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 

I was made aware of an alarming trend by Ivanhoe Insider, an interesting website from which I receive a great deal of useful information. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck, considering the weight that is given to prescription medicine study results by the media, and the influence they have on consumers - most likely the consumers who do not listen to the little quiet voice listing the side effects, which always seem to me to be 10 times worse than the actual disease.  Remember Victor Borge ?  "My Uncle invented a cure for which there was not disease" - pause for laughs, then "Unfortunately, he caught the cure and died." Talk about prescient!

Ivanhoe is commenting on the published results of antidepressants:  "Turner’s team found that whether and how the studies were published depended on how they turned out.  They found 94 percent of the studies had positive results, but the FDA data showed only half of the study were positive.  All but one of the positive studies was published.  Most of the studies that were not positive were not published or they were published with a positive spin.  "

Turning to the study itself, I have excerpted the relevant piece, because it is so far down in the text:

A Cochrane systematic review of antidepressants for generalized anxiety disorder lists only one double-blind placebo-controlled study of paroxetine,  a positive study. A PubMed search reveals no additional double-blind placebo-controlled studies. In accessing the review from Drugs@FDA (approval date April 2001), we learn that there were in fact three pivotal double-blind placebo-controlled studies. One of these studies corresponds to the published positive study noted above. Of the remaining two studies, both apparently unpublished, one was positive while the other was marginally positive.

Turning to the controlled-release formulation of paroxetine (Paxil CR) for panic disorder, a review article states in its abstract that the drug “demonstrated efficacy in three well designed studies in patients with panic disorder with or without agoraphobia”. In reading the corresponding FDA statistical review, we verify that there were indeed three studies. However, the FDA statistical reviewer found that only one of these studies was strongly positive. A second study, judged “supportive” of efficacy, had a marginally significant (p = 0.039) result on a secondary observed-cases analysis, but a nonsignificant (p = 0.38) result on the primary efficacy analysis defined a priori. The third study was clearly negative, with p-values of 0.33 and 0.57 on the primary and secondary analyses, respectively.

Bottom line?  Always try to find out who did the study, and who funded it. If it is the company that MAKES the drug - be very careful whom you believe!

Action Alert from Citizens for Health

The FDA's approval process for informational labeling of food-based health claims has been so slow and uncertain that very little meaningful health information is making its way to food and dietary supplement consumers. Why does the FDA ban speech that can heal and save lives? Many dietary ingredients have therapeutic effects, yet telling the truth about those effects in the market can land you in jail. The Food and Drug Administration makes it next to impossible to assert any claim that a supplement or nutrient has the potential to positively affect a person's health.

The Federal Trade Commission prosecutes parties who make advertising claims about the effects of foods and nutrients on the body. It does not limit those prosecutions to parties that actually deceive consumers.  It also does not limit those prosecutions to products that fail to perform as advertised. In short, in this standardless environment, the FTC can exercise a great deal of discretion to determine what claims are deceptive and which ones are valid. No one in this country should be held by the government to be a deceptive advertiser unless the government proves that consumers have in fact been deceived.

Click here to tell your Representative you want to make your own health choices!

This clever movie is irresistible.  Its appealing and sincere narrator, Annie Leonard,  makes the sequence of events behind our material world only too clear. 

It will open a few eyes - made mine stretch and stare!!**

The Story of Stuff

**Remember?  "Matilda told such dreadful lies/ It made folks stare and stretch their eyes"

The usefulness of hemp is hard to underestimate, and it is a pity that the recreational drug use of a form of hemp has not been better separated from its commercial use in the minds of the authorities than it has. Here is a report that will open your eyes and make you stare!

Jarrow has just made both the seeds, and an excellent protein from Hemp available, which makes this research even more apropos - it might be a useful protective measure, if nothing else!

Topic:	A Compound found in Cannabis May Prevent the Spread of Breast Cancer
Keywords:	CANCER, BREAST CANCER, METASTASIS - Cannabis, Cannabidiol, Chemotherapy
Reference:	"Cannabidiol as a novel inhibitor of Id-1 gene expression in aggressive breast cancer cells," McAllister SD, Christian RT, et al, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 2007; 6(11): 2921-7. (Address: California Pacific Medical Center, Research Institute, 475 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. E-mail: mcallis@cpmcri.org ).
Summary:	In a study involving aggressive human breast cancer cells, cannabidiol - a compound found in cannabis with a low-toxicity profile - was found to block the activity of a gene called Id-1, thereby reducing the aggressiveness of the cancer cells. In previous research, the authors had determined that metastatic breast cancer cells were less invasive and less metastatic when Id-1 was down-regulated. In this study, cannabidiol (CBD) was found to down regulate Id-1 expression in aggressive human breast cancer cells; the concentrations effective at doing so correlated with the concentrations required to inhibit the proliferative and invasive phenotype of breast cancer cells. In a concentration-dependent manner, CBD inhibited Id-1 expression at the mRNA and protein level. According to the authors, the effects of CBD appear to result from the inhibition of the Id-1 gene at the promoter level. CBD did not inhibit invasiveness in cells that ectopically expressed Id-1. The authors c onclude that, "…CBD represents the first nontoxic exogenous agent that can significantly decrease Id-1 expression in metastatic breast cancer cells leading to the down-regulation of tumor aggressiveness." Given the limited therapeutic interventions available for the treatment of aggressive and metastatic breast cancer, and given the toxicity and other side effects associated with chemotherapy, these results offer hope that a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy may be on the horizon.