Modern Food Is Changing Our Minds As Well As Our Bodies
David A. Kessler, a former commisioner at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, says our favorite foods are making us fat, yet we can’t resist, because eating them is changing our minds as well as bodies. It’s something the producers of the disinformation® documentary Killer At Large also discussed, but coming as it does from someone with as much credibility and influence as Mr. Kessler in his book The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, perhaps we’ll actually start to listen to his advice, dispensed here in the Guardian:
For years I wondered why I was fat. I lost weight, gained it back, and lost it again – over and over and over. I owned suits in every size. As a former commissioner of the FDA (the US Food and Drug Administration), surely I should have the answer to my problems. Yet food held remarkable sway over my behaviour.
The latest science seemed to suggest being overweight was my destiny. I was fat because my body’s “thermostat” was set high. If I lost weight, my body would try to get it back, slowing down my metabolism till I returned to my predetermined set point.
But this theory didn’t explain why so many people, in the US and UK in particular, were getting significantly fatter. For thousands of years, human body weight had stayed remarkably stable. Millions of calories passed through our bodies, yet with rare exceptions our weight neither rose nor fell. A perfect biological system seemed to be at work. Then, in the 80s, something changed…
NYC Schools Prohibit Sale of Home-Made Food and Allow Junk for Fundraising?!?
From NYC Green Schools:
Regulation A-812 prohibits home-baked foods from being sold at school fundraisers, while permitting Doritos and Pop-Tarts instead! Yes, this regulation mandates that if we want to raise money for our schools, we have to buy and sell junk food to our children!
VOICE YOUR OPPOSITION TO REGULATION A-812!
— Our schools cannot become venues for big food corporations, like Pepsi Cola and Kellogg’s to advertise and sell their processed foods to our children!
— Our children must not receive the message that junk food is healthier for them than foods cooked at home!
— We, as parents, must be allowed to participate in the discussion about our children’s health and nutrition!
Food Security Threat: Goverment Set to Ban Public Fishing, Individual Food Production
By Mac Slavo for Deadline Live:
In yet another example of government overstepping its bounds, the Obama administration is preparing to ban fishing in coastal areas around the country, as well as the Great Lakes and other inland water resources.
This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is “fluid” and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn’t issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.
That’s a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning.
“When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare…
NYC Restaurateur Serving Wife’s Breast Milk Cheese
Is it just me, or is this a total gross-out? As reported in the New York Post:
This Chelsea restaurant has gone from brasserie to brassiere. Chef Daniel Angerer is letting diners at Klee Brasserie munch on cheese made from his wife’s breast milk.
“It tastes like cow’s-milk cheese, kind of sweet,” he told The Post.
The flavor depends on what the cheese is served with — Angerer recommends a Riesling — and “what the mother eats,” said Angerer, who once bested Bobby Flay on TV’s “Iron Chef.”
Breast milk doesn’t curdle well due to its low protein content, so a little moo juice has to be added to round out the texture, Angerer said. After blogging about his efforts with the human cheese, customers started demanding a sample, he said.
“The phone was ringing…
Kraft Foods Employees Sell Millions of Molded Tomato Products For Bribes
His name was Robert Watson. (There are three others.) WILLIAM NEUMAN reports in the New York Times:
Robert Watson, a top ingredient buyer for Kraft Foods, needed $20,000 to pay his taxes. So he called a broker for a California tomato processor that for years had been paying him bribes to get its products into Kraft’s plants.
The check would soon be in the mail, the broker promised. “We’ll have to deduct it out of your commissions as we move forward,” he said, using a euphemism for bribes.
Days later, federal agents descended on Kraft’s offices near Chicago and confronted Mr. Watson. He admitted his role in a bribery scheme that has laid bare a startling vein of corruption in the food industry. And because the scheme also involved millions of pounds of tomato…
Criticising GM Crops May Land You In Jail
Imran Khan for express buzz:
BANGALORE [India]: Criticising Genetically Modified (GM) products could land you in jail — if the draconian draft Biotechnology Regulatory Authority Bill (BRAB) of 2009, which will be tabled in the current session of the parliament by the UPA government, is passed.
In an unprecedented muzzle on the right to freedom of speech of the citizen, Chapter 13 section 63 of the draft bill says, “Whoever, without any evidence or scientific record misleads the public about the safety of the organisms and products…shall be punished with imprisonment for a term that shall not be less than six months but which may extend to one year and with fine which may extend to two lakh rupees or with both.” The BRAI Bill drafted by the department of bio-technology under…
Michael Pollan on Food Rules: An Eaters Manual on Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman: Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivores Dilemma and In Defense of Food, discusses the link between healthcare and diet, the dangers of processed foods, the power of the meat industry lobby, the nutritional-industrial complex, the impact industrial agriculture has on global warming, and his sixty-four rules for eating. The markets are full of what I call edible food-like substances that you have to avoid, says Michael Pollan. So a lot of the rules are to help you, you know, navigate that now very treacherous landscape of the American supermarket. Today we air an excerpt of the Oscar-nominated documentary Food, Inc. and then spend the rest of the show with Michael Pollan.
Italian TV Chef Recommends ‘Cat Stew’
John Hooper writes in the Guardian:
Among other things, Giuseppe “Beppe” Bigazzi is known for his prize-winning cookbook La cucina semplice dei sapori d’Italia (”The simple cuisine of the flavours of Italy”). But as of this week, the flavour with which the TV gastronome is likely to be most closely associated is that of stewed cat.
Bigazzi is familiar to millions of viewers of the publicly-owned RAI network as the white-haired co-presenter of a popular pre-lunchtime programme, La prova del cuoco (”The proof of the cook”). But today he was experiencing his first day without television commitments in 10 years after being axed for expressing his enthusiasm for the flesh of felines.
His remarks came after mentioning how, in the desperate conditions of post-war Italy, some people had taken to boiling stray mogs.
Natural Harvest: A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes
Fotie Photenhauer, author of Natural Harvest, describes this book as:
Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic. Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants. Despite all of these positive qualities, semen remains neglected as a food.
This book hopes to change that.
Once you overcome any initial hesitation, you will be surprised to learn how wonderful semen is in the kitchen. Semen is an exciting ingredient that can give every dish you make an interesting twist. If you are a passionate cook and are not afraid to experiment with new ingredients — you will love this cook book!
Poisonous Sweetener Aspartame Renamed AminoSweet
I can personally attest that aspartame is a poison to be avoided at all costs. I guess that also applies to AminoSweet, as reported in Natural News:
In response to growing awareness about the dangers of artificial sweeteners, what does the manufacturer of one of the world’s most notable artificial sweeteners do? Why, rename it and begin marketing it as natural, of course. This is precisely the strategy of Ajinomoto, maker of aspartame, which hopes to pull the wool over the eyes of the public with its rebranded version of aspartame, called “AminoSweet”.
Over 25 years ago, aspartame was first introduced into the European food supply. Today, it is an everyday component of most diet beverages, sugar-free desserts, and chewing gums in countries worldwide. But the tides have been turning as the…
Genetically Modified Corn Linked With Organ Damage
A new study has linked the genetically modified corn made by global agriculture giant Monsanto to liver and kidney failure. The Huffington Post reports that the results were announced by the International Journal of Biological Sciences. In addition to damaging the kidneys and liver, effects on “heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted.”
Three varieties of the corn are approved by food authorities for consumption in the United States (as well as other countries). Monsanto “gathered its own crude statistical data after conducting a 90-day study,” even though 90 days is too short a time for chronic health issues to emerge, “and concluded that the corn was safe for consumption.” Now that’s just good science.
The New Caveman Diet
Is this the latest regurgitation of the Atkins/Southbeach type diet fad? Or are we finally de-volving?
via NY Times
Mr. Durant, 26, who works in online advertising, is part of a small New York subculture whose members seek good health through a selective return to the habits of their Paleolithic ancestors.
Or as he and some of his friends describe themselves, they are cavemen.
The caveman lifestyle, in Mr. Durant’s interpretation, involves eating large quantities of meat and then fasting between meals to approximate the lean times that his distant ancestors faced between hunts. Vegetables and fruit are fine, but he avoids foods like bread that were unavailable before the invention of agriculture. Mr. Durant believes the human body evolved for a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and his goal is to wean himself off what he sees as many millenniums of bad habits.
These urban cavemen also choose exercise routines focused on sprinting and jumping, to replicate how a prehistoric person might have fled from a mastodon.
Ammonia-Treated Burgers, Tainted With E. Coli!
Tom Philpott writes on Grist:
Few who saw the documentary Food Inc. will forget the scene involving Beef Products Inc., a South Dakota company that makes a widely used hamburger filler product.
No other industrial-meat company allowed director Robert Kenner to enter the shop floor with his cameras. In sharp contrast, a Beef Products executive invited the Food Inc. crew to record his company’s inner workings. The man is clearly proud of his company’s product. “We think we can lessen the incidence of E. Coli 0157:H7,” he says.
The scene, a clip of which appears above, features the Beef Products executive talking over a scene straight out of Chaplin’s Modern Times: a vast network of steaming tubes, with people in protective gear and face masks wandering about fussing with dials. Evidently, scraps of cow flesh, swept up from slaugtterhouse floors and pulverized into a kind of paste, are moving through the tubes, subjected to a lashings of ammonium hydroxide to kill bacteria.The scene ends with those heavily protected workers carefully packing uniform flesh-colored blocks into boxes. “This is our finished product,” the executive declares. He then claims that the product ends up in 70 percent of hamburgers served in the U.S. “In five years we’ll be in 100 percent,” he predicts.
How to spot a GMO (genetically modified organism) in the grocery store
Very interesting. Who knew?
Are you eating Genetically Modified Foods? Do you know how to tell? I recently found out that you can easily tell whether the produce you purchase at the grocery store is a GMO just buy looking at the PLU (price look up) code.
Here are the rules:
If the PLU is 5 digits and begins with an 8, then it a Genetically Modified Organism
If the PLU is 4 digits (even if it begins with anthen it is not a GMO
When you purchase processed foods, you need to know that according to Wikipedia, as many as 75% of all processed foods on American shelves contain at least one GMO. As far as I can tell, there is no way to tell if a packaged item contains GMOs or not. Just another reason to skip over the middle of the grocery store as much as possible.
Child Diabetes Tied to Food Sweetener Fructose
Lois Rogers writes in the Times:
Scientists have proved for the first time that a cheap form of sugar used in thousands of food products and soft drinks can damage human metabolism and is fuelling the obesity crisis.
Fructose, a sweetener derived from corn, can cause dangerous growths of fat cells around vital organs and is able to trigger the early stages of diabetes and heart disease.
It has increasingly been used as a substitute for more expensive types of sugar in yoghurts, cakes, salad dressing and cereals. Even some fruit drinks that sound healthy contain fructose.
Experts believe that the sweetener — which is found naturally in small quantities in fruit — could be a factor in the emergence of diabetes among children. This week, a new report is expected to claim that…
First Gourmet Marijuana Restaurant Opens In Denver
DENVER (CBS4) reports:
A medical marijuana dispensary in Denver has decided to get creative and make the business into a full-service restaurant that caters to those who need to use medicinal marijuana to ease physical ailments.
The owner of Ganja Gourmet located at 1810 South Broadway Avenue said the restaurant will “aim to help distribute medicinal marijuana to those licensed to have it and provide an atmosphere where patients can visit with one another in a safe environment.”
Ganja Gourmet plans to offer lasagna, gourmet pizza, jambalaya, paella, chocolate mousse and flavored cheesecakes, among other gourmet dishes.
“It’s a different buzz too. It’s a more alert, more awake buzz,” Medical Marijuana Chef Evan “Budman” said.
Would You Eat Soggy Pork To Save the Planet?
Marshall Chase writes on GreenBiz.com:
The world faces some interesting choices in the next few years. As illustrated by the ongoing Copenhagen negotiations, we have to decide whether and how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a wide range of sectors, from energy generation to transportation and beyond.
The livestock industry faces particular uncertainty in this environment. According to various studies, livestock accounts for somewhere between 18 percent and 51 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activity — primarily from cows burping methane. Meat production is expected to double by 2050, at the same time that the world attempts to drastically reduce overall GHG emissions. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress recently prevented the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating livestock GHG emissions.
Despite the Congressional ban (only a short-term measure in a country where livestock…
How In Vitro Meat Will Change Everything
From H+, a number of ways in which the arrival of animal-free, laboratory-created meat will be a revolution:
Red meat & poultry will vanish from the marketplace, similar to whale oil’s flame out when kerosene outshone it in the 1870’s. Predictors believe that IVM will sell for half the cost of its murdered rivals. This will grind the $2 trillion global live-meat industry to a halt.
IVM sales will be aided by continued outbreaks of filthy over-crowded farm animal diseases like swine flu, Mad Cow, avian flu, tuberculosis, brucellosis, and other animal-to-human plagues.
Today’s gentle drift into urbanization will suddenly accelerate as unemployed livestock workers relocate and retrain for city occupations. Rural real estate values will plummet as vast tracts of ranch land are abandoned and sold for a pittance.
…
93% of Soybeans, 80% of Corn Grown from Genetically-Modified Monsanto Seeds
Peter Whoriskey reports in the Washington Post:
For plants designed in a lab a little more than a decade ago, they’ve come a long way: Today, the vast majority of the nation’s two primary crops grow from seeds genetically altered according to Monsanto company patents.
Ninety-three percent of soybeans. Eighty percent of corn.
The seeds represent “probably the most revolutionary event in grain crops over the last 30 years,” said Geno Lowe, a Salisbury, Md., soybean farmer.
But for farmers such as Lowe, prices of the Monsanto-patented seeds have steadily increased, roughly doubling during the past decade, to about $50 for a 50-pound bag of soybean seed, according to seed dealers.
The revolution, and Monsanto’s dominant role in the nation’s agriculture, has not unfolded without complaint. Farmers have decried the price increases, and competitors say…
