Can Chewing More Help You Eat Less?

From Reuters. I imagine it can by making your jaw tired, so you won't want to eat any more. This is probably why using a bigger fork is also considered beneficial--more food in, more food to chew, and faster jaw-tiring.

"A new study finds that people who chew their food more take in fewer calories, which may help them control their weight.

Chewing food 40 times instead of a typical 15 times caused study participants to eat nearly 12 percent fewer calories, according to results published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Jie Li and colleagues from Harbin Medical University in China gave a typical breakfast to 14 obese young men and 16 young men of normal weight to see if there were differences in how they chewed their food. The researchers also looked to see whether chewing more would lead subjects to eat less and would affect levels of blood sugar or certain hormones that regulate appetite.

Previous research has explored the connection between obesity and chewing, with mixed results. Several studies have found eating faster and chewing less are associated with obesity, while others have found no such link.

In the current study, the team found a connection between the amount of chewing and levels of several hormones that "tell the brain when to begin to eat and when to stop eating," said co-author Shuran Wang in an email.

More chewing was associated with lower blood levels of ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates appetite, as well as higher levels of CCK, a hormone believed to reduce appetite.

These hormones may "represent useful targets for future obesity therapies," Wang told Reuters Health, since regulating their levels may help people control their appetite.

The authors found no difference between the size of bites taken by obese or normal-weight men, and no link between chewing duration and blood sugar or insulin levels in any of the men.

Since the study was small and only included young men, it does not necessarily predict how extended chewing will affect the calorie intake of other people, the authors noted.

The 12 percent reduction in calories eaten by the group who chewed their food 40 times in the study could potentially translate into significant weight loss, however.

If the average person cut their calorie intake by 12 percent, they would lose nearly 25 pounds in one year, said Adam Drewnowski, director of the University of Washington Center for Obesity Research in Seattle.

But since the typical diet includes foods that are not chewed -- such as soup and ice cream -- the actual amount of weight one is likely to lose by chewing more is much less, he cautioned.

"I suppose that if you chew each bite of food 100 times or more you may end up eating less. However, I am not sure that this is a viable obesity prevention measure," said Drewnowski, who was not involved in the current study.

Despite the study's limitations, the authors say the relationship between eating behaviors and obesity is worth studying further, to help slow a growing health problem worldwide.

More than a third of American adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Obesity is an important risk factor for a number of health problems, including heart disease and diabetes. A 2010 study from the Brookings Institution estimated the economic cost of obesity in the U.S. to be over $200 billion per year.

SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, online July 20, 2011."

Take the Nutrition Quiz on Figs

From the Sacramento Bee. Knock yourselves out--I'm allergic to them, and just reading about them may make me swell up!

Tackle Your Caveman Cravings With Paleo MREs (Military Meals Ready to Eat)

From the Army Times. While we're on the subject of Paleo emergency food...here's one more.

"If you’ve been hunting for an MRE replacement or just trying to gather something different for your next camping or summer road trip, a CrossFit and Paleo Diet supplier may have the missing link to expand your menu options.

The 1,006-calorie Steve’s Original Paleo MRE is a resealable grab-bag of grass-fed beef jerky, raw macadamias, almonds and pecans. The bags sell for $11, but military buyers get a 10 percent discount.

Our crack team of taste testers gave high marks to the jerky, which they found wasn’t as salty as expected and had an awesome, unmistakable beef flavor. However, so did the not-so-crunchy nuts, after being vacuum-sealed with the beef.

Also known as the Stone Age or caveman diet — with its focus on back-to-basics eating, muscle-building proteins and Omega-3 fats — the Paleo Diet has become a favorite with CrossFitters, mixed martial artists and other athletes.

“We basically serve the CrossFit community, and of course a big part of that is the military,” says Steve Liberati, the chief cook and “head caveman” for Steve’s Originals and owner of New Jersey’s CrossFit Tribe gym.

“We created the MRE at the request of our military customers, and now we can’t make them fast enough. We’re completely sold out right now.” Fresh stocks will be available soon, he says.

Since they were first introduced five years ago, the company’s flagship PaleoKits — snack-sized versions of the MRE that include dried berries — have become increasingly popular with the military. Liberati says about one of every five of his customers is military.

“Your kits are perfect for me to throw in one of my bags while I’m on mission because the eating schedule is so chaotic,” an Air Force flight medic recently wrote Liberati.

For his new MRE, Liberati dropped the dried berries to increase shelf life. Unopened, the MREs are good for at least two years, he says."

No WONDER we finally killed Osama!

Primal Toad's Emergency Paleo Pantry

From Primal Toad--a man after my own heart when it comes to shortening the shopping list!

"I received this comment on one of the posts on my facebook fan page about a week or so ago from Esther:

Blog post idea?!?? Top ten primal foods to stock up on for emergencies. The ecomony is crap, you live in MI so you know but what shelf stable foods would you stock up on if you had some extra cash? We are thinking of hoarding up a little food, the hubby does concrete and winter is a coming. Also we have nut and coconut allergies- any ideas? Thanks!

I know of just the foods for this type of situation. Instead of only 10 foods I feel like listing 22. I have a lot to say about most of the following foods and will thus publish posts in the future explaining the reasoning for my selection.

Esther says that she has coconut and nut allergies. Well, nuts are problematic for most of us just like grains are. I will suggest certain nuts and will also suggest a couple coconut products. She requested 10 foods but I am going to reveal 22.

Animal Foods
Wild Planet Skipjack Light Tuna (no can opener needed!)
Crown Prince Pink Salmon (comes with bones and skin)
Crown Prince Skinless & Boneless Sardines in Pure Olive Oil
Canned Chicken from Costco
Eggs (they can sit out at room temp for a couple weeks or more)
Beef Jerky (make your own from ground beef - it lasts for weeks!)
Butter (this can sit out at room temp!)

Plant Foods
Bob’s Red Mill Flaked Coconut
Organic Nutiva Coconut Oil
Bananas (portable potassium)
Avocados
Macadamias
Pistachios
Cashews
Almonds
Tomato Paste
Canned Greens (Spinach, Kale, Collards)
Canned Vegetables (Green Beans, Peas, etc.)
Dehydrated Fruits & Veggies (make your own with this dehydrator!)
Coconut Water (stay hydrated with electrolytes!)
Baby Carrots
Endangered Species, Black Panther Extreme Dark Chocolate (88%)

That is a lot of food. Food that is paleo approved. I could live on these foods for the rest of my life and have a riot. People will dismiss all the canned goods. This post is for times when you are in emergencies folks!

These foods are perfect for traveling too! They are extremely portable and extremely nutritious. You can not go wrong. Many of the canned goods are BPA free which means you have zero worry.

I’ll be explaining why I chose these foods in future posts. It’s been a lot of fun thinking about these foods."

I only have one objection, and it's on the grounds of sodium content: the canned chicken from Costco. Here's a lower-sodium substitute: Hormel low sodium canned chicken. I've personally bought this stuff myself in the past, and for a canned product, the sodium is LOW, but the product is EXPENSIVE compared to its sodium-laden counterpart.

While we're on the thread of Paleo emergency preparedness, here's another take on it from The Primal Home.

House Vote Cancelled Last Night--Who Knows If It Will Ever Happen?

I stayed up until 11 watching for it. At 10 ;59, they announced it was cancelled--I guess it was past their bedtime.

If you're a federal employee, or a federal contractor, plan on filling out leave papers (if you have time to take) no later than Friday for an August 2nd shutdown (that's today--to get paid retroactively when all this is over), plan the quickest route to your local unemployment office and welfare office, dig out which documents you need for them NOW, find out which (if any) funds you have access to from a Roth account (to incur no taxes), and find out how long your bank can survive before it has to hit up the Federal Reserve for money--it will be closed, so guess what? Your bank will run out of money before long, unless it had the foresight to load up on money before the shutdown.

If you have any doctor/dentist appointments scheduled for August or September, push them back until January. Get any prescription refilled NOW for the next 90 days.

Don't expect anything to come to you in the mail, because the post offices will be shut down also. Yay--a reprieve from junk mail! Make sure to have all package deliveries come UPS--they are a federal contractor, but will still be in business after the post office shuts down.

Cut back to the bone on everything you can (including dishes and laundry, and start cooking outside) to avoid racking up utility bills you cannot pay--the A/C costs enough as it is. If and when you get access to money, use it to stock up on stuff that ISN'T covered by food stamps (like toilet paper, pet food, etc.), and let the food stamps cover the bulk of your food needs--if you read my Food Stamp Challenge Cheat Sheet before I took it down, you'll find it extremely useful now.

I'm not re-posting it.

Know where your local food pantry is, when it operates, and the shortest route there (to save on gas--you may not be buying any more for awhile). Just remember that they get donations of expired foods from grocery stores, and seldom do they get fresh foods in.

It's too hot to start a garden in most areas, so you may want to wait until September for that (it'll be time to plant cold-weather crops for fall and spring, like leafy greens, and peas). Seeds should be cheap in August or later.

Learn to barter in case the banks run out of money before we run out of shutdown--band together with other families in the same boat. Someone else may have something you need or want, and is willing to trade for something THEY need or want.

Oh, and I hope you have a gun and ammo--federal prison guards and border patrol agents will also be unemployed during the shutdown, and the shutdown will filter down to the states, hitting local jails, cops, and firefighters, so dialing 911 for anything will be less than useful, and there may be teeming hoards of illegal border-crossers. Expect roving bands of thieves, rapists, drug dealers, and god knows who else to wander the streets freely in all states, taking full advantage of the shutdown.

The heat will be the only thing to keep you safe during the day, so plan on having to sleep all day and stay up all night. That would be a good time to BBQ enough meat for a week or more, lessening cooking and heating up your house. It would also be a good time to keep watch on your garden if you already have one--desperate people will do anything to get free food, even if it's in your back yard.

Homeland Security and TSA will also be shut down, so terrorists might also use this time as a good opportunity to strike. The FAA was laid off a week ago, so you might not want to fly during this time--there'll be nobody in the air traffic control towers!

Bad Food? Tax It, and Subsidize Vegetables (L-O-N-G)

From the NY Times. Shoot! And here I was hoping a shutdown would take care of that FOR us (by ending farm subsidies, and making subsidized foods more expensive, forcing these places to reform or shut down themselves due to costs). Who knows--the drought, and commodity traders may still finish them off.

"WHAT will it take to get Americans to change our eating habits? The need is indisputable, since heart disease, diabetes and cancer are all in large part caused by the Standard American Diet. (Yes, it’s SAD.)

Though experts increasingly recommend a diet high in plants and low in animal products and processed foods, ours is quite the opposite, and there’s little disagreement that changing it could improve our health and save tens of millions of lives.

And — not inconsequential during the current struggle over deficits and spending — a sane diet could save tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs.

Yet the food industry appears incapable of marketing healthier foods. And whether its leaders are confused or just stalling doesn’t matter, because the fixes are not really their problem. Their mission is not public health but profit, so they’ll continue to sell the health-damaging food that’s most profitable, until the market or another force skews things otherwise. That “other force” should be the federal government, fulfilling its role as an agent of the public good and establishing a bold national fix.

Rather than subsidizing the production of unhealthful foods, we should turn the tables and tax things like soda, French fries, doughnuts and hyper-processed snacks. The resulting income should be earmarked for a program that encourages a sound diet for Americans by making healthy food more affordable and widely available.

Someone's been reading my blog.

The average American consumes 44.7 gallons of soft drinks annually. (Although that includes diet sodas, it does not include noncarbonated sweetened beverages, which add up to at least 17 gallons a person per year.) Sweetened drinks could be taxed at 2 cents per ounce, so a six-pack of Pepsi would cost $1.44 more than it does now. An equivalent tax on fries might be 50 cents per serving; a quarter extra for a doughnut. (We have experts who can figure out how “bad” a food should be to qualify, and what the rate should be; right now they’re busy calculating ethanol subsidies. Diet sodas would not be taxed.)

Simply put: taxes would reduce consumption of unhealthful foods and generate billions of dollars annually. That money could be used to subsidize the purchase of staple foods like seasonal greens, vegetables, whole grains, dried legumes and fruit.

We could sell those staples cheap — let’s say for 50 cents a pound — and almost everywhere: drugstores, street corners, convenience stores, bodegas, supermarkets, liquor stores, even schools, libraries and other community centers.

This program would, of course, upset the processed food industry. Oh well. It would also bug those who might resent paying more for soda and chips and argue that their right to eat whatever they wanted was being breached. But public health is the role of the government, and our diet is right up there with any other public responsibility you can name, from water treatment to mass transit.

Some advocates for the poor say taxes like these are unfair because low-income people pay a higher percentage of their income for food and would find it more difficult to buy soda or junk. But since poor people suffer disproportionately from the cost of high-quality, fresh foods, subsidizing those foods would be particularly beneficial to them.

Right now it’s harder for many people to buy fruit than Froot Loops; chips and Coke are a common breakfast. And since the rate of diabetes continues to soar — one-third of all Americans either have diabetes or are pre-diabetic, most with Type 2 diabetes, the kind associated with bad eating habits — and because our health care bills are on the verge of becoming truly insurmountable, this is urgent for economic sanity as well as national health.

Justifying a Tax

At least 30 cities and states have considered taxes on soda or all sugar-sweetened beverages, and they’re a logical target: of the 278 additional calories Americans on average consumed per day between 1977 and 2001, more than 40 percent came from soda, “fruit” drinks, mixes like Kool-Aid and Crystal Light, and beverages like Red Bull, Gatorade and dubious offerings like Vitamin Water, which contains half as much sugar as Coke.

Some states already have taxes on soda — mostly low, ineffective sales taxes paid at the register. The current talk is of excise taxes, levied before purchase.

“Excise taxes have the benefit of being incorporated into the shelf price, and that’s where consumers make their purchasing decisions,” says Lisa Powell, a senior research scientist at the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “And, as per-unit taxes, they avoid volume discounts and are ultimately more effective in raising prices, so they have greater impact.”

Much of the research on beverage taxes comes from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale. Its projections indicate that taxes become significant at the equivalent of about a penny an ounce, a level at which three very good things should begin to happen: the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages should decrease, as should the incidence of disease and therefore public health costs; and money could be raised for other uses.

Even in the current antitax climate, we’ll probably see new, significant soda taxes soon, somewhere; Philadelphia, New York (city and state) and San Francisco all considered them last year, and the scenario for such a tax spreading could be similar to that of legalized gambling: once the income stream becomes apparent, it will seem irresistible to cash-strapped governments.

Currently, instead of taxing sodas and other unhealthful food, we subsidize them (with, I might note, tax dollars!). Direct subsidies to farmers for crops like corn (used, for example, to make now-ubiquitous high-fructose corn syrup) and soybeans (vegetable oil) keep the prices of many unhealthful foods and beverages artificially low. There are indirect subsidies as well, because prices of junk foods don’t reflect the costs of repairing our health and the environment.

Other countries are considering or have already started programs to tax foods with negative effects on health. Denmark’s saturated-fat tax is going into effect Oct. 1, and Romania passed (and then un-passed) something similar; earlier this month, a French minister raised the idea of tripling the value added tax on soda. Meanwhile, Hungary is proposing a new tax on foods with “too much” sugar, salt or fat, while increasing taxes on liquor and soft drinks, all to pay for state-financed health care; and Brazil’s Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) program features subsidized produce markets and state-sponsored low-cost restaurants.

Putting all of those elements together could create a national program that would make progress on a half-dozen problems at once — disease, budget, health care, environment, food access and more — while paying for itself. The benefits are staggering, and though it would take a level of political will that’s rarely seen, it’s hardly a moonshot.

The need is dire: efforts to shift the national diet have failed, because education alone is no match for marketing dollars that push the very foods that are the worst for us. (The fast-food industry alone spent more than $4 billion on marketing in 2009; the Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion is asking for about a third of a percent of that in 2012: $13 million.) As a result, the percentage of obese adults has more than doubled over the last 30 years; the percentage of obese children has tripled. We eat nearly 10 percent more animal products than we did a generation or two ago, and though there may be value in eating at least some animal products, we could perhaps live with reduced consumption of triple bacon cheeseburgers."

The smell alone sells many of us. The convenience is just the cherry on top. Many of our children grow up believing food is handed to you over a counter or through a car window.

"Government and Public Health

Health-related obesity costs are projected to reach $344 billion by 2018 — with roughly 60 percent of that cost borne by the federal government. For a precedent in attacking this problem, look at the action government took in the case of tobacco.

The historic 1998 tobacco settlement, in which the states settled health-related lawsuits against tobacco companies, and the companies agreed to curtail marketing and finance antismoking efforts, was far from perfect, but consider the results. More than half of all Americans who once smoked have quit and smoking rates are about half of what they were in the 1960s.

It’s true that you don’t need to smoke and you do need to eat. But you don’t need sugary beverages (or the associated fries), which have been linked not only to Type 2 diabetes and increased obesity but also to cardiovascular diseases and decreased intake of valuable nutrients like calcium. It also appears that liquid calories provide less feeling of fullness; in other words, when you drink a soda it’s probably in addition to your other calorie intake, not instead of it.

To counter arguments about their nutritional worthlessness, expect to see “fortified” sodas — à la Red Bull, whose vitamins allegedly “support mental and physical performance” — and “improved” junk foods (Less Sugar! Higher Fiber!). Indeed, there may be reasons to make nutritionally worthless foods less so, but it’s better to decrease their consumption.

Forcing sales of junk food down through taxes isn’t ideal. First off, we’ll have to listen to nanny-state arguments, which can be countered by the acceptance of the anti-tobacco movement as well as a dozen other successful public health measures. Then there are the predictions of job loss at soda distributorships, but the same predictions were made about the tobacco industry, and those were wrong. (For that matter, the same predictions were made around the nickel deposit on bottles, which most shoppers don’t even notice.) Ultimately, however, both consumers and government will be more than reimbursed in the form of cheaper healthy staples, lowered health care costs and better health. And that’s a big deal.

The Resulting Benefits

A study by Y. Claire Wang, an assistant professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, predicted that a penny tax per ounce on sugar-sweetened beverages in New York State would save $3 billion in health care costs over the course of a decade, prevent something like 37,000 cases of diabetes and bring in $1 billion annually. Another study shows that a two-cent tax per ounce in Illinois would reduce obesity in youth by 18 percent, save nearly $350 million and bring in over $800 million taxes annually.

Scaled nationally, as it should be, the projected benefits are even more impressive; one study suggests that a national penny-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages would generate at least $13 billion a year in income while cutting consumption by 24 percent. And those numbers would swell dramatically if the tax were extended to more kinds of junk or doubled to two cents an ounce. (The Rudd Center has a nifty revenue calculator online that lets you play with the numbers yourself.)

A 20 percent increase in the price of sugary drinks nationally could result in about a 20 percent decrease in consumption, which in the next decade could prevent 1.5 million Americans from becoming obese and 400,000 cases of diabetes, saving about $30 billion.

But dude--don't you know that until recently, the only thing that kept our economy from total and complete collapse was the medical industrial complex? It's also expected to be a leader in the future growth of our economy because of the non-stop wave of Boomers for the next 40-50 years. Boomers and the technological demands of the young are going to fuel our path out of this recession.

It’s fun — inspiring, even — to think about implementing a program like this. First off, though the reduced costs of healthy foods obviously benefit the poor most, lower prices across the board keep things simpler and all of us, especially children whose habits are just developing, could use help in eating differently. The program would also bring much needed encouragement to farmers, including subsidies, if necessary, to grow staples instead of commodity crops.

Other ideas: We could convert refrigerated soda machines to vending machines that dispense grapes and carrots, as has already been done in Japan and Iowa. We could provide recipes, cooking lessons, even cookware for those who can’t afford it. Television public-service announcements could promote healthier eating. (Currently, 86 percent of food ads now seen by children are for foods high in sugar, fat or sodium.)

Money could be returned to communities for local spending on gyms, pools, jogging and bike trails; and for other activities at food distribution centers; for Meals on Wheels in those towns with a large elderly population, or for Head Start for those with more children; for supermarkets and farmers’ markets where needed. And more.

By profiting as a society from the foods that are making us sick and using those funds to make us healthy, the United States would gain the same kind of prestige that we did by attacking smoking. We could institute a national, comprehensive program that would make us a world leader in preventing chronic or “lifestyle” diseases, which for the first time in history kill more people than communicable ones. By doing so, we’d not only repair some of the damage we have caused by first inventing and then exporting the Standard American Diet, we’d also set a new standard for the rest of the world to follow."

Vote-buying at its finest!

I've got some ideas too: brick up all drive-thru windows, ban microwaves, tax all processed food, encourage tours through food processing plants and meat plants (from feedlot to butchering floor), outlaw fried foods (a major source of glycation), pay grocery stores NOT to have junk food and soda aisles, subsidize farmers to raise livestock in the TRADITIONAL way before the industry was chemicalized and commercialized, and how's about we start teaching honest-to-god nutrition classes, gardening, and foraging for wild foods in our schools, and maybe bring back the Home Ec classes our grandmothers took? Yep, some of them are wacky ideas, but they're ideas nonetheless.

Wanna hear an extreme idea? Ban all grains, legumes, and dairy products, but then that would pretty much kill off vegans, and we'd finally have peace on earth. (I'm joking here) :)

If the commodities crap keeps going the way it's going now, most of these ideas will already come to fruition without government assistance of any sort--the market will take care of it. Fast food will soon become more expensive than regular, decent food, and restaurants of all sorts will soon start going out of business (or leaving this country) unless they radically change their menus to take advantage of the "new" cheap foods (just like they did the "old" cheap foods).

U.S. Federal Judge Tosses Lawsuit Blocking Federal Ban on Stem Cell Funding

From Yahoo Health. Now the shy's the limit on health care...if you can afford to pay for it. Too bad stem cells aren't going to go off patent in a decade!

"In a victory for President Barack Obama's administration, a US federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that had temporarily blocked government funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Wednesday's ruling was issued by Judge Royce Lamberth, who last year saw merit in the plaintiffs' case and stunned many scientists by ordering a halt to taxpayer spending on the research while the legal battle was resolved.

In the end, Lamberth, the chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, decided to uphold an appeals court decision in April that ruled against the plaintiffs, two scientists who argued it was illegal to use government cash for research that destroys human embryos.

His decision was immediately hailed by the National Institutes of Health, which allocated about $40 million to human embryonic stem cell research in 2010 and has set aside $125 million this year -- a tiny fraction of its $31 billion budget.

The White House also applauded the move, calling the ruling "good news" for people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or heart disease.

Too bad they want to waste them curing diseases caused by too much sugar consumption! It seems an awfully expensive thing to do--like developing a robot to tie your shoes. They should be using it for more serious problems, like paralysis, or genetic problems--health issues that can't be cured by simply controlling the sugar you take in, glycate, and poison your tissues with. The more affordable thing to do is eliminate grains, legumes, and dairy, and take L-carnosine to un-glycate yourself, making vessels and arteries more flexible, repairing damaged heart muscle, and taking care of pretty much all other ailments caused by sugar.

"President Obama is committed to supporting responsible stem cell research and today's ruling was another step in the right direction," said his deputy senior adviser Stephanie Cutter.

"While we don't know exactly what stem cell research will yield, scientists believe this research could treat or cure diseases that affect millions of Americans every year."

Obama lifted a ban on federal funding for the research in March 2009. His predecessor George W. Bush had blocked government funding for human embryonic stem cell research on new cell lines, citing religious grounds.

At issue in the latest court fight was a 1996 amendment to a US law called the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which barred using taxpayer funds in research that destroys human embryos.

In August 2010, Lamberth took up a court challenge brought by a pair of scientists who opposed the research and issued an order to ban federal funding until the legal matter was sorted out.

A series of court decisions followed that temporarily lifted his ban.

Wednesday's summary judgment by Lamberth dismisses the case on the basis that the US government has defined the law as barring federal funding for the act of deriving stem cells from an embryo -- a process that involves the embryo's destruction -- but not any other form of research involving human embryonic stem cells.

Legal expert Abbe Gluck, an associate professor of law at Columbia University, told AFP the ruling was no surprise, given that the federal appellate court had already ruled the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed.

"In April, the federal court of appeals vacated the 'freeze' on stem-cell research that the district court had previously granted, on the ground that the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on the merits of the ultimate case," she said.

"The core of that appellate holding was that the court should defer to the expert agency's -- here NIH's -- interpretation of the statute, and the district court essentially held today that it was bound by the higher court's ruling."

NIH director Francis Collins said his agency was "pleased with today's ruling. Responsible stem cell research has the potential to develop new treatments and ultimately save lives."

He added: "This ruling will help ensure this groundbreaking research can continue to move forward."

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, an international non-profit group that publishes the journal Science, also expressed support for Lamberth's decision.

"The scientific consensus is that embryonic stem cell research is an extremely promising approach to developing more effective diagnostics and treatments for devastating conditions such as diabetes, spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease," said chief executive Alan Leshner.

"Judge Lamberth's injunction last year threatened to cause real harm to researchers in this field and discourage the next generation of stem cell scientists."

The defense team for the scientists who brought the lawsuit said in a statement that they are "considering all options for appeal."

The first two US trials of human embryonic stem cells to treat paralysis and blindness in people were launched late last year, both by private companies that did not rely on federal funds."

The only thing I had against Bush's decision is that the process may someday save his own life, and he was denying himself that over religious dogma. Pro-life = denying life (to him and everyone else)? Babies are far from being a precious commodity!

The money spent in the Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan wars would've more than paid for stem cell funding into the next millenium. You ask me, the wounded soldiers should have been the FIRST people to receive them!

There Have Been Some Whispers About a Total Federal Shutdown in September...

...regardless of the resolution of the debt ceiling issue. The government ran out of money back in June, but got an extension until August 2. Priority payments (debt interest, and/or military, and/or Social Security--that hasn't been decided yet) would eke us out through August, but there's nothing beyond that until the new fiscal year in October as the first possible backstop. If that gets blown, then look to January as the next possible backstop. Beyond January is anyone's guess.

Without federal payments to the states, the social safety net will quickly erode to nothing--especially after the huge influx of federal employees come rushing to apply for unemployment, welfare, food stamps, and whatever else they can get out of the states while they still can.

Prepare to bow to your new lord and master: AUSTERITY. Could you hold out from August until January if you had to? No? Then perhaps you ought to shut this computer down and go make preparations!

One of those preparations should be to vote out the incumbent at every level, and at every opportunity, since these clowns are the ones who put us in this position. Let's finally recycle that can they've been kicking down the road for so long!

Take the Nutrition Quiz on Fiber

From the Journal-Times (WI). Click here and take the quiz.

Blockbuster Drugs to Go Generic as Patents Expire

From the L.A. Times.

"Some big-ticket medications are about to go generic, a shift that could save consumers billions--assuming they're willing to give up a trusted brand name for an off-label replacement.

In the next two years, six of the 10 top-selling drugs will lose their patents, meaning other companies can make the medications and sell them at a huge discount, perhaps up to 80% off.

We're talking some real blockbusters. Lipitor, the cholesterol-lowering medication that has long been the top-selling drug in the world, will lose its patent in November. When that patent expires, people will presumably be lining up to buy atorvastatin, the generic equivalent.

Other brand names that are about to take a hit include the anti-psychotic Zyprexa (the patent will expire in October), the popular and heavily advertised blood thinner Plavix (in May of next year) and the rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis drug Enbrel (in October of next year).

All of these upcoming generics will renew a debate that has been going on for years: Are generic drugs just as good as the brand names that they replace? According to the FDA, generic drugs have the same "high quality, strength, purity and stability as brand-name drugs." A study to be published in next month's issue of International Angiology found that generic atorvastatin worked just as well as Lipitor.

But just like brand-name drugs, generics have an uneven safety record. In 2008, Baxter Healthcare recalled its version of heparin, a generic blood thinner, after it was found to be contaminated. Eighty-one people in the U.S. and Germany died after taking the tainted medication, although it's unclear how many deaths were related to the drug.

And despite the reassurances from the FDA, studies have found that some generics don't act in exactly the same way as the brand-name drugs, which can be a problem for drugs that operate on a thin margin for error. In April, researchers at Johns Hopkins University reported in the Annals of Neurology that there's a roughly 10% chance that switching from a brand name to a generic anti-epilepsy drug would change the peak concentration that the drug reaches in the body. Put more simply: Price may not be the only difference between a brand name and a generic drug.

Because of a Supreme Court ruling in June, you won't be able to sue makers of prescription drugs for complications or side effects that aren't listed on the label.

If your doctor suggests switching to a generic, you can take it with confidence--but also with caution. Generics may be cheap, but they're serious medicine."

This may be the only saving grace for Medicare, Medicaid, and the Obamacare plan. Why not just eat right for your disease and avoid having to buy ANY drugs?

I guess this proves you can still afford to get sick if you wait around long enough--say, about a decade, when the patents expire.

Crop Prices Erode Farm Subsidy Program

From the Wall St. Journal.

"Business is humming in this typical Midwestern farm town, with its bronze statue of Lincoln overlooking the courthouse square.

Land prices are way up and so are bank deposits, as high corn and soybean prices mean local farmers are making the most money in their lives. At Sloan Implement, which sells John Deere tractors, "This could be our best year ever," says chief executive Tom Sloan.

An exception to the boom is the local office of the U.S. Agriculture Department, the dispensary of federal payments to farmers from an array of arcane programs with names like "loan deficiency" and "milk income loss." On a recent afternoon, the parking lot in front of the squat brick building behind a Chinese restaurant was nearly empty.

The reason: Payments from America's primary farm-subsidy program, dating from the 1930s, have stopped here. Grain prices are far too high to trigger payouts under the program's "price support" formula. The market, in other words, has done what decades of political wrangling couldn't: slash farm subsidies.

Though the subsidy payments always ebbed and flowed with crop prices, many economists are convinced that what is happening now is different. A fundamental upward shift in crop prices is creating the real possibility that Midwestern farmers won't ever again qualify for the primary form of farm subsidy.

There remain other types of subsidies, which continue to pay out because they aren't linked to market prices. But high prices are undermining political support for those programs, especially as Congress and the White House get serious about restraining federal spending, amid trillion-dollar deficits and a political brouhaha over the federal debt ceiling.

Government checks to farmers have shrunk to about $11 billion annually—half what they were six years ago—and they could shrink by roughly half again if Washington goes through with calls to eliminate a second major type of farm aid that costs the government about $5 billion annually.

"Subsidies are just eroding away," said J. Mark Welch, an economist at Texas A&M University.

Critics have long attacked farm subsidies as wasteful and obsolete. Some $760 billion in federal spending ago, they were created to tackle rural poverty during the Depression era, when a quarter of Americans lived on farms. Today, less than 1% of the population is in farming. The typical farmer works many more acres than in years past, thanks partly to ever-more-powerful tractors and harvesting combines, the newest of which steer themselves.

The bulk of the federal subsidy money flows to farmers who are wealthier than the typical U.S. taxpayer. The Environmental Working Group, a Washington activist organization that wants subsidy dollars shifted to conservation programs, maintains a database that shows 10% of farms getting 74% of the federal money. Small farmers receive smaller payments simply because they work fewer acres.

The programs long were protected by one of the few bipartisan coalitions left in Washington—politicians of both parties from major farming states.

The recently elevated focus in Washington on federal spending has changed the calculus. The Senate has already voted to end ethanol tax credits. Farmer groups, resigned to deep cuts, are pitching alternative subsidy programs that they say would cost taxpayers less.

"The old days are through," says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former Democratic governor of Iowa. "There are no sacred cows. Everything is on the table."

That is a matter of concern to some. While the current crop prices mean subsidy checks aren't much missed by farmers, some agricultural economists worry about what will happen next time the historically volatile farm economy contracts. "The safety net for U.S. farmers in the past has been a story and half" below them, says economist Steve Elmore at DuPont Co., a producer of seeds and chemicals. "It is still there, but it's now eight stories away."

For decades, while crop prices languished but operating costs rose, many growers counted on these subsidies to survive. For most of their careers, farmers in Shelby County, 200 miles south of Chicago, depended on government payments for roughly half of their income. In some years, a line of farmers seeking federal loans stretched into the USDA office's parking lot.

The global grain markets shifted in 2006 when Washington began to require that the oil industry mix billions of gallons of corn-derived ethanol with gasoline annually. Around the same time, rising numbers of middle-class consumers in emerging economies such as China began seeking more grain-fed meat and milk, boosting demand for soybeans, pork and, most recently, corn from the U.S.

The way the main Depression-era subsidy program works is that Congress sets a "target price" for certain crops, and when market prices are below it, the government sends growers a check for the difference.

Today's target prices reflect the largely depressed crop markets that prevailed from the late 1970s until 2005—corn averaging roughly $2 a bushel year after year, and soybeans around $6.

But corn now sells for about $7 a bushel in Shelby County, far above the subsidy program's target price of $2.63. Soybeans fetch about $13 a bushel here, versus a $6 target price. So no price-support checks are going out.

While the current prices could easily retreat, if only because they spur farmers around the globe to produce more, many economists doubt that prices will fall all the way back down to levels that trigger federal checks, at least over the next decade. The Congressional Budget Office, as it prepares 10-year forecasts of government spending, sees very little in the way of price-support payments to Midwestern farmers.

"We don't envision farmers here ever seeing a price-support check again," said Darrel Good, a University of Illinois economist. "It's the end of an era."

The USDA still ships billions of dollars annually to farmers for various other programs, such as payments for keeping highly erodible land in grass rather than row crops. It subsidizes crop insurance. Still, federal payments to farmers are expected to fall to about $10.6 billion this year, compared with $24.4 billion in 2005.

In Shelby County, whose roughly 3,400 farmers typically used to share about $25 million a year from the government, the figure is down to about $8 million now.

A five-year federal law governing farm subsidies is up for renewal during 2012. Few see much chance that legislators would raise the price-support program's target prices high enough to start triggering payments under that subsidy program again.

The other major subsidy program, unrelated to market prices, is a remnant of a failed 1996 experiment by a Republican-led Congress to wean farmers off federal aid. Farmers were supposed to receive fixed, but declining, checks for seven years and then be left to the whims of the market. But in the seventh year, instead of letting the payments expire, Congress turned them into a program of set payments, based on the amount and type of crops that particular farms had historically produced. Legislators in both parties are gunning for the fixed-subsidy program, which costs the government about $5 billion annually.

Here in Shelby County, population 21,803, the dim outlook for future subsidies is rattling nerves. Few expect the current high crop prices to last, and farmers' costs for fuel, seed, equipment and agricultural chemicals have soared.

In Windsor, Ill., a $300,000 corn bin is under construction at a grain elevator managed by Matt Bennett, 36, who on a recent day was watching corn and soybean prices blink on his computer screen while trucks pulled alongside his office to dump their loads.

"I understand why the public is skeptical about subsidies to farmers," said Mr. Bennett, who also farms himself, with his father. "Times are good."

But, he added, "this will change. It always does."

Many here say they want the federal budget reined in, but worry that both farming and doing business with farmers will get more volatile. That includes extending them credit. "You feel more comfortable lending money to a farmer for 20 years when there is a price-based support system," said John Widdersheim, vice president of the 116-year-old Shelby County State Bank. "In some years in the past, price supports have had a huge impact for us."

Tim Lenz, a lanky 43-year-old farmer in Strasburg, Ill., said he was willing to forgo the $38,000 in fixed-price subsidies that annually flows to the 2,600 acres of farmland he works.

"It's pure profit to me, but I can't defend it when we're doing so well," Mr. Lenz said, sitting in the upstairs office of a cavernous white sheet-metal "machine shed" he built last year. The $200,000 building houses tractors, two grain combines and other equipment.

"It was a 20-year-long struggle to break even, and now we are making a decent return," said Mr. Lenz, whose annual gross revenue has climbed to about $1.4 million, roughly double what it was five years ago, thanks to rising prices and better crop yields.

A registered Republican, Mr. Lenz said he thinks subsidy spending should shrink even if it would mean that some farmers don't survive the next farm-economy downturn, thus speeding up the consolidation of family farming operations. "I hope I survive," he said. But like Mr. Bennett, Mr. Lenz said the government shouldn't completely end its programs, because of farming's notorious sudden swings in prices and weather.

"We don't think we should be paid when we don't need the money, but we do need a safety net," he said. "Farming is still a risky business."

Meanwhile, workers in the USDA's county offices, seeing the handwriting on the wall, are campaigning for new things to do, now that there aren't any price-support payments to dispense. One idea is to give them responsibility for federally subsidized crop insurance, currently handled by private companies. Because crop values are higher, the amount the federal government spends annually on crop insurance is forecast to climb above $7 billion by 2013, up 60% from last year.

"Sure, we worry about our jobs," said Roger West, who leads the USDA's branch in Shelbyville, one of 2,246 county offices around the country. "We've kept a lot of farmers going over the years. But it's not clear if the farm lobby has the political power to keep the programs anymore."

This is what unsubsidized living looks like--care to experience unsubsidized gas? Europeans pay $8-$12/gallon, and we complain about $4. Cut the tax loopholes, and we'd be paying about an 80% combined total tax bill (state and fed), just like the northern Europeans. You'd need one income just to pay your taxes, and another to try to live off of, and extreme frugality won't be enough.

Now you know why Geithner and Bernanke are killing themselves trying to fight off deflation--the lower market prices get, the more support they have to shell out (to farmers and others), which means the more they have to borrow, and the more they'll eventually have to tax to make up for it.

Watching prices rise is a back-door way of cutting the budget, but can it be sustained? Only if you keep a certain amount of fear going on Wall St. and at the Chicago Commodities Exchange. Right now, the only foreseeable way to lower prices without burdening government is to increase employment (more demand, lower per-person cost), but that's a vicious circle with the fear factor ongoing.

Higher taxes are coming, so prepare your children and grandchildren--more than likely, they'll bear the brunt of it. Do you think Congress-critters are going to pay them? Naw...they'll enact laws to take effect long after they're dead, and besides, they MAKE laws, not obey them. Teach your future generations the metric system, and how to do currency exchange rates--they'll need it! You might want to teach them how to hunt, fish, forage, and garden--they'll probably need those skills too just to eat affordably.

FDA Says Walnuts are Drugs

From the New American.

"Seen any walnuts in your medicine cabinet lately? According to the Food and Drug Administration, that is precisely where you should find them. Because Diamond Foods made truthful claims about the health benefits of consuming walnuts that the FDA didn’t approve, it sent the company a letter declaring, “Your walnut products are drugs” — and “new drugs” at that — and, therefore, “they may not legally be marketed … in the United States without an approved new drug application.” The agency even threatened Diamond with “seizure” if it failed to comply.

Diamond’s transgression was to make “financial investments to educate the public and supply them with walnuts,” as William Faloon of Life Extension magazine put it. On its website and packaging, the company stated that the omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts have been shown to have certain health benefits, including reduced risk of heart disease and some types of cancer. These claims, Faloon notes, are well supported by scientific research: “Life Extension has published 57 articles that describe the health benefits of walnuts”; and “The US National Library of Medicine database contains no fewer than 35 peer-reviewed published papers supporting a claim that ingesting walnuts improves vascular health and may reduce heart attack risk.”

This evidence was apparently not good enough for the FDA, which told Diamond that its walnuts were “misbranded” because the “product bears health claims that are not authorized by the FDA.”

The FDA’s letter continues: “We have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease.” Furthermore, the products are also “misbranded” because they “are offered for conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners; therefore, adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes.” Who knew you had to have directions to eat walnuts?

“The FDA’s language,” Faloon writes, “resembles that of an out-of-control police state where tyranny [reigns] over rationality.” He adds:

This kind of bureaucratic tyranny sends a strong signal to the food industry not to innovate in a way that informs the public about foods that protect against disease. While consumers increasingly reach for healthier dietary choices, the federal government wants to deny food companies the ability to convey findings from scientific studies about their products.

Walnuts aren’t the only food whose health benefits the FDA has tried to suppress. Producers of pomegranate juice and green tea, among others, have felt the bureaucrats’ wrath whenever they have suggested that their products are good for people.

Meanwhile, Faloon points out, foods that have little to no redeeming value are advertised endlessly, often with dubious health claims attached. For example, Frito-Lay is permitted to make all kinds of claims about its fat-laden, fried products, including that Lay’s potato chips are “heart healthy.” Faloon concludes that “the FDA obviously does not want the public to discover that they can reduce their risk of age-related disease by consuming healthy foods. They prefer consumers only learn about mass-marketed garbage foods that shorten life span by increasing degenerative disease risk.”

Faloon thinks he knows why this is the case. First, by stifling competition from makers of more healthful alternatives, junk food manufacturers, who he says “heavily lobb[y]” the federal government for favorable treatment, will rake in ever greater profits. Second, by making it less likely that Americans will consume healthful foods, big pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers stand to gain by selling more “expensive cardiac drugs, stents, and coronary bypass procedures” to those made ill by their diets.

But people are starting to fight back against the FDA’s tactics. “The makers of pomegranate juice, for example, have sued the FTC for censoring their First Amendment right to communicate scientific information to the public,” Faloon reports. Congress is also getting into the act with a bill, the Free Speech About Science Act (H.R. 1364), that, Faloon writes, “protects basic free speech rights, ends censorship of science, and enables the natural health products community to share peer-reviewed scientific findings with the public.”

Of course, if the Constitution were being followed as intended, none of this would be necessary. The FDA would not exist; but if it did, as a creation of Congress it would have no power to censor any speech whatsoever. If companies are making false claims about their products, the market will quickly punish them for it, and genuine fraud can be handled through the courts. In the absence of a government agency supposedly guaranteeing the safety of their food and drugs and the truthfulness of producers’ claims, consumers would become more discerning, as indeed they already are becoming despite the FDA’s attempts to prevent the dissemination of scientific research. Besides, as Faloon observed, “If anyone still thinks that federal agencies like the FDA protect the public, this proclamation that healthy foods are illegal drugs exposes the government’s sordid charade.”

They're worried about WALNUTS? Chia has a much better Omega-3 profile, so when are they going after THAT?

The Prudent Pantry--Can You Save Money on the Paleo Diet?

From Savings.com. Hooray--somebody in the frugal world is getting a hint!

"The Paleolithic, or Primal, Diet has been gaining popularity lately. People seem to be pretty divided about its health benefits, but I was curious how it holds up financially.

First, what is the Paleo diet? In short (and this is surely an oversimplification), it is the foods our primal ancestors would have had access to--in other words, mostly meat, vegetables and tree nuts. Grains and legumes are avoided, as is anything processed and fruits are kept to a minimum.

Initially, I thought it would be impossible for a meat-heavy diet to be budget-conscious. I've written many times about the benefits of eating vegetarian or vegan, even for just one or two meals a week. But I suspect that it's possible to eat Paleo without spending more--though the jury is out on whether you can actually save money.

Meat is expensive. If you find cheap meat, you get what you're paying for: inferior cuts from animals most likely treated with growth hormones in a factory-type setting. Meat from animals raised on humane ranches is increasingly harder to find, and the cost is appropriate to the additional work that goes into raising it. However, it is possible to shop smart. Go to farmer's markets or butchers rather than grocery stores if possible; buy whole chickens, rather than pieces, and roast whole or cut them up yourself; look for a CSA-type arrangement that includes meat; or find a ranch that will sell you a quarter, half, or entire cow or pig.

Grain-based foods are not typically expensive, but they can really add up. A package of pasta might just be a dollar, but how many are you buying at a time? What about bread, crackers, chips, cereals, cookies, pretzels, rice, and tortillas? I suspect that eliminating all or most of those items from your grocery list would leave plenty of money to put toward meat. Plus you'll save money by skipping canned beans and the like.

As for vegetables, 25-50% of your grocery budget should already be produce. There's no reason for that to change on this diet.

I'm not necessarily endorsing the Paleo diet. It has a lot of aspects that could be problematic, and is nearly impossible for a vegetarian to live on without some major modifications. But is it a budget-conscious choice? I think it can be."

Pasta for $1.00? Not lately! As for the Paleo diet being cheaper than vegetarianism, you have to look at it from THE FOOD YOU'RE NOT BUYING point of view, as well as the cost of protein view--sure, meat is more expensive, but consider the costs of foods you'd have to buy, combine, and eat to make complete proteins, which easily lead to over-eating.

Let's not even get into the hideous amounts of starch consumed along the way, and what happens to that starch once consumed!

So can you save money eating Paleo-style? Yes, YES, YES. How? Garden for your fruits & veggies, only pay money for the good-quality meats, and skip the rest--the money you WERE putting toward grains, legumes, and dairy can now be put toward grass-fed meat, organ meats (cheaper than muscle meats), decent eggs, nuts, and coconut milk.

As for vegans and vegetarians needing a major overhaul, they can eat avocados for protein--they eat way too many crutch foods as it is. Tofu hot dogs? Grain "roasts"? Tofurkey? Please!

Not only does this way of eating save grocery money, but it also saves time (less to cook, and less to shop for), energy (yours and the utility), cupboard space, and no need for a pantry, coupons, or even a deep freezer (depending on the size of your family)!

It's Time to Say Happy National Salad Week

From the Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Canada). Salad WEEK? Try salad LIFESTYLE! No cooking, not much prep work, lovely to look at, and tasty too.

"Starting on Monday, the country (Canada), if not the world, kick starts the beginning of a week-long celebration of all that can described as salad.

Yes, a whole seven days of the whole nation eating nothing but Lactuca sativa, Raphanus sativa, Cucumis sativus (sativus, sativa just mean ‘cultivated’) and Solanum lycopersicum – now there’s a mouth full!

I have carried out extensive research into this spectacular celebration and cannot, despite my best efforts, find out who has organised it – if you know, please write to me at the new address, Graham’s National Salad Week Debate, Features Department, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Pennine Business Park, Longbow Close, Bradley Road, Huddersfield, HD2 1GQ, and put me out of my misery.

Seriously, freshly picked salad crops, straight from the garden, washed under a tap and mixed in a bowl with some home made salad dressing do take some beating – no food miles, no long preparation time, no expensive cooking and lots of healthy vitamins, anti-oxidants and minerals to help stave off the ravages of time.

The generic word salad means a whole lot more to us these days than it ever did, not only because we have a wider range of acceptable salads to choose from, but we have all expanded our ideas on what else can be included in a modern salad to make it look and taste better.

If you are older than 40, you will probably remember salads as only being made up of lettuce, cucumber, beetroot and tomato, perhaps with a hard boiled egg on the side.

These days, if you go out for a meal at any decent restaurant and ask for a side salad or a Caesar salad or even the infamous ‘Waldorf salad’ of John Cleese fame, they will contain a variety of the following and more besides: toasted almonds, roasted sunflower seeds, nasturtium flowers, rocket leaves and flowers, radish in variety, beetroot in variety, peppers in variety, chillies or chilli flakes to give it a bite, corn salad, mange tout peas, sweet corn, white cabbage, grated carrots, red lettuce, mizuna, red spinach, basil leaves, coriander leaves and seeds, apple, melon, seedlings of mustard, cress, beetroot and bean sprouts, let alone a good home made salad dressing.

Visit your local garden centre and search through the racks of vegetable seeds and you will find that the range of salad crops is endless – if you haven’t already, try a few this year with your family and you will be surprised at how quick, easy and cheap they are and you will all be getting a few of your ‘five a day’ almost without trying.

So, even if you cannot find out who organises National Salad Week, there is still time this summer to sow a few short rows of salad crops in the garden or a few small pots on a patio, balcony or windowsill and taste the true freshness of growing quick, easy to grow, easy to harvest and yummy to eat salad crops. Happy National Salad Week!"

If you live in a Zone 7-8 or nearby area, Labor Day weekend seems a good time to clean out your summer crops and plant cold-weather stuff for fall-winter-spring. That's what I'm doing--I plan our first and last 3-day weekends that way: First weekend of the year is for spring/summer crops, and the last is for fall/winter. I need Hubby home to help with the digging.

Anybody need peppers? "Peter Piper" planted 6 plants, and is getting a Pepperpalooza--they seem to thrive in this excessive heat.

Combat High Meat Prices--Eat Less of the Stuff

The website Raspberry and Coconut gives a wonderful recipe for Minimalist Egg Salad--this is (obviously) high protein, low carb, and Paleo friendly.

Eggs are an inexpensive (still) way to get protein without resorting to starchy beans/legumes, sugar-filled dairy, or expensive (and climbing) meat.

And no, eating 6 eggs a day (like Raspberry fears) won't kill you or ruin your cholesterol. Try some at your next picnic.

Government Proposes Clearer Meat Additive Labeling

From Yahoo Health. Probably because the meat industry is getting its butt handed to it by organic meats (which don't use any of that stuff).

"The Agriculture Department wants consumers to know when there's less chicken in their chicken.

A proposed rule aimed at food companies would require that poultry and other raw meats be labeled appropriately when they're plumped up by added solutions such as chicken broth, teriyaki sauce, salt or water. The practice of adding those ingredients is common, but many consumers don't know about it.

According to USDA, about one-third of poultry, 15 percent of beef and 90 percent of pork may have added ingredients — about 40 percent of all raw, whole cuts of meat. The rule does not apply to ground beef, which may have other added substances.

"Consumers should be able to make an informed choice in the store, which is why we need to provide clear, informative labels that will help consumers make the best decisions about feeding their families," said Elisabeth Hagen, head of food safety at the department. "It has become evident that some raw meat and poultry labels, even those that follow our current guidelines, may not be clear."

Labels now say that the meat contains added solutions or is "enhanced," but they may not be visible to consumers or understandable. If the rules are finalized, the label would now have to be part of the product title. An example of the new labels would be "chicken breast — 40% added solution of water and teriyaki sauce," according to USDA.

Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council says the poultry industry is split on the issue, as some companies add ingredients to their poultry and some don't. He said that for those who do add ingredients to poultry, the level of additives is generally 15 to 18 percent of the piece of meat.

Red meat processors immediately objected to the rule. The American Meat Institute called it "wasteful" and "unnecessary" and said it would cause prices to go up for consumers.

Consumer groups have been pressuring the department to crack down on the practice for several years, saying the added ingredients are unhealthy.

"Who wants to pay $4.99 a pound for the added water and salt?" said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Besides cheating customers financially, 'enhancing' meat and poultry delivers a stealth hit of sodium."

Why do they do it? To pump up the weight of the meat, since it is sold by the pound (and these days, every ounce counts for retailers). Whole birds (frozen or not) and large primal cuts (warehouse store-sized loins, for example) are notorious for this. You should always read the label before buying meat--if it contains solution, it isn't for your health!

How Repetitive Foods Can Mean Weight Loss

From Time.

"Want to lose weight? How about trying to bore yourself thin? According to a study that will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, monotony at mealtime might be a clever — if unexciting — way to reduce calorie consumption.

Human beings come pre-loaded with a sort of habituation threshold and it shows itself in a lot of ways. Hear the same pop song too often and you eventually want to fling the CD out the window. See the same sitcom re-run enough times and the jokes just aren't funny anymore. The same holds true for food — even your favorites get boring if you eat the same thing over and over without shaking up the menu a little. It's not even necessary that the repetitive food be boring: you'll habituate to pizza almost as easily as you do to boiled chicken.

Straightforward as that simple idea seems, there's been surprisingly little hard research to measure it in any kind of empirical way. In the new study, University of Buffalo nutritionist Leonard Epstein and his colleagues recruited 32 women — half of them obese, half nonobese – and divided them into two groups, also with equal numbers of overweight and normal weight subjects. The women were instructed to perform an assigned task for 28 minutes, after which they were given 125-cal. portions of macaroni and cheese and allowed as many additional helpings as they wanted.

All of the women went through five such 28-min. sessions — the only difference was, half of them did so on five consecutive days and half came back once a week for five weeks. By the end of all of the sessions, the once-a-day group had decreased its calorie intake of macaroni by about 30 cal. per session, while the once-a-weekers had increased theirs by 100 cal. The conclusion: the first group had simply gotten sick of the stuff.

By itself, the research is not the kind of thing that gets the Nobel folks printing up the award announcements, but it does suggest a starting point for further research. “Repeated presentations once a day compared with once a week provide a reference point for the interval between food presentations that could lead to long-term habituation,” wrote Epstein and his colleagues. In other words, adjust the sliding scale of lag time between repetitive meals until you find the point at which the food is not so over-familar that you go running to some high-calorie alternative, but not so novel that you gorge on it when you see it.

Further research, the investigators believe, could also shed light on the link between overeating and addiction. Some nutritionists theorize that the obese may suffer from a too-high habituation threshold, taking much longer to get tired of a food than other people. A similar miscalibration could also be at work in the case of alcoholism and addictive drug use. In all of those cases, it's impossible to say you've had enough until you truly feel you've had enough."

I'm glad I have a high threshold for salads and the Wenchypoo Magic 8. If I lost it someday, I'd switch to the Primal Toad Super 6.

The Rewards of Gardening Aren't Just Monetary

From the Abilene Reporter-News (TX).

"When Holly Joyce needs an onion for the evening meal, she only has to step out the door to pick one fresh from her garden.

She and her husband, Bob, enjoy growing vegetables and herbs for a variety of reasons. A primary one is the assurance that they are feeding safe produce to their children, ages 4, 6 and 10.

"Being responsible for someone else's health" as a parent prompted Joyce to be more aware of food sources, she said.

Another benefit to growing their own tomatoes, onions and herbs is possibly saving a few dollars on the grocery bill, Joyce said.

She is not alone in turning to gardening to cut costs. Gardening became more popular in the country as recession took hold in late 2007 and 2008.

According to the National Gardening Association's latest figures, 43 million American households planned to grow their own food in 2009, a 19 percent increase from the estimated 36 million the year before.

Bruce Butter, research director for the NGA, also reported that spending on food gardening — including growing vegetables, fruit trees, berries and herbs — jumped 20 percent between 2008 and 2009 to $3 billion and remained at that level in 2010.

With this year's lackluster production in tomatoes and peppers, Joyce doubts she saves much. But, the success of her herb garden means she no longer buys fresh ones at the grocery store.

And, picking straight from the garden a few sprigs of rosemary, thyme, mint and basil as needed instead of buying a bundle and seeing it spoil before being used helps avoid waste, Joyce said.

When lifelong gardening enthusiast Kim Mangum tallies the cost of her irrigation watering bill, rotary tiller, equipment and other supplies, she admitted she does not save money on her food bill. But, gardening offers her other rewards.

"I like to do it. The food just tastes different," Mangum said.

Growing her own vegetables is about a way of life focused on having easy access to better tasting produce. Her 60-by-30 foot garden features corn, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, watermelon, black-eyed peas and more.

Joyce's interest in gardening was further developed when she heard of efforts to start a gardening club at Johnston Elementary where her oldest children attend. Through a program at school, she learned of the Texas AgriLife Extension Service's Master Gardener program. The program includes three months of horticulture training on lawns, trees, shrubs, flowers and gardens.

While enrolled in the Master Gardener class three years ago, Joyce planted an herb garden. She and her husband also have added two raised beds and ornamental pots for growing various plants.

Joyce is excited about the two varieties of pumpkins she is growing for the fall. The Long Island Cheese pumpkin is good for baking, and the Jarrahdale pumpkin is prized for both cooking and ornamental designs because of its blue-gray exterior.

Mangum grew up eating fresh produce from her grandfather's garden. Even though Mangum's family lived in the city, they also grew grapes and pecans.

Today Mangum prefers freezing the extras from her garden. But, she recently bought a canner to put up food to avoid losing it in case of an extended power outage.

The value of gardening extends beyond a financial bottom line for Joyce. "It's about feeling good about what you're eating," she said."

It's bringing the grocery store produce aisle to you, only you get to specialize in what you'll actually eat, and eliminate the middleman markups.

Calorie Counts Posted at Restaurants About 40% Too Low

From Yahoo Health. Even the calorie counts required by law are seeing hidden inflation! Well, nobody said they had to be accurate...just posted.

"Nearly one in five dishes served at US restaurants has at least 100 more calories than advertised, a difference that could pack on up to 15 kilograms (22 pounds) per year, said a study on Tuesday.

While most of the 269 foods measured at random in the three-state survey were close to the calorie count listed on the menus, some varied wildly, such as one order of chips and salsa totaling 1,000 more calories than expected.

That finding, while "not typical... is an amount that is nearly half the total daily energy requirement for most individuals," said the study led by Lorien Urban of Tufts University and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Salads, as well as high-carbohydrate dishes containing rice, beans, potatoes or bread, tended to have "significantly more variability," while sandwiches and meat dishes were more likely to remain near or below the advertised calories, said the study.

In a country where obesity has risen to 34 percent of the population and up to 35 percent of the average person's calorie intake comes from food eaten out instead of at home, the findings point to a potential source of a nationwide epidemic.

For instance, with 19 percent of the food coming in at 100 calories higher than advertised, a person who regularly consumed that additional amount daily would be projected to gain five to 15 kilos (11-33 pounds) per year, it said.

"The prevalence of obesity remains at epidemic levels and national recommendations emphasize reducing energy intake to facilitate weight loss and prevent weight gain," said the study.

"However, the extent to which this recommendation can be implemented depends in part on the accuracy of available information on the energy contents of foods that are typically consumed."

Food were sampled from the states of Indiana, Massachusetts and Arkansas from January to June 2010.

Among the restaurants sampled were Arby's, Chuck E. Cheese, Old Spaghetti Factory, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Chili's Grill and Bar, and Bob Evans.

At Denny's, a popular chain diner, a sampling of the french fries showed they had 122 more calories than advertised, while the classic hamburger actually had 152 fewer calories than advertised.

Sit-down restaurants tended to show greater differences in actual versus advertised calories when compared to fast-food establishments, possibly due to lack of portion control, the authors said.

The US government is currently finalizing plans to make menu calorie counts mandatory in chain restaurants, a change that comes as part of President Barack Obama's health care law passed last year."

If the menu boards and literature are all off, what's the status of all those online calorie charts, smartphone apps, and I-pad apps? Don't they too get their information from the restaurants themselves?

Is anybody actually running these things through a lab and conducting nutritional analysis? Can we trust ANYBODY, or is this another "peer-review" instance?

The World's Deadliest Distinction--Why Aren't the World's Oldest People Getting Older?

From Slate. Here's a Google map of super-centenarians from 2010:

"Last month, a 114-year-old former schoolteacher from Georgia named Besse Cooper became the world's oldest living person. Her predecessor, Brazil's Maria Gomes Valentim, was 114 when she died. So was the oldest living person before her, and the one before her. In fact, eight of the last nine "world's oldest" titleholders were 114 when they achieved the distinction. Here's the morbid part: All but two were still 114 when they passed it on. Those two? They died at 115.

The celebration surrounding Cooper when she assumed the title, then, might as well have been accompanied by condolences. If historical trends hold, she will likely be dead within a year.

It's no surprise that it's hard to stay the "world's oldest" for very long. These people are, after all, really old. What's surprising is just how consistent the numbers have been. Just seven people whose ages could be fully verified by the Gerontology Research Group have ever made it past 115. Only two of those seven lived to see the 21st century. The longest-living person ever, a French woman named Jeanne Calment, died at age 122 in August 1997; no one since 2000 has come within five years of matching her longevity.

The inventor Ray Kurzweil, famous for bold predictions that occasionally come true, estimated in 2005 that, within 20 years, advances in medical technology would enable humans to extend their lifespans indefinitely. With six years gone and 14 to go, his prophecy doesn't seem that much closer to coming true. What happened to modern medicine giving us longer lives? Why aren't we getting any older?

We are living longer—at least, some of us are. Life expectancies in most countries not ravaged by AIDS have been rising gradually for decades, and the average American today can expect to live 79 years—four years longer than the average in 1990. In many developed countries, the super-old are among the fastest-growing demographics. (There is evidence that this progress may be grinding to a halt among some demographics, however.) But raising the upper bounds of the human lifespan is turning out to be trickier than increasing the average person's life expectancy. This may be a case where, as with flying cars, a popular vision of technological progress runs afoul of reality's constraints.

In the past few years, the global count of super-centenarians—people 110 and older—has leveled off at about 80. And the maximum age hasn't budged. Robert Young, senior gerontology consultant for the Guinness Book of World Records, says, "The more people are turning 110, the more people are dying at 110."

Young calls this the "rectangularization of the mortality curve." To illustrate it, he points to Japan, which in 1990 had 3,000 people aged 100 and over, with the oldest being 114. Twenty years later, Japan has an estimated 44,000 people over the age of 100—and the oldest is still 114. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, Young says, the odds of a person dying in any given year between the ages of 110 and 113 appear to be about one in two. But by age 114, the chances jump to more like two in three.

It's still possible that the barrier will eventually go the way of the four-minute mile. Steve Austad, a former lion tamer who is now a professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center, argues the apparent spike in mortality at age 114 is merely a statistical artifact. Today's oldest humans, he's reminds us, grew up without the benefit of 20th-century advances in nutrition and medicine. In 2000, he bet fellow gerontologist S. Jay Olshansky $500 million that someone born that year, somewhere in the world, would live to be 150. Olshansky, an Illinois at Chicago professor who wrote about the paradox of longevity for Slate last fall, doesn't expect to be around in 2150 to collect his winnings. Even a cure for cancer or heart disease would do little to extend the maximum length of human life, he argues, because there are simply too many risk factors that pile up by the time a person is 115 years old. He believes super-centenarians owe their longevity more to freakish genes than perfect health; the 122-year-old Calment smoked cigarettes for 96 years. Olshansky and Austad agree on one point: A technological breakthrough, perhaps in the realm of genetics, that slows the aging process could send life spans surging upward.

Is such a discovery imminent? At this point, the question is little more than a Rorschach. Young, the Guinness World Records consultant, compares the quest for super-longevity to the efforts of alchemists in the Middle Ages to turn lead into gold. They were right to think it was possible, but wrong to imagine they had any idea where to begin: Scientists finally succeeded in transmuting elements in the 20th century only after first unlocking nuclear physics. By that time, alchemy was largely irrelevant; the real trick was splitting uranium atoms.

The same may be true of enabling humans to live to 150. Age, it's worth remembering, is more than just a number. Young, who has spent time with dozens of super-centenarians, says even the hardiest humans turn frail by 110. As for Besse Cooper, the new world titleholder, Young reports that she can still talk, though her eyesight is failing. "As a quality-of-life issue, I think she could handle another year. I've seen some that, bless their hearts, probably shouldn't be here anymore."

Aging is a process--the ability to remove cellular waste before it accumulates to the point beyond removal. When cellular waste backs up, it causes what we know as signs of aging: wrinkles, inflammation, skin spots, eye problems, tooth loss, organ damage and/or failure, inability to fight off infections and viruses, etc. This is the vulnerability on man's design--up to now, there is no sure-fire publicly-available method of rectifying this--sure, there are tons of bio-gerontologists with tons of ideas on how to circumvent this process, and all kinds of stuff going on in labs, but none have so far progressed into the actual product phase. Circumventing ONE process leads to problems in other processes, it seems.

What can YOU do about it yourself? Stop creating cellular waste in the first place by eating mostly raw, nutritious, non-starchy foods, only drinking water, and keeping total calorie intake low. This may slow down your aging process, but it won't stop it completely...and it won't prevent you from getting hit by a bus next week, ending ALL processes! You might not make it to 100, but you'll live long enough to start collecting Social Security at 70 instead of 62 or 65.

Imagine if we all lived to be 150 as a matter of course. We'd have a larger over-population problem than we do right now, and that would cause even more world-poisoning than we do right now in the pursuit of more--more food, more fuel, more money, more technology, etc. On the plus side, there'd probably be fewer kids. Fewer UNWANTED kids for parents to stuff with low-grade food, shuttle off to low-grade schools, then either turn loose on society or shove into low-grade colleges, only to do low-grade work with that degree, and eventually repeating the low-grade lifestyle they grew up with, teaching it to their kids, and so on.

Living longer means the expected retirement entitlement benefits age could be raised well beyond the mere 67 or 70 we have today--it could go all the way up to 125 or higher. Gerontology and the bio-sciences would be the hot career trends. Whole new markets would be opened up geared toward these old-but-young people, and we aren't just talking about home care, medical equipment and supplies sent to your home, or reverse mortgages--we're talking the 50-year mortgage, the 10-year degree program, the 20-year smart phone contract, and cars that will last 30 years without major maintenance before a new one is "needed", and then there'd be the rock-climbing expeditions, white-water canoe classes, cross-country ski trips, and all the activities today's seniors can only dream of doing, because of failing organs, damaged joints, or taking Coumadin. Or, they could work longer, saving more for their eventual retirement, and continuing to contribute to the tax base along the way.

The downside? Political terms could theoretically be extended (with Constitutional amendment) to 10 years, 15 years, or even longer. Or conversely, political positions would be kept the same length they are now, but politics would no longer be a career, but a temporary bump on the road to a long, glorious, and productive life outside of office (like it was originally meant to be)--kind of like jury duty.