Health News
Did Coke Make America Fat?
5 Reasons Why You should Cut down on Pop….and 6 Easy Delicious Replacements
The day I wrote this I was in the grocery store and saw this person checking out with the biggest load of pop I have ever seen in my life. What you see was just part of his load. His shopping cart was literally overflowing JUST with pop. I couldn't stop myself and had to take a quick picture.
Earlier this year New York State Governor David Paterson proposed an 18% so-called ‘fat tax’ on non-diet soft drinks. The government hoped that the tax would reduce the enormous consumption of these sugar-laden liquids, and the income from the tax would assist in helping a growing population of obese individuals.
My first reaction to reading this was “Great – I wonder when they will start taxing the diet sodas too. They can be just as bad. And while they are at it – they could tax the whole junk food industry.”
The state didn’t ask my opinion though and it turns out this tax met too much industry opposition to get passed. To me though, this is a good sign when governments are even thinking of this. These people are not necessarily health advocates but do study the research and see the growing health awareness. The tax parallels cigarette and liquor taxes in its thinking – that these products are consumed by individuals but the whole society ends up paying for the negative influences and therefore deserves to be compensated.
In this case the annual cost of health care for obesity-related diseases is estimated at $79 Billion in the US. You can usually estimate that Canada will be about 10% of that figure. Half of this is met by Medicare in the US, 100% in Canada. – All taxpayers, whether or not they choose to eat a healthy diet, are paying for this.
Are people really being affected by coke and soft drinks? Well…..yes.
Here are Five ways they Rob you of Your Health:
- Americans drink such LARGE quantities of soft drinks that they represent a significant % of our daily calorie intake. By large I mean the average person drinks 150 quarts per year, or about three quarts per week. A significant part of our diet therefore contains no needed nutrients (such as vitamins, minerals, fibre, protein, or essential fatty acids). Pop is just water, chemical flavours, additives plus usually sugar.
- The sugar makes you fat and contributes to diabetes and other degenerative diseases. This was the government’s position)
- Even diet colas have been shown in studies to cause weight gain.You would think that taking in all these liquids would reduce your consumption of other junk foods but studies have shown to actually INCREASE it
- Cola intake has also been associated with increased risk of bone fracture in children, and bone demineralisation in adolescent girls
- Colas have been shown to reduce calcification and increase osteoperosis in adults.
You can read more about these effects by following this link Soft Drinks Hard Facts or this link Just one pop a day .
If these negative are not enough maybe it has to be spelled out in the context of cancer. Both the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research looked at huge amounts of research and advises clearly: “Limit the Consumption of Energy-Dense Foods and Avoid Sugary Drinks.”
The basic problem with these products are that they are NOT REAL FOOD. They are not live food and they are not whole food. The body was never designed to ingest these kinds of products and only gets unbalanced and depleted in the long run.
The solution to this situation couldn’t be simpler because there are so many alternatives. The most obvious drink is WATER which happens to be the most thirst quenching. If you are wanted something with something extra these are all great replacements which happen to be good for you.
Six Easy Replacements for Pop:
- Sparkling mineral water with fresh juice added to it which will have the zing of pop.
- Sparkling mineral water with slices of lemon or lime and a few drops of Stevia.
- Lemon or Lime or Orange Water: Put three slices in a pitcher full of water and leave for an hour and it will be gently flavoured water. One of the benefits is that it will ALKALIZE the water
- Water flavoured with pure fruit juice.
- Lemonade made with fresh lemon juice and Stevia to taste.
- Herbal teas sweetened with stevia. My favorite is Fortune Delight tea from Sunrider. It tastes great and lemon, raspberry, peach, plain and cinnamon.
Feel free to share your comments below and to pass this information onto others.
Nice Cow – Baaad Cow Effects
Is Your Diet Destroying The Environment?
5 Reasons Why the Food on Your Plate is More Important Than the Car You Drive:
Many people who “go green” consider buying something major like a hybrid car. A larger contribution to the environment is not in your driveway though, but in your fridge right now.
The climate change cost of animal meat production is greater than the cost of cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
This is not just vegetarians or health advocates saying this either. The World Health Organization, Scientific American, New Scientist and Readers Digest have all come out with clear information on this fact.
Effects of Meat Production on the Planet
1. Cow Farts:
Cattle farting (and burping) methane – as has been joked about in the media – is a factor in global warming.
2. Plant Displacement:
The biggest impact of meat production is that it displaces useful plants. Trees, grasses and other year-round plants are what absorb CO2 and capture carbon on this planet but they are displaced for specific crops to house and feed cattle.
3. Water Pollution:
Rearing animals for meat contributes significantly to water pollution. Animal waste, antibiotics and hormones enter the water cycle alongside chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops.
4. Water Usage:
Raising cattle for food is incredibly inefficient in terms of water. Meat production is different in different parts of the world but even the more efficient systems use 1,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of beef.
5. Overgrazing:
Overgrazing by cattle and other meat producing animals is so hard on the land that it can’t maintain any productive vegetation.
By the Numbers: Did You Know…?
One Fifth:
The amount of all pastures and ranges turned to desert by overgrazing for meat.
One:
The number of meat-eating dogs it takes to match the carbon footprint of one gas guzzling SUV.
Three:
The number of hours of driving it takes to match the greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution of one kilogram of beef.
Twenty:
The number of vegetarians who could live on the same amount of land as one meat-eater.
Twelve Thousand:
The number of gallons of water needed to raise a single pound of beef (in the inefficient production methods often used in North America).
220 Billion:
The number of gallons of hormone-, antibiotic- and bacteria-laden animal waste dumped onto farmland and into waterways from meat factory farms.
My Own Opinion
There are certainly many ways to save the environment and consuming less meat is a great part.
But…
People are slow to change their eating habits and the connection to the environment is not apparent to most.
I have found though, that when a person becomes interested in taking responsibility for their own health – they almost always become more environmentally conscious. They then start taking a number of “green” steps quite naturally.
That is what I try to help people with and one reason why we started RealFoodForLife.com.
Recipes and Ideas to Help You Go Meatless:
- Learn About Lentils – They are packed with protein and revitalize the ground they grow in.
- Better than meat, filled with vegan protein and yummy too: Adzuki Bean Stew & White Bean and Asparagus Stew
- Better than cows milk and yummy too: Almond Milk
- Read Eating Green, Clean and Lean: Principles and Recipes to Simplify and Energize Your Eating Habits.
Have YOU Helped Save the Environment In This Way or Others?
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
click to see large picture
I was shocked when I saw this two page advertisement in the National Geographic. I’ve taught the regenerative approach to health for over 25 years and this is what I find in a very popular magazine. Although they use the same words I have used (like natural) they come up with very different conclusions. The shocking part was in the explanation on the next page….
It reads…….. Greg Pfaff, Deli Owner, Taking Insulin since 2003.
“I tried to mange my type 2 diabetes with diet, exercise, and pills, so when my doctor said I should add insulin to my therapy, I felt like I’d failed. But he said adding insulin is just replacing what your body should make naturally, and it unlocks your cells so sugar can get into make energy. Millions of people with diabetes take insulin every day to help reach their blood sugar goals. That’s not failure – it’s success. Now when I look at my blood sugar numbers, I have only one regret: that I didn’t add insulin sooner.” RETHINK INSULIN (my bold)
From what I can tell, a one page add in the US costs $185,480.00 US. This was a two page add with a pull out coupon.
What’s do YOU think about this add? I’m really interested in your opinion. You can leave your comments below. I’ll add mine later but I wanted to give you a chance to express also.
Swine Flu… What Should You Do?
On April 29, the World Health Organization raised the pandemic alert level to five; the second-highest level. Millions of people around the world are scared. What should you do? Well first, you should NOT BE FEARFUL,… for a number of reasons. I listed 5 big ones below. I've also explained 7 practical measures that you can implement to deal with this and many more situations.
5 reasons you should NOT be Afraid:
1. Fear just doesn't work. It is unhealthy and unproductive. There is a LOT of false evidence and unsubstantiated rumours which the media has inflamed. The fear and stress about this situation can have more effect than the flu. Please don't participate in that.
2. If you are reading this post you are already probably someone who has been working to bring balance into your body and life for some time. This is the best possible defence against this kind of problem and you have already achieved that. Relax.
3. This is not the first outbreak of swine flu and it won't be the last. Better to have a long term plan for keeping yourself healthy rather than reacting to each small problem… because they are guaranteed to keep coming. The last outbreak of swine flu in 1976 actually killed LESS people than the massive swine flu vaccine campaign which the government implemented to stop it!
4. The only fatalities have been in Mexico and from Mexico which has a totally different climate, culture and economic situation from the rest of the world. Real statistics about who actually has the flu and what kind of lifestyle and food intake these people had been living with is just not available yet. All organisms thrive best only in unique certain environments.
5. There were 91 fatalities (the day before this was written) and the warning medical reports coming out about this situation seem to know a lot about this particular kind of flu virus – BUT lets keep this in perspective. This is the same medical system in which 195,000 people died every year (2000, 2001, 2002) due to preventable in-hospital errors. In the US, 32,000 die from adverse reaction to prescription drugs every year and 20,000 people die each year from the common flu. There are a LOT more important issues that you could be addressing. For example, the second leading cause of death in the US in 2000 (after tobacco) was POOR DIET and PHYSICAL INACTIVITY which claimed 4000,000 deaths. Why is not the media clamoring over these statistics? Mostly because it is not NEW and therefore not news.
7 Actions You should be doing Anyway:
1. Eat a wide variety of WHOLE LIVE FOODS. Add whole food supplements if these are available.
2. Reduce stress in any way you know how. Whatever it takes it's worth it!
3. Get enough rest.
4. Get daily exercise – best outside in the fresh air, sun, and nature.
5. Decrease non foods such as sugar and alcohol which inhibit the immune system.
6. Avoid quick fix solutions for your health. Echinacea, for example, stimulates your immune system but doesn't necessarily strengthen it long term. It also happens to increase a certain immune response that researchers have found interacts with the swine flu virus in a negative way.
7. Avoid eating foods that have been produced in large commercial enclosed animal farms. It's NOT that you can contract the virus directly from these foods but many health professionals suspect that this virus (and many more) were incubated in the unnatural living conditions of these businesses. I don't want to support these kind of conditions and I know that eating a lot of food from these unnatural situations doesn't help to regenerate my body.
If you are doing even some of these seven actions you are way ahead of the crowd. Relax, enjoy and focus on productive things in your life. Copyright © Randy Fritz You are welcome to share this article with anyone who you think may benefit from this information as long as you give credit to Real Food for Life by including the link to the home page www.RealFoodforLife.com or the direct link to the post Swine Flu
I jammed with Paul Mc Cartney this weekend!
You may know about the special benefit concert Paul McCartney did with Ringo Star in New York city just a few days ago. What you may not know is that just before that – me- small time Canadian prairie boy- was jamming with him in his hotel suite. I’ve known Paul a long time. I even used to tease him with a nickname – Polly Mc Cracker – until his got knighted by the queen and then went all stuffy ‘British’ on me. Anyway this weekend it seemed like old times, with us joking around and playing old songs together when….
Does this sound like a dream? Yes about the same ‘dream’ if people expect the government, or any outside agency, to maintain their health and come up with a magic bullet when we are in trouble. This was brought home to me while reading a recent Scientific American article about the FDA’s actions regarding one of the famous superbugs called MRSA.
MRSA is an antibiotic resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria which in 2005 killed more people in the US than aids. Superbugs evolved because every time someone takes antibiotics there is a slight chance that one the bacteria will have mutated and have some slight resistance to the antibiotic which it then passes on to its children. Indiscriminate use of antibiotics hastened the development of these strains which the medical establishment has now become very careful about.
.
This disease first was only known in hospitals but then spread to locker rooms (where it became more famous by infecting some big name players and teams) and later to prisons and child care facilities. The problem is now that it has spread to the farm.
Modern factory farms keep so many animals in such a small unnatural spaces that they are given small doses of antibiotics to shield them from large-scale infections and to increase growth. If this sounds to you like the perfect condition to create antibiotic resistant bacteria you are right. The first study to test livestock found that 49% of pigs and 45% of pig workers in the survey had the bacteria. The report also stated that the MRSA in animals was thought to be responsible for more than 20% of the cases in humans in the Netherlands.
“In April 2008 a high profile commission of scientists, farmers, doctors and veterinarians recommended that the FDA phase out the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals”. The purpose was to keep these antibiotics useful for sick animals rather than healthy ones. The FDA agreed and announced it would ban the common use of one widespread antibiotic. You can probably guess what happened. Five days before the ban the FDA quietly reversed its position and gave no reason for the change. “The opposition of the powerful farm lobby is widely thought to have played a role.”
The quotes comes from Scientific American –– not some anti-establishment periodical. The fact that they bemoaned how we are jeopardizing our food supply safely for the vested commercial interests reminded me once again of how we have to take responsibility for our health. The only real safety to this, and many other scary dangers in our environment is a healthy body and a healthy immune system. You can’t accomplish that with a trip to the doctor or a quick fix single pill. It requires choosing to live a healthy lifestyle and eating the proper foods for a significant period of time. When we focus on those kinds of principles proper health is easy and we don’t have to worry about specific problems. You also don’t worry about forgetting to keep this up…we at Real Food for Life will keep on reminding you.
Feel free to share this article with anyone who you feel may benefit from this information.
Bees are Starving to Death! Let’s Hope We Don’t Follow!
Around the world – the bees are dying.
If this trend continues 1/3 of our food crops will be in danger of disappearing, including foods many of us love, like apples, blueberries, broccoli and almonds.
Scientists and the bee industry are scrambling to try to understand what is going on and to prevent it. What they are finding for BEES sounds like the same conclusions you would find about your own health.
Although there has been some attention from the press about this problem – the loss of the honeybees has not received the attention it deserves. Many people categorize this trend in the same distant way that they think about the loss of for example, panda bears.
Bees may not be cute and cuddly like pandas but they are so much more vital for our own foods. One third of world’s agricultural production depends on the European honeybee to pollinate the crops at certain vital parts of the year. This pollination results in SEEDS like FRUITS and MORE PLANTS. There are not enough wild bees or bats to accomplish this. Crops like wheat, potatoes and rice do not rely on insect pollination but many fruits and vegetables could become so scarce that their price would skyrocket… IF you could get them at all. It would be a completely different world.
When the task force of scientists starting researching into this problem they found that sometimes bees were being killed by certain factors including, a). Synthetic poisoning from insecticides and other pesticides and b). Infections from other organisms, like bacteria and viruses. The trouble with this was that SOMETIMES these factors were present and bee colonies were still healthy.
There seems to be an overriding factor decreasing overall health of the bees; thus making them more susceptible to poisons and infections. What the scientists suspected and are still proving is that the bee’s natural defenses are being undermined by POOR NUTRITION and other unnatural living conditions.
Nutrition for bees might sound rather odd since they eat only nectar and pollen. What has happened though, is that honeybees don’t have the VARIETY of flowers available to them because man has destroyed much of their habitat. We humans like our environment orderly so we clear the ditches of wild flowers and kill all the dandelion and clover in our lawns but to bees these areas are now nutritional wastelands. The bee industry is hopeful that restoring balance to the diet and habitat of bees can improve their well being and prevent total colony collapse. Here’s hoping.
Where have you heard the word VARIETY in our diet before? Probably from every dietitian and nutritionist who ever lived. If you participated in our Real Food For Life course, you heard it every week from Diana who was encouraging you to eat more vegetables and fruits. This is a principle of health and regeneration – that no single wonder food can solve all your problems. Rather you need a balanced diet of whole live foods. We have such variety available to us in our gardens, farmer’s markets and supermarkets. Let’s all take advantage of that while we can!
P.S. We realize this is the second straight article about insects. Don’t worry. We are NOT going BUGGY! The next article will not be about insects of any kind.
Feel free to share this information with anyone who might find it useful.
The Simple Approach To
Great Health
