Stay healthy! Enjoy life! Help others when you can!

Science for Smart People

2011-05-22T19:21:00.004-05:00

I haven't been inspired to post in a while, but this new video of a presentation by Tom Naughton was so good I just had to share it. Tom has a great way of educating and entertaining at the same time. It's about 45 minutes in length, but well worth the time to learn about true science and how easily it can be corrupted.

Enjoy!

Sorry Soy

2009-05-31T21:36:00.005-05:00

Soy is one of those deceptive foods like sugar that is not likely to be harmful in small amounts but will contribute to a variety of health problems when consumed in excess over time. Traditionally, soy has been eaten in small amounts and only in fermented form in Asia for many hundreds and possibly a few thousand years. In small amounts, fermented soy does not appear to be detrimental to health. The modern problem is that most soy in foods today is not properly fermented and is added in abundance to so many foods that it is easy to get too much. It is also processed in ways that create additional hazardous chemicals that end up in soy products.

Proponents of soy tout it as a "health food" and laud the high protein and isoflavane content. But most of this propaganda is coming from those who are selling soy for a profit. A closer look reveals that yes, soy is high in protein and nutrients, but these nutrients are not very bioavailable because of the abundant enzyme inhibitors and anti-nutrients that are also in soy. Soy contains trypsin inhibitors and haemagglutinin which are growth inhibitors, isoflavones that are both goitrogens and phytoestrogens which interfere with the endrocrine system, and phytic acid which binds to minerals to make them undigestible. These compounds are found in other legumes and grains, but soy has much higher concentrations and that's bad news for health.

Cooking helps to slightly reduce some of the detrimental compounds, but fermentation is required to achieve the greatest reductions. Even fermentation does not eliminate them and that is why fermented soy should only be consumed in small amounts.

Long-term excess consumption of soy increases risk of thyroid problems, reduces male fertility, causes premature female sexual development, and increases risk of endrocrine related cancers including breast cancer and prostate cancer. These problems are seen not only in humans, but also in animal models.

As if these problems are not enough, also consider that most soy is now genetically modified to withstand massive amounts of toxic herbicide, which can also contaminate the soy products. Yet another reason to avoid soy!

Further Reading

Newest Research On Why You Should Avoid Soy

Soy: The Dark Side of America's Favorite "Health" Food

Why Babies Should Not be Fed Soy

The Ploy of Soy

Flu Factories

2009-04-29T20:05:00.010-05:00

The latest swine flu generating panic around the world may have come from a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) in Mexico. One more good reason to buy meat and dairy from pastured animals on sustainable farms! Filthy CAFOs are disease factories that produce poor quality food at best. At worst, they pollute the environment, breed antibiotic-resistant harmful bacteria and pathogenic viruses, raise animals in an inhumane and very unnatural environment, expose workers and neighbors to disease and pollution, and produce foods that are poor in nutrition and highly polluted.

Before you panic over the current swine influenza outbreak, be sure to read Dr Mercola's excellent Critical Alert: The Swine Flu Pandemic - Fact or Fiction? and a different point of view on Swine Flu Sanity. Also, read here for more information about CAFO involvement: Swine Flu. And, read more about how the swine flu crisis lays bare the meat industry's monstrous power and a food system that kills and symptom: swine flu. diagnosis: industrial agriculture?

The Organic Consumers Association has links to many more related articles: Swine and Bird Flu Resource Center

To boost your immune system and minimize your risk of getting flu and colds, be sure that you don't have a vitamin D deficiency. Get plenty of the fat soluble vitamins A, D, and K2 and eat plenty of the foods that Weston Price found to provide optimal health: animal seafoods, organ meats, and dairy. Also, learn more about the Principles of Healthy Diets.

And it's not just flu that may be coming from CAFOs, but antibiotic resistant bacteria: Farmacology.

Food Freedom

2009-03-15T20:19:00.006-05:00

Life is all about risks and managing risks. Almost everything we do involves some kind of risk. One of the most dangerous risks that most of us undertake is driving a car. About 40,000 people die each year in the USA alone because of driving a vehicle and well over 100,000 are seriously injured, including many who are maimed for life. By comparison, only about 5,000 people in the USA die from food borne illness.

It is in this context that we must consider food safety. There are potential hazards with all kinds of food. Some hazards are quite serious and can be fatal, such as virulent bacteria and some types of food poisoning. However, most food hazards cause illness, but are not fatal. Food can become contaminated by pathogenic bacteria such as salmonella or virulent strains of e-coli. It is mainly people with compromised immune systems who are at greatest risk from pathogenic contamination. Part of our challenge is in improving public health to resist infection. Most bacteria are not bad and many are very beneficial. Ironically, we need high quality probiotic foods like clean raw milk to help strengthen our immune systems.

So what is the best approach to tackle the problem of food borne illness? Should we require that all foods be sterilized or pasteurized before being sold or eaten? Should we sacrifice food quality for food safety? Should we require that all foods be traced from origin? None of these measures will guarantee safe food. Instead, they will degrade our food quality by damaging our food and forcing industrial and franken food on everyone. Large business interests would like nothing better and are working diligently to push legislation around the world to that end. Ultimately, government should empower the consumer to choose their own level of food safety by using food labeling requirements and by regulating the large businesses that cause the vast majority of food safety issues.

Unfortunately, fear is often cultivated by large business interests who recognize that rules can be covertly changed to eliminate competition from smaller businesses by forcing expensive measures to be taken in the name of "food safety". Legislation to this end is currently in the U.S. Congress masquerading as "food safety" measures that are in reality thinly disguised measures to force small farms out of business and thus eliminate farmers markets and local food sources. We need to be very careful to address the largest sources of risk, which are from large businesses. Small farms and businesses should be exempted from costly rules. The amount of risk from small businesses is almost negligible compared to the risks inherent in large operations. We need to find ways to encourage small farms and businesses that sell directly to local consumers. Small farms and businesses that sell to local consumers already have plenty of incentive to provide clean safe food, or they will quickly lose their business. It's the large global conglomerates that need to be constrained for food safety. They can easily sacrifice a few thousand customers here and there to increase their profit.Is the cure worse than the disease?

We could reduce speed limits nationwide to 30 miles per hour and probably save at least 20,000 lives and 50,000 serious injuries every year in the USA alone. But that would infringe on our individual freedom to choose our level of risk within reason. Similarly, we could require that all foods be sterilized before being sold. But that would infringe on individual freedom in the right to eat raw unadulterated foods. We need a balance in food safety that supports individual freedoms to eat raw and healthy local foods, but reduces the risk of food contamination. Ideally, efforts to eliminate contamination should be made during production of the food and should preserve food quality. Sterilizing and pasteurizing food may reduce nutrients and may produce harmful chemicals. We need to find and minimize the sources of contamination. Consumers should not have to sacrifice food quality for food safety.

Labeling

If food is sterilized, it should be labeled so that those who want raw foods can choose a different product that is not sterilized. If food is grown with pesticides or contains genetically modified organisms, it needs to be labeled for food safety to empower the consumer to choose. Some individuals may be willing to sacrifice food quality for food safety, but that should be a freely made personal choice. Milk should be labeled as pasteurized or raw to let the consumer choose. Proper labeling is an important key to individual freedom in choosing foods to match individual preferences.

Let's choose food freedom over food facism!

Further reading

Fake food safety legislation - act now to save our farms.
HR 875 - The Death of Farmers Markets, CSAs and Local Food
Goodbye farmers markets, CSAs, and roadside stands

Read the full bill here:
HR 875 - Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009

Contact your government representatives and inform them you oppose HR 875 and any legislation that would degrade food quality or unduly burden small farms and small businesses.

National Animal Identification System information
Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance
No NAIS

Over-Regulation and Small Farms

Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal

Pandora's GMO Box

2009-02-16T18:26:00.007-06:00

Pandora's GMO box has been opened and is already unleashing a torrent of unnatural and unknown consequences on a largely unsuspecting public and world. The earth has plenty of natural diversity. We don't need to be haphazardly creating new organisms simply because a company can copyright it and claim ownership to force the rest of us to pay for it. Most GMOs are now approved with inadequate testing that does not fully cover potential impacts to the environment and human health. Many approved GMOs have already been shown to cause serious health problems in animal models on further testing. Not very reassuring. Also, most GMOs have been developed to promote business interests and not human health. Why should we be risking human health and the world's environment so that privileged businesses can increase their profits?

Even if we manage to close Pandora's GMO box, GMO pollen has already infected many non-GMO crops. Consequently, much irreparable damage has already been done. But unfortunately, the box is only opening wider. Many more GMO plants and animals are planned for release in the near future. It's time to act and put and end to this travesty.

So what can we do?

Buy Organic

In the United States of Big Business ... err America ... about all we can do immediately is to vote against GMO by buying organic foods. By definition, organic foods are not allowed to have GMO, at least not more than 5% at worst. If enough people switch to organic, businesses will follow the money. The rapidly growing organic market is a good sign, but this approach is not likely to stop the GMO epidemic.

Labeling

Push government for required labeling of all products that include GMO. Such labeling would allow more consumers to make their economic voice heard.

Change the Law

The best way to end this plague would be to take away the right to patent genetically modified genes, which should have never been allowed in the first place. This action would take away the financial incentives for GMO. Unfortunately, this would probably take an act of Congress.

DNA Fragment

Learn More About Genetically Modified Organisms

What are genes?

Are GMOs safe?

Scrambling and gambling with the genome

Scientists speak

Corporate Ties

Farmer's Woes

Biohazards: The Next Generation?

Say no to GMO!

Go Organic

2009-01-18T19:58:00.002-06:00

Everyone ate organic food until chemical pesticides and herbicides were invented in the last hundred years or so. The label "organic" is a bit of a misnomer, since all food is chemically organic because it is carbon-based. But organic in the context of food now means it is produced without the use of conventional pesticides and artificial fertilizers, is free from contamination by human or industrial waste, is processed without ionizing radiation or artificial food additives, and does not contain genetically modified organisms (GMO). Also, in the context of livestock, use of antibiotics or growth hormones is not allowed.

Organic foods are becoming more popular again as people realize that our bodies don't need the extra burden of harmful chemicals. Some foods are more likely to be contaminated by pesticides. Also, certain foods are more likely to contain GMOs. Avoiding those foods will also reduce your exposure, but that approach is getting more difficult, especially with GMOs since there is no labeling requirement. Buying organic foods from sources that you can trust is the best way to promote healthy foods. Beware of cut-rate vendors that offer "organic" products from overseas that may not really meet expected organic standards. Some unscrupulous producers and vendors may also falsely label food as organic. So knowing your food source is ideal - another good reason to buy local foods from producers that you know and trust.

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is probably the largest organization that promotes organic food and defends organic standards. OCA has a wealth of information on their web site and is worthy of consideration for your support. The video below about organic food was included in a recent OCA newsletter.

We need to get back to producing and preparing foods like our healthy ancestors. We vote with our dollars - buy organic sustainable foods.

Backward to the Future

2008-12-24T14:51:00.008-06:00

We need to get back to eating foods that kept our ancestors healthy for thousands and even millions of years. There's a lot we can learn from the past and those who don't learn the painful lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. So here's a little retrospective music for looking back to learn our lessons to help us cope with the future.
(click the small arrow on the lower right of each video for full screen)

Live the Life.

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

Viva la Vida - Coldplay 2008

If you love someone, don't forget to show it.

When the future's architectured
By a carnival of idiots on show
You'd better lie low

Violet Hill - Coldplay 2008

Horrible History. Let's not repeat it.

If I were your appendages
I'd hold open your eyes, so you would see
That all of us are heaven sent
And there was never meant to be only one
To be only one

Megalomaniac - Incubus 2004

More questions than answers.

Why do we never get an answer
When we're knocking at the door
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war

It's where we stop and look around us
There is nothing that we need
In a world of persecution
That's burning in it's greed

Questions - Moody Blues 1970

Sometimes you don't know what you have until you lose it.

Oh no, not me
We never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world

The Man Who Sold the World - Nirvana

To be or not to be ... selfish?
Does it really matter?

Nothing really matters
Love is all we need
Everything I give you
All comes back to me

Nothing Really Matters - Madonna 2006

And here's a little tribute to modern medicine, drugs, and poor diet.

I want you to know
He's not coming back
Look into my eyes
I'm not coming back

Knives Out - Radiohead 2008

And running the rat race.

Find out who you are before you regret it
Because life is so short, there's no time to waste it

Run Baby Run - Garbage 2005

But don't panic.

And we live in a beautiful world
Yeah we do, yeah we do

Don't Panic - Coldplay 2001

Who makes up all the rules?

We follow them like fools
Believe them to be true
Don't care to think them through

They - Jem 2005

To our children's children's children.

With the eyes of a child
You must come out and see
That your world's spinning 'round
And through life you will be
A small part of a hope
Of a love that exists
In the eyes of a child you will see

Eyes of the Child - Moody Blues 1969

A celebration of femininity.

Wherever, whenever
We'll learn to be together

Suerte - Shakira 2004

I view the list
And take my pick
I view my fate
And make a choice
'Cause it's nobody else's but mine

Breathe Your Name - Sixpence None the Richer 2006

And masculinity?

Pay your surgeon very well
To break the spell of aging
Sicker than the rest, there is no test
But this is what you're craving

Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers 1999

Who knew the other side of you
Who knew what others died to prove
Too true to say goodbye to you
Too true, too sad sad sad

Dani California - Red Hot Chili Peppers 2006

And now for a lighter note or two.
We need more sun and fun. Get that vitamin D!

It's not having what want
It's wanting what you have

Soak Up the Sun - Sheryl Crow 2002

On an island in the sun
We'll be playin' an' havin' fun

Island in the Sun - Weezer 2001

A little dancing is good exercise.

Casino - Acoustic Alchemy 1992

With a love like that, you know you should be glad!

She loves you/I want to hold your hand - The Beatles

Don't take it for granted :)

Happy Holidays !

P.S.
Thanks to Wildernessgal for the inspiration for the title to this post.

D Deficiency

2008-12-16T19:06:00.010-06:00

Many of us are deficient in vitamin D, especially at higher latitudes in the winter. Until recently, vitamin D was thought to mainly play a role in calcium metabolism. But recent investigations have discovered that it plays many important roles in the health of our immune system as well. Chronic vitamin D deficiency leaves us more vulnerable to infectious diseases as well as cancer and perhaps even heart disease. The correlation of colds and flu to winter and rainy season around the world may be a prime example of vulnerability to infectious disease because of vitamin D deficiency. The correlation of many cancers by latitude may also be an indication of the effects of vitamin D deficiency in causing cancer (though correlation does not prove causation).

Our early human ancestors in Africa had plenty of sun to maintain optimal vitamin D levels most of the year. Today, people living in this area who get good sun exposure are generally able to achieve about 40 to 60 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter (ng/ml) of blood and this appears to be near the optimal level. Ultraviolet (UV) light forms vitamin D from a cholesterol-derived precursor in the top layers of the skin (another reason why cholesterol is good). Sun angle, cloud cover, altitude above sea level, skin exposure area, skin color, sunscreen usage, obesity, and age are all factors that affect the body's ability to make and utilize vitamin D from sunlight. With optimal conditions, it only takes about 10 minutes of full-body high-angle direct sun exposure for the body to produce about 10,000 International Units (IU) of vitamin D. Darker skin color and sunscreen both block UV light and reduce the vitamin D rate of formation. Obese and elderly people also need more sun exposure to achieve optimal blood levels of vitamin D. Above about 35 degrees latitude, the winter sun is inadequate to provide enough vitamin D to maintain optimal levels, even with full and frequent exposure.

Sunshine Dilemma

Strong sunlight on our skin is necessary to produce vitamin D but also ages our skin. Diets high in polyunsaturated fat especially make the skin more vulnerable to damage from UV rays in sunlight - another good reason to limit polyunsaturated fat to ancestral intake levels of around 4% or less. Sunburn especially damages the skin, by literally burning the skin and can cause first, second, or third degree burns. So, those with fair skin need to be very careful to avoid sunburn when getting vitamin D from sun exposure.

Supplementing Beyond Sunshine

When adequate sunshine is not available, vitamin D levels need to be maintained by diet and/or supplements for optimal health. The foods highest in vitamin D are mostly animal seafoods, as shown in the table below. The problem is, there are many confounding factors in determining how much dietary vitamin D is necessary to achieve optimal blood levels. Part of this problem is that vitamins D, A, and K2 all interact synergistically and increasing one without increasing the others is more likely to lead to toxicity problems. Getting plenty of calcium and magnesium are also important to prevent toxic effects from high intake of vitamin D. Dairy and animal seafood are excellent sources of these minerals.

Vitamin D in Food
(click to enlarge)

At high latitudes in winter, getting as much as 1,000 to 4,000 International Units (IU) of vitamin D by diet or supplement may be neccessary to achieve optimal blood levels. Some people may need that much from food or supplements year-round. Others may need little extra vitamin D from diet. The best way to be sure how much is needed is through blood testing.

Blood Testing for Vitamin D

The best blood test to indicate vitamin D status is the 25(OH)D (25-hydroxyvitamin D) test. Ideally, 25(OH)D levels should be at least about 30 to 40 ng/ml for optimal health. The cost for this test ranges from about $50 to $150 and is usually not covered by insurance - even though vitamin D status is probably as much or more important than most covered parameters (a sad comment on the poor state of our modern "health care" system). Ideally, testing should be done at least twice a year, once in summer and once in winter.

Update 2010 December 5

There is controversy over the optimal blood levels of 25(OH)D and unfortunately we are a long way away from having good long-term scientific studies to help us better understand what is optimal. For an excellent review of the science to date, see this article by Chris Masterjohn. Some researchers have speculated that optimal 25(OH)D blood levels should be in the 50 to 60 ng/ml range or even higher, but so far the science does not clearly support that contention. Also, considering that our ancestors got their vitamin D from sunshine and nutrient dense foods, this ancient approach seems best for promoting optimal vitamin D status since it includes other co-factors necessary for proper vitamin D metabolism.

References and Further Reading

From Seafood to Sunshine - A New Understanding of Vitamin D Safety

Are Some People Pushing Their Vitamin D Levels Too High?

On the Trail of the Elusive X-Factor

Use of vitamin D in clinical practice

The Miracle of Vitamin D

Naked at Noon

Here's a little sunshine to hopefully brighten up your day :)

Walking on Sunshine - Aly and AJ

Miraculous Milk

2008-11-30T12:37:00.026-06:00

Nature's perfect food? Certainly for young mammals. Developed through evolution to provide all the nutrients needed for young rapidly growing mammals to thrive and mature.

Miraculous? Definitely!

The miracle of milk is that it provides all the nutrients that mammals need for optimal health in a highly bioavailable form that also includes beneficial probiotics and immune system support. Humans began routinely drinking milk from animals around the time that herding of animals began many thousands of years ago. Groups that included milk in their diet thrived and spread across much of the old world, quite possibly from the added health benefits from consuming dairy. In these cultures, milk was often revered as a special food that conferred good health. Milk was an important mainstay in the diet of most Europeans and European colonists of the new world.

As large cities grew in industrialized areas, the demand for milk increased. It wasn't long before large factory dairies appeared in many cities to supply this demand. Unfortunately, the cows were crowded in filthy conditions and fed unnatural diets that made them sick. The sick animals and filthy environment resulted in poor quality milk that was heavily contaminated with pathogens that quickly made many people sick from drinking it. In order to sell this filthy milk, the dairy owners turned to pasteurization to kill the pathogens in the milk. This approach was cheaper than trying to clean up their operations. Today, this has become the paradigm for cheap milk for the masses - quantity at the expense of quality.

Got Raw Milk?

Pasteurization

Can you imagine pasteurizing and homogenizing a mother's milk before giving it to her child? When pasteurized cow's milk is given to calves, they don't thrive and many die prematurely. Many of the important healthful aspects of milk are destroyed by the heat of pasteurization, including beneficial probiotic bacteria, enzymes that promote bioavailability of nutrients, and other special proteins that stimulate the immune system and suppress harmful microbes. Pasteurization is simply an excuse to sell filthy milk. Now most of the public can only buy dead milk from filthy factory farms. Pasteurized milk won't immediately make you sick unless it becomes contaminated, but it will likely contribute to allergies, asthma, and inflammation, and won't provide the proper nutrition for good health.

Requiring milk to be pasteurized to avoid harmful bacteria is like requiring all vegetables and meat to be cooked before being sold. We as consumers have a right to buy clean and healthy unprocessed foods. Many more people are sickened from eating contaminated vegetables and meat, as well as contaminated pasteurized milk, than from raw milk. Most cases of illness from raw milk have resulted from filthy factory farmed milk being accidentally or intentionally distributed without pasteurization. Ironically, raw milk from clean dairies is very resistant to harmful microbes, whereas pasteurized milk is not. That's why raw milk turns sour at room temperature, but sour raw milk will not make you sick. It's known as clabbered milk and was commonly used before the days of refrigeration. On the other hand, pasteurized milk rapidly goes rancid at room temperature and will make you sick.

The real solution to food borne illness is to provide clean food for sale in the first place. Proper farming techniques can provide clean food, including dairy. Animals should be fed their natural diet for optimal health of the animals and for optimal nutrition in the meat and milk they provide. Most factory farmed feed-lot and dairy animals are fed unnatural diets of grain and soy that make the animals sick and more likely to spread pathogens such as e-coli. To keep them alive, they are given massive amounts of antibiotics, which in turn helps to develop strains of harmful bacteria resistant to antibiotics. The dairy animals are also given hormones to make them produce more milk, but of lesser nutritional quality. These tactics allow the production of cheap, but poor quality milk, to outsell competitors and drive larger profits.

Many health practitioners now advise patients to eliminate dairy from their diet because of the harmful effects of this degraded and sorry substitute for real milk. Too bad most of them don't know about the excellent health benefits of fresh clean raw milk. More and more people are learning about real milk as the word spreads from those who switch to raw milk and find that it is a true panacea for good health, unlike the dead milk most people buy.

Raw Milk and Raw Eggs

The Milk Cure

In the past, raw milk from pasture-fed cows was used to successfully treat many diseases. As recently as the early 1900's, patients were treated by feeding them nothing but raw milk from pastured cows, about 5 to 10 quarts a day, in small amounts about every half hour. Dr. J. R. Crewe, of the Mayo Foundation, forerunner of the Mayo Clinic, in 1929 reported that this treatment was used "chiefly in tuberculosis, diseases of the nervous system, cardiovascular and renal conditions, hypertension, and in patients who are underweight". He also reported that "when sick people are limited to a diet containing an excess of vitamins and all the elements necessary to growth and maintenance, which are available in milk, they recover rapidly without the use of drugs and without bringing to bear all the complicated weapons of modern medicine". Unfortunately, the milk cure is not very profitable and was soon replaced by more profitable therapies, including drugs and surgery. In this day of very expensive medical treatments, maybe we need to strongly reconsider the milk cure as a first resort. Modern medicine should be the last resort.

Cultured Milk

Before the days of refrigeration, milk was consumed fresh, shortly after milking, or was cultured for later consumption. Raw milk can be cultured by it's own microbes to create clabbered milk or buttermilk, or with added cultures to make products like yogurt, kefir, and cheeses. Raw cultured dairy offers the same benefits of raw milk and may be a better option for those with blood sugar problems, since the amount of milk sugar is reduced by culturing. Cultured dairy made from pasteurized whole milk may not be as beneficial and "low fat" dairy may even be detrimental to health.

Nutrients in Human Milk

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has compiled nutrient data on human milk, which is shown in the table below, along with the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) for children ages 1 to 3 from the US Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition Board, for comparison. This table shows data for the amount of milk required to achieve 100% of the calcium DRI. It is interesting to note that when the calcium DRI is satisfied, the average human milk is greatly deficient in iron, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, manganese, and vitamins B1 (thiamin), B3 (niacin), B6 (pyridoxine), E (alph-tocopherol), D (cholecalciferol), and K (phylloquinone), with less than 50% of these nutrients compared to the DRI. In contrast, copper and vitamins A and C in human milk are two to five times higher than the DRI when calcium is at 100% of the DRI. If we assume that the average human milk documented by the USDA is sufficient for good health of the child at the quantity necessary to provide 100% of the calcium DRI, then the implication for the deficient nutrients is that either the DRIs are over-estimated for these nutrients, or the bioavailability of these nutrients is much less in foods other than milk (or some combination of these two possibilities). As for copper and vitamins A and C, perhaps the DRIs for these nutrients are too low relative to calcium.

Nutrients in Human Milk
(click to enlarge)

Comparing Milk from Humans, Cows, and Goats

Milk from all mammals is similar in content, though each mammal produces milk best suited to the needs of their own offspring. However, even within species, the nutrients in milk can vary substantially depending on the diet of the mother. Mammals eating a healthy native diet will produce the healthiest milk. When important native foods are missing from the diet, milk quality will suffer.

Even though milk evolved primarily to boost the survival odds for offspring, it has the complete package of nutrients, probiotics,and enzymes to sustain adults of many species as well. Human use of milk from herded animals over thousands of years is a prime example. Nonetheless, it is interesting to compare the nutrients in human milk versus those in cow's milk. The table below shows nutrient data for human, cow, and goat milk for comparison. Human milk has less protein and more fat and carbohydrate that cow and goat milk, possibly because human babies don't grow as fast as young cows and goats. Human milk is also lower in most minerals, except for iron, copper, manganese, and selenium. It is substantially lower by weight in calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. Human milk is substantially higher in vitamin C than cow or goat milk and substantially higher in vitamins A and B3 (niacin) than cow milk. Human milk is much lower in vitamin B12 than cow milk and substantially lower in vitamins B1, B2, B6, and B9.

Nutrients in Human, Cow, and Goat Milk
(click to enlarge)

Milk Intolerance

Not all humans can properly digest milk, for a variety of reasons. The most common reason is that a large number of people lose the ability to produce the digestive enzyme lactase as adults. Lactase is needed to digest the lactose sugar in milk. Most people who are lactose intolerant can drink raw milk because it has lactase provided by bacteria in the milk. However, this natural lactase is destroyed by pasteurization. Consequently, lactose intolerant individuals will have difficulty digesting pasteurized milk and will suffer unpleasant symptoms such as excessive gas or diarrhea. A few individuals have difficulty digesting the casein protein in milk. This problem may be aggravated by inadequate stomach acidity. The type of casein from the most modern breeds of cow, like the pervasive Holsteins, appears to cause the most problems. The casein from older breeds, like Jerseys and Guernseys, or from goat milk is usually better tolerated by these individuals.

Update 3/21/09 A1 and A2 Milk

The primary reason for casein related health problems may be the form of the casein. The casein in human, goat, and sheep milk is the A2 form of casein that is well tolerated by humans. However, most modern cows also have the A1 form of casein, which is not as well tolerated. Heritage breeds like Jersey and Guernsey have much less of the suspect A1 casein. However, the much more common Holsteins often have as much as 50-70% of the casein as A1, while pure-bred Jerseys have more like 10-30% of the casein as A1. Since Holsteins dominate milk production in many areas, these populations are exposed to greater risk of problems from the A1 form of casein, including auto-immune disease, heart disease , type 1 diabetes, autism, and schizophrenia. For more details read The Devil in the Milk and Beta Casein A1 and A2 in Milk and Human Health.

White Mischief (A1 Milk)

References and Further Reading

What Is Real Milk?

Raw Milk - History, Health Benefits and Distortions

The Health Benefits of Raw Milk from Grass-Fed Animals

The Health Benefits of Raw Milk

Milk: It Does a Body Good

What's in Raw Milk?

Milk History

Real Milk Cures Many Diseases

The Raw Milk Revolution

Where to Find Raw Milk

United States

Other Countries

Fat Follies

2008-11-16T20:30:00.009-06:00

There are several widespread misconceptions about fat that might be hilarious if they didn't lead to the poor health of millions of people:

Eating fat will make you fat.
Saturated fat is bad for health.
Polyunsaturated fat is good for health.
Low fat diets are good for health.

These misconceptions are partly responsible for the obesity epidemic and an important contributor to the the declining health of millions for people around the world. Here's the real truth about fat:

Eat more fat to lose weight.
Excess carbohydrates (sugar and starches) will make you fat.
Saturated and monounsaturated fat are good for health.
Polyunsaturated fat should be restricted to about 4% of total calories.
Artificial trans-fats should be avoided completely.

Eat Fat Lose Fat

Eating more fat to lose weight seems like an oxymoron. But ironically, because of the satiating effect of fat, most people eat fewer calories in the long run when they eat a higher percentage of calories as fat. And eating fewer calories will lead to weight loss if your activity levels remain the same.

Eat Carbs Get Fat

When you eat more carbohydrates than you burn, your body converts the carbs to saturated fat and stores it in fatty tissue. Eating large amounts of refined carbohydrates, like sugar and white flour, causes a rapid rise in blood sugar levels. In healthy people,the pancreas then releases insulin to reduce blood sugar by storing small amounts as glycogen while large excesses are stored away as fat. Diets that are high in refined carbs often lead to a roller coaster ride with a blood sugar high followed by a blood sugar crash. With the blood sugar high, you may briefly feel happy and energetic. But when your blood sugar crashes you will likely feel tired, irritable, and hungry. If you then eat more refined carbs, you keep the roller coaster ride going. Over time, it can lead to obesity and insulin resistance and then type II diabetes.

Saturated versus Polyunsaturated Fat

Saturated fats have falsely been blamed for increasing risk to heart disease largely because they tend to raise low-density lipoprotein (LDL) "cholesterol" levels. Likewise, polyunsaturated fats are supposedly heart healthy because they reduce LDL "cholesterol" levels. But LDL levels are not a strong indicator of heart disease, and in fact oxidized LDL is a much stronger indicator. How does LDL get oxidized? Polyunsaturated fats are more prone to oxidation in processing, storage, and cooking, and when ingested, they end up in LDL. It's the oxidized polyunsaturated fats that greatly increase heart disease risk.

Saturated fats are mainly from animal foods that have been predominant in healthy human diets for hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of years. The change to more animal foods may be largely responsible for increasing human brain size and our evolution away from apes. So, it doesn't make much common sense that foods that nutured our ancestors for so long are now suddenly bad for us.

In contrast, polyunsaturated fats were low in our ancestral diets and have increased dramatically in consumption the last 100 years with the large-scale production of cheap vegetable oils like soybean oil, corn oil, safflower oil, and sunflower oil. Also, entirely new to the human diet within the last 100 years, are artificial trans-fats, mainly in the form of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. Trans fats appear to be even worse than polyunsaturated fats in causing health problems.

Polyunsaturated fats suppress the immune system and are involved in immune dysfunction as well. This effect increases the risk of illness and of a variety of cancers, as well as autoimmune diseases and an increased risk of asthma. Polyunsaturated fats also inhibit enzymes and thyroid function that are vital for bodily processes. Furthermore, they cause age spots on the skin because they are easily oxidized by sunlight and the oxidized fats damage skin cells. Oxidized polyunsaturated fats also wreak havoc elsewhere in the body and are implicated in inflammation, atherosclerosis, heart disease, and cancer.

Traditional Diets

Traditional diets typically had about 4 to 10 percent of total calories from polyunsaturated fat, with a ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 polyunsaturated fat of 2 to 1. The low end of the traditional range appears to be an optimal amount for a healthy diet - around 4% of total calories. It's mainly the omega-6 polyunsaturated fats that have increased greatly in modern diets, primarily from vegetable oils that are used in processed foods and cooking.

Traditional diets were also low in sugar and keeping sugar to less than 10% of calories is probably ideal for optimal health as well. In the modern diet, most sugar comes in forms that are about half fructose, such as table sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Large dietary intake of fructose is implicated in a variety of metabolic syndrome problems, including insulin resistance, elevated triglycerides, abdominal obesity, elevated blood pressure, inflammation, oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction, microvascular disease, hyperuricemia, glomerular hypertension and renal injury, and fatty liver.

PUFA in Meat and Dairy

The following tables show the percentage of calories analyzed as polyunsaturated fat calories in a variety of meat and dairy foods for reference. The data are from the USDA nutrient data base and are more likely to be representative of typical commercial meat and dairy products. Unfortunately, the USDA does not have data for pastured animal products, but game meat may be closer in this regard. Click on the tables to enlarge them.

Meat and Dairy

Game Meat

Spiritual Health

2008-10-26T16:58:00.010-05:00

We are symbiotic masses of trillions of one-celled creatures, some of which happen to carry the human genome and many of which do not. It's quite amazing, maybe even miraculous, how a consciousness can arise from this mass of tiny creatures we call a body or life form. That consciousness, or mind, or spirit, or whatever you want to call it is the focus of our being. Our senses can be viewed as a portal on the universe. In this way, every conscious life form is a portal on the universe.

Primal Forces

In my view, the forces of nature identified by science are the same as the will of the universe or God or Allah or Yahweh or Brahman or the great spirit or the creator or whatever you want to call the source and enforcer of these natural forces. In this universe, we are constrained to follow these forces. Ironically, our existence is only possible with the exact balance of natural forces that we observe. If these forces were different, our universe would be different and might not be capable of generating conscious life forms as we know them - the anthropic principle.

To me, it seems intuitive that for the universe to exist, it must have always existed and will always exist. Also, each conscious portal on the universe is the same ONE consciousness, just at a different location in space and/or time. It is the form of our consciousness that changes over time.

I am you as you are me and we are all together.

Duality of nature

Yin and yang

Female and male

Heads and tails
Light and dark
Day and night
Good and bad
Hot and cold
Wet and dry
Sweet and bitter
Smooth and rough
Forward and backward
Selfishness and selflessness

"The relationship between yin and yang is often described in terms of sunlight playing over a mountain and in the valley. Yin (literally the 'shady place' or 'north slope') is the dark area occluded by the mountain's bulk, while yang (literally the 'sunny place' or 'south slope') is the brightly lit portion. As the sun moves across the sky, yin and yang gradually trade places with each other, revealing what was obscured and obscuring what was revealed."

Health of the Spirit

Health of the spirit or mind is an important part of our overall health. The mind has a powerful influence over our body, but our body also influences our mind. Pain or illness can be mentally debilitating. But the mind can choose how to react to stimuli from the body and can influence our health for better or for worse.

It's critical for our good health to eat a diet that will nurture our body, but our mind must chose to do so. We must learn what foods bring the best health to our bodies. We must also act on this knowledge to achieve optimal health.

It's important for good health to foster a positive attitude. Focus on the good things in your life. Don't dwell on the negative more than is necessary to deal with it. Find things that you enjoy. That can mean receiving pleasure as well as giving pleasure.

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. An infinite cosmic dream.

Recognizing some basic truths can make life more enjoyable for everyone.

You reap what you sow.
What goes around comes around.
Treat others as you would like to be treated.

Taking risks

Life is all about taking risks. With any action that we take, we have to weigh the possible benefits of success against the risk of failure or harm. Knowledge is our best tool to help in this process.

Balance

Finding the right balance between the benefits and risks in your life is probably the best goal. Don't try to do too much. You can't have it all, but you can have a lot. Cherish what you do achieve. You have to take care of yourself first, so you won't be a burden on others. But also, help others when you can.

Handling Stressful Situations

Chronic stress is linked to many health problems. Our best defense is a good offense. Recognize when you are stressed and take time to relax and rationally deal with the cause of your stress. Sometimes by planning ahead, you can avoid stressful situations. Also, confidence is a key to overcoming stress. Build your confidence by learning about the cause of your stress and finding ways to deal with it. Focus on the things in your life that you can control. There's no use in worrying about things you can't control.

Religion

Religion is the human effort to understand the forces we cannot control and to explain what happens to the spirit or soul after the body dies. Many people find comfort in following the rituals associated with religions. Religion can also help provide structure to an otherwise chaotic world for many people. The fact that there are so many religions with differing views is a sign that no human ever really knows all the answers to every question about the universe and probably never will. However, most religions do have common themes of helping others and having faith that good things will happen. The differences are in the details and unfortunately have led to considerable strife over the years. Probably the worst outcome of religions are zealots who believe that their way is the only way and anyone who seeks a different way is not worthy or is even condemned. If you choose to follow a religion, at least be considerate of those who choose not to follow that religion.

It's easy to take for granted the good things in life. Enjoy them while you can.

To infinity and beyond! May the force be with you! :)

Imagine by John Lennon

Vaccine Overload

2008-10-13T21:02:00.009-05:00

The companies that develop and manufacture vaccines for profit and the clinics that provide the vaccines also for profit, would have us believe that vaccines will save us from disease while causing negligible harm. They point to the dramatic drop in disease as evidence of the effectiveness of vaccines and claim that risks in taking vaccines are minimal and well worth the benefit.

But a closer and independent look at the data paints a different picture. While some vaccines may confer a reduced likelihood of infection, all vaccines have significant side effects, with substanitial numbers of severe adverse reactions, sometimes resulting in death. Not surprisingly, there have been no long-term safety studies for vaccines where the health of vaccinated children is compared with an unvaccinated control group! We need to take a very careful and unbiased look at the benefits and risks of any vaccine before accepting it.

Most infectious diseases were already declining rapidly before vaccines were introduced, with little evidence that vaccines have made an improvement. Some vaccines are notoriously ineffective, such as the influenza vaccine. Many people who take the vaccine get the flu anyway. Even the most effective vaccines offer no more than about 40 to 60 percent effectiveness and some vaccines are actually suspected of causing cases of the disease they are supposed to prevent.

The above graphs show the decline in death rates from infectious disease in Australia based on the official death numbers and shown in the book Vaccination A Parent's Dilemma. Most other countries show a similar result.

Against this backdrop of uncertainty about the effectiveness of the vaccines, we have the problem of side effects caused by vaccines. In order to make a vaccine work, it must strongly stimulate the immune system into responding to the target agent given in the vaccine, usually a disabled version of the target infectious agent. But strongly stimulating the immune system has its own hazards, one of which is possible triggering of allergies to other non-infectious agents that just happen to be present when the vaccine is given or shortly thereafter. The rapid rise in asthma and allergies in recent years could be one of the consequences. Another hazard is the possible triggering of auto-immune problems like lupus and type I diabetes, and neurological problems, like autism. The pertussis vaccine has actually been used to induce auto-immune disease in laboratory animals. Another problem is that vaccines are often given several at a time to young children. This practice is likely to compound the effect on the immune system, which is not fully developed in young children. Yet another problem is that some of the adjuvants used to stimulate the immune system are poisons in their own right and can cause harmful side effects, such as aluminum hydroxide and aluminum phosphate. Finally, the production and preservation of vaccines introduces even more potentially harmful compounds directly into the blood, such as foreign animal proteins used to incubate the infectious agent, poisonous formaldehyde used to deactivate live infectious agents, and thimerosal with poisonous mercury which is still used to preserve some vaccines.

Below is a long but well worthwhile video about vaccines. It can be paused to take breaks by clicking on the start/pause button.

An excellent resource for vaccine information is the National Vaccine Information Center. They have information about individual vaccines as well as state laws and exceptions regarding vaccines.

Further Reading

An Introduction to the Vaccination Controversy

Vaccines and Autism

Why Vaccines Aren't Safe

Do Vaccines Work and Are They Safe?

Vaccines: A Second Opinion

Avoid Flu Shots, Take Vitamin D Instead

Significant Harm from Just ONE Mercury-Containing Vaccine

Cholesterol Confusion

2008-09-28T16:13:00.016-05:00

Everyone knows what cholesterol is now - that stuff that clogs arteries and causes heart attacks, right?

Wrong!

When you get a blood test for "cholesterol", what they are measuring is not the chemical cholesterol directly, but instead is the total amount of certain lipoproteins that just happen to contain some cholesterol. It's a bit of a misnomer - sort of like calling a car an engine. Let's measure the weight of all those engines on the road by totaling the weight of all the cars on the road. What's worse, there are many other vehicles on the road that have engines but are not cars, like trucks and buses. Does it make sense to total the weight of just cars as an indication of the weight of engines on the road?

There is a chemical called cholesterol and it's an essential part of every cell membrane. It's a precursor to several important hormones and to vitamin D. It's considered both a sterol and a lipid, but not a fat. All fats are lipids, but not all lipids are fats. Cholesterol and fats are not soluble in water, but are needed by our cells. In order to transport cholesterol and fats through our blood, which is largely water, our body bundles them into packages of protein, fat,and cholesterol that can be carried in the blood. These packages are lipoproteins.

There are several kinds of lipoproteins the body uses for different purposes. They are classified by their density, which also roughly corresponds to their size. The largest and least dense are chylomicrons, followed by very low density lipoprotein (VLDL). Both of these contain cholesterol but are not included in total "cholesterol" blood tests. Next are low density lipoproteins (LDL), intermediate density lipoproteins (IDL), and high density lipoproteins (HDL).

In blood tests, the VLDL is called "triglycerides", even though all lipoproteins contain triglycerides (more confusion?) and "total cholesterol" is the total of LDL, some IDL, and HDL.

So how do cholesterol and lipoproteins relate to heart disease?

True cholesterol does not really appear to be a player in heart disease. It is actually very important for good health. However, glycated proteins and fats as well as oxidized fats, all of which can be incorporated into lipoproteins, do appear to play a role. Glycation occurs when a sugar molecule, such as fructose or glucose, binds to a protein or fat and oxidized fats are generally polyunsaturated fats that have been oxidized into peroxides. Some types of glycated proteins and all fat peroxides can cause a variety of problems and are implicated in both heart disease and cancer.

For optimal health, and thus avoidance of heart disease and cancer, we should be striving to reduce our load of glycated proteins and oxidized fats. Elevated blood sugar and triglyceride levels are correlated with elevated blood levels of glycated protein. So, obviously, keeping blood sugar and triglyceride levels normalized is ideal. Eat starches with fat and protein to minimize blood sugar spikes after meals or snacks. Don't eat foods with added refined sugar and don't eat too much fruit. Low-carb diets and/or excercise tend to normalize blood sugar and triglycerides.

The fats most prone to oxidation are polyunsaturated fats. Large amounts of dietary polyunsaturated fat are new to the human diet. Up until the last couple hundred years, the typical amount of dietary polyunsaturated fat was around five percent of dietary calories or less. Only recently has the amount of polyunsaturated fat been increasing dramatically in the human diet as cheap vegetable oils have displaced healthier animal fats in commercial food products. Keeping dietary polyunsaturated fats under four percent of total calories is ideal. That means avoiding most processed foods like sauces, dressings, baked goods, and most cooking oils, and eating only small amounts of nuts. Most commercial sauces and dressings are loaded with soybean oil or other oils high in polyunsaturated fat. Most commercial cooking oils are also high in polyunsaturated fat and sometimes trans-fat (made from hydrogenated polyunsaturated fat). That means avoid most commercial fried and baked foods.

Hopefully you are now less confused about cholesterol :)

Land of Confusion by Genesis (thanks to Yahoo Music)

WAP Diet

2008-09-14T18:38:00.005-05:00

No, it's not another fad diet for losing weight!

It's really a philosophy for healthy eating that's been around for thousands of years and was put into perspective about 70 years ago by the work of Weston A. Price (WAP). The idea is to eat foods that kept our ancestors healthy and to avoid highly processed and refined foods that are low in nutrients and high in harmful additives. Actually, many people do lose weight using this approach to eating, but the main goal is getting good nutrition for optimal health. Normalizing weight is a fringe benefit :)

Not all of the foods that our ancestors ate were equally healthy. Some foods confer greater health than others. That's what Weston Price studied in the 1920's and 1930's when he traveled around the world to document the native foods that people ate and their health. His conclusion was that the healthiest native diets included animal seafoods, organ meats, and/or dairy in their diet. These are the foods that have provided optimal nutrition for thousands of years. He found that when people abandoned the healthy diet of their ancestors for a more modern diet of refined flour and sugar and highly processed foods, their health suffered greatly.

Today we see a massive shift to highly processed foods in much of the world and a corresponding rise in poor health. Rates of obesity are increasing rapidly as people follow sadly misguided conventional dietary and health advice and are confused and misled by advertising for manufactured fake foods. When they get sick, they are given expensive drugs that often cause more health problems than they solve. It's time to get back to the foods that kept people healthy for thousands of years and shun the modern manufactured fake foods.

The Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) has been teaching the about the WAP approach to eating for about 10 years now and is a good source for health and diet information. My experience is that each of us has to discover which ancestral foods are best for us by trial and error. Not all traditional foods are best for everyone. Try them out and find the ones that work best for your health. Here's a WAPF video that discusses Price's teachings:

Some people have food sensitivities to even some traditional foods that others are able to tolerate. Read here for more information about food sensitivities. That's why it's important to find the traditional foods that work best for your own health.

Elixir of Life

2008-08-27T17:04:00.010-05:00

Well, maybe not quite the elixir of life, but my favorite daily drink is very nutritious and delicious :)

To make this tasty treat, I gently blend about a cup of raw milk, 1 or 2 ounces of raw cream, 3 or 4 raw egg yolks, and a heaping tablespoon of raw organic unsweetened cocoa powder. I use raw milk and cream from grass-fed Jersey cows. Their natural diet of grass provides the most nutritious milk and cream. Since it's not pasteurized or homogenized, the raw milk still has it's enzymes to help in proper digestion and absorption of the nutrients, as well as a compliment of probiotics - beneficial microbes that also assist in digestion and help to boost the immune system. The lactose in the milk provides plenty of sweetness, so there's no need to add any sweetener. I get the raw eggs from pastured chickens that also provide better nutrition than than factory farmed eggs. I leave out the egg whites because they contain enzyme inhibitors and avidin, a protein that binds to the biotin in the yolk to make it unavailable for digestion. Most of the nutrients are in the egg yolks anyway. I add the cocoa powder mainly for flavor, but it also adds additional minerals like copper, iron, manganese, and magnesium. Adjust the amounts to your own taste and appetite. You can also use fresh or frozen fruit for flavoring instead of the cocoa powder.

The tables below provide an estimate of the nutrients with one cup of milk, 2 ounces of cream, 3 egg yolks, and 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder. As you can see, it's a powerhouse of nutrition and what you won't see in these tables is the added bonus of enzymes that help to provide greater absorption of the nutrients, as well as probiotics which also assist in digestion and support immune function.

Table 1 Macronutrients

Table 2 Vitamins and Minerals
(click on table to enlarge)

Table 3 Fats, Amino Acids, and Other Nutrients
(click on table to enlarge)

Since fresh milk is the perfect food for growing young mammals, it makes sense that milk should be good for adults as well. For many thousands of years humans have been drinking fresh milk from cows and other mammals as part of a healthy diet. Fresh, clean, raw milk from animals eating their natural diet is nature's perfect drink. If it wasn't good for us, people would have quit drinking it a long time ago.

Pasteurized and homogenized factory farm milk is a whole different story. When this milk is fed to calves, they don't thrive and many will die. Not a good sign for our health either.

Stick with natural foods that have been keeping people healthy for ages.

Bon appetit :)

Losing Weight

2008-08-11T20:04:00.006-05:00

OK, sorry, I'm not the most photogenic guy in the world and my daughter says I should dye my hair :)

But I'm almost 56 years old now and I'm working on losing some weight. I've managed to lose 8 pounds the last 5 weeks and I'd like to lose another 15 to 20 pounds. I'm trying the 16/8 approach where you fast for 16 hours and eat during an 8-hour period. Effectively, I'm cutting out my lightest meal of the day for reduction of about 500 to 800 calories each day. It may actually be healthier to eat during a shorter period with a longer fast because it forces the body to burn fat towards the end of the fasting period and should help to stabilize blood sugar levels for a longer time. Most people eat during a 12 to 16 hour period and fast for only 8 to 12 hours, mainly while sleeping.

I eat a fairly low carbohydrate diet, with about 50-60 percent of calories from fat and only about 20-30 percent from carbs. I try to minimize sugar and polyunsaturated fat - among the worst additives in the modern diet. The fat in my diet is mostly saturated and monounsaturated fat from pastured and wild animal foods. These are the healthiest fats that our ancestors have eaten for many thousands of years. The extra fat in my diet helps to curb hunger so I don't get very hungry during the 16 hour fasting period.

With my new routine, on workdays, I start breakfast at about 6:15 am and finish lunch at about 12:30 pm, which is actually a 6.25 hour eating period. On weekends and holidays, I push breakfast to around Noon to 1:00 pm and then finish dinner by 7:00 pm for about a 6 to 7 hour eating period. So, I'm really doing closer to a 17/7 or even an 18/6 regime. I've been very pleased with the results so far and highly recommend this approach to those of you who want to lose some weight.

To lose weight, you have to establish a calorie deficit - where your body is burning more calories than it receives from the food you eat. If your metabolism is in a steady state, that means increasing your exercise and/or reducing the number of calories you ingest. About three and a half years ago my weight had reached nearly 245 pounds while trying to do a low fat diet, where I had been gaining weight instead of losing weight. I switched to a low carb diet and decided to increase my exercise by walking 2 miles every day to try and lose weight. Most people burn about 70 to 100 calories per mile, whether you walk or jog that mile. That comes out to no more than 200 calories per day for a 2 mile walk. It takes net deficit of about 3,500 calories to lose a pound of weight. That means I should have lost about 2 pounds per month and I did actually lose about 10 pounds in about 6 months - but I gained most of it back that fall and winter by cheating too much and indulging in too many sweets over the holidays. It wasn't until I broke my sugar addiction and maintained a consistent low carb diet early the next year that my weight dropped significantly. I lost about 20 pounds in about 3 months doing a rigorous low carb diet with no cheating, thanks to dropping sugar as well as aspartame and sucralose. My weight loss then slowed and over the next 6 months I only lost about 10 additional pounds. My weight loss ended at that point and I started gaining weight very slowly. I gained almost 10 pounds over the next year and a half. I guess I like to eat too much. I did manage to lose about 2 pounds during the month prior to starting the 16/8 regime. My weight today is back down to 213 pounds, which is the lowest that I reached a little less than two years ago. My goal is to drop to at least 200 pounds, and I might keep going to 195 pounds, which is what I weighed at age 40. I will update this post when I reach my goal.

For those of you who want to lose weight - try the 16/8 along with a low carb, low sugar, and low polyunsaturated fat diet. Good luck!

Update November 11, 2008
After about four months now, I've lost 18 pounds and I'm down to 203 pounds! I plan to keep going for at least another 10 pounds.

Further Reading

Fast Way to Better Health by Dr. Michael Eades

Protein Power verses Intermittent Fasting by Dr. Michael Eades

Mercury Madness

2008-07-31T21:22:00.015-05:00

Have you ever heard the expression "mad as a hatter"? In the past, mercury was used in curing felt, which in turn was used in making hats. The hat maker's exposure to mercury caused a variety of nasty symptoms, including confused speech, distorted vision, and premature death. Mercury has been known to be toxic since antiquity, but only recently has evidence accumulated to implicate mercury in a variety of health problems, even at relatively small concentrations. Today, some of the greatest mercury hazards in our environment are very close to home for many people - in the form of amalgam fillings and vaccines. Why this kind of mercury exposure is allowed for millions of people is a modern mistake of monumental proportions. And sadly, this unnecessary exposure continues today.

What Is Mercury ?

Elemental mercury is a shiny silverish liquid metal at room temperature and is considered one of the most toxic of chemicals. The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATDSR) ranks mercury as the third most toxic substance, behind arsenic and lead. Metallic mercury emits gaseous mercury vapor that can be inhaled and absorbed by the lungs. About 80% of inhaled gaseous mercury is absorbed into the body and most of it quickly enters the the bloodstream via the lungs. It is also readily absorbed by the skin on contact. Metallic mercury is used in fluorescent light bulbs, in some thermometers, and in some electrical switches. Elemental mercury is also a major component of amalgam fillings and typically constitutes about 50 percent by weight. Mercury often combines with other chemicals such as chlorine, sulfur, or oxygen, to form inorganic mercury compounds or salts, which are usually powders or crystals. Mercury salts are used in antiseptic creams and ointments and as preservatives. Mercury also can combine with carbon to form organic compounds, including methylmercury and ethylmercury. Methylmercury is produced mainly by microscopic organisms in contaminated water and soil and accumulates in fish, shellfish, and animals that eat fish. The highest concentrations are in large fish highest on the food chain, such as tuna and swordfish. Smaller fish generally have much lower concentrations. Ethylmercury is a metabolite of the mercury compound thimerosal, which is still used as a preservative in some vaccines.

Exposure

The most common exposure to mercury is from contaminated fish or shellfish (methylmercury), from amalgam fillings (elemental mercury), and some vaccines (ethylmercury). It can also occur from breakage and cleanup of fluorescent light bulbs or mercury thermometers (elemental mercury). Less common exposure can occur in the workplace - in dental offices, or health services or industries that use mercury.

Health Effects

From ToxFAQS: "The nervous system is very sensitive to all forms of mercury. Methylmercury and metallic mercury vapors are more harmful than other forms, because more mercury in these forms reaches the brain. Exposure to high levels of metallic, inorganic, or organic mercury can permanently damage the brain, kidneys, and developing fetus. Effects on brain functioning may result in irritability, shyness, tremors, changes in vision or hearing, and memory problems."

The primary health effect of methylmercury on fetuses, infants, and children is impaired neurological development that can result in impaired cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, and fine motor and visual spatial skills. The mother's consumption of fish and shellfish that contain methylmercury, can expose the fetus and any nursing children.

Hazardous Limits

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set a limit for mercury of 2 parts per billion (ppb) in drinking water. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) set a maximum permissible level for methylmercury in seafood at 1 part per million (ppm). The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) set limits of 0.1 milligram of organic mercury per cubic meter of workplace air (0.1 mg/m3) and 0.05 mg/m3 of metallic mercury vapor for 8-hour shifts and 40-hour work weeks.

What Can We Do to Limit Our Exposure?

Don't get amalgam fillings! There are plenty of alternatives that have minimal effects. If you already have amalgam fillings, consider removing them. The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT) has developed recommendations for safe removal of amalgam fillings. If you take vaccines, insist on vaccines that do not have thimerosal. Most influenza vaccines and DTwP and tetanus vaccines still have thimerosal. Vaccines have many other potential problems, so be sure to research any vaccine you are considering for yourself or your family. If you accidentally break a fluorescent light bulb or mercury thermometer, follow the recommended cleanup and disposal procedures to minimize your exposure to mercury. Limit your intake of large fish like tuna, king mackeral, and swordfish. If you eat tuna, get the "light tuna", which is usually from smaller varieties that have less methylmercury. Pregnant women should especially be careful about mercury exposure, because mercury is much more harmful to the fetus than to the mother.

And most of all - avoid mercury madness :)

Update 2010 December 5

Dietary selenium appears to be important in helping to prevent mercury toxicity. Thus, seafoods that have more selenium than mercury may not pose a health problem for most people.

Fluoride - Friend or Foe ?

2008-07-20T16:10:00.009-05:00

Most of us were taught that fluoride is our friend and helps to prevent cavities and strengthen bones. But toxicologists rate fluoride as more poisonous than lead and almost as poisonous as arsenic. So how can it be our friend?

The supporting argument is that fluoride in small amounts is beneficial and only in large amounts is it harmful. Well, this is true of many beneficial minerals, but what does science show us about the benefits and toxicity of fluoride? The evidence suggests that fluoride has little if any beneficial effects and even at relatively low concentrations has a variety of serious harmful effects. Yes, topical application of fluoride at high concentration will kill bacteria in your mouth and that may possibly confer some benefit against tooth decay. But at what cost to your health?

Because of it's poisonous effects, fluoride is a common ingredient in many pesticides. That should tell us something. Too much fluoride can cause obvious bad symptoms, the most common of which is dental fluorosis. The rates of dental fluorosis have increased dramatically in the U.S. over the last several decades. According to the Centers for Disease Control, dental fluorosis now impacts 32% of American children, whereas in the 1940s, dental fluorosis rates in fluoridated areas averaged 10%. But that's not the only potential problem caused by too much fluoride. Fluoride apparently interferes with proper thyroid function and iodine metabolism in the body. It may be a factor in the recent epidemic of hypothyroidism, since low thyroid function is related to problems with iodine metabolism. Also, studies of fluoride levels in drinking water show a clear inverse relationship with intelligence in children. Apparently, higher levels of fluoride reduce the intelligence of children by negatively affecting brain development.

So many people were sold on the idea that fluoride is beneficial in preventing tooth decay that it has been added to public water supplies in much of the U.S.A. for many years, typically at concentrations of around one part per million (ppm). But is this really beneficial? In Europe, fluoride has been banned from water supplies in most areas, and yet levels of tooth decay are not higher as a result. There is little evidence to show that adding fluoride to drinking water prevents tooth decay. Unfortunately, adding fluoride to drinking water increases our exposure not only directly by drinking the water, but indirectly by consuming food and beverages that were processed with fluoridated water. Considering that we also get fluoride from pesticides in our food, from toothpaste, from non-stick cookware, household pesticide sprays, and from some pharmaceutical drugs, that can add up to quite a bit of fluoride intake. This increased fluoride exposure may be enough to explain the large increase in dental fluorosis and to raise suspicion in the large increase in hypothyroidism.

We were also taught that fluoride helps to strengthen our bones. This may possibly be true in very small amounts, but even this possibility is controversial. Animal studies show either no effect or a negative effect of fluoride on bone strength. But at the typical exposures today, fluoride may contribute significantly to bone brittleness and easier bone breakage.

If you drink fluoridated water, it typically has about one ppm or one milligram per liter (mg/l) of fluoride. That means if you drink two liters per day (about two quarts per day) you get two milligrams (mg) of fluoride per day just from your water alone.

The U.S. Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition Board, has set the Adequate Intake (AI) per day for fluoride at 4 mg for men and 3 mg for women (ages 14 and over). They list the "Tolerable Upper Intake Levels (UL)" at 10 mg per day. Unfortunately, it appears that this recommendation was heavily influenced by pro-fluoridation proponents and is much too high. The UL should probably be more like 2 to 4 mg per day and ideally we should try to keep total fluoride intake to less than one mg per day to minimize risk of harmful effects.

There are a few foods that have higher amounts of fluoride and should be consumed in modest amounts, including tea, wine, and raisins. Natural ground water can also be high in fluoride in some areas and may need to be tested before use as a drinking water supply.

Here's what the USDA reports for the concentration of fluoride (ppm):
1.15 Tea, green, brewed (23 samples)
2.72 Tea, green, decaffeinated, brewed (10 samples)
3.73 Tea, black, brewed, regular, all (63 samples)
1.05 Wine, red (14 samples)
2.02 Wine, white (17 samples)
2.13 Grape juice, white (12 samples)
2.34 Raisins (1 sample)

Note that 1 ppm = 1 mg/l = 0.24 mg per 8 ounce cup

The Linus Pauling Institute reports the following measurements of fluoride in brewed tea (ppm):
0.6-1.0 Oolong
1.2-1.7 Green
1.0-1.9 Black
2.2-7.3 Brick tea

The amount of fluoride varies by the age of the tea leaf. The newest buds have the least and the oldest leaves have the most. That means white teas made from the buds have the lowest fluoride and high quality teas made from younger leaves will have less than low quality teas and brick teas made from older leaves.

Organic teas may also tend to have less fluoride. The Weston A Price Foundation reported the following concentrations of fluoride (ppm):
0.86 Tap water
0.62 Filtered water
0.94 Organic black tea (made with filtered water)
0.90 Kombucha (made with organic black tea)

Regarding prevention of tooth decay, Weston Price found that people eating healthy native diets had little tooth decay. But when these same people began eating refined flour and sugar, tooth decay became rampant. The moral is that proper diet and hygiene will prevent tooth decay. Added fluoride is just another poison that we don't need in our water and diet.

Fast Food Farce

2008-06-28T16:29:00.003-05:00

It's time for some lighter fare :)

Most restaurants down the street are going to serve you food with lots of added sugar, polyunsaturated fat, trans fat, MSG, and lots of other nasty additives, so beware

Try to figure out what all this is for
Try to see the world beyond your front door

Did you see what you just ate
Wake up before it's too late :)

Thanks to Barenaked Ladies for writing and performing the song and to Yahoo Music for providing free access to the video.

"Pinch Me"

Farmers Markets

2008-06-08T15:29:00.009-05:00

Most of us in the U.S. grew up on food from grocery stores and most food is still sold there. But the plant foods offered at these stores are typically sprayed with pesticides and herbicides and harvested green and the meats are from caged and penned animals fed unnatural diets that make them sick and require antibiotics. These foods are then shipped hundreds or thousands of miles to reach the store. Much of the food has preservatives added, or is pasteurized, or irradiated to keep it from spoiling. Much of it is heavily processed and packaged in plastic. Is that good for our health? Is it good for our environment and natural resources?

With rising fuel prices and increasing health problems, many people are beginning to recognize the value of local healthy foods, whether grown at home or at local farms. As a result, farmer's markets are booming in the U.S. They offer foods that are locally produced. The vegetables are usually organic, harvested when ripe, and very fresh. The meats and dairy are often from pastured animals fed a natural diet. An effective and appealing alternative to industrial foods.

Here's some additional photos I took at a local farmers market. The photos can be viewed individually, by clicking on the photo miniatures, or as a slideshow, by clicking on the "Slideshow" link on the upper right side of the page.

Another local option for good food is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), where you periodically receive a variety of farm produce and in some groups you can actually participate in the farming. Here's a description of one of the largest community supported farms in Texas, Home Sweet Farm.

CSA farming video - featuring Home Sweet Farm

Happy food hunting and gathering ! :)

A Bit About Me

2008-05-27T19:14:00.011-05:00

Several readers have asked me for more information about myself. Blogspot doesn't have much room in the profile, so I decided to make a post about my perspective on health and happiness. The photo above is me with my 10-year old daughter before the daddy-daughter girl scout dance last March. As you can see, my daughter doesn't take me too seriously :)

First, I am not selling or endorsing any products or services nor do I receive any money for what I do with this blog. The views presented here are those that I feel are most likely to be correct based on careful consideration of the evidence. However, I have found that the more I read about health, the more extremely complicated it is to fully understand - especially the science behind it all. It's so complicated that I'm skeptical anyone really has all the right answers. I certainly don't. For any health question, the best we can do is to learn as much as we can about differing views and make judgments based on the preponderance of the evidence. But be careful about the source of the information. There are many groups that offer health advice who are heavily funded by large commercial interests that have a vested interest in the recommendations. In other words, beware of those pedaling advice that will increase their profits. They may be more interested in your money than your health.

The internet and search engines are a wonderful tool for accessing health information. That's why I set up this blog, to help serve as a guide to some of the good health information that I have found. The trouble is, there are so many conflicting opinions, how do you sort out what is right and what is wrong? My gut feeling (pun intended :) is that historic and prehistoric evidence of diet and related health are a good context to use in making hypotheses about diet and health. Studies of traditional diets and the health of people eating these diets can tell us volumes about the types of foods necessary for adequate health and even optimal health.

Science is all about testing these hypotheses. Ideally science should be conducted in an unbiased manner with carefully developed studies that clearly support or refute various hypotheses. Unfortunately, health science has become more about finding ways to make money, as in selling drugs or other products, rather than to find out how diet can best provide optimal health. Many scientific studies are poorly conceived and end up providing meaningless results. Others are statistically manipulated to favor pet hypotheses that are not well supported by the evidence. And a few are downright frauds. Interpreting the results of scientific studies can also be very difficult because you have to consider the details of how the study was conducted and analyzed in order to determine what the results mean. You also have to wade through all the sciencese and baffling terminology, which is almost as bad as legalese.

Financial investments tend to follow avenues that yield the most profit, and unfortunately drugs are where the money is. Even government funds are often channeled toward studies favored by large commercial interests with strong political influence through lobbying efforts and direct political support. I am not totally against drugs. I believe they do have a place, mainly in traumatic situations where quick fixes are needed. However, for long term health I suspect that most drugs cause more problems from side effects than they solve. And they are usually targeted at symptoms rather than treating the cause of the problem. If you don't treat the cause of the problem, it won't go away. The drugs will only mask the symptoms and cause further problems through their side effects.

Of course, I recognize that finding the cause for many health problems is no easy task. There may be as many causes as there are problems. But diet and lifestyle are likely to be major players for most chronic illnesses and most health problems today are the chronic type - like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Some health problems may be genetically mediated, but even many of these may respond to dietary and lifestyle choices.

As you can tell, I have come to believe that diet and lifestyle are the main factors that shape our health. Please read some of my other posts for more details and also visit the links on the sidebar for a lot more information.

And now, if I haven't thoroughly bored you to death already :) I'll tell you a little about myself. I have not had to deal with any major health problems thankfully - just the usual metabolic syndrome tendencies that most people over 40 seem to have these days. I was born in 1952 and did receive some dubious vaccines and sulfa drugs as a child in the late 1950's. My tonsils were removed when I was about 5 years old and I can still remember the awful smell of the ether gauze they placed on my face to put me out. And a dentist with dollars in his eyes gave me lots of amalgam fillings in the early and mid 1960's. I was skinny and shy while growing up near the border in South Texas. I worked on my grandfather's conventional farm during the summers in high school and early college years.

I had enough interest in health to take a college course on nutrition on my way to getting a master's degree in engineering. I also briefly became a vegetarian for about 6 months to join a meditation group, but quit when I ended up joining a different group. I started eating whole wheat bread and joined a local food coop when I was in college. I majored in meteorology and minored in environmental health engineering. I wanted to be a weather forecaster, but ended up getting into the environmental field where I now work as an air quality forecaster and I'm also involved in air quality data validation and analyses. I have lived in the Austin, Texas area since 1970. I met my wife here in 1992. We got married in 1994 and our daughter was born in 1997.

After college, I became a soda junky, drinking 3 or 4 every day and regularly ate sweets for dessert. That's a lot of sugar and caffeine. I also ate a fair amount of fried commercial foods, though not every day. Otherwise, I had a fairly good diet, with whole grains, vegetables, fruit, meat, and conventional dairy. My sweet tooth led me to gradually gain weight. I'm about 6 feet 1 inch tall and I weighed about 170 pounds at age 20, about 185 pounds at 30, and was up to about 195 pounds when I met my wife at age 40. After college, I started jogging about 2 miles several times a week. Then a girl friend talked me into doing a one-hour aerobics class several times a week in my mid 30's and I kept it up even after we broke up several years later. Not long after I got married, I moved and quit the aerobics class because the location wasn't convenient any more. My only remaining exercise was yard work and walking the dog a few times a week.

My wife encouraged me to take advantage of the free annual physical offered by the health plan I had from work, so I went for my first full physical in 1995. The doctor sent me to the dermatologist to check out a pink irregular patch on the side of my face by the ear and the biopsy tested positive for basal cell carcinoma. That's the least dangerous kind, so I didn't worry about it after it was removed. Although, I did begin avoiding the sun as much as possible and using sunscreen when I had to be in the sun, based on conventional skin cancer avoidance advice.

I was still eating too much, especially sweets, though I can't blame my wife for that :) and my weight went up to around 215 pounds, my total cholesterol was 218, HDL 36, triglycerides 402, and LDL wasn't calculated because the triglycerides were too high. Unfortunately, my doctor suggested that I go on a low-fat diet to try and lower the cholesterol. I switched to low-fat everything. But many of these foods were high in sugar to make up for the lost flavor of the fat. I switched to skim milk even though I didn't like the flavor. I even switched from butter to margarine because it was supposed to be "more healthy" (yuck!). By the next annual checkup in 1996, my cholesterol was 230, HDL 32, triglycerides 438, LDL not calculated.

Low-fat obviously didn't work for me. Too bad the doctor didn't put me on a low-carb diet back then. Instead, he put me on a statin to lower my cholesterol and told me to stick with the low-fat diet. Well, I figured the doctor should know what's best, so I kept it up. The statin did lower my cholesterol to 163, HDL was up to 39, triglycerides down to 252, and LDL was 74 in 1997. My risk ratio was now in the good range, so I thought I was doing well. However, I was hungry all the time and continued over-eating and gaining weight. I was up to around 225 pounds by then. I switched to diet sodas in vain. My weight kept going up. By the time I turned 50 in 2002, I was around 235 pounds. My blood pressure was borderline high at about 140/80 and sometimes higher. But my cholesterol was down to 134 after I switched to Lipitor because of a medical plan coverage change. My triglycerides dropped to 167, with HDL 37 and LDL 64, giving a good risk ratio, so I thought I was still doing well. After all, the adds on TV were saying to "ask your doctor if lower is better" for cholesterol and heart disease.

My weight continued going up and was around 245 pounds in 2005 when I started seeing a new doctor. My cholesterol was 127, triglycerides 178, HDL 35, and LDL 56, which still gave a good risk ratio. But she recommended that I try exercising more to lose weight. She said I needed to exercise at least 30 minutes every day to lose weight. I started walking 2 miles every day, which takes me about 35 minutes. A friend of mine at work had lost 30 pounds on a low-carb diet, so I also decided to drop the low-fat diet and try lowering the carbs. I started buying all the foods that said "low-carb". But I was still drinking diet soda full of aspartame and now eating foods loaded with sucralose. And I was still addicted to sugar. I cheated every weekend with big desserts. I still managed to lose some weight for the first time. I lost about 10 pounds in 6 months from spring to fall. But I promptly gained most of it back over the holidays by cheating too much on sweets.

Then, over the holidays in December 2005, I decided to look on the internet for information about how diet might affect floaters in the eyes, which had gotten worse in recent years. I read that high blood pressure may aggravate floaters and since my BP was borderline high, I started searching for dietary ways to lower blood pressure because I didn't want to take drugs for it. I found links that led to many alternative health web sites, including Dr Mercola, Weston A Price Foundation, and Life Extension Foundation. Initially, I was impressed by the scientific information provided by LEF and began taking a lot of supplements. However, I did not like their heavy emphasis on supplements since they were selling lots of supplements - too much of a conflict of interest. And I have always felt that diet must greatly influence health. I still had trouble believing that much of what I thought I knew about health and diet was wrong. But after a week or two of carefully reading and re-reading the abundant information from WAPF and Dr Mercola, I was convinced they are likely to be right and much of what I had learned from conventional sources was wrong. Trans-fats and polyunsaturated fats are bad. Saturated fats are good. Dietary cholesterol is good. Raw dairy is good (for most people). Conventional dairy is bad. Sugar, as well as aspartame and sucralose are bad. Getting sun is good. After a couple of weeks I finally decided to make some major changes in my diet.

In mid-January 2006, I dropped the Lipitor, broke my sugar addiction, switched from diet soda to coffee for my caffeine habit, started using coconut oil, and switched to organic foods and pastured meats. I continued keeping carbs low and my weight started dropping by about a pound a week. I lost about 20 pounds from January to March of 2006. In March 2006, my cholesterol was back up to 162, which is in the "normal" range (it was below normal with Lipitor, which is not good), triglycerides 131, HDL 38, LDL 98, and fasting insulin 13 (I had to pay extra for the insulin check that's ironically not covered by my health insurance). In March 2006 I found a local raw dairy source for milk and cream and I broke my caffeine habit as well. I started making my own kefir from the raw milk in July 2006. I switched to raw milk and cream from an all Jersey herd in August 2006 and increased my daily walk to 2.5 to 3 miles a day. In May 2007, I started jogging some of my daily walk. I haven't done any more blood work.

Today, I feel much better than I did three years ago. My weight is still around 220 pounds, but I have added a lot more muscle mass from the walking and jogging. My goal is to get my weight back down to at least 200 pounds, so I still have 20 pounds of fat loss to go. My blood pressure is down to around 125/70 and my resting heart rate has dropped from 80 to 90 beats/minute to around 60. I am drug-free, except for an occasional beer :) and I have to look in the mirror to remind myself that I'm 55 and not 35.

So now that I've totally bored you to death, I do have a music reward that some of you may like. It's a romantic New Mexico guitar instrumental that I found a few months ago by Ottmar Liebert. Enjoy!

Reaching Out 2 U

Cancer Concerns

2008-05-11T08:18:00.008-05:00

Cancer is one of the more feared diseases that unfortunately strikes many more people now than in the past. There are many kinds of cancer, but they all share a common theme - human cells gone awry and proliferating out of control such that they eventually disrupt normal bodily functions and eventually cause death. There are several factors that appear to play significant roles in causing cancer: diet, exposure to carcinogens, exposure to ionizing radiation, and genetics.

Cells may become damaged by poor nutrition or exposure to harmful chemicals or by ionizing radiation such as cosmic rays or x-rays. Most damaged cells die and cause no problems. But with trillions of cells constantly reproducing to sustain our bodies, sooner or later there will be cells that are damaged in such a way that they survive, but function abnormally. When these abnormal cells lose their normal propensity to die (apoptosis) they can proliferate out of control and then you have cancer.

Cancer and the Immune System

Research indicates that our immune system normally attacks and destroys cells that are no longer functioning properly, as is the case with cancer cells. Cancer is only able to proliferate when it can manage to avoid the body's defenses, which may happen if the immune system is weak or if the cancer is able to deceive the immune system into accepting it as normal. Excess dietary sugar and polyunsaturated fat both weaken the immune system. Some toxins and poisons can also weaken the immune system. Ironically, conventional chemotherapy for cancer also weakens the immune system.

Cancer and Glucose

Another characteristic of cancer is that cancer cells are only able to burn glucose for energy, unlike normal cells, which can also burn fat for energy. They also consume much more glucose than normal cells. Because of this peculiarity, it is possible that high blood glucose levels may add fuel to the fire once it has started. A study in Korea showed that people with elevated fasting blood glucose levels had about a 20 to 30 percent higher risk of all types of cancer and about double the risk of pancreatic cancer. Another study found that people with elevated fasting insulin and glucose levels were about 50% more likely to have recurring colon polyps and about 2.4 times more likely to have advanced colon tumor recurrence. Low carbohydrate diets may help to slow down the run-away proliferation of cancer cells by helping to normalize blood insulin and glucose levels and to keep them from spiking after meals.

Cancer and Genetics

Studies of identical twins suggest that most cancers have a genetic component to susceptibility, some cancers more than others. Thyroid, testicular, and laryngeal cancers and lymphocytic leukemia and multiple myeloma appear to have a stronger genetic component. Also, cancers with early age diagnosis generally have a higher familial risk. However, the overall heritability has been estimated at only about 18% for all types of cancer on average, leaving environment as the major factor in causing cancer.

Dealing with Cancer

Once cancer begins to proliferate enough to cause symptoms, it is very often at an advanced stage and difficult to control. Billions of dollars have been spent over decades to find ways to cure cancer, but so far, no consistent cures have been found. Consequently, avoiding cancer is all the more important.

If cancer does strike, be sure to evaluate all of the options available before deciding on a strategy to try and overcome cancer. The Annie Appleseed Project is a good resource for finding information about complimentary and alternative methods of cancer treatment.

Also, watch the videos below to see an interesting first-hand experience on dealing with cancer by Jerry Brunetti. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 1999 by chance, after a car accident sent him to the hospital. Doctors told him he would not likely live more than six months to two years. He researched his options for treatment, both conventional and non-conventional, and chose to go the non-conventional route using alternative treatments as well as food and nutrition for treatment. He is still alive and well as of this writing, nine years later. Maybe he is very lucky, or maybe he managed to do something right.

The two videos below were filmed in 2005 and show Jerry's presentation to an audience in Australia. Each video runs for about an hour, but they can be paused to take a break at any time (click on the play/pause button). If you have to quit in the middle of a video, you can move the slider bar to start the video at the approximate position where you quit.

Jerry Brunetti Video Part 1

Jerry Brunetti Video Part 2

In reality, we all may be dealing with cancer. Our choices in life may affect whether cancer can take root and grow.

Make your choices carefully!

Update 2009 May 14

Unfortunately, the two videos above don't seem to be working any more. The best I can find is sets of 10 minute segments of the same two videos in You Tube. After viewing, you can use the back button on your browser to return here to find the next segment in the sequence.

Part 1 segment 1
Part 1 segment 2
Part 1 segment 3
Part 1 segment 4
Part 1 segment 5
Part 1 segment 6
Part 1 segment 7
Part 1 segment 8
Part 1 segment 9
Part 1 segment 10

Part 2 segment 1
Part 2 segment 2
Part 2 segment 3
Part 2 segment 4
Part 2 segment 5
Part 2 segment 6
Part 2 segment 7
Part 2 segment 8
Part 2 segment 9

Causes of Death 2005 versus 1900

2008-04-27T19:44:00.014-05:00

It's interesting to compare the causes of death in 1900 to those in more recent years. The causes of death have changed significantly since then. The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) has statistics on life expectancy and cause of death for the United States going back to 1900. These statistics show that a lot more people died before the age of 40 back then than now. Life expectancy at birth has risen by 29 years from 49 in 1900 to 78 in 2005. But life expectancy at age 60 has increased by only about 8 years since 1900 as shown in the table below. Most of the large improvement in life expectancy at birth is because of much lower mortality in children in recent years.

CDC source:
Table 6. Expectation of life by age, race, and sex: United States, final 2004 and preliminary 2005

Based on CDC statistics in the two tables below, the death rate per 100,000 population has decreased almost in half from about 1,548 in 1900 to 799 in 2005. But in 1900, about a third of the deaths were from pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diarrhea, the top three causes. By comparison, in 2005, almost half of the deaths were from heart disease and cancer, the top two causes. In 1900, heart disease and cancer accounted for only 13 percent of the deaths. The rate of death from cancer has nearly tripled and the rate for heart disease has nearly doubled from 1900 to 2005. The rate of death from accidents was almost twice as high in 1900 as in 2005.

It is likely that hygiene and medicine have helped to greatly reduce deaths from infectious diseases, more than offsetting the large rise in heart disease and cancer. It is also likely that diet and lifestyle changes account for much of the increase in heart disease and cancer. Since 1900, Americans have greatly increased the comsumption of sugar, vegetable oils, food additives, pesticides, soy, and highly processed foods and these dietary changes may very well be largely responsible for increasing the rates of heart disease and cancer.

The accuracy of these statistics is probably somewhat crude at best. Many people have multiple problems when they die and assigning a cause may be just a best guess. The same problem exists in classifying disease in the first place. But nonetheless, these statistics are the best estimates we have.

CDC source for 2005 data:
Table B. Deaths and death rates for 2005 and age-adjusted death rates and percent changes in age-adjusted rates from 2004 to 2005 for the 15 leading causes of death: United States, final 2004 and preliminary 2005

CDC source for 1900 data:
Leading Causes of Death, 1900-1998

Update 2009 May 14
Be sure to read this great analysis:
The Coronary Heart Disease Epidemic

Native Nutrition Photos

2008-04-01T20:14:00.009-05:00

If you enjoy taking photos and/or looking at photos, there's a new Flickr photo group devoted to photos related to native nutrition, nourishing traditions, and paleo-diet. It includes photos of healthy traditional food, meals, food preparation and processing methods, cooking tools and techniques, as well as healthy people and animals, gardens, farms, and ways of growing your own food.

The idea behind this photo group is to share healthy ideas in the form of photos, along with helpful comments so that we can all help each other to learn and grow. The photos on this post are linked back to the original photos on Flickr. To see the group photo page click on this link: Native Nutrition. On the group photo page, click on the "More photos ..." link to see all of the group photos. Click on the individual photos to see a larger image, along with information about the photo and any comments.

If you've never heard of Flickr before, it may be the world's largest repository of photos. Typically, about 3,000 to 4,000 photos are uploaded to Flicker *every minute* from all over the world. Today it ranked number 39 among the world's most visited web sites.

If you'd like to join the group, it's easy. You can get a free account at Flickr for up to 200 photos. If you have SBC-Yahoo internet service, you get the "pro" account for free, which includes unlimited uploading of photos and otherwise costs about $25 a year. No April fooling :)

Hope to see you soon - your photos, that is :)

A Real Farm!

2008-03-16T12:46:00.012-05:00

I recently went to the Sand Creek Farm and dairy for a tour. About 10 or 15 families came for the tour. It's a beautiful and ideal farm run by Ben and Alysha Godfrey, near Cameron, Texas. The tour was great fun for all. There was a visit to the dairy, a ride on a horse drawn trailer, a visit to the field for a romp in some haystacks and a hands-on demonstration of plowing with horses, a visit to a pasture with pigs, chickens, and cows, and an opportunity to collect eggs from the hen house.

Click here to see a set of photos from the tour.
The photos can be viewed individually, by clicking on the photo miniatures, or as a slideshow, by clicking on the "View as slideshow" link on the upper right side of the page. Click on the "Map" link to see a map showing the location (use the zoom bar on the upper right to zoom out or switch to the satellite view).

Sand Creek Farm is a real farm, where the animals are pastured, well treated, and fed their natural diet. The dairy produces clean fresh real milk, cream, and cheese that are not damaged by pasteurization and homogenization. The crops and feed are organic. No GMO here!

Ben and Alysha were raised in the city and graduated from Texas A&M University with backgrounds in agriculture leadership and scientific nutrition. They are home schooling four beautiful daughters. Ben led the family to a farm in 2003. They more recently moved to a larger farm, where they are working to achieve a sustainable farm based on holistic principles of proper soil and animal health.

We need more farms like this one. Instead, most farms have become factories where profit is maximized at the expense of nutrition and health benefit. Animals are caged, poorly treated, and fed grossly unnatural diets. Plants are genetically modified to withstand pests and herbicides - not to make them healthier to eat. They are sprayed with harmful chemicals that end up in the bodies of animals and humans that consume them.

Food produced using traditional methods is much healthier. It can also be more expensive, but what better investment can you make than your health and the health of your family?

We vote with our dollars. Buy sustainable, traditional, humane, organic foods!

Health Check List

2008-03-02T14:00:00.020-06:00

The typical modern diet is missing important foods that kept our ancestors healthy and instead is loaded with highly processed fake foods that are low in nutrients and high in additives that are not good for health. Also, modern lifestyles are often stressful and sedentary. Together, poor diet and lifestyle choices are largely responsible for declining health and quality of life in the modern world.

What can we do to improve our health?

1) Include animal seafoods and/or organ meats and/or raw dairy
(from Weston A Price study of most healthful native diets)

2) Eliminate refined sugar and minimize sweets
(keep total sugars to less than 5-10% of calories)
and if overweight, minimize starchy foods as well
(keep total carbohydrates to less than 10-20% of calories)

3) Eliminate artificial trans-fats (hydrogenated oils and fats)

4) Restrict polyunsaturated fats to less than 4% of total calories
and minimize omega-6 polyunsaturated fats

5) Get at least 30 minutes of active exercise daily
(appropriate for your level of conditioning)

6) Learn to avoid and properly handle stress
(relaxation, meditation, EFT, diet, exercise)

7) Get plenty of sleep (ideally 7 to 8 hours)

8) Get plenty of sun if possible
(avoid sunscreen but be careful not to get sunburned)

9) Take good quality high vitamin cod liver oil daily
(if you don't get adequate sun, seafood, and liver)

10) Include cultured and fermented foods and beverages
(if tolerated)

11) Avoid exposure to harmful chemicals
(artificial food additives, pesticides, natural food toxins,
unfermented soy, drugs, poisons, health care products)

12) Avoid foods that cause noticeable adverse effects
(identify possible food intolerances)

13) Choose fully pastured or wild animal foods
(from a clean environment and include bone broth)

14) Use coconut oil, tallow, and/or butter for cooking

15) Include a variety of plant foods to taste and tolerance
(prepared to optimize nutrient availability,
preferably high brix organic and locally grown)

16) If dairy is consumed, use raw and cultured dairy

17) If grains and nuts are consumed, soak or sprout them

18) Eat at least half of your food uncooked

19) Minimize or eliminate factory processed/packaged fake foods
(supports 2, 3, 4, 10)

20) When eating out, avoid fried foods, dressings, and sweet foods
(supports 2, 3, 4, 10)

Happiness

2008-02-18T09:49:00.004-06:00

I saw some video segments from 60 Minutes on Yahoo News this morning that are very informative about happiness. They are interviews of Tal Ben-Shahar, a Harvard psychology professor and lecturer. The link below will bring up the Yahoo News video player and should play the videos (and a few commercials :) automatically in succession:

Yahoo News Videos
We Can't Have It All
Happiness Defined
Why Americans Are Unhappy
He Practices What He Preaches
Five Easy Steps

According to Tal, in our materialistic society there is a lot of pressure from high expectations. However, wealth does not create happiness. We need to have realistic expectations. We can't have it all but we can have a lot.

He also says it is difficult to define happiness. It is an experience of meaning (importance) and pleasure. Meaning can be achievement, contributing to community, or enjoyment of friendship or a relationship. What is pleasure and meaning will vary over time and by culture and from one person to another. Below are Tal's suggestions for happiness:

* Simplify - more is not always better

* Exercise is important - improves mood

* It's OK to experience painful emotions - give yourself permission to be human

* Appreciate what we have - give thanks and grow and learn both in regard to our relationships and our surroundings

I would add that maintaining good health by eating a good diet is also very important for happiness. It's more difficult to be happy if you're not healthy and many drugs and medications can cause depression. Too much sugar in your diet may also lead to depression, as well as lack of general good nutrition.

Also, below is a YouTube video of a funny interview of Tal Ben-Shahar by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show:

Tal Ben-Shahar has written a book called "Happier", which I have not read but looks interesting and is highly rated on Amazon Books.

I'm happy because I have the day off for President's Day today :)

Health Food

2008-02-09T13:06:00.003-06:00

You know the old saying - one person's food is another person's poison - really is true. We are all different, and because of these differences, there is no ideal healthy diet that is optimal for everyone. On the other hand there are definitely some aspects to diet that we all need and some aspects that can be less than optimal for everyone's health.

Many people eat simply to stop the hunger pangs and to enjoy the pleasure of eating, with little thought about what the body needs to stay healthy. Convenience and cost also play a large role in what people eat. In our fast-paced society many people are in a hurry and want their food quick, convenient, and cheap. Hence the rise in popularity of "fast food" including fast food restaurants and fast microwave convenience foods. Most people have a vague notion of what might be healthy, primarily based on the constant barrage of advertising, mainly for fast cheap convenient foods. But much of this advertising is intentionally misleading to sell products. Consequently, many people have become brainwashed into believing that some fast foods are actually "healthy choices". Most of these foods are not so bad that they will quickly make you sick - or they wouldn't sell and would soon drop out of the market. But most of these factory processed-packaged foods are loaded with flavor enhancers and even addicting chemicals to entice and capture customers, often at the expense of their long-term health. They also have lost many of their nutrients during processing and are loaded with chemicals or ingredients that make them less expensive - but are not good for optimal health.

So what are the additives that are likely to be harmful to everyone's long-term health? They include flavor enhancers like monosodium glutamate (MSG) and addicting refined sugar, cheap oils full of rancid polyunsaturated omega-6 fats and/or trans-fats, food colorings, processing additives and conditioners that make foods cheaper to mass-produce, and preservatives to extend shelf-life. These are the ingredients that make fake convenience foods cheap and make them look and taste more like real food so they sell, but at the expense of our long-term health. So, the moral to this story is simple: it's time to get back to eating real food.

What nutrients do we need from our food? We all know about vitamins and minerals. So, why not just take a multi-vitamin and mineral supplement and be done with it? One good reason is that most multi-vitamin and mineral supplements are made from refined chemicals that often may not be properly absorbed or utilized to fill our nutrient needs. Our bodies have evolved to absorb and utilize complex matrices of nutrients from foods, not refined or artificial nutrient analogues from pills. It is also likely that science has not yet discovered all of the healthful nutrients in foods nor all of the synergistic effects of natural nutrients working together. So, what is packaged for convenience in a pill is not likely to fully meet our nutritional needs.

A better approach is to look at diets of healthy people around the world to look for foods that favor health. We can also look for dietary factors that are detrimental to health. The classical work of Weston Price is a good start. He searched around the world to find people eating their native diets and compared their health to that of their contemporaries who had switched to canned and processed commercial foods loaded with refined flour and sugar that were becoming popular in the early 1900's. He consistently found that the people who continued to eat their native diets were healthier than those who switched to more modern commercial diets. He found that the healthiest groups included animal seafoods, and/or organ meats, and/or dairy in their diet. He also found that these people ate a wide variety of plant foods and prepared them in ways that optimized their health benefit. These are the foods that should be the foundation of a healthy modern diet. The challenge today is to find these foods uncontaminated by modern pollution.

Ideal Foods

Buy local foods to help preserve our environment and keep it clean. Buy organic foods to help keep our environment and foods free of pesticides. Buy wild animal foods from clean environments or foods from pastured animals that are humanely raised without antibiotics or hormones and fed natural organic diets. Avoid large fish, which accumulate methyl-mercury from the food chain, and minimize or eliminate factory-farmed animal foods. Include fatty fish and shellfish or organ meats or dairy depending on which of these foods are most appealing and well tolerated. Avoid all processed dairy and choose raw, cultured, and fermented dairy if tolerated. Make bone broth to use in soups, stews, and gravies. Choose a variety of organic vegetables and fruits to suit your taste and appetite. Include some lacto-fermented vegetables if they are tolerated. Grow your own foods if possible. Include whole-grain foods and small amounts of nuts if they are appealing. Soak or sprout grains, nuts, and seeds for optimal nutrient availability. If you are overweight, avoid starchy/sugary vegetables, grains, and fruits.

Use your senses to judge the quality of real foods. If a food is not appealing, don't eat it. Also notice how you feel after eating foods and avoid those foods that do not leave you feeling well. But don't trust your senses to judge the quality of deceptive fake foods - avoid them as much as possible.

To make sure that you are getting a balanced diet, you can use online nutrition calculators or if you have Excel you can try my Dietary Nutrition Calculator to estimate your dietary nutrient intake. These estimates are crude at best, because of the sometimes large variability of some nutrients in foods and because of the variability in how well these nutrients are absorbed and utilized from one individual to another. But at least you can get a rough idea if your diet is providing adequate nutrients for good long-term health.

Taking the time and effort to find and prepare good quality food is a worthy investment for health. What better investment can you make?

We Are All On Drugs

2008-01-27T16:22:00.002-06:00

On a lighter note - Weezer video (high speed):

Real Player
Windows Media
QuickTime
You Tube

Yahoo music (click arrow lower right for full screen):

Maybe this song should be the new U.S. national anthem? With so many people taking prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, recreational drugs, and illegal drugs, it might as well be. And if you count caffeine and refined sugar as drugs like I do - even more so.

We are all on drugs, yeah
Never getting enough
We are all on drugs, yeah
Give me some of that stuff

And the best of your days
Will all vanish in the haze
When you're on drugs

And you wish you could quit
Cause you're really sick of it
But you're on drugs

Give it to me!
Just say no to drugs, yeah
Let food be your medicine
Just say no to drugs, yeah
Let food be your medicine ... woooo!

Will this be your fate?

(credit to Close to Home)

OK, back to reality now :)

Antibiotics - Probiotics

2008-01-19T16:29:00.002-06:00

Modern medicine has conjured a deep fear of microbes that has led to gross over-use of antibiotics, most commonly for sinus and ear infections. Antibiotic literally means "against life", but is largely used to refer to medications that kill bacteria. Many of these medications are derived from mycotoxins produced by fungi for the purpose of killing competing bacteria. What most doctor's don't tell you is that many of the antibiotics they prescribe kill not only harmful bacteria, but also health promoting bacteria. Not only that, but when bacteria are suppressed, fungi can go into a feeding frenzy and multiply like crazy. And most fungi are not beneficial. What's worse, antibiotics also depress our immune system, allowing unaffected microbes to flourish. And furthermore, over-use of antibiotics creates antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that can take advantage of any depressed immune system. Consequently, antibiotics should be reserved for only the most severe bacterial infections.

Most people don't realize there are many more microbes in our bodies than human cells, by at least a factor of two or three. We are really symbiotic cultures of human cells and microbes. Most of these microbes are in our digestive system and can weigh as much as three or four pounds. When we are healthy, most of the microbes are beneficial bacteria that help us digest our food and even add nutrients to our system and help support our immune health. This is "symbiosis". Taking powerful antibiotics greatly damages this symbiotic system by killing the beneficial bacteria and allowing harmful microbes, mainly fungi and resistant bacteria, to multiply, causing "dysbiosis". These unfriendly microbes can damage the mucosal lining of the intestines allowing undigested harmful proteins and chemicals to enter the body and the bad microbes can also generate toxins that are absorbed into our body. Dysbiosis often leads to food allergies and may trigger auto-immune diseases, which are malfunctions of our immune system. Dysbiosis may also cause or contribute to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

We are born without beneficial microbes in our digestive system, but mother's milk provides a host of beneficial microbes that quickly colonize our infant digestive systems. The microbes change in composition over time, influenced largely by the foods we eat. These beneficial microbes serve as our first line of defense in combating harmful microbes. When they are healthy, they can out-compete undesirable microbes and may even kill them directly. So, it is imperative to eat foods that promote the beneficial microbes. These can be foods that feed the microbes or foods that actually have live beneficial microbes to re-enforce the supply in our system. Foods with live beneficial microbes are called probiotic, which literally means "for life". Some of the best probiotic foods are raw dairy, fermented dairy such as kefir and yogurt, fermented beverages such as kombucha and beet kvass, and lacto-fermented vegetables such as traditional sauerkraut and pickles (unpasteurized). Foods that benefit the good microbes are called "prebiotic" and include vegetable foods with oligosaccharides. Foods high in refined sugar and refined carbohydrates may in quantity promote microbes that are not beneficial. Maintaining proper digestion is critical to our health.

So what can we do to avoid antibiotics? Ideally keep our immune system as healthy as possible to avoid infections in the first place. That means eating plenty of nutrient dense foods and minimizing dietary sugar, refined carbohydrates, and omega-6 fats that can hamper immune function. Also, eating foods with good saturated fats, such as pastured animal and dairy fats and coconut oil, helps to boost immune function. And consuming probiotic foods helps to maintain beneficial bacteria in the digestive system, which in turn helps to boost immune function. Choosing fresh organic foods and staying away from factory processed/packaged foods loaded with harmful food additives, preservatives, and pesticides also helps to reduce the burden on our immune system.

When infections do manage to bring illness, we need to boost the functioning of our immune system - preferably by diet as much as possible. Taking additional probiotic foods and/or supplements may help against many infections, especially gastro-intestinal infections. Herbal medicines may also provide help against many infections. Consult a naturopathic physician or herbal medicine practitioner for diagnosis and prescription. Bone broth is a traditional remedy that can also help our immune system fight many infections, Broth is Beautiful.

For an in depth and well-referenced discussion of dysbiosis read:
"The causes of intestinal dysbiosis: a review"

Sugar - a Toxin?

2007-12-09T15:54:00.007-06:00

YES! And it's also a very addicting DRUG!

OK, now you think I'm really crazy :)

But let's take a look at the definitions. A toxin is a chemical produced by living organisms that causes harmful effects on the body at high enough concentration. Sugar easily meets that definition. It is plant derived and there are numerous studies that show a variety of harmful health effects from excess dietary sugar. Below are the definitions from Wikipedia.

Toxin:
A poisonous substance produced by living cells or organisms.

Poison:
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause damage, illness, or death to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism.

Drug:
A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that alters normal bodily function. Recreational drugs are chemical substances that affect the central nervous system, such as narcotics or hallucinogens. They may be used for perceived beneficial effects on perception, consciousness, personality, and behavior. Some recreational drugs can cause addiction and habituation.

OK, is sugar a drug? If you've ever had a feel-good high immediately after eating sweet "comfort" foods, it's a psycho-active drug. If you've ever had a "craving" for something sweet, it's an addicting psycho-active drug.

So, my point is that we need to start thinking of refined sugar as a toxin and drug. That makes sugar by far the most common and abundant toxin and drug in the modern food world!

The body needs small amounts of sugar to function properly. But the body can make all the sugar it needs. There is no minimum daily intake requirement for sugar or even for carbohydrates. There are many nutrients that in small amounts are necessary for good health, but in excess are detrimental. Zinc,copper, iron, iodine, and vitamins A and D are examples. Likewise, sugar in small amounts is necessary for health, but in excess causes problems.

When natural sugars are ingested unrefined, as in fruits or dairy, the amounts are generally low enough not to cause problems. However, when the sugar is refined and concentrated as a food additive, it is easy to get too much. Because of it's addicting and feel-good qualities, sugar is often added in large quantities to processed/manufactured foods to make them sell better. So, if you eat a lot of processed/manufactured or restaurant foods, it is very easy to get too much sugar. People eating a lot of these foods commonly get as much as 20 to 30 percent or more of their calories from sugars. What's worse is that most of that sugar is now in the form of high fructose corn syrup, which is even more harmful than table sugar. Most healthy primitive diets had only small amounts of sugar, mainly from raw dairy or from fruit when in season.

Too much dietary sugar certainly won't kill you right away, but it does have short-term harmful effects, like suppression of the immune system, even with relatively small doses. That leaves you more vulnerable to infectious diseases and cancer. One study showed that ingestion of 100 grams of sugar caused about a 40% reduction in white blood cell activity against pathogens and found that it took about five hours for immune function to return to normal.

Over many years, too much sugar can lead to metabolic syndrome diseases, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. These are the diseases of aging and that's exactly what too much sugar does - speeds up the aging process.

So, how much sugar should we allow in our diet? Probably no more than about 5% to 10% of total daily calories and the less, the better. That means if your normal dietary intake is 2,000 calories per day, you should not get more than 200 calories from sugar. Since sugar has 4 calories per gram, that means no more than about 50 grams (2 ounces) of sugar per day on a 2,000 calorie diet. And that's total sugar from all sources. Here's the amount of sugar you get from single servings of some common "comfort" foods, listed in grams, to the left of the food name (from NutritionData).

Grams of sugar:
96 cake (1/8 slice 9 inch white with coconut icing)
57 candy (4 oz Snickers)
56 milk shake (11 oz vanilla)
39 soft drink (12 oz cola)
39 yogurt (8 oz low fat strawberry Breyers)
37 coffee (12 oz caramel mocha Starbucks)
34 apple juice (12 oz Starbucks)
32 pie (1/8 slice 8 inch pecan)
30 ice cream (1 cup chocolate)
29 orange juice (12 oz McDonald's)
28 muffin (101 g blueberry Starbucks)
24 donut (5 inch)
21 brownie (56 g large chocolate)
18 granola (2/3 cup low fat fruit Nature Valley)
15 cereal (1 cup frosted flakes Kellogg)
07 hamburger (105 g McDonald's)

For comparison - grams of sugar:
19 apple (3 inch with skin)
15 peach (2 3/4 inch)
12 orange (2 7/8 inch navel)
12 grapes (15 red or green seedless)
07 strawberries (1 cup whole)

Breaking the Sugar Addiction
To break your sugar addiction, eliminate foods with added refined sugar and reduce intake of other refined carbohydrates. Increase intake of foods with good quality animal or dairy fat, preferably from pastured animals, and add probiotic foods. Also, try coconut oil. And be sure to eat a variety of foods to get good nutrition. If you have Excel, try out my dietary nutrition calculator. Dropping sugar may seem difficult the first few weeks, but after a few months of abstinence from refined sugar and with intake of more good fat, probiotics, and nutrients, you should lose any cravings for sweets. If you still have difficulty, another tool to try is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a type of accupressure that employs tapping instead of the needles used in accupuncture. Once you have broken your addiction, you can still allow occasional sugary foods, but not very often or you run the risk of becoming addicted once again. You may also find that sugary foods that used to be "treats" no longer taste as good - they're too sweet!

If a food does not taste good without adding sugar to it, then either learn to like it without the sugar, or find other foods that you like that don't have added sugar. You may find as you lose your sugar addiction that many foods that formerly did not taste sweet enough now taste good. Sour and tart foods may become more appealing. You may even develop a new appreciation for all of the wonderful flavors in nature!

Update 2008 December 20

Fructose appears to be the worst dietary sugar for causing long-term health problems from excess consumption. Fructose is 50% of table sugar (sucrose) and typically 55% of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Read this interesting editorial from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: How safe is fructose for persons with or without diabetes?

Big Fat Lies

2007-12-01T10:20:00.000-06:00

Here's a great new video clip that will be part of a new movie called "Fat Head" by Tom Naughton. The movie is a parody of Morgan Spurlock’s popular movie "Super Size Me". Tom is a comedian and health writer and does a good job of pointing out some of the insane logic that is used to promote sadly mistaken conventional health advice about dietary fat. Tom has several clips from this movie on his Fat Head Movie web page. Enjoy!

Avoiding Harmful Chemicals in Food and Environment

2007-11-18T15:58:00.001-06:00

We are constantly exposed to a bewildering horde of artificial and natural poisons and toxins in our food and environment. The human body can properly handle small amounts of most natural poisons and toxins, but there are many new artificial chemicals for which the human body has not had time to evolve effective means of detoxification. All of these harmful chemicals can cause a wide variety of unpleasant symptoms and if exposure levels are high enough, serious complications like cancer or even death can result. The harm level of these chemicals can vary widely among individuals, influenced by health status, genes, and cumulative exposure effects. Most of these chemicals will cause serious harm in everyone at high enough concentrations. Some of these chemicals are actually nutrients that the body needs at low concentrations but become harmful if the intake is too high. The biggest problem, however, is the pervasiveness of these chemicals, such that individually they might not be a problem, but collectively, they can be overwhelming to our body.

So what can we do? It's nearly impossible to eliminate exposure to all potentially harmful chemicals. The best we can do is to learn where significant sources lie in our food and environment and try to avoid them. Also, if you can detect cause and effect relationships between symptoms and sources, you can avoid things that bother you.

There are a variety of actions you can take to lessen the toxic burden. Eat organic vegetables and fruits and fully pastured or wild animal foods for starters. Minimize sweets and foods high in omega-6 fats. Minimize highly processed commercial foods that are often full of artificial additives such as artificial preservatives, artificial colors, artificial flavors, artificial sweeteners, and artificial trans-fats. Don't eat spoiled food or any food that does not taste good. Minimize consumption of large fish, like albacore tuna or swordfish, which often have high levels of mercury. Avoid processed meats preserved with nitrites (including those with added "celery juice" that have hidden nitrites). If your water supply has added chlorine or fluoride, get water filters that remove these and other contaminants. Use only plastics with recycle numbers 2 HDPE, 4 LDPE, or 5 PP. Don't use teflon or aluminum cookware. Be very careful in choosing skin, hair, and mouth care products (EWG has excellent helpful information). Don't get "silver" amalgam dental fillings and properly remove any that you may already have. Avoid vaccines and long-term use of medications. Don't use commercial pesticides or herbicides.

For those of you who may do all these things and still have sensitivity issues, an elimination diet may be helpful for determining problematic foods. Some seemingly healthful foods can have salicylates, amines, or other natural food chemicals that cause unpleasant symptoms in sensitive individuals.

Below is a partial list of some of the more common poisons and toxins with links to more information.

Medicines
Antibiotics - a double edged sword
Pesticides - in produce
Herbicides

Food Additives
Artificial Colors
. annatto - yellow food color
Artificial flavors
. MSG (free glutamate) - flavor enhancer
. ribonucleotides - flavor enhancers
Artificial Trans-Fats
Dough Conditioners (mono and diglycerides)
High Omega-6 Vegetable Oils
Sugar-free sweeteners
. aspartame (nutrasweet)
. sucralose (splenda)
. saccharin
. cyclamate
Sugar alcohols
. mannitol
. sorbitol
Sugars - how sugars can ruin your health
. sucrose (table sugar)
. dextrose
. HFCS - health hazard
Preservatives
. BHA/BHT
. EDTA
. proprionates
. nitrites
. sulfites

Toxins
. botulinum
Mycotoxins
. aflatoxin
. alcohol

Natural Plant Chemicals
alkaloids
cyanides
flavonoids
goitrogens
lectins
polyphenols
phytoestrogens
salicylate

Biogenic Amines

Venoms

Metals
aluminum - vaccines, anti-clumping agents
arsenic - pesticides, antibiotics
copper - also a nutrient
lead - glazed pottery, old paint
mercury - hazards, dental fillings, vaccines, large fish
nickel - some stainless steel cookware
selenium - also a nutrient
zinc - also a nutrient

Halogens
bromine - flour, antacids
chlorine - water
fluorine - water, toothpaste, pesticides, tea
iodine - kelp, also a nutrient

Petrochemicals
benzene
butadiene
parabens
propylene glycol
toluene
Plastics
. bisphenol A (BPA)
. polycarbonate (#7 PC)
. polystyrene (#6 PS)
. polyvinyl chloride (#3 PVC)
. pthalates

Other Chemicals
acrylamide - baked and fried starchy/sugary foods
asbestos - insulation and flooring in some older homes
carageenan - thickening agent in foods and skin care products
dioxins - a case for vegetarianism?
formaldehyde - vaccines, plywood, carpets
perchlorates - rocket fuel, fireworks, chlorinated water
polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) - fire retardant
polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) - fire retardant
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) - combustion product
teflon - cookware

Comprehensive Harmful Chemical Listing from EWG

Enduring Health Wisdom from a Remarkable Dentist

2007-11-06T19:09:00.001-06:00

In the early 1900's this dentist noticed progressively worse dental problems in his patients over a couple of decades - not just dental caries, but also crowded teeth. He also noticed that these dental problems often mirrored the health of his patients. Poor dental health usually meant poor health in general. He theorized that the cause of this dental and health decline might be from the rapid dietary changes taking place at the time, as people began eating more and more of the "foods of commerce" - white flour, sugar, polished rice, and canned goods - and less of the whole foods that our ancestors ate.

In the 1920's he decided to risk life and limb to find and study remote peoples still eating their native diets to determine which foods provided the best dental and thus overall health. He made arduous trips to far reaching locations across the globe, including North and South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and Pacific Islands. He documented the dental health of thousands of people, including thousands of photographs.

He found many remote "primitive" groups eating their native diet who had little evidence of dental problems. He also found that when peoples of these same groups abandoned their native diets in favor of the modern foods of commerce they very quickly developed dental problems and these problems were worse in succeeding generations. He was unable to find any healthy native groups eating an exclusively vegetarian diet. The healthiest groups included animal seafoods or organ meats or dairy or a combination of these foods in their diets, along with a wide variety of plant foods. He brought food samples back to his laboratory for analyses and found that the foods eaten by the healthiest groups were much higher in many key nutrients than typical foods from the civilized world.

His friends encouraged him to write a book about his findings. The book was first published in 1939 and can be read online: "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration". The book is also available in hard copy from the Price-Pottenger Foundation. Oh ... and the dentist's name was Weston A. Price. He was a renowned dentist of his time, but unfortunately he has been largely forgotten.

Today, Price's "foods of commerce" have turned into modern foods of convenience - highly processed, chemical laced, nutrient poor fake foods that are cheap and fill the stomach but leave the body with insufficient nutrition and added toxic loads that lead to declining health over time. Add to this dubious vaccines, over-used antibiotics, and grossly over-rated medicines that all have serious side effects and you have a recipe for major health problems. We need to return to the traditional foods that nurtured our ancestors and kept them healthy.

Here is Price's recommendation for dental and overall health:
"A first requisite for the control of tooth decay is to have provided an adequate intake of the body-building and repairing factors by the time the hunger appeal for energy has been satisfied. A sufficient variety of foods must be used to supply the body's demand for those elements which it needs in large quantities, that is, calcium and phosphorus, and the other elements which it needs in smaller quantities, though just as imperatively. One of the serious human deficiencies is the inability to synthesize certain of the activators which include the known vitamins. This makes necessary the reinforcement of the nutrition with definite amounts of special foods to supply these organic catalysts, especially the fat-soluble activators, including the known vitamins, which are particularly difficult to provide in adequate quantities. I have shown that the primitive races studied were dependent upon one of three sources for some of these fat-soluble factors, namely, sea foods, organs of animals or dairy products. These are all of animal origin. I have indicated in Chapter 16 the nutritional programs that have proved in clinical testing adequate for providing the body with nutrition that will not only prevent tooth decay, but check it when it is active. The stress periods of life, namely, active growth in children and motherhood, do not constitute overloads among most of the primitive races because the factor of safety provided by them in the selection of foods is sufficiently high to protect them against all stresses. I have indicated the type of nutrition that is especially needed for these stress periods in our modern civilization. Also, that it is not necessary to adopt the foods of any particular racial stock, but only to make our nutrition adequate in all its nutritive factors to the primitive nutritions. Tooth decay is not only unnecessary, but an indication of our divergence from Nature's fundamental laws of life and health."

As a final footnote on the work of Weston Price, be sure to read Interpreting the Work of Weston Price which discusses his findings and what they mean for health.

Selecting Fats and Oils for Health

2007-10-20T19:33:00.004-05:00

One very important influence on our health is our choice of fats and oils in our diet. In general, we should look for oils and fat that are close to what is found in our bodies - mostly saturated and monounsaturated, with only a small amount of polyunsaturated fat. Below is a table showing the percentage of these types of fat in various fats and oils that we eat. The omega-6 and omega-3 fats are also included in the polyunsaturated total in this table. We need small amounts of omega-6 fat, but most people eating a Standard American Diet (SAD) get way too much of this type of fat and that depresses your immune system and increases your chances of getting cancer and heart disease. It's best to avoid fats/oils that have more than about 20 percent as omega-6 and use sparingly fats/oils that are more than about 10 percent omega-6. Oils high in omega-6 are commonly used in processed/packaged foods and in restaurants because they are inexpensive and because of misguided advice to avoid saturated fats. Because of the polyunsaturated bonds, the high omega-6 oils easily go rancid and are easily damaged in processing and cooking. Also be sure to read "Some Typical Questions and Misconceptions on Fats and Oils" by Mary Enig, PhD nutritionist and "The Great Con-ola".

Percentage of Classified Fats for Different Fats and Oils

Fat/oil	Omg-6	Omg-3	Poly	Mono	Sat
Cod liver oil	1.0	20.5	24.5	50.9	24.6
Palm kernel oil	1.7	0.0	1.7	12.1	86.2
Macadamia oil	1.8	0.3	2.1	81.5	16.4
Coconut oil	1.9	0.0	1.9	6.2	91.9
Butter oil (ghee)	2.4	1.5	3.9	30.5	65.6
Butter	2.9	0.4	4.0	27.9	68.1
Beef fat (tallow)	3.2	0.6	4.2	43.7	52.1
Sunflower high oleic oil	3.7	0.2	3.9	86.1	10.0
Mutton fat (tallow)	5.7	2.4	8.2	42.4	49.4
Palm oil	9.5	0.2	9.7	38.7	51.6
Olive oil	10.0	0.8	10.8	75.0	14.2
Goose fat	10.3	0.5	11.5	59.4	29.0
Pork fat (lard)	10.7	1.0	11.7	47.2	41.0
Duck fat	12.6	1.0	13.5	51.7	34.8
Avocado oil	13.1	1.0	14.1	73.8	12.1
Flax oil	13.3	55.8	69.0	21.1	9.8
Safflower high oleic oil	15.1	0.0	15.1	78.4	6.5
Almond oil	18.2	0.0	18.2	73.2	8.6
Canola (rape seed) oil	19.2	9.2	28.5	64.1	7.5
Chicken fat	20.4	1.0	21.9	46.9	31.2
Peanut oil	33.6	0.0	33.6	48.6	17.8
Rice bran oil	35.5	1.7	37.2	41.8	21.0
Sesame oil	43.2	0.3	43.6	41.5	14.9
Soybean oil	53.0	7.1	60.0	23.7	16.3
Cottonseed oil	53.9	0.2	54.3	18.6	27.1
Corn oil	56.2	1.2	57.4	29.0	13.6
Sunflower oil	68.8	0.0	68.8	20.4	10.8
Grapeseed oil	72.8	0.1	73.1	16.8	10.0
Safflower oil	78.4	0.0	78.4	15.1	6.5

Compiled from USDA Nutrient Database
Note: about 4 to 6 percent of total fats were unclassified

Table Abbreviations
Omg-6: Omega-6
Omg-3: Omega-3
Poly: Polyunsaturated (including both omega-6 and omega-3)
Mono: Monounsaturated
Sat: Saturated

Avoiding Heart Disease and Cancer

2007-10-15T20:42:00.001-05:00

Heart disease and cancer have become the top killers in the most affluent nations of this world. So, what can we do to avoid these killers? Following these simple dietary guidelines should greatly reduce your chances of facing these killers.

1) Minimize sugars and refined carbohydrates and maximize nutrition
2) Minimize omega-6 fats and eliminate artificial trans-fats
3) Get plenty of vitamin D from sunshine and/or diet

Minimize Sugars and Refined Carbohydrates
and Maximize Nutrition

Modern society is so addicted to sugars and refined carbohydrates that most people are in complete denial that these foods could be bad. This problem has only gotten worse because of the pervasive misguided advice to reduce fat and increase carbohydrates in the diet. Even if you want to quit, the addiction is so strong it is very difficult. However, once the addiction is broken, the cravings will end. Getting adequate amounts of good dietary fats and nutrients is the key to breaking sugar addiction. The good fats are mostly saturated and monounsaturated fat - just like the composition of our bodies. These fats help to promote satiation for a longer time and help to reduce the blood sugar spikes and resulting insulin spikes from carbohydrates in the diet. When insulin levels are raised too high too often, insulin resistance begins to develop and can lead to diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Be sure and read "Insulin and Its Metabolic Effects" by Dr Ron Rosedale MD for more details. Elevated blood sugar also suppresses the immune system and accelerates aging by increasing the glycation of important molecules. Our immune system is our front line against cancer as well as harmful microbes - so decreasing our immune function is definitely not a good thing! And here is what Dr Rosedale says about glycation:

"Remember, you are what you eat and you most certainly do not want your arteries to become sugarcoated. That is in fact what can happen. Glucose, as it turns out, is a very sticky molecule. It readily combines with many types of critical molecules in our body causing them damage and to malfunction. The process of glucose combining with other molecules is called "glycation" and glycation is now being recognized as one of the most important molecular causes of heart disease and contributing to most, if not all diseases of aging. In fact, when a molecule in your body combines with glucose and that now damaged molecule is not readily replaced by an undamaged molecule, it can turn into what are called advanced glycated end products with the acronym called purposefully and appropriately "AGE's", since they are now thought by scientists to contribute greatly to the damage that we know as "aging". Sugar is used by chefs to "caramelize" cream and other foods. That is, in fact, what happens to us as we age. Ultimately we turn rancid (oxidize) and caramelize (glycate). It is our goal to slow that down."

Eating a variety of nutrient-dense foods will also help to reduce sugar cravings. It may actually be nutrients that the body is craving. Most people don't get enough nutrients from their diet and taking supplements may not be a reliable way to get those nutrients. Foods full of sugar and refined carbohydrates generally have much lower nutrition. So it can be a vicious circle if not broken. Make your calories count!

So, where do you get good fats and good nutrition? The best sources are meat, organs, dairy, and eggs from pastured or wild animals, as well as organic vegetables and limited amounts of heritage whole grains, fruits, and nuts. These are the foods that our healthy ancestors ate. Pastured animal fats are mostly saturated and monounsaturated with only small amounts of polyunsaturated fat. Grain-fed animals have higher amounts of polyunsaturated fat, so it is best to find meat and dairy from pastured animals that eat little or no grain. Meat and dairy from grass-fed ruminants also have more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), the only good trans-fat, that helps to fight cancer and heart disease.

Minimize Omega-6 Fats (Linoleic Acid)
and Eliminate Artificial Trans-Fats

Our modern society has also been misled about which types of fat are best for our health. For about the last 30 years we have been told to avoid saturated fat and eat more polyunsaturated fat. Unfortunately this advice has made our health worse, not better. In fact, our healthy ancestors typically ate no more than about 4% to 10% of their calories from polyunsaturated fat and this is a good goal for us today. Saturated fats strengthen our immune system. We need small amounts of polyunsaturated omega-6 fat in our diet, but too much suppresses the immune system and promotes cancer and heart disease, as discussed in more detail by health researcher Barry Groves, PhD in this article: "Polyunsaturated oils increase cancer risk".

Artificial trans-fats are made from hydrogenating polyunsaturated fats. Now, even the "health authorities" agree that trans-fats are bad, even though not long ago they were promoting margarines laden with trans-fats. Even small amounts of artificial trans-fats can increase your chances for heart disease, so eliminating them from your diet is ideal. They are found in many packaged and processed foods and also in many fried foods and deserts at restaurants. Ideally, make your own food from fresh ingredients. However, if you do buy packaged or processed foods, reject any foods that have "hydrogenated" in the ingredients list. When you eat out, don't eat fried foods or most deserts. The deserts are high in sugar anyway :)

Get Plenty of Vitamin D from Sunshine and/or Diet

Most people are deficient in vitamin D, but adequate vitamin D is critical for our health. Recent research has shown that people with low levels of vitamin D are much more prone to cancer. Additional research also indicates that vitamin D deficiency is associated with greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Adequate Vitamins A, D, and K2 are also necessary for proper calcium metabolism, so that calcium goes to our bones and teeth and not in excess to our blood vessels and tissues. Together, vitamins A and D also help to strengthen our immune system.

Our bodies can produce vitamin D from cholesterol if we get enough sunshine. At higher latitudes, this may not be possible most of the year. The best dietary sources of vitamin D are animal fats from pastured or wild animals. One of the best sources is cod liver oil, which is also high in vitamin A and beneficial omega-3 fats. However, not all cod liver oils are created equal. Most have lost most of their natural vitamins in processing and have artificial vitamins added back. If you are interested in taking cod liver oil, be sure to read more about it here.

Shocking Dietary Advice?

2007-09-16T22:02:00.001-05:00

For those of you who think cholesterol and saturated fats are your enemy and a low-fat diet is your salvation: THINK AGAIN!

Modern "health authorities" are dishing out poor advice based on garbage "science" pushed by big business interests. Money talks and money is the root of all evil when it comes to these misguided conventional dietary recommendations.

The cholesterol theory of heart disease is based on shoddy "science" that has been promoted by big food companies and pushed by big pharmaceutical companies - the biggest drug pushers in the world! Anthony Colpo's excellent book, "The Great Cholesterol Con" exposes this flawed "science" as a sham. The first major proponent of the cholesterol theory, Ancel Keys, selectively chose six countries that fit his theory to show a correlation between cholesterol and heart disease. However, he conveniently ignored data from eight other countries that did not support his theory. And this is just the beginning tip of the iceberg. Read Anthony Colpo's book for more details on how this unfortunate myth was perpetuated.

Cholesterol is vitally important to our health. It is involved in the body's immune and repair processes and is the precursor to many important hormones as well as vitamin D via sunshine. Elderly people with higher cholesterol levels live longer than those with lower cholesterol levels! There is no real evidence that cholesterol and saturated fat "clog" our arteries to cause heart disease. Evidence more strongly points to oxidation of unsaturated fats and glycation of associated lipoproteins as important factors in heart disease. These lipoproteins also contain cholesterol, but there is no evidence that the cholesterol itself causes any harm. Glycation is aggravated by excess blood sugar that can result from diets high in sugar and refined carbohydrates.

Saturated fats have been falsely accused of causing problems that are more correctly blamed on artificial trans-fats, another recently-invented processed-damaged food. Can you say "hydrogenated"? If you see that word on a label, that food has artificial trans-fats in it. Now even the "health authorities" have finally recognized that artificial trans-fats are bad. Just a few years ago, they were touting margarines loaded with trans-fat as "healthy".

The real culprits in heart disease and even cancer and diabetes appear to be huge increases in sugars and often rancid refined vegetable oils in the modern diet. Our ancestors did not eat these foods. One hundred years ago, heart attacks, cancer, and diabetes were rare - even in the elderly. Lots of sugars and vegetable oils are packaged with modern foods of convenience and heavily advertised, often as "healthy" foods. Low-fat diets for many people contribute to cravings for sweets and ironically, excess sugar is converted into saturated fat by our bodies, leading to obesity. Our healthy ancestors ate good quality animal and dairy fats, with mainly fruits for sweets. Now people are addicted to processed convenient foods laden with sugar and high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners as well as "healthy" vegetable oils (not to mention all the other artificial junk in them). Too much sugar and refined carbohydrates raise insulin levels. Too much insulin causes accelerated aging. Elevated blood sugar and too much polyunsaturated fats from vegetable oils also suppress the immune system and are major factors leading to diabetes and autoimmune diseases. No wonder obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease are running rampant!

So, avoid processed fake foods like the plague! Choose foods that have nurtured our ancestors for thousands of years. The most nutritious foods are meats, organs, and raw dairy from fully pastured or wild animals along with organic vegetables, heritage whole grains, nuts, and fruits. This is what our healthy ancestors ate!

Oh .... please, don't take my word for it. Go to the "Health Links" on the right side bar and read the abundant and compelling information they provide. For some healthy recipe ideas, see the "Healthy Cooking Ideas" links. And if you like to discuss health with like minded people, join us in the "Health Discussion Groups".

Let food be your medicine. Say NO to drugs :)

Food Nutrient Information

2007-09-09T22:46:00.001-05:00

Here are some resources for information about nutrients in food.

Search the USDA National Nutrient Database
The USDA has nutrient data for a large number of foods. You can even download their entire data base if you want. They also have convenient Nutrient Lists sorted alphabetically or by nutrient content.

Danish National Food Institute
A much smaller but complimentary nutrient data base with measurements for European foods.

Linus Pauling Institute
Excellent detailed information about nutrients.

Worlds Healthiest Foods
More good information about nutrients in food and a few anti-nutrients. Just ignore their fat phobia and love of soy :)

NutritionData
They offer nutrient data from the USDA data base in a convenient form. Be sure to ignore their misguided conventional dietary advice. They require registration to get full access to their most useful features, but it's free and so far I have not had any spam from giving them my e-mail address. To get summaries of the nutrients in the food you eat, first search for each food item and add it to your "Pantry" by clicking on the "Add to Pantry" button at the top of the food nutrient information. Then go to the "Pantry" (menu selection) and enter the food amounts for a meal or a day's worth of food and click on the "Total +" button at the bottom. All the nutrients are quickly tallied for the foods and amounts you have selected. If you enter or change amounts, it keeps accumulating the results until you click the "Total 0" button at the bottom of the "Pantry" to reset to zero. You can also save "Recipes" for foods or meals you make with multiple items. Overall it's a very powerful, fast, and relatively easy to use system. Too bad they don't have better dietary advice.

FitDay
Offers free online tools to help you monitor your daily nutrition and exercise to meet health goals. I haven't tried it yet but it looks useful. I did look at the tutorial and it looks like FitDay is geared towards weight loss.

Dietary Nutrition Calculator
This is my Excel workbook that allows you to estimate your daily intake of nutrients from the foods you eat. Click the link above for more information.

Dietary Nutrition Calculator

2007-08-13T16:00:00.006-05:00

In the quest for good health, getting a nutritious diet is the best foundation. To that end, I have developed an Excel workbook that calculates the approximate amount of nutrients in the food that you choose to eat and compares it to estimated dietary intake references. The nutrient data is primarily from the USDA food nutrient data base, supplemented with some additional data from other sources that are noted. The food nutrient data are very approximate, so this only provides a rough estimate of what is in the food that you eat. Also, nutrient absorption and utilization by the body will vary, depending on the food, combination of foods eaten, and your digestive health status. So, even though the nutrients are in the food, that doesn't necessarily mean that your body will be able to fully utilize them. But at least you have given it the opportunity :)

The Excel workbook has nine worksheets. It opens with the Result sheet, showing the results for a sample day of food. The Detail sheet shows even more detail, including individual fatty acids and amino acids. The Input sheet allows you to input the amounts of food that you have eaten or plan to eat. Be sure to delete all the sample entries before adding your own entries. You can use formulas to prorate amounts over a longer time period to a daily basis for comparison to the dietary references. The Calc sheet performs the calculations using the input amounts and the nutrient data in the Data sheet. The Calc sheet can be reviewed to see which foods are contributing what portion of the nutrients in the foods you are eating. The Data sheet has nutrient data per 100 grams of each food. It can be used to compare the nutrient density on a per weight basis between different foods. The Data by Calories sheet has nutrient data per 100 calories of food and can be used to compare nutrients for different foods on a calorie basis. The Load sheet provides assistance for adding additional nutrient data obtained from the USDA food nutrient data base. Follow the instructions on the sheet to load new data. More data loading tips and information are in the Notes sheet. And finally, the BMR sheet will calculate the target number of calories for your ideal weight, based on your height, age, and activity levels. It uses the Harris Benedict Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR) formulas.

Download the Dietary Nutrition Calculator
Click on the link above to download the latest version of the Excel workbook. This link will take you to the MediaFire file hosting site where you can download the Excel file free. Wait for the "Click here to download.." box to appear and then click on that link to download the file to your computer. To return here, use the "back" button on your browser.

Update 2008-12-03: The number of food listings has been expanded to 289 and calculations have been added for percent of calories as PUFA in the Data sheet and calories from PUFA and from total fat in the Data by Calories sheet. Also, the Metabolic Rate sheet terminology was corrected.

Update 2009-09-21: Found a bug in the data input sheet. It was missing peppermint and listings below were not being mapped properly. Fixed this bug and added hazelnuts.

Update 2011-01-23: The number of food listings has been expanded to 317 and corrections were made on a few inconsistencies between input units and calculated units.

Good luck in your quest for health!

Principles for good health

2007-08-04T21:37:00.000-05:00

Some basic guidelines for health and happiness

Diet
Get good nutrition by eating healthy foods
Choose a variety of traditional nutrient-dense foods
Preferably organic, fully pastured, and wild foods
Boost immune system and digestive function with probiotic foods
Avoid sweets, refined carbs, vegetable oils, margarine, trans-fats
Avoid highly processed foods, artificial food additives
Listen to your body

Mind
Nurture a positive attitude
Focus on the good things
Relax and enjoy life
No worries mate :)

Exercise
Get at least 30 minutes of vigorous exercise on most days
Include 10 to 15 minutes of intense exercise several days per week
Interval exercise is best

Environment
Avoid exposure to toxins and anti-nutrients
(in food, water, air, and skin contact)
Drive carefully!

Natural food-based supplements
Use to boost nutrition if diet is inadequate
May be less effective than a good diet

Herbal remedies
Use to treat causes more than symptoms
Reserve for acute illness

Refined supplements
Use to boost nutrition if diet is inadequate
Can be a doubled edged sword if not carefully used
May be less effective than food-based supplements

Refined medicinal remedies
A last resort for acute health problems if all else fails
Will likely have adverse side-effects over time

Count your blessings
Good health is not something to take for granted