“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.

"No magnesium stearate," she said

I've learned that some people search out
the Pops online for what's NOT in them.

Last week, a lady ordered a case of pops (10 boxes) because,
"I want something with no magnesium stearate."

Here's what else is not in the Pops...

All these ingredients on p 2 here, btw, are in the #1 selling,
industrial multivitamin in the USA.

Sometimes it's what's not in a product that draws a person to it.

That's what she said.

MD: Use Supplements Made from Whole Foods

Here's an MD who's on to something:

If you aren’t getting the vitamins and minerals your body needs from the foods you eat, it’s time to consider taking a supplement.


Dr. Tanya Edwards, an expert in integrative medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, says your supplement sequence should include a multivitamin made from whole foods.


“A multivitamin that’s made with whole foods is one that is made with fruits and vegetables, so it’s more than natural vitamins versus synthetic vitamins,” Edwards said.

Read more...

Synthetic vitamins and multis have been a source of health problems for years. 
Here's how to tell if your supplements are synthetic.  Get out the bottle and check against these ingredients (Click on image to make it legible):

That's from Dr. Heidi.

Anyway, that's why, for the last 6 years, I've been using the multis she (Dr. Heidi) designed. 

I don't want to make my body worse with my daily multis, but better. (Still size 8, too, 30 years after college.)

What's in them?  Check out the cool 77 Ingredients.  Sexberries included.
That's why I love them and can't stop yakking about them. 

Fat Kid Webinar

Did you see Dr. Heidi's webinar,

        "If Healthy Food Is So Great, How Come I'm Still Fat?"

First 45 minutes: hear the secret story about Dr. Heidi's
success after she reconsidered a strategy she'd pooh poohed for years...

Second 40 minutes: Q and A with audience...Enjoy!

Is Bill Clinton's New Diet For You?

August 25, 2011...

"The former president, known for his love of burgers,
barbecue and junk food, has gone from a meat lover to
a vegan, the strictest form of a vegetarian diet. He says
he eats fruits, vegetables and beans, but no red meat,
chicken or dairy." See here.

Clinton's regime is exactly the opposite of my diet.
I eat nearly all fish, chicken, red meats and dairy (cheeses, kefir, yogurt and goat milk). And I have almost no fruits or beans.

I got it from my old friend, nutritionist and Harvard Ed.D. Dr. Heidi

I have lived by her eating principles for 15 years.
I'm over 55, super-fit and in awesome health. Plus I wear the
same size pants as I did in college. I run up a mountain 5 days a week - 4 mile round trip.

Can Clinton's diet and my diet both be "right"?

(Professor Heidi teaches both sets of eating principles to future
nutritionists at a university near Berkeley, CA.)

Dr Heidi told me,

"I agree with Clinton shunning those foods," she says.
"I'd never never eat red meats, dairy, fish or chicken
from the usual industrial food sources."

The fish she recommends is wild, not farmed. My dairy is raw,
not pasteurized. (If you want it you can find it. Legal, too.) My fish
and meats all come from local farmers. 100% grass-fed beef.
I eat nothing from the big bad industrial feed lots (which is
what supermarkets offer).

So, readers, there IS a step in-between total abstinence and
bad health if you love those foods like I do: Get the clean ones. Never
ever eat the industrialized stuff.

P.S. In a neat twiest, Dr. Heidi's a vegan part of the year, too. When she does her ER juice fasting cycle. Some folks call that her Detox cycle.

Cellphone Radiation May Cause Cancer, Advisory Panel Says

From the New York Times...
A World Health Organization panel has concluded that cellphones are “possibly carcinogenic,’’ putting the popular devices in the same category as certain dry cleaning chemicals and pesticides, as a potential threat to human health.

The finding, from the agency’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, adds to concerns among a small but growing group of experts about the health effects of low levels of radiation emitted by cellphones. The panel, which consisted of 31 scientists from 14 countries, was led by Dr. Jonathan M. Samet, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Southern California and a member of President Obama’s National Cancer Advisory Board. MORE HERE.

Young beauty or young stress?

Have you heard? Walmart offers new makeup line for 8-12-year-olds. See here.

Does this tell an eight-year-old little girl that she doesn't look good enough the way she is?

Could this obsession with looking good - as defined by make-up manufacturers and their ad men - be a reason young girls are stressed out so early? And what about their mothers?

Do You Eat At Taco Bell?

You might want to reconsider. Along with the usual fast food-grade quality, they've now been sued because their beef, when tested, is just 35% beef. 65% is other "stuff."

Attorney Dee Miles said attorneys had Taco Bell’s “meat mixture” tested and found it contained less that 35 percent beef.

The lawsuit is not money motivated, which is what makes it worth reporting.

"The lawsuit on behalf of Taco Bell customer and California resident Amanda Obney does not seek monetary damages, but asks the court to order Taco Bell to be honest in its advertising.

'We are asking that they stop saying that they are selling beef,' Miles said." See here.

New slogan: "We sell a great tasting food-like substance, inspired by real food."

Pain drugs are poisoning you, says FDA

Just in from the venerable New York Times...

"WASHINGTON — The government announced Thursday that it would sharply restrict some of the nation’s most popular prescription painkillers, saying they cause many patients to poison themselves with overdoses of the drug acetaminophen." See the rest of this dreary report here. (In case, here's the PDF.)

How can the decision makers at the FDA live with themselves knowing they are poisoning their own citizens? Perhaps they don't use the drugs themselves?

Like dairy farmers - who drink their milk raw. But you and your family can only get the super-processed, super-pasteurized and nutrition-less "milk". Because that's what big dairy makes. So they have successfully scared good people away from what they don't sell - wonderful raw goat and cow milk (for dairy drinkers, of whom I am one.)

Whose side is the FDA on, anyway?

They used to insist the world was flat too, remember? And those who who didn't believe that and dared to speak up - well look what they did to Galileo.

Will Someone Sue McDonald's Over This?

Photographer Sally Davies has kept a hamburger and fries on her shelf for six months....

The image on the left is, she reports, what it looked like after six months...

She posted daily pics here.

So, what happened to the "food" after six months?

"The only change that I can see is that it has become hard as a rock," Davies told the U.K. Daily Mail.

See more here.

Wonder what it does to the digestive system if it can't decompose after six months of sitting out on a shelf.

You're eating chicken smash...

"I have no time." Will that attitude come back to haunt you in 10 years?

Next time you eat fast food chicken or buy processed chicken in the store, know this is what you're eating...See here.

Can you ever put processed chicken in your mouth, sober, again? Much less watch as your children put it into their mouths?

Any wonder everyone is fatafat, sick, tired and hungry all the time? To say nothing of cranky?

Correction to some facts below.

P.S. As reader Jackie A pointed out to me today, the original article has some factual errors. She's QA Manager for a major poultry company, and writes, "Here all internal organs are removed, the birds then goes through a clean and chill process. Chickens will NOT go to the MSC machine with heads and guts." Thanks, Jackie.

We can (and I do) buy bones separately for the marrow at the farmer's market each week. In my house we make bone broths every week, including chicken, beef, goat and pork. Wonderful stuff.

Says Jason Kottke, who turned me on to this story,

1. That stuff might not even be chicken. But even if it is:

2. The entire chicken is not ground up to make that paste; the bones and such are removed.

3. The meat is not "soaked" in ammonia. Ammonia is not an approved food additive. (However, a South Dakota processing plant had been injecting ammonia into their hamburger "meat" with USDA approval, but that approval has since been withdrawn.)

I wish the person who wrote the original entry would correct it because I'm tired of seeing it popping up everywhere. The truth is strange enough without having to say that chicken nuggets contain eyeballs, bones, and large quantities of ammonia."

Warning to Glenn Beck: Don't Drink Diet Coke

The popular Fox News host announced today he's taking a medical leave, because “There is something wrong with my voice, and we’re not sure what it is,”

That's not all. "Yes," he told an audience of 6,000 in Salt Lake City two weeks ago, "I (also) have a problem with my eyes,”

Like millions of Americans, he consumes a lot of Diet Coke and chocolate, reports the New York Times in a feature on Mr. Beck last month.

Whether or not you share Mr. Beck's political views, here's what makes this news for all of us:

Guess what's in Diet Coke?

The sugar substitute, aspartame. And today, because of Beck's stature across the USA, news services are reporting how the "sugar substitute" aspartame is likely making Beck blind.

"Coca-Cola began putting the “sugar substitute” aspartame in Diet Coke in 1982. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. Many of these reactions are very serious including seizures and death."

"In 1999, the Independent...discovered that the maker of aspartame, Monsanto, uses genetically engineered bacteria to produce the “sweetener” at its U.S. production plants." See here.

Here's what Glenn Back needs to know:

"Aspartame is linked to blindness. It is made up of 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid and 10% methyl alcohol. Methyl alcohol inevitably affects vision. Back when the government imposed prohibition on the country, thousands of people went blind due to the use of wood alcohol/methanol in spirits."

Is it worth going blind over Diet Coke?

P.S. "In addition to blindness, a report produced by the Department of Health and Human Services lists over 90 symptoms related to aspartame, including: migraine headaches, dizziness, seizures, nausea, numbness, muscle spasms, weight gain, rashes, depression, fatigue, irritability, tachycardia, insomnia, vision problems, hearing loss, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, loss of taste, tinnitus, vertigo, memory loss, and joint pain. The following chronic illnesses are triggered or worsened by ingesting aspartame: Brain tumors, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, mental retardation, lymphoma, birth defects, fibromyalgia, and diabetes." See here.

If you eat corn or barley...

You might get (or have already gotten) fat. And unhealthier.

Because, corn and barley are used to prematurely fatten "cows, sheep, pigs and poultry".

We just got it from the Financial Times (PDF here in case) today...

"The US Department of Agriculture, in a closely watched report, predicted that the country’s stocks of corn would halve to their lowest levels in 14 years.

"It warned of a “much tighter supply picture” for corn and barley, the two main feed-stocks used to fatten cows, sheep, pigs and poultry." Emphasis added. See here (or PDF above).

I know corn's cheap. Is it worth getting fat over?

P.S. Did you know McDonald's chicken nuggets are mostly corn? It's cheap and the chickens were stuffed with it so the nuggets look fat. Now they'll pass the fatafat on to you. :( Want to know what else is in those 'chicken nuggets'? Go to the bottom of the article, here.

Why exercise won't make you thin...

Just in. Of course it's not news to readers here...

"Got a few pounds to lose? Cancel the gym membership. An increasing body of research reveals that exercise does next to nothing for you when it comes to losing weight. A result for couch potatoes, yes, but also one that could have serious implications for the government's long-term health strategy"

"My mum used to complain that she couldn't lose weight. A size 18 and a couple of stone heavier than ideal, she tried in vain for years to shed the extra. Every week she headed to the gym, where she pounded the treadmill like a paratrooper, often three times a week. Most days she took the dog for a brisk, hour-long walk. She didn't eat unhealthily – the rest of the family ate exactly the same meals, and did a fraction of the exercise she did. She ought to have been the slimmest of the bunch: that she remained overweight was a frustration to her, and a mystery to all of us.

"From StairMasters to kettlebells, Rosemary Conley to Natalie Cassidy, we understand and expect that getting in shape is going to require serious effort on our part – and the reverse is true, too, that we expect exercise to pay back the hours of boring, sweaty graft with a leaner, lighter body. Since the days of the Green Goddess, we've known that the healthiest way to lose weight is through exercise. It's science, isn't it?

"Well, science has some bad news for you. More and more research in both the UK and the US is emerging to show that exercise has a negligible impact on weight loss. That tri-weekly commitment to aerobics class? Almost worthless, as far as fitting into your bikini is concerned. The Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit medical research establishment in the US, reports that, in general, studies "have demonstrated no or modest weight loss with exercise alone" and that "an exercise regimen… is unlikely to result in short-term weight loss beyond what is achieved with dietary change." More here.

Add to that Dr. Heidi's findings with her clients: to lose weight, a body's fat burning mechanism must be working, which means it must be healthy and functioning. That's accomplished first with return to eating (and drinking) real foods, non-synthetic stuff, non-toxic stuff. 100% grass fed, for example. Hundreds of people now live on the ER Food Guide listings, because it includes the good stuff if every category. And they're available in most parts of the country. See more here.