Healthy Foods and Lifestyle Proven to Make You Happier

March 5, 2012

Natural Society

By Mike Barrett

“When you eat healthy foods and exercise, guess what? You will be happier. It’s true. Try it.” –KTRN

Engaging in unhealthy activities have an obvious negative impact on your physical health, but did you ever consider how these activities are impacting your emotional health? Activities leading to poor health like drinking alcohol and smoking regularly have been shown to also greatly contribute to a lower level of overall happiness. Taking this aspect into consideration offers an even greater reason to establish an overall healthy lifestyle.

Authors of the study coming to this finding used data from Understanding Society — a long-term study of 40,000 UK households. Researchers analyzed the life at home and the health-related behavior of close to 5000 kids ages 10 to 15. The nearly 5000 kids were questioned on family friends, appearance, and various other factors including their overall happiness levels. What they found was that teenagers who never or seldom engaged in drinking alcohol were between four and six times more likely to be happier than those those who do drink. Similarly, teens who refuse cigarettes are nearly five times more happy than their smoking counterparts.

To add to the findings, the authors also found that higher consumption of healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables and less ingestion of junk food was associated with a higher happiness level.

Unfortunately for virtually the entire adolescent population, psychological food advertisements are an indirect reason for the decreased happiness level. Researchers have found parental disapproval of junk food only resulted in 13 percent less children choosing junk food, which is oftentimes full of synthetic chemicals and genetically modified ingredients. These advertisements are also contributing to the severe lack of nutritious food intake, with only 10 percent of high school students consuming the appropriate amount of fruits and vegetables.

The processed junk foods which are contributing to a lack of happiness have also been shown to trigger addiction and brain damage. In fact, research finds that processed foods and sugary drinks are addictive as cocaine.

Click here for the full report.

Can Organic Food Reverse Cancer?

February 27, 2012

Huffington Post

By Ginny Fraser

When my melanoma recurred in the lymph nodes under my arm, I was told by my oncologist that chemotherapy was pretty useless for melanoma, so they’d whip out the affected nodes and we’d hope for the best.

Post-op, I was lying in my hospital bed when two — quite separate — friends gave me A Time to Heal by Beata Bishop, the story of her healing her own melanoma almost 30 years ago using the Gerson Therapy. I knew I had to do something and her book convinced me that Gerson was it.

The therapy looked like a bit of a beast to do — 13 freshly-squeezed organic vegetable and fruit juices per day plus five coffee enemas, every day for at least 18 months to two years. On the diet front everything was organic. There was a thick vegetable soup to be eaten twice daily, and lunch and dinner consisted of a baked potato and vegetables and salad. A little oatmeal was permitted at breakfast. Everything else was forbidden. I couldn’t even wear make-up (though a little beetroot juice on the cheeks helped), and any chemical household products were banned. There was also some supplementation, including potassium and Lugol’s solution, some pancreatic enzymes, niacin and injectable B12.

Click here for the full story from the Huffington Post

High Arsenic Levels Found In Organic Foods, Baby Formula

February 16, 2012

MSNBC

By Linda Carroll

Next time you pick up an organic cereal bar or buy infant formula, you might want to read the label closely. High levels of arsenic, a chemical linked to cancer, chronic diseases and developmental effects, have been found in foods that list organic brown rice syrup as a primary ingredient, according to a new study from Dartmouth University.

Organic brown rice syrup is often used as a substitute for high fructose corn syrup in prepared organic foods. One of the infant formulas tested contained twice the inorganic arsenic allowed in drinking water, according to Environmental Protection Agency standards. One cereal bar contained 12 times the legal limit for drinking water of 10 parts per billion (ppb). High-energy foods tested had 8 to 17 times the limit.

The researchers tested 17 infant formulas, 29 cereal bars and three types of energy shot drinks. Two infant formulas –- one dairy based and the other soy based – listed organic brown rice syrup as their primary ingredient. They both contained arsenic levels 20 times higher than the other formulas made without organic brown rice syrup.

Click here for the full report from MSNBC

Food Recalls Sharply Increase, But You Pay Less Attention

February 14, 2012

eMaxHealth

By Armen Hareyan

The sharp increase in food recalls is a serious source of concern, but the consumer is paying less attention for several reasons.

Food recalls across the nation increased 50 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 and affected over 80 percent more units compared with the previous three-month period, according to the quarterly ExpertRECALL Index, released today. Conversely, the ExpertRECALL Index found that consumer product, pharmaceutical and medical device recalls decreased compared with previous quarters.

Undeclared allergens remained the leading factor in initiating food recalls, accounting for more than a third of food recalls in the quarter. Concerns about Listeria contamination were the second-leading cause of fourth-quarter recalls, accounting for almost 20 percent of all food recalls listed on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s website from October through December.

“Despite the drop in several other categories, the sharp increase in food product recalls is cause for concern,” said Mike Rozembajgier, Vice President of Recalls at Stericycle ExpertRECALL. “Food recalls are challenging because they affect all consumers. Ensuring consumer safety during food recalls is complicated further when food is repackaged for storage or put in re-sealable containers, eliminating any chance of identifying the food in our homes as having been recalled.”

Click here for the full report from eMaxHealth

Whole Fraud: Exposing The Myth of So-Called ‘Natural’ Foods

February 14, 2012

Natural News

By Ronnie Cummins

On Jan. 31, organic and natural foods giant Whole Foods Market (WFM) once again attacked http://blog.wholefoodsmarket.com Organic Consumers Association, the nation’s leading watchdog on organic standards, as being too “hard-line” for insisting that retailers like WFM stop selling, or at least start labeling, billions of dollars worth of so-called “natural” foods in their stores – foods that are laced with unlabeled, hazardous genetically engineered (GE) ingredients.

WFM’s most recent attack on OCA predictably backfired, throwing gasoline on the fiery debate surrounding my previous essay “The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto.” http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22449.cfm In that essay, written in January 2011, I criticized WFM and several other well-known organic companies for their foolish (now hopefully repudiated) stance of espousing “co-existence” with the USDA and Monsanto, in exchange for minimal federal regulation of genetically engineered crops.

In subsequent articles OCA has called for an end to “organic infighting” http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22499.cfm and for the organic industry, farmers, and consumers to join forces and pass laws or state ballot initiatives (like the current campaign in California) that would require mandatory labels on products containing genetically engineered ingredients, as well as to make it illegalhttp://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_24074.cfm to label or market GE-tainted foods as “natural” or “all natural.”

12 Top Food Choices For A Healthy Heart

February 14, 2012

Natural News

By Tony Isaacs

When it comes to eating for good health, choosing foods for heart health should be at the top of the list. The heart is the organ that literally keeps us going – delivering nutrients, oxygen and disease fighters throughout the body. Cardiovascular disease also happens to be the leading cause of death in the U.S., ranking just ahead of cancer.

There are several foods which can help give us a healthy heart and cardiovascular system – especially if they are chosen in their healthiest whole food forms. Instead of processed foods found on grocers’ shelves, choose fresh whole foods which you can eat with little or no processing and cooking. Certified organic whole foods are the best choice of all.

Many ‘Natural’ Foods Are Loaded With GMOs

October 5th, 2011

Natural News

By: S. D. Wells

Weed killer is thriving biologically inside most conventional crops as they grow in the fields of America, only to be sprayed with more heavy doses of Roundup, and then shipped to the world’s supermarkets as “all natural,” with absolutely no GMO disclaimer or warning. Even vegetarian products have been infiltrated by this cancer-causing “Trojan horse.”

Corn and soy based products infiltrate the American “norm” for daily general consumption, and the healthcare industry loves the results. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are suffering from infections, serious gluten allergy reactions, headaches, dizzy spells, kidney stones, bowel irregularities, and worst of all, mutagenic cell production leading to cancer. Monsanto’s GMO farm land has increased from just 4 million acres in 1997 to over 330 million acres now, most of which is United States soil. Brazil and India are now popular GMO breeding grounds also.

Veggie burgers are no exception, so no more of that for your vegetarian cookouts. Forget about all the soy-based items that are boxed, bagged and bottled in the center aisles of the grocery store. The only place where you should be looking for food in the grocery store is around the outer walls, where the fresh fruits and vegetables are being rinsed. There’s no safety in numbers anymore, and the FDA is grasping for straws, constantly changing the names of poisons as more and more educated consumers know where the toxins are and how to read the tricky labels.

Over 93% of all U.S. soy products are Monsanto GMO, which are carcinogenic. Stop eating the following: vegetable oil, lecithin (an emulsifier), soy protein concentrates, tofu (soybean curd), soy sauce, teriyaki and tamari sauce, soy flour, soy nuts, soy nut butter, soy isoflavones, soy milk, hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), hydrolyzed soy yeast, soy-based infant formulas, non-dairy frozen yogurt, and soy isolate fiber (SPF). Soy protein isolates, containing up to 92 percent protein, possess the most dangerous amount of “highly refined protein” of all soy products.

Over 86% of all U.S. corn products are Monsanto GMO and are carcinogenic. If you haven’t watched the documentary King Corn, it’s a must see. The Bush Administration subsidized this GMO food devil the infamous high fructose corn syrup, for ethanol, and also to serve as feed for livestock, which gives animals digestive infections.

Cows are not evolved enough to digest corn, especially Monsanto GMO cancer causing corn, and as soon as corn products become their main diet, farmers must give them antibiotics to fight off digestive infections. That’s how the whole cycle of drugs and meat perpetuates.

Stop eating corn starch, corn chips, baking powder, caramel (made from corn syrup), confectioner’s sugar, corn flour, corn gluten, corn syrup, corn meal, corn oil, dextrose, dextrin, maltodextrin (synthetic thickening agent), food starch, modified food starch, fructose, gum arabic, GDL (additive in cured meats), invert sugar, invert syrup, malt syrup and extract, mono and di-glycerides, monosodium glutamate (MSG – popular in Chinese foods), sucrose, treacle (mixture of molasses and corn syrup), vegetable protein, vegetable shortening, and of course, xantham gum. If you like corn, eat organic corn on the cob.

Canola oil is GMO and is carcinogenic. It was never meant for human consumption. It comes from the rapeseed plant and is an excellent insect repellant. Canada paid off the FDA to label it as safe. It has been known to disrupt the central nervous system, cause respiratory illness, constipation, low birth weights in infants, and even lung cancer. Canola is not just another oil to choose from. The only reason Canada promotes this is because it is one of the nation’s chief export products.

Also watch out for tomatoes, potatoes, beets and alfalfa that are not truly organic. Stick with grocery stores like Trader Joes and your local farmers markets. True organic food prices are coming down quickly now that the word is getting out about GMO corn and soy, and about the labels that are often lies, like “all natural” and “natural flavors added.”

Textured vegetable protein, or TVP, is a meat substitute made from soy flour and comes in small flakes or large chunks. This ground meat-looking staple product isn’t suitable for animals, much less humans, but the recipe tells you to add it to your favorite soup, chili or pasta sauce. TVP is in most storable foods.

Use olive oil or coconut oil for cooking, and fill your refrigerator and pantry with 100% organic everything. Until you can remember all of the poisons, print this page and put it in your wallet or purse so you’ll have it handy at the stores. Change your eating habits now and you will feel the difference immediately, and your body will reward you with renewed energy and vitality.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

MSG Hidden In Variety Of Foods And Contributing To Illness

August 2nd, 2011

Natural News

By: Christy Pooschke

Despite common perception, the toxic food additive MSG is everywhere – not just in Chinese food! This taste enhancer is actually hidden under dozens of ingredient names in all sorts of processed foods, restaurant foods, beverages, chewing gums, vitamins and supplements. It is added to foods in higher dosages than ever before, and more and more people are experiencing symptoms.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) is a health concern because it contains glutamate. Glutamate is the salt form of “Free Glutamic Acid” – a toxin that is associated with many health problems. Due to insufficient labeling laws, food companies use many ingredients to disguise Free Glutamic Acid in their products, so consumers must look for more than just “MSG” on food labels.

To understand why processed Free Glutamic Acid is associated with so many health problems, it is helpful to learn about natural Glutamic Acid – an amino acid (a building block of protein) that occurs naturally in the body as one of many excitatory neurotransmitters (chemicals that “excite” cells into action). Glutamic Acid occurs naturally in certain unprocessed, whole foods (e.g., tomatoes). In this natural form, it is bound (i.e., linked) together with other amino acids to form a protein. Once ingested, the protein is broken down slowly by the digestive system. The Glutamic Acid is released gradually into the blood stream and is non-toxic. If one ingests more than the body needs, the cells clear away the excess just as they were designed to do. The digestion of these natural, whole food sources releases such a small amount of Glutamic Acid that even people who react to processed MSG can usually tolerate them.

When food manufacturers break down a protein (usually from corn, soy or wheat) to make processed Free Glutamic Acid, they “free” the glutamic acid from the links that bind it to other amino acids in nature. When one ingests this already-broken-down, free form of Glutamic Acid, blood levels of glutamate can spike to more than 20 times the usual amount because the digestive system does not have to work to break down the links. The human nervous system is not equipped to handle such quickly-absorbed doses. The excess glutamate cannot be efficiently cleared away, so it accumulates around the cells throughout the body, over-exciting them to the point of damage or death.

This disruption at the cellular level leads to a range of physiological reactions that may be as minor as a runny nose or as life-threatening as a heart attack. According to experts like Dr. Russell Blaylock, M.D., Free Glutamic Acid is a toxin, not an allergen. Some people are more sensitive to lower dosages than others, but it affects everyone to some degree. There is often a delay between ingestion and onset of symptoms, preventing many people from realizing the connection. Most acute symptoms will display within 48 hours (many within 30 minutes) of ingestion, but some health effects (e.g., obesity, infertility) have been demonstrated in lab mice long after exposure.

Because glutamate receptors line various organs and tissues (brain, heart, lungs, reproductive organs, digestive tract, etc.) throughout the body, ingesting processed Free Glutamic Acid can disrupt just about any system and cause a wide variety of symptoms. Luckily, much of this damage is reversible, and many sufferers resolve their symptoms (often within 7-10 days) by completely eliminating Free Glutamic Acid from their diets. To prevent these effects and to avoid this hidden additive, one must prepare meals at home from basic, whole food ingredients; minimize reliance on processed foods; read every ingredient list; and avoid any mysterious or vague ingredients on product labels.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

Folic Acid Linked To Better Grades In Swedish Teens

July 11, 2011

Reuters Health

By Frederik Joelving

Swedish teenagers who consumed more folic acid got better school grades, a small study published in the journal Pediatrics has found.

But don’t run out and stock up on the B vitamin with the rest of your school supplies just yet, one expert warns.

“There is very little deficiency of folic acid in North America,” Deborah O’Connor, a nutrition researcher who was not involved in the study, told Reuters Health. “If you’re already sufficient, there is not a lot of evidence that taking more supplements will help.”

She said the teens in the study might have been deficient in folic acid, with levels a few times lower than what’s typically seen in North American kids.

Because a lack of the nutrient during pregnancy can cause severe birth defects in babies, certain foods are fortified with folic acid, also called folate, in North America. Most of the population is thought to get adequate amounts for that reason.

During the study, Sweden did not fortify foods, nor did kids use a lot of supplements. Folic acid is naturally present in green, leafy vegetables and legumes.

The new study is among the first to examine whether folate is tied to school achievements, according to Dr. Torbjorn Nilsson of Orebro University Hospital and his colleagues.

Click here to read the full report from Reuters.

 

Avandia: The Death Medicine

September 24, 2010

Natural News

Mike Adams

The diabetes drug Avandia, shown to raise heart attack risk by 40 percent in a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was banned today across many European countries in a coordinated global announcement. The FDA didn’t quite ban the drug but placed it under severe restrictions that will all but guarantee the drug’s sales in the United States drop to almost zero.

Specifically, the FDA’s new restrictions require that doctors and patients first “try every other diabetes medication” before turning to Avandia as a last resort. And even then, they must acknowledge being made aware of the drug’s serious risks.

The Avandia scam

Avandia has been the subject of seemingly endless accusations and criticisms from both alternative and conventional medicine practitioners. Just here on NaturalNews.com, we reported how the FDA’s own scientists backing Avandia’s so-called “safety” had financial ties to the drug manufacturer (http://www.naturalnews.com/029268_f…).

We exposed the Avandia fraud (http://www.naturalnews.com/029252_A…) and revealed how GSK hid evidence that Avandia was harming users (http://www.naturalnews.com/028233_G…). We reported how California suedGlaxoSmithKline for false advertising over the drug (http://www.naturalnews.com/028918_f…) and how even the FDA knew of Avandia’sdangers years ago but did nothing (http://www.naturalnews.com/021864.html).

Notably, some of these stories were published as far back as 2007. The FDA, we now know, knew about the dangers of Avandia as early as 2003 but chose to ignore the drug’s dangers in a bid to protect the profits of the drug industry.

Tens of thousands likely died

There’s no telling exactly how many diabetes patients actually died from the FDA’s lack of enforcement action on this drug, but realistic estimates based on Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Steven Nissen’s work point to many tens of thousands of people dying needlessly from heart attacks.

Meanwhile, Avandia hasn’t cured a single case of diabetes. That’s because the drug doesn’t really cure anything. It only suppresses symptoms of diabetes while ignoring the underlying causes of diabetes.

Today’s decision by the FDA is seven years too late for all those likely tens of thousands of people who are dead. And even today, after all the evidence that has surfaced and all the shocking revelations about this drug, the FDA still can’t bring itself to ban the drug because it’s just too deeply in bed with Big Pharma.

European regulators have simply banned it. They don’t want their people dying from a drug that exhibits a scientifically-validated and highly significant increase in heart attacks. But the FDA, it seems, is always willing to sacrifice a few thousand more lives for the benefit of Big Pharma profits. There’s almost never a drug too dangerous for the FDA to keep on the market in one way or another.

The role of patients

Still, you can’t blame the drug companies and the FDA for everything. Patients who died from Avandia side effects have a role in their own deaths, too.

The typical diabetes patient (but not everyone) is an overweight, sedentary dead foods eater who won’t exercise, won’t eat healthy foods and lives on high sugar, processed dead foods. (Most of the, by the way, drink diet soda laced with aspartame, too.) Astonishingly, many have been convinced by doctors and pharmaceutical advertising that they can counteract their atrocious lifestyle choices by popping a chemical pill.

Most of these patients foolishly believe that their health rests in the hands of their doctor and not their own actions. They believe they can keep eating junk foods and liquid sugars while somehow a magic little pill will warp the rules of the universe and exclude them from the laws of biological cause and effect.

In that way, these diabetes patients who rely on medications play an often overlooked role in their own disease. Sure, Big Pharma and the FDA are at fault for misleading people, but people can’t put all the blame on pharma when they are the ones swallowing these lies, pretending they can keep pursuing a diabetes-causing lifestyle while somehow escaping the consequences of their actions.

People who were victimized by Avandia and GSK allowed themselves to become victims. No one forced them to swallow any pills. They did so willingly and often quite eagerly. They chose to take medications instead of eating right as others have done to reverse their diabetes. Drew Carey, for example, reversed his diabetes through changes in diet and exercise, not by taking chemical medications.

As adults, people have the responsibility to check the safety of what they swallow. One search of “Avandia safety” on Google at a public library would have turned up an enormous amount of information warning people not to take this drug, even as far back as 2006.

And frankly, any person who still trusts Big Pharma and the FDA today — after all the scandals, scams and corruption that has been reported in the media — is probably living in a fantasy land and needs a reality check.

To swallow anything made by a pharmaceutical company is to swallow one great big lie. And that lie may very well kill you.

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