoric acid. You used to be able to watch it eat paint right off a car. You can't do that anymore -- not because the soda has gotten better, but because auto paint has gotten stronger.
But if it can do that to an old car, imagine what it does to your stomach, guts and bones.
You want to keep putting that junk inside you, be my guest. Just don't say I didn't warn you.
Bottoms up,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
Posted by: Dr. Mercola – January 2010 
Forbes has declared Monsanto “Company of the Year,” calling criticism of the notorious company “vicious” attacks against a company that “has been working to make humanity better fed.”
What’s more, Forbes claims that the attacks come because Monsanto has close to a monopoly in some seed markets, which Forbes argues is because they are making “seeds that are too good.”
You read that right. Apparently, Monsanto’s decades-long attempt to control the seed market -- which has led it lawsuits against small farmers and genetically modified plants that never regerminate, forcing farmers to buy seeds year after year -- is apparently just a result of their being “too good.”
I encourage you all to BOYCOTT Forbes and cancel any subscription you may have.
Sources: Forbes January 18, 2010
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
For anyone who knows anything about the business of Monsanto, the news that this ominous company has been named “Company of the Year” by renowned Forbes magazine is simply shocking.
This follows on the heels of other oxymoronic honors, such as
President Obama accepting the Nobel Peace Prize while firmly entrenched in a seemingly never-ending war spread across two countries, and
Time magazine naming Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke “Man of the Year,” supposedly for “saving” the US from “an even worse” financial collapse than what Bernanke himself helped create.
Even more ironic are the media efforts to convince you that the unsustainable situation created by printing of billions of dollars to bail out failing banks and companies can be sustained indefinitely.
So, who is responsible for these strange decisions? And perhaps more importantly, why?
Through the lens of these examples, a rather bizarre picture is taking shape. I can’t say exactly what the message is, but I believe I can say this: Beware, because deception is taking place through coordinated media manipulation.
If you know anything about how conventional media is being used on a mass scale, you realize that typically someone is trying to sell you on something – an idea, an ideology, a certain mindset, in order to eventually produce a certain behavior.
The question is, what are they trying to convince you of now?
Are We Living in Some Alternative Reality?
When reading the news these days, I often feel like I’m getting information from some alternate Universe where up is down, and left is right. Because they surely aren’t reporting reality on this planet. It’s gotten so blatantly bizarre lately, it’s as though they don’t even bother to come up with a decent cover story to shroud their attempts at manipulating your mind.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that there are still many who have not figured this game out yet, who will swallow just about anything that magazines like Time and Forbes put in print – like the story that Monsanto is a world class do-gooder.
Unfortunately, there are still those who are unaware of the many improprieties and outright crimes committed by Monsanto, such as:
Suing small farmers for patent infringement after Monsanto’s GM seeds spread wildly into surrounding farmers’ fields, contaminating their conventional crops
Secretly discharging PCB-laden toxic waste into an Alabama creek, and dumping millions of pounds of PCBs into open-pit landfills for decades after PCBs were banned in the US for being a possible carcinogen.
Being found guilty of bribery to bypass Indonesian law requiring an environmental assessment review for its genetically engineered cotton.
Last year, the supreme court of France found Monsanto guilty of falsely advertising its herbicide Roundup as "biodegradable" and “environmentally friendly.” Scientific evaluation discovered that glyphosate, the active ingredient inRoundUp, is acutely toxic to fish and birds and can kill beneficial insects and soil organisms that maintain ecological balance. Additionally, the surfactant ingredient in Roundup is more acutely toxic than glyphosate itself, and the combination of the two is even more toxic.
In 2007, the South African Advertising Standards Authority also found Monsanto guilty of lying when advertising that “no negative reactions to Genetically Modified food have been reported.”
According to one EPA scientist, Monsanto doctored studies and covered-up dioxin contamination of a wide range of its products. She concluded that the company’s behaviour constituted “a long pattern of fraud.”
In 1999, the New York Times exposed that Monsanto’s PR firm, Burson Marsteller, had paid fake "pro-GMO" food demonstrators to counteract a group of anti-biotech protesters outside a Washington, DC FDA meeting.
This is but a short list of examples, but it should give you a clue as to why I question the rationale behind giving them this honor.
Monsanto – Company of the Year?
Anyone who has studied the devastating effects of the unrestrained release of genetically modified crops into the environment will see the insanity in declaring Monsanto “Company of the Year.”
What the world needs is a return to saner, more sustainable farming practices, not mass cultivation of crops infused with “suicide genes” that prevent regermination the year after, or food crops that have been contaminated with GM seeds used for pharmaceutical production.
I truly believe that letting Monsanto lead us down the garden path is nothing short of suicidal.
It’s time for people to realize that while the declared motive behind GM food is an altruistic one -- to alleviate hunger, poverty and malnutrition worldwide – in reality, the ruthless propagation of GM crops are intended to create previously unimaginable profits above anything else.
Despite their assurances, we’re already beginning to see the real price of all that tinkering with Mother Nature: unnatural crop combinations that can harm your health and potentially cause generational DNA changes, for example.
Not only that, but contrary to promises, GM crops are FAILING MISERABLY all across the world. The reality simply isn’t living up to the hype of increased yields of healthy crops.
After 30 years of GMO experimentation, we have the data to show:
No increase in yields; on the contrary GM soya has decreased yields by up to 20 percent compared with non-GM soya. Up to 100 percent failures of Bt cotton have been recorded in India. And recent studies by scientists from the USDA and the University of Georgia found that growing GM cotton in the U.S. can result in a drop in income by up to 40 percent.
No reduction in pesticides use; on the contrary, USDA data shows that GM crops has increased pesticide use by 50 million pounds from 1996 to 2003 in the U.S., and the use of glyphosate went up more than 15-fold between 1994 and 2005, along with increases in other herbicides to cope with rising glyphosate resistant superweeds.
Roundup herbicide is lethal to frogs and toxic to human placental and embryonic cells. Roundup is used in more than 80 percent of all GM crops planted in the world.
GM crops harm wildlife, as revealed by UK and U.S. studies.
Bt resistant pests and Roundup tolerant superweeds render the two major GM crop traits useless. The evolution of Bt resistant bollworms worldwide have now been confirmed and documented.
Vast areas of forests, pampas and cerrados lost to GM soya in Latin America.
Epidemic of suicides in the cotton belt of India. 100,000 farmers between 1993-2003, and an estimated 16,000 farmers a year since, have committed suicide since Bt cotton was introduced.
Transgene contamination is completely unavoidable, as science has recently revealed that the genome (whether plant, animal or human) is NOT constant and static, which is the scientific base for genetic engineering of plants and animals. Instead, geneticists have discovered that the genome is remarkably dynamic and changeable, and constantly ‘conversing’ and adapting to the environment. This interaction determines which genes are turned on, when, where, by what and how much, and for how long. They’ve also found that the genetic material itself has the ability to be changed according to experience, passing it on to subsequent generations.
GM food and feed linked to deaths and sicknesses both in the fields in India and in lab tests around the world. For example, in April 2006, more than 70 Indian shepherds reported that 25 percent of their herds died within 5-7 days of continuous grazing on Bt cotton plants.
Forbes on a Roll – But Where?
But Forbes doesn’t just throw your intelligence for a loop by hailing the success of a destroyer like Monsanto. Oh, no. There’s more.
Tellingly, in the same issue, Forbes also lashes out against chelation therapy, and derides anyone who thinks there may be a connection between vaccines and autism.
So what is this all about, really?
I have to seriously wonder why we are being urged to imagine we live in a world where no bad deed goes unrewarded; a place where what’s bad for you is somehow beneficial, and where lack of integrity, reason and logic is applauded.
What is this type of media coverage saying to you? What is this saying to your children?
This is not what America used to stand for, if I remember correctly. And it’s not what America should stand for now, or in the future.
Quite frankly, it’s all wrong. It’s all upside-down and backwards.
The only good thing about these blatantly bizarre media displays is the fact that they are just that – blatantly bizarre. And hopefully that will shake more people from their slumber and cause them to ask some basic questions about what’s really going on in this world.
Important Questions Only You Have the Answer to
Who taught you what you know?
Who do you listen to? What messages are you receiving from conventional media? How do you determine what’s real and what’s not?
When was the last time you turned OFF the television and really pondered some issue at length, on your own, looking at it from all sides, including the sides you’ve been told to ignore? Heck, when was the last time you asked WHY you are being told to ignore it in the first place!
Other questions may be even more important than the preceding ones, as they involve really tuning into yourself:
Where do you fall within the scheme of nature?
Do natural laws apply to you?
Where does science fit in? How far can science take you? Are you willing to gamble the future of your children on the assurances of mega-companies like Monsanto, who have tremendous responsibility to their shareholders to turn a profit in a crumbling market?
To what degree do you think man-made chemicals can improve your health? What IS health, really? What does your body really need in order for all those trillions of cells to thrive in harmony?
Folks, I encourage you to open your mind; think deeply and clearly, and avoid jumping to preconceived conclusions based on what you think you “know,” without first challenging yourself to discern who fed you that “knowledge” in the first place.
Personally, I’m fed up with the brainwashing that conventional media dishes out, and if you too have had enough, I suggest you boycott Forbes and cancel any subscription you may have to their magazine. Unless you simply don’t want to live in a right-side-up world, that is.
Congressman Ron Paul said the following in one of his speeches before Congress earlier this year, and it sums up my sentiments exactly:
"Is this a dream or a nightmare? Is it my imagination or have we lost our minds? It is surreal. It is just not believable. A grand absurdity. A great deception. A delusion of momentous proportions based on preposterous notions and ideas whose time should never have come.
Insanity passed off as logic. Evil described as virtue. Ignorance pawned off as wisdom. Slavery sold as liberty.The philosophy that destroys us is not even defined. We have broken from reality, a psychotic nation. Ignorance with a pretense of knowledge replacing wisdom."
Related Links:
The Doors Of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything
Why You Are Being Deceived by the News Media
World's Largest Media Source Controlled by World's Largest Drug Company
(Sometimes I wonder if we (the American People have gone psychotic or taken the idiot pill??)
The dietary supplement red yeast rice, which has been shown to lower cholesterol levels, is cheaper than a prescription statin drug. But is red yeast rice a sound alternative? It's worth asking—especially since a new study has found that people with high cholesterol respond just as well to red yeast rice as they do to pravastatin.
Researchers compared the two substances in a small study of 43 subjects who had been treating high cholesterol with a statin other than pravastatin—and had stopped treatment because of muscle pain (myalgia), the most common side effect associated with statin drugs. As part of a new treatment regimen, the subjects took either red yeast rice or pravastatin daily; they also participated in a program emphasizing improvements in diet and exercise.
After 12 weeks, their levels of LDL ("bad") cholesterol had decreased by virtually the same amount (27% in the pravastatin group, 30% in the red yeast rice group) and reports of muscle pain were also similar—and on the low side. The results were reported in the American Journal of Cardiology.
The ability of red yeast rice to lower cholesterol is no mystery: Red yeast rice extract contains a naturally occurring statin, lovastatin (which is also the active ingredient in one of the statin drugs). But because the manufacture of dietary supplements is unregulated, you can't be certain of the dosage or purity of any red yeast rice product you buy in a drugstore or health food store. So despite the study's positive results, you are better off opting for generic pravastatin, which is well regulated, has been extensively tested, and is also one of the least expensive statins. If you do want to try red yeast rice, be sure to talk to your doctor first.
by Dr. Mercola
What if you were to learn that every day, 25 percent of your calories came from a poison, disguised as a food?
And what if you discovered that this chemical imposter was responsible for your insulin resistance and weight gain?
And elevated blood pressure ...
And elevated triglycerides and LDL ...
And depletion of vitamins and minerals ...
And even gout, heart disease and liver damage?
What if you were to discover that this toxic substance had been dumped into your food in gradually increasing quantities for the last thirty years, with the full knowledge and blessings of the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, the USDA and the FDA?
Would you be angry?
I wish I could tell you that this is just a dramatic plot from some fiction novel, but it’s actually a shocking reality.
The substance dealing such a crushing blow to your health and responsible for many, if not most of the chronic diseases that are so rampant in our society, is sugar -- and more specifically, fructose.
We now know without a doubt that sugar in your food, in all its myriad of forms, is taking a devastating toll on the health of this nation.
By the end of this article, you will have a solid understanding of how and why this has happened. In order to really grasp this material, you’ll have to learn a little of the biochemistry of energy, which is rather technical. But hang in there -- the knowledge you’re about to gain, and the impact it will have on your health, will be well worth the effort.
I will try my best to make the more technical aspects as simple as I can for you.
Big Gulp, Meet Big Belt
We are eating far more than we were 25 years ago.
On average, men are consuming 187 more calories per day, and women 335 more calories. People who were never heavy before are becoming overweight, and the obese are becoming more so. We are now a “supersized” population.
But why?
Modern science has shown that the obesity epidemic isn’t simply about lack of self-control, but rather a phenomenon driven by biochemical changes that have altered the way your body regulates energy.
Something has caused your appetite regulation system to go awry. Leptin, the hormone responsible for satiety, isn’t working. It isn’t simply a matter of calories in and calories out. Six-month old babies are the latest victims of the obesity epidemic--diet and exercise cannot explain that.
So, what are you eating now that you weren’t eating thirty years ago? What are you doing to yourself that started the day you were born?
Studies show that all of those extra calories are coming in the form of carbohydrates.
What carbohydrates in particular?
Sugar -- specifically, sugared drinks. Soft drinks (41 percent) and fruit drinks (35 percent) make up the majority of these extra calories.
Today, 55 percent of sweeteners used in food and beverage manufacturing are made from corn, and the number one source of calories in America is soda, in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). In fact, the average American drinks 60 gallons of soda every year.
High Fructose Corn Syrup Has Only Been Around One Generation!
HFCS was invented in 1966 in Japan and introduced to the American market in 1975. Food and beverage manufacturers began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup when they discovered that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was far cheaper to make -- sucrose costs about three times as much as HFCS.
HFCS is also about 20 times sweeter than table sugar. So it was expected that less sweetener would be needed per product. Instead, the amount of sweeteners has steadily risen.
The switch from sugar to fructose drastically altered the average American diet. The statistics are beyond alarming:
Corn syrup is now found in every type of processed, pre-packaged food you can think of. In fact, the use of HFCS in the U.S. diet increased by a whopping 10,673 percent between 1970 and 2005, according to a report by the USDA[i].
The current annual consumption of sugar is 141 pounds per person, and 63 pounds of that is HFCS.
Adolescents are taking in 73 grams per day of fructose, mostly from soft drinks and juice drinks -- and 12 percent of their total caloric intake is from fructose alone.
In the past century, fructose consumption has increased 5-fold.
Processed foods account for more than 90 percent of the money Americans spend on meals.
You’ve probably heard the statistic that one soda a day is worth 15 pounds of fat per year. However, one soda today does not equal one soda of yesteryear. The original coke bottle was 6.5 ounces. Now, you have 20-ounce bottles and a 44-ounce Big Gulp.
Tragically, many infant formulas are more than 50 percent sugar -- 43 percent being corn syrup solids. You might as well be giving your baby a bottle of Coke or Pepsi.
No wonder there is an obesity epidemic.
The War on Fat
Sugar’s rise to power was really an accidental by-product of three political winds, beginning with the Nixon administration:
In 1972, Richard Nixon wanted to reduce food costs as part of his “war on poverty.” He partnered with the USDA to do whatever means necessary to bring food costs down.
In 1975, HFCS was introduced, replacing sugar because it was cheap and readily available.
In the mid 1970s, dietary fats were blamed for heart disease (more about this later), giving rise to the “low-fat craze.” Market response was an explosion of processed convenience foods, all nonfat and low fat, most of which tasted like sawdust unless sugar was added. Fructose was used to make fat-free products more palatable.
In 1982, the American Heart Association (AHA), the American Medical Association (AMA), and the United Stated Department of Agriculture (USDA) reduced fats from 40 percent of your diet to 30 percent. You eagerly complied, believing you were lowering your risks for both obesity and cardiovascular disease.
Yet, as the low-fat craze spread, so did rates of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity -- the very illnesses you thought you were preventing. Clearly, the plan wasn’t working.
Justification for Low-Fat Diet
But how did the war on fat start, in the first place?
It began with a study called the Seven Countries study by Ancel Keys[ii], a Minnesota epidemiologist who used multivariate regression analysis to examine diet and disease. He compared the diets of seven countries, and his main conclusion was that saturated fats were responsible for cardiovascular disease. After much heated public debate, this notion that saturated fats caused heart disease was widely adopted, especially once he made the cover of Time Magazine in 1980.
Keys’ study laid the foundation for nutrition science, education, and public policy for the next three decades.
There was only one problem. His conclusions were dead wrong.
Keys’ neglected to perform the converse analysis demonstrating that the effect of saturated fat on cardiovascular disease wasindependent of sucrose. In other words, sucrose and saturated fat were co-mingled into his data. In retrospect, it is impossible to tease out the relative contributions of sucrose versus saturated fat on cardiovascular disease in this study because the original data is long gone and Keys has passed on.
Additionally he never separated out the issue of how the fat was consumed. There is a major difference in raw and cooked animal fat, especially fat cooked at high temperatures, which clearly produces known carcinogens.
Nevertheless, lowering fat (without regard to sugar) became the nutritional model that persists to this day, despite copious evidence that it doesn’t work.
As your fats went from 40 percent to 30 percent, your carbohydrates went from 40 percent to 55 percent. And this carbohydrate increase was of the worst possible kind: SUGAR.
Proof that Sugar Cause Obesity
The American Beverage Association claims there is “no association between high fructose corn syrup and obesity.”[iii]
However, a long lineup of scientific studies suggest otherwise:
Dr. David Ludwig of Boston Children’s Hospital did a study of the effects of sugar-sweetened drinks on obesity in children[iv]. He found that for each additional serving of a sugar-sweetened drink, both body mass index and odds of obesity increased in the children he studied.
Dr. Kelly Brownell of Yale University did a systematic review and meta-analysis of 88 studies about the association between soft drink consumption and health outcomes[v]. He found clear associations between soft drink consumption and higher body weight.
The Fizzy Drink Study in Christchurch, England explored the effects on obesity when soda machines were removed from schools for one year. In the schools where the machines were removed, obesity stayed constant. In the schools where soda machines remained, obesity rates continued to rise[vi].
A study by Schulze in JAMA in 2004[vii] provides further evidence that sugared drinks cause type II diabetes.
A similar study in 2008 of African American women[viii] demonstrated higher intake of both sugar-sweetened soft drinks and fruit drinks leads to higher rates of type II diabetes.
In a very recent study[ix], sixteen volunteers were fed a controlled diet including high levels of fructose. Ten weeks later, the volunteers had produced new fat cells around their hearts, livers and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. A second group of volunteers who were fed a similar diet, but with glucose replacing fructose, did not have these problems.
But it doesn’t stop at soft drinks.
Sweetened fruit drinks are contributing to your expanding waistline as well. High fruit juice intake (sucrose) is associated with childhood obesity, especially in low-income families[x].
What is it in soft drinks and juice drinks that is damaging your health?
Primarily, it’s the fructose. Read on to discover exactly how and why this is so.
Fructose is NOT the Same as Glucose
Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium -- and in fact, every living thing on the Earth -- uses glucose for energy.
Image from Clinton Community CollegeFructose is not the same molecule. Glucose is a 6-member ring, but fructose is a 5-member ring. Sucrose (table sugar) is 50 percent glucose and 50 percent fructose, and HFCS is 42-55 percent fructose.
If you received your fructose only from vegetables and fruits (where it originates) as most people did a century ago, you’d consume about 15 grams per day -- a far cry from the 73 grams per day the typical adolescent gets as a bolus from sweetened drinks. In vegetables and fruits, it’s mixed in with fiber, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and beneficial phytonutrients, all which moderate the negative metabolic effects.
It isn’t that fructose itself is bad -- it is the MASSIVE DOSES you’re exposed to that make it dangerous.
Before you can understand the differences between how your body metabolizes glucose and fructose, you have to have a basic understanding of LDL.
There are Two Types of LDL -- and Only One is Bad
In the 1970s, low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) were discovered. LDLs were found to be higher in people with cardiovascular disease, so the focus of medicine and nutrition became lowering your LDLs.
One of the crucial pieces of the puzzle that wasn’t recognized at the time was that there are two kinds of LDL: Pattern A and Pattern B.
Pattern A LDLs are large, light, buoyant “floating” LDLs that don’t get under your endothelial cells, and they don’t cause plaque formation. They are harmless.
Pattern B LDL (or VLDLs) are smaller, denser LDLs that are able to wedge themselves under your epithelial cells and therefore roughen surfaces and stimulate plaque formation. These are the bad guys.
Unfortunately, when you get a standard lipid profile at your annual check-up, the LDL measured is a combination of both types. Lab measurements lump them together unless you have a very specialized panel, which most physicians don’t order.
To decipher whether or not you have an excess of the bad type, you can look at your triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels. (HDL, or “high density lipoprotein is commonly called “good cholesterol.”)
Here is a simple way to determine if you have too much bad LDL:
If your triglycerides are low and your HDL is high, then the LDL you have is the good variety.
If your triglycerides are high and your HDL is low, then the LDL you have is the bad variety. The triglyceride-to-HDL ratio is a far better indicator of cardiovascular disease than the total cholesterol-to-HDL ratio that everyone uses.
Now, here’s the bottom line: Dietary fat raises your large, buoyant LDL -- the one that is harmless. Dietary sugar raises your small, dense LDL -- the one that correlates with heart disease!
So, what has happened over the past 30 years was that sugar was added to our low-fat foods to improve palatability -- in the form of either HFCS or sucrose -- and a high-carb, high-risk diet was created -- simply the worst combination for your health.
And the fiber was eliminated.
Fiber Foregone
Fiber is an important nutrient (although not acknowledged as such by the government) and offers many health benefits, particularly if the fiber comes from vegetables.
A high-fiber diet may offer some protection from colorectal cancer, although the research is unclear exactly how this works and what all the factors are. The benefits of vegetable fiber are not yet completely understood. We do know that the risk ofcolorectal cancer is lower among populations with high intakes of vegetables and fruits, and there is some evidence that vegetable fiber may offer some protection from prostate cancer.
Fiber has three important roles:
It reduces the rate of intestinal carbohydrate absorption, reducing your insulin response.
It increases the speed of transit of intestinal contents to your ileum, which speeds up release of satiety hormones.
It inhibits absorption of some free fatty acids to your colon, which would become short chain fatty acids, which suppress insulin.
Thousands of years ago your ancestors likely consumed 100 to 300 grams of fiber every day. Now, you are lucky to get 12 grams daily.
Why is this?
Fiber-less foods are cheap.
They have a longer shelf life and are easier to ship. This makes them easier to export to other countries.
Fiber-rich foods take too long to prepare and eat, and are often less appealing to the general public.
The standard American diet (SAD) is typically loaded with processed foods full of sugar, and devoid of most nutrients and fiber. Sounds like the perfect recipe for an explosion of chronic disease.
The Molecule that Makes Fat Stick to You
Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation. But what regulates fat accumulation?
Fat is a metabolically active tissue. Your adipose tissue is in a perpetual state of flux with free fatty acids (FFAs) being converted into triglycerides and back again, in an ongoing cycle.
FFAs can move in and out of your cells, across cell membranes, but triglycerides (three fatty acid molecules plus one glycerol molecule) are too big to cross. Fat enters and exits a cell as FFA, but is stored as a triglyceride. When fuel is needed, the triglyceride is broken down into FFAs, which can then be burned as fuel.
The glycerol molecule, which is a primary component of a triglyceride, comes from something called glycerol-3-phosphate (g-3-p), or “activated glycerol,” which originates from the metabolism of glucose. The amount of G-3-p you make determines the rate that FFAs are “esterified” into triglycerides inside your fat cells[xi].
The rate of deposition of fat into your fat cells is dependent on the presence of g-3-p. The more g-3-p that is available, the more fat is deposited.
Carbohydrate Biochemistry 101
I promised you a crash course in biochemistry -- so here we go.
Much of the following information comes from the important work of Dr. Robert Lustig[xii] Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco.
In order to appreciate just how damaging fructose is to your body, it is crucial to have a basic understanding of how different types of carbohydrates are metabolized.
We’ll start with glucose since it’s the basic carbohydrate energy source for all living cells.
I. Glucose Metabolism
Glucose is the basic fuel for living organisms, from bacteria to humans, and is the primary energy source for your brain. It is a product of photosynthesis and is found in rice, corn and other grains, and bread and pasta.
Once you take in glucose from a meal -- like, say, from two slices of bread -- 80 percent of it is used by all of the organs of your body -- every single cell. The remaining 20 percent goes to your liver to be metabolized and stored.
The following is what happens to that 20 percent, once it reaches your liver:
Whatever glucose your body doesn’t need immediately gets converted into glycogen for storage in the liver. Glycogen is your body’s non-toxic short-term energy storage package, where it can be easily converted to energy when you need it. Your liver has no limit to how much glycogen it can store without detrimental effects. (That is what athletes take advantage of when they “carbo-load.”)
A small amount of pyruvate is produced, which ends up being converted to ATP (the chemical storage form of energy) and carbon dioxide. An even smaller quantity of citrate is produced from this process through the “citrate shuttle,” which ends up as VLDL (very low density lipoproteins, the bad ones) in a process known as de novo lipogenesis -- but we’re talking about a very small amount (less than one calorie from two slices of bread).
Insulin is released by your pancreas in response to the rise in blood glucose (i.e., blood sugar), which helps the glucose get into your cells. Without insulin, your cells would not be able to process the glucose and therefore would have no energy for movement, growth, repair, or other functions. Insulin is key to unlocking the door of the cell to allow the glucose to be transferred from the bloodstream into the cell.
When you consume 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie contributes to adverse metabolic outcomes.
This is all very normal, and it’s how you were designed to operate.
II. Ethanol Metabolism
Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, is the favorite carbohydrate of many. But it is also a carbohydrate that undergoes a very different metabolic process, leaving in its wake a trail of toxins a mile long.
Ethanol is an acute central nervous system toxin and a chronic hepatotoxin due to the fact that it must be metabolized almost completely in the liver.
After consuming an alcoholic beverage, 10 percent of the ethanol gets broken down by the stomach and intestine as a “first pass” effect, and another 10 percent is metabolized by the brain and other organs. The fact that ethanol is partially metabolized in your brain is the reason you experience that familiar “buzz.”
The remaining 80 percent hits the liver, where it must be broken down. This is four times the load on the liver as the same number of calories from glucose.
But the metabolic process in the liver is quite different from that of glucose.
This metabolic cascade can be summarized as follows:
The liver converts ethanol to aldehydes, which produce free radicals that damage proteins in the liver.
Some of these aldehydes are converted to glucose, but a large amount of excess citrate is formed in the process, stimulating “junk chemicals” that result in free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL and triglycerides. As compared to the 1 calorie from glucose that was converted to VLDL (see previous section), the same caloric intake from ethanol produces 30 calories of VLDL that are transported to your fat cells and contribute to your obesity, or participate in plaque formation. This is what leads to the dyslipidemia of alcoholism.
The resulting lipids, together with the ethanol, lead to an enzyme that begins an inflammation cascade, which in turn causes hepatic insulin resistance, liver inflammation and cirrhosis.
Fat globules accumulate in the liver as well, which can lead to fatty liver disease.
Free fatty acids (FFAs) leave the liver and cause your skeletal muscles to become insulin resistant. This is a worse form of insulin resistance than hepatic insulin resistance and can lead to type II diabetes.
After a 120-calorie bolus of ethanol, a large fraction (about 40 calories) can contribute to disease.
Why am I including a discussion of ethanol metabolism in a report about fructose?
Because, in nearly every way, fructose is metabolized the same way as ethanol, creating the same toxins in your body.
III. Fructose Metabolism
Now we finally come to fructose.
When you consume fructose, 100 percent of it goes directly to your liver to be metabolized. This is why it is a hepatotoxin -- it overloads the liver. Fructose metabolism creates the following adverse effects:
Fructose is immediately converted to fructose-1-phosphate (F1P), depleting your liver cells of phosphates.
The above process produces waste products in the form of uric acid. Uric acid blocks an enzyme that makes nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is your body’s natural blood pressure regulator, so when it is blocked, your blood pressure rises -- leading tohypertension. Elevated uric acid levels can also cause gout.
Almost all of the F1P is turned into pyruvate, ending up as citrate, which results in de novo lipogenesis, the end products of which are FFAs, VLDLs, and triglycerides. The result -- hyperlipidemia.
Fructose stimulates g-3-p (activated glycerol), which you will recall is the crucial molecule for turning FFAs into triglycerides within the fat cells. Remember, the rate of deposition of fat into fat cells is dependent on the presence of g-3-p. The more g-3-p that is available, the more fat is deposited. Fructose is the carbohydrate most efficiently converted into g-3-p11. In other words, fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate.
FFAs are exported from the liver and taken up in skeletal muscle, causing skeletal muscle insulin resistance.
Some of the FFAs stay in the liver, leading to fat droplet accumulation, hepatic insulin resistance and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)[xiii][xiv].
Insulin resistance stresses the pancreas, which pumps out more insulin in response to rising blood sugar as your cells are unable to get the sugar out of your bloodstream, and this can progress to type II diabetes.
As with a bolus dose of ethanol, a 120-calorie bolus of fructose results in a large fraction (again, about 40 calories) that directly contributes to disease.
Do these symptoms sound a bit familiar to you? Hypertension, lipogenesis and dyslipidemia, obesity, inflammation, insulin resistance, and central nervous system leptin resistance?
If you are thinking it sounds a lot like classic metabolic syndrome, you are dead on!
The point to take away is: consuming fructose is consuming fat. Fructose is not really a carbohydrate -- a high fructose diet is a HIGH FAT diet. A high-fat diet that creates a vicious cycle of consumption that won’t turn itself off.
You can see by comparing the metabolism of fructose with the metabolism of ethanol that they are very similar. In fact, when you compare the metabolism of 150 calories of soda with 150 calories of beer (a 12 ounce can of each), about 90 calories reach the liver in either case. Fructose causes most of the same toxic effects as ethanol because both come from sugar fermentation.
Both ethanol metabolism and fructose metabolism lead to visceral adiposity (belly fat), insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.
Studies are accumulating that bear this out.
For example, high-fructose diets were shown to cause dyslipidemia in healthy people with and without a family history of type II diabetes, a recent study showed[xv].
Two other studies were done using medical students, both looking at biological responses to fructose loading. In the first, the med students were given either a large glucose load or a large fructose load. In the students given fructose, almost 30 percent of the calories ended up as fat. In the students given glucose, almost none ended up as fat.
In the second study, medical students were given a high-fructose diet for 6 days. In just that short time, their insulin resistance and triglycerides doubled!
The Neurochemical Basis for Gluttony
You eat as a result of the activation of the “reward pathway” (also known as the hedonic pathway) of your brain.
Your brain’s pleasure center (aka ventral tegmental area, or VTA, and nucleus accumbens, or NA) is the root of all behavior, driven by chemical messengers that are intimately tied into the energy processes I have outlined above.
The part of your brain that responds to what you eat is the same part that responds to nicotine, morphine, amphetamine, ethanol, sex and exercise! That is why people taking narcotics tend to overeat.
Leptin and insulin are modulators of these reward responses, decreasing this VTA-NA activity. In other words, leptin and insulin cause your brain to send you signals to stop eating.
Fructose undermines these normal satiety signals, increasing caloric consumption both directly and indirectly:
Fructose does not stimulate a leptin rise, so your satiety signals are diminished.
Glucose suppresses ghrelin (the hunger hormone—it makes you want more food), but fructose does not.
By raising triglycerides, fructose reduces the amount of leptin crossing your blood-brain barrier.
Fructose increases insulin levels, interfering with the communication between leptin and your hypothalamus, so your pleasure signals aren’t extinguished. Your brain senses starvation and prompts you to eat more.
Fructose decreases the production of malonyl-CoA, which may help promote a sense of energy adequacy.
Along with causing insulin resistance, fructose alters the hedonic response to food thereby driving excessive caloric intake, setting up a positive feedback loop for overconsumption.
Big Fat Lies From the Corn Industry
Now that scientific studies have shown the metabolic similarity between HFCS and sucrose, the Corn Refiners Association has embarked on a vociferous campaign to convince the public that their product is equal to table sugar, that it is “natural” and safe.
Of course, many things are “natural” -- cocaine is natural, but you wouldn’t want to use 141 pounds of it each year.
The food and beverage industry doesn’t want you to realize how truly pervasive HFCS is in your diet -- not just from soft drinks and juices, but also in salad dressings and condiments and virtually every processed food. The introduction of HFCS into the Western diet in 1975 has been a multi-billion dollar boon for the corn industry.
Now the corn industry has come up with another product it’s using in beverages called “crystalline fructose.” This is produced by allowing the fructose to crystallize from a fructose-enriched corn syrup, resulting in a product that is 99.5 percent pure fructose -- a fructose level twice as high as regular HFCS!
Clearly, all the health problems associated with HFCS could become even more pronounced with this product.
Making matters worse, crystalline fructose may also contain arsenic, lead, chloride and heavy metals -- a virtual laundry list of toxic agents you should clearly avoid. In fact, more than one study has detected unsafe mercury levels in HFCS[xvi]. If you have children, all of these contaminants can impact your child’s development and long-term health.
Why doesn’t the FDA regulate fructose since it poses the same health risks as ethanol -- and it regulates ethanol?
The FDA doesn’t touch chronic toxins. They regulate only acute toxins, and ethanol falls into that category because it produces immediately toxic neurological effects. Fructose doesn’t get metabolized in the brain, so it’s effects, although damaging, are cumulative and magnify over time.
Also realize that nearly all HFCS is made from genetically modified corn, which comes with its own set of risks.
The FDA classifies fructose as GRAS: Generally Regarded As Safe. Which pretty much means nothing and is based on nothing.
It is interesting to note that soda taxes[xvii] have recently been proposed both in New York and California, and legislation for the removal of soft drinks from schools has been enacted in several states.
What’s a Sugarholic to Do?
Ideally, I recommend that you avoid as much sugar as possible. This is especially important if you are overweight or have diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure.
In fact, I believe that the positive health impacts of breaking the country’s sugar addiction would be even greater than if everyone stopped smoking, because elevated insulin levels are the foundation of nearly every chronic disease known to man, from cancer and arthritis to cardiovascular disease.
I also realize you don’t live in a perfect world, and following rigid dietary guidelines is not always practical or even possible.
If you want to use a sweetener occasionally, this is what I recommend:
Use the herb stevia
Use organic cane sugar in moderation
Use organic raw honey in moderation
Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than HFCS.
And I don’t recommend agave syrup since it is a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose. Your blood sugar will spike just as it would if you were consuming regular sugar or HFCS. Agave has gained meteoric popularity due to a great marketing campaign, but any health benefits present in the original agave plant are processed away.
Be sure to eat your sugar with fiber ... as in a piece of fruit. As Dr. Lustig says, “When God made the poison, he packaged it with the antidote: fiber.”
Wait 20 minutes before second portions at meals, giving your brain a chance to receive satiety signals.
And exercise regularly. Dr. Ludwig recommends you “buy your screen time with physical activity.”
Exercise is important for several reasons, some of which might surprise you:
Exercise improves skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity (insulin works best in your muscles)
Exercise reduces stress and lowers cortisol, which decreases appetite
Exercise suppresses ghrelin, thereby decreasing appetite
Exercise speeds up metabolic cycles, reducing citrate levels, thus reducing fat production
Exercise can make you sharper, reduce arthritis, lift your mood, strengthen your bones, and even slow down aging
Avoid so-called energy drinks and sports drinks because they are loaded with sugar, sodium and chemical additives.
Rehydrating with pure, fresh water is a better choice.
If you or your child is involved in athletics, I recommend you read my article Energy Rules for some great tips on how to optimize your child’s energy levels and physical performance through good nutrition.
A Word of Warning About Infant Formula
And finally, be extremely careful about the infant formula you are feeding your baby. Nearly all infant formulas have as much or more high fructose corn syrup than a can of soda -- in addition to many other things that are extremely detrimental to your baby’s health and development.
You have learned that, metabolically, there is very little difference between ethanol and sugar, so by giving your infant formula, you might as well be giving him a bottle of beer or soda!
And studies have shown that the earlier you expose kids to sweets, the more they crave them later.
It is important for pregnant women to keep their blood sugars well managed not only for their own health, but also for the long-term health of their children.
Researchers have found that children born to mothers with gestational diabetes (high blood sugar during pregnancy) had an 82 percent chance of becoming obese between the ages of 5 and 7 through a phenomenon called “metabolic imprinting.” Even mothers with elevated blood sugar, short of gestational diabetes, had children with a significantly increased risk for obesity.[xviii]
I advocate breastfeeding if at all possible -- it is by far the healthiest option.
One of the most clear-cut, non-debatable topics in health care is that breast milk is the best source of nutrition for newborns. The benefits to the baby and the new mom are enormous. Breastfed infants have shown lower obesity rates in later childhood[xix].
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Robert H. Lustig, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at University of California, San Francisco, for sharing his incredibly important insights, without which this article would not have been possible. Much of the above information came directly from Dr. Lustig’s work related to central regulation of energy balance, and I am very grateful for his willingness to share it with me so that I can pass it along to you.
" DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE BACK-PEDDLING, AND SUDDEN RETREAT ... IT'S A RED HERRING ... WATCH THE OTHER HAND ...
Thursday, January 21, 2010
National Review On-Line
Paul Ryan on Reconciliation [Robert Costa]
Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, tells National Review Online that House Democrats are planning to use the budget-reconciliation process in order to pass Obamacare. “They’re meeting with each other THIS WEEKEND to pursue it,” says Ryan. “I’ve spoken with many Democrats and the message is this:" They’re not ready to give up. They’ve waited their entire adult lives for this moment, and they aren’t ready to let 100,000 pesky votes in Massachusetts get in the way of fulfilling their destiny. They’ll look at every option and spend the next four or five days figuring it out.”
If the Democrats pass a health-care bill through reconciliation, it means they would need only 51 votes in the Senate for final passage. To start the process, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) would need to bring a new health-care bill to the House Budget Committee with reconciliation instructions, with the Senate doing the same. “They’d have to go back to the beginning of the process,” says Ryan. “They’d need to affix reconciliation instructions to a new bill.” Doing so, he says, wouldn’t be too hard. “There’s nothing we can do to stop this from a technical standpoint, since all they need is a simple majority vote and our ratio on the committee is terrible. What [Republicans] can do on the Budget Committee is pass resolutions for the Rules Committee to insist on certain changes in the bill and create a ‘vote-a-rama’ atmosphere.”
If reconciliation happens, Ryan predicts that the Democrats will still have a hard time pulling it off. “There are Blue Dog Democrats out there who are more survivalist than ideologues. One or two switches could be a game changer. The question is whether Democrats will continue to follow Pelosi off the cliff. After Massachusetts, the Democrats are quickly realizing that even if the president comes in to stump, and you get all the union support you need, it’s still not enough to get you elected.”
© National Review Online 2010. All Rights Reserved
**Time go get back on the phones, faxes and emails too all the house members and the Senate… Tell them “NO” on ObamaCare and NO on reconciliation and that head are going to roll if they even think about it!! Start with your own and then lets go through the list…
Congress.org - Elected Officials
**Let us also insist that Scott Brown needs to be seated ASAP!!!!
------
· Posted by Ask Marion on January 22, 2010 at 4:15pm
I just received this from 3 reliable sources... AmeriPac, ConservativeActionAlerts, and a friend of mine in the know... Let us not take Nancy Pelosi at her word (which is pretty worthless) from yesterday or get comfortable that we have won or that the Dems have come to their senses...
I think we would be smart to all do another round or faxes, calls and emails!!
ObamaCare Alive And Well…
Pelosi - "Regardless of MA, It Will Happen"
ALERT: Obama the Democrats in Congress and the extreme liberal left are out of touch, blaming voters and everyone else as Brown goes to Town they are still conspiring in the dark corners behind closed doors in Washington to push through ObamaCare.
Socialized Health Care Can STILL Be Stopped -
Select Here to Tell Congress to VOTE NO on ObamaCare:
SEND YOUR FAXES NOW! and of course we all have our lists to fax, call and email directly
below is a web site that will send fax for you about $20 at bottom I will include phone and fax numbers for the three AZ if you want to make the calls yourselves
https://secure.conservativedonations.com/ameripac_obamacare4/?a=3550
We need your continued help more than ever as Socialized Health Care MUST STILL Be Stopped.
Pelosi said "Regardless of Massachusetts, it will happen" and Democrats are continuing to work to reconcile the House and Senate ObamaCare bills and are proceeding to force a through a process called "budget reconciliation," where they only need 51 votes to pass a bill, not 60.
Obama, Reid and Pelosi are still circling and have vowed to continue working on passing a scaled down ObamaCare bill by picking America apart with new taxes, increased healthcare costs and insurance premiums by hiding ObamaCare in future spending bills.
The Only Poll That Counts - The Results Of The MA Special Election
The extreme liberal left believes that ObamaCare has not gone far enough and have produced an internal poll of Massachusetts voters (is it really true?) that shows of the Obama voters who cast a ballot for Brown, nearly half (49%) support the Senate bill or think it does not go far enough. (Liars can figure but figures do not lie as dangerously out of touch extreme left Liberals are still pushing ObamaCare)
Trusted Gallup polls tell the truth and 72% say Brown's election reflects many Americans' frustrations, which the president and members of Congress should pay attention to and Americans widely agree that the election result has national political implications.
In the wake of Republican Scott Brown's victory in Tuesday's U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, the majority of Americans (55%) favor Congress' putting the brakes on ObamaCare.
Obama Blames "Last Eight Years" for Rejection of His Brand of Change
the above was one part of a blog on AAM. below is another part from another blog about Dick Morris's e-mail
·Posted by Babs on January 22, 2010 at 7:00pm
DEFEATING OBAMACARE: THE NAIL IN THE COFFIN
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on January 22, 2010
Now is the time to finish off the prospects of Obamacare with the Democrats reeling from the defeat in Massachusetts.
We must not trust them. The apparent reluctance of the House Democrats to pass the Senate version will evaporate once Obama puts his weight behind the bill and Pelosi starts to twist arms. Moderate Democrats cannot be counted upon.
Who's to Blame for America's Economic Crisis – Vote Here! So we need to target Democrats in swing districts who voted for the health care legislation in its first go-round in the House and convince them of the error of their ways. As the Republican floor leader in the 60s Senator Everett Dirksen once said "when they feel the heat, they see the light."
Here is a list of twenty-three Democrats who voted for Obamacare and who are vulnerable in 2010. Its time to turn up the heat on them:
Harry Mitchell = Arizona 5
Gabrielle Giffords = Arizona 8
Alan Grayson = Fla 8
Mark Schaue
MichCarol Shea-Porter = NH 1
Mike Arcuri = NY 24
Mary Jo Kilroy = Ohio 15
Kathy Dahlkemper = Pa 3
Christopher Carney = Pa 10
Tom Perriello = Va 5
Ann Kirkpatrick = Arizona 1
Baron Hill = Indiana 9
Dina Titus = Nevada 3
John Hall = NY 19
Stephen Driehaus = Ohio 1
Paul Kanjorsky = Pa 11
Dan Maffei = NY 25
Allan Mollohan = W Va
Nick Rahall = W Va
Steve Kagen = Wisc
Marion Berry = Arkansas
John Spratt = Georgia
Zack Space = Ohio 18
These are the key votes. If we can create a groundswell among their voters, demanding that they retreat from their position of forcing socialized medicine and Medicare cuts on the country, we can win.
Nancy Pelosi's strategy is to delay and let the impact of the Brown win in Massachusetts be blunted by time. Meanwhile, she will propose amendments to the Senate bill and submit her proposed changes to the upper chamber. Harry Reid will tell her that such a bill is dead on arrival but she will demand a vote. When the measure is rejected (or fails of closure), she will go back to her caucus and say, "I tried, but the Senate would not accept any of our amendments."
Then the question is: What happens then? If we have prepared the way by influencing the districts of the marginal members who voted for the bill, we can assure that the centrist Democrats do not support the new legislation. We can peel away some of the 220 votes (with 215 against) by which the bill passed the House.
Harry Mitchell phone= 202-225-2190 fax= 202-225-3263
Gabrielle Gifford phone=202-225-2542 fax= 202-225-0375
Ann Kirkpatrick phone- 202-225-2315 fax 202=226-9739
add ons
Rsul Grijalva phone=202-225-2435 fax=202-225-1541
Ed Pastor phone=202-225-4065 fax = 202-22?-1652
Dr. Shiv Chopra was a drug company insider, and also worked for what is now Health Canada -- the Canadian equivalent of the FDA. He’s acquired an enormous amount of expertise about vaccines, which you can hear in the first part of our interview below, and also about the food supply.
In this second interview, Dr. Chopra shares his knowledge about food issues that affect every single one of us.
I am very excited to share this second interview with all of you. Dr. Chopra is an insider; he was hired by the drug companies and worked with vaccine development in Europe. He has also worked for the Canadian government, in the equivalent of the FDA. He was a senior scientific advisor for what is now Health Canada for 20 years, working primarily in vaccines and antibiotics.
However, Dr. Chopra is also very knowledgeable and passionate about the issues threatening the food supply, and his sentiments echo my own very closely.
As Small Farms Disappear, the Food System is Crumbling
Most “farming” today is nothing like the small farming of our ancestors. Food production on a massive, corporate level has taken over the natural farming practices that thrived for hundreds of years. As Dr. Chopra said:
“Look at our food supply in Canada and the United States since they were established 200-300 years ago until they started to turn into this intensive industrial farming.
Until then, they were the happiest lands anywhere on earth because food was pristine, pure and it was doing well -- and there was a lot of land and water. Everything was good.
And then came the mechanization -- the chemicalization -- and now it’s come to the elimination of the family farm. How has it happened? This last thing that I’m talking about: we now no longer have family farms left, very few and very far in between.”
Those of you who are new to the natural health scene may find it surprising that the modern food system is in danger of collapsing. The food system began its dramatic decline the second the world turned away from the farming practices of our ancestors, and began to attempt to outdo nature with technology.
Now, producing food on a massive scale at the lowest price possible has taken precedence over obeying the laws of nature. The system is pushing natural systems and organisms to their limit, forcing living creatures to function as machines.
Of course, “whatever we may gain in industrial efficiency, we sacrifice in biological resilience,” Michael Pollan pointed out in Our Decrepit Food Factories.
Animals Pumped Full of Hormones and Fed Unnatural Diets
As you might suspect, food that is raised using unnatural processes often leads to unnatural responses in those who eat it. Now we are facing the reality of meat and dairy products laced with cancer-causing hormones, super-bug-creating antibiotics and new manifestations like mad cow disease.
Dr. Chopra expands:
“It first started with chemical fertilizers, and then pesticides, and then they moved on. From the pesticides, they said, “We can feed animals back to animals because only half the animal is meat and then the rest of the animal has to be wasted.”
So they picked up slaughterhouse waste and they ground it up. They picked up dogs and cats -- road kill as well -- and ground it all up. They start to feed animals back to animals that we people eat. All the animals that people ate were herbivores. We didn’t eat carnivore animals. We didn’t eat birds that prey on other birds.
So they’ve been grinding all these up and they were feeding it back to the animals until it turned into a big business. It started in Germany and spread to the UK, and then there’s mad cow disease.
Next came hormones. Hormones are also used for industrial farming for all animals to be impregnated on the same day. Then came along the bovine growth hormone (BGH) to increase milk production. That, unfortunately or fortunately, landed on my desk in 1988, and I started to ask questions. I said, “What’s this? Why are you doing that? Have you done any studies?” Monsanto, of course, had not done any studies.
Meanwhile, they passed other hormones for beef production. These hormones are sex hormones -- like a large birth control pill -- that are implanted behind the ears of cattle and left there for life. People eat that beef. Some of those hormones are synthetic and have been proven to be complete carcinogens.”
Further, raising animals in this way -- away from their natural environments and diets -- actually increases their risk of passing on a dangerous bug to you. For instance, most cows are fed grains, when their natural diet is grass. Grain diets create a much higher level of acidity in the animal’s stomach, which E. coli bacteria need to survive.
Making Food Safer With the “Five Pillars of Food Safety”
Dr. Chopra has a very interesting point, and that is if you remove the dangerous aspects of food production, it automatically makes for a much safer food supply. In essence, if you return to natural farming practices, there is no need for “organic” regulations because all food would be safe and natural.
This is how it was in the past … all food was essentially organic as a matter of course.
As Dr. Chopra explains, five of the most offending substances in the food supply are antibiotics, hormones, GMOs, pesticides and slaughterhouse waste. He says:
“If we demand to take these five substances out of the food system automatically, all food becomes natural. We don’t have to fight for it as organic; we don’t have to label. We don’t have to do anything. I call them in my book, which is called Corrupt to the Core: Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower, the five pillars of food safety.
Three of those five are already banned in the European Union. The fourth, GMOs, have not yet been approved. With the fifth, Sweden has already banned some 80 pesticides. And so they’re on their way to do that.
Why would Canada and the United States not do the same thing?
Because otherwise, by loading all safety standards for food or even vaccines, we are going to import these things from China, India, Mexico, Brazil and we will be responsible.
Now we’re lowering the standards because the companies know that we don’t have the labor to produce food, drugs or anything here. It’s all going to come from those developing countries.
We have no standards -- like we know happened with melamine from China -- and we’re trying to set a standard on how much melamine can be safe. That’s ridiculous. Why should melamine be there in the first place or anything which is abnormal in the food system?
So we should be saying, “These are our standards: our food can be exported, bad food cannot be imported.”
And the whole world will begin to clean itself. Water, climate: it’s all food-dependent. If we clean up the food system, automatically everything cleans up.
Imagine, if the food and water are cleaned up, health improves!”
Tips for Safer Food, Now
The real solution to creating healthier, safer foods lies most certainly in returning farming to a small-scale basis.
This is going to take some time on the grand scale, but you can start right now by making it a point to only buy food from a source you know and trust. This will do your health a major favor and support the small family farms in your area.
You’ll receive nutritious food from a source that you can trust, and you’ll be supporting the honest work of a real family farm instead of an agri-business corporation.
While I realize that not everyone has access to small farmers, food from local sources is increasing in popularity and is becoming much easier to come by. For an excellent list of sustainable agricultural groups in your area, please see Promoting Sustainable Agriculture -- this page is filled with resources for high-quality produce, meats and other foods in your area.
<a href="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/23/Looming-Before-Us-Corporate-Threats-to-Your-Food-Supply.aspx" target="_blank">Dr. Mercola</a>
Thursday, 21 Jan 2010 12:22 PM
Queen Pelosi cannot admit that she was wrong and that the people do not want what she and her Progressive cohorts have been selling.
WASHINGTON – Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she lacks the votes to quickly move the Senate's sweeping health overhaul bill through the House, a potentially devastating blow to President Barack Obama's signature issue.
Pelosi, D-Calif., made the comment to reporters after House Democrats held a closed-door meeting at which participants vented frustration with the Senate's massive version of the legislation.
Her concession meant there was little hope for a White House-backed plan to quickly push the Senate-approved health bill through the House, followed by a separate measure making changes sought by House members, such as easing the Senate's tax on higher-cost health plans. Such an approach would be "problematic," she said.
"In its present form without any changes I don't think it's possible to pass the Senate bill in the House," Pelosi said, adding, "I don't see the votes for it at this time."
Pelosi's remarks signaled that advancing health legislation through Congress will likely be a lengthy process — despite Democrats' desire for a quick election-year pivot to address jobs and the economy, which polls show are the public's top concern.
"We're not in a big rush," Pelosi said. "Pause, reflect."
Source: The Associated Press/Posted NewsMax
Pelosi Rejects Senate Version of Health Care Bill
"We're not in a big rush," Pelosi said. (Time to) "Pause, reflect."… Translation: I have polled and cajoled everyone and after trying all the tricks in my bag… I mean all, I finally have to admit that only 38% of America wants ObamaCare and their reps are finally listening… so I don’t have enough votes to cram this through against the will of the people.
It is a time to celebrate!! But with the Nancy and crew it is never time to stop being vigilant!! THITW
Vitamin B12 is known as the “energy vitamin,” and it is essential for many critical functions in your body, including energy production, supporting your immune system, and helping to regulate the formation of red blood cells.* Recent studies from the US Framingham trial show that one in four adults in the US are deficient in this vitally important nutrient and nearly half of the population has suboptimal blood levels.
Vitamin B12 is present only in animal sources of food--which is one of the reasons I advise against being a strict vegetarian or a vegan. This deficiency can result in less than optimal nervous system function, a tendency toward nervousness, and even less-than-optimal eye health.
The older you get the more likely you are to have a vitamin B12 deficiency. The two ways that you become deficient in vitamin B12 are from not getting enough in your diet and from losing the ability to absorb it.
I recently visited India which is primarily a vegetarian based culture and current studies there show about 80% of the adults are deficient in vitamin B12. However, vegans are not the only ones who can become vitamin B12 deficient.
The older you get the more your digestive system breaks down, especially if you have been following the standard American diet. Specifically the lining of your stomach gradually loses its ability to produce hydrochloric acid which releases vitamin B 12 from your food. The use of antacids or anti ulcer drugs will also lower your stomach acid secretion and decrease your ability to absorb vitamin B 12. Infection with Helicobactor pylori, a common contributor to stomach ulcers, can also result in vitamin B12 deficiency.
However the main cause of vitamin B 12 deficiency is a term researchers call food-cobalamin malabsorption syndrome. Cobalamin is the scientific term for vitamin B12. This typically results when your stomach lining loses its ability to produce intrinsic factor which is a protein that binds to vitamin B12 and allows your body to absorb it at the end of your small intestine.
Posted: True Health Is True Wealth
The impact of Republican Scott Brown’s capture of the Massachusetts Senate seat held for decades by Teddy Kennedy will be both immediate and powerful. It’s safe to say no single Senate election in recent memory is as important as this one.
Here are a few of the repercussions:
1) President Obama is weakened. For the third time in three months, he couldn’t deliver for a Democratic candidate. Last November, he abetted the defeat of Democrat Creigh Deeds in the Virginia governor’s race and failed to prevent Democrat Jon Corzine’s ouster as New Jersey governor. Now in Massachusetts, his appearance for Martha Coakley was a bust. A president who can’t aid his party’s candidates loses influence with Congress and inside his party.
That’s not all. Obama’s agenda, chiefly health care, took a beating in Massachusetts. In fact, it was the chief cause of Coakley’s defeat. Without the intrusion of national politics, she would have defeated Brown. But Obama and Democrats in Washington have created a hostile environment for Democratic candidates even in liberal and Democrat-dominated Massachusetts. So there’s a double whammy for Obama: he can’t help if he personally shows up to campaign on behalf of Democrats and his policies are ruining their chances of being elected.
2) Independents are lost to Democrats, at least for the time being. In 2006 and 2008, they fled Republicans in large numbers and facilitated Democratic triumphs for the House, Senate, and White House. Now they’ve staged a mass migration to the Republican camp. In Massachusetts, where they make up half the electorate, they overwhelmingly voted for Brown. This followed the 2-to-1 advantage they gave to Republicans in Virginia and New Jersey last year.
Democrats may win them back, but not if they stick with the liberal policies--especially the unbridled spending and $1 trillion deficits--of Obama and congressional Democrats. These are killer issues among independents. Perhaps it will take another unpopular Republican administration in Washington to push them toward Democrats again. And that is years away.
3) In the midterm election in November, Republicans are poised to win 25 or so House seats. But it will take a net of 40 to take control the House. For this, they need more open Democratic seats, which are easier to win than incumbent-held seats. Brown’s victory in Massachusetts is a good bet to scare many more Democrats into retirement.
If a Republican can win in Massachusetts, why not in Missouri or Pennsylvania or a solidly Democratic state like New York? Last week, Democrat Vic Snyder of Arkansas announced his retirement, citing the political climate as the reason. It’s an anti-Democratic climate.
4) Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is the new king of Capitol Hill. His skill in keeping 40 Republicans united against Democratic health care reform was masterful, and it wasn’t easy. A number of Republican senators are drawn to co-sponsoring or at least voting for Democratic bills. Not this time.
By keeping his minority together, McConnell put enormous pressure on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who had to keep every Democrat in line to gain the 60 votes need to halt a Republican filibuster. On health care, it meant he had to make unseemly deals with a host of senators, most egregiously in the Medicaid payoff to Nebraska to appease Senator Ben Nelson. Reid got the votes, but the deals were political poison.
5) Oh, yes. The health care bill, ObamaCare, is dead with not the slightest prospect of resurrection. Brown ran to be the 41st vote for filibuster and now he is just that. Democrats have talked up clever strategies to pass the bill in the Senate despite Brown, but they won’t fly. It’s one thing for ObamaCare to be rejected by the American public in poll after poll. But it becomes a matter of considerably greater political magnitude when ObamaCare causes the loss of a Senate race in the blue state of Massachusetts.
Then there’s the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi insists some version of ObamaCare will be approved and soon. She’s not kidding. She’s simply wrong. At best, she has the minimum 218 votes for passage. After the Massachusetts fiasco, however, there’s sure to be erosion. How many Democrats in Republican-leaning districts want to vote for ObamaCare, post-Massachusetts? Not many.
Pelosi met with House Democrats yesterday to tell them how the negotiations on a compromise health care bill between the House and Senate were going. As she spoke, one Democratic member whispered to another, “It’s like talking about your date on Friday, but the date’s in the emergency room.” ObamaCare went into the emergency room in Massachusetts and didn’t make it out alive.
Pelosi 'Spooked' After Meeting with Blue Dogs
Obama Tells Congress Not to Ram Through HealthCare
Obama Says: We Lost Touch With American People Last Year
By Michelle Malkin • January 20, 2010 01:11 AM
How ya like these red apples?
(h/t Mary Katharine Ham)
January 19 was an amazing day for grass-roots conservatism. But the Beltway GOP should be warned against unjustified triumphalism. They were late to the game. Activists still haven’t, and won’t, forget the massive amounts of money Washington, D.C. Republicans wasted on Dede Scozzafava. And Scott Brown quite noticeably didn’t mention the word “Republican” once during his prepared remarks.
The GOP brand is still damaged. And instant exploitation of the Brown win — see the NRSC website here — isn’t going to help matters. As I’ve said for many years, the Republican Party needs to clean its own house before it demands that the Democrats clean theirs.
The Brown victory was very clearly a strike against machine politics of all kinds and business as usual in Washington. That includes top-down meddling by tired old GOP operatives. The party bosses have tried to install their preferred Senate candidates in Florida, Colorado, and California. They will use Brown’s win to argue for more “mooooooderation.” As I wrote yesterday in my analysis of how Brown unified a center-right-indie coalition, that is not the lesson of the Massachusetts miracle.
Wake up and smell the Tea Party leaves.
***
Heh. – Riehl World View
***
One more cautionary note: Tonight is unquestionably a night to celebrate. But remember to manage your expectations, as always, of all politicians. You’ll be less disappointed when they inevitably let you down.
Let us all call William Gavin and insist Brown be seated immediately!!!! Secretary of State Mass contact info: Secretary William Galvin 1-800-392-6090 email is cis@secstate.ma.us View this site to get an idea on what they do with the law in Mass?!? 
BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts's top election official says it could take weeks to certify the results of the upcoming U.S. Senate special election. That delay could let President Barack Obama preserve a key 60th vote for his health care overhaul even if the Republican who has vowed to kill it wins Democrat Edward M. Kennedy's former seat.
Secretary of State William F. Galvin, citing state law, says city and town clerks must wait at least 10 days for absentee ballots to arrive before they certify the results of the Jan. 19 election. They then have five more days to file the returns with his office.
Galvin bypassed the provision in 2007 so his fellow Democrats could gain a House vote they needed to override a veto of then-Republican President George W. Bush, but the secretary says U.S. Senate rules would preclude a similar rush today.
The potential delay has become a rallying point for the GOP, which argues Democrats have been twisting the rules to pass the health care bill despite public opposition. It's also prompted criticism from government watchdogs.
"We believe that elections should be by the people and for the people, and when the people have spoken, the system ought not be politicized," said Common Cause President Bob Edgar, a former member of Congress. "If the Republican wins, the person should be seated immediately. If the Democrat wins, the person should be seated immediately."
Massachusetts Democrats already changed state law last fall so the governor could appoint a fellow Democrat to fill the seat after Kennedy died in August.
Now that interim replacement, Sen. Paul G. Kirk Jr., says he will vote for the bill if given the chance, even if Republican Scott Brown beatsDemocrat Martha Coakley in Tuesday's special election to fill the seat permanently. Brown, a state senator, has pledged to vote against the bill; Coakley, the state attorney general, supports it.
Businessman Joseph L. Kennedy, no relation to the late senator, is also mounting an independent campaign, but he has trailed badly in publicopinion polls. He, too, opposes the bill.
Kirk and Coakley represent the crucial 60th Democratic vote to prevent a filibuster of the legislation. A Brown victory would shift the chamber's balance to 59-41—just enough for Republicans to block the legislation.
Yet passing or stopping the bill could depend on when the new senator is seated. Obama is angling to get the bill passed before he delivers his State of the Union speech, most likely in early to mid-February.
"Until a new senator is sworn in, Sen. Kirk is the senator," Coakley said.
While Galvin wrote a letter in 2007 so Democrat Niki Tsongas could assume a U.S. House seat immediately after a special election, an aide said he would not do so in the case of the upcoming Senate election.
"The Senate requires the certificate of election, which can only be issued after this period takes place," spokesman Brian McNiff said.
Democrats control the Senate, and they argue there is recent precedent for withholding a seat until local officials certify an election. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his colleagues waited 238 days before seating fellow Democrat Al Franken last year after Republicans challenged his 2008 election all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court.
"When there is a certified winner in Massachusetts, the Senate has received appropriate papers and the vice president is available, the successor to Kennedy/Kirk will be sworn in," said Reid spokeswomanRegan Lachapelle.
She said that could take "a week or more."
By GLEN JOHNSON - AP Political Writer
Let us all call William Gavin and insist Brown be seated immediately!!!! Secretary of State Mass contact info: Secretary William Galvin 1-800-392-6090 email is cis@secstate.ma.us View this site to get an idea on what they do with the law in Mass?!? No more two party games or standards!
Even Barney Frank Concedes Healthcare Approach ‘No Longer Appropriate After Brown Beats Coakley
Bayh Warns “Catastrophe” If Dems Ignore Massachusetts Senate Race Lessons
