Monthly Archives: March 2012
Fruits and vegetables increase attractiveness
Eating fruits and vegetables makes you look more attractive within six weeks
Satish Lohani
Natural News
2012 March 31
Many of us already know that eating fruits and vegetables makes us healthy and energetic. We also know from experience that food and beauty are related. Now we have further evidence from research from University of St. Andrews in the UK that fruit and vegetable intake is also associated with healthy glowing skin.
Carotenoids make your skin glow
According to the research published recently in the American Journal of Public Health, carotenoids in the fruits are responsible for the healthy skin glow. Carotenoids are the red, yellow and orange pigments found in fruits and vegetables.
Lycopene, which is a carotenoid in tomatoes and red peppers, provides the red pigment. Beta carotene, which is a carotenoid in carrot and green leafy vegetables, provides the yellow pigment. These carotenoids deposit under the skin and provide several health benefits.
Beauty is linked to fruit and vegetable consumption
In this study, the scientists followed the dietary patterns of 35 students over a period of six weeks. The group did not use any make-up. They also did not get any significant UV ray exposure from the sun or self-tanning machines recently.
These students filled out food frequency questionnaires which provided scientists data around fruit and vegetable consumption. Potatoes were not counted as vegetables in this study.
They recorded the change in skin color and compared perceived attractiveness among these students.
At the end of the study, they found that students who ate more fruits and vegetables had a healthy golden skin. On the contrary, students who reduced the amount looked less attractive by the end of the study.
Skin tone becomes attractive with as little as three additional portions a day
You do not have to gorge yourself with lots of fruits and vegetables for a long period of time. Adding just two extra portions had a noticeable effect on attractiveness within a period of six weeks.
To be precise, eating additional 2.91 portions per day would make you look healthy. Eating additional 3.3 portions of fruits and vegetables would make you look attractive.
On average, one portion of fruit or vegetable is equivalent to 80g. For example, one apple, banana or orange will count as one portion.
Although this study focused on the link between the change in skin tone from carotenoids and attractiveness, previous studies showed that fruits and vegetables have several vitamins and minerals which improve skin health and slow down the aging process.
This study has some limitations because all of the volunteers in the study were Caucasian. So the scientists suggested that another study may be needed to determine if the effect is the same for non-Caucasians as well.
Obama’s SEC appears to approve of aborted fetal cells as flavor enhancer
Obama agency rules Pepsi’s use of aborted fetal cells in soft drinks constitutes ‘ordinary business operations’
Ethan A. Huff
Natural News
2012 March 17
The Obama Administration has given its blessing to PepsiCo to continue utilizing the services of a company that produces flavor chemicals for the beverage giant using aborted human fetal tissue. LifeSiteNews.com reports that the Obama Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) has decided that PepsiCo’s arrangement with San Diego, Cal.-based Senomyx, which produces flavor enhancing chemicals for Pepsi using human embryonic kidney tissue, simply constitutes “ordinary business operations.”
The issue began in 2011 when the non-profit group Children of God for Life (CGL) first broke the news about Pepsi’s alliance with Senomyx, which led to massive outcry and a worldwide boycott of Pepsi products. At that time, it was revealed that Pepsi had many other options at its disposal to produce flavor chemicals, which is what its competitors do, but had instead chosen to continue using aborted fetal cells — or as Senomyx deceptively puts it, “isolated human taste receptors” (http://www.naturalnews.com).
A few months later, Pepsi’ shareholders filed a resolution petitioning the company to “adopt a corporate policy that recognizes human rights and employs ethical standards which do not involve using the remains of aborted human beings in both private and collaborative research and development agreements.” But the Obama Administration shut down this 36-page proposal, deciding instead that Pepsi’s used of aborted babies to flavor its beverage products is just business as usual, and not a significant concern.
“We’re not talking about what kind of pencils PepsiCo wants to use — we are talking about exploiting the remains of an aborted child for profit,” said Debi Vinnedge, Executive Director of CGL, concerning the SEC decision. “Using human embryonic kidney (HEK-293) to produce flavor enhancers for their beverages is a far cry from routine operations!”
To be clear, the aborted fetal tissue used to make Pepsi’s flavor chemicals does not end up in the final product sold to customers, according to reports — it is used, instead, to evaluate how actual human taste receptors respond to these chemical flavorings. But the fact that Pepsi uses them at all when viable, non-human alternatives are available illustrates the company’s blatant disregard for ethical and moral concerns in the matter.
Back in January, Oklahoma Senator Ralph Shortey proposed legislation to ban the production of aborted fetal cell-derived flavor chemicals in his home state. If passed, S.B. 1418 would also reportedly ban the sale of any products that contain flavor chemicals derived from human fetal tissue, which includes Pepsi products as well as products produced by Kraft and Nestle (http://www.naturalnews.com).
Sources for this article include:
Extruded, ammonia-laced meat product served up in school cafeterias
USDA plans to keep feeding ‘pink slime’ to your kids
Ethan A. Huff
Natural News
2012 March 15
After garnering nationwide attention for being secretly added to processed hamburgers and beef products, including those served in school lunchrooms, “lean finely textured beef,” aka “pink slime,” is reportedly on its way out from the menu offerings of McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Burger King. But according to Mother Jones, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) plans to keep ordering this imitation, ammonia-laced product for use in its National School Lunch Program (NSLP), a taxpayer-funded government food program that serves low-income students.
Pink slime gained much notoriety after being featured in the acclaimed 2008 documentary Food Inc.. Robert Kenner, the film’s director, revealed an inside look into Beef Products International (BPI), a South Sioux City, Neb.-based processing plant that produces most of the nation’s supply of pink slime. The product, which is composed of bovine connective tissue and random beef scraps doused in ammonia and formed into a paste, is commonly used as a beef filler because it is low-cost and supposedly less risky compared to conventional ground beef.
You can watch a disturbing clip from Food Inc. featuring footage from the BPI plant and commentary by BPI founder Eldon Roth at the following link:
FDA, USDA say ammonia-laced ‘pink slime’ is safe for children
Though BPI claims that pink slime is safer than conventional ground beef because of the ammonia treatment, tests conducted by NSLP between 2005 and 2009 have revealed that the meat-like matter routinely tests positive for salmonella at four times the rate of conventional beef. Ammonia is also a highly-corrosive poison that is known to cause respiratory illness and lung damage, liver problems, and cancer. The Chemical Encyclopedia says ammonia is “highly toxic” if swallowed (http://healthychild.org/issues/chemical-pop/ammonia/).
Do you dine on swine?
Pork: Did Leviticus 11:7 Have It Right?
Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
2012 March 1
Pigs are scavenger animals and will eat just about anything, alive, sick or dead. Their appetite for less-than-wholesome foods makes pigs a breeding ground for potentially dangerous infections. Even cooking pork for long periods is not enough to kill many of the retroviruses and other parasites that many of them harbor.
Levitical guidelines label the pig an “unclean” animal, and prohibit the consumption of pork.
Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, there may be good reason to carefully consider your decision to include pork as part of your diet, as despite advertising campaigns trying to paint pork as a “healthy” alternative to beef, research suggests it may be hazardous to your health on multiple levels.
Pork consumption has a strong epidemiological association with cirrhosis of the liver — in fact, it may be more strongly associated with cirrhosis than alcohol (although some have questioned the studies that indicate this, and point out that countries with high pork consumption tend to have low obesity rates.)
Other studies also show an association between pork consumption and liver cancer as well as multiple sclerosis.
What’s behind this data?
Most U.S. Pigs are Fed Grains, Making Them High in Inflammatory Omega-6 Fats
One contributing factor is the diet upon which the pigs are raised, which will impact the level of polyunsaturated omega-6 fat it contains.
Too many polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) contribute to chronic inflammation, which causes all sorts of problems over the long-term. Inflammation is at the source of just about every chronic disease we see today.
Most pigs raised in the United States are fed grains and possibly seed oils, which dramatically increase their omega-6 content, as well as the highly inflammatory byproduct of omega-6 fatty acid metabolism: arachadonic acid. According to the Weston A. Price Foundation, lard from pigs fed this type of diet may be 32 percent PUFAs. On the other hand, lard from pigs raised on pasture and acorns had a much lower PUFA content, at 8.7 percent, while those fed a Pacific Island diet rich in coconut had even less, only 3.1 percent.i
About one third of the staff at Mercola.com is based in the Philippines where pork is a very popular part of their diet. However, unlike the U.S. in which most of the pigs are fed grains, most of the pig diet in the Philippines is vegetable based. My staff tells me that there is a dramatic difference in the taste. So it is possible that many of the adverse consequences being ascribed to pork may be related to the pigs’ diet.
As reported by Dr. Paul Jaminet, a trained astrophysicist and his wife Shou-Ching, a Harvard biomedical scientist, who together authored the book Perfect Health Diet:
“So the omega-6 content can cover a 10-fold range, 3% to 32%, with the highest omega-6 content in corn- and wheat-fed pigs who have been caged for fattening. Corn oil and wheat germ oil are 90% PUFA, and caging prevents exercise and thus inhibits the disposal of excess PUFA. Caging is a common practice in industrial food production.”
Consumption of this PUFA-rich meat may very well be a factor in liver disease, as studies show feeding mice corn oil (rich in omega-6) and alcohol (which is metabolically similar to fructose) induces liver disease,ii and omega-6 fats have also been linked to cirrhosis of the liver.
However, even though most pork in the United States is likely to be high in omega-6 fats, it is not the largest contributor of omega-6 fats in the U.S. diet — this honor goes to vegetable oils. Dr. Jaminet continues:
“Either fructose or alcohol can react with polyunsaturated fat to produce liver disease. Sugar consumption, for example in soft drinks, may be just as likely to combine with pork to cause a cirrhotic liver as alcohol. But no other common dietary component can substitute for the role of polyunsaturated fat in causing liver disease.
… We would expect that if pork can cause liver cirrhosis it will also promote liver cancer, since injured and inflamed tissues are more likely to become cancerous. Indeed, there is an association between pork consumption and the primary liver cancer. … But fat composition is hardly likely to be the sole issue with pork. Most polyunsaturated fats in modern diets are derived from vegetable oils, not pork. It seems that there must be something else in pork besides polyunsaturated fat that is causing liver disease.”
Most Pork is Consumed in Processed Form
Another reason to reconsider pork, in theory, would be the fact that most is consumed in processed form. Dr. Jaminet reports that in the U.S., pork consumption can be broken down as follows:
- Smoked ham 28%
- Sausage 13%
- Bacon 6%
- Processed lunchmeat 6%
- Other forms of processed pork 10%
Processed meats are those preserved by smoking, curing or salting, or the addition of chemical preservatives. Particularly problematic are the nitrates that are added to these meats as a preservative, coloring and flavoring. The nitrates found in processed meats are frequently converted into nitrosamines, which are clearly associated with an increased risk of certain cancers. It’s for this reason that the USDA actually requires adding ascorbic acid (vitamin C) or erythorbic acid to bacon cure, as it helps reduce the formation of nitrosamines.
Meat cooked at high temperatures, as many processed meats often are, can also contain as many as 20 different kinds of heterocyclic amines, or HCAs for short. These substances are also linked to cancer. Heating meat at high temperatures also appears to increase the formation of nitrosamines, with well-done or burned bacon having significantly more nitrosamines than less well-done bacon.
Many processed meats are also smoked as part of the curing process, and smoking is a well-known cause of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which enter your food during the smoking process.
So it’s known that eating processed meats exposes you to at least three cancer-causing substances: nitrates and nitrites (leading to nitrosamines), heterocyclic amines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Ironically, despite this known connection, Dr. Jaminet reports that liver cancer appears to be even more strongly associated with the consumption of fresh pork than processed pork, which suggests another causative factor.
Pharmaceuticals more deadly than terrorists
BMJ admits antipsychotic drugs kill far more people than terrorism
Ethan A. Huff
Natural News
2012 March 2
Based on the facts, U.S. Transportation Security Administration pat-downs and naked body scans belong at drug company factories, doctors’ offices, and drug stores, rather than at American airports. A new report published in the British Medical Journal has found that dangerous antipsychotic drugs are responsible for killing at least 1,800 dementia patients a year, which means that more people are killed by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved dementia drugs every two years than died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
For their study, researchers from Harvard Medical School tracked more than 75,000 dementia patients living in nursing homes that were being prescribed antipsychotic drugs like haloperidol (Haldol) and quetiapine (Seroquel) for their conditions. Antipsychotic drugs are not typically administered to dementia patients, which means this is an “atypical” or “off-label” use of these drugs, despite the fact than an increasing number of doctors and nursing home personnel are prescribing them to dementia patients.
In the end, it was confirmed by the team that the use of antipsychotics by dementia patients is responsible for a surge in drug-related deaths, presumably as a result of negative side effects both internally to the body, and externally in the form of altered behavior. The findings also confirmed previous ones that identified an uptick in at least 1,800 additional deaths a year as a result of dementia patients taking antipsychotic drugs.
Abounding Wellness 