It's a tough world for babies

There seems to be a whole lot of stuff going on for infants these days.  Back in 1954 when I was born, it was out into the bright lights to view a staff of doctors dressed in green wearing masks, then into mom's arms and life began.  Nowadays, they pop the baby out, then wash him, weigh him, soothe him a bit, then stick needles into him and inject weakened Hepatitis B viruses in a matrix of mercury, msg and formaldehyde.  Tough thing for a newly arrived infant to have to handle being injected into him.  I mean that most newborns already have a huge disadvantage with over 237 toxic chemicals being detected in their blood, all having been consumed by the mother, most inadvertently.  Products of modern industrial society.

But really, Hepatitis B?  This is a disease that is transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids, either through sex or the use of needles shared during intravenous drug use. An infant, what is the logic behind the vaccination for Hep B?  The worst part is that now, teenage kids that were given the government recommended dosing of this particular vaccine are now showing the ineffectiveness of the vaccine by coming down with the disease in their teen years.  Makes one wonder about the reasoning behind requiring this particular vaccine to be administered to infants and to require the vaccine before being allowed admittance to preschools and kindergartens.  Remember, this disease, Hepatitis B, is ONLY transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids or blood as in IV drug use or the exchange of fluids via oral or vaginal sex.  Preschoolers.

Try to remember that AmeriKans have the highest rate of infant vaccinations in the world.  On average, 49 vaccines are recommended before a child is the age of 2.  One child in 88 will become autistic.  In 1954 when I was born, and there were no vaccines, one child in 25,000 was autistic.
The chances of a child in third world countries developing polio, rotavirus, diptheria, tetanus, mennengitus, pneumonia, or influenza and becoming totally debilitated or dying, one in 14,000.

A child in AmeriKa has a GREATER risk of becoming autistic, and possibly totally dependent on their parents for a LIFETIME of intensive home care than they have for contracting ANY of the diseases that the vaccines are supposed to protect them from.

And yet the big drug companies take your money and get bigger and badder.

the decision to vaccinate a child for a disease for which there is little to NO chance of the child contracting becomes even more ridiculous when you consider the side effects possible when injecting this vaccine into a newborn baby.  The NVIC, the National Vaccine Information Center states,

“As of March 2012, there was a total of 66,654 hepatitis B vaccine-related adverse events reported to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), including reports of headache, irritability, extreme fatigue, brain inflammation, convulsions, rheumatoid arthritis, optic neuritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) and neuropathy.

There have been more than 1,500 hepatitis B vaccine-related deaths reported, including deaths classified as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).”

 The CDC recommends infants receive the Hepatitis B vaccine because "Infants and children who will travel internationally should receive 3 doses of HBV vaccine before traveling:"   (CDC website)  So how did this recommendation, that in reality MAY have some root causative response that is in line with reality become the government MANDATE that all newborn infants receive this deadly Hep B vaccine?

And the coffers of the big drug companies flow with milk and honey.

If you are about to have a baby, think hard about what you want for your baby's health.  Waiting until your infant is 2 years of age reduces the risk of contraction of autism by over 6,000 per cent.  When getting vaccines for yourself or for your child, ask the medical professional what is in the vaccine.  Refuse any vaccine that contains Thimerisol or formaldehyde.

MSG and Newer, Scarier Alternatives Part Dos

Well the last post here talked about how MSG has become necessary for the processed food industry.  It seems to be a rather frightening thing that people, actual human consumers, would not want to buy and eat all the crap that is on the shelves in stores without this one chemical additive.  That all that crap, would actually taste, well, like crap.  That MSG is what makes the wheels roll and makes all that stuff palatable.  But over the years, MSG has begun to get a bad reputation and so the industry has responded.  As told to you last time, the industry persists on using glutamates in different forms, still the same effect, and still the same consequences.  The industry does understand the court of public opinion, that's how all that MSG made its way into our food supply in the first place, the public would never buy their crap without it.  And as research shows the nasty side of MSG, so the court of public opinion decides that the need for the stuff diminishes.  The industry however realizes how necessary flavor enhancers are, so that was the beginning of the need to hide glutamates under different names.

But modern science is stepping up to help those that control our lives with something new and what they believe to be amazing.  To me, it is scary, to big business, it is nothing short of a miracle of the highest kind.  A food additive that acts like a taste enhancer with unparalleled results, without the bad side effects of glutamates.  You know, those pesky side effects that consumers complain about.  Headaches, nausea, death of neurons, ADD, heart palpitations etc., all those harmless side effects.  This new stuff makes the world of science fiction seem pretty tame.  A new company called Senomyx is taking kidney cells from aborted human fetuses and in an incredibly secret process (meaning if they told us, they would have to kill us) they then make flavor enhancers that are far and above the actions of glutamates.  These new flavor enhancers don't just enhance all flavors, they actually target specific flavor profiles and can be manufactured to the specific needs of a company's individual product.  Seven corporations have long term contracts with Senomyx, including Pepsi and Nestle.  Nestle is the first company to actually start to use the new flavor enhancers in production.  Don't look for human kidney cells on the ingredient list of your favorite candy bar, the only thing that will be there are the words "natural flavoring".

Does that seem odd to you?

It is a bit odd.  Cannibalism?  Not really, according to my research, Senomyx has been using Human Embryonic Kidney cells since the seventies.  They don't go out and harvest aborted fetuses anymore, they have some cells already, and they grow more of them to use.  And to use again, and again.  Hmmmm, makes me wonder about the right to life people, how do they think this comports to their philosophy about life.  It seems that although it is only part of a human baby, businesses have kept these particular parts of a human alive for over forty years.  Is it alive, is it a life?  Well, not really important here, what is important is that this company uses these human kidney cells to "TEST" various chemical compounds to verify that they in fact "ENHANCE" flavor profiles.  The company states that using these human kidney cells they are able to target specific taste types and to enhance only those that they want.  Like Pepsi.  Or Hershey's Chocolate.

The scary part of all of this behind closed door research is that whatever chemical compounds that they have found so far and are using, they "SEEM" to all be classified as "NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS"  and therefore no one actually has any idea what they are.  Nor are they having to test them in any way for toxicity, for cancerous properties, or in reality, ANYTHING!  Senomyx has already introduced a number of flavor enhancers and has been granted GRAS status by the FDA.  This doesn't mean that the FDA did ANY testing on the chemicals, all it means is that Senomyx submitted THEIR own test results and the the FDA approved it based on their own rather biased report.  Some of these new chemicals that we are not allowed to know what is in them are already in foods you eat.  Well, that is if you buy processed foods, burgers and fries from fast food megadollar junk food places, or tacos, or subs, or actually eat any fast food or convenience food.  Because such tiny amounts of these NEW chemical compounds are used, they DO NOT HAVE TO BE LISTED ON THE LABELS AS AN INGREDIENT.

Do you know what you are eating today?

If you live in the Valley, I teach healthy cooking.  It really isn't hard, time consuming or tiresome.  It is fun and exciting to play with different flavors and taste sensations and make your own WOW foods.  Using real food, and NO chemicals.  Send me an email for more info if interested. 

Knowingly Destroying Brain Cells of Infants, Children and Adults MSG

Ever wonder why all those fast food burgers and different processed foods always taste so darn good?  There is a reason for it, it's a discovery made in 1908 by some Japanese chemist that separated and  concentrated this chemical from a species of seaweed.  And thus began yet another problematic reason for me to sit here at my computer and write about the business of making food that is toxic to those that consume it.  That chemical was MSG, and below you will read about how bad it is for you, for your children, and especially if you are pregnant, for your unborn child.

Long ago and far away in a world where food came to consumers in the most basic form, there was no need for MSG.  Food tasted good because it was good, it was wholesome, and the processing that was done to it was done just before serving.  It tasted like food.  But then one day, the capitalists looked at the world and decided that money could be made by doing all that processing in factories, and thus freeing up all that time to homemakers everywhere and the world would be a wonderful place.

And so it began, with the accidental purchase of too many turkeys, TV dinners began the conversion from real food to processed food.  Problems occurred, the processing of the food left it devoid of nutrients, and worst of all, with little flavor.  Ah, but to think back to the little Japanese chemist, and all that could be done with this innocuous chemical, and the drones of the consumer class flocked like lemmings to their death, oops, or rather to the shelves in their local stores to buy the new and enhanced tasting nutrient free processed easy to prepare foods.  And the coffers of the capitalists grew and grew. 

Silly, if it wasn't true it would be silly.  This article is NOT about the over 700 chemicals on the GRAS list from the FDA in AmeriKa that are allowed to be added to processed food that are "Class II Carcinogens" or above.  No, this article is about lowly old MSG, which as proponents of the stuff will tell you, is naturally occurring throughout the spectrum of natural foods everywhere.  Which is true, they are.  But just like arsenic being naturally occurring in apples, you definitely don't want to eat processed arsenic and say it is the same thing.  Because it isn't.

So what's wrong with MSG, it can't be bad, it has been approved by the FDA as safe, Chinese restaurants have used it to make their crappy stuff irresistible to Jewish people everywhere.  Why am I devoting one whole article on my blog to the stuff?  Easy, I just read that big businesses everywhere NEED this stuff in their processed tasteless nutrientless foods in order to make them palatable to consumers, and because of the backlash lately about MSG, they, processors, are using MSG in disguise.  Yeah, it's true, they name it differently, even though it is the same thing.  More later.

The problem we are learning is that MSG in its concentrated and purified form, is what is called an Excitotoxin.  Back in 1957 a couple of guys found that MSG destroyed the retinas of test mice.  Then in 1969 another guy discovered that the effect was not limited to the retina, but also occurred in the neurons throughout the brain.  That guy, John Olney, coined the term excitotoxin as he assessed that cell death was restricted to postsynaptic neurons and that glutamate agonists were neurotoxic.  Blah blah blah, a bunch of other tech stuff.  You can read the whole Wikipedia article here

Well that was in 1969.  At that time TV dinners still came in aluminum trays, microwaves were the newest fad and cost over four hundred dollars.  The number of processed fake foods was about a quarter of the number that there are now.  And MSG was pretty much in every one of them.  But just as the shelves in the supermarkets grew with ever more kinds and varieties of products to make the life of every consumer in AmeriKa easier, so did the use of MSG.  And of course so did the research on the negative effects of MSG grow as well.  And as usual, whenever big business feels that they need something in order to continue to make money, the FDA did what it was paid to do, nothing.

Research has shown that glutamic acid, free glutamates from processed MSG and other glutamates will pass through the placenta and into the bloodstreams of unborn infants.  Dead neurons and excitotoxins are being linked to ADD, ADHD, hyperactivity, heart palpitations, tremors, lowered standardized testing scores, and just a whole host of problems.  Wow.  The real world of consumers have actually made a difference.  Big business has begun to market some of their foods as being MSG free.  Baby food is one of the foods that big business decided to remove MSG from.

Well, sort of.

MSG is basically a refined form of glutamic acid.  It is the main part of glutamate that causes the sensation of tasting better than it actually is that food processors want.  And glutamates and glutamic acid are in a lot of other processed chemical substances that aren't EXACTLY MSG, and so food processors use them instead.  But the action on brain neurons is exactly the same.  Death of neurons can't really be called something else just because the name of the agent killing them has been changed to something else.  Here are some of the things that you want to watch out for and avoid if you see them on the list of ingredients of products that you buy and want to do the right thing and avoid this neurotoxin.
Any  glutamate, not just mono sodium, yeast extract, hydrolized proteins in any form, any and all casienates, autolyzed yeast, yeast nutrients, textured protein, soy protein concentrate, ANY isolates, vetsin and anjinomoto.  All of these are showing up everywhere in foods instead of MSG, and yet each and every one of them are primarily made of glutamates. 

So once again, it us in our hands.  OUR FATE IS NEVER, EVER, IN THE HANDS OF FOOD PROCESSORS AND GOVERNMENT LACKYS.  If YOU don't want to consume poisonous food, then don't buy it.  Don't eat fast food, of which EVERY single one of them makes toxic crap.  Yeah, it takes more time, is a big hassle in today's fast paces world.  But in order to have ANY time at all when you get to be my age, eating healthy now in your youth will give you time later.

Healthy and Delicious

 Back in the 70's, a dear friend of mine who happens to be of Dutch descent, made something for me called "Beehoon".  I have no idea if the spelling is correct or not, but they were fabulous.  What she did, and what I do now when I want to make them, is to peel about a third of a pound of shrimp.  Then take the shells and boil with a quart of water with some onion peels, celery parts and carrot parts.  Add a couple bay leaves and simmer for 20 minutes.  Strain.  Take two cups and bring to a boil in another saucepan and add a cup of quinoa.  Stir, put a lid on it and turn to low.  After ten minutes, turn off the heat.  Pour the rest into the first saucepan and add two tablespoons oyster sauce, then a half a tablespoon of arrowroot or tapioca flour mixed in a shot of white wine or water.  Cook until thick.  Reduce to simmer.  Take a quarter of a cabbage and rough chop it.  Put it into a food processor with some herbs, onions, and buzz until well chopped.  Then add three eggs and mix well.  Then add the shrimp and buzz just until roughly chopped.  On a hot griddle or in a good stainless pan oiled with a bit of olive oil, spoon some of the mixture out into mounds.  Flatten a bit and allow to brown well on the bottom.  Turn over and brown the other side.  Repeat with all the mixture.  Serve with the  quinoa and the sauce.  These are low salt, unbelivably flavorful and HEALTHY!

Heathy Bread

I've been experimenting lately with making bread.  Specifically with making whole wheat bread.  It is something that I have done most of my life, but lately I have tried to be somewhat scientific about it all.  When I first began to make bread, it was atrocious.  That was 40 years ago.  I didn't use enough liquid and put in too much flour.  And tried to knead it by hand.  It was a disaster.  After a few lessons, I got better. For quite a few years I made tolerable bread, heavier than store bought, but edible.

A few months ago I found out about soaking the wheat grains, and even wheat flour itself,  before grinding to breakdown the phytic acid.  This allows for more nutrients to be released and for a more nutritious end product.  And, it makes for a softer texture and fluffier product as well.  All of this is done by commercial bakers by the use of dough enhancers.  Potassium bromate and/or Azodiacarbomide do the exact same thing, in less time, and at a very tiny cost per loaf.  Of course the problem is that both of these chemicals are class 2 carcinogens and are outlawed for use in just about every other country in the world.  Just not here.  Makes you wonder about how the regulators of our food supply think doesn't it?  Anyway, I have read that adding some other things to the bread dough can do virtually the same thing and not endanger your livelihood.  So I thought that I would try them out.

There is a very complex balance between gluten in bread, and the medium in which it is given to work with, meaning the actual dough itself.  One of the strange anomolies about bread is that although the action of the yeast is what makes the bread rise, the very act of living itself the yeast give off acidic byproducts of which gluten is broken down by.  That's is why real sourdough breads are heavier than other breads.  The acids that everyone loves the taste of, are contrary to the actual development of the bread itself.  So, when attempting to add dough enhancers that are not toxic, it is a very touchy situation.  The things that are normally used to enhance the texture of the bread by destroying the phytic acid, are in themselves, acidic.  The most common things used are vinegar, Vitamin C, and yogurt or other milk products.  All work, but the vinegar is very tricky, a half teaspoon too much and you have flat bread, not sandwich loaf.  The others, Vitamin C and yogurt, work exceptionally well.  They make the dough softer, lighter, and if everything that I have read is true, allow the bread to stay fresher longer.

This half inch thick slice demonstrates how soft and flexible the end product really is.  All I did was take a half of a 500mg tablet of Vitamin C and dissolve it in the warm water that I was using for the base of my bread.  Then, I took about a quarter cup of Greek yogurt and added it along with the flour and the half cup of olive oil that I used as the fat component of this bread.  It rose well, baked like normal, and the end product was exceptional.  Light, airy, flexible, and most of all, still moist and not falling apart when cut even on the third morning after being baked.

I think that this is a good example for the baking industry in America.  Bread can be made without toxic chemicals, they just have to take a stand and do something for consumers benefit, instead of for profit.

Amerikan Health, I"m not the only one that SEES the problem

I found this report, US Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health from the National Academies Institute of Medicine; and it is pretty scary.  (you can click on the title and read the whole thing)  It seems that the world at large is doing better that the US is healthwise.  The US population in fact suffers from higher infant mortality, lower birthrate, higher overall poor health and decreasing longevity.  The US is rated 17th in life expectancy(low), 34th in infant mortality. (infant)((high)) and the HIGHEST per capita in spending on health care. 

This should be a wake up call to every person out there!

There seems to be something wrong with Amerikans.  Part of the problem is that we are becoming a more sedentary society.  People sit in traffic jams waiting to go to the gym to ride a stationary bike.  That's only part of the problem.  Diet is the main thing.  If you have been here before, then you know that I talk a lot about nutrition.  And poison.  The US FDA has a list of over 3000 chemical, artificial, modified, colorant and other products that can be added to foods manufactured in the US.  Or for consumption in the US.  700 of those additives are known toxins and are class 2 carcinogens or worse.  Hundreds of those chemicals are outlawed in MOST of the rest of the world, yet they are consumed daily here.  It isn't because big business can't make our foods without them, they can, and do for the rest of the world.  It's just cheaper, so they feed them to all of us citizens in the biggest long term feeding experiment ever.  And the results are staggering, look at the first paragraph, and try to realize that we will never find one thing that is the root cause; but that it is the Amerikan way of growing our food using GMO seed, spraying ever more toxic pesticides, herbicides and fungicides on our food.  The way the food is harvested, the way it is processed using huge numbers of toxic substances, and lastly, that Amerikans have become complacent with the way their food is created for them.  Cooking is becoming a thing of the past, heating, and reconstituting prepacked salty tasteless and nutrient poor foods is becoming a necessity for most Amerikans.  And we are suffering for it.

  According to a study by the EWG, blood samples from newborns contained an average of 287 toxins, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides, and chemicals from non stick products. Of the 287 chemicals EWG detected in umbilical cord blood, it’s known that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals; 217 are toxic to your brain and nervous system; and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. Clearly, when babies are born loaded with toxins in their blood, it’s a sign that toxic exposure is too high.

Since the mid-90's, the number of Americans suffering from at least three chronic diseases has nearly doubled.  Our life expectancy has dropped, and sadly, infant mortality has increase.  Diseases that once were rare are now commonplace and are approaching epidemic levels.
1.  Autism now affects one in 88 children, compared to one in 25,000 in 1970,  CDC figures
2.  Type 2 diabetes in the Us increased by 176% between 1980 and 2010
3   Alzheimer's is rising at alarming rates.  It's estimated that 5.4 million older Americans now has it.  AD rates have DOUBLED since 1980
4.  Infectious diseases caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria now may cause as many as 105,000 deaths each year.  With most of those infections having been contracted in hospitals.  CDC estimate
It is estimated that right now, of everyone that is alive at this time, 1 in 3 will get cancer in their lifetimes.  70% of them will die from it.  We have no estimates as to those born after today.  What will their chance be if they continue to eat the poisons in our food supply that have NEVER been tested for long term use as food.   EVER!   There have been a few privately funded studies and those do not look good.  We are poisoning ourselves, and our future generations. 

What is "NATURAL" ? All about Truvia, Nectresse and others

At this time, the FDA has no specific requirements for the use of the word "NATURAL" for food processors.  (FDA Whining)  The FDA says that as long as a food does not contain any artificial colors, flavors, or synthetic substances, it can be called "Natural".  But it is not in any way to be considered law, and it is just a guideline.  Well with that as a guideline, then I'm not at all certain why Searle doesn't market their horrific artificial sweetener aspartame as being all "Natural".  The truth is, it is made from two amino acids and a methyl esther bonding the two together.  All NATURAL in the FDA definition of their labeling guidelines that they do not enforce. But then to the FDA, ALL labeling and nutrient information, their rules are just guidelines.  Did you know that to the FDA, the specific amount of any nutrient listed on the package can be off as much as TWENTY percent, and they are fine with it.  If any ingredient is added at less than one percent of the total amount of material in the recipe, then the producer DOES NOT HAVE TO LIST THAT INGREDIENT ON THE LABEL!  What that means is that manufacturers could use another chemical sweetener called Neotame and put it into anything they want, and because it is so sweet and so little is needed; that the manufacturer would not have to list it on the label.  And that is one of the new ones that is just a temperature stable form of aspartame, deadlier than the original, and absolutely NO long term testing has ever been done on it.  

Yicks!

What about all the new sweeteners on the market now, ones like Truvia and Nectresse that the makers claim are "All Natural"?  Personally, these are products that I feel fall under the "BUYER BEWARE" labeling law.  Since the FDA refuses to control the all natural terminology, then it is up to us, consumers, to watch out for products that have never been proven to not be harmful.  I have written about Truvia and Nectresse here before, and you can read about how they process the Stevia here, (Truvia)  And just for fun check out the Nectresse site itself as they use the word "NATURAL" about every tenth word.  It is very scary.  (Nectresse)  The main problem I have with these two chemical sweeteners is that they are marketed as All Natural, and that they are made from Stevia and Monk fruit.  Again, the processing of the extracts is scary, and these two products are not the main ingredient of Truvia and Nectresse.  Erythritol is the main ingredient in both.  Erythritol is what is called a sugar alcohol.  Not really alcohol, but it displays alcohol like characteristics, and is sweet. It is made from GMO corn starch. To make corn starch, big biz takes all the corn and cobs and treats it with sulfuric acid, then it is ground.  The starch separates from the germ, gluten and fiber.  Then after washing, it is dried.  Then the starch is processed by fermentation to make the Erythritol.  There are no records kept on the subject, but  am pretty sure that most, if not all of the corn used, is Genetically Modified.  At this time, very few long term studies have been done for feeding Erythritol, the ones that have been done do not indicate the source of the product, and the autopsies were limited. (Erythritol)   Does that sound natural to you?  It doesn't to me either.  There are a whole bunch of these alcohol sugars that are used as chemical sweeteners, look at the labels, avoid them if possible.  Sorbitol, made from glucose.  Xylitol, made from birch bark.  Mannitol, from glucose syrup.  Lactitol, from milk sugar.  Isomalt, from basic sucrose.  All of these should be avoided, as little long term testing has been done on them.  And let's face it, the companies that manufacture this crap are well known for lying to their customers.

So are any of the new chemical sweeteners okay to use?  That is a tough question.  Stevia to me is one of the finest natural sweeteners around.  You can buy it in bulk at most health food stores, or online (my favorite place) and make your own steva tea.  Use it to sweeten anything, but it is not good for baking.  But then if you are trying to lose weight or are diabetic, you shouldn't be baking a lot of stuff anyway.  If you want to buy one of the stevia based sweeteners on the market, look at the ingredients.  If it lists crap you can't pronounce, do you really want to risk your long term health on products that are making their manufacturers money that could possibly be used to fund a few studies to see if using their crap kills you down the road.  Well, maybe that is a foolish thought, why would any business actually fund studies that would put them out of business?  Then again, the BIG question is, why doesn't the FDA REQUIRE those studies BEFORE they approve that crap?

I LOVE Plastic, I eat it every day!

And so do you!  Plastic is everywhere, the defining product of our throwaway society today is plastic.  It is everywhere, and it is poisoning our environment as well as our actual bodies.  Plastic unfortunately, is not inert, and in fact does breakdown giving off gases and chemical compounds that infiltrate the products that are packaged in the plastic, and then after being discarded, the plastics continue to pollute the environment with their byproducts and the actual plastic litter itself. 

There is an estimated 22 billion pounds of plastic made every year, 50% of which ends up in landfills.  About 45% of the remainder ends up in the environment as litter, eventually being washed out to the sea where it breaks apart by wave action and friction to become huge floating trash islands. These are formed by the action of currents that form whirlpool like effects called gyres that aggregate the trash into the piles that are in the case of the north Pacific, almost three hundred thousand square miles in size.  The UN estimates that there are 46,000 pieces of plastic in every square mile of ocean.  It is huge, and consists of not only large floating plastic trash, but primarily of small pieces of plastic down to nearly microscopic in size, all broken down by the action of the oceans.  The problems with the all this floating trash in various stages of degredation are that it all looks like food to marine life.  Turtles, fish, whales, everything, eats the stuff.  One of the most horrific movies EVER made is Midway, the Movie, by Chris Jordan.  You can watch the 3 minute trailer for it here. (Trailer)  It shows birds on Midway island and the effects of living near the Great Pacific Trash Vortex.  Watch the trailer, you will never buy another plastic bottle of water again.

So marine life eats plastic, but you don't right?  Wrong.  Plastics do in fact breakdown right after being heated to form whatever product they are to be manufactured into.  Some of the chemicals that are given off are bisphenol-A, BPA and pthalates.  BPA is linked to disruption of embryonic development, heart disease and cancer.  Pthalates dysregulate gene expression and cause genital anomalies, especially in baby boys, that may pass down several generations.  And both have been linked to multiple organ damage.Everytime you heat leftovers in the microwave and use a plastic container, both of these chemicals are released into your food.  If you eat canned anything, the lining used in the cans gives off both of these chemicals during the heating used in the canning process.  BPA is so prevelant in our society that 95% of adults tested show significant levels in their urine.  Eating canned food however increases the BPA level in the urine by almost a 1000 times.  Kind of scary.

BPA is an endocrine disrupter, which means it interferes with your body's hormonal system. An animal study found that BPA damages chromosomes and interferes with reproductive cell development which could lead to spontaneous miscarriage, birth defects, and Down syndrome. In other studies, BPA has been linked to obesity, insulin resistance and cancer. According to Texas A & M geneticist Dr. David Busbee, less than one trillionth of a gram of BPA per one milliliter of food is sufficient to change the functioning and development of cells in your body.  BPA studies have captured the public’s attention, and there is growing legislation to limit its use, as a result. The state of California just declared BPA a reproductive health hazard. 

 It is all a bit scary, I mean plastics are suppose to be the miracles of modern life.  They are the things that make life possible.  How can they possibly harmful to us?  Again, like so many things in our lives, a simple discovery is used to make money, without ever bothering to find out the long term effects.  I don't think that anyone ever thought that there would be floating islands of plastic trash in the ocean that are larger than the state of Texas. 

Expensive Propaganda costing people their lives

The season is slowly coming to an end, and it seems, despite all the advertising hype, all the payoffs and kickbacks to doctors, all the misinformation and flawed studies reported, the flu is attacking larger numbers of people every year.  Yep, it's true, more people got the flu this year than in years past.  More people got the flu AFTER getting the flu vaccine than ever before.  And more people died as a result of getting the flu vaccine than ever before.

Side effects from flu vaccine:
Headaches, stomach aches, muscle weakness, fever, diarhea, vomiting, soreness at injection site, moderate loss of visual acuity, moderate trembling and/or seizure like symptoms.
Guilliane-Barre Syndrome
Death
Oh, and the flu.

Effectiveness of vaccine as found by researchers in Europe, first month effectiveness, 38%.  By third month, down to a staggering -1%.  Numbers of people expressing mild symptoms from list of side effects, 70%.  Numbers of people expressing serious side effects resulting in lost work time, 16%.  Numbers of people exhibiting Guilliane-Barre Syndrome after receiving flu vaccine, 1 in 88,000.  Numbers of deaths directly attributed to flu vaccine, 1 in 106,000.  Number of people that died from the flu in 2011-2012 flu season in European Union, 300, or about 1 in 1.6 million.

Kind of scary huh?  Not that people die from GETTING the flu, but that more people died or became SERIOUSLY ill from getting the vaccine to prevent the flu!

According to the CDC, flu vaccines contain aluminum, mercury (as Thimerisol preservative) antibiotics, egg protein, MSG, and formaldehyde. 

Big pharma companies refute the mounting evidence that vaccines cause ANY of the problems listed above.  Nor do they acknowledge that ANY vaccine will cause autism in children although the facts are in, the US gives more vaccines to children than any other country, and the US has the highest rate of autism.  There is a graph showing a linear progression, more vaccines, higher autism rate.  In the US, the rate of autism is now 1 in 88 children will have autism.  There are 33 countries in the world that mandate no, or very few vaccines before the age of 2 and they all have lower infant deaths than the US.  Including Cuba.  However, without actually admitting that there is a definite link, the big pharma companies and the US government have established the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to pay off parents that sue because their children were injured after getting vaccinated.  Ooops, the problem is that autism isn't listed as one of the 237 injuries that is allowable for compensation.

Any idea how much money is made on vaccinations each year?  I don't either.  Try as I might, that info just is not made public.  But the fact is that the top ten drug companies make more profit than the other 490 companies in the Fortune 500 combined. 

I don't get vaccines.  But then in 1992 I did, and I am one of those unfortunate people that came down with Guilliane-Barre Syndrome.  6 weeks off work with horrific pain in my arms and legs.  I was lucky, I recovered.  Many do not.  And now, more and more people exhibit this, and other debilitating side effects from vaccines all in the name of money.

And now for something completely different.

I know, it isn't about food or cooking, or the mantle of oppression that the government foists upon us; but it is just for fun.  A bit of fiction (maybe?) that I have been working on lately, and thought it would get a laugh.

I am god’s emissary

By

Roy Marshall

Looking out the window behind her, he seemed as though he looked right through her.  Then he began, “I’m just not comfortable talking about it.  That’s all, I don’t think it is relevant.”

“Well, I think it is, your family certainly seems to think that it is, and the judge thought the same thing.  It is in fact something that alters how you look at the world and how you deal with everything and everyone you come into contact with.”

“No, I don’t think that at all.  I mean that just because of all the people on the planet, god chose me to communicate with doesn’t necessarily mean that I in any way have changed how I deal with the world around me.”

“But Mr. Marshall, in fact you have changed how you interact with the world.  Your being here in this facility in fact shows that.  You told the judge that you first spoke to God about three years ago, is that correct?”

“Yes, it was a life or death situation, and I barely survived.  God, or whoever, presented itself to me at that time.”

“And at that time would you have characterized yourself as a religious man?”

“No, not in the least.  I wouldn’t say that I am an atheist, but certainly I always believed more in a Hindu type philosophy rather than any specific religion. I mean organized religion to me has always been pretty ridiculous.”

Straightening up in her chair, his last comment caught her off guard.  “Really, is that still how you feel about it.”

Turning to stare directly at her now, he began slowly, “It?  I am not certain of your meaning.  Do you mean to lump together all religions, or were you being specific and singling out one specific religion, say Catholicism, or perhaps another?”

  “Sorry Mr. Marshall, I was just referring to what you stated.  But how do you feel about religions, and of course, how do you feel about any one specifically.”

“Well first off, to me, the whole concept of a life where you can do anything you want, and then go see a priest who tells you that it is okay that you sinned, stole, robbed, killed or whatever, but if you feel good in your heart, then say hail Mary a few times and all is forgiven.”

“And what does God say about that?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t asked god.”

“Is it something you could ask God now?”

“I couldn’t, but perhaps if you’re seeing god now, maybe you could ask.”

“Mr, Marshall, I don’t see God.  But let’s talk about when you see him.  Is it all the time, infrequently.  Just the once.  How often?”

“Certainly not all the time, that would suggest that I am crazy.  Believe it or not, I do in fact understand how talking to god is not something that would be considered normal in the world today. Probably why it has taken three years for me to say anything about my conversations.  It isn’t something that I myself have exactly been able to deal with very easily.”

She thought about it for a moment, then began again, “How often then have you had these conversations with him?”

With a quizzical look on his face, he looked right at her.  “Well, let’s start with you insisting on calling god a ‘him’.  I personally don’t assign any specific gender to god, god is just that, god.  The concept of male or female may be something that humans desire to assign, but I am pretty certain that god is not at all concerned about it.”  The man relaxed and slouched a bit in his chair before he continued, “As to how often I see god, well, that is something that varies.  There is no regular pattern, no appointed times.  When god has things to tell me, then there is an appearance.”

“How specifically does, well, God, appear to you.”

“That indeed is the problem.  I can’t say that god appears before me in a completely corporeal form.  Neither is it a burning bush.  And then again, these meetings are not like dream sequences.  Well, at least they don’t take place when I’m asleep.  In fact it is difficult to put into words what happens, god appears before me, and not just tells me things, but does answer questions.  I’m sure that was to be your next question to me, right?”

“Well, sure.  Have you asked God questions?”

“Yes, of course.  I mean I think everyone would.  Once I discovered that god appearing before me is a reality and not just some crazy fantasy.  There have been a lot of questions.”

After writing a little in her notebook, she began again, “What sorts of questions do you ask him, sorry, I mean God?”

“Hmmm, well of course.  The first one was why me?  I think that most people would ask that.  It is something that’s basic.  Of the six billion some people on the planet, there is going to be a certain incredulity as to why god has chosen any specific person over any other.”

“So what was the answer God gave to you, why you?”

“Why not me?  That was god’s answer.  But of course down the road as we had more and more conversations and as I became more aware of the origins and purpose of the universe, then that simple answer made more sense to me.”  Sitting back up straight in his chair he looked over at her with a certain look of surprise.  “Well, of course, wouldn’t you want to know the real question of not just the origin of the universe but also the purpose of life?”

“Yes, I think that would be the main thing that I would want to know.  Yes, that is exactly what I would be interested in learning.”

“The same with me, and probably the same with most every other cognizant human out there.  So, that's what we discussed mostly.  After some time I realized that god is in fact god and our discussions began.”

“So Mr. Marshall, how did you verify that this god is in fact the God?”

“Well, that’s the weird part.  It wasn’t enough for god to tell me about specific aspects and events in my life.  As I told god, it did little to inform me of things that occurred in my childhood, if god was a figment of my imagination then this god would by definition already have knowledge of every event in my life.”

“True, you can’t hide from your own past.  So how did you become convinced?”

“Easier than you might think.  I have interaction with numerous people.  In my business, I sold products retail and met many many people.  It was a simple thing for god to tell me that on any specific day that I would meet and sell to a number of specific people.  Then god gave me details about those people.  Very intimate and specific details about people. Here, let me show you.”  And with that he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.

As she unfolded the page from a yellow legal tablet, she looked at it and then as her eyes opened wide with astonishment, she began “You wrote here what I would be wearing.  There are details about my husband, my son.  My roommate in college.  How did you get this information?”

“god told me.”  Was all he said.

Looking at the paper, then back at him, she slowly folded the paper and set it off to the side of the desk that sat between them.  After readjusting herself in her seat, she sat for several minutes before speaking again.  Finally, she began, “When you had, conversations with god, you talked about the universe.  The origins of everything, is that correct?”

“Yes, I, like everyone I think, wonder why we are here, don’t you?”

“Did god ever ask you to do things?  Anything special?”

“Certainly, that was the entire purpose of god coming to me.”

“And what was it that god wants you to do?”

“It might be difficult for most people to understand, but god wants me to be a prophet.  To spread forth the wisdom and teachings that god wants all of mankind to live by.  If you think about it, we humans aren’t exactly living the life that god gave to the previous prophets now are we?”

“Previous prophets?”

“Yeah, Jesus, Mohammed, the Bab, a few others that were not given any attention, killed, jailed or whatever.  That certainly has been my fear, and of course look at how true it is becoming.  I did not want this, I was, no, I am a simple man, honest, living the best I can and dealing with the vagaries that life throws at me, and now this.  Believe me, I don’t want it.”

“That may be so, however I believe that the changes in your life are now irreversible.  You can’t put the cat back into the bag.  Something you just said, Jesus being a prophet.  I don’t understand that.”

“Probably not, but Jesus was just a prophet until 326 AD when Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Mycea and wrote the first version of the bible and decided to make him the son of god instead of just a prophet.  There existed at that time a large number of written works that gave various accounts of his life.  Making Jesus a deity was at that time, a way to further their own agenda.  Didn’t really make any difference, not many humans actually follow the teachings of Jesus even after he was deified.”

“I agree that sometimes after watching the news, you can get the idea that mankind isn’t exactly following the most Christian practices.”

“Well and for that matter, Moslem, Jewish and just about every other religion that claim to be followers of god, or claim to follow their one true God, aren’t exactly exhibiting any sort of godlike behaviors now are they.  That’s why god comes to Earth every once in a while and picks a prophet to go out and spread the word about living a good life.  It hasn’t exactly worked in the past, and believe me I’m not too thrilled with doing it. But as god tells me, I am the chosen one this time around.  God claims to be spending an inordinate amount of time here and would like to see some results.  I am not certain that I am up to the task, but I will try, try, try.”

“You say god is spending a lot of time here?”

“Yes, not something god prefers to do.”

“Well isn’t god here watching over us, seeing what we do, how we act how much we pray?”

“Apparently not.  That's a pretty egocentric view of god, or for that matter any deity.  It is a big universe out there and god has a lot of things going on.  And yes, I have asked what other things and no, I did not get an answer.  It seems god comes around every once in a while, sees what a mess we humans are making of this planet that was created for us, and picks a prophet and goes on.  The last prophet was a major catastrophe, ever hear of Edgar Cayce?”

“Yes, of course.  From the early 20^th century.  A psychic who healed people and gave some millionaire information about the universe.”

“Basically that’s it.  God was a bit flummoxed by the modern technological world at that time.  When last here, a musket was the weapon of mass destruction and the primary form of transportation was still horse and buggy.  Still a lot of, well for lack of a better term, sinning going on and god took on a different tact and gave all that info to poor Edgar to spout off to some guy that really had little understanding of it all.”

“But was the information that was given to him about the universe correct, or not?”

“Yeah, that is something that I have yet to get a definitive answer from god about.  That seems to be the Reader’s Digest version of the universe, and god claims that I, and all humans would not be capable of understanding the entire picture.  I asked god to try me, but so far, god has deemed it out of my league so to speak.  I am still in the dark about most of it, and so all I really have to go on is live a good life and you will be rewarded in the afterlife.  I’m not sure even how to go about getting this message out to humanity, no one has as of yet paid much heed to previous prophets.  And there is some disparity there as well since Cayce taught reincarnation.  For that matter, churches are everywhere, and it would seem, are well attended.  People go to church, pray, and go out and commit horrific atrocities against their fellow man and against the Earth that supports them.  Is there anything that I can say that will alter their behaviors?”

“Not exactly the attitude that I was expecting from someone who professes to be the new prophet of god.  Did god provide you with any details as to how you are to accomplish this task?”   

Thinking for a moment or two, his lips twisted and contorted a bit before he began again, “Yeah, that is the hard part for me…….., I have no idea how this is to be done.  Plus just the stuff we have talked about is pretty disturbing.”

“Disturbing?”  She asked.

“Yeah, kind of odd, not what I would have thought would support the usual religious views disseminated by previous prophets charged with this very same task.  And certainly I think I understand that god looks at what the general level of understanding is, or possibly could be when choosing what information to release, but this is odd indeed.  More along the lines of old Carlos Castaneda and the drug culture stuff back in the seventies.  Know anything about him Doc?”

“The Yaqui sorcerer?  Didn’t he write all about doing drugs on his path to knowledge?”

“That’s what I had remembered as well.  I went back and reread his books after meeting up with god, sort of a refresher.  I discussed the books with god.  God was impressed with the fact that a human was able to garner that much understanding of the basics.”

“Basics?  Not anything about the drug culture was it?”

“No, no, not at all.  What it was all about was the path to knowledge.  Castaneda claimed that the universe, and all life in it, is all part of the same thing.  We are all bits of light, life in its basic elemental form.  All life consists of light, and we, even though individual, are all part of the light of the universe.  It gets more involved than that, but that is the basics.  Cayce said much the same thing as well”

“Really, that is interesting in light of the fact that as I remember, Castaneda was labeled a fraud.  He made all the stuff up about the sorcerer.”

“Whatever, that just means that he had the understanding himself, and did not rely on learning all this stuff from someone else.  Personally, I believe that it is beyond the human brain to understand the world and its environment, so the brain compensates by creating simplified illusions that act as a replacement for actual understanding.  We see what we want to see, or have been told is real.  When the illusions work, such as all the differing religions, and the humans who subscribe to the illusion survive to live another day, then those illusions are passed to new generations.  Thus the growth of religion, and the difficulty in the introduction of a new concept.  God has given me an impossible task, to challenge the status quo, the prevailing belief in, well, god.  And to attempt to introduce a new concept, one that may make sense to me, and was interesting reading for pot heads in the seventies; but that challenges the credulity of the mind’s ability to conceptualize the universe as something that is not as simple as a loving caring god monitoring their every action.”

She looked at him for a few moments after his long speech, then asked, “So do you believe you can do this task?”

“Well, no.  I don’t even think that most people believe in god.  People say they believe in god, but few actually do.  If they did, they would live their lives with that belief.  That is what will be the hardest thing, to break through the belief system that humans have, the desire to believe, but not the actual belief.  See my difficulty?”

“Yes, in a way.  What I see though is that god chose you, there must have been a reason.  God believes in you, knows that you will succeed.  Don’t you believe that?  Why else would god give you this task?”

“Really?  God has tasked others before me, and they’ve failed.  The question you’re presenting is does god have omnipotence.  Does god know the future?  Will I succeed?”

She looked thoughtful for several moments before continuing, “Yes, I guess I am thinking that.  If god knows the future, as I believe most religions profess is a quality god possesses, then god knew what the outcome would be when previous prophets were selected to do the job that you now have.   That is a quandary, one that I would be asking god about.  If I were you, I would be asking if I would succeed, what method do I use, how, really, just how do I do it”

“Yeah, believe me, I have.”  He looked off behind her, puzzlement on his face as he stared off at something, somewhere, anywhere.  Then he began again, “An answer that god won’t give to me.  There is always a sort of reserved disinterest when we talk about it.  I don't know, maybe in fact he does know the outcome, but it is the trying that matters, not the result."

Se looked at him for a minute, deep in thought.  Then began again, "What else have you asked god about?"

"Well. I asked about the creation thing versus the evolution theory.  That puzzled god quite a bit.  God asked if I and everyone out there really thought that god took the time to create each individual plant and animal on the planet.  That would have taken quite a bit of time god said, and that the only way it could have been done was to put together all the correct ingredients and then just check up on what was going on every once in a while.  The result was to choose a prophet, yours truly."

"So god didn't create each animal?"

"No, god said that he tried that once, it was a lot of work and that's how the platypus came into existence.  It was a lot harder than you think.  But then again I think god may have just been showing me that god does have a sense of humor.  I just don't know if that was about the telling, or the actual creation of the platypus itself."

"I see, what about time then, did you ask god about time?"

"You know, I did.  God says that time is time, the seconds tick by for god at the same rate that they do for you or me.  That the bible says that the earth was created in seven days actually made god chuckle a bit.  God didn't think that god was that good.  When I asked how old god is, then god told me that that was something that I could not even begin to understand and so the telling me of that was pointless.  So I asked if god's existence predated the big bang that created our universe, and god said yes.  And then I asked if god was the only god.  And that's when god said that god had many forms.  I'm not sure what that meant.  Again, when asked, I was told that it is something beyond the ability of our understanding.  God did say that I should concentrate on human existence, and how all of us, all life on earth itself, is composed of light and that we are in fact, all made of the same stuff."

"Let's go back to this being made of light.  What else can you tell me about that?"

"Woooo, that's a hard one.  But it seems that there is indeed a spark of life.  All life has it, and the more complex the life form, then the more intricate the light and the patterns of lights within.  We humans can see the light.  Well sort of.  From birth we are all, each and every one of us, exactly the same.  Blank slates that see reality around us as it truly is, but with no comprehension or, well, I suppose, point of reference.  It is the daily exposure to differences in experiences, differing parental influences, everything that occurs that changes the intrinsic details of individual personality.  As a side note god says that we all actually think exactly the same way and see ourselves in exactly the same manner because in fact we are all part of the same universe, this universe of life, of light.  Again, the illusion manifests itself as we grow, the dealing with the world around us leads us to have internal dialogue.  The internal dialogue we keep running all the time keeps us from differentiating between what we have been told to see, and what is actually there, which is in reality, life forms around us composed of basic light.  We have corporeal form, but our life essence is that of light and if we stop the internal dialogue, you will be able to see it."

"Back up a moment Mr. Marshall, god said we all think exactly the same?  I don't see how that is possible.  In my work I know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that humans think differently.  This isn't true."

"Doc, you're thinking that humans think the same things you do.  That can't be possible.  Their actual process of thought remains the same throughout their lives and yet that isn't the way it works either.  We start out with the same processes, but from the moment of birth, individual differences in the actions within our environment changes how each individual views the world.  And as well, things that we eat, toxins, lead etc. alter pathways in brain functions.  But the actual process of thought, is exactly the same for each of us.  Individuals react differently as a result of environment, both physical and emotional.  That's how god explained it to me.  I am surprised that you seem to understand the light thing."

She looked at him briefly then looked down at the floor.  Slowly, and quietly she began again, "Well, a long time ago, I did read Castenada, the seeing thing.  The stopping the internal dialogue.  Beings made of light.  It hits home.  Stopping the internal dialogue is the hardest thing that I ever tried to do."

"Did you succeed?"

"No, never.  My mind always came back and told me that was what I was doing.  I remember the attempts, and for a long time, I was stymied by my failure.  I truly felt it was possible, I just needed to try harder.  But it never worked for me."

They both sat in silence for several minutes, each deep in their individual thoughts.  Breaking the silence, he began with, "So, the whole thing is not so,... so, hard to believe, maybe?"

"No Mr. Marshall, it's not so hard to believe.  I find myself thinking that you are the luckiest person on the planet, and at the same time, the unluckiest.  The chance to speak with god, and yet the thought of this task you have, is some how unnerving.  How do you feel about it?"

"Not lucky.  It's all hard to take in, and believe me, at times I'm not even certain that it is indeed real."

"What?"

"Yeah, I know.  I mean the reality of it all is pretty incredible.  I have at times wondered if it was all a figment of my imagination.  The society in which we exist is one where this is not something that is readily accepted.  And in fact, it is deemed a rather technical, well, crazy.  So I understand that, recognize the difficulty of the task, and in fact question my part, as well as the reality of it all.  And as has happened in the past, god comes to me and quells the doubts, and impresses upon me once again my selection of, and the importance of this task."

"Mr. Marshall, I believe in what you have told me, the things you wrote on that piece of paper are proof enough for me.  Talking with you I find that you are cognizant of your situation, of the reality of what you have spoken of both as it relates to you and to your place within society and the rules and preconceptions that exist.  You've convinced me."

"Well that is one person.  I can't do this to every person on the planet."

"No, I see your point.  And then again how am I to release you from this facility?  I can't tell the judge that you actually talk to god, then that makes me crazy as well.  I can't tell him that you were just kidding, you tried to convince your son and your sister that you talk to god, and they had you admitted here.  So that is a problem for me as well.  Wholly as insurmountable as your big problem is just the task of getting you out of here so you can accomplish your assignment."

"I hadn't thought about that, I can't really perform my duties as prophet from in here now can I?"

Nodding her head repeatedly, she began, "No, but I did have a little thought about something from college.  It was something Buckminster Fuller said, or I think it was him.  He said that you never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

"That's a nice concept, but how does that relate to me?"

"Well, I think that you need to write it all down, get it published.  Once you start to write it, then god could give you tips on how to say what needs to be said and to be convincing. "

"I suppose you're right, that seems to be an excellent idea.  I mean that Castaneda's works were extremely popular.  Giving out a new paradigm of religion that answers more questions than the existing ones do could be convincing."

"Exactly.  And it is something that you can start to do here, while I work on the problem of getting you out of here.  And speaking of Castaneda, you never said whether or not you tried to stop your internal dialogue.  Did you try?"

"Yes, I did."

"Did you succeed?"

"Yes, three years ago.  That was how I first met god."

Just the beginning

FOOD NEWS! For fun, for luxury, and just plain crazy

All right, it's no secret that I read a lot about food.  I also get all the trade magazines, and for the most part, read them as well.  I don't care about the price of wheat and corn, but the other stuff in them is pretty interesting.  This week, I learned some interesting things that I thought I would tell you all about here as you may not ever see them, as some are pretty whacky.

First off, IHOP is launching a new line of breakfast sandwiches.  Omelet sandwiches.  A made to order omelet on grilled sour dough bread.  To quote IHOP, "Our culinary team has created three delicious varieties of Griddle Melts, each using the finest ingredients and in a hearty size that requires both hands."  Finest ingredients?  Really, I bet they use that liquid butter flavored canola to grill the bread with.  Yuck.  It tastes like nasty oil to me.  Oh well, an interesting idea, and shows they are thinking.

Second, Hagen-Daazs is now coming out with gelato.  Yow, that could be dangerous for me.  Flavors will be the incredible and fabulous Stracciatella, sea salt caramel, dark chocolate chip, vanilla bean cappuccino, limoncello, black cherry and my second favorite flavor, amaretto.  Should be in stores by April, I personally am looking forward to this one.

Third, Mountain Dew, which is wholly owned by the demon Pepsico, is launching a new line of breakfast drinks.  They are to be called, Kickstart.. It is a caffeinated sparkling juice drink.  Makes me wonder if they will actually have any juice in them and if they will have the same problems 7up did with their marketing their chemically fruit flavored 7up flavors that they lost a huge lawsuit over because they had large pictures of real fruit on the labels, yet had no fruit at all in them.  I can't read the ingredients on the little tiny pictures of the cans, but I am 99% sure that the main ingredient is going to be High Fructose Corn Syrup Poison.  Oh well, buyer beware.

Fourth, Pizza Hut, another Yum! Foods company, is introducing mini pizzas.  Pizza sliders.  Nine for ten bucks.  Really?

Fifth, Dean Foods is reformulating chocolate milk.  It has 40% less sugar and gets its sweetness from lactose and natural sucrose.  Or so they say.  And it supposedly does not have any HFCS, so that could be a good thing.  We have to remember though that big dairy has petitioned the FDA to allow them to add aspartame and 4 other artificial sweeteners to chocolate milk and 17 other dairy products and NOT put it on the label.  That hasn't been approved yet, but I hope this isn't them just getting ready for that action.

Lastly, is Coca-Cola Co.'s incredibly profitable Simply Orange brand of juices.  They are coming out with more fruit and orange blends along with their fruit and lemonade blends as well.  They say they are nothing but fruit, but the label states right on it, "natural flavors"  Hmmmm, I wonder what they mean by that.  Let's try to remember that Coke patented a process to "purify" stevia  and claims the same thing, they make tea out of natural stevia. Then they process it.  The actual Coke patent for the process outlines a 40+ step process that includes the use of acetone, methanol, ethanol, acetonitrile, and isopropanol to "purify" the stevia extract.  That is not natural.  What is in their "natural flavors"?

Food news is sometimes entertaining, the omelet sandwich is an interesting idea, messy maybe, and the pizza sliders, sort of unique.  When I was a kid, we made pizzas out of little deli breads, crackers, or bigger ones on English muffin halves, so it is not new, just a commercialization of an old concept.  Will they work?  Hard to say, however the actual news is that big business is attempting to change things.  Just not enough.

Some things that everyone can do that will help is to ask questions when you eat out or buy things at the supermarket.  Number one question I think that everyone should ask is if the meat they are serving/selling certified free of Ractopamine, the chemical added to feed that caused Russia and China to BAN all imports of American meats.  And of which the US is only one of 3 countries in the world that allows it to be added to our meat.  Number two question to ask, are any of the foods they sell GMO free.  (I got kicked out of a Safeway for doing this very thing)  Let everyone around you hear your questions, the sad fact of the matter is that most people have no idea about GMO foods and how scientific research has now proven that they are harmful when eaten long-term.  These types of news items aren't seen on the daily news or in the daily paper.  And the reason is, news stations and papers get most of their advertising revenue from agribusinesses and they CAN'T say bad things about their advertisers mains source of income. 

It's up to us to help get the word out to all consumers.  Talk about it, write about it, let the world around you know.  Maybe someday soon the news I report from the food business magazines will have news about how certain big food companies have remove canola, or gone non-GMO, or stopped adding toxins, or some other great and wonderful thing that puts the health of consumers above profits.  Now that would be news!

Third Edition of the EVER Popular - Because They CAN!

I understand ignorance, I really do.  I got married out of ignorance, and learned the hard way through 6 torturous years of demeaning subservience to a self professed godlike creature that was as she described herself, incapable of error.  I was ignorant of that aspect of her rather bizarre personality for quite some time.  However, after a few years of that servitude, I changed, and no longer accepted the status quo, and that led to our going separate ways.  Ignorance.  That does not mean stupidity, it means not having knowledge of a specific thing or things.  As in, I was ignorant that she was a witch before I married her. 

Ignorance in business, is a whole different matter.  When cyclamates hit the market in the fifties, processors were ignorant of the potential effects of long term consumption of cyclamates causing increases in cancer. 

What's wrong with this scenario?

To start with, the FDA has not ever, EVER, taken the high road and required manufacturers of artificial sweeteners, or for that matter, any additive, to conduct long term feeding studies on their proposed new additives. 

Does that make any sense at all to you?

Personally, I do not in any way shape of form, believe that the FDA is ignorant of the fact that short term feeding studies may show that a specific chemical is not out and out toxic, but that doesn't preclude the fact that long term feeding studies need to be done to determine if there is a cumulative effect.  As happened with, cyclamates.  The FDA cannot claim ignorance that there is a possibility of long term problems with any chemical additive into our food supply.  And yet, there are still no requirements for long term testing.  Given that scenario, it would be possible to find a use for a compound that has lead in it.  This is strictly conjecture, but let's just say that my new lead compound can be added to, let's just say, bread dough, and it increases the rising ability and softness by 50%.  And all at a modest cost of less than a penny a loaf.  I feed it to mice for the required 60 days, and if none die, then I can get the FDA to approve it to be used in the food industry.  WOW!  Lead compounds, but they are safe, according to the FDA and based on my study I did feeding mice.  So, bread bakers start to buy my lead and add it to bread, kids everywhere start to have difficult times in school, can't learn, can't sit still, parents everywhere start to forget everything, crime skyrockets, people begin to die off for unexplained reasons. 

Am I liable?  Can I be sued by any of the people that were hurt, diseased, or died?

No, of course not.  I didn't make them buy the bread and eat it.  I didn't make the bakers buy my poison and put it into their bread.  And I didn't make the FDA approve the poison for use in food, in fact I fulfilled all the requirements that that fine organization insists I perform in order to get my poison approved.  Can all the bakers out in the world come back and say that they were ignorant of the fact that the lead compound might be hazardous? 

That is the tough one.  

Since it was approved, even with the minimally required testing by the FDA, then how can they be held responsible?  They were ignorant.  Is the FDA liable?  Ultimately, yes.  But it is something that cannot be proven in a court at this time.  Big business runs this country.  It won't happen.  Business does things that are to their advantage, and they do it because they can.  Smaller businesses it seems put the health and livelihood of their consumers first, and it shows.  Look toward spending your food dollars wisely, and read the labels, check with store managers to verify that their produce is non-GMO, that if they don't carry REAL all natural brands of products or organic products then you will shop elsewhere and tell all your friends to do so as well.  And then do it.  Don't let your health and well being be destroyed by big agribusiness, just because they can!

New Fears, and Coke and Pepsi react. Sort of.

Well, there is yet another new fear out there and soooooo many people consume it daily that California passed a law wherein if you added this to your product, then you had to put it on the label.  The new threat to the health of the world, 4-Methylimidazole.  Or 4-Mel as it is called in the trade.  It is an ingredient in caramel coloring.  Yep, that's right, caramel coloring.  The stuff is in most every soft drink out there, as well as cheaper beers, and is added to a whole host of products wanting a nice darker color.  It has been shown to cause significant alteration of systems when fed to mice at concentrations of 115 mg 4MI/kg body weight.  What this means is that in order to significantly impact a human, to achieve the same dosage as that as a rat over the period of one year, then a human would have to consume about 19,000 cans of soda per day for 40 years. 

Sounds silly doesn't it?  Well, there are of course two things that bother me about this and need to be looked at in detail.  First, there are caramel colorings out there that have significantly lower levels of 4-Mel in them rather than the stuff that processors have been using.  When California legislature passed the law in 2011, Coke and Pepsi began to look at those alternatives, and now use them.  Second, why haven't the leaders in California, or for that matter EVERY STATE in the US or even the incredibly corrupt FDA banned additives like Aspartame, potassium bromate,  Ethoxylated mono- and diglycerides, calcium steryl lactalate, azodicarbonamide and calcium propionate.  Or why don't they ban nearly all of the artificial sweeteners since they have proven cancer causing properties, or ban the use of glyphosate weed killer on crops for human or animal consumption.  Or for that matter why don't they ban all Genetically Modified plants and animals as we now have specific detailed indisputable research proving that GM plants are harmful to humans? 

Why?

Honestly, I have no idea why.  There are safer alternatives to most of the toxic additives and preservatives that food processors put into our food.  In fact most of the rest of the world outlaws the chemicals that the US puts into our food supply.  Just last week, Russia banned all imports of meat from the US because American meat is tainted with a poison called Ractopamine and the US is the ONLY country allowed to use it and no one else wants it.  WHY ARE ALL THESE TOXINS ALLOWED IN THE FOOD WE EAT!

I think this is something we need to ask our elected rulers.