What's a drug? I'm not being facetious, most people don't have any idea what the legal definition of a drug actually is. Nor do they understand the processes (or costs) involved with creating, testing and receiving approval for new drugs. Well, the feds define a "drug" in the 21st US Code of Federal Regulations 802 section 321 G subsections A, B, C, and D. You can read them at the bottom. Of particular interest is subsection B that states drugs are articles for use in prevention of diseases. Things like Vitamin C that prevents scurvy, or the B vitamins that prevent blindness, rickets or a number of bone problems. These are proven cures and preventative measures any person can use to prevent specific diseases. However, the FDA has added in there the famous subsection D to the Code and that part disallows any manufacturer that produces any vitamin or supplement or dietary product from adding information to the label that would in any way make a claim as to whether or not the vitamin or supplement would be beneficial for any disease. That's sort of counterintuitive though, as we know, there is absolute proof that certain substances will indeed prevent or even CURE a large number of diseases. However the CFR was amended to prevent any manufacturer from making such a claim.
The purpose for that of course is to never again have snake oil sales in this country. Snake oil. Sort of a generic term used to categorize the huge numbers of unscrupulous charlatans that concocted home brewed elixirs that contained widely varied ingredients from wood alcohol to cocaine to mercury to powdered skunk glands to just about anything. The movie version is of old by traveling side shows complete with fast talking gentlemen, testimonials and often free drinks and food. Hmmm, sounds like detail men doesn't it? If you don't know or never heard the expression, detail men or women, they are sales staff from the big drug companies that go into doctor's offices and dispense promises of wondrous health benefits of their employer's new drugs along with prizes, money, food and free samples. ((just for fun watch the movie 'Love and other Drugs' and watch the Jake Gylenhaal character when his company invents the boner pill)) Actually when you get right down to it, Coke, Dr. Pepper and a surprising number of now large drug manufacturers got their start in business by hawking the snake oil products of the day.
The way to prevent Snake Oil in America is pretty simple. The FDA has decreed that anyone making and marketing any drug cannot put any claims of health benefits unless that drug manufacturer puts the stuff through a somewhat rigorous (and expensive) process that will definitively show that the substance is not harmful and indeed does exactly what the maker claims. No more Snake Oil. Well, sort of. The FDA does sort of tip the scales towards the really big drug companies and allows them to bring drugs out into the world that do seem to not have been all that rigorously tested after all. A lot of recalls and black box warnings. Which realistically the end consumer never gets to see. However, the FDA allows the big guys to market those drugs to doctors and hospitals and of course now days, to patients everywhere via the wondrous concept of mass media. TV, magazines, coupons in newspapers, wherever advertising space is available, drugs will be hawked to the world.
Now the problem for me is that I have for some time now realized that human health depends almost entirely with how your body is fed and cared for. Feed it crap, you get a crappy body. And of course the more crap, ie. chemicals, additives, toxic pesticide residues etc going into the body, then the more the body has to work to eliminate the crap and has little left over to create healthy new cells and cure any problems that might be showing up. Probably from too much crap, but that's the way it works. So the problem is a simple one. The FDA means well, but the restrictive rulings about the claims vitamin and supplement manufacturers want to make about their products prevents people from understanding that simple supplements can help the body get past the crap; especially when all you put into the body is crap. There are others that the FDA has stopped, like the cherry juice processor that labeled their juice with the statement that it helps gout. They got shut down pretty quick, even though virtually every doctor in the world knows that information. The little company never spent the 5 to 8 HUNDRED million dollars for the report that would verify the claim.
So, what to do. Should you take vitamins, or not. And if you think the above statements about crap in makes for a crappy person and want to at least try something different; well, you will find that the labels do not in any way give you any information.
I think that's wrong. I believe basic science has justified many many many of the benefits of modern supplements and that the continued ban is just one more example of the FDA harassment of small businesses.
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(A) articles
recognized in the official United States Pharmacopoeia, official
Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States, or official National
Formulary, or any supplement to any of them; and
(B)
articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or other animals; and
(C)
articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals; and
(D)
articles intended for use as a
component of any article specified in clause (A), (B), or (C). A food or
dietary supplement for which a claim, subject to sections
343
(r)(1)(B) and
343
(r)(3) of this title or sections
343
(r)(1)(B) and
343
(r)(5)(D) of this title, is made in accordance with the requirements of section
343
(r)
of this title is not a drug solely because the label or the labeling
contains such a claim. A food, dietary ingredient, or dietary supplement
for which a truthful and not misleading statement is made in accordance
with section
343
(r)(6) of this title is not a drug under clause (C) solely because the label or the labeling contains such a statement.
Business is, well, in business to make money. It's not rocket science, you buy or make something to sell, you sell it, and at a profit. Most people know that some products allow for larger profits than others, and those are the ones produced by the giant mega corporations. They know what they're doing, they've done it for some time and know that consumers everywhere will pay the prices and allow the giants to make mass quantities of money. The big ones are bottled water, at up to 4000% profit. Tobacco products are not as high, designer clothes are just about there, carbonated beverages, jewelry, eyeglasses and designer frames, non-unlimited plan text messages, coffee from retailers and of course, movie theater popcorn and drinks. All have just huge markups.
And then there are prescription drugs. In America, the profit margins are in the 6000% range. At least that's based on production costs. Granted, there are costs associated with development of the actual drug itself being marketed; but also money that has to go into research on new drugs for the future. There is also marketing. In today's world, most of the big pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing their products than they actually spend on research. (Washington Post) So that eats into their profit margins. One of the weird things that ALL the big drug companies do though that also cuts into profits is pay the FDA huge fines for doing things that are illegal. (Wikipedia list) If you add all the fines up, it's very nearly 20 billion dollars.
Think about that for a minute, TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS.
Now granted, most of that money was in civil penalties. A large part of it was for criminal fines.
Not one single person, no CEO's, no Directors, no Managers, no one, went to jail.
For them, it's a cost of doing business.
The most profitable industry in the world believes that they need to do things to make even more money and so they willingly and continuously engender and promote activities that are illegal and if caught they are aware of that they will pay substantial monetary penalties.
Don't you wish you made that kind of money and could just write off billions as a cost of doing business.
Time on why GlaxoSmithKline got stuck with a 3 billion dollar fine. (Time Mag Report)
There's something wrong with our world.
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So my son asked me to make some stuff for him. Lunch meat sandwiches that are in reality, well, rolls. Easy to do, so I went to Winco for groceries. (I love Winco, employee owned, fair pricing and huge selection, and not supporting the mega corporations funding of personal excesses) I purchases some dry salami and turkey breasts. And some jalapeno jack cheese. I cut thick slabs of the cheese and rolled it up in alternating layers of the cold cuts.
Then I made basic whole wheat bread dough, let rise an 
hour and then took golf ball sized bits and pressed out into rectangle on counter. Placed the rolled cheese and luncheon meats onto the bread dough and just pulled the sides up and pinched them all together to form little loaf. Make sure they are sealed well because if they aren't, then the cheese will melt and leak out all over 
the sheet pans. Let rise in warm place. Right now since it's raining and I have the windows open (YAY summer is over) it's pretty cool and so I let oven warm up a bit and then just let the rolls rise in the warm oven. Let double in size. Then take out and preheat the oven to 425. Throw a few ice cubes in and that steam helps let the rolls rise in those first couple minutes in the oven. Let bake until golden brown, rotating the pan about 10 minutes into the
baking. Total baking time was about 22 minutes. Cool on rack and bag them, suck the air out and throw in the freezer. A couple minutes in the microwave and a nice hot sandwich for on the go or nice snack at work
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Yikes, bold statement, but make it once, and you will agree with me. The soup is pretty easy, and unbelievably nutritious as well as tasty as all get out. To start, take a half cup of lentils, a half cup of wild rice, and a half cup of rye berries. Rye is very hearty and bold, so I thought it would go well in 
this mix. Feel free to use whole oats, wheat or barley. In a pinch, brown rice would work as well. Rinse, put in pressure cooker and cover with a quart of water, bring to boil and pressure for 20 minutes. Let cool until pressure drops, open cooker and pour all the stuff into a bowl. Put the cooker back on the stove and heat back to medium high and film with 3 tablespoons olive oil and then 
add two sliced leeks, 4 ribs celery sliced, a red pepper diced and 3 jalapenos seeded and diced. I also added a cup and a half of chopped smoked mushrooms. Not something everyone has around the house, I have them because I smoke a lot of stuff in my smoker (mostly my goat cheese that I sell) and so I often just slice up mushrooms and put out there. You can omit or just add regular mushrooms. They add just a nice faint smokiness that I find pleasant. Cook over medium high about 8 to 10 minutes, a little color on the veggies is fine and adds to the flavor. When getting a bit softened, dump the grains back into the pot. Now, here I added 2 packages of 
my Tuscan Sun Dip Mix for a fantastic seasoning combination. You know, not necessary to use that specific product, but if you want to try it, come see me at the farmers market or order online (upper right corner) or just add a bunch of your favorite Italian seasoning blend. And I mean a lot, at least two ounces or so. Then I added a bunch of fresh ground black pepper, brought the thing to a boil, then added four finely chopped Kale leaves. Add the lid to the pressure cooker and cook under pressure for about 12 to 14 minutes. Remove from stove and cool to remove lid. Serve as is or with chopped parsley and a whole wheat roll on the side.
You know, this was sooooo easy and it tasted fantastic. Even my son got up from his office (work from home day) and went out to the kitchen when he smelled the stuff. He had told me he wanted a burrito but ended up eating this.
It makes a huge pot, and I imagine that tomorrow it will taste even better than today.
Tomorrow I am going to take this thick soup, really a stew, and mix in a skillet with some cooked brown rice. Let the rice absorb all the liquid, let it cool and mix in some shredded cheese and stuff into green bells that I cored. I'll put them into another pressure cooker and cook under pressure about 8 minutes or so to cook the peppers through. More cheese on top to serve and I think the entire neighborhood will be knocking on the door cuz it will smell that good.
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Yeah, there is a lot of stuff that goes on in the world of food manufacturing and corporate intrigue and mystery. Never important enough for the standard media to report on, why would they, the Kardasian's are making news all the time and they and all their fellow leaders in the world of fluff and whinery (a made up word, the art of whining) take precedence over anything important in your lives.
Anheuser Busch has made it known they intend to take over Miller in a move that will make the company worth about 275 BILLION dollars and will then control over a third of ALL beer production in the WORLD.
Yesterday, the 29th, the FBI announced that companies that use the new "Internet of Things" should be aware that they need to be diligent about security matters as using the IoT makes them vulnerable to cyber attacks which could be damaging to business practices and safety. No really, they did.
Mondalez International, just about the largest biscuit and cookie maker in the world announced on Monday the 28th plans to introduce Oreo cookies to all of Russia.
J M Smuckers announced that in the next twelve months they intend to introduce over a hundred new products. They are in response to consumer demand for healthier products with a focus on simple ingredients and convenience. Me, I think Smuckers is and has been a leader in the deception of consumers for decades. We'll see how it works out.
Yeah, one of the weirdest things to be announced last week was from Korea. It seems that the hottest thing at the market there is something called "Honey Butter Chips" and they are just potato chips with honey and butter on them. The company that makes them has increased production by 40% and they still sell out at stores within minutes of them being put on shelves. Now, get this, they are only available in Korea but they have been sold on Ebay for prices up to $103.00 a bag. They sell for a buck and a half at stores in Korea. This one's kind of wacko.
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You know how all of the big trendy conservation groups and ecological heavy hitting activists and the magazines and really anyone spouting off about how to save the world from the coming disaster caused by global warming are ALL telling us that our problems center around the extensive use of fossil fuels to power our planet?
It's all a bunch of crap.
Sorry, but it's true. Even if tomorrow scientists were to create a magical solar receptor that was cheap, nearly a 100% efficient and within five years at minimal cost every single use of fossil fuels was abandoned; then global warming would continue at very nearly the same rate, desertification would continue unchecked and drought, deserts would grow and sea levels would rise all across the planet as temperatures rose.
Well, that just doesn't seem right. However, it's very true. The biggest cause of Global Warming has little to do with burning fossil fuels, it's all about the production of meat. Burgers, chicken nuggets, sausages and all things meaty are the biggest factors. Well, granted, it's only one percent, but the fact is that production of meat using modern methods of farming contributes 51% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Well that doesn't seem right now does it?
Unfortunately it's true. It isn't just a bunch of cows and pigs farting, that's actually a very tiny part of the total amount. It's all the associated processes involved that are generating not just carbon dioxide but a lot of methane as well. If you believe all the scientists working on this (hey, they have nothing to gain by lying, not like so many many many corporate shills on payroll ordered to give specific results about stuff as is commonplace in the world today) then they tell us that methane is up to four times worse for greenhouse effects than carbon dioxide. Well, so I know this sounds a bit incredulous, so here I will attempt to explain how it happens. First, there is the carbon sequestration effect. Also called the carbon sink. This basically is what happens in the natural wild world. Plants have to capture carbon from the atmosphere and use it to grow. Then animals eat the plants, they remove nutrients and the remaining plant is excreted back into the environment where it decomposes and some of the carbon stays in the soil and effectively traps quite a bit of that carbon so it is unable to go up and form that greenhouse effect that is destroying the planet. It's pretty simple. However what man can change, man changes. And make no mistake, man has dramatically change the carbon sink.
What seems simple, is pretty complex. First, the production of meat no longer involves the grazing of food animals in open land where the waste could effectively be utilized to help the carbon sink. For the most part, those animal wastes are stored separately and through several means available is then disposed of in a manner that does not capture the carbon. In fact most of the time the waste is put into ponds and allowed to decompose where the carbon is returned to the atmosphere and not the land. It doesn't stop there, most of the animals are now fed soy, corn and some other crops grown specifically for feed. No manure is returned to the soil so artificial fertilizers are needed to grow the plants. Fertilizers are made using petrochemicals. More carbon put into the atmosphere. The drive to manufacture ever greater and cheaper quantities of meats has gone to tropical countries where large corporations are buying virgin rainforests, slashing the trees and planting soy to feed animals destined for dinner tables throughout America and Europe. No trees, no carbon sink, more carbon in the atmosphere. The feed has to be transported to where the animals are raised, transportation uses petrochemicals, more carbon into the atmosphere.
Yeah, the production of meat adds more greenhouse gases than anything else.
Water. The biggest user of water in the world is not industrial or home use. Or even all the endless golf courses every where. It's the production of meat. A pound of beef takes up to 2000 gallons of water to produce. Most produce or grains take around a hundred gallons to grow a pound of the stuff. Well, broccoli is a lot less. Avocados are about 148 gallons of water to a pound of Avos. In my youth I dreamed of becoming an Avocado rancher, but I couldn't ride a horse.
Anyway, all this is just to show us how the change in the eating habits of mankind is destroying our world. A culture based on a meat diet is not good for humans, and even less so for the planet.
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Well, now that's not something you hear everyday. Well other than the jokes about the worms in the supermarket salmon. But stuff in meat, naw, no one puts stuff in meat, right? C'mon Chef Roy, no one puts stuff in meat, meat is meat. Well, maybe Taco Bell, or Wendy's and earthworms. And pink slime at the golden arches, but real meat. It's just meat.
Silly made up human voice, sorry, we live in the Chemical Feast and stuff is just rampant at the stockyards and pigpens. There are just so many different things making up stuff, I could write a book about them all. Except I don't need to, some one already did. A joint venture of the FAO and WHO and their scientists wrote a fascinating and incredibly scary book titled "Toxicological Evaluation of Certain Veterinary Drug Residues in Food" Available at Amazon, only 42 bucks. I'm not makin' this stuff up. So, today I don't want to get too scary, I just want to go into a few things about ractopamine. Yes, it's stuff. It's fed to livestock along with their regular standard diet of corn, soy, cottonseed meal, dried and ground up chicken litter including chicken feces and dead chickens, and a variety of other agricultural waste products. And of course lots and lots of antibiotics. Remember, the cattle or pigs pretty much live their lives standing, kneeling, sleeping and over all existing on top of piles of their own piss and shit. They get sick and they get sores and burns and various ailments afflict them because of their living conditions. But cattlemen are trying to help out their livestock, (cattle, pigs and others) by force feeding them a product called ractopamine. The help is indirect, the drug forces animals to put on lean muscle mass faster and grow a bit faster. Thus they only have to live in those conditions a little less time. That's sort of being humane.
So, what is this stuff that has my ire irked. Ractopamine is a class of drugs called beta agonists. Specifically it is a Beta adrenergic agonist that was first created for use in humans as a suppressant for asthma. It was never approved for use in humans because it for the most part killed humans. It increased heart rates, for extended periods of time, and then it did what it was supposed to do, dilated airways and some other stuff. Long term use it was discovered, caused the user to gain muscle mass. This was thought to be a boon to body builders if it wasn't for that unpleasant side effect, death. Along with just the typical stuff, tachycardia, tremors, muscle spasms and high arterial pressure. So it was never approved for human use but that never stopped big pharma from making money on their creations. There was that big big side effect, increase lean muscle mass. And so it came to pass that the manufacturer, Eli Lilly, soon changed its marketing tactics and pursued the livestock meat industry as a potential customer. And with great success. The stuff has become synonymous with American pork, beef and turkey products. So much so that two of the largest importers of beef and pork have recently refused to purchase any American products because of the contamination with ractopamine. Russia and China. The Chinese really want to buy untainted pork for their population and so have gone so far as to purchase the world's largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods with the intent to alter production methods within their own farms to eliminate the use of ractopamine for pork destined for export back to the home country.
So we really can't talk about ractopamine without talking about the Downer's Decision. This is where we learn the true depths of disdain with which American Corporate leaders hold consumers. It all started back in 2007 when some activists made some movies about the horrific conditions at slaughterhouses. I'm not going to put a link here to the videos, you can look it up if you want, suffice it to say that I was grossed out. And I don't really care about the actual process of killing feed animals, that's not why I'm a vegetarian. But this was ghastly. And it all comes down to what are known as Downers. Animals that are either too sick, too deformed, too doped up, and too wild and uncontrollable to be forced up the chute to be killed for slaughter. In 2009 the State of California passed a law that made it illegal to slaughter for human food any animal that was deemed, Downer. This was also put into effect because of the very real danger of BSE getting into the food supply. BSE is mad cow disease. The problems also encompassed animals that were so grossly deformed with unnaturally occurring muscle tissue that they were unable to walk, or because they were crazed and either unable to respond or wildly uncontrollable. Well, all those were side effects of excessive use of ractopamine. And in some instances, those wild animal's actions mimicked BSE, or again, Mad Cow Disease. The cattlemen's association took the State of California to court, and eventually it went up to the Supreme Court which gave its unanimous decision that those that raise animals for human consumption have the right to slaughter and put into the system any animal they wanted to whether it could walk or not or was acting in any way different from normal. No matter what's wrong, we get to eat it. Well, literally as well as figuratively.
So, anyway, if we look at ractopamine uptake and half life within the system and amounts excreted in 24, 48 and 96 hour intervals and blah blah blah blah, boring stuff, buy the book listed above. We look at the actual figures resulting in why the use of ractopamine is so very popular with American animal ranchers. It makes them extra money. Now, here I get several different figures. Most of the USDA figures show that on average, a farmer can realize an extra 3 to 4 dollars per hog when using ractopamine. Cattle will bring from 7 to 11 dollars per head. Turkeys, about 20 cents per bird. Think about it, in America, profit is so revered, so needed, so required that tunnel vision occurs and the belief that making an extra one third to very nearly a WHOLE cent per pound profit on animals causes farmers and ranchers to just completely look the other way and use a known harmful substance that is banned in over 160 countries as being too dangerous to allow into their food supply.
Well, it's up to me to draw even more conclusions. This is something that I have tried to find out about, and have spent an inordinate amount of time looking with no results. And that is of course, just how much ractopamine gets into the environment. We know how much is excreted (up to 92% in 96 hours) after being fed the stuff, so there really is only one place for it to go. Into the huge piles of animal waste outside the places where they raise the animals. In most of the country, that waste is dumped into holding ponds and allowed to rot. Not so much here in the Southwest. Here it's too dry so they pile it up and let it dry and hope for the big storms to come blow large portions of it away. Yeah, most of the people living here in the Valley of the Sun don't know that a large portion of those huge walls of dust blowing in from the south east comes from all the huge dairy and cattle feedlots down north of Tucson. And the dust contains a huge amount of cattle manure. But that's another story. Elsewhere, the manure from feeding operations is supposed to decompose in those large holding ponds. Supposed to. What I tried to find out was how long it took for the ractopamine within the manure to decompose. So I went to the ScienceLab and tried to find the MSDS. It isn't there. I went to the EPA and they had no data on half life deterioration in the environment. I went to the PAN, no luck. I went to the ATSDR and was not helped. I went to the National Toxicology Program part of Health and Human Services, and found zilch. I went to the FDA, and they seem to believe there is no such problem, they have declared ractopamine safe. Well, except for humans. I probably could go elsewhere, but I am confident that if it isn't in these places, it won't be anywhere else. Why is it a problem, well, let's try to remember that in the past I have talked about animal poop. And this very problem. It seems that the USDA demands that anyone (and let's remember that in America, corporations are people) that owns an animal feeding facility MUST make provisions to contain the waste. The most common and accepted method is a pond to let the stuff stink up the surrounding ten or so square miles and eventually drain it and remove the leftover stuff that didn't turn to methane and further cause greenhouse gas problems. All that's okay, and if severe weather were to hit the area and most of the waste were to wash out into the public waterways, neighboring produce fields or possibly into municipal water supplies; that was perfectly fine and in accordance with the American way of life. Don't believe me? You can read the court's decision here (Circuit Court Decision) And especially look on page two where they have determined that in areas with normally heavy rainfall occurs, ZERO Discharge is not mandated. So how big a problem is it? We probably will never know. However, if you look ractopamine up in the Wikipedia, we are informed that anyone with cardiovascular problems should avoid meat products containing ractopamine as it could causes serious problems. How much ractopamine is in meat, how much is in our water supplies because of runoff, how much do we breathe in as dust?
Is the concept of making an extra penny per pound in profit such a single minded focus for American producers that they lose sight of what these things are doing to our environment, our bodies and our future?
We indeed live within the American Chemical Feast
