I know of nothing that makes me angrier than having the Goverment step in to regulate against information. 

It really makes me wonder where this is all going to end - even the most inconsequential  problems are being codified.  As an example, they are introducing legislation in California to make it illegal to drive with your dog in your lap - can they really believe it possible to legislate against all manifestations of lack of intelligence?? - do they have data on pooch-in-lap-caused accidents? 

What set me off this time is far more serious, however - Monsanto (incredibly rich makers of recombinant bovine growth hormone) feels that it is UNFAIR to label milk that is not hormone laced, hormone free - why?  Because it may suggest that the hormone free milk is in some way BETTER.  We certainly feel that it is better, but that is not the point:  we have the right to know! 

Citizens for Health has more information about this attempt to flummox us, together with a little reward (for those of us who eat Ben and Jerry's icecream) for doing the right thing.

Find out more about it here.

I have been saying for years that the more the hands of people interfere between the original food and our mouths, the worse off we are.  Seldom, however, do I come across quite such an excellent illustration.

In my article on Prostate health I wrote"There is a connection between drinking milk and prostate cancer - and the worst offender is low fat milk,  as researchers at the Fox Chase Cancer Center (Philadelphia) discovered. Men who reported the highest intake of low-fat milk were 1.5 times more likely to develop prostate cancer compared to men who had the lowest intake, but whole milk intake was NOT found to be linked to increased risk."

Now it appears that whole fat milk is not only not connected to increased risk, but is found to reduce risk.

Dietary intake of vitamin K and risk of prostate cancer

Effect of food composition on human absorption of Vitamin K

Even better would be whole, RAW milk - got REAL milk?

I brought my children up on raw milk, and still pick it up (for my Irish wolfhounds :0) once a week.  I do not believe that the government has the right to tell me that I have to buy pasteurized milk, any more than it can stop me from eating raw lettuce or Steak Tartare - these days a far more hazardous proposition.

Yet despite  all this, the FDA continues to exceed its authority even harrassing suppliers of raw milk for PETS!

Read a raw milk Dairy's description of its pristine record on contaminants.

Where can you find raw milk?

The FDA and Raw Milk (scroll down when you reach this link!)

"Better a dish of bitter herbs in a house where there is love than a stalled ox and hatred therewith"

It may be a bit of a leap from that to the fact that onions which don't make you cry when you chop them, do not have the health benefits of those that do.  But it's a fact.

Onion a day keeps doctor away?

Please note that it is the shallot or  onion that brings tears when you cut it, and adds pungency not sweetness to the dish, that is the healthful kind.  I notice that many of the onion available now are the sweeter ones - are we turning into a nation of culinary wimps??

In a wonderful book called "The Cook and the Gardener", about a young American cook who spends a summer at a chateau in France, and finally wins the trust of the ancient French gardener, Amanda Hesser tells of a lady who was NEVER ill, and who would slice a raw onion each day, put it between 2 slices of bread and eat it.  She comments "She was certainly healthy, but I think she had a very loving husband!" 

Is it a MAN thing?  Do all of you do it?  I know my husband is incapable of cooking anything at a temperature less than red hot and smoking, ruining more of my favorite pans than I care to think of.

Come to think of it, it can't be every man, because here is a rational explanation of cooking using heat conservatively actually WRITTEN by a man. 

Save energy -achieve better taste - win win.

Every cook relies every day on the power of heat to transform food

If a label that says "Naturally raised meat" brings to mind happy cows out in green pastures, lovingly reared and humanely dispatched - think again!

USDA may have started with the best of intentions, but surprise! Lobbying by the meat industry caused changes that would cover a mechanical cow raised in the dark.

Read about it hear, and let your voice be heard.

Stop Deceptive Labeling of "Natural" Meat 

Never under-estimate the value of adding spices to your food.  As a young woman, I travelled extensively in less-than developed countries, and by dint of adding hot peppers to everything I ate, I avoided the dire consequences  that usually attend foreign travel.

Let alone the fact that without spices , food can be pretty blah!

The spice curcumin, from turmeric, one of the major ingredients in curry powder, and used extensively by itself also, has been studied for its effect on serious conditions, such as Alzheimer'sd and cancer prevention.  Now a new study shows that it can also affect cholesterol and LDL beneficially, as can cayenne pepper or capsaicin.

Here is the study

Here is a great (and simple) way to use turmeric frequently

Here you will find both curcumin and  cayenne pepper

Add another plus for moderate coffee consumption.  Not only does it help with diabetes - see my previous post - but it appears to lower risk of liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma or HCC).

This study takes into account both  the fact that liver cancer is at a relatively high level in Japan, and that the Japanese are not heavy coffee drinkers to make a convincing case.  

As was the case in the previous study, how the coffee was brewed,  what degree of roast or what kind of bean was used, or whether cream and sugar were added is not specified - all facts it would be handy to know!

 Influence of Coffee Drinking on Subsequent Risk of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

I have much respect for Jenny Thompson at HSI and her research, but I also love her because she  tickles my funny bone with her style of writing. 

You may recall in some of my articles, and in previous posts, that I have frequently pointed out to you that the decisions of the giant food manufacturers are made, not with our health in mind, but rather with  an eye to the bottom line of the company. 

A case in point would be the recent revelations about Dasani and Aquafina - and I am sure they are not the only ones.  I commented on this in 2004.

Read on for further confirmation!

Remember in the very first Star Wars when Obi Wan Kenobi used his Jedi mind trick? He waved his hand and told a storm trooper, "These are not the droids you're looking for." To which the trooper replied, "These are not the droids we're looking for." And of course, the droids in question were exactly the droids they were looking for.

I think someone at Kellogg Cereal Company might be a Jedi master.

Kellogg recently avoided a lawsuit by agreeing to adjust the nutritional standards of its cereals as well as its policies for advertising to kids. In an Associated Press article, Kellogg CEO, David Mackay, offered this take on the change: "We feel the Kellogg Nutrient Criteria set a new standard for responsibility in the industry." (The article didn't mention if he actually waved his hand when he said this.)

Another quote in the article comes from Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (one of the parties that brought the lawsuit): "By committing to these nutrition standards and marketing reforms, Kellogg has vaulted over the rest of the food industry."

Vaulted over the rest of the food industry? He didn't add, "These are not the droids we're looking for," but he might as well have.

--------------------------------------------
The new zero
--------------------------------------------

To avoid a lawsuit, Kellogg executives came up with a simple plan: They'll reformulate their products according to this new set of nutritional guidelines for each individual serving of each product:

* Maximum of 200 calories
* Zero trans fatty acids
* Maximum of 2 grams of saturated fats
* Maximum of 230 mg of sodium
* Maximum of 12 grams of sugar

Now...stand aside and make way for a festival of caveats.

Eggo frozen waffles will be exempt from the sodium requirement. Why? Who knows? Maybe the powerful executives in Kellogg's Eggo Division just won't budge on the sodium issue.

Any sugar that comes from fruit, vegetables, or dairy will not be factored into the sugar calculation.

Zero trans fatty acids? Riiiight. Except when the FDA is doing the math. As I've noted in previous e-Alerts, the FDA allows food manufacturers to claim zero trans fats if a product contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fats per serving. Zero point four - it's the new zero!

And here's my favorite caveat: If Kellogg nutritionists are unable to reformulate a product to meet these new guidelines, then the company won't market the unchanged product to kids who are under the age of 12. And there's a caveat to this caveat: If more than half of any Web, TV, radio, or print audience is made up of kids over the age of 12, then it's okay to market to that audience, even if a substantial percentage of the audience is under 12.

Wow. That's some impressive vaulting all right.

--------------------------------------------
Knee slappers
--------------------------------------------

For some real humor, lets take a quick look at two of the "nutrition" guidelines Kellogg has laid down, along with one glaring omission.

We'll start with 12 grams of sugar. That's about three teaspoons of sugar. And Kellogg wants us to believe that's a "healthy" portion for kids under the age of 12. Currently, a single 3/4-cup serving of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes contains almost 12 grams. And if you've ever seen a kid pour his own cereal, you know that 3/4 of a cup is a serving size invented by an adult who doesn't have a clue.

The 2-gram limit for saturated fats is mostly irrelevant for cereals, which already contain very small amounts. But of course, in mainstream thinking, saturated fat is the boogieman. And when you're talking Kellogg, you're talking seriously mainstream processed foods.

And carbs? Hellooo? The new guidelines completely ignore refined carbohydrates - arguably the most harmful nutrition factor when it comes to promoting childhood obesity. And does Kellogg deliver refined carbs? DO they! Care to guess the carb content in a single strawberry Pop-Tart? Thirty-seven grams. And that comes packed with 16 grams of sugar. And that's a Pop-Tart with no frosting!

So here's how it's going to go... Kellogg will shrink serving sizes to postage stamp sized portions to qualify for the per-serving nutrition requirements (would you like a quarter of a Pop-Tart?), or they'll just throw in the towel with products that don't conform to the new guidelines and market them to kids who are 12 and older - along with all those kids under the age of 12 who watch TV with their older siblings.

Even Obi Wan's mind trick couldn't wave away the absurdity of this "new standard of responsibility."

We can be grateful for the fact that somewhere in the world, there is an independent organization looking out for our health. 

Along with most nutritional experts, I have always harbored extreme doubts about the safety of Aspartame. Call me paranoid, but all artificial sweeteners worry me:  any time the hand of man interferes between a natural substance and what we put in our our mouths, I become concerned.

Now comes a study from the Ramazzine Institute in Italy frighteningly linking it to a dose dependent risk of cancer, particularly leukemia and lymphoma.

Sometimes I laugh at myself, wondering whether, if I had been alive during the transition to electricity, I would have insisted on keeping my old wood-burning cook stove.  In actual fact, as you can see, I keep up with technology fairly well - but for some reason, the micro-wave oven alarmed me.

I know we don't often look to the Soviet Union for guidance on health issues, but when I saw that at one point they BANNED  micro-wave ovens, I was intrigued.

To mis-appropriate one of their own sayings - I banned it first!

The effect of the microwave oven on your family' health

Safety of Micro-wave Energy

The alarming effects of Microwave apparatus on food and humans

Fact versus Fiction - an opposing view-point

Used to be people thought they would either have to give up on reading, or abandon every food they enjoyed to stay healthy.

Not so, it seems.  We find that chocolate has many positive benefits, and now comes a study that suggests putting fruit in alcohol makes the antioxidants more absorbable and powerful.

An evening with a good book, a box of chocolates and a fruity cocktail can once again be put on the agenda. 

Go easy, though - it's not all berry good news!

Sitting there at the end of the day with a refrigerator full of vegetables and not an idea in your tired head? 

Do I have a site for you!  Not only does Alanna Kellogg, the veggie evangelist,  sound as though she is talking JUST to you, she has a collection of simple and tasty veggie recipes second to none. 

Go here to see - she is also offering free cook-books - and signing up for her newsletter gets imaginative recipes sent to you regularly.

The Healthy Diet

A new way to block food intolerances

I love word play, as you may have gathered!  But I think I will have to explain that "lolly", in British slang, means money.

You may remember the post about Monsanto patenting the Pig: sounds incredible, but the consequence would be, if such patents were granted, that Monsanto could legally prevent breeders and farmers from breeding pigs whose characteristics were described in the patent claims. And after all, how many unique characteristics could a pig have??

Now this kind of Universal Control is becoming even more Orwelllian, and there's plenty of lolly at stake:

Quote:

The Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office will use a patent on broccoli (EP 1069819) for a fundamental ruling, on whether or not conventional plants are patentable. The broccoli in question was merely diagnosed using marker assisted breeding methods to identify its natural occurring genes. The genes were not modified. All other broccoli plants with similar genes are considered as "technical inventions“ by the patent. Thus even their use for breeding and the plants themselves are monopolized. Through this the provision which prohibits the patenting of "essentially biological processes" is to be undermined. The EPO has already granted similar patents: e.g.: only recently the company Enza Zaden Beheer received a patents on pathogen resistant lettuce ( EP1179089B1)

Should the Enlarged Board of Appeal uphold the patent, then this decision (case T0083/05) will be binding for all other pending patent applications and even for animals and their offspring.

In a joint letter to the Enlarged Board of Appeal the organizers of No Patents on Seeds and numerous farmers' organizations from around the globe restate their opposition to patents on conventional seeds and animals.

Text of Global Appeal

There once was a man named Bowdler, who gave his name to the word bowdlerization.  This means subsituting an inoffensive word for one that might offend.  The example from Shakespeare that sticks in my mind after all these years, is his changing of the phrase "Thy mistress has played  the strumpet in my bed" to "Thy mistress has played the trumpet in my bed."

At least Bowdler did not intend to mislead but, however mistakenly, to protect.

The same cannot be said of the FDA.  It is obvious that agencies we expect to protect us, do not have that concern as their primary agenda

FDA urges laxer labeling on irradiated foods

Agency proposes admittedly misleading use of term ‘pasteurized’

Once again:  if it is in a package - don't buy it!  Only buy actual food, and you will save yourself a world of grief.   Even better, grow it yourself.  Consider canning and freezing in season.  !