“Veggie” diet blamed for poor performance of China’s women volleyball team

"Fearing tainted meat, China's women's volleyball team has stuck
to a strict vegetarian diet for the last three weeks, which the team's  coach is now blaming for his athletes' abysmal performance..."  More here...

Eating Rule for 2012

"Don't eat anything that cannot be hunted, fished or harvested."
Dr. Heidi

Sugary soda ups risky fat deposits

A liter of cola a day, for 6 months wrecks liver. 
Hot off the press here.

Five packaged foods you never need to buy again

Totally cool post from the Grist here...


What did you resolve to do this year? Eat healthier? Avoid processed foods?
Stay away from GMOs? Stop buying products foisted on you by the man?
Reduce the size of your weekly garbage bag? Become a domestic god(ess)?
I want to do all of those things, which is why I am so damn excited about
this post.

You see, until recently, these five packaged foods were staples on
every shopping list I made. But, over the last few months, I've discovered
that they are all completely unnecessary once you get the hang of
making them at home.


1. Never buy soup

I've always hated trying to shop for soup. They always hide nasty ingredients in there, and more often than not, even the most vegan-sounding soup is made with chicken stock or a little beef fat. Campbell's makes a vegetable soup that isn't vegetarian. Why?  2-5 MORE here. Delicious.

Mountain Dew can dissolve a mouse, says Pepsi

Just in from Grist...

An Illinois man is suing Pepsi Co. because, he says, he found a mouse in his can of Mountain Dew. But Pepsi says the guy is pulling a Strange Brew, and here's how they know: If there really were a mouse in a Mountain Dew can, it would have dissolved into "a jelly-like substance" before the guy could find it. Seriously, this is their defense.

The company argues it has scientific evidence that the mouse was not in the can when the case was sealed in August 2008 and that a veterinary pathologist examined the mouse, finding that it could not have been in the can that long because its body would have disintegrated due to the acid in the soda.
Pepsi argues that for the mouse to have been in the Mountain Dew that long, the body would have transformed into a "'jelly-like' substance."

More here.  Geez.  You drink Mountain Dew?

PS Is Pepsi's product is essentially a can of bright green/yellow battery acid?

France approves soda tax

Just in...Does Washington dare do likewise?

"France's top constitutional body on Wednesday approved a
new tax on sugary drinks that aims to fight obesity while
giving a boost to state coffers.

"...The new soda tax is...part of the government's fight against obesity...
it was passed in parliament last week.

"The tax has been slammed by beverage firms including Coca-Cola,
which in September said it was suspending a planned 17-million-euro
investment at a plant in the south of France in "a symbolic protest
against a tax that punishes our company and stigmatises our products." 

Maybe some folks would be better off if sugary drinks were more stigmatized
than they are. Jim, my HVAC contractor, recently told me he'd lost 45 lbs, all
belly fat, after giving up his 10-sodas-a-day habit.

10 sodas per day?  Really?  

DrugCite Tells You Side Effects of Medicine and...

Just in from LifeHacker...

DrugCite is a useful database of information about the
prescription and over-the-counter medication, allowing you to
look up the possible side effects of specific drugs and see
statistics about their reported problems.

If you were to look up the allergy medicine Allegra, you'd find that
the highest number of problems with the drug were reported
around 2005, and that the majority of problems were neurological.
DrugCite provides simple graphs that break down the number of
reported issues related to the medicine in question and
cross-reference that information to provide other useful statistics.
More here...

Since some of us are so desperate for the relief a drug or medication
offers, it's natural to turn a blind eye to side effects.  Until it's too late.

There are alternatives.  Sometimes the fix is worse than the problem.