Women's Multivitamin Study Seriously Flawed

Breaking Story by Mike Adams ;
(NaturalNews) A new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine claims that multivitamins are useless at preventing cancer and cardiovascular disease in women. The mainstream media has predictably picked up on this story, gleefully running it as "proof" that nutrition is worthless and only pharmaceuticals can enhance your health.

What they're not telling you, though, might shock you. Here's the truth about this so-called "scientific" study on multivitamins:
• No multivitamins were even used in the study! The women followed in this study weren't actually given any multivitamins at all. They were simply asked if they take multivitamins!

• There was no quality control in the study. Since no multivitamins were given to women, there was no quality control at all. Did these women take cheap, synthetic vitamins bought at Costco? Or did they take quality supplements from better sources? Nobody knows because it wasn't tracked!

• Most people SAY they take multivitamins, but don't. If you ask most people, they will TELL you they eat healthy, and that they take multivitamins. But in reality they don't. Most people greatly exaggerate the description of their own health habits.

• Multivitamin consumption FREQUENCY was not accurately measured. There was no ability of this study to reliably measure how often consumers actually took their multivitamins. Did they take them once a week? Once a month? Once a year? Even taking them once a year would have counted in this study as "taking multivitamins." Gee, no wonder the results showed no improvement...

In effect, this study did not measure the effects of multivitamins on cancer and heart disease. What it really measured was the degree to which people exaggerate their own claims of health habits, and the degree to which the mainstream media so easily falls for junk science.

The MSM remains utterly clueless about nutrition, and it simply reprints practically any study published in a medical journal, even when that study is obviously based on deceptive science and a pro-Pharma agenda.All these attacks on vitamin C, vitamin E, antioxidants and multivitamins have the same source: The Big Pharma-funded mainstream media and its effort to try to discredit nutritional supplements in order to please advertisers.

The very idea that nutrition is bad for you but Big Pharma's chemicals are good for you is insane to begin with. But that's what they want you to believe: Nutrition isn't required in the human body, they claim. But pharmaceutical chemicals are essential!

What they want you to do is shut up, eat your (processed) food, take your (chemical) medications, get your (fraudulent) disease screening, pay your taxes, watch television ads, make more (sheeple) babies and stop questioning the status quo. And multivitamins? Stop wasting your money on them. You'll need that money to buy more monopoly-priced pharmaceuticals, after all.

Antioxidants can slow loss of sight in old age, scientists find

Sarah Boseley, health editor
The Guardian, Friday 19 June 2009
Article history
People at risk of going blind in old age may be able to keep their sight for longer by taking antioxidant supplements, scientists have found.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly. It affects the macula, the central part of the eye, resulting in increasingly blurred vision. Because the macula is very rich in antioxidants, scientists hypothesised that giving the right nutritional supplements to people at risk might help slow the process.

Usha Chakravarthy, professor of ophthalmology at Queen's University Belfast, gave a supplement containing vitamins C and E, zinc and the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin, which are found in leafy vegetables such as spinach, to volunteers. In the trial, which involved 400 people who had AMD in one eye and were at risk of losing their sight in the other, they found the supplement slowed the degeneration and sharpened vision.

"Late AMD causes severe sight loss and has a huge economic impact both in terms of the effects of sight loss itself and in terms of the expensive treatments that are needed to deal with the condition," said Chakravarthy, who is also a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at the Royal hospital in Belfast.
"We wanted to carry out the study as prevention of progression to late AMD can result in a reduced financial and societal burden."

The trial was designed after evidence from the US that supplements could help in AMD. A study in 2000 funded by the National Eye Institute in Bethesda found that people at risk of AMD who took nutritional supplements were less likely to lose their sight. The outcome came as a surprise, because vitamins and mineral supplements have been tried in a number of diseases with little success.
The US study got good results after five years. Chakravarthy's trial, at two sites in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, was meant to last for three years but ran out of funds. "We had to stop the study and analyse the findings," she said. "At the end of one year, there was no difference between the groups, but in those who had been in the study longer, we found there was a benefit in function."

Taking the totality of the evidence from her study and the American work, she believes antioxidants – either in supplements or through a diet rich in fresh fruit and leafy vegetables – can delay sight loss in people at risk from AMD.
A combination of exposure to sunlight, genetics and antioxidant levels in blood all have an effect on likelihood of the disease. "If your serum levels are high and your genetics are right and your exposure to sunlight is low, you are protected," she said.

She plans to explore the degree of protection further in the trial cohort.
Her advice to those at risk is to "stop smoking right away, go for a healthy diet and keep your cardiovascular system healthy, because they all contribute".

Foods That will Suppress Your Appetite Naturally

These food are safe readily available in the food group that should be part of your healthy diet.

Water is the best appetite suppressant. Drinking water can immediately fill the stomach and you will no longer feel hungry. So whenever you feel hungry, have a glass of water. Also, having water before meals will reduce your appetite to a great extent.

Green Tea: Green tea stimulates the release of certain hormones that control food cravings. It also helps to burn fat. Green tea is the most common ingredient in appetite suppressants that are prepared using a combination of natural substances.

Vegetables: Choose vegetables with high fiber content such as; carrots, cabbage, spinach broccoli, green peas have a low calorie-content and a high amount of fiber.

Fruits: Apples, Strawberries, Boysenberries, AvocadoBananas, Blueberries, Blackberries, Raspberries. These fruits work on signaling the satiety portion of brain sending the signal of fullness. Apple cider vinegar is also recommended natural suppressants that can help you deal with hunger pangs.

Chocolate: Dark chocolates can suppress your appetite. However not all chocolate on the market is the same, or good for your health. Only dark, Belgian chocolate with over 70% unprocessed cocoa holds true nutritional health benefits.

Proteins: Proteins are essential in building muscles. Growth of muscles result in the burning of fats. Whey protein powder (high-quality protein powder made from cow's milk) has been used as an appetite suppressant since a long time.

Oatmeal and flax seeds: Oatmeal is rich in fiber and carbohydrate. Raw flax seeds act as appetite suppressants. A breakfast consisting of oatmeal and flax seeds suppresses appetite.
Glass of cranberry juice with tablespoon of flaxseeds is an excellent way to stop your food craving almost instantly. Suggestion; best to use drinking straw for this concussion.

TEN WEIGHT MANAGEMENT TIPS

Eat your fruits and vegetables.
Exercise every day.
Eat fat free foods in moderation.
Eat your food slow.
Snack from a plate, not a package.
Ask yourself if you are hungry.
Address your emotions.
Watch leaving a clean plate at mealtimes.
Avoid the “Now I’ve blown it” thinking.
Practice one step at a time. Aim for a slow weight loss.
Keep In Mind Maintaining A Healthy Lifestyle.
Source: American Institute for Cancer Research

What are Probiotics?

Probiotics are friendly bacteria that help maintain a healthy gastrointestinal tract. Probiotics promote good digestion, optimal nutrient absorbance from food and healthy immune function.
Why Are Probiotics Important?
There are numerous nutritional and therapeutic uses of probiotics. We need beneficial bacteria doing their job in our gut to be healthy. A disruption in the micro flora of the digestive tracts can contribute to in many ways to poor health. The studies of probiotics for digestive health have revealed a wide range of benefits:
Aid digestion
Prevent and help diarrhea
Produce B Vitamins
Enhance calcium absorption
Produce natural selective anti-biotic like substances
Inhibit food pathogens, yeast and fungus
These are just a few of the many benefits of probiotics.
Things that can destroy good bacteria:
(a) antibiotic use
(b) too much alcohol
(c) eating foods impregnated with pesticides, herbicides, antibiotic residues, and hormonal pollutants
(d) Over consumption of sugars and other refined carbohydrates
(e) Too much stress
(f) Lack of nutrition from living fresh foods grown in nutrient-rich soil
(g) Chlorinated water
Natural Sources of Probiotics:
Yogurt and Kefir
Cheese
Acidophilus milk
Sauerkraut
Tempeh
Dark Chocolate

Is Chocolate Good For Your Health?

By Dan Fields: 10 Hidden Health Secrets of Chocolate
A 2007 study from Germany showed that eating just one-quarter ounce of dark chocolate a day for 18 weeks lowered both systolic and diastolic blood pressure without increasing weight.

More recently, scientists at Yale University reported that consuming a single bar of dark chocolate or two cups of natural cocoa reduced blood pressure and improved blood-vessel function in overweight adults.

A pair of 2008 studies found that eating dark chocolate reduces blood levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker for chronic inflammation that indicates an increased risk of heart disease.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University reported that volunteers who consumed 3.5 ounces of dark chocolate a day for one week lowered their CRP levels by 23 percent. And Italian researchers discovered that just two-thirds of an ounce of dark chocolate every three days reduced CRP.

Dan Fields is a freelance writer and editor in Framingham, Massachusetts. He is the former editor of Dr. Andrew Weil's Self Healing newsletter

Dr. Oz answers: what's the difference between pant size and waist size?

Another day, another video Q+A. Today I answer Maureen Hinds from Facebook, who asked about the difference between waist size and pant size, and how to know if you're in a healthy range.

Amazing Berry That Changes Your Taste Buds

The Miracle Berry BBC News
By Adam Fowler
Imagine an extract from a berry that would make sour things taste sweet and help you lose weight. Then imagine not being allowed to take it.

The world is getting fatter. One billion people are overweight, and 300 million of those are clinically obese.
The search is always on for replacements for those things that, eaten in excess, make us obese - fatty and sugary foods. There is no miracle pill that can replace either. Nearly four decades ago one man came close to providing a tablet that could reduce our love of sugar. In the 1960s, Robert Harvey, a biomedical postgraduate student, encountered the miracle berry, a fruit from west Africa which turns sour tastes to sweet.

FIND OUT MORE...
The Miracle Berry, presented by Tom Mangold, is on Radio 4 at 2100 BST on 28 April
Or listen again on the BBC iPlayer
"You can eat a berry and then bite into a lemon," says Harvey. "It becomes not only sweeter, but it will be the best lemon you've tasted in your life."

More importantly, this "miracle" can be used to manufacture sweet tasting foods without sugar or sweeteners, which have always been plagued by an after-taste.
Spotting the potential health benefits, and the healthy profits, that the miracle berry promised, Harvey founded the Miralin Company to grow the berry in Jamaica and Puerto Rico, extract its active ingredient in laboratories in Hudson, Massachusetts, and market it across the United States. At first, Harvey aimed his products at diabetics.

"In market testing, diabetics thought our product, as the name implies, was a miracle."
But Harvey's sweet dream of making the world healthier came to an abrupt end. On the eve of the launch in 1974, the US Food and Drugs Administration unexpectedly turned against the product.

MIRACLE BERRY
Also known as "miracle fruit" or Synsepalum dulcificum
Grown in Africa, first documented in 18th Century
Acts on the sour receptors of the tongue, turning sour tastes sweet
Effect lasts 30 mins - two hours
Effect is destroyed in hot foods - eg coffee and baked foods
Renders an accompanying dry white wine sickly sweet
Legal advice and contact with the FDA had led Harvey to believe that the extract from the berry would be allowed under the classification "generally recognised as safe". Having been eaten before meals for centuries in west Africa, without anecdotal reports of problems, it could be assumed not to be harmful.

But the FDA decided it would be considered as an additive which required several years more testing. In the poor economic climate of 1974, this could not be funded and the company folded.
"I was in shock," says Harvey. "We were on very good terms with the FDA and enjoyed their full support. There was no sign of any problem. Without any opportunity to know what the concern was and who raised it, and to respond to it - they just banned the product."

He remembers a number of strange events leading up to the FDA's decision, beginning immediately after one particular market research test.
His investors, including Reynolds Metals, Barclays and Prudential, had put up big money. They were looking for big returns.

"From the beginning my interest was in the diabetic market but my backers wanted to put double zeros after the numbers we were projecting."

Miralin promotional literature

So, in the summer of 1974, miracle berry ice lollies, in four different flavours, were compared to similar, sugar-sweetened versions by schoolchildren in Boston. The berry won every time.
Don Emery, then vice president of the Miralin company, recalls the excitement.
"If we had got beyond the diabetic market we could have been a multi-billion dollar company. We'd have displaced maybe millions of tons of sugar and lots of artificial sweeteners as well."
A few weeks later, things turned sour. A car was spotted driving back and forwards past Miralin's offices, slowing down as someone took photographs of the building. Then, late one night, Harvey was followed as he drove home.

"I sped up, then he sped up. I pulled into this dirt access road and turned off my lights and the other car went past the end of the road at a very high speed. Clearly I was being monitored."

Sugar denial
Finally, at the end of that summer, Harvey and Emery arrived back at the office after dinner to find they were being burgled. The burglars escaped and were never found, but the main FDA file was left lying open on the floor.

A few weeks later the FDA, which had previously been very supportive, wrote to Miralin, effectively banning its product. No co-incidence, according to Don Emery.

Obesity is a massive problem in the West
"I honestly believe that we were done in by some industrial interest that did not want to see us survive because we were a threat. Somebody influenced somebody in the FDA to cause the regulatory action that was taken against us."

The Sugar Association, the trade body representing "Big Sugar" in the US, declined to be interviewed on the subject but flatly denied that the industry had exerted any influence over the FDA.

The Calorie Control Council, which represents artificial sweetener manufacturers in the US, has failed to respond to questions on the issue.

The Food and Drugs Administration also refused to be interviewed and has indicated that a Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation request to look at the relevant FDA files will not be considered for a year. Robert Harvey had requested the same files over 30 years ago.
"We got back the most redacted information I've ever seen from FOI. Everything was blacked out. There would have been material in the file that would have embarrassed the FDA, I believe."

Faced with this silence, it's virtually impossible to assess what actually happened to prevent the miracle berry's progress to a sugar-free market.

This would be the best lemon you ever tasted
But one thing is certain, it never got the chance to prove whether it really would have provided a miracle in our ever fattening world. And for Robert Harvey, that's the biggest shame of all.
"It was a big loss not only for my employees and shareholders but, even more importantly, for diabetics and other people with special dietary needs. It was tragic."
But all hope is not lost for the berry's champions.

Today a firm called BioResources International is trying to produce freeze-dried miracle berry at a plant in New Jersey. Dieters will watch the outcome closely.
Below is a selection of your comments.

Are we to assume that the non-US market simply wasn't big enough? The FDA, for all their power, have no jurisdiction in, say Canada, Mexico or France. Make it there, sell it for seven years as proof of safety and then ship it back to the States.Mark Bell, Guildford, England
What a surprise. How many foods now have sugar added, that never had sugar before? Things like tinned soups and most heat-and-serve savoury convenience foods have sugar in, and make the food unhealthy. Nobody needs sugar in mince or in any meat foods. Sometimes we need a quick ready meal, and the convenience foods play a role. Are people so used to sugar nothing tastes right without it? We need a Claire Rayner type of person to start a campaign. Fingers crossed for BiResources - this berry could well save lives. The sugar industry has a lot to answer for. Marian, Hull

"Faced with this silence, it's virtually impossible to assess what actually happened to prevent the miracle berry's progress to a sugar-free market." It's easy to assess what might have happened. The sugar companies happened. Far too big an industry to be brought down by a berry. The same would happen with oil companies too, if "they" ever come up with a viable alternative...Hazel Love, Brighton, UK I remember, years ago, talk of a water injection system for petrol engines to reduce fuel consumption. The inventor claimed he was sabotaged by the big oil companies. So, budding Woodward & Bernsteins, do these big-business conspiracy theories stack up?Stan Thomas, Wrexham, UK

I am a little surprised that the big backers were unable to get to the bottom of it but "Big Sugar" is a massively powerful lobby, with the same approach to health as the cigarette companies.Dr AGP Laxton, Carmarthen

Try putting salt on a grapefruit and you get the same effect. I believe it also sweetens lemons.Peter Leach, Epping

Perhaps he should be invited and welcomed with open arms by the UK govt. to set up business here ? It's an obvious long-term health benefit in the western world, and a potentially valuable cash crop for the developing world.Peter Jones, Lancaster, England

I am diabetic 2,and need to control my diabetes by tablets and watching my diet/food intake. This sounds like someone did not want this to come to market, where it could possibly be of great help to people like me.Mr John Bryan Jackson, Euxton, Lancs

I fail to understand authorities who simply ban such a product, with the potential to perhaps save lives of people who through no fault of their own have a "sweet tooth" and therefore put on weight which simply destroys their quality of life. This "miracle berry" seems to me to reduce the chemicals used to produce sugar substitutes. Margaret Moore, Portavogie, Co Down, N Ireland

Fruit Viagra

Berry good for you?
By Claire Heald
BBC News Magazine
Slender celebrities have been singing the praises of goji berries and now Tesco is stocking them. Does this "miracle" Himalayan fruit match up to the marketing hype?

The goji berry is the latest so-called super-food name to trip off the tongue and into the mouths of health-food evangelists. Small, red, dried, and a bit like a savoury cranberry, the nutritionally-rich fruit is making the leap from specialist store to supermarket.

Already popular in the US, celebrities like Madonna, Liz Hurley and Mischa Barton are said to munch them for their rich properties.

"Fruit Viagra"
Pronounced "go-gee", they're supposed to contain, weight for weight, more:
• vitamin C than oranges• beta-carotene than carrots• iron than steak
But there's no messy peel, and the berries are so light that a "daily serving" is just 10-30 grams.
The hype machine calls them "fruit Viagra", "cellulite-busting" and claims one pack will have you "jumping for joy".

A more sober scientific explanation says the beta-carotene in the fruit is thought to help fight heart disease, defend against cancer and protect skin from sun-damage. The berries are a good source of B vitamins and anti-oxidants - which may help protect against the fallout from chemical reactions in the body.

A lot of people believe that they give a huge boost to your libido
Jonathan Foreman

"It sounds like quite an amazing berry," says dietician Jacqui Lowdon, of University Hospital, Cardiff. "But a lot of things like that are a novelty."

"A serving of one berry is not going to turn your life around. That requires a combination of things: overall weight, attention to fat intake and types of fats, fibre intake, vitamins and hydration. It's an overall package."

But as one of your five portions of fruit and veg a day, Ms Lowden gives gogis the thumbs up, saying a "novel alternative is great".

Health trend
But will the average shopper be cast under the goji spell? Organic grocery shop Fresh & Wild, in London's Notting Hill, is hardly a reliable barometer of public opinion, but if a health trend is awakening, this is where the pulse can be felt.

"Where are the goji berries?" is the most-heard phrase from customers as they come in to stock up on healthy goods.

GOJI BERRY BOOST
Contain beta-carotene, thought to help prevent heart disease
Highly-concentrated in vit C
Polysaccharides to help immune system
18 kinds of amino acids
Slightly chewy, taste like a savoury cranberry
From £1.99 for a 60g bag of the shrivelled fruit, to £14.99 for the maxi size, goji berries are not cheap, compared with a home-grown apple or an orange. But the packets, berry bars and muesli have been selling by the trolley-load in recent weeks.

"They've been flying off the shelves," says manager Alan Green, who likes them mixed with nuts and seeds as a snack.

At the shelf stacked with goji produce, Jonathan Foreman, 40, from London, is picking up a couple of packets.

"They're nice with cereal, crunchy, not that sweet and a little bit like a cross between a raisin and a dried strawberry or raspberry," he says.

He likes the taste and nutritional value, but adds: "A lot of people believe that they give a huge boost to your libido, but I certainly haven't experienced that."

Food mile impact
Gojis, or wolfberries, are grown on vines in China, Mongolia and Tibet, where they are also drunk in juice form.

But isn't their feel-good factor somewhat compromised by the fact they have to be carried thousands of miles to reach their Western market? After all, aren't "food miles" every bit as worrying these days as poor diet? Stockists are armed with a response to this accusation - saying the dried fruit is shipped, not flown.

The berries fail Sarah and Katasha's taste testWhether that popularity grows will depend not just on how health conscious people rate them, but on their taste for the masses.
Outside Tesco, after a slow start, nibbling gingerly on the berries, Katasha Rose's, 23, and Sarah Jaques' verdict is strong and unequivocal.

Noses wrinkle as they chew and Sarah, who is not a berry fan, rejects them. A more enthusiastic Katasha says: "They taste like tea."
Would goji berries make it into her shopping basket? "Yes, if they were cheaper," she says, "and tasted better."

Kill Your Belly Fat

Kill Your Belly Fat With Fast Weight Loss

By Robert Hudak

I am sure that you heard once you reach the age of 40, you are over the hill. Then you develop the middle age spread. The idea of stopping eating for several days for fast weight loss has gone away, unheard of, out of the question. Did you happen to notice that even kids and teenagers seem to have developed the spread as well?

In this article I will reveal to you the secrets to fast weight loss and belly be gone with suggestions and programming the subconscious mind using hypnosis. People lose unwanted weight and reduce their belly size. When hypnosis is performed correctly, a person will be able to leave food on their plate, feel fuller with less food and be disinterested in food.

Now some of you grew up in an environment that you were told to finish everything or that it was a sin to waste food. Some people have hang-ups about leaving food on their plate. Here is the next secret to reduce the mid section and experience fast weight loss. Drink plenty of water throughout the day. Now if you want to reduce the amount of food you are eating, drink 12oz of water 15 minutes before you sit down to a meal. Most people tell us they eat about half of what they would normally.

Because of the endless amounts of chemicals that are put into our food supply people are struggling with weight gain and belly fat. Another way you can achieve fast weight loss and a smaller waistline is to stop eating high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). You may think that is easier said than done because HFCS is in everything but there are plenty of foods that do not have it. HFCS is responsible for most excess weight gain.

In 1970 HFCS was added to our food supply. Every generation of Americans are heavier without any relief in sight since that time. Can you believe that just stopping the consumption of HFCS will cause you to experience fast weight loss and reduce your belly size?

Here are some ways that HFCS affects your body. It gives you an increase appetite along with making you addicted to whatever you are eating. Because HFCS is not processed the same way as regular sugar, it negatively affects your metabolism and insulin levels. Remove HFCS from your diet and you can have fast weight loss.

Here is the next secret to watching your stomach shrink in size, stop the soft drinks. Regular soft drinks have thirteen teaspoons of sugar. Now if you like the diet version, they are full of artificial sweeteners, which by the way make your stomach bigger. Want to have fast weight loss? Say goodbye to soft drinks and watch your body and belly shrink in size.

Becoming more physically active is another key secret. It does not have to be strenuous exercise. Go for a jog or even a walk. Just start moving. Start with walking 20 minutes per day. Combining hypnosis with your walking adds discipline; will power and self-control, helping you attain fast weight loss.

The body becomes accustomed to habits and routines quickly. Walking for a prolonged period of time does not guarantee fast weight loss. If you want to speed up your metabolism and burn belly fat then consider this routine, do a 20-minute interval walk, one comfortable minute and one fast minute. You will improve cardiovascular system and lose weight fast.

About the Author:

Robert Hudak has been a Certified Hypnotist for two and a half decades. Before and After pictures of people who have achievedfast weight loss are available. Download your FREE copy of "Top & Fast Weight Loss Cheats & Shortcuts"today!

How to Lose Belly Fat

Dear Friend,
I have really exciting news to share.
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When I was introduced to TAIslim a weight loss product I was the first one to be skeptical, but I decided to give it a try. Guess what...The weight is Over! Wow. What a pleasant surprise. No jitters, no nervousness, great taste and super convenient.

I have been on it 3 weeks now and I’ve lost 6 lb and 1 inch around my waist. I have more energy than ever.
Amazingly... the instant I drink TAIslim I lose my appetite.

Here is how it works:
You drink 2 oz of "TAIslim " with a glass of water just before your meals (that's it!!)
You can mix it in the glass of water and it tastes like ice tea.

There are 4 components to this weight loss product.
1. It Fights Abdominal Fat by inhibiting the production of stress hormones that cause accumulation of belly fat.
2. Enhances Metabolism by burning the fat and speeding up the metabolism.
3. Helps Control Appetite with amino acids that work on the pleasure center of the brain to help suppress food craving in between meals.
4. Cleanses and Detoxifies with an advanced soluble fiber complex that helps to clear metabolic toxins and provides daily intestinal cleansing.

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Best wishes to your health!

Shed Pounds by Seasonings Your Food

Shed unwanted pounds by seasoning your food first, then sniff before taking that first bite and chew well.

The researchers asked overweight and obese participants to sprinkle seasonings and flavorings on their food before eating.
A control group was given crystals with no flavor.
Follow up measurements of the volunteers' weight and body mass index over a period of six months revealed that those using seasonings and flavorings lost an average of 30.5 pounds.

The researchers theorize that flavorful food enhances our senses of smell and taste, helps us eat less, savor and ultimately control our weight.

Why You Shouldn't Buy Food That is Being Advertised

Author Michael Pollan’s New Advice on Buying Food:

“Don’t Buy Any Food You’ve Ever Seen Advertised”

Source: Democracy Now
Michael Pollan is one of the nation’s leading writers and thinkers in this country on the issue of food. He is author of several books about food, including The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and his latest, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. In light of what he calls the processed food industry’s co-option of “sustainability” and its vast spending on marketing, Pollan advises to be wary of any food that’s advertised.

Michael Pollan: So, I’ve had to update my rules. And with all this new marketing based on these ideas, my new suggestion is, if you want to avoid all this, simply don’t buy any food you’ve ever seen advertised. Ninety-four percent of ad budgets for food go to processed food. I mean, the broccoli growers don’t have money for ad budgets. So the real food is not being advertised. And that’s really all you need to know.

The Transcript :

AMY GOODMAN: Energy, healthcare, agriculture, climate change, global outbreaks like swine flu—what do all these topics have in common? Food. That’s right, none of these issues can really be tackled without addressing some of the fundamental problems of the food system and the American diet.
Well, my next guest is one of the leading writers and thinkers in this country on food. Michael Pollan is a professor of science and environmental journalism at University of California, Berkeley, author of several books about food, including The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and his latest, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, which just came out in paperback. Michael Pollan joins me now in our firehouse studio for the rest of the hour.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
MICHAEL POLLAN: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, it’s good to have you with us. Let’s start with, well, the latest news over the last month, swine flu. How is that connected to industrialized agriculture?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, we don’t know for sure yet. We’re still kind of investigating. But the best knowledge we have is that this outbreak came from a very large industrial pork operation, pork confinement operation, where, you know, tens of thousands of pigs live in filth and close contact. And this was in Mexico.
And, you know, it’s very interesting. Last year, eighteen months ago, the Pew Commission on animal agriculture released a report calling attention to the public health risks of the way we’re raising pork and other meat in this country. And they actually predicted in that report—they said the way you’re raising pigs in America today creates a perfect environment for the generation of new flu pandemics, basically because once you get that mutation, which sooner or later is about to happen, it very quickly—you have so many different—so much genetic material coming together, so concentrated, and then so many pigs can catch it, and that this is a—you know, we’ve created these Petri dishes for new diseases. And here we go.
AMY GOODMAN: And what has been the industry response?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Oh, the industry response and the media response, by and large, is not to pay attention to that part of the story. We haven’t gotten a lot of investigation of, well, exactly how do these things evolve and how did these conditions contribute to it.
The other angle, too, is that, you know, as we bring any pressure to bear on American animal agriculture, the tendency is going to be for it to move to Mexico. And indeed, that appears to be the case here, that these are American corporations who have to escape any kind of environmental regulation, have moved their confinement, animal operations, south of the border.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain how these animal operations work.
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, a pig confinement operation is a pretty hellish place. They are, you know, tens of thousands of animals, kept jammed together. The animals are so close together that they have to snip their tails off, because the animals are so neurotic—I mean, pigs are very intelligent; they’re smarter than dogs—that they will nip at each other’s tails. They’ve been weaned so early that they have this sucking desire, and so they take it out on the tails of the animal right in front of them. So they snip the tails off, not to stop the procedure, but to make it so painful that animals will avoid having their tails bitten, just to make them raw and painful.
They administer antibiotics to these animals on a regular basis, because they could not survive without them. And the waste goes down directly below the animals into this giant cesspool that’s flushed, two or three times a day, out. I mean, they’re just—you know, they’re incubators for disease.
The sows remain in crates their whole lives, so they can be conveniently inseminated, and they have their babies right there in their crates. You know, to go to one of these places is to stop eating industrial pork, basically. I mean, if we could see into this industrial meat production, it would change the way most of us eat.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s amazing, because the whole coverage, it seems, of swine flu is to be afraid of human beings coming over the border, that they are the main problem.
MICHAEL POLLAN: Yeah, that they’re carrying it, yeah, yeah. No, it’s not—we don’t—it is not contracted by eating the pork. That doesn’t, you know, seem to be a problem. And some countries have taken that tact, used this to keep out American pork. But that link hasn’t been made.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about corporations in other ways, like Monsanto, talking about the sustainability of genetically modified foods?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Yeah, Monsanto is very much on the attack right now, pushing its products, particularly in Africa, and making the case that the most sustainable agriculture will be intensive production on the land base we have. The argument is that there’s only so much arable land in the world, we have ten billion people on the way, and that the only way to feed them is to get more productivity over the land we have, to further intensify agriculture, using their genetically modified seeds.
And the word “sustainable” is never far from their lips. And they have this amazing ad campaign. Two things are notable about it. One is that the language of sustainability and the critique of industrial food is being picked up by some of the major players within industrial food, either as an effort to co-opt the rhetoric or simply confuse the consumer and the citizen.
The other thing is that it’s very interesting that Monsanto should be arguing that it has the key to improving productivity. If indeed what we need to do is improve productivity, don’t look at genetically modified crops. They have never succeeded in raising productivity. That’s not what they do. If you look at the—the Union of Concerned Scientists just issued a report looking at the twenty-year history of these crops, and what they have found is that basically the real gains in yield for American crops, for world crops, has been through conventional breeding. Genetic modification has—with one tiny exception, Bt corn used in years of very high infestation of European corn borers—has not increased productivity at all. That’s not what they’re good at. What they’re good at is creating products that allow farmers to expand their monocultures, because it takes less management. So, if indeed we need to go where Monsanto says, there are better technologies than theirs.
AMY GOODMAN: What about companies boasting that they use real sugar, like that’s a health claim.
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, you know, it’s very interesting. Since this book came out, where I argue don’t buy high-fructose corn syrup and don’t buy products with more than five ingredients, suddenly the industry is—you know, they’re so clever. I just—I have to hand it to them. But now they’re arguing that their products are simpler, and there’s new Haagen-Dazs 5, which is a five-ingredient Haagen-Dazs product. You know, it’s still ice cream. Ice cream is wonderful, but we shouldn’t treat it as health food because it now has only five ingredients. Frito-Lay is—
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve had a big effect.
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, but I don’t know if it’s for the better. I mean, I think—
AMY GOODMAN: Frito-Lay?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Frito-Lay potato chips now is arguing that they’re local. Now, you have to remember, any product is local somewhere. Right? This food doesn’t come from Mars. But to think that Frito-Lay as a local potato chip is really a stretch.
So—and on the high-fructose corn syrup thing, now that you’ve got Snapple and soon-to-be Coca-Cola making a virtue of the fact that they contain real sugar, no high-fructose corn syrup, what that is is an implicit health claim for sugar. And that is an incredible achievement on the part of industry, to convince us that getting off of high-fructose corn syrup has made their products healthier. It has done no such thing. Biologically, there’s no difference between high-fructose corn syrup and sugar.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain why you were going after high-fructose corn syrup.
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, my argument about high-fructose corn syrup and why you should avoid it is it is a marker of a highly processed food. I’m just trying to help people, when they’re going through the supermarket—the main thing you want to avoid is processing, you know, extreme processing. And high-fructose corn syrup—I mean, think about it. Do you know anyone who cooks with high-fructose corn syrup? It’s not a home—it’s not an ingredient you’ll find in a home pantry. It’s a tool of food science.
My problem with it is its ubiquity through the food system. You have high-fructose corn syrup showing up where sugar has never been—in bread, in pickles, in mayonnaise, in relish, in all these products—that they basically have found that if you sweeten anything, we will buy more of it. High-fructose corn syrup is a very convenient, cheap ingredient, because we subsidize the corn from which it’s made.
But to boast about your product not having high-fructose corn syrup as being some kind of virtue is really stretching it. And I think what we see here is another example of the food industry’s ingenuity in taking any critique of industrial food and turning it into the next marketing strategy. It’s a lot like the low-fat campaign, you know, which began as a government critique of food, you know, beginning with George McGovern in the ’70s saying we should eat less red meat because of heart disease. Whatever you think of the science of that, which turns out not to have been that good, it was a well-meaning campaign to improve the American diet. Industry came back and re-engineered the whole food system to have less fat in it and no fat in it. And that campaign sold a lot more food. And, in fact, since that campaign, we’ve been eating about 300 more calories a day, and we’re a lot fatter. So, you can’t—you just can’t underestimate their ability turn any critique into a way to sell food.
So, I’ve had to update my rules. And with all this new marketing based on these ideas, my new suggestion is, if you want to avoid all this, simply don’t buy any food you’ve ever seen advertised. Ninety-four percent of ad budgets for food go to processed food. I mean, the broccoli growers don’t have money for ad budgets. So the real food is not being advertised. And that’s really all you need to know.
AMY GOODMAN: Michael Pollan, the Food and Drug Administration is slapping General Mills with a warning over its claim that Cheerios—
MICHAEL POLLAN: Lowers cholesterol.
AMY GOODMAN: —is clinically proven to help lower cholesterol. They say it makes it a drug under federal law.
MICHAEL POLLAN: Yeah. Well, good for them. I mean, you know, the FDA has been so lax, and the reason you see this proliferation of bogus health claims all through the supermarket has basically been the FDA has been hands-off for a decade. And to see them tighten a little bit and make these companies prove these health claims—
You know, another piece of advice from In Defense of Food is, don’t eat any food that comes with a health claim. It sounds counterintuitive, but if you’re worried about your health, that is not the healthy food. The healthy food is in the produce section. It’s sitting there very quietly, without budgets to do this research, without budgets for marketing, without packages to print health claims on. So just kind of tune that out.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you make of the new Agricultural Secretary, Tom Vilsack?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, it’s interesting. When Vilsack was appointed, I was disappointed initially. And I said something like, this was agribusiness as usual. He has surprised me in various ways, and I have some reason, cautious, for hope. I think he has a mandate from President Obama to begin reforming things.
He has appointed as his number two—the woman running the Department of Agriculture, Kathleen Merrigan, is a proven reformer. She developed the organic program in the department and as a staffer to Senator Leahy back in the ’90s. And she is really committed to sustainable agriculture. This woman will be running the Department of Agriculture. I think that’s wonderful. We’ll see what she can do. She’s up against an incredible amount of opposition.
He made an initial move to go after subsidies that was not very well handled and was rebuffed very easily by the agriculture committees in the House and Senate. He, I think, will do a lot to support local agriculture. He’s very committed to farmers’ markets and developing these local food chains, and I think that’s very encouraging.
But he has a mission to make “nutrition” the watchword of the nutrition programs in the Department of Agriculture: School Lunch, Food Stamps, WIC. Now, that sounds kind of “duh,” but, in fact, those programs have nothing to do with nutrition right now. They’re essentially ways to dispose of agricultural surpluses. So if they actually raise the nutrition standards and make that the focus—
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, they’re the way to—
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, the reason we have a School Lunch Program, you know, it began as an effort really to get rid of this incredible overproduction of American agriculture. I mean, we’re using our children as a disposal for excess, you know, cheap ground beef and cheese and all these corn products, and that the—you know, under the School Lunch Program, we feed our kids chicken nuggets and tater tots in school. We’re using the School Lunch Program to teach them how to become fast-food consumers. So, it’s not about health, and it needs to be about health. So, if he can move that program in that direction, I think that will be wonderful.
AMY GOODMAN: Michelle Obama’s organic garden, that the pesticide industry had in a memo that they shuddered when they heard her use the word?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Yes. You know, I think her garden is actually a significant development. I mean, you can dismiss it as symbolic politics, but in fact symbols are important. And the word “organic” are fighting words in this—is a fighting word in this world. And she did not have to say it was an organic garden; she could have simply said it’s a garden. And that she did was noticed.
And the Crop Life Association, the trade group of the pesticide makers, wrote her a letter, being as cordial as you must be to a First Lady, saying, you know, “You’re really casting aspersions on industrial agriculture, and we really hope you will use our crop protection products.” In other words, “Buy our poisons, whether you need them or not.”
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Michael Pollan. His latest book, now out in paperback, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. Your words of wisdom? Your food for thought? Eat food, not too much, mostly plants?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Yeah, it’s very simple. It really is. I mean, you know, as a journalist, you know this, that usually when you drill down into a subject, you find things are more complicated than you thought, and the blacks and whites don’t quite work anymore. When it came to nutrition science, the deeper I went, the simpler it got. And by the time I had spent two years studying what we know about nutrition and health, I realized that, you know, all the—that you could dismiss so much of this sketchy science, and as long as you ate real food, and not too much of it, and emphasized plants more than meat in your diet, you would be fine, and that the over-complication of food by industry, by government, is something really to be avoided.
And so, the challenge is, though, how do you identify food? Because now the market is full of these edible food-like substances, the ones that carry the health claims, the—
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, “edible food-like substances”?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, these are products of food science. These are the stuff in the middle of the supermarket, the stuff that doesn’t go bad for a year, deathless food, immortal food. You have to think, well, what does it mean to say a food has got a shelf life of six months or a year? It means it has been engineered to resist bacteria, pests of all kinds, fungi, mold. And what does that mean? Well, it has no nutritional value for those things. The insects, the bacteria, they’re not interested in the Twinkie, because there’s nothing of nutritional value in it.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about how the food system affects healthcare and the whole issue of healthcare reform?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, I think that we are soon to recognize that we are not going to be able to reform healthcare, which depends on getting the cost of healthcare down, without addressing the American diet, the catastrophe of the American diet.
The CDC, Centers for Disease Control, estimates that of the $2 trillion we’re spending on healthcare in this country, $1.5 trillion is for the treatment of preventable chronic disease. Now, that’s not all food, because you have smoking in there, too, and alcoholism. But the bulk of it is food. Food is implicated in heart disease, which we spend, you know, billions and billions on. It’s implicated in type 2 diabetes. It’s implicated in about 40 percent of cancers. It’s implicated in stroke, all sorts of cardiovascular problems.
And, you know, in a sense, the healthcare crisis is a euphemism for the food crisis, I mean, that they are identical. And I do think that President Obama recognizes this. And I think that you will see programs to address this, because that is how you could—you know, a better School Lunch Program would be a down payment on the healthcare reform, because you would reduce long-term the costs of the system. Treating a case of type 2 diabetes costs the City of New York, every new case, $500,000. It is bankrupting the system. And it’s preventable.
AMY GOODMAN: How is it treated?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, type 2 diabetes is, once you contract it, it’s $13,000 a year in additional medical costs. It takes something like ten years off of your life span. It means an 80 percent chance of heart disease in your life, a possibility of amputation and blindness, you know, being tethered to machines and drugs your whole life. It’s a very serious sentence, and it’s entirely preventable with a change in lifestyle.
The interesting thing is, why don’t we have really powerful public interest ad campaigns to inform people about this? I mean, the way the government could save the most money the most easily would be having a public advertising campaign about the dangers of soda. There are a great many children that, simply by getting off soda, avert this whole course.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of taxing soft drinks, that they’re talking about now?
MICHAEL POLLAN: You know, I’m not sure, frankly. I haven’t really thought that through. It’s probably not a bad idea. I think that the cheapness of high-fructose corn syrup and sugars in our economy is part of the problem and that when we started subsidizing—I guess I would attack it on the other side. We should not be making these corn-based products so cheap with our tax dollars. I think we have to change the subsidies. The reason that soda is so cheap is that we subsidize corn in huge amounts, and I think we have to change the incentives down on the farm. I think that’s really where I would put my emphasis.
AMY GOODMAN: What about large corporations buying up the farmland of poorer countries?
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, this is going on. There is a growing recognition that the great unrenewable resource is arable soil in this world and that countries like China realize that they will not be able to feed their population on their soil base, because of their numbers, but also because they poison so much of their soil. Their soil is polluted, and they have a serious problem with that. So they are buying up huge swaths of land in Africa.
This is a political disaster, you know, waiting to happen. I mean, Africans, you know, are going to stand by while their best farmland is being used to feed Chinese? I mean, I don’t see this as a sustainable solution for anybody. But this is what’s happening.
And we should take note and realize that our farmland is so precious, and we should be very careful about developing it, and we should certainly be careful about letting it run off into the Mississippi River because we’re failing to put in cover crops and things like that.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have twenty seconds left, but you wrote a long letter to President Obama, to the “Farmer-in-Chief,” as you put it. What’s the most salient point in it?
MICHAEL POLLAN: The most salient point is simply, you are not going to be able to tackle either the healthcare crisis or climate change unless you look at our food system. In the case of climate change, food is responsible for about a third of greenhouse gases, the way we’re growing food, the way we’re processing it and the way we’re eating. And the healthcare crisis, as I’ve talked about. So we need to address it. It’s really the shadow issue over these other two issues.
AMY GOODMAN: Michael Pollan, I want to thank you for being with us. His latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, it’s just come out in paperback. Also his book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Botany of Desire.

Fountain of Youth Discovered in The Most Remote Regions of The World

Ponce De Leon once fought fierce battles with native tribes out of ignorance looking for The Fountain of Youth . Today, like Ponce De Leon, Baby Boomers are fighting their own battle searching for the Fountain of youth not out of ignorance, but out of necessity.

With our busy and hectic lives we have no time to eat right. We choose our food according to convenience, so we pop the vitamin pills hoping to compensate for the lack of a healthy balanced diet. Our shelves are lined with vitamins, lotions and potions, some that are not only useless, but can actually harm us.

Perhaps there is no Fountain of Youth in the tradition of the term. However, when it comes to longevity and anti aging we have lots to learn from less developed cultures like Himalayan people, for they are as close to the Fountain of Youth as it comes in terms of health and longevity.
Himalaya where the highest mountains in the world are, is the place where the natural medicine originated. The pristine environment, which has soil that is incredibly rich in minerals upturned ions ago, is the place of many exotic plants and herbs.

This is the place where Natural Science Institute discovered a region called the “Hunza Valley” in a remote area of Indo China , where living up to the age of 120 is not uncommon.

Observers reported to their amazement seeing men in their 80’s, and 90’s lifting heavy rocks and boulders building their terraced gardens, and joining in games of strength and endurance with opponents half their age. They have been astounded by seeing these 80 year old men exercise by digging holes in the ice and swimming under the ice with the endurance and strength of 30 year old men.

The scientists observed that Hunzas not only lived long lives, but their long lives are healthy, virtually free from pain and illness, their vision is sharp, at the age of 80 they have no gray hair, they have boundless energy and strength, and their minds are clear.
In their language you won’t find the words for illnesses that have become all to familiar in our western world.

Their secret to long and healthy lives is contributed to a combination of factors.
The Hunza’s live in remote isolated place away from pollution and harmful stress of modern civilization.
They practice dailly art of relaxation and energy manegement with deep rhythmic breathing tecniques and meditations.
Their life style provides for the excercise of strength and endurance.

Hunza's daily food consumption consists of;
Fresh fruits and vegetables such as string beans, peas, carrots, turnip, squash, spinach, lettuce, apples, pears, peaches, apricots, apricot pits, cherries and blackberries and Goji berries.

Their staple food is whole grains such as barley, buckwheat, millet and wheat and yogurt.

Milk and cheese is their main source of protein. Meat is consumed only on special occasion. Chicken being the most common.

Their special bread, called chapatti is served with every meal. Chapatti is made from non refined whole flour of either barley, buckwheat, millet or wheat.

Hunzas eat only two meals a day. The first meal is served at twelve noon. This may sound surprising, since Hunzas engage in demanding physical labor all morning long on an empty stomach. The truth is that these people eat very little. Their average daily diet totals about 1.900 calories daily, while an average USA citizen according to USDA consumes about 3,300 calories daily.
Another contributing factor to Hunza’s health is that their medical system is based on preserving health. Their daily consumption of healing foods and herbs helps to prevent illness from occurring in the first place.

The direct opposite to our pharmaceutical oriented system which appears to have a little interest in keeping us healthy. In fact, their very livelihood depends upon us being sick.

Modern day doctors may look at the Hunza people and dismiss them as a primitive and unsophisticated culture. Yet, how sophisticated can we be if our society is plagued by illnesses that shorten our lives, or worse, prolong pain and suffering?

After reading this you might be tempted to pack up and join the Hunza people. The good news is, you don’t have to join the Hunza’s in search of a Fountain of Youth, but you might have to look beyond your average supermarket for fresh, natural unprocessed and unaltered food.

Simplify your lifestyle. Find time for to exercise, relax and find something to be passionate about.

If you are buying your produce from the supermarket, then make sure that you supplement your food with whole food products.

Eat dark green leafy vegetables such as broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, spinach and collard greens

Brightly colored fruits and veggies loaded with antoxidants such as, red and yellow peppers, squash, beet root, tomatoes, oranges, plums, apriccots, and berries.
If there is something that we can learn from Himalayan people, it is that taking care of your health starts long before any signs of illness appear.

Remember that health is your most precious commodity, and that sound healthy life practices applied over a lifetime is the real “Fountain of Youth"
On Oprah Show, Dr. Mehmet Oz,, regarded as a professional in the field of nutrition and anti aging gives advice to Ben Gordon of Chicago Bulls on high energy foods.

http://www.serenityforyou.freelife.com/pop/dsp_04_002_GoChi_Trailer.html

Receive 30% discount when you purchase Gochi-The Next Generation of Himalayan Goji Juice. Discount refferal ID# 4248253

What is The Difference Between Natural and Synthetic Vitamins?

If you ask a chemist to explain the difference between natural and synthetic vitamins, most will tell you that there is no structural difference in terms of ability to prevent vitamin deficiency.

They will also tell you that anything that has a coal in molecular structure is "organic" because of carbon in it's molecular structure. For example take look at the label on the loaf of bread among other vitamins it lists barley, malt and ferrous sulfate. Ferrous sulfate is used as a preservative and a weed killer, and thiamine mononitrate that is also added to enriched breads comes from coal tar similar to the one used on roofs.

Natural Vitamins are found in foods, they are unaltered and come with other minerals and interrelated nutrients which body recognizes as food. They are not broken down into molecular structure that would change their biochemical function. The food source that they come from should be listed on the label. When looking for natural vitamins the label should clearly say "Whole Food Product".

When using whole food vitamins body will select the need for absorption and remove the excess. In natural vitamins other nutrients and vitamins are present, which help proper absorption, while in synthetic vitamin these co-factors for assimilation are absent.

Synthetic Vitamins are man made in laboratory. They are chemically altered and reconstituted . They are taken from food source and manipulated with heat and chemicals to extract particular vitamin as a stand alone source. Nutrients in nature do not occur alone, they come with other minerals and nutrients that work synergistically.

With synthetic vitamins body has no choice but to take large doses, which overloads the system with toxins. That is the reason why sometimes when synthetic vitamins are taken in large doses they make you feel great for the first week, after that some actually start feeling fatigued as a result of pyruvic acid build up.

By supplementing your diet with whole food products, and being aware of what you put into your body is just one way you can take charge of your health right now, so that you can prevent illness later.

Are you Wasting Your Money on Synthetic Vitamins?

In medical studies the researchers found that vitamins taken by around a third of the population do not extend life and may even cause premature death, according to a respected group of international scientists. Patients' use of synthetic Vitamin E, for example, resulted in increased rates of lung cancer, heart attacks and death. link to the article

When reading that article please keep in mind that the studies were done on artificial or synthetic vitamins not on a vitamins that come from the natural, whole food source.

How to know if your vitamins are not artificial?

Your vitamins are not artificial if they are listed along with their food source. For example: Vitamin C from oranges, Vitamin A from Carrots, Vitamin E from wheat germ oil or almonds, the synthetic form is labeled "D, L" while the natural form is labeled "D" . Vitamin B from sea vegetables, parsley or from the fruits.

Did you know that fluorescent yellow urine is a sure sign that your vitamins are synthetic, as they are flushed right out of your system.

Our bodies are not designed to live on pills, but on a food.
Most artificial vitamins are not bio-available, meaning that our body can't convert it into food source, and in the long run synthetic vitamins can actually hurt us.

Stop Wasting Your Money on Synthetic Vitamins and try Daily Edge.

Daily Edge™ is the most powerful daily multi-nutrient supplement you'll find anywhere at any price. We call it a "health food store in a bottle." It is formulated to provide the perfect blend of 66 of nature's most scientifically proven vitamins, minerals, co-factors, antioxidants, and food-derived health rejuvenating nutrients.

Drink Tea to Loose Belly Fat

Teas contain polyphenols and a small amount of natural caffeine, the combination that was proven to fight the belly fat.
Green tea has been clinically shown to increase thermogenesis, meaning that it increases the speed and rate in which your body burns the calories.

White, wu long, and black teas limit the amount of fat calories and starch absorbed from a meal. This becomes a powerful combination in fighting a weight loss.

In order to receive the benefits noted above you would have to drink really strong brew of each types of tea before each meal, but there is a brand new weight loss product called TAIslim that has all these teas and more.

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This product has 90 day money back guaranteed. It means that you can take it for 90 days and if you don't get the results you get your money back. That's something you won't see with any other product on the market.

TOP 20 ANTIOXIDANT - RICH FOODS

TOP 20 FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND NUTS AS MEASURED BY TOTAL ANTIOXIDANT CAPACITY PER SERVING SIZE (from USDA Food and Nutrition Center Website)

1 Small Red Bean (dried)Half cup 13727

2 Wild blueberry 1 cup 13427

3 Red kidney bean (dried)Half cup 13259

4 Pinto bean Half cup 11864

5 Blueberry (cultivated) 1 cup 9019

6 Cranberry 1 cup (whole) 8983

7 Artichoke (cooked)1 cup (hearts) 7904

8 Blackberry 1 cup 7701

9 Prune Half cup 7291

10 Raspberry 1 cup 6058

11 Strawberry 1 cup 5938

12 Red Delicious apple One 5900

13 Granny Smith apple One 5381

14 Pecan 1 ounce 5095

15 Sweet cherry 1 cup 4873

16 Black plum One 4844

17 Russet potato (cooked)One 4649

18 Black bean (dried) Half cup 4181

19 Plum One 4118

20 Gala apple One 3903

The U. S Government's Medline Plus database defines antioxidants as substances that help to protect your cells against the effects of free radicals.
Free radicals are molecules produced when your body breaks down food or by environmental sources as tobacco smoke, radiation, and automobile exhaust.

You produce free radicals when you exercises and when you are under stress. They can also contribute to premature aging of your body and mind.

The clinical research Studies Revealed that one of the best ways to increase your body's antioxidant power is by drinking GoChi (The brand of Himalayan Goji juice). Just 4 ounces per day can significantly improved body's immune system and antioxidant capacity by:

A) Increasing the Superoxide dismutase (SOD) The body's primary antioxidant defense against inflammatory free radicals, and increase in Glutathione peroxidase (GSH-PX) Important antioxidant and detox enzymes.

B) Improving in body's key immune system, Lymphocytes: White blood cells necessary for immune defenses. Interlukin 2 (IL-2): An important cell-signaling molecule and immunoglobulin G (IgG): A powerful and essential antibody.

It is important to know that the best antioxidants come from the food source, as they are highly bioavailable. Avoid lab created, synthetic antioxidants as they can do you more harm than good. You can tell those by reading your labels, and by the way they turn your urine fluorescent yellow color. The sure sign that they are being flushed out.
Best wishes to your health!

Himalay's and Hunza's Diet

Written by; social anthropologist Dr. Julie Flowerday who has lived and worked extensively in the Hunza Valley. Her e-mail is flowerda@email.unc.edu.
Marta Luchsinger, who coordinated production of the recipe book, visited Hunza as a doctoral student at the University of Bath.
Mareile Paley is a graphic designer who lives in Hong Kong with her husband, free-lance photographer Matthieu Paley (http://www.paleyphoto.com/).
This article appeared on pages 34-43 of the May/June 2006 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.

Left: A woman uses a wood-fueled stove inside her home in the town of Karimabad. Right: Rice does not grow at Hunza’s altitude, but wheat thrives, and it provides the staple grain of Hunza cuisine.
So it is that the “traditional” underlies life-shaping experiences. The Karimabad women thus added something of their life histories to the recipes we collected through their fierce labors of love, which have made generations of women and their fathers, husbands, brothers, sons and daughters happy and well-nourished. We, in collecting these recipes, and you, in recreating them, honor the cultural heritage of the unspoken heroes and heroines of Hunza.
—Julie Flowerday
Wheat is Hunza’s main staple food. Rice, otherwise so common in Asia, cannot be grown in the mountainous terrain and high-altitude climate, and so different breads and wheat-based dishes replace it. Other grains such as buckwheat and barley are also cultivated.

Maltash is “aged butter,” prepared from milk that is scalded before churning. Its strong taste is so valued that maltash is a gift for births, weddings and funerals—taxes can even be paid in maltash. The older the maltash, the more valuable it is. Wrapped in birch bark and buried in the ground,it may lie for years or even decades before the head of the family decides it is time to dig it out.

Kurutz is a salty, sour, rock-hard cheese that is a favorite soup flavoring. It is made by boiling down lassi (see page 43), together with a piece of older kurutz that gets the enzymes started, as in sourdough bread. The resulting soft pasteis pressed and sun-dried. Similar cheese is made from Mongolia to Tibet.

Dried apricots are a favorite snack and an ingredient for soups and juices. The valley is known for its abundance of apricots, most of which are collected in late summer to dry in the sun on rooftops, walls and boulders.

Apricot kernels are very similar to almonds in taste and used in much the same way, as a snack and for cooking. Children often crack the hard shell of the apricot pits with a stone to get to the delicious kernel.
Apricot oil is traditionally extracted from the kernels by hand, though machines are slowly replacing the hand-work. There’s a sweet and a bitter apricot oil: The sweet is for cooking; the bitter is a beauty product for skin and hair.
Tumuro is a native wild thyme which is found in the mountains surrounding the valley. It is used freshand dried.
Coriander is not native to Hunza, but it grows easily in the harsh climate, and it is a very popular herb to season soups andmeat dishes.
Turmeric usually comesas a bright yellow powder and is also a favorite import. It is mainly used in small quantities to color soups and other dishes.

Wheat is Hunza’s main staple food. Rice, otherwise so common in Asia, cannot be grown in the mountainous terrain and high-altitude climate, and so different breads and wheat-based dishes replace it. Other grains such as buckwheat and barley are also cultivated.
Maltash is “aged butter,” prepared from milk that is scalded before churning. Its strong taste is so valued that maltash is a gift for births, weddings and funerals—taxes can even be paid in maltash. The older the maltash, the more valuable it is. Wrapped in birch bark and buried in the ground,it may lie for years or even decades before the head of the family decides it is time to dig it out.
Kurutz is a salty, sour, rock-hard cheese that is a favorite soup flavoring. It is made by boiling down lassi (see page 43), together with a piece of older kurutz that gets the enzymes started, as in sourdough bread. The resulting soft pasteis pressed and sun-dried. Similar cheese is made from Mongolia to Tibet.
Dried apricots are a favorite snack and an ingredient for soups and juices. The valley is known for its abundance of apricots, most of which are collected in late summer to dry in the sun on rooftops, walls and boulders.
Apricot kernels are very similar to almonds in taste and used in much the same way, as a snack and for cooking. Children often crack the hard shell of the apricot pits with a stone to get to the delicious kernel.
Apricot oil is traditionally extracted from the kernels by hand, though machines are slowly replacing the hand-work. There’s a sweet and a bitter apricot oil: The sweet is for cooking; the bitter is a beauty product for skin and hair.
Tumuro is a native wild thyme which is found in the mountains surrounding the valley. It is used freshand dried.
Coriander is not native to Hunza, but it grows easily in the harsh climate, and it is a very popular herb to season soups andmeat dishes.
Turmeric usually comesas a bright yellow powder and is also a favorite import. It is mainly used in small quantities to color soups and other dishes.
Bread Staple Food of Hunza's
Hunza’s ubiquitous chappati is actually a culinary import from the south. Really traditional Hunza bread is a thin wheat bread known as the khamali. Compared to a chappati, it is much larger in diameter, and the reason was practical: Wood for cooking fires is precious, and by baking a large piece of bread you can take advantage of the heat on the rather large cooking plate of a traditional Hunza stove.

Phitti is probably the most famous of all Hunza breads and a common breakfast food. Thick and nutritious, with a crusty outside and a soft interior, it is time-consuming to prepare: The dough is put into a sealed metal container, and after all the other cooking has been done at night, the phitti is tucked into the embers of the hearth, where it bakes overnight.

Diltar The Refreshing Yogurt Drink
People call it buttermilk, lassi or simply a yogurt drink. Traditionally, diltar is prepared in a goat- or sheep skin which is shaken or rolled on the ground until butter forms. An alternate method uses a tall, narrow wooden cylinder and a long, thick pole in a process much like churning butter. Nowadays, the simplest way to make diltar is to mix yogurt with an equal amount of water and blend at high speed for a few minutes. Add salt, sugar or fruits like bananas or mangos as you please.