http://www.westonaprice.org/soy-alert/695-soy-carbohydrates-flatulence.html
7/31/10
Information on soy
Here is a good link for information on soy, and soy products.
http://www.westonaprice.org/soy-alert/695-soy-carbohydrates-flatulence.html
http://www.westonaprice.org/soy-alert/695-soy-carbohydrates-flatulence.html
Real strawberries
8 Toxins Lurking in Your Fabric Softener
posted by Michelle Schoffro Cook Jul 29, 2010 3:11 pm
If you enjoy the smell of clean clothes straight out of the dryer you may be shocked to learn that smell comes at a cost. Most commercial fabric softeners–dryer sheets or the liquid variety–contain many toxic chemicals. Here are eight toxins found in most fabric softeners (and eight reasons to switch to natural options.) Not sure about your natural options? Stay posted for my blog tomorrow.
1. Alpha-Terpineol–This chemical has been linked to disorders of the brain and nervous system, loss of muscle control, depression, and headaches
2. Benzyl acetate–Benzyl acetate has been linked to cancer of the pancreas
3. Benzyl alcohol–Linked to headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, depression, as well as disorders of the brain and nervous system
4. Chloroform–Chloroform is on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Hazardous Waste list because it has been identified as a carcinogen and neurotoxin (toxic to the brain and nervous system)
5. Ethanol–also on the EPA’s Hazardous Waste list for its ability to cause brain and nervous system disorder
6. Ethyl Acetate–causes headaches and is on the EPA Hazardous Waste list
7. Linalool–in studies, this chemical caused loss of muscle coordination, nervous system and brain disorders, and depression
8. Pentane–causes headaches, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, drowsiness, and depression
The standard argument in favor of using fabric softeners is that the amount of the chemicals to which a person is exposed is insufficient to cause harm. Studies are showing that even small amounts of these toxins can have serious effects. So, think twice before you add that dryer sheet or liquid fabric softener to your laundry, particularly for children whose developing brains are more vulnerable to the effects of toxins.
5 Foods Linked to ADHD
This article was posted by Melissa Breyer Jul 29, 2010 4:31 pm.
Artificial food coloring has long been suspected of contributing to diagnoses of ADHD, but a new study from Perth’s Telethon Institute for Child Health Research shows an association between ADHD and the broader diet patterns of a ‘Western-style’ diet in adolescents. The research has just been published online in the international Journal of Attention Disorders.
Leader of Nutrition studies at the Institute, Associate Professor Wendy Oddy, explained that the researchers looked at the dietary patterns of 1800 adolescents from the Raine Study and classified diets into ‘Healthy’ or ‘Western’ patterns. The Raine Study is an ongoing health research project which has followed a large group of mothers and their offspring over the past 18 years.
What researchers found is that a diet high in foods typical of the standard Western diet was associated with more than double the risk of having an ADHD diagnosis, compared with a diet low in the Western pattern–even after adjusting for other social and family influences.
“We looked at the dietary patterns amongst the adolescents and compared the diet information against whether or not the adolescent had received a diagnosis of ADHD by the age of 14 years. In our study, 115 adolescents had been diagnosed with ADHD, 91 boys and 24 girls.”
A ‘healthy pattern’ is a diet high in fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains and fish–it is generally higher in omega-3 fatty acids, folate and fibre. A ‘Western pattern’ is a diet generally higher in total fat, saturated fat, refined sugar and sodium.
When they looked at specific foods, having an ADHD diagnosis was associated with a diet high in these five food categories:
1. Fast foods
2. Processed meats
3. Red meat
5. Sweets
Oddy says that, “a Western dietary pattern may indicate the adolescent has a less optimal fatty acid profile, whereas a diet higher in omega-3 fatty acids is thought to hold benefits for mental health and optimal brain function. It also may be that the Western dietary pattern doesn’t provide enough essential micronutrients that are needed for brain function, particularly attention and concentration, or that a Western diet might contain more colours, flavours and additives that have been linked to an increase in ADHD symptoms. It may also be that impulsivity, which is a characteristic of ADHD, leads to poor dietary choices such as quick snacks when hungry.”
Dr Oddy said that although this study suggests that diet may be implicated in ADHD, more research is needed to determine the nature of the relationship.
BPA-Laden Receipts in Popular Stores
BPA-Laden Receipts in Popular Stores
posted by Megan, selected from Mother Nature Network Jul 30, 2010 5:03 pm
By Siel Ju, MNN
BPA, aka bisphenol-A is revealing itself more and more in our lives. The endocrine disruptor linked to cancer, reproductive problems, and lots of other ills, has shown up in some surprising places — including cash register receipts.
This week, EWG released a report showing not only how much BPA is on these cash receipts, but which companies are giving out the most tainted receipts.
Ready for the bad news? If you guessed that McDonald’s and KFC serve up BPA alongside their unhealthy monstrosities, you are correct:
The receipt for a McDonald’s Happy Meal purchased in Clinton, Conn., on April 21, 2010, had an estimated 13 milligrams of BPA. That equals the amount of BPA in 126 cans of Chef Boyardee Overstuffed Beef Ravioli in Hearty Tomato & Meat Sauce, one of the products with the highest concentrations of BPA in EWG’s 2007 tests of canned foods.
Receipts from CVS, Wal-Mart, Safeway, and the U.S. Postal Service also contained alarming amounts of BPA. But organic foodies at Whole Foods can’t rest easy either; at least one store in the Whole Foods chain gave out BPA-tainted receipts. That means if you decided to snack healthy, bought an organic orange at Whole Foods, took the receipt handed to you, then peeled and ate the orange on your way home, you could very well have eaten the BPA that rubbed off the receipt onto your hands and onto your pricey orange.
Now, although the BPA content of these receipts are much higher than in canned foods and bottles, EWG says the risk of BPA exposure is unlikely to be proportionally higher for receipts.
“The amount of BPA that enters the body after a person handles a receipt is unknown but likely a fraction of the total BPA on the paper.” Still, EWG cites a July study with the Official Food Control Authority of the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland, which found that BPA from receipts can be absorbed into the skin. “This raises the possibility that the chemical infiltrates the skin’s lower layers to enter the bloodstream directly.” And of course, if you lick your fingers or handle food after touching receipts, you could be putting BPA into your food.
What’s a BPA-avoidant person who has already banned the can and gotten a BPA-free reusable bottle to do? EWG recommends declining receipts whenever you can, washing hands before eating, storing receipts separately, and not using alcohol-based hand cleaners after handling receipts. But the receipts pose a seriously pesky problem that infiltrates all areas of life. If you buy a magazine at a bookstore, will you remember to wash your hands before, say, licking a finger to turn a page?
There is a little good news: Target, Starbucks, Bank of America ATMs and — in case Barbara Boxer’s reading this post — the U.S. Senate cafeteria, all give BPA-free receipts. And hopefully, as this BPA receipt issue gains traction, more companies will switch to BPA-free receipts. Because while EWG points out that the “U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has initiated a program to evaluate the safety and availability of alternatives to BPA in thermal paper,” it’s unclear how long this evaluation — let alone actual enforcement of new anti-BPA laws — will take.
7/25/10
Sports drinks
7/24/10
How to take carbon-neutral auditions, by Fredrik
Fredrik is traveling from Sweden to Cleveland to audition for the Cleveland Orchestra. These are his travel plans:
''I'm sailing to Newport and will practice on the boat when the sea is calm. I'm dreading the final bike-ride, Newport-Cleveland, with marimba and snare drum... but I Love this planet so I'll do it.''
7/21/10
Mr. McGregor's Garden pies
Why You Can't Lose Those Last 10 Pounds
This article was sent to me by Meryn...
by: Stephen Perrine and Heather Hurlock
On May 11, the White House announced it was targeting a new threat to America’s health and security. It wasn’t some rogue nation or terrorist organization, or a newfound disease or environmental threat. It was a class of chemicals that are making Americans fat. They’re called endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs. And chances are you’re eating or drinking them right now.
The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity released a report called "Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity Within a Generation." In the report they list endocrine-disrupting chemicals as a possible reason for increased obesity in the country and describe how scientists have coined a new term for these chemicals — "obesogens" — because they "may promote weight gain and obesity."
What does this mean for you? It means that weight gain is not just about calories-in versus calories-out.
No, America’s obesity crisis can’t entirely be blamed on too much fast food and too little exercise. We have to consider a third factor: the obesogens. They’re natural and synthetic compounds, and many of these chemicals work by mimicking estrogen — the very hormone that doctors DON’T want women taking anymore (as a large clinical trial linked hormone therapy to increased risk of heart disease, breast cancer, stroke, blood clots and abnormal mammograms).
Why traditional diets don’t work anymore
Because high school biology was likely a while back, here’s a quick refresher: The endocrine system is made up of all the glands and cells that produce the hormones that regulate our bodies. Growth and development, sexual function, reproductive processes, mood, sleep, hunger, stress, metabolism and the way our bodies use food — it’s all controlled by hormones. So whether you’re tall or short, lean or heavy — that’s all determined in a big way by your endocrine system.
But your endocrine system is a finely tuned instrument that can easily be thrown off-kilter. "Obesogens are thought to act by hijacking the regulatory systems that control body weight," says Frederick vom Saal, Ph.D., curators’ professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri. That’s why endocrine disruptors are so good at making us fat — and that’s why diet advice doesn’t always work — because even strictly following the smartest traditional advice won’t lower your obesogen exposure. See, an apple a day may have kept the doctor away 250 years ago when Benjamin Franklin included the phrase in his almanac. But if that apple comes loaded with obesity-promoting chemicals — nine of the ten most commonly used pesticides are obesogens, and apples are one of the most pesticide-laden foods out there — then Ben’s advice is way out of date.
The obesogen effect is the reason why traditional diet advice — choose chicken over beef, eat more fish, load up on fruits and vegetables — may not work anymore. This is why we’re calling for a New American Diet.
See, while digging up all of this research on obesogens we’ve discovered some good news: There’s no reason why all of our favorite foods — from steak to burgers, from pasta to ice cream — can’t be part of a reasonable weight-loss program. We just need to get rid of old thinking. We can reverse the obesogen effect if we simply adopt these four simple laws of leanness:
Leanness Law No. 1: Know When to Go Organic
The average American is exposed to 10 to 13 different pesticides through food, beverages and drinking water every day and nine of the ten most common pesticides are EDCs. But according to a recent study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, eating an organic diet for just five days can reduce circulating pesticide EDCs to non-detectable or near non-detectable levels.
Of course, organic foods can be expensive. But not all organics are created equal—many foods have such low levels of pesticides that buying organic just isn’t worth it. The Environmental Working Group (EWG)calculated that you can reduce your pesticide exposure nearly 80 percent simply by choosing organic for the 12 fruits and vegetables shown in their tests to contain the highest levels of pesticides. They call them "The Dirty Dozen," and (starting with the worst) they are celery, peaches, strawberries, apples, blueberries (domestic), nectarines, sweet bell peppers, spinach, kale/collard greens, cherries, potatoes and grapes (imported). And you can feel good about buying the following 15 conventionally grown fruits and vegetables that the EWG dubbed "The Clean Fifteen," because they were shown to have little pesticide residue: onions, avocado, sweet corn (frozen), pineapples, mango, sweet peas (frozen), asparagus, kiwi fruit, cabbage, eggplant, cantaloupe (domestic), watermelon, grapefruit, sweet potatoes and honeydew melon.
Leanness Law No. 2: Don’t Eat Plastic
This ought to be a no-brainer. Indeed, you’re probably already thinking, Well, I don’t generally eat plastic. Ah, but you do. Chances are that you’re among the 93 percent of Americans with detectable levels of bisphenol-A (BPA) in their bodies, and that you’re also among the 75 percent of Americans with detectable levels of phthalates. Both are synthetic chemicals found in plastics that mimic estrogen — essentially, artificial female hormones. And like pesticides, these plastic-based chemicals trick our bodies into storing fat and not building or retaining muscle. Decreasing your exposure to plastic-based obesogens will maximize your chances both of losing unwanted flab and of building lean muscle mass. Here’s how: 1) Never heat food in plastic containers or put plastic items in the dishwasher, which can damage them and increase leaching. BPA leaches from polycarbonate sports bottles 55 times faster when exposed to boiling liquids as opposed to cold ones, according to a study in the journal Toxicology Letters. 2) Avoid buying fatty foods like meats that are packaged in plastic wrap because EDCs are stored in fatty tissue. The plastic wrap used at the supermarket is mostly PVC, whereas the plastic wrap you buy to wrap things at home is increasingly made from polyethylene. 3) Cut down on canned goods by choosing tuna in a pouch over canned tuna. And get any canned and jarred foods from Eden Organic, one of the only companies that doesn’t have BPA in its cans.
Leanness Law No. 3: Go Lean
Always choose pasture-raised meats, which, studies show, have less fat than their confined, grain-fed counterparts and none of the weight-promoting hormones. Plus, grass-fed beef contains 60 percent more omega-3s, 200 percent more vitamin E and two to three times more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA, a near-magic nutrient that helps ward off heart disease, cancer and diabetes, and can help you lose weight, according to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition) than conventional beef. If you must choose a conventional cut of beef, choose lean cuts top sirloin, 95 percent lean ground beef, bottom round roast, eye round roast, top round roast or sirloin tip steak. Bison burgers and veggie burgers are also great substitutes when grass-fed beef isn’t available. And select sustainable lean fish with low toxic loads (meaning low levels of toxins like mercury and PCBs). A study in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicinefound that even though the pesticide DDT was banned in 1973, the chemical and its breakdown product DDE can still be found today in fatty fish. Bigger fish eat smaller fish, and so carry a much higher toxic load.
Avoid ahi or bigeye tuna, tilefish, swordfish, shark, king mackerel, marlin and orange roughy — and focus on smaller fish like anchovies, Atlantic herring and mackerel, and wild-caught Alaskan salmon. Choose farmed rainbow trout, farmed mussels, anchovies, scallops (bay, farmed), Pacific cod, Pacific Halibut, Tuna (canned light) and mahimahi. Also, when you cook the fish, broil, poach, grill, boil or bake instead of pan-frying — this will allow contaminants from the fatty portions of fish to drain out.
Leanness Law No. 4: Filter Your Water
The best way to eliminate EDCs from your tap water is an activated carbon water filter. Available for faucets and pitchers, and as under-the-sink units, these filters remove most pesticides and industrial pollutants. Check the label to make sure the filter meets the NSF/American National Standards Institute’s standard 53, indicating that it treats water for both health and aesthetic concerns. Try The Brita Aqualux ($28, brita.com), Pur Horizontal faucet filter ($49, purwaterfilter.com) and Kenmore’s under-sink system ($60, kenmore.com). However, if you have perchlorate (a component of rocket fuel!) in your water (you can find out by asking your municipal water supplier for a copy of its most recent water-quality report) you’ll need a reverse osmosis filter. But for every five gallons of treated water they create per day, they discharge 40 to 90 gallons of wastewater, so make sure it’s necessary before purchasing one.
by: Stephen Perrine and Heather Hurlock
On May 11, the White House announced it was targeting a new threat to America’s health and security. It wasn’t some rogue nation or terrorist organization, or a newfound disease or environmental threat. It was a class of chemicals that are making Americans fat. They’re called endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs. And chances are you’re eating or drinking them right now.
The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity released a report called "Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity Within a Generation." In the report they list endocrine-disrupting chemicals as a possible reason for increased obesity in the country and describe how scientists have coined a new term for these chemicals — "obesogens" — because they "may promote weight gain and obesity."
What does this mean for you? It means that weight gain is not just about calories-in versus calories-out.
No, America’s obesity crisis can’t entirely be blamed on too much fast food and too little exercise. We have to consider a third factor: the obesogens. They’re natural and synthetic compounds, and many of these chemicals work by mimicking estrogen — the very hormone that doctors DON’T want women taking anymore (as a large clinical trial linked hormone therapy to increased risk of heart disease, breast cancer, stroke, blood clots and abnormal mammograms).
Why traditional diets don’t work anymore
Because high school biology was likely a while back, here’s a quick refresher: The endocrine system is made up of all the glands and cells that produce the hormones that regulate our bodies. Growth and development, sexual function, reproductive processes, mood, sleep, hunger, stress, metabolism and the way our bodies use food — it’s all controlled by hormones. So whether you’re tall or short, lean or heavy — that’s all determined in a big way by your endocrine system.
But your endocrine system is a finely tuned instrument that can easily be thrown off-kilter. "Obesogens are thought to act by hijacking the regulatory systems that control body weight," says Frederick vom Saal, Ph.D., curators’ professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri. That’s why endocrine disruptors are so good at making us fat — and that’s why diet advice doesn’t always work — because even strictly following the smartest traditional advice won’t lower your obesogen exposure. See, an apple a day may have kept the doctor away 250 years ago when Benjamin Franklin included the phrase in his almanac. But if that apple comes loaded with obesity-promoting chemicals — nine of the ten most commonly used pesticides are obesogens, and apples are one of the most pesticide-laden foods out there — then Ben’s advice is way out of date.
The obesogen effect is the reason why traditional diet advice — choose chicken over beef, eat more fish, load up on fruits and vegetables — may not work anymore. This is why we’re calling for a New American Diet.
See, while digging up all of this research on obesogens we’ve discovered some good news: There’s no reason why all of our favorite foods — from steak to burgers, from pasta to ice cream — can’t be part of a reasonable weight-loss program. We just need to get rid of old thinking. We can reverse the obesogen effect if we simply adopt these four simple laws of leanness:
Leanness Law No. 1: Know When to Go Organic
The average American is exposed to 10 to 13 different pesticides through food, beverages and drinking water every day and nine of the ten most common pesticides are EDCs. But according to a recent study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, eating an organic diet for just five days can reduce circulating pesticide EDCs to non-detectable or near non-detectable levels.
Of course, organic foods can be expensive. But not all organics are created equal—many foods have such low levels of pesticides that buying organic just isn’t worth it. The Environmental Working Group (EWG)calculated that you can reduce your pesticide exposure nearly 80 percent simply by choosing organic for the 12 fruits and vegetables shown in their tests to contain the highest levels of pesticides. They call them "The Dirty Dozen," and (starting with the worst) they are celery, peaches, strawberries, apples, blueberries (domestic), nectarines, sweet bell peppers, spinach, kale/collard greens, cherries, potatoes and grapes (imported). And you can feel good about buying the following 15 conventionally grown fruits and vegetables that the EWG dubbed "The Clean Fifteen," because they were shown to have little pesticide residue: onions, avocado, sweet corn (frozen), pineapples, mango, sweet peas (frozen), asparagus, kiwi fruit, cabbage, eggplant, cantaloupe (domestic), watermelon, grapefruit, sweet potatoes and honeydew melon.
Leanness Law No. 2: Don’t Eat Plastic
This ought to be a no-brainer. Indeed, you’re probably already thinking, Well, I don’t generally eat plastic. Ah, but you do. Chances are that you’re among the 93 percent of Americans with detectable levels of bisphenol-A (BPA) in their bodies, and that you’re also among the 75 percent of Americans with detectable levels of phthalates. Both are synthetic chemicals found in plastics that mimic estrogen — essentially, artificial female hormones. And like pesticides, these plastic-based chemicals trick our bodies into storing fat and not building or retaining muscle. Decreasing your exposure to plastic-based obesogens will maximize your chances both of losing unwanted flab and of building lean muscle mass. Here’s how: 1) Never heat food in plastic containers or put plastic items in the dishwasher, which can damage them and increase leaching. BPA leaches from polycarbonate sports bottles 55 times faster when exposed to boiling liquids as opposed to cold ones, according to a study in the journal Toxicology Letters. 2) Avoid buying fatty foods like meats that are packaged in plastic wrap because EDCs are stored in fatty tissue. The plastic wrap used at the supermarket is mostly PVC, whereas the plastic wrap you buy to wrap things at home is increasingly made from polyethylene. 3) Cut down on canned goods by choosing tuna in a pouch over canned tuna. And get any canned and jarred foods from Eden Organic, one of the only companies that doesn’t have BPA in its cans.
Leanness Law No. 3: Go Lean
Always choose pasture-raised meats, which, studies show, have less fat than their confined, grain-fed counterparts and none of the weight-promoting hormones. Plus, grass-fed beef contains 60 percent more omega-3s, 200 percent more vitamin E and two to three times more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA, a near-magic nutrient that helps ward off heart disease, cancer and diabetes, and can help you lose weight, according to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition) than conventional beef. If you must choose a conventional cut of beef, choose lean cuts top sirloin, 95 percent lean ground beef, bottom round roast, eye round roast, top round roast or sirloin tip steak. Bison burgers and veggie burgers are also great substitutes when grass-fed beef isn’t available. And select sustainable lean fish with low toxic loads (meaning low levels of toxins like mercury and PCBs). A study in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicinefound that even though the pesticide DDT was banned in 1973, the chemical and its breakdown product DDE can still be found today in fatty fish. Bigger fish eat smaller fish, and so carry a much higher toxic load.
Avoid ahi or bigeye tuna, tilefish, swordfish, shark, king mackerel, marlin and orange roughy — and focus on smaller fish like anchovies, Atlantic herring and mackerel, and wild-caught Alaskan salmon. Choose farmed rainbow trout, farmed mussels, anchovies, scallops (bay, farmed), Pacific cod, Pacific Halibut, Tuna (canned light) and mahimahi. Also, when you cook the fish, broil, poach, grill, boil or bake instead of pan-frying — this will allow contaminants from the fatty portions of fish to drain out.
Leanness Law No. 4: Filter Your Water
The best way to eliminate EDCs from your tap water is an activated carbon water filter. Available for faucets and pitchers, and as under-the-sink units, these filters remove most pesticides and industrial pollutants. Check the label to make sure the filter meets the NSF/American National Standards Institute’s standard 53, indicating that it treats water for both health and aesthetic concerns. Try The Brita Aqualux ($28, brita.com), Pur Horizontal faucet filter ($49, purwaterfilter.com) and Kenmore’s under-sink system ($60, kenmore.com). However, if you have perchlorate (a component of rocket fuel!) in your water (you can find out by asking your municipal water supplier for a copy of its most recent water-quality report) you’ll need a reverse osmosis filter. But for every five gallons of treated water they create per day, they discharge 40 to 90 gallons of wastewater, so make sure it’s necessary before purchasing one.
7/20/10
Two takes on antibiotic use on factory farms
Note: I was not able to get the second video which he talks about in this post, But you can go to the article itself and view the video there.
CHEWING THE SCENERY
The meat industry wants to be viewed through the softening lens of the supermarket meat case: the shrink-wrapped splendor of chops, steaks, and breasts, presented in affordable and bountiful stacks. For the marketing to be effective, the dirty work of getting them there must happen offstage, in the dark. And the industry fights any effort to illuminate its practices.
Under the direction of anchorwoman Katie Couric, CBS News has been violating the industry's perceived right to operate without scrutiny. The news agency has been doing first-rate public-interest journalism on the topic of livestock abuse on factory livestock farms.
And the industry is scrambling to defend its freedom to apply antibiotics any way it damn well pleases.
In the first video below, CBS News shows that factory farmers routinely use antibiotics as a growth promoter. (For reasons that science has never definitively explained, sub-therapeutic antibiotic doses stimulates growth in farm animals.) The report also makes strong links between routine antibiotic use on farms and the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains, which have emerged as a major public health menace.
The second video is agitprop from the pork industry on the topic. Note first that both videos open in a hog factory farm. The CBS video shows pens tightly packed with large hogs; in the industry video, by contrast, a few smallish hogs wander about in each pen. According to CBS, farm operators and farm workers openly admit to using antibiotics to promote growth. In the industry video, that purpose is never mentioned.
For more information of the public health implications of routine antibiotic use on factory farms, check out my interview with Maryn McKenna, author of Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA. And for an absurd attack on Couric's journalistic bona fides, check out this rant from the CattleNetwork.
Under the direction of anchorwoman Katie Couric, CBS News has been violating the industry's perceived right to operate without scrutiny. The news agency has been doing first-rate public-interest journalism on the topic of livestock abuse on factory livestock farms.
And the industry is scrambling to defend its freedom to apply antibiotics any way it damn well pleases.
In the first video below, CBS News shows that factory farmers routinely use antibiotics as a growth promoter. (For reasons that science has never definitively explained, sub-therapeutic antibiotic doses stimulates growth in farm animals.) The report also makes strong links between routine antibiotic use on farms and the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains, which have emerged as a major public health menace.
The second video is agitprop from the pork industry on the topic. Note first that both videos open in a hog factory farm. The CBS video shows pens tightly packed with large hogs; in the industry video, by contrast, a few smallish hogs wander about in each pen. According to CBS, farm operators and farm workers openly admit to using antibiotics to promote growth. In the industry video, that purpose is never mentioned.
For more information of the public health implications of routine antibiotic use on factory farms, check out my interview with Maryn McKenna, author of Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA. And for an absurd attack on Couric's journalistic bona fides, check out this rant from the CattleNetwork.
From a friend traveling cross-country...
''Just got back after five weeks on the road, out west. We visited three local eating establishments (burgers and sandwiches) that served sandwiches, burgers, fries, onion rings etc in a paper sleeve (doubled square of paper that was open on two sides and closed on two sides) instead of a wax paper wrap, paper box or styrofoam container. While it is not a perfect solution, it seemed to be an improvement - and it was interesting to see it in the local places of small towns. Too bad the chains in the cities couldn't follow suit!''
FROOT OOPS
Tainted cereal exposes soggy food-safety system 12
Photo by Mykl Roventine, FlickrOn June 25, Kellogg's issued a "voluntary recall" of 28 million boxes of its breakfast cereals, including Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, and Honey Smacks. The company revealed it had detected an "uncharacteristic off-flavor and smell coming from the liner in the package" of the suspect cereal and warned of "possible temporary symptoms, including nausea and diarrhea" from eating it.Before we plunge our spoon into this cereal bowl of trouble, let's ponder the enormity of the recall. A box of cereal contains about 12 servings. That means Kellogg's recalled enough cereal to serve breakfast to 336 million people -- sufficient for every man, woman, and child in the United States, with more than enough left over for every single Mexico City resident.My brain can barely fathom the enormity; I'm picturing a towering sugar-glazed mountain, a crazy-colored Everest of Froot Loops and Apple Jacks.Now, on one level, the food-safety system worked in this case. A Kellogg's spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that the company had received complaints "from about 20 people, including five who reported nausea and vomiting," and then quickly declared the recall. In other words, a gigantic food corporation discovers a product problem and quickly does all it can to remove as much of that product as possible from the market. System vindicated!But dig in a little deeper, and you'll find a limp, corporate-friendly food-safety system on display.First of all, the FDA has not demanded that the company release the name of the substance that caused the off-smell. These are products marketed specifically to children, complete with cartoon-laden boxesand, despite the recall, there are likely millions of them on countertops across the country, being consumed daily by kids before school. (According to a recent GAO report, companies recover only about 36 percent of targeted products in a typical recall.) Yet the FDA has released no additional information on the dodgy cereal since the June 25 recall.And if it weren't for the efforts of Environmental Working Group, we still wouldn't know what was causing the trouble. According to an eye-opening report released Monday, an EWG staffer contacted Kellogg's to ask point blank what substance had triggered the recall. Here's what happened:Company representatives said initially that Kellogg's did not yet know what chemical had caused the problems, but a company nurse called back the next day with an answer: Kellogg's chemists had determined that the "off-taste and smell" was caused by methylnaphthalene, which had leached into the cereal from the package liner.
Well, it was big of the company to reveal to EWG the chemical in question, but Kellogg's still has yet to post that info on its website. The FDA hasn't uttered a peep about it either.According to EWG, methylnaphthalene is a "component of crude oil and coal tar" commonly used in packaging material. And what are the health impacts of consuming it? Now things get murky again. Kellogg's, or at least its staff nurse -- one wonders, do all corporations employ nurses? -- is under the impression that it's safe to consume. Reports EWG:The Kellogg's nurse, who did not give her name, also said that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies the chemical as "Generally Recognized As Safe," or GRAS. EWG, however, could not find the compound on FDA's GRAS list online.
In fact, according to EWG's exhaustive research, "health agencies know very little about its safety." It turns out that methylnaphthalene is on the EPA's infamous list of so-called highproduction volume (HPV)chemicals that are used in in massive volumes, even though no one seems to have the foggiest idea how toxic they are. Reports EWG:In 1998, EPA identified the compound as a high production volume (HPV) chemical that lacked basic safety data in the public literature. The agency sought a corporate sponsor to submit such data to EPA's "HPV Challenge" program. In 1999, a consortium of large petrochemical interests volunteered, including BP, Chevron, Condea Vista, Exxon, Fina Oil, Koch, Marathon Ashland, Mobil Oil, PDV Midwest Refining, Phillips Petroleum, Shell, and Sunoco. Eleven years later, however, EPA's HPV Challenge program website shows no data whatsoever submitted by these companies.
According to EWG, the only U.S. government agency that has looked closely at methylnaphthalene is the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), which performed a literature review on it in 2005. One of the agency's conclusions now seems quaint: "You are not likely to be exposed to [methylnaphthalene] by eating foods or drinking beverages;" you risk exposure only "if you live near a hazardous waste site." Except now, that waste site likely sits on millions of kitchen counters.The whole situation reminds me of the dispersants controversy that reared up early in the Deepwater Horizons disaster. BP felt perfectly empowered to dump products into public waters that 1) had been subjected to scant, at best, safety testing; 2) were full of mystery ingredients, shielded even from government rescue workers by "proprietary information" laws. Kellogg's has been admirably more forthcoming than BP or the maker of its dispersants, Nalco, on the chemical that caused the cereal recall. But its openness was purely voluntary and perhaps random -- the staff nurse as whistleblower? -- not pushed by the FDA; and we still know next to nothing about methylnaphthalene's toxicity. Twenty years of deregulation and revolving-door cronyism have shredded the food safety system. What other mystery chemicals are sneaking into the food supply?And of course, the real scandal is what Kellogg's is marketing to kids: a tarted-up slurry consisting mainly of sugar, corn products, partially hydrogenated oil, and food colorings. But that's a whole different story.
Photo by Mykl Roventine, FlickrOn June 25, Kellogg's issued a "voluntary recall" of 28 million boxes of its breakfast cereals, including Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, and Honey Smacks. The company revealed it had detected an "uncharacteristic off-flavor and smell coming from the liner in the package" of the suspect cereal and warned of "possible temporary symptoms, including nausea and diarrhea" from eating it.Before we plunge our spoon into this cereal bowl of trouble, let's ponder the enormity of the recall. A box of cereal contains about 12 servings. That means Kellogg's recalled enough cereal to serve breakfast to 336 million people -- sufficient for every man, woman, and child in the United States, with more than enough left over for every single Mexico City resident.
My brain can barely fathom the enormity; I'm picturing a towering sugar-glazed mountain, a crazy-colored Everest of Froot Loops and Apple Jacks.
Now, on one level, the food-safety system worked in this case. A Kellogg's spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that the company had received complaints "from about 20 people, including five who reported nausea and vomiting," and then quickly declared the recall. In other words, a gigantic food corporation discovers a product problem and quickly does all it can to remove as much of that product as possible from the market. System vindicated!
But dig in a little deeper, and you'll find a limp, corporate-friendly food-safety system on display.
First of all, the FDA has not demanded that the company release the name of the substance that caused the off-smell. These are products marketed specifically to children, complete with cartoon-laden boxesand, despite the recall, there are likely millions of them on countertops across the country, being consumed daily by kids before school. (According to a recent GAO report, companies recover only about 36 percent of targeted products in a typical recall.) Yet the FDA has released no additional information on the dodgy cereal since the June 25 recall.
And if it weren't for the efforts of Environmental Working Group, we still wouldn't know what was causing the trouble. According to an eye-opening report released Monday, an EWG staffer contacted Kellogg's to ask point blank what substance had triggered the recall. Here's what happened:
Company representatives said initially that Kellogg's did not yet know what chemical had caused the problems, but a company nurse called back the next day with an answer: Kellogg's chemists had determined that the "off-taste and smell" was caused by methylnaphthalene, which had leached into the cereal from the package liner.
Well, it was big of the company to reveal to EWG the chemical in question, but Kellogg's still has yet to post that info on its website. The FDA hasn't uttered a peep about it either.
According to EWG, methylnaphthalene is a "component of crude oil and coal tar" commonly used in packaging material. And what are the health impacts of consuming it? Now things get murky again. Kellogg's, or at least its staff nurse -- one wonders, do all corporations employ nurses? -- is under the impression that it's safe to consume. Reports EWG:
The Kellogg's nurse, who did not give her name, also said that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies the chemical as "Generally Recognized As Safe," or GRAS. EWG, however, could not find the compound on FDA's GRAS list online.
In fact, according to EWG's exhaustive research, "health agencies know very little about its safety." It turns out that methylnaphthalene is on the EPA's infamous list of so-called highproduction volume (HPV)chemicals that are used in in massive volumes, even though no one seems to have the foggiest idea how toxic they are. Reports EWG:
In 1998, EPA identified the compound as a high production volume (HPV) chemical that lacked basic safety data in the public literature. The agency sought a corporate sponsor to submit such data to EPA's "HPV Challenge" program. In 1999, a consortium of large petrochemical interests volunteered, including BP, Chevron, Condea Vista, Exxon, Fina Oil, Koch, Marathon Ashland, Mobil Oil, PDV Midwest Refining, Phillips Petroleum, Shell, and Sunoco. Eleven years later, however, EPA's HPV Challenge program website shows no data whatsoever submitted by these companies.
According to EWG, the only U.S. government agency that has looked closely at methylnaphthalene is the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), which performed a literature review on it in 2005. One of the agency's conclusions now seems quaint: "You are not likely to be exposed to [methylnaphthalene] by eating foods or drinking beverages;" you risk exposure only "if you live near a hazardous waste site." Except now, that waste site likely sits on millions of kitchen counters.
The whole situation reminds me of the dispersants controversy that reared up early in the Deepwater Horizons disaster. BP felt perfectly empowered to dump products into public waters that 1) had been subjected to scant, at best, safety testing; 2) were full of mystery ingredients, shielded even from government rescue workers by "proprietary information" laws. Kellogg's has been admirably more forthcoming than BP or the maker of its dispersants, Nalco, on the chemical that caused the cereal recall. But its openness was purely voluntary and perhaps random -- the staff nurse as whistleblower? -- not pushed by the FDA; and we still know next to nothing about methylnaphthalene's toxicity.
Twenty years of deregulation and revolving-door cronyism have shredded the food safety system. What other mystery chemicals are sneaking into the food supply?
And of course, the real scandal is what Kellogg's is marketing to kids: a tarted-up slurry consisting mainly of sugar, corn products, partially hydrogenated oil, and food colorings. But that's a whole different story.
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