Cleaning Up the "Dirty Dozen" List

From Truth About Trade & Technology.

"Consumers are often confused by seemingly conflicting advice from "experts." Some recommend low-carb, high-fat diets; others, low-fat Mediterranean ones. Some tout the benefits of hormone replacement therapy for menopausal symptoms, while others emphasize the risks. The scientific studies of these and other subjects are sometimes inconsistent. But while consumers may puzzle over the differing views of experts, they can be dangerously misled by activist NGOs whose agenda is baseless fear-mongering in the interest of fund-raising.

Consider the Environmental Working Group (EWG), leader of the "cell phones cause cancer" nonsense. Another of their lame hobby horses, which they trot out regularly, is the supposed danger of pesticides on produce. And each time -- like Charlie Brown fooled by Lucy pulling away the football at the last second -- the media buy into it.

The pesticide alarmism was debunked in July by an independent, peer-reviewed study by researchers at the University of California Davis. Unfortunately, the media responded with deafening silence, after it had so gleefully trumpeted the activists' earlier, ill-founded warnings. (The media's motto is, after all, "If it bleeds, it leads.")

The EWG pesticide alarmism began in 1995, when, backed by such eminent scientific entities as the Barbra Streisand Foundation (we are not making this up), the organization published its first "Dirty Dozen" -- a list of produce that supposedly contained the highest levels of chemical pesticides. The annual list, which this year includes some of the most nutritious and delicious components of our diet - such as peaches, strawberries, apples, blueberries, nectarines, cherries and grapes - is accompanied by an admonition to limit consumption of those kinds of fresh produce and to "avoid conventionally grown varieties" in favor of the more costly organic options.

However, a study published in April in the Journal of Toxicology by Dr. Carl Winter and Josh Katz of UC-Davis showed that 90% of the cases "exposed" in EWG's 2010 list involved levels of pesticides 1,000 times lower than the chronic reference dose (the level of daily exposure likely to be without an appreciable risk of deleterious effects during a lifetime of chronic exposure). Winter and Katz concluded, "The potential consumer risks from exposure to the most frequently detected pesticides on the 'Dirty Dozen' list of foods are negligible and cast doubts as to how consumers avoiding conventional forms of such produce items are improving their health status."

Moreover, as Dr. Winter wrote in a separate commentary for the International Food Information Council, "Three-quarters of the pesticide/commodity combinations [identified by the EWG] showed consumer exposure estimates more than one million times lowerthan doses given to laboratory animals continuously over their entire lifetimes that do not show adverse effects."

These are critical observations because, as has been known from antiquity, the dose makes the poison; in other words, a substance is toxic only if the dose and length of exposure are sufficient to cause damage - a fundamental principle of toxicology seemingly alien to the EWG. Moreover, the EWG's main recommendation - to "buy organic" - is belied by the fact that many organically grown versions of the "dirty" products are also "contaminated." As Winter and Katz point out, the same data from the Department of Agriculture Pesticide Data Program used by the EWG indicate that there are pesticide residues in nearly a quarter of organic food samples.

Winter presented his report at the American Dietetic Association's Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo this week. The food police on hand were outraged with his findings, but the best they could muster were ad hominem attacks on Dr. Winter and IFIC, such as, "Google Carl Winter and industry front group IFIC and you will understand." In fact, EWG's Senior Communications and Policy Advisor, Don Carrtook took to Twitter to call IFIC "industry goons." So much for scientific debate.

The "Dirty Dozen" list is always a headline grabber for EWG; no wonder the media-hungry activist group keeps updating the same worthless analysis each year. The report informs -- or more aptly, misinforms -- the public conversation about the alleged dangers of pesticides on food. EWG cleverly publishes the report every May or June, just as Americans are getting excited about the prospect of summer produce.

The media have failed dismally to do their homework. Reporters consistently fail to ask pertinent questions about dose, exposure, likelihood of actual harm or compliance with federal regulations. Had they done so, they would have discovered that the pesticide tolerances in food established by the EPA are extraordinarily conservative - that is, highly risk averse - and that even these stringent limits are exceeded less than one percent of the time. They even had the advantage this year of the UC-Davis report having been published in a scientific journal weeks before the EWG press release went out. But reporters and editors regurgitated the same old story, touting the Dirty Dozen's supposed dangers while ignoring the science that belied the warnings

More to the point, according to Professor Bruce Ames, an eminent biochemist at UC-Berkeley, our foods contain 10,000 times more natural, endogenous pesticides -- the result of plants evolving with their own natural defenses against fungi and predators -- than synthetic ones, but many of the latter are actually less harmful. Although the minuscule amounts of synthetic pesticides in our foods pose negligible health risks, some activists actually advise consumers not to eat fruits and vegetables at all if they can't afford organic varieties -- in spite of 100 years of evidence that those who eat the most conventionally grown fruits and vegetables have half the cancer rates for practically every type of cancer and live longer than those who eat less.

We will never convince the dedicated ideologues of the error of their ways, but the media can -- and must -- do better at presenting accurate and complete information.

Jeff Stier is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research and directs its Risk Analysis Division. Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is the Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and Public Policy at the Hoover Institution and a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He was the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology at the FDA."

Last spring, the EWG launched a "meatless once a week" campaign, and that speaks a lot about their loyalties...to vegans.

As for pesticide levels in foods, I just bypass the whole argument by growing my own--that way, I know for sure what the pesticide levels are. Zero! Foraging will net you the same results.

Here's a simple rule I stuck to before I started growing my own produce: if you're going to eat it raw with the skin on, make it organic. Since growing my own, I've read that if you really REALLY want to avoid most toxins, buy organic meat, milk, eggs, and dairy (if you eat them), because the volume of toxins is so much greater in these foods than in produce...but you be the judge here. It's your wallet and your health.

Things you eat raw that have no skin (such as broccoli, cauliflower, and leafy greens)--consult the list, or grow your own.

Now you see why I started growing my own--to limit the expense of the organic produce, and directing that money to grass-fed meats and clean eggs instead.

Whole World a Sweet Organic Garden When Foraging

From the Clarion-Ledger (MS).

"I was on my morning run the other day and saw something that almost stopped me in my tracks: a persimmon tree laden with fruit!

The reason this struck me so was that last fall I was looking forward to foraging some of the delicacies along my 5-mile run/walk/jog and/or bike route, and the weather didn't cooperate and the trees didn't bear much.

The previous year, Annette and I had picked bunches, and she used a tomato press to crush and strain the fruits and make a delicious jam and homemade persimmon bread. Yum!

But, beware. If you eat the fruit before it's ripe, your mouth will pucker up with a sour/tart flavor that's almost impossible to wash out.

The secret to not allowing the persimmons to have a bitter flavor is to wait until the fruit is so ripe it's almost dripping off the limb. It looks almost rotten. Then, it's meat is almost pure sugar. Of course, you're competing with deer, raccoons and every other scavenger on the planet when they are ripe like that.

So, for now, I'm warily watching the persimmon tree in hopes that my patience will bear fruit!

Foraging seems to be big deal in urban areas these days. It's not so unusual in rural areas - or wasn't when I was growing up. I'm by no means a Euell Gibbons (Stalking the Wild Asparagus, et al.), but when I was a boy, I learned to gather wild onions for broths, pick sumac and dig sassafras for tea, and could, in a pinch, whip up some dandelion greens to eat (you can use them in place of collards for a nice casserole with mozzarella cheese and bread crumbs).

Over the years, I've lost several copies of my "bible" for foraging: Peterson's A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants.

The ultimate forager may be someone who eats anything invasive (or opportunistic!) in the local ecosystem, thus ensuring a balanced local ecology of flora and fauna.

One such forager is Jackson Landers of Virginia who writes a blog called The Locavore Hunter (http://rule-303.blogspot.com).

As New York Times writer James Gorman notes, Landers "has hunted and eaten feral pigs, two species of iguana, armadillos, starlings, pigeons and resident Canada geese. He says that all of these activities will be chronicled in a book, Eating Aliens, and perhaps a television show as well."

Many rural people of my acquaintance are familiar with the preparation - from shot to pot - of deer, raccoon, squirrel, possum, etc. (Where my dad grew up during the Depression near Vaughan was called "Possum Bend" for its gustatory abundance; they lived off what the land provided, animal, vegetable and mineral.)

But it's worth noting that, in addition to what's growing in your organic 4x8-foot Jim's plot, there's a real wealth of healthful foods available for the picking in your yard or just out your front door.

The whole world can be a sweet organic garden when foraging."

Young Indonesians Paint the Town Green

From AFP.

"Young Indonesians are breathing new life into their polluted concrete capital city with little more than buckets of soil and seeds.

A group of mostly young professionals, known as Gardening Indonesia, has joined the global urban farming movement, converting vacant patches of land between Jakarta's skyscrapers into lush green vegetable gardens.

"There's concrete, concrete, everywhere. But if we look hard enough, there is vacant land we can farm," said Sigit Kusumawijaya, 30, watering freshly planted tomato seeds.

On a one-hectare (2.5-acre) lot between luxury homes in a north Jakarta suburb, Kusumawijaya and his fellow gardeners grow tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and chillies where an eyesore dumping ground once stood.

The group's goals are to encourage a healthy population and a green city while saving money on grocery bills.

Jakarta residents have for years criticised the government for allowing giant malls and towering apartment buildings to replace green spaces, which are now few and far between.

Traipsing the muddy earth of the vegetable garden in her leopard-print boots, 26-year-old architect Syahnaz said that urban farming was one way young Indonesians could take matters into their own hands.

"The government isn't doing very much for us, so we have to take the initiative to look after the city," she said.

Syahnaz -- who like many Indonesians uses only one name -- has traded her life as a mall-rat for urban farming.

"The massive use of air conditioning in malls is destroying our planet -- it's an evil," she said.

Kusumawijaya and some friends formed the Gardening Indonesia group earlier this year, recruiting thousands of followers on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

Members discuss online the latest urban farming trends and projects and share information about organic farming, while hundreds turn out on weekends to work in group gardens in 14 cities around the country.

The Jakarta group has already had two big harvests, initially sharing the vegetables with family and friends or people in the neighbourhood.

But now they and gardeners at Tangerang city on the outskirts have signed a deal to supply 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of spinach a day to a popular local steakhouse in Jakarta.

The group also facilitates workshops and farm trips so that participants can learn how to farm without pesticides and harmful fertilisers.

"It seems like easy work, but to have a successful harvest, we need to know what type of soil is suitable for different types of crops, and understand the different seed grades," Kusumawijaya said.

Agronomist Adhie Widiharto, who was invited to lecture on organic corn planting, praised the group's efforts for the environmental benefits they bring but also for showing how households can be more economical.

"The recent skyrocketing of chilli prices is a good lesson that shows us the benefits of growing your own food at home," he said.

Extreme weather earlier this year destroyed chilli crops, pushing prices up five-fold to 100,000 rupiah ($11) a kilogram. Chilli is an essential ingredient in most Indonesian dishes.

"If every city produced more of its own food, we wouldn't need to import so much from other cities. We would save fuel and reduce pollution," Widiharto said.

Local produce is also fresher and healthier than food that has travelled hundreds of kilometres from villages, he said.

Urban farming has also become a social activity. For Syahnaz, the trend has brought her an unexpected gift -- a like-minded boyfriend. "I've killed two birds with one stone. I planted my chillies, and I also planted the seeds of love," she laughed."

Speaking of concrete everywhere, you should see Virginia Beach--not even 1/4 the population of New York City, but with just as much concrete (it seems), thanks to an over-eager mayor and over-zealous economic development--all in the name of increasing property tax rolls. The over-eager mayor is now gone (got voted out), but the concrete remains, and lots of it is now empty. So much for betting on property taxes!

Did we really TRULY need a 3-story sporting goods store? Does ANYBODY need one?

In contrast, take a look over the bridge-tunnel to the Eastern Shore of Virginia: lots and lots of green, hardly any development, and farmettes galore. The difference? A respectful mayor, and a $14 toll on that bridge. The people themselves actually vote down economic development, unless it's deemed necessary and vital, like a hospital. A couple of fast-food joints (not national chain brands), a handful of gas stations, one major grocery store, a K-mart, and that's about it for about 40 miles or so of the length of the shore. Green stuff for miles on both sides of the road.

If there's any danger of future development, the citizens vote to raise the bridge-tunnel crossing toll, and that usually discourages developers who don't want to pay the money every time a contractor or building materials delivery has to cross--needless to say, they've made it VERY EXPENSIVE to develop there!

Is Junk Food Really Cheaper? (L-O-N-G)

From the NY Times. Of course not, unless you're paying for convenience (with someone else's money), although you can get a large pizza delivered from any pizza joint for $10--back in my day, they were $20. Major brand sodas are currently BOGO.

"The “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has become a reflexive part of how we explain why so many Americans are overweight, particularly those with lower incomes. I frequently read confident statements like, “when a bag of chips is cheaper than a head of broccoli ...” or “it’s more affordable to feed a family of four at McDonald’s than to cook a healthy meal for them at home.”

This is just plain wrong. In fact it isn’t cheaper to eat highly processed food: a typical order for a family of four — for example, two Big Macs, a cheeseburger, six chicken McNuggets, two medium and two small fries, and two medium and two small sodas — costs, at the McDonald’s a hundred steps from where I write, about $28. (Judicious ordering of “Happy Meals” can reduce that to about $23 — and you get a few apple slices in addition to the fries!)

Wrong? Oh really...

In general, despite extensive government subsidies, hyper-processed food remains more expensive than food cooked at home. You can serve a roasted chicken with vegetables along with a simple salad and milk for about $14, and feed four or even six people. If that’s too much money, substitute a meal of rice and canned beans with bacon, green peppers and onions; it’s easily enough for four people and costs about $9. (Omitting the bacon, using dried beans, which are also lower in sodium, or substituting carrots for the peppers reduces the price further, of course.)

Another argument runs that junk food is cheaper when measured by the calorie, and that this makes fast food essential for the poor because they need cheap calories. But given that half of the people in this country (and a higher percentage of poor people) consume too many calories rather than too few, measuring food’s value by the calorie makes as much sense as measuring a drink’s value by its alcohol content. (Why not drink 95 percent neutral grain spirit, the cheapest way to get drunk?)

Besides, that argument, even if we all needed to gain weight, is not always true. A meal of real food cooked at home can easily contain more calories, most of them of the “healthy” variety. (Olive oil accounts for many of the calories in the roast chicken meal, for example.)In comparing prices of real food and junk food, I used supermarket ingredients, not the pricier organic or local food that many people would consider ideal. But food choices are not black and white; the alternative to fast food is not necessarily organic food, any more than the alternative to soda is Bordeaux.

The alternative to soda is water, and the alternative to junk food is not grass-fed beef and greens from a trendy farmers’ market, but anything other than junk food: rice, grains, pasta, beans, fresh vegetables, canned vegetables, frozen vegetables, meat, fish, poultry, dairy products, bread, peanut butter, a thousand other things cooked at home — in almost every case a far superior alternative.

“Anything that you do that’s not fast food is terrific; cooking once a week is far better than not cooking at all,” says Marion Nestle, professor of food studies at New York University and author of “What to Eat.” “It’s the same argument as exercise: more is better than less and some is a lot better than none.”

THE fact is that most people can afford real food. Even the nearly 50 million Americans who are enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps) receive about $5 per person per day, which is far from ideal but enough to survive. So we have to assume that money alone doesn’t guide decisions about what to eat. There are, of course, the so-called food deserts, places where it’s hard to find food: the Department of Agriculture says that more than two million Americans in low-income rural areas live 10 miles or more from a supermarket, and more than five million households without access to cars live more than a half mile from a supermarket.

Still, 93 percent of those with limited access to supermarkets do have access to vehicles, though it takes them 20 more minutes to travel to the store than the national average. And after a long day of work at one or even two jobs, 20 extra minutes — plus cooking time — must seem like an eternity.

Taking the long route to putting food on the table may not be easy, but for almost all Americans it remains a choice, and if you can drive to McDonald’s you can drive to Safeway. It’s cooking that’s the real challenge. (The real challenge is not “I’m too busy to cook.” In 2010 the average American, regardless of weekly earnings, watched no less than an hour and a half of television per day. The time is there.)

The core problem is that cooking is defined as work, and fast food is both a pleasure and a crutch. “People really are stressed out with all that they have to do, and they don’t want to cook,” says Julie Guthman, associate professor of community studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of the forthcoming “Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice and the Limits of Capitalism.” “Their reaction is, ‘Let me enjoy what I want to eat, and stop telling me what to do.’ And it’s one of the few things that less well-off people have: they don’t have to cook.”

It’s not just about choice, however, and rational arguments go only so far, because money and access and time and skill are not the only considerations. The ubiquity, convenience and habit-forming appeal of hyperprocessed foods have largely drowned out the alternatives: there are five fast-food restaurants for every supermarket in the United States; in recent decades the adjusted for inflation price of fresh produce has increased by 40 percent while the price of soda and processed food has decreased by as much as 30 percent; and nearly inconceivable resources go into encouraging consumption in restaurants: fast-food companies spent $4.2 billion on marketing in 2009.

Furthermore, the engineering behind hyper-processed food makes it virtually addictive. A 2009 study by the Scripps Research Institute indicates that over-consumption of fast food “triggers addiction-like neuro-addictive responses” in the brain, making it harder to trigger the release of dopamine. In other words the more fast food we eat, the more we need to give us pleasure; thus the report suggests that the same mechanisms underlie drug addiction and obesity.

This addiction to processed food is the result of decades of vision and hard work by the industry. For 50 years, says David A. Kessler, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and author of “The End of Overeating,” companies strove to create food that was “energy-dense, highly stimulating, and went down easy. They put it on every street corner and made it mobile, and they made it socially acceptable to eat anytime and anyplace. They created a food carnival, and that’s where we live. And if you’re used to self-stimulation every 15 minutes, well, you can’t run into the kitchen to satisfy that urge.”

Real cultural changes are needed to turn this around. Somehow, no-nonsense cooking and eating — roasting a chicken, making a grilled cheese sandwich, scrambling an egg, tossing a salad — must become popular again, and valued not just by hipsters in Brooklyn or locavores in Berkeley. The smart campaign is not to get McDonald’s to serve better food but to get people to see cooking as a joy rather than a burden, or at least as part of a normal life.

As with any addictive behavior, this one is most easily countered by educating children about the better way. Children, after all, are born without bad habits. And yet it’s adults who must begin to tear down the food carnival.

The question is how? Efforts are everywhere. The People’s Grocery in Oakland secures affordable groceries for low-income people. Zoning laws in Los Angeles restrict the number of fast-food restaurants in high-obesity neighborhoods. There’s the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, a successful Pennsylvania program to build fresh food outlets in under-served areas, now being expanded nationally. FoodCorps and Cooking Matters teach young people how to farm and cook.

As Malik Yakini, executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, says, “We’ve seen minor successes, but the food movement is still at the infant stage, and we need a massive social shift to convince people to consider healthier options.”

HOW do you change a culture? The answers, not surprisingly, are complex. “Once I look at what I’m eating,” says Dr. Kessler, “and realize it’s not food, and I ask ‘what am I doing here?’ that’s the start. It’s not about whether I think it’s good for me, it’s about changing how I feel. And we change how people feel by changing the environment.”

Obviously, in an atmosphere where any regulation is immediately labeled “nanny statism,” changing “the environment” is difficult. But we’ve done this before, with tobacco. The 1998 tobacco settlement limited cigarette marketing and forced manufacturers to finance anti-smoking campaigns — a negotiated change that led to an environmental one that in turn led to a cultural one, after which kids said to their parents, “I wish you didn’t smoke.” Smoking had to be converted from a cool habit into one practiced by pariahs.

A similar victory in the food world is symbolized by the stories parents tell me of their kids booing as they drive by McDonald’s.

To make changes like this more widespread we need action both cultural and political. The cultural lies in celebrating real food; raising our children in homes that don’t program them for fast-produced, eaten-on-the-run, high-calorie, low-nutrition junk; giving them the gift of appreciating the pleasures of nourishing one another and enjoying that nourishment together.

Political action would mean agitating to limit the marketing of junk; forcing its makers to pay the true costs of production; recognizing that advertising for fast food is not the exercise of free speech but behavior manipulation of addictive substances; and making certain that real food is affordable and available to everyone. The political challenge is the more difficult one, but it cannot be ignored.

What’s easier is to cook at every opportunity, to demonstrate to family and neighbors that the real way is the better way. And even the more fun way: kind of like a carnival."

Something to keep in mind: New York has a very high sales tax, so the author's frame of reference is skewed. The cost of his food is going to be at least 10% higher than anywhere else--California's costs are going to be 12% higher due to sales tax. You want to see expensive McMeals? Go overseas--Italy's (at last purchase) was almost $20, and that was over a decade ago. It's probably twice that now. Shipping costs for the McIngredients are added into the price--local sourcing is right out, because it doesn't meet Mickey's tough standards, and the quantity needed is just not available.

When the ingredients that make up junk food are heavily subsidized by our government (maybe not so much this year, but from the 30's up to at least last year), and the results lead people running to the doctor for subsidized medical care, this isn't really cheaper...it's a quest for CONVENIENCE and a life of DECADENCE. We who eat decently and care for our health are forced to pay for the rest of these schlubs while trying to pay for our own. How is it any cheaper?

Frugal housewives already know that to stay home and cook from scratch, and to shop for bargains using price-per-unit, means that they don't have to endure the two-jobs (or even no-job) rat race--they save about as much as they'd make in the workforce through tax code incentives. Even without the tax incentives, they'd save about half what they would've made working. Yes Virginia, you CAN make it on one income, provided that one income isn't yours.

Uncle Sam rewards you for staying home, raising your own children, cooking from scratch, and spending your own money to do it. Your genetics reward you for eating decently by giving you healthy, smart, intact children free of birth defects. Your efforts are rewarded through less sickness and need for medical care.

A note on the declining price of soda: Coke and Pepsi are charging more for overseas buyers, because that's where the bulk of the demand is coming from--meanwhile, we here at home see ads regularly for buy-one-get-one-free six-packs, 2-liter bottles, and boxes of both products. Coke is even rumored to be moving their headquarters to Asia. The subsidization of high-fructose corn syrup by the government (via corn) wasn't enough to boost sales--now they use Asian markets to subsidize our buying!

...and here we go crankin' out the corn for sodas, cow feed, and ethanol...

City Life Doesn't Preclude Growing Green Things

From the Evansville Courier-Press (IN).

"When you hear the word "urban," you hardly expect it to be paired with "garden." Urban landscapes typically invoke images of cold, barren wastelands of glass and steel, and vacant lots filled with trash and weeds, right?

Not necessarily.

For the resourceful gardener, even the mean streets of the naked city hold the potential for growing an oasis of green. Whether you're trying to gain more control over the quality of your food, create a quiet, private haven in the concrete jungle or just have something alive around you, urban gardens are all about using small and unexpected spaces efficiently and creatively.

Here are some options:

-- Indoor gardening. You might not be able to raise a crop of zucchini, watermelons or corn, but any bright, unobstructed window that gets six to eight hours of sunlight a day can support leaf crops like lettuce, or arugula, and herbs like chives, basil, mints and rosemary. Just remember that every aspect of the indoor environment is artificial and controlled, so things like pollination, air circulation, ambient temperature and pest control must be controlled, too, by you.

Indoor plants may also need supplemental lighting. Cheap fluorescent shop lights work just as well as the expensive grow lights.

-- Container gardening. If you've got a bit of room outside, say a balcony, patio or small yard, most any container that will hold soil -- wine barrels, leaky watering cans, buckets or even old shoes -- can grow lots of different ornamentals and many edibles. Generally, carrots, radishes, lettuce and specially bred varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers and other small-space plants that mature and bear fruit early lend themselves to containers.

The amount of sunlight available determines what crops can be grown. Root and leaf crops can tolerate some shade, but fruiting plants need at five to six hours of full sun and do better with eight to 10 hours. Containers for edibles must be large enough to support the mature plant, hold sufficient soil and moisture to sustain it, and never have been used for products that would be toxic to humans.

-- Raised beds. These are more permanent than containers, but if you have the space they let you grow a lot more. They can be made from nontoxic wood like redwood or cedar, preserved wood treated with water-based compounds like alkaline copper quat (ACQ) or copper azole (CBA), or even pieces of broken concrete or cinder blocks lined with heavy plastic drop cloth or sheeting. Raised beds can even be placed on hard surfaces like rooftops and parking lots or on top of poor-quality soil.

Don't use regular garden soil in containers. You need a lightweight, soil-less potting mixture that's high in organic matter to hold moisture but porous enough to drain well. Commercial potting mixes work well but can be expensive. If you're going to be filling a lot of containers or making raised beds, consider mixing up your own soil mix from one part peat moss, one part garden loam, or well-composted organic matter, and one part vermiculite. Lime might be needed to bring the soil pH to around 6.5. A simple soil test kit will tell you what's needed.

Container and raised-bed gardens can dry out quickly, so pay close attention to watering. For gardens on an open, exposed area like a rooftop or patio, you may need to water several times a day, especially when direct-sown seeds are starting to germinate. Apply water until it runs out the drain holes, but be sure you've made provisions to guide the drainage water away to where it won't make a dangerous puddle or, worse, leak into a building. In a crowded or hard-to-reach area, a drip-irrigation system on an automatic timer will make it easier to keep your garden irrigated.

If you've used a commercial potting mix with fertilizer already added, your plants should have enough food for eight to 10 weeks of growth. After that, add a water-soluble fertilizer at the recommended rate once a week when you water. Measure carefully and don't use too much -- container plants don't have the large amounts of soil around them to protect them from over fertilizing."

Debt Panel Eyes Dual Medicare/Medicaid Patients

From Yahoo Health. Did you know some people can qualify for both programs at once? I didn't until now, and I'm mad as hell about having to pay for both! The swinging hammock again...

"Government health benefits for some 9 million of the sickest and poorest U.S. citizens will come under scrutiny from the congressional "super committee" seeking to cut the nation's debt.

These are Americans who qualify for both the Medicare and Medicaid programs for the elderly and the poor, based on their disability, age and low income.

In bureaucratic parlance they are called "dual-eligibles" and both Democrats and Republicans see their care as one major area for potential savings. The super committee panel, with six members from each party, is taking a look at proposals to reduce spending on this group, a congressional aide said.

Medicare and Medicaid spend about $300 billion a year for dual-eligibles, about half of whom are under treatment for five or more chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension.

While tackling either Medicare or Medicaid has proved politically unpopular, the higher proportion of cost for dual-eligibles, and their status may make them an easier segment for the two parties to agree on.

"If they do anything in the super committee, it seems to me this is ... such an obvious area," said William Hoagland, a former Republican aide for the Senate Budget Committee who is now with the health insurer CIGNA Corp.

These Medicare- and Medicaid-eligible patients represent about 15 percent of enrollees in Medicaid but account for 39 percent of program costs. They also account for 16 percent of Medicare enrollees and 27 percent of program costs.

President Barack Obama is proposing shifting federal drug reimbursements for this group to lower Medicaid rates rather than paying the higher Medicare prices, a move strongly opposed by the pharmaceutical industry.

Insurance companies and states are pressing for policy changes to encourage more use of managed care which would in turn encourage less costly forms of treatment, from closer scrutiny on the need for specific services to incentives for preventive care.

Obama's healthcare overhaul created a new office within the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to develop cost-saving models of coordinated care.

Melanie Bella, who heads the new office, told the Senate Finance Committee last week that it would take time before any savings are realized.

THE MANAGED CARE OPTION

Cash-strapped states are pushing for more, particularly the power to put dual-eligibles into managed care plans. They have won support from the National Association of Medicaid Directors and officials within the insurance industry.

Emory University professor Ken Thorpe, in a report sponsored by America's Health Insurance Plans, said up to $125 billion could be saved if all dual-eligibles were placed in managed care.

"Once you get them into an integrated system where everybody's working together, as opposed to a body part by body part style of managing it, then you can improve care and reduce costs," AHIP President Karen Ignagni said in an interview.

Democrats and some healthcare advocacy groups say they are wary of forcing people into managed care plans overseen by a private insurance industry that has reaped billions in profits without necessarily improving care or reducing costs.

They want to protect benefits and choice for people who want to stay in traditional fee-for-service Medicare.

"We need to find ways to reduce the cost of healthcare, not just cut the benefits that seniors paid for," said Democratic super committee member Representative Xavier Becerra.

Because Medicare and Medicaid cover different medical services, care can be fragmented with little checking up on patients to ensure they are following medical advice and taking prescribed medicines. Studies have shown that hospital re-admissions among this group are high. Many end up in nursing homes, which are covered by Medicaid.

Doctors are also fighting a move to lower their reimbursement rates according to Medicaid's standards for this group, and warn more patients may just be shut out of physicians' offices.

"Medicaid rates are going so low ... that we sort of live in denial that just because someone is on Medicaid, they are going to be adequately covered," said Ted Okan, executive director of the Community Oncology Alliance.

The complexity of these plans also works against a deep change and it takes time to rewrite federal laws, especially when it comes to healthcare. The super committee has until November 23 to come up with $1.2 trillion in 10-year budget savings.

Ignagni said the super committee could include proposals to reduce Washington's bureaucratic hurdles for states that want to shift more people into managed care plans.

"The super committee could put a wind at the backs of regulators," Ignagni said adding that regulators are already moving into the direction of more coordinated and managed care for this population. Only about 100,000 of the 9 million dual-eligibles currently are in managed care plans, she said."

...and people scream and cry about not having access to health care! Meanwhile, we the taxpayers have to support both programs AND manage to pay for our own health insurance at the same time. Whether or not these people are shifted into managed care plans, we're still going to be expected to pickup the tab through payroll taxes, or state taxes.

Obamacare would round everybody up into a federally-mandated managed care plan regardless of ability to pay--that way, more of your money would come out from under health insurance tax shelters, and be available for taxing as ordinary income (presumably so they can continue feasting on $16 muffins, exotic foods flown in from god knows where, building turtle tunnels, shrimp and toilet museums, and one-man airports and bridges to nowhere. Oh wait, I forgot...and so Congress can continue to order planes the military doesn't want...all in the name of debt reduction--debt that THEY created in the first place!

Think of all the hassle and expense we'd save if we just took as little personal responsibility with our shopping carts and what we put in them! It could be as much as a trillion dollars all by itself. If Congress would stop subsidizing the ingredients that make fast food cheaper than produce, fast food and processed food would no longer be so cheap, and people would quit buying it. People quit buying it, and make the switch to whole foods, and suddenly their health improves dramatically, eliminating the need for ANY of these programs.

We're subsidizing sickness instead of health, because that's what makes the money go 'round. Blame Fannie Farmer, Ancel Keys, Dr. Jerome Kassirer, George Wilhelm Merck, Roy Vagalos, and others (mainly a susceptible Congress) for the current rendition of this medical/food nightmare we can't seem to wake up from.

This (current) nightmare got started in the 18th century--during our very first depression. Actually, it was implemented every time we went to war, so technically, it got started before we were even a country...through rationing. The men listed above invented a hypothesis (however wrong it was) and managed to sell it to our government (who still adheres to it this day), learned how to manipulate disease and drugs to economic steamroller status to preservge the life of the company, and good ol' Fannie shares the blame for telling the world (in print) that all foods break down into protein, carbs, and fats (today's macronutrients--where exactly is the nutrition?), that carbs (from grains) were vital to life, and man cannot live without them--as if they were vitamins or something.

Now we're paying for it, or trying to.

The 2011 ADA "Nutrition and You" Survey Results Out

From the American Dietetic Association (soon to undergo a name change to The American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics). It doesn't matter what they call themselves, they're a still a fraud when it comes to disseminating nutritional information!

It's a series of PDF documents that can be found in the lower right corner under "media releases." The documents cover such things as where you learn your nutrition info, are you doing all you can, and how important is this knowledge to you, among others. All in all, the titles of the documents sound to me like a giant media fishing expedition rather than any concern for nutritional information accuracy.

As long as they know how to best reach you, they can still keep throwing out the same old incorrect garbage at you! Meanwhile, you're sitting there with diabetes and heart disease, wondering how you got there.

Paleo Comes to TV--Man Tries Life as a Caveman for the Discovery Channel

From CJ Online (KS).

"Gene Jarvis, of Lyndon, has always loved the great outdoors. So when he saw an advertisement on Craigslist for people to be in an unnamed wilderness survival show on the Discovery Channel, he decided to go for it.

For him, he said, it was the call of the wild.

After what Jarvis called a “thorough” application process that included an unedited 7-minute audition tape posted to YouTube, he made it onto the show.

Jarvis and nine others, including producer Morgan Spurlock, who is known for such documentaries as the 2004 “Super Size Me,” spent 10 days in the Colorado wilderness with only Stone Age technology and nature as the supplier of all of their needs.

The result was a two-hour show called “I, Caveman,” which will air at 7 p.m. Sunday on the Discovery Channel as part of its “Curiosity” series.

Jarvis, who grew up in Virginia and was a helicopter pilot in the Army, works as a registered nurse in Topeka and has a wife and two grown daughters. He has spent the past eight years teaching a boys’ adventure class at his church, passing on such skills as first aid, teamwork, how to walk in the woods and being observant.

At age 18, he and his friend Mykel Hawke — who has his own survival program on the Discovery Channel, which Jarvis said made him want to do the “I, Caveman” segment even more — would do wilderness activities, such as sleeping out in a swamp.

For him, learning wilderness survival skills was about being prepared.

“I wanted to be ready for whatever comes,” Jarvis said.

Jarvis said the show was about health and survival skills combined, a “scientific experiment” to see if a severe change in diet would affect the participants’ health. And it did — Jarvis said the men lost about 20 pounds and the women about 10.

He said the experience was like being put back in time. Everything they needed had to be taken from nature — water, clothing, food.

“We were going barefoot on jagged rocks,” Jarvis said. “Sometimes the environment could be unforgiving.”

The group had to think like hunter-gatherers, he said. After four days without meat, the group was in a weakened state and faced the choice of staying near water or moving to find game for food.

Jarvis couldn’t reveal which choice the group made, because the decision is central to the second part of the show.

One of the most difficult things for him, he said, was the psychological problem of understanding the point of the experiment while not believing in evolution. The other was dealing with a decreased energy level.

“By day four we were in ketosis,” he said, with their bodies consuming fat instead of muscle for fuel because of the lack of food.

The most annoying thing, Jarvis said, was his trouble sleeping. He said he was only able to get about two hours of sleep each night.

Being in the wilderness is a passion for Jarvis, as well as a way to escape from what he calls the craziness of the “urban jungle.” He always wanted to be an actor and make documentaries, he said, and he now plans to host a survival program, although he isn’t sure how to make the jump from his current job.

“Growing up, I thought work was meant to be gruesome,” he said. “But you should do what you enjoy. I didn’t think about that then.”

Robb Wolf is one of the participants. I'll be watching from Hulu in my own ketosis state.

5 Easy Ways to Store the Harvest--No Root Cellar Required!

From MarketWatch.

"It's an exciting time of year: The rewards of a summer garden, including onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, winter squash and more, are coming fast and furious. New products and five easy ways to store the harvest from the experts at Gardener's Supply make creating the ideal environment for "keeper" crops easy and beautiful.

"Canning and preserving are two favorite ways to keep favorite fruits and vegetables tasting in-season fresh throughout the winter," says Maree Gaetani, director of gardening relations for Gardener's Supply. "But for those of us who don't have time or interest in canning and preserving, there are a number of crops that can be stored 'as is' in cool, dry and dark conditions -- no root cellar required."

Gardeners can consider these practical harvest tips and products when putting their favorites by for the winter:

1. Harvest before frost or cold temperatures damages plant tissues -- and be picky about what you pick! Since decay will accelerate and spread once a crop is in storage, keep only perfect specimens. Provide good air circulation and a dry, dark environment: The ideal temperature depends on what you're keeping.

A Root Storage Bin creates a portable, affordable root cellar in any dark place. The heavy, wire frame bin with convenient carrying handles is lined with natural, breathable jute to protect precious carrots, beets, potatoes, turnips and squash. Layer carrots or beets with damp sand or sawdust, or toss other vegetables right into the bin, and they'll keep all winter.

Rustic pine Orchard Racks keep apples, winter squash, onions, potatoes, and even herbs in slatted, slide-out drawers for optimal air circulation and easy access. Each 23 1/2" square rack tucks out of the way in a cool, dark cellar or shed.

Create your own, easily accessible "keeper" environment with Potato and Onion Storage Baskets which store and display potatoes and onions with European flair. Each natural willow basket is hand-woven with grass handles and features a side pocket for dispensing stored vegetables. The large basket holds approximately 30 lbs. of potatoes, and the small basket holds about six lbs. of onions. Team them with a rustic, long-handled Orchard Basket.

Ingenious Vegetable Keep Sacks hang anywhere to conveniently store and dispense vegetable crops like garlic, onions and potatoes. They're made from a cotton and linen fabric that allows air to circulate but blocks out light to prevent sprouting.

2. Freeze your favorites. Freezing is a fast and easy way to save vegetables, fruit and herbs for later use. Buy the best quality freezer bags you can find, remove as much air as possible from the bag and label all bags with date and contents. Herbs are the easiest crop to freeze: Just chop to size (for parsley and cilantro) and fill a freezer bag or puree (for basil) with olive oil. Berries can be frozen whole or in syrup. Vegetables need to be blanched before freezing to slow down the enzymes that cause decay.

Pesto lovers can freeze individual portions of their fresh basil sauce in covered, stackable Pesto Cubes. Fill each BPA-free, dishwasher safe cube with an individual portion, cover with the locking lid to prevent freezer burn, and label with erasable marker. Dishwasher-safe cubes are also great for homemade baby food, fresh herbs and sauces.

If freezer space is at a premium, preserve fresh herbs in small quantities, just as they reach their peak, on a decorative steel Herb Drying Rack that dries them the old-fashioned way -- without electricity or prep work. The rack also works well for flowers and garlic.

3. Rescue unripe tomatoes! If cold weather arrives before your entire tomato crop has ripened, harvest firm, green, unblemished fruit and wrap each tomato individually in newspaper. Store between 55-60 degrees F and check weekly to monitor ripening.

For stylish storage while you wait for tomatoes to turn red and flavorful, consider protective, breathable Jute-Lined Wirework Storage Baskets add attractive, instant storage in small spaces.

4. Store crops right in the garden. The easiest way of all to preserve your harvest is to leave crops right in the ground and put something on top to protect them from extreme cold. A length of Gardener's exclusive Garden Quilt Cover (#32-651, $12.95 for 6'x20' length), suspended just over your crops using hoops and wooden clothespins, allows rain and sun to reach plants while keeping them safe from wind and chilly temperatures.

5. Refrigerate root crops. Harvest carrots and beet crops before a hard frost, use scissors to cut off most of the greens (except for about 1/2" on top so as not to cut into the root), and leave the dirt until you're ready to cook!"

No mention of dehydrating--I guess that's what you get when a Wall St. site chooses to write about the harvest. You'd be better off going online and discovering the ways people used to store the harvest before we had refrigeration: storing stuff in buckets of sand, in streams, braided and hung up to dry, coating stuff in a wax film and storing on shelves, etc. I'll let you discover which foods got what treatment. :) Let's just say that eggs lasted longer stored the old way than they do in the refrigerator!

In Thailand, Fighting Cervical Cancer with Vinegar and Ingenuity

From the NY Times.

"Maikaew Panomyai did a little dance coming out of the examination room, switching her hips, waving her fists in the air and crowing, in her limited English: “Everything’s O.K.! Everything’s O.K.!”

Translation: The nurse just told me I do not have cervical cancer, and even the little white spot I had treated three years ago is still gone.

What allowed the nurse to render that reassuring diagnosis was a remarkably simple, brief and inexpensive procedure, one with the potential to do for poor countries what the Pap smear did for rich ones: end cervical cancer’s reign as the No. 1 cancer killer of women. The magic ingredient? Household vinegar.

Every year, more than 250,000 women die of cervical cancer, nearly 85 percent of them in poor and middle-income countries. Decades ago, it killed more American women than any other cancer; now it lags far behind cancers of the lung, breast, colon and skin.

Nurses using the new procedure, developed by experts at the Johns Hopkins medical school in the 1990s and endorsed last year by the World Health Organization, brush vinegar on a woman’s cervix. It makes precancerous spots turn white. They can then be immediately frozen off with a metal probe cooled by a tank of carbon dioxide, available from any Coca-Cola bottling plant.

The procedure is one of a wide array of inexpensive but effective medical advances being tested in developing countries. New cheap diagnostic and surgical techniques, insecticides, drug regimens and prostheses are already beginning to save lives.

With a Pap smear, a doctor takes a scraping from the cervix, which is then sent to a laboratory to be scanned by a pathologist. Many poor countries lack high-quality labs, and the results can take weeks to arrive.

Women who return to distant areas where they live or work are often hard to reach, a problem if it turns out they have precancerous lesions.

Miss Maikaew, 37, could have been one of them. She is a restaurant cashier on faraway Ko Chang, a resort island. She was home in Poyai, a rice-farming village, for a brief visit and was screened at her mother’s urging.

The same thing had happened three years ago, and she did have a white spot then. (They resemble warts, and are caused by the human papillomavirus.) It was frozen off with cryotherapy, which had hurt a little, but was bearable, she said.

Since she has been screened twice in her 30s, her risk of developing cervical cancer has dropped by 65 percent, according to studies by the Alliance for Cervical Cancer Prevention, a coalition of international health organizations funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The procedure, known as VIA/cryo for visualization of the cervix with acetic acid (vinegar) and treatment with cryotherapy, can be done by a nurse, and only one visit is needed to detect and kill an incipient cancer.

Thailand has gone further than any other nation in adopting it. More than 20 countries, including Ghana and Zimbabwe, have done pilot projects. But in Thailand, VIA/cryo is now routine in 29 of 75 provinces, and 500,000 of the 8 million women, ages 30 to 44, in the target population have been screened at least once.

Dr. Bandit Chumworathayi, a gynecologist at Khon Kaen University who helped run the first Thai study of VIA/cryo, explains that vinegar highlights the tumors because they have more DNA, and thus more protein and less water, than other tissue.

It reveals pre-tumors with more accuracy than a typical Pap smear. But it also has more false positives — spots that turn pale but are not malignant. As a result, some women get unnecessary cryotherapy.

But freezing is about 90 percent effective, and the main side effect is a burning sensation that fades in a day or two.

By contrast, biopsies, the old method, can cause bleeding.

“Some doctors resist” the cryotherapy approach, said Dr. Wachara Eamratsameekool, a gynecologist at rural Roi Et Hospital who helped pioneer the procedure. “They call it ‘poor care for poor people.’ This is a misunderstanding. It’s the most effective use of our resources.”

At a workshop, nurse trainees pored over flash cards showing cervixes with diagnosable problems. They did gynecological exams on lifelike mannequins with plastic cervixes. They performed cryotherapy on sliced frankfurters pinned deep inside plastic pipes. Then, after lunch, they broke into small groups and went by minibus to nearby rural clinics to practice on real women.

Because cervical cancer takes decades to develop, it is too early to prove that Thailand has lowered its cancer rate. In fact, Roi Et Province, where mass screening first began, has a rate higher than normal, but doctors attribute that to the extra testing. But of the 6,000 women recruited 11 years ago for the first trial, not a single one has developed full-blown cancer.

VIA/cryo was pioneered in the 1990s simultaneously by Dr. Paul D. Blumenthal, an American gynecologist working in Africa, and Dr. Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan in India.


Dr. Blumenthal said he and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins medical school had debated ways to make cervical lesions easier to see, and concluded that whitening them with acetic acid would be effective. Freezing off lesions is routine in gynecology and dermatology; the challenge was making it cheap and easy. Liquid nitrogen is hard to get, but carbon dioxide is readily available.

Thailand seems made for the vinegar technique. It has more than 100,000 nurses and a network of rural clinics largely run by them.

Also, while poor rural villagers in many countries go to shamans or herbalists before they see doctors, poor Thais do not. Thailand has a 95 percent literacy rate, and doctors are trusted. The king is the son of a doctor and a nurse; his father trained at Harvard. One of the royal princesses has a doctorate in chemistry and an interest in cancer research.

But the real secret, Dr. Wachara said, is this: “Thailand has Lady Kobchitt.”

Dr. Kobchitt Limpaphayon to her colleagues at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University medical school and “Kobbie” to her classmates long ago at New York’s Albany Medical College, she is the gynecologist to the Thai royal family. “Kobbie is a force of nature,” said Dr. Blumenthal, who has taught with her. In 1971, as a young doctor, she moved from Albany to Baltimore to help start the Johns Hopkins Program for International Education in Gynecology and Obstetrics.

In 1999, she read one of Dr. Blumenthal’s papers and asked him to introduce VIA/cryo in Thailand. Without her connections and powers of persuasion, said Dr. Bandit, it would have been impossible to get the conservative Royal Thai College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to give up Pap smears, or to persuade Parliament to allow nurses to do cryotherapy, a procedure previously reserved for doctors.

The free screenings at public clinics are crucial to people like Yupin Promasorn, 36, who was part of Miss Maikaew’s group.

She sells snacks in Bangkok, and her husband drives a tuk-tuk motorcycle taxi. With two children, she has no time to wait at Bangkok’s jammed public hospitals, and she is too poor to see a private doctor. So she and her husband drove the 12 hours here, to her native village, in his tuk-tuk. When she found out she was negative, she sat in a chair fanning herself.

“I feel like a heavy mountain is gone from my chest,” she said."

So does this mean regular douching, or ingesting probiotics, can be just as effective as Gardasil? Speaking of preventable deaths...(see below).

U.S. Ranks Dead Last in Preventable Deaths--Study

From Healthday News (part of a news roundup--scroll down until you see it).

"The United States ranks last among 16 high-income nations on preventable deaths and could save as many as 84,000 lives a year if it lowered its preventable death rate to that of the top three nations, a new study says.

Between 1997-98 and 2006-07, other nations lowered their preventable death rates an average of 31 percent. The U.S. rate declined only 20 percent, from 120 to 96 per 100,000.

By the end of those 10 years, the preventable death rate in the United States was nearly twice that of France, which had the lowest rate (55 per 100,000), according to the Commonwealth Fund-supported study. Australia and Italy had the second and third lowest rates.

The United States' poor ranking may be due to "the lack of universal [health insurance] coverage and high costs of care," said the study authors, who analyzed deaths before age 75 from causes such as treatable cancer, diabetes, childhood infections/respiratory diseases, and complications from surgery.

The study appears in the November print issue of the journal Health Policy.

"This study points to substantial opportunity to prevent premature death in the United States. We spend far more than any of the comparison countries -- up to twice as much -- yet are improving less rapidly," Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen said in a Commonwealth news release.

"The good news is we know lower death rates are achievable if we enhance access and ensure high-quality care regardless of where you live. Looking forward, reforms under the Affordable Care Act have the potential to reduce the number of preventable deaths in the U.S. We have the potential to join the leaders among high-income countries," she added."

The study is not available online yet--the November issue has yet to be published.

As for ranking dead last in preventable deaths, there are a few reasons for it:

1. The government WANTS some of us to die off--this is their form of population control, and getting out of having to provide Medicare and cut Social Security checks later in life, thereby reducing the debt burden. This also cuts down on the number of times a vote has to be taken, and money spent to extend the unemployment funds--like Europe, they can't afford to keep paying your way forever. They want your money and power over you, but not the bills that come along with them.

2. Our country is a hell of a lot larger than the three top countries on the list, even combined, and we have a different culture--they have better foodways, more wine consumption, and more walking in their daily lives than we do. They also rely on public transportation more than we do, because they have SENSIBLE SYSTEMS to do the job.

3. We have more liberties, more choice, and make more money (or rather, are taxed less) than the people in the top three countries, so we're free to do what we will with our money, including stuffing our faces with fast food, or even driving drunk. Our government is well on its way to subsidizing the fast food, and has been in the business of subsidizing the ingredients for decades now. Convenience has its costs, and one day people will make the connection, but for now, the government hopes they don't (see reason #1).

...and we wonder how we end up being over-treated (see next article below)--now some doctor somewhere thinks that to prevent deaths, you must provide more care! No, the answer (as usual) is less care--less is always more. Less safety net means more PERSONAL responsibility. We already have a swaying hammock of safety net around here!

All the universal coverage in the world isn't going to make up for poor choice-making. One day we will become like those other countries, and we too will have to nail down all four corners of our doormats to satisfy the national no-trip policy (like Britain does now). There isn't enough societal bubble wrap available around here for this!

Notice nowhere in the article does it mention FOOD CHOICES as a primary preventative measure. France, Italy, and Australia eat a whole lot less fast food than we do, and their available food has a more definite organic origin than ours. Our decent food is reserved for those who can pay for it...and for those who don't have to (like current occupants of--and visiting dignitaries to--the White House). Change our agricultural practices (both on the farm and in the political chamber), and you might make a dent in those preventable deaths.

This is why organic food is worth every penny you pay for it. When you grow, hunt, and fish your own (from trusted sources), or barter with someone else who does, it becomes even cheaper--sometimes cheaper than the conventional stuff.

This is what happens when you give up quality for quantity and price. I bet those other countries don't have this problem. And Europe wonders how it got into the crisis it's currently in...exactly as we did--by removing the requirement for personal responsibility. They moved from the classic Liberalism (Republicanism) to the modern form (Democratism), because people learned how to vote themselves more largesse from the Treasury (or Exchequer, if you will). Now, even the politicians are in on the game, because what happens when they leave office? They become subject to the rules of the game they rigged, so they rig it in their favor while they have the chance.

Many in U.S. Receive Too Much Medical Care

From Yahoo News. Blame marketing--ads on TV urging us to ask our doctors about some pill or other, ads and articles in magazines explaining in great detail about drugs and/or procedures, blame types of health insurance that gets you in the door with the greatest of ease (I'm talking HMOs) and out the door at minimal cost, and the fact that doctors of all sorts have hung their shingle out on every corner (you can't swing your arms without hitting a doc-in-the-box in this town). Hell, even groups of one body-region specialty have begun clustering themselves into one single building: podiatrists, ortho surgeons, knee specialists, and sports medicine guys can be found in a several-floor-tall building, while across the street are chiropractors, spine specialists, neuro specialists, pain management, and more ortho surgeons in another cluster-building.

Health care is too easily accessible--now we don't even know when we really need it!

"Forty-two percent of US doctors believe that their patients are getting too much medical care, according to a survey published Monday which suggests fears of malpractice suits may be to blame.

A total of 28 percent said they felt they were treating their patients too aggressively, while 45 percent said one of every 10 patients they saw daily had issues that could have been dealt with by phone, by email or by a nurse.

Fifty-two percent said they felt their patients were receiving just the right amount of care and six percent said their patients were receiving too little, said the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Our findings show that many primary care physicians believe there is substantial unnecessary care that could be reduced, particularly by increasing time with patients, reforming the malpractice system, and reducing financial incentives to do more," it said.

The United States has the world's highest health spending per capita among developed nations, at $5,475 compared to the next-highest country, Switzerland at $3,581, according to a separate US study published in 2007 in the journal Health Affairs.

Larger image here (scroll down).

Health care in the United States is a hot political issue, and President Barack Obama's moves to reform the system and extend insurance coverage to an extra 32 million people has faced opposition from Republicans and sparked court challenges.

Seventy-six percent of survey respondents said that concerns about possible malpractice suits were the main reason why they gave patients more aggressive treatment.

"Physicians believe they are paid to do more and exposed to legal punishment if they do less," said the article.

"The extent to which fear of malpractice leads to more aggressive practice (so-called defensive medicine) has been hotly debated; based on our findings, we believe it is not a small effect."

Forty percent said they did not have enough time to spend with patients.

While only three percent said their own style of practice was influenced by financial considerations, 39 percent "believed that other primary care physicians would order fewer diagnostic tests if such tests did not generate extra revenue," said the study.

"Almost two-thirds (62 percent) said that medical sub-specialists would cut back on testing in the absence of a financial incentive."

The results are based on a mail survey that was filled out by 627 doctors in the United States.

Seventy percent of the doctors included in the initial mailing replied, which the authors called "exceptional for a survey of American physicians."

The study was led by Brenda Sirovich and colleagues from the VA Outcomes Group in Vermont and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice in New Hampshire."

Health insurance is largely an excuse for not taking good care of your own health--it's the magic key that unlocks doors so we can get those advertised pills we don't really need, or procedures we can live without. Without the fallback of health insurance, more people would start taking better care of themselves, and caring more deeply about what they eat.

I use it mostly as a tax shelter first, followed by the occasional few visits. If I could draw my own blood, and get access to the testing equipment, I'd do my twice-yearly diagnostic tests myself at home. Hubby's a different story--he requires once-yearly heart testing due to some congenital problems, in order to head off OTHER problems, but other than that, he's pretty much like me. The heart tests are expensive, but necessary, so we don't even think of paying cash.

Okay, mammograms are a different story--I definitely WOULD NOT do those myself! The way I eat puts me in the low-risk category, but because my mother died of cervical cancer 30 years ago makes me a prime candidate (in my doctor's eyes) for yearly mammos and Pap smears. I'm way too old for the Gardasil shot, otherwise I'd have signed up for it.

I would drop insurance on me altogether, but I just know that the day I did that, I'd get hit by a bus or something, and be subject to Medicare-style care, or worse...Obamacare.

Food Stamps and Nutrition

From KRDO (CO).

"More Americans are in poverty right now, meaning more children are going to sleep hungry at night. Nationwide, more than 16-million children live in homes with parents struggling to put enough food on the table.

Dr. Megan Sandel is at Boston Medical Center's unique "Grow Clinic." It specializes in treating underweight & malnourished children.

"People think about acute malnutrition and they may look at Somalia. What we see is chronic malnutrition, stunted growth, kids that are the size of a one year old when they're two years old. And they're not going to be able to make up for that for the rest of their lives."

Emergency rooms in Boston are seeing a spike in severely-underweight children ages five & younger. In other cities like Baltimore, Minneapolis, Philadelphia & Little Rock, Arkansas, the number of malnourished kids have doubled in the last two years many doctors say, because of the recession.

The latest numbers show that 46 million people are on food stamps.

Now, there's a renewed debate in Congress over what food stamps can and can't buy. For example, food stamps can't be used for beer, wine, liquor or cigarettes. They also can't be used for vitamins, prepared food from a store, pet food, or toilet paper. But soft drinks, candy, cookies, ice cream and birthday cake are allowed.

Now, some restaurants in Florida, Michigan, Arizona and California are permitted to serve the homeless, disabled and elderly paying with food stamps. Some fast-food companies want to expand that and allow people to buy fast food with food stamps.

Some advocates for the hungry think it's a great idea, while public health advocates think the program should be geared toward more nutritious food.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture runs the program.

Congress will be debating if a change should be made to what can and can't be bought with food stamps."

Hello...what part of FOOD STAMPS doesn't anybody get? Food is not toilet paper, or pet food, or beer, or soda, or chips, yet the foods that get subsidized the most are the ones that get funded--grains, meats, nuts, soy, etc., and all the food products made from those foods, like chips, soda, frozen pizzas, microwavable meals, KFC buckets, taco 20-packs, beer/wine, cigarettes, Big Macs, Happy Meals, IHOP short stacks, Denny's Grand Slam meals, and all other manner of convenience.

Poverty is supposed to be uncomfortable so nobody lingers on these programs for very long, but alas...some of us have adapted (too well), and use these programs as the basic building block they build their lives around.

Look around in your community--I did--and you'll find tons of places willing to help give out stuff to these so-called "poor". I found a 3-page website (yep, I printed it out) full of community resources right here in my area, and I'm willing to bet your area has something very similar. In short, THERE IS NO EXCUSE!

My printed-out list included places where you can get toilet paper and all manner of free toiletries that FOOD stamps don't cover, countless homeless shelters, food banks, countless churches serving meals and offering wintertime crash space, places to do free laundry, take showers, make phone calls, get subsidized bus and light rail passes, free HIV testing, get assistance for ID, and get assistance for signing up for all manner of programs (like the Section 8 housing program, and subsidized daycare), free help for homeless vets trying to navigate their way through a whole plethora of VA programs, and that's just within my own community!

I even found an LGBT shelter, and a church that makes bagged lunches for homeless people departing shelters for the day. There's also a whole page devoted to which church is serving meals when--including the day and time.

At the apartment complex I used to live at, some mothers (with rather artful nail jobs, I might add) used to gather around in the parking lot and plan out their route for getting all manner of free stuff for the holidays--who was going to what church(es) for dinner(s), who was signed up for the winter coat drive, Angel Tree, and canned goods drive, who had a car to carry home all the booty with, how much leftovers can who stand (the reason for going to more than one church for dinner), and who was signed up for the free heat program offered by the electric company. I heard them with my own ears as I was taking my trash out.

Let's not forget the countless programs sponsored by private companies, like the back-to-school supplies drives, the winter coat drives, the free heat/window unit air conditioning programs from the utility companies, the annual canned good drive by the Postal Service, Boy Scouts going door-to-door collecting canned goods, the Salvation Army collecting used clothing (even leaving you a big plastic bag to fill and await subsequent pick-up), a special day at the public swimming pools, skating rinks, and malls for buses of homeless kids, the annual Christmas Angel Tree for free gifts, the coliseum's twice-yearly free Doctor/Dentist/Eye Doctor treatment day, and even companies that take donated cars and refurbish them for use by recovering homeless families.

Oh, and then there's the free breakfast/lunch programs at school, free after-school care, free summer school feeding programs, and some lady out in New Jersey started a summer weekend kid-feeding drive a few years ago that sends backpacks full of donated junk foods home with each kid every Friday.

Yes, poverty has become TOO comfortable! If kids are going to bed hungry, its because the parents aren't signed up for enough free stuff out there. If they're REALLY going to bed hungry, it's because they aren't getting enough water and fiber in their diets. This is what happens when you subsist on junk foods, and make poor choices at the grocery store with the food stamps you already get.

No safety net? Try again--the safety net has become a comfy hammock swinging in the breeze. You can practically live for free these days--it won't be in the comfort and convenience you used to know, but it's free.

Ever Wonder How Doctors Make Referrals?

From Yahoo Health.

"Primary care and specialist physicians use different criteria when deciding to refer a patient to another doctor, a new study finds.

The web-based survey of 616 physicians found that after clinical expertise, primary care doctors consider issues such as patient access or doctor-to-doctor communication, while specialists tend to base their decisions on their other patients' experiences with the intended doctor.

Two-thirds of referrals by primary care physicians and half of referrals by specialists were made within their professional network.

The study by researchers at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was published online Sept. 16 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Most previous research into the patient referral process has focused on primary care physicians as the sole source for referrals. But this study shows that specialist physicians also influence the mix of physicians patients see, the researchers said.

"This study is the first to explore differences in the referral decisions between primary care and specialist physicians. Our findings suggest that interventions to influence referral practices will need to be tailored by specialty," they concluded in a journal news release."

I just figured they sent you to whoever their buddies were in med school, or whoever they met in medical conferences that were from the local area. Then there's the good old boy system of payment for referrals...whoever pays the most gets the most referrals.

Designing a Smarter Patient

From the Wall Street Journal.

"I'm comfortable with that," or "No, it wouldn't be comfortable for me."

That's what our patients often tell us when faced with a choice about taking a medication or undergoing a procedure. And the discussion usually stops there.

But what makes someone comfortable or uncomfortable with one treatment or another, or with no treatment at all? Where do these views come from? And how can patients make better decisions?

For answers, we spent four years interviewing scores of patients of different ages. We found that a host of powerful and often hidden influences, inside and outside the patient's mind, can sway thinking and distort judgment. We also discovered that, by unmasking those influences, it is possible for patients to gain greater confidence and control over their medical decisions.

Consider the case of Susan Powell (not her real name), a nurse's assistant now in her 50s. She had been healthy all her life, but when she turned 45, she decided to see a primary-care doctor. Susan ate healthy foods and was physically active, but she was a bit overweight, and her blood tests showed that she had high cholesterol. Her doctor prescribed a statin drug and asked her to come back in a month.

Statins are among the most commonly prescribed medications in the world. In the U.S. alone, more than 25 million people take the drugs to lower their cholesterol, which is a key factor leading to heart attack and stroke.

Soon after seeing her doctor, Susan spoke with an acquaintance at church who had developed muscle pain after starting to take a statin. Susan also thought of her father, who had high cholesterol and never took any medication for it. "People take too many pills," he often told his children. He lived a long, full and active life.

Susan decided not to take the statin.

Many people decline treatment because they know someone who suffered from side effects or someone who lived well into old age without treatment. Stories deeply affect all of us, and they can make real the risks and benefits that might otherwise seem abstract—but they can also distort our vision by making the rare appear routine.

Statistics can help to put lessons drawn from stories into a larger context, letting us make a more considered choice than we possibly could by using narratives alone.

At Susan's follow-up appointment a month later, her doctor told her that "by taking a statin pill, you'll reduce your risk of a heart attack over the next 10 years by as much as 30%." The risk of side effects, she continued, was very small, and the benefits far outweighed the risk. Susan promised to give it serious thought.

She continued to search for information, reading everything she could about cholesterol. What caught her eye was a government-sponsored link to a "10-Year Heart Attack Risk Calculator."

She entered her age, total cholesterol number of 240, and "good" cholesterol (HDL) of 37. She was not a smoker, her blood pressure was fine, and she was on no medications. The result: "Risk Score: 1%: Means 1 of 100 people with this level of risk will have a heart attack in the next 10 years."

This means that 99 of 100 people like me won't have a heart attack in the next 10 years, Susan told herself. She started to feel much better. She had found a key number in health literacy: her risk for disease without treatment.

Without treatment, Susan's risk for a heart attack was 1 in 100. If 1 in 100 women has a heart attack, that means 2 in 200 do, or 3 in 300. The statin treatment reduces risk by 30%, or about one-third.

Let's apply that benefit to a group of 300 women like Susan, where three would have a heart attack without taking statins. If we treat them all, we would prevent one heart attack—because we protect one-third of those three. The other two women would still have a heart attack despite taking the medicine. The remaining 297 would not have had a heart attack even without the medication, so they wouldn't benefit from taking it.

This statistic comes as a surprise to many people. When you hear that a statin lowers Susan's risk by 30%, it sounds as if she is at a 100% risk of suffering a heart attack if she doesn't take the medication.

Another component of health literacy is understanding the risks of a therapy. Statins cause muscle pain in 1% to 10% of people who take them. However, if we "flip" the frame, the number without any side effects is 90 to 99 out of 100, a much more reassuring statistic.

Advertisements for drugs may include statistics, but fundamentally these ads are designed to communicate a compelling tale. Over the weeks that followed her appointment with her physician, Susan paid particular attention to ads for statins. Once she started looking for them, they seemed to be everywhere.

In 2007, a team of researchers from the UCLA Medical Center and other medical centers studied prescription drug ads broadcast on national networks. They found that the average American TV viewer sees over 1,000 prescription drug ads in the space of a year. That's 16 hours all told—much more time than the average person spends with his or her primary-care physician.

The study concluded that the large majority of TV ads fail to fulfill an educational purpose. But they clearly work, at least from the point of view of sales: Every $1,000 spent on advertising translated into 24 new prescriptions, according to an analysis by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Another illuminating study, conducted by researchers at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, examined the impact of printed drug ads on patient preferences. One group was given actual ads. A second group received the same ads, except that the brief summary at the end of the text was replaced by a "drug-facts box." The box presented information in a clear, accessible fashion, similar to the way we recalculated the benefits and risks of a statin for Susan.

The results of the Dartmouth research are impressive. Nearly two-thirds of the group that saw the original ads overestimated the benefits of the treatment. They believed it was 10 times more effective than it actually was. But nearly three-quarters of the participants who saw the information in the drug-facts box correctly assessed the actual benefits of the treatment.

Even more striking was another finding. When people were given readily understandable information about the statin's actual benefit in preventing future heart disease, nearly twice as many said they wouldn't take the drug in light of its side effects. When given clearer information, the patients weighed the risks and benefits differently from their doctors and were less likely to take the medication.

Susan Powell's decision was not simple. More than five years later, her doctor continues to encourage her to take the drug, and she continues to say no—but now, at least, she can more fully explain why."

My answer would be "if a pill didn't GIVE me high cholesterol, why would I take a pill to get rid of it?" It's obvious: food gives us our cholesterol level, and the absence of certain foods (namely starches and sugars) is going to lower it. Without sugar in any form, the liver won't produce excess LDL, but your doctor doesn't get his/her annual kickback from Big Pharma if the pill sales quota isn't filled.

About six or seven years ago, the same thing happened to me--I was recommended a statin, and I flatly refused until I knew more about thew whole cholesterol thing, and what it meant to me. After some intense research, I found other ways of dealing with the problem. Years later, I found a whole diet that just happens to have the very real and happy side effect of lowering cholesterol and other lipid measurements.

I haven't received my blood test results from my last checkup yet, but it's gotta be better than last time, and the time before that, much to the infuriation of Big Pharma!