Is High-Fructose Corn Syrup Bad For You?

November 9th, 2010

Health.com

By: James Worrell

YES: It has not-so-sweet health effects.
Andrew Weil, MD Director, Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center

• It may promote obesity
  Animals that ate a high-fructose diet for six months ate more and gained more weight than those that weren’t exposed to high fructose levels.

• Research shows it could cause cancer
  HFCS is high in compounds thought to trigger tissue damage that can lead to type 2 diabetes, a study on soda suggests. And another study shows that some types of cancer cells may metabolize fructose to increase their growth.

• We’re eating more of it than ever
  HFCS is the main sweetener in drinks and is found in many foods; its consumption in the United States went up by more than 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990. Meanwhile, kids are routinely being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes—once seen only in adults.

NO: Too much sugar is just as bad.
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University

• Biochemically, it’s almost the same as table sugar
  The American Medical Association has concluded that HFCS isn’t any worse for you than other caloric sweeteners. The 55:45 ratio of fructose to glucose in HFCS is almost the same as the ratio in table sugar and honey—50:50. HFCS has 4 calories per gram, just like table sugar.

• Blame calories for weight gain
  All sugars have calories. And all sugars may be metabolized by the body as fat instead of energy.

• Cut back on sweets, period
  People who eat lots of sugary foods and drinks of any kind tend to be heavier. The average American consumes about 60 pounds each of sugar and HFCS a year. That leaves plenty of room for us to cut down.

The Takeaway:
For the sake of your health, limit all added sweeteners, including sugar and HFCS. Try not to get more than 40 grams (about 10 teaspoons) of added sugars daily. Got a sweet tooth? Opt for fruit, a natural sugar source high in key nutrients.

Click here for the full report from Health.com

NASA Digitally Alters Picture

October 8th, 2010

News.com.au

By: Peter Farquhar

Alien conspiracy theorists are confident they’ve caught NASA in the act of covering up the fact that we are not alone in the universe.

A video posted on YouTube yesterday showed how an image of Saturn’s moons Dione and Titan, taken by NASA’s Cassini orbiter, had been digitally altered before being added to the space agency’s Picture of the Day website.

In the video, “DominatorPS3″ turned up the brightness levels on the photo to show that a “huge” object can be seen behind the smaller moon, Dione. Clearly visible are brush strokes that show how the rainbow aura of the object has been blacked out.

“More solid proof of NASA/ government cover-ups,” DominatorPS3 said. “And this is recent. You can do this yourself!!”

Of course, being the Internet, it didn’t take long for the truth to get out there, so to speak.

The person responsible for the manipulation, Emily Lakdawalla, told a forum of excitable theorists that she made the changes because of the way Cassini takes photos.

“Cassini takes color pictures by snapping three sequential photos through red, green and blue filters,” she said. “In the time that separated the three frames, Dione moved, so if I did a simple color composite I would be able to make Titan look right, but not Dione; or Dione look right, but not Titan.”

“So I aligned Dione, cut it out, and then aligned Titan,” Lakdwalla explained, “and then had to account for the missing bits of shadow where the bits of Dione had been in two of the three channels.”

She explained the process further at Planetary.org but it still wasn’t enough for the alien hunters, particularly DominatorPS3.

“Thanks for the feedback and explanation,” he said in a comment on Lakdwalla’s YouTube post. “However I still remain skeptical, because someone still could have ordered her to ‘cut it or something out.’”

“But thanks for putting that info up so others can read it; I am not trying to convince people what I believe,” he wrote.

Click here for the full report from news.com.au

Dental Work Linked to Heart Attack Risk

November 9th, 2010

WebMD

By: Denise Mann

Heart attack and stroke risk may rise in the month following invasive dental treatments such as tooth extractions, a study shows.

The risk returns to normal levels within six months, according to the study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

This is not the first time oral health and heart health have been linked, and the likely culprit is inflammation. The theory is that bacteria from periodontal infection can enter your bloodstream. Once this occurs, the bacteria accumulate along the blood vessels, causing inflammation, which can make people more vulnerable to heart attacks and stroke.

“These findings provide further evidence to support the link between acute inflammation and the risk for vascular events,” conclude the study researchers, who were led by Caroline Minassian, MSc, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “The short-lived adverse effects are nevertheless likely to be outweighed by long-term benefits of invasive dental work.”

Researchers reviewed Medicaid claims data of 32,060 adults who had a heart attack or stroke, and then they backtracked to see if the person had undergone any invasive dental procedures. There were 650 people who had a stroke and 525 who had a heart attack after invasive dental work. The researchers took into account other factors known to increase risk for heart attack and stroke, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

Those who underwent invasive dental work had an increased risk for heart attack or stroke in the four weeks after their procedure, but this risk was “transient,” the researchers report.

More than half of the heart attack and strokes seen in the study occurred in women, and 30% in people who were younger than 50, the study showed.

Howard Weitz, MD, director of the division of cardiology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, says he is concerned that the new study will encourage people to avoid seeing their dentist out of fear of heart attack or stroke.

“Further work has to be done before we can say there is any link,” he says. Weitz co-authored an editorial that accompanied the new study.

The study has its share of limitations, he says. For starters, it was based on insurance claims data, so there could have been coding errors which would affect the findings.

“The next evaluation should be one where patient charts are pulled to confirm that the diagnoses were correct,” he tells WebMD. What’s more, the database only tracked prescription medications, not commonly used over-the-counter drugs.

Many people take low-dose aspirin every day to lower their risk for heart attack and stroke. Stopping aspirin could be a trigger for heart attack or stroke, he says.

“Some dentists tell patients to stop taking aspirin because it increases bleeding risk,” he says. “If your dentist suggests this, check with your primary care doctor or cardiologist first.”

“Don’t make any changes in your dental practice,” he says. “We have to go to the next chapter before we can even say this is a real risk.”

Don’t skip the dentist because you are concerned about your risk for heart attack or stroke, agrees Saul Pressner, a dentist in private practice in New York City. “This study provides more of a reason to see the dentist regularly and take care of your mouth so you are not at as much at risk for coronary events.”

Prevention is key. “It is always best not to let infections including gum disease or dental carries get out of hand because there can be systemic effects,” he says.

Click here for the full report from WebMD

As Fed Policy Sinks the Dollar, Prices of Essentials Soar

November 9th, 2010

Daily Finance

By: Charles Hugh Smith

Intended or not, the Federal Reserve’s policy of quantitative easing has crushed the U.S. dollar. (The second round announced Nov. 3 is called “QE2″ because it’s the second round of easing since the financial crisis of late 2008.)

Intended or not, the Fed’s destruction of the dollar’s value has pushed prices of commodities that Americans need — such as instance food, cotton and oil — higher.

Whether the Fed’s QE2 policy will actually spark renewed growth in the economy is not yet known, but what is known is that the producer costs for essential commodities such as grain and cotton are skyrocketing, and those increased costs will soon appear on store shelves.

Tragic Irony

Just as pernicious for the stock market, higher commodity prices mean manufacturers’ profit margins will contract as companies seek to limit the cost increases passed on to recession-battered consumers.

It may be the ultimate — and ultimately tragic — irony: While the Fed’s policy is supposed to help the economy by encouraging more borrowing, the actual effect is to raise prices for companies and consumers alike, and to squeeze the very corporate profits that have been driving stocks higher.

These charts of the dollar, the S&P 500 (reflecting U.S. stocks) and three commodity ETFs (exchange traded funds) show the dramatic effect of the weakening dollar. While stocks have risen as overseas earnings for U.S. global corporations are boosted by the weaker dollar, commodities that end up in consumer goods have exploded higher.

The pass-through of higher input costs to consumers isn’t theoretical — it’s real. For example UPS just raised its shipping prices by 4.9%. Since shipping-box dimension charges are also being changed, the effective rate increase for lighter, larger boxes could be as high as 16%. This is significant in an economy that’s officially currently experiencing near-zero inflation. (Officially, the annualized inflation rates is 1.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

According to the BLS, the cost of finished goods is rising at an annualized rate of about 4.8%. Since some low-demand commodities such as lumber (demand fell along with housing construction) and electronics (prices of TVs have been dropping) are declining, the price increases for essential goods may well be masked by a lower rate calculated for all finished goods.

For instance, wheat has jumped from $158 per ton in June, when the dollar began falling in response to the Fed’s QE2 chatter, to $271 per ton in September. That’s a 71% increase. You may not need a load of 2x4s or another flat-screen TV soon, but you certainly will be consuming wheat in bread, pasta and other foods.

Creating “Hot Money”

Many economists and market watchers think QE2 is bad policy: It’s unlikely to work as intended and could further damage the economy. How? By funneling a new flood of cheap credit into speculative bets in emerging markets and commodities while the Main Street economy withers under the onslaught of higher prices unleashed by the same Fed-powered speculative binge.

As I reported last month, the Fed’s “trickle down” policy of creating wealth for the top 10% who own most of the nation’s financial assets has been a failure. The rise in emerging markets like Brazil and in commodities like wheat suggest that speculative “hot money” is the result when the Fed opens the floodgates of liquidity. Brazil’s stock market, the Bovespa, has more than doubled since early 2009.

The semi-official reasoning behind weakening the dollar is that a lower greenback will boost exports. But since exports are a mere 7% of the U.S. economy ($1 trillion, compared to a GDP of $14.14 trillion), it’s difficult to see how a modest improvement in exports could offset the dramatic price increases that are occurring across the board in the rest of the economy.

Maybe all the financial speculation enabled by the Fed’s easy money, zero-interest rate policy (ZIRP) easing will enrich a few trading desks and hedge funds, but the price increases triggered by the Fed’s policy will certainly reduce the net income of every American household as prices for essentials climb.

If you have any doubts about that, just take another look at those charts of cotton, sugar and grain.

Click here for the full report from Daily Finance

290,000 Eggs Recalled Due to Salmonella at Ohio Egg Farm

November 9th, 2010

WebMD

By: Michael J. DeNoon

A new egg recall has been issued for some 290,000 eggs after salmonella was detected at the Ohio facility where the eggs originated.

That number includes about 120 dozen eggs today added to the recall, first announced late Friday, Nov. 5.

The eggs were distributed to wholesalers and retailers in eight states by Cal-Maine Foods Inc. Cal-Maine received the potentially tainted eggs from Ohio Fresh Eggs of Croton, Ohio. According to media reports, Ohio Fresh Eggs is financed by the owner of the two farms involved in the recent massive egg recall.

Cal-Maine, headquartered in Jackson, Miss., is the largest producer and distributor of fresh shell eggs in the U.S. The recalled eggs were processed at the company’s Green Forest, Ark., facility.

So far, there have been no reports of illness traced to the eggs.

The recalled eggs were processed by Cal-Maine on Oct. 9 and Oct. 12, but the company was not notified of the possible salmonella contamination until Nov. 5, when it issued the recall.

The recalled eggs were sold to wholesalers and retailers in eight states: Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The egg recall involves products sold under the Pippin, Sunny Meadow, Springfield Grocer, Sun Valley, and James Farm brands.

In cooperation with the FDA, Cal-Maine immediately notified its customers and recalled specific Julian dates of shell eggs because they have the potential to be contaminated with salmonella. The following packages were included in this recall.

Product Description	Plant Number	Julian Date	Sell By/Expiration Date
Pippin Loose Medium	1457	282	11/07/10
Sunny Meadow Jumbo UPC Code – 6 05388 71459 6	1457	282, 284	11/07/10;11/09/10
Sunny Meadow Large UPC Code – 6 05388 71457 2	1457	282	11/07/10
Sunny Meadow Large 18 UPC Code – 6 05388 71461 9	1457	282	11/07/10
Sunny Meadow Extra Large UPC Code – 6 05388 71458 9	1457	284	11/09/10
Sunny Meadow Extra Large 18 UPC Code – 8 13905 00120 7	1457	282	11/07/10
Sunny Meadow 5 Dozen UPC Code – 6 81131 74355 6	1457	284	11/09/10
Sunny Meadow 6 Pack UPC Code – 6 05388 71462 6	1457	284	11/09/10
Springfield Grocer Medium Loose	1457	282	11/07/10
Springfield Grocer Extra Large Loose	1457	284	11/09/10
Springfield Grocer Large Loose	1457	284	11/09/10
Sun Valley Large UPC Code 0 33643 00018 2	1457	284	11/24/10
James Farm Medium UPC Code 0 97009 01083 3	1457	285	11/07/10

Plant numbers are printed on the cartons. The Julian date follows the plant number: For example, P1457-282.

Symptoms of salmonella food poisoning include fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and/or abdominal pain. Severe cases can result in blood infections, heart infections, or arthritis. Young children, frail elderly people, and people with impaired immune systems are particularly vulnerable to severe disease.

Consumers who purchased the recalled eggs should not eat them. The eggs may be returned to the point of purchase for a full refund.

Click here for the full report from WebMD

What Is Organic? USDA Trying to Define It

November 9th, 2010

AOL News

By: Dave Thier

If you’ve ever wondered exactly what that “USDA organic” seal actually means, you’re in good company. The U.S. Department of Agriculture itself has been asking the same question ever since it established the National Organic Program in 2002.

“Organic” is intended to mean agricultural products produced without hormones, pesticides, artificial fertilizers or other synthetic additives. But purists have long argued that the USDA standards contain numerous loopholes that have allowed factory-style farms to operate under the letter, if not the spirit, of the organic law. Now, both the industry and the government are grappling with how to bring meaning back to “organic.”

Fred Kirschenmann, a North Dakota farmer and distinguished fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, served on the National Organic Standards Board when it was establishing the standards for the USDA organic seal.

Early on, Kirschenmann argued that an organic farm shouldn’t be able to “degrade the health of the soil.” But when the board gave that to USDA lawyers, they told it to change the language. Any regulation, the lawyers said, needed to be able to be answered with a simple yes or no — something that can be difficult in the complex world of organic agriculture.

What the organic laws boiled down to were a list of inputs that an organic farm could and could not use. That led to many farmers getting their certification by practicing what some call “substitution agriculture” — changing the kinds of chemicals they added to the soil without changing the way that they farmed.

“You have organic farmers that don’t really use what would traditionally be used, what good organic practices would classify as good agro-ecological systems” Kirschenmann told AOL News. “They’re just using natural inputs instead of synthetic inputs.”

The confusion extends to livestock as well. For instance, organic cows and chickens were required to have “access to pasture.” For some that meant having free-range animals that got the bulk of their food from the outdoors. For others, it meant having a tiny door at one end of a gigantic henhouse.

In a report titled “Scrambled Eggs,” small farm advocate The Cornucopia Institute documented several certified organic egg farms keeping up to a million chickens in conditions that seem a long way away from a quaint little farmhouse.

For small farmers trying to raise animals in more humane and ecologically friendly conditions, having the government telling consumers that their products are equivalent to those from giant producers can make for tough business.

“We’re one of the few industries that have actually asked for strict regulation,” Cornucopia Institute co-founder Mark Kastel told AOL News.

Organic agriculture has boomed in the years since the adoption of the organic seal into a more than $25 billion-a-year industry. But Kastel and others argue that some of that expansion sacrificed the practices that were supposed to be essential to organic agriculture — and allowed big firms to squeeze out the small producers that helped to build the organic brand in the first place.

Proponents of tighter organic standards, however, agree that President Barack Obama’s undersecretary of agriculture, Kathleen Merrigan, and the USDA have been working to clarify some of that flexible language. Last year, they changed the “access to pasture” phrase to say that cows must be allowed to graze 120 days a year. And at a series of hearings in Madison, Wis., recently, producers, distributors, processors and consumers told the National Organic Standards Board what they thought was missing from the current certification standards.

For Kastel and others trying to establish a more exclusive organic seal, the hearings were a success: They declared that nanotechnology would not be allowed in organic products and that conventional hops would not be allowed in organic beer. In the contentious egg issue, he said that the board seemed receptive to farmers and consumers asking for stricter requirements for certified organic eggs.

“Now we’ve got an administrative management under the Obama administration that respects the organic community, and it’s quite a turnaround,” Kastel said. “Now we’re seeing institutionalized improprieties being reversed.”

Egg and dairy giant Organic Valley is one of the largest organic farm co-ops in the country. The company employs its own inspection standards above USDA organic. But Organic Valley, like the USDA, has had to deal with the difficulties of balancing organic ideals with an ever-expanding industry.

“I think that they are only now dealing with the nuances of the language,” Organic Valley egg pool director David Bruce told AOL News about the USDA’s organics standards. “And they’re trying to balance the fact that some there is some idealism around organics, and there needs to be a rubber hitting the road, and that idealism needs to meet the reality of production agriculture.”

Click here for the full report from AOL News

Mystery Missile: Launch of Unknown Missile Caught on Tape in California

November 9th, 2010

ABC News

By: Luis Martinez

The mystery of a missile launch last night off the Southern California coast deepened today as U.S. military officials said they were still checking to see if the missile was one of theirs.

The unmistakable contrail of a missile streaking into the California sunset was captured on video last night by a KCBS news helicopter flying over Los Angeles at around 5 p.m. Pacific time.

The missile firing drew more attention when local news stations were told by Navy and Air Force officials that they did not launch a missile last night.

Flying above Los Angeles, the crew aboard the helicopter estimated the missile was fired approximately 35 miles west out to sea, north of Catalina Island.

The missile appeared to have been launched at sea, which prompted speculation that it had been launched by a U.S. Navy vessel.

However, Navy officials contacted by local news stations said they were unaware of a missile launch in that area. Contacted by ABC News, a Navy official said today they were still looking into the report, but, a preliminary check indicated it was not a Navy asset.

U.S. Northern Command said it’s investigating. They say there was no launch last night from Vandenberg Air Force Base which is a regular launch point for the testing of missiles.

“NORAD and USNORTHCOM are aware of the unexplained contrail reported off the coast of Southern California yesterday evening,” the agency said in a statement. “At this time, we are unable to provide specific details, but we are working to determine the exact nature of this event. We can confirm that there is no indication of any threat to our nation and we will provide more information as it becomes available.”

Click here for the full report from ABC News

Fast-Food Chains Increase Targeting Our Kids

November 9th, 2010

AOL News

By: Andrew Schneider

You might have thought that with all the finger-pointing and concerns over childhood plumpness, America’s fast- food industry would be trying to reduce the gut-busting, calorie-loaded, fat-filled offerings on their menus and the kid-targeted advertising.

Not so, say researchers from Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity who released today what they say is the “most comprehensive study of fast-food nutrition and marketing ever conducted.”

The researchers studied marketing efforts of 12 of the nation’s largest fast-food chains, and examined the calories, fat, sugar and sodium in more than 3,000 kids’ meal combinations and 2,781 menu items.

“Despite pledges to improve their marketing practices, fast-food companies seem to be stepping up their efforts to target kids,” said Jennifer L. Harris, the report’s lead researcher. “Today, preschoolers see 21 percent more fast-food ads on TV than they saw in 2003, and somewhat older children see 34 percent more.”

The report also found:

• Out of 3,039 possible kids’ meal combinations, only 12 meet the researchers’ nutrition criteria for preschoolers. Only 15 meet nutrition criteria for older children.
• Teens ages 13-17 purchase 800-1,100 calories in an average fast-food meal, roughly half of their recommended total daily calories.
• At most fast-food restaurants, a single meal contains at least half of young people’s daily recommended sodium.
• A detailed analysis of the study’s methodology is available on the Rudd Center’s website.

McDonald’s spokesperson Neil Golden said this morning that the company “remains committed to responsible marketing practices … and … to offering our customers a wide variety of quality food and beverage choices that meet their dietary needs and tastes — including fruit, juice and dairy options in our Happy Meals.”

A spokesperson for the National Restaurant Association echoed Golden’s defense, without directly addressing the results of the study. Sue Hensley also noted that the industry supported the law that will “soon require calories on the menu in 200,000 restaurant locations nationwide.”

Beyond the Yale report, AOL News researched the breakdown of calories in the kids meals and found these totals at the websites of the largest fast food chains:

McDonald’s — Happy Meal cheeseburger, low-fat chocolate milk and small fries, 650 calories.

Wendy’s — Cheeseburger, Kids’ Meal fries and a low-fat chocolate milk, 650 calories.

Jack in the Box — Kids Meals cheeseburger, small fries and low fat chocolate milk, 800 calories.

Burger King — Kids Meal small cheeseburger, small fries and a low-fat chocolate milk, 820 calories.

KFC — Kid-size popcorn chicken, potato wedges and lemonade, 750 calories.

The number of calories are often doubled or tripled by substituting other menu selections, AOL News was told when it checked with managers and counter people at the five chains in Seattle. The consensus among those interviewed was that kids 8 and older rarely go for these smaller portions, with large fries, sodas and bigger hamburgers more the norm, especially if their parents were not doing the ordering.

What is the federal government doing to thwart spreading juvenile waistlines? Its schizophrenic approach confounds many nutritionists and public health experts.

Sunday’s New York Times detailed a bizarre operation where a U.S. Department of Agriculture dairy promotion group funded a $12 million campaign to develop and market a new Domino’s pizza pie that has six cheeses on top and two more in the crust where “one slice contains as much as two-thirds of a day’s maximum recommended amount of saturated fat.”

Yet another arm of the USDA, its Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, is urging consumers to reduce the consumption of these calories-filled, high fat cheeses.

On a local level, however, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors last week did attempt to take the happy out of happy meals when it approved an ordinance that would prevent fast-food chains from giving away toys with children’s meals that are overloaded with calories, salt and fat. It also decreed that any meals accompanied by promotional toys has to be served with fruits or vegetables.

If San Francisco’s mayor doesn’t veto the slimming legislation, it would become law in December.

Just after the vote, a McDonald’s spokeswoman told reporters that the company was extremely disappointed with the decision. “It’s not what our customers want, nor is it something they asked for,” she said.

Today’s Yale report makes it clear that the fast-food industry shouldn’t protest too much about the criticism.

Click here for the full report from AOL

GIN Family Reunion Bahamas Pictures – Part 1

Here are just a few pictures from the Global Information Network’s Family Reunion in the Bahamas over Halloween weekend.

 

Click here to view MORE pictures!!

Kevin’s Complaint Against ConsumerAffairs.com

As promised, here is the complaint that was filed Monday, November 8, 2010 in federal court in Chicago. 

It seeks injunctive relief, compensatory damages, punitive damages and other relief against ConsumerAffairs.com, Inc., CEO James Hood, and reporter Mark Huffman, for an article falsely representing that the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court judgment against Trudeau fining him millions of dollars and finding that he had violated numerous consumer fraud laws.

The article also states that Trudeau is awaiting sentencing on a criminal contempt charge. All of those statements are patently false. 

At Trudeau’s insistence, Consumer Affairs has removed the article from its website, but has refused to publish a retraction.

Click here to read the complaint filed against ConsumerAffairs.com.

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