Archive for January, 2010

The L.E.A.N start program is essential to both yourself and your children. What has happened to our food supply is a crime against mankind. I really do not consider this an overstatement.

Guide

This is taken from the introduction to an Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan. By the way this is probably the best book on the topic of what to eat.

This is a quote from the introduction; “To guide us we had instead, Culture, which, at least when it comes to food, is really just a fancy word for your mother. What to eat, what order in which to eat it, with what and when and with whom have for the most part of human history been a set of questions long settled and passed down from parents to children with out a lot of controversy or fuss.”

“But over the last several decades, mom lost much of her authority over the dinner menu, ceding it to scientists and food marketers (often an unhealthy alliance of the two) and, to a lesser extent, to the government with its ever-shifting dietary guidelines, food-labeling rules, and perplexing pyramids.”

Personal

The problem is personal, not something in the third person. Another quote from Michael Pollan’s book sums up the changes and damage incurred by the American food supply.

“What is driving such relentless change in the American Diet? One force is a thirty-two-billion-dollar food-marketing machine that thrives on change for its own sake. Another is the constantly shifting ground of nutrition science that, depending on your point of view, is steadily advancing the frontiers of our knowledge about diet, and health or is just changing its mind a lot because it is a flawed science that knows much less than it cares to admit.”

This is personal to the public that switched to margarine from butter. Then learned  that saturated fat was harmful and switched to poor quality vegetable oils. From a diet of real food we are told that fortified junk food is just as good.

It is personal because our own healthcare is now in doctors hands. We have lost control of our health by listing to the marketplace. This becomes even more personal when it affects our children’s lives.

Unintentional

Our children are the unintentional victims of our lifestyle. A child’s health begins in utero and progresses to the habits that they acquire in childhood. This is the time parents have the most influence and can form the foundation for their child’s health.

L.E.A.N Start

Dr. William Sears a foremost authority on children’s health has founded a program that addresses the concerns of today’s parents. He knows “A Child’s Health Begins with the Parent.”   

This is a course for the parents that pay dividends to their children.

We live in a genetic modified world. The majority of processed foods contain derivatives from genetically modified crops.

If you weren’t afraid of the dark, you will be. The world community is in the dark about long term consequences of genetically engineered plants.

Fear Factor 

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) is an artificially inserted foreign “gene” that was developed in the laboratory and then injected into the DNA of a plant. The reason is to make them tolerant to their brand of herbicide. Now the plants can survive a deadly dose of pesticides. The question is can you also survive. These plants now have a much higher residue of toxic herbicides.

The vast majority of processed foods contain derivatives from the four major GM crops: soy, corn, cottonseed and canola. Currently Commercialized GM Crops grown in the U.S. are Soy, Cotton, Canola, Corn, and papaya.

This is the food that is being fed to the livestock, and it is almost all packaged food. Another feature of GMO’s is that a gene from the soil bacterium is inserted into corn and cotton’s DNA. There it secretes the insect pesticide Bt-toxin in every cell. About 19% and counting Genetically Modified crops produce their own pesticide. I am thinking toxic overload.

According to Responsible Technology, Animals fed on GMO in labs and farms around the world, have exhibited symptoms related to the growing list of diseases in the U.S. population. Various feeding studies in animals have resulted in potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, damaged immune systems, smaller brains, livers and testicles, partial atrophy, odd shaped cell nuclei and other unexplained anomalies besides false pregnancies and higher death rates.

EU Parliament wants labeling of meats raised on GM Feed March 29, 2009 – In the session of the European Parliament, MEP voted on the report by Euro-MP Kartika Liotard on Novel Foods. And for the first time the parliament supported a call for the labeling of products from animals fed with GMO. The biotech industry knows that consumers will not buy products labeled as derived from GM animal feed. And GM animal feed is the biotech industry’s lifeline. Stop GM animal feed and we stop the GM industry in its tracks.                                          

Reassuring

At this time, the FDA does not regulate or test GMO products and there’s NO labeling to tell U.S. consumers that they’re eating GM foods.

These GMO seeds have patents because of the product being thought of as unique. These same companies or company that applied for patents have stated that there is no reason to test the products. They claim the genetically modified plant is substantially equivalent to the natural one.

That is like having your cake and eating it. It will eventually dawn on everyone that this is a battle for the Earth’s resources. This is a power grab redefined, the conquering and taking siege of the land. History is not a mystery there are the conquerors and the conquered.

Anyone wanting to research the effects of GMO and these crops has to license the rights from the company that’s holding the patent on the seeds. With the blow of the wind, cross-pollination of GMO crops from neighboring acres can insert itself into a natural crop. The farmer on that land can be sued for having a GM crop that’s not licensed. The farmer now has contaminated natural crops and has no recourse. These companies can sue him for not paying for the seeds. There are cases going on that have these companies looking for compensation from land owners who have had this happen.

Ka-Ching

I would think we are dealing with grand theft. Genetically engineered foods have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves over the past decade with corn and canola in an estimated 60 percent of all processed foods.

This is twisted logic that is producing tomorrow’s world. These companies are not just breaking the rules, they are making the rules.

These aren’t alien forces that are claiming the Earth’s natural resources. There may be no going back as these seeds pollinate the land and bankroll an industry.

Weight loss in a pill sounds strange. It says you can fit everything you need to be slim in a capsule an inch by a half inch. This makes it sound as if the path to weight loss is a pill away.

Get Real

There was a study called the Scout trial which is important for the field of obesity. It seems that this study contradicts what has been a long-held presumption, which is weight-loss drugs are more than just cosmetic. These geniuses assumed that a little pill will actually reduce serious health problems in the obese.

The Scout study was the first to test this presumption, to see if a diet drug could reduce the risk of a heart attack. The finding was that sibutramine actually increased cardiovascular risks in some patients. Now they think this could raise questions about the safety of other diet drugs. I guess Pfen-fen didn’t do it for them.

Why would anyone medicate people on a presumption? Allopathic medicine has taught the public to fear sunlight, while promoting untested drugs.

Surprise

The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has recommended that the appetite suppressant sibutramine should no longer be prescribed by doctors and that pharmacists should no longer dispense the drug.

The European reaction to the dangers of the drug Merida, which contains the ingrediant Sibutramine was to pull it from the market. Since the studies indicate that people with specific health problems had more heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events that people taking a placebo.

The F.D.A. suggested a stronger warning label on the diet drug Merdia after a study showed the risks. This should not be surprising, since sibutramine seemed to significantly increased blood pressure and heart rate in numerous people. It seems no one keeled over on the spot, so why not let the drug pushers profit.

The F.D.A. recommended people on sibutramine should see their doctor to discuss an alternative, the same doctor that already prescribed this looser of a pill. In the mean time they can safely discontinue its use.

Obstacles

The real obstacle is sibutramine promotes weight loss with meager results, and no proven safety record. By having people think weight loss is one pill away, we are sticking to a failed method. Currently pills have no place in the management of obesity.

They help fuel a pill mentality and earn drug companies ill begotten fortunes. The diet pill industry should be falling to pieces. However, the trend is still the same supplying the public with a  magic bullet. While the drug companies should be shaking in their booties, they are reeling in a fortune. The only thing the magic bullet will do is shoot us in the heart.

The race is on to find the weight loss solution in a pill. A glimpse into the future will show, the lure for a pill to control weight will be a quest for the holy grail. The arsenal of weight loss medication will not change in the foreseeable future. One lawsuit after another has not brought change.