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The Real Food Revivalist!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Franken Food Plus the Fountain of Youth
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Genetically Modified Food is in Your Cupboard Now!
Genetically Modified Food and You
by Erin Chamerlik, The Real Food Revivalist!
JIMMY FALLON [ordering breakfast at Disney World] I love Mickey's Steak and eggs!
DEBBIE DOWNER Ever since they found mad cow disease in the US, I'm not taking any chances.
JIMMY FALLON What?
DEBBIE DOWNER They say it can live in your body for up to three years before it attacks and destroys your brain.
Debbie Downer reporting today... Genetically Modified Food is in Your Cupboard Now!
Chances are that you are eating genetically modified food every day -- it is not labeled as such and it has not been proven to be safe.
Here are some documented health risks of GM foods.
A GMO (genetically modified organism) is the result of a laboratory process of taking genes from one species and inserting them into another to alter characteristics of a plant or animal. The only reason this is done is to create more profit.
The two main alterations are:
- herbicide tolerance and
- the ability of the plant to produce its own pesticide.
So if an insect comes along and bites some GMO corn, the insects stomach breaks open and it will die. The plant was genetically modified to be a pesticide factory.
What happens when you eat lots of GMO corn over a period of time.
The pesticide factory keeps working inside your body. Does this have something to do with all the digestive problems and leaky gut we see in people today? Read more here but it isn't pretty
Lab-created genetic mutations dramatically alter food and it has not been safety tested on humans.
By genetically modifying plants, crops can then be sprayed with massive amount of chemicals that kill everything except the resistant crop. But, resistant mega-weeds are popping up requiring stronger and more hazardous chemical drenching of farmland.
These powerful herbicides kill all of the wildlife and microorganisms that normally live in the soil.
The biggest evil company behind genetically modified organisms (GMO) is the agricultural biotech company Monsanto.
Monsanto is responsible for 90% of the GMO seeds on the market and makes Round-up. So called "Round-up Ready Seeds" can be drenched in Round-up and survive while everything else dies.
Monsanto brought us other toxic goodies like:
- DDt
- Agent Orange
- Aspartame
- Bovine Growth Hormone
Monsanto is the big bully that takes small farmers to court for "stealing" patented GMO seeds, when in fact the GMO seeds landed on the farmers soil (from rain, wind, birds) sometimes contaminating organic crops.
Ruthless Monsanto went after small farmer, Percy Schmeiser causing him to spend $200,000 defending himself, and the fight goes on.
Institute for Responsible Technology provides the following information:
The Health Dangers
What are the potential dangers of eating GM foods?
There are a number of dangers that broadly fall into the categories of potential toxins, allergens, carcinogens, new diseases, antibiotic resistant diseases, and nutritional problems.
What can you do to avoid GMO foods?
Avoid non-organic soy, corn, canola and cottonseed oil.
Read your food labels!
- 91% of soy is genetically modified. Chocolates use soy lecithin; breads use soy flour, shakes use soy protein, baby formulas use soy milk.
- 85% of corn is genetically modified. High fructose corn syrup is found in soft drinks, cereal, cookies, candy, salad dressings, spaghetti sauce, and thousands of packaged products. Baked goods contain cornstarch, vegetable oils use corn oil and breads use corn flour
- 88% of Canola is genetically modified. Foods are often fried in canola oil. It is found in salad dressing, mayonnaise and many packaged foods.
- 88% of cotton is genetically modified. Cottonseed oil is a cheap oil used to make fried snacks.
To avoid GMO foods, avoid the ingredients above unless specifically organic.
Meat, dairy, farmed fish and conventional eggs are from animals or fish that are usually fed GMO grains. To avoid GMO-fed animals foods look for "wild caught" fish, organic meat ideally grass- or green-finished (not bulked up on grain the last few months before slaughter), and pasture raised chickens and eggs.
NEWS Flash: Did you see the 60 minutes piece on artificial flavoring this week? Ta da! Beaver Nasty Bits made the cut!
One ingredient.
Farm-raised, grass fed.
Grass-finished.
NO GMO
I buy my beef, chicken, and pork from organic farmers, raising their animals on pasture, the way God intended.
Sometimes it is from my local farmer's market, sometimes it is from WallaceFarms.com.
Sometimes it is delivered to my door.
I found the home delivery from Beyond Organic as a convenient way to source truly green-fed beef, cultured dairy products and really raw cheese.
The company sells one of three ways, direct to consumer, preferred customer (pay $19.95 and get a 20% discount on purchases for a year) or mission marketer (get discounts and incentives by telling other people about the company).
Cocoa Balls Recipe - Grain-free, dairy-free
Cocoa Balls!
- 1/2 cup ground mixed seeds and nuts. (I used raw pumpkin seeds, walnuts and raw sunflower seeds. I grind them in my Magic Bullet, and store the mix in my freezer. Sprinkle on salads, and have on hand to make cocoa balls)
- 1 cup medjool dates, pitted (about 12)
- 2 Tbs organic 100% cocoa powder
In a food processor grind the seeds/nuts to a fine powder then add pitted dates and grind again. Add cocoa powder and grind again.
Roll into balls. I rolled some in flaked coconut.
Store in frig.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
DHEA - Fountain of Youth
There are two substances that fall into the category: Fountain of Youth.
They are Vitamin D and bioidentical DHEA.
Vitamin D is associated with bone strength, improved mood, physical performance, even reduced rates of certain cancers. Many diseases of aging are associated with low vitamin D status including Alzheimer disease, osteoarthritis and hypertension. I will dive more into Vitamin D next week.
DHEA stands for Dehydroepiandrosterone - the medical world is rife with acronyms, now we know why.
Funny thing is both Vitamin D and DHEA are made from cholesterol. In this country we are accelerating the aging process by dosing everybody with cholesterol-lowering medications called statins. DHEA is made from cholesterol by the adrenal glands and is a building block for 50 other hormones including the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone.
"DHEA is the most abundant base for hormones in our body. It is not a foreign substance. We make it and have it in our systems. So it just makes sense to keep our DHEA level where it is when we are healthiest." - Dr. Fagin, MD Dallas, TX
Here are some quick facts about DHEA:
- DHEA peaks by age 25 then drops each year after
- The aging process is tied to a decrease in hormones like DHEA and growth hormone and it is tied to an increase in cortisol (stress hormone) and insulin
- DHEA has a multitude of benefits backed by scientific studies.
- When DHEA is applied to the skin it is about 90% more active than when we take it as a pill.
- DHEA is converted to other hormones like estrogen and testosterone.
Estrogen has skin benefits, nice for anti-aging because it increases moisture, increases collagen. When collagen is increased not only does the skin look more youthful but there are the benefits to joints and even blood vessels. DHEA studies show that skin pigmentation and sebum production improves (oily/waxy substance in the skin that lubricates the skin).
Benefits of DHEA
- Critical for lean muscle development
- Fat burning and weight loss
- Bone growth
- Skin health
- Boosts immunity
- Reduces menopause symptoms
- Prevents cancer
- Prevents heart disease
- Prevents Alzheimer's disease
- In men there are cardiovascular benefits
- In women we see improvement in mood, libido, skin and bone strength. Less anxiety and depression
- Improved sense of well being
- DHEA opposes the aging effects of cortisol and is an anti-stress hormone
If you are over 35, your DHEA levels have been dropping.
A DHEA deficiency significantly increases the risk of getting certain cancers (including breast, ovarian, prostate, and bladder), atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, nervous system degeneration, and other age-related conditions.
The best anti-aging plan is a comprehensive approach that involves nutrition, supplementation, exercise, stress reduction and sleep.
Nutrition is foundational to any wellness plan or anti-aging plan. One way to get more wrinkles and have less energy is to eat the Standard American Diet (SAD).
How to eat to speed aging:
- Load up on processed food, refined sugar, flour food like bread, pasta, bagels and cereal
- Follow the government recommendation to eat 8-10 servings of grains at every meal.
- Eat low-fat (eating a low-fat diet damages hormones, is unhealthy for your brain
How to slow the aging process:
- Real Food Nutrition
- Supplementation and hormone balance
- Exercise
- Stress reduction
- Sleep
Anti-aging nutrition:
- Eat real food, as close to the way it was created as possible (meat, chicken, eggs, fish, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole dairy, and some fruit).
- Eat 3 meals and include protein, natural fat and veggies.
- Eat natural fat (like butter, olives, nuts, olive oil, coconut oil, avocados and fat naturally occurring in animal foods). Mankind has survived for thousands of years quite well eating natural fats, including saturated fats. These much maligned fats are important for cell structure, building the brain, protecting the liver from toxic substances, bone structure and it reduces LP(a) a bad dude associated with heart disease risk. Oh, and eating healthy fat is essential for healthy hormones and optimal DHEA.
- Drastically reduce or eliminate processed food.
- Stop eating sugar and food made from flour
- Limit grains eating sprouted grains or whole grains like brown rice, quinoa and buckwheat as your blood sugar allows. When we eat sugar, bread, bagels, pasta, and other starchy foods we increase blood sugar and insulin. High insulin leads to lower DHEA production in the adrenals.
I started using bioidentical DHEA cream, Twist 25, about 7 or 8 months ago. I had tried some herbal remedies like dong quai and black cohosh for hot flashes, but you cannot take those herbal supplements any longer than a few months. I added a natural progesterone cream, which was very beneficial in relieving many symptoms but my sleep was very disrupted. I would fall asleep and wake a few times during the night. Sometimes I was awake for hours. It was very exhausting. When we don't sleep that starts a cascade of problems, increasing stress hormones, more belly fat, increases insulin.
Using DHEA cream changed the quality of my sleep within two weeks. I was finally able to sleep through the night. I feel like a champion teenage sleeper now. And if that was the only benefit I experienced, it would be worth it. I noticed improvements in my skin and muscle tone.
The product I recommend is bioidentical cream called Twist 25. (coupon code "GBW" for 10% off)
- Besides coconut oil which is a precious gift from heaven, it has Vitamin C, E, CoQ10, Omega 3, 6 and 9 essential fatty acids
Tainted tea leads to fluorosis risk
by William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
There's trouble brewing with tea -- and if you love your leaves, pay close attention to this one because you may not love them as much when I'm done.
A new study found that black tea could be bubbling over with dangerously high levels of fluoride, and it's not just from our tainted drinking water.
It's in the tea itself.
Dr. Gary Whitford, professor of oral biology at the Medical College of Georgia's School of Dentistry, had four patients suffering from advanced skeletal fluorosis -- and they all had something in common: They drank a lot of tea, up to two gallons a day for between 10 and 30 years.
So he tested their teas... and found, well, not much. Not at first. Other studies have found small amounts of fluoride in black tea, and he found the same.
But then he found a fatal flaw in the earlier studies: The fluoride in tea can bond with aluminum -- also found in the leaves in small amounts -- making it undetectable by the usual tests.
Once he broke that bond, he got the true fluoride levels. He found more than triple the expected amount of fluoride in some brands, as much as 9 milligrams per liter
-- well above safe levels for regular consumption.
This isn't just a tempest in a teapot -- because despite what the mainstream tells you, no amount of fluoride is safe for regular consumption. It's a toxic waste, and that's not just my opinion. Fluoride was once classified as such by our own government.
Too much of it will actually rot your teeth, not save them. And as those four tea-loving patients of Dr. Whitford can testify, it'll also destroy your bones and joints.
But if you love tea, you don't have to give it up completely. Tea plants suck fluoride and aluminum from the ground slowly, over time -- so the trick is to get the youngest leaves, before they've had a chance to pick up all that poison.
That means out with the black and in with the green and white -- the youngest tea leaves harvested, and also the healthiest. Leaf for leaf, black tea can't touch its younger siblings, which have been linked to everything from cancer prevention to longer lives.
Of course, you'll undo it all if you brew your tea in the fluoride-filled sludge that passes for water in most of the United States -- so make sure you use only clean fluoride-free water, ideally from a reverse-osmosis filter.
Teed off over toxic tea,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
Vitamin D and Diabetes - Can it Delay Progression?
Vitamin D may delay progression of clinical diabetes
November 29, 2011 -- Dr John Cannell VitaminDCouncil.org
Diabetes mellitus type 2, or adult-onset diabetes, is epidemic, according to the CDC. It is a disease of high blood sugar with insulin resistance or insulin deficiency.Insulin resistance is what it sounds like.
The cells are resistant to the action of insulin, and insulin resistance often leads to adult diabetes. However, adult diabetes is no longer a useful term. Since the sun-scare, adult-onset diabetes is often diagnosed in children.
Frequently, but not always, it is a disease of the obese. Exercise and diet helps.
In 2003, about 130 million people in the world had type 2 diabetes. In the United States, 8% of the population has type 2 diabetes. The disease doubled between 1990 and 2005, along with sun-scare, soda, and obesity.
How many times have you heard that we need randomized controlled trials before we start taking vitamin D? Well, they are coming fast and furious. This August , researchers at Tufts University released a double blind randomized controlled trial that showed 2,000 IU/day of vitamin D3 had a major effect on insulin resistance.
Mitri J, Dawson-Hughes B, Hu FB, Pittas AG. Effects of vitamin D and calcium supplementation on pancreatic β cell function, insulin sensitivity, and glycemia in adults at high risk of diabetes: the Calcium and Vitamin D for Diabetes Mellitus (CaDDM) randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 94(2):486-94
I liked what the authors said, “These results suggested that vitamin D may have a role in delaying the progression to clinical diabetes in adults at high risk of type 2 diabetes. Our results may also be relevant to type 1 diabetes …”
Unfortunately, the beta cells in the pancreas are eventually all destroyed in type 1 diabetes. However, the genetic code for those beta cells remains in the body; maybe someone will learn how to turn those genes back on? Furthermore, many cases of type 1 diabetes still have some functioning beta cells; this study shows vitamin D reduces insulin resistance, perhaps helping you keep what beta cells you have left.
2,000 IU/day for 4 months only increased 25(OH)D levels from 24 to 30 ng/ml. Why such a small increase in 25(OH)D? The average subject weighed 223 pounds, that’s why.
This is good proof that the FNB was wrong when they said 20 ng/ml is as good as it gets. Remember the recent Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) said that levels of 20 ng/ml are just fine, do not expect any improvements with levels higher than 20 ng/ml. Keep in mind the NIH, especially the Office of Dietary Supplements, are against, not for, dietary supplements. They are especially sensitive to anyone implying the FNB study they helped fund is working against what they set to accomplish: to better the health and lives of individuals.
The authors failed to write even a sentence about dose, and I assume it is because Tufts University wants some more NIH grants. If going from 24 to 30 ng/ml showed such an improvement in insulin sensitivity, the obvious question is what would going from 24 to 40 ng/ml do? I don’t think the authors wanted to embarrass the FNB anymore than their findings already did
.
Test your Vitamin D levels with an at home test kit. Supply a simple fingertip blood sample and send to the lab. Results are returned to you via mail.
Order a test kit here.
Detects deficiencies in Vitamin D (independently monitoring both Vitamin D2 and D3 status by LC-MS/MS) as a potential cause of health problems ranging from osteoporosis to cardiovascular disease.
Vitamin D Testing Made Simple
A few drops of blood from a quick and nearly painless nick of the finger are placed on a filter paper to dry. This can be performed easily at home. The dried blood spot sample is then sent to a certified lab for analysis. No more wasted time and resources going to a lab for a painful blood draw.
Once the lab has received your dried blood spot sample, your results will be sent to you via the mail in about a week.
Order a test kit here.
Detects deficiencies in Vitamin D (independently monitoring both Vitamin D2 and D3 status by LC-MS/MS) as a potential cause of health problems ranging from osteoporosis to cardiovascular disease.
Vitamin D Testing Made Simple
A few drops of blood from a quick and nearly painless nick of the finger are placed on a filter paper to dry. This can be performed easily at home. The dried blood spot sample is then sent to a certified lab for analysis. No more wasted time and resources going to a lab for a painful blood draw.
Once the lab has received your dried blood spot sample, your results will be sent to you via the mail in about a week.
My Top 5 Supplements for Everyone
I have blogged extensively about different supplements, so for more info, use the search box on this blog. This is just the quick and dirty list of what I see as the top 5 supplements most people need. Yes, you can spend gobs more money and always find one that is better, but these are very good supplements that will do the job for you without breaking the bank.
High Carb Diet is Linked to Macular Degeneration
Study Finds Dietary Link to Risk of Eye Disorder
Certain kinds of carbohydrates may play a role in the development of age-related macular degeneration, an incurable degenerative eye disease that is a leading cause of blindness in older adults.
A new study has found that eating carbohydrate-rich food with a high glycemic index — a measure of a food’s potential to raise blood glucose levels — is associated with the development of the disorder.
The glycemic index is a measure of how fast carbohydrates are metabolized — the faster they are broken down into glucose, the higher the glycemic index. Simple carbohydrates, like those in cakes and cookies, cheese pizza, white bread or other foods sweetened with sugar or corn syrup, are quickly metabolized by the cells, while the complex carbohydrates in brown rice, barley and many other vegetables are broken down more slowly.
Heavy consumption of foods with a high glycemic index has been implicated in the development of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers, according to background information in the paper, which appears in the July issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The researchers examined 4,099 people ages 55 to 80 enrolled in a larger long-term study of eye health. Each participant had 20/32 vision in at least one eye, and the lens of the eye had to be clear enough to allow good photographs that could be used to diagnose macular degeneration.
None of the participants had diabetes. Using these criteria, the scientists had 8,125 eyes to analyze. They graded the severity of macular degeneration on a scale of one to five, administered food frequency questionnaires and calculated the dietary glycemic index, a number indicating the quantity of high-glycemic foods consumed, for each participant.
After controlling for age, sex, education level, body mass index, alcohol consumption and other variables, they found that the higher the dietary glycemic index, the more likely a person was to have macular degeneration.
Those in the highest one-fifth of the dietary glycemic index had more than a 40 percent increased risk of significant macular degeneration than those in the lowest one-fifth.
The amount of carbohydrate consumed was not correlated with disease, suggesting that it is only carbohydrates with a high glycemic index that cause the effect.
“Sugar is fuel for the cells, but too much is destructive,” said Allen Taylor, the senior author of the paper and chief of the Laboratory for Nutrition and Vision Research at Tufts University. “It is known from laboratory and animal studies that carbohydrates can damage the proteins in cells and affect their function. The sugars actually modify things, modify the proteins, and it’s the accumulation of this modified stuff that is poisonous to cells.”
While the exact mechanism is unknown, the authors suggest that high glucose concentrations are harmful to the retina and the capillaries that supply the eyes, and that a diet of high glycemic index foods causes oxidative stress that increases inflammation.
It may also be that the sharp temporary increase in blood lipid levels that can follow consumption of simple carbohydrates plays a role in damaging the blood vessels.
Still, the researchers say, older age, lower education level and smoking are all more significant risk factors for age-related macular degeneration than diet. They also say that the study does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between a high glycemic diet and macular degeneration, that the study is based on observations made at a single point in time, and that long-term prospective studies will be needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn about the precise relationship between diet and macular degeneration.
Dr. Taylor does not advocate a carbohydrate-free diet.
“I’m not an advocate of any extreme diet,” he said. “But self-control and limiting exposure to simple sugars is not a bad idea.”
He added: “People are eating more simple sugar than they used to, and reverting to a diet that is more fruits and vegetables and less sweetened food would help. It doesn’t take a lot of change.”
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