From the NY Times. It's both, actually.
"Ilsa Katz was 85 when her daughter, Vivian Atkins, first noticed that her mother was becoming increasingly confused.
“She couldn’t remember names, where she’d been or what she’d done that day,” Ms. Atkins recalled in an interview. “Initially, I was not too worried. I thought it was part of normal aging. But over time, the confusion and memory problems became more severe and more frequent.”
Her mother couldn’t remember the names of close relatives or what day it was. She thought she was going to work or needed to go downtown, which she never did. And she was often agitated.
A workup at a memory clinic resulted in a diagnosis of early Alzheimer’s disease, and Ms. Katz was prescribed Aricept, which Ms. Atkins said seemed to make matters worse. But the clinic also tested Ms. Katz’s blood level of vitamin B-12. It was well below normal, and her doctor thought that could be contributing to her symptoms.
Weekly B12 injections were begun. “Soon afterward, she became less agitated, less confused and her memory was much better,” said Ms. Atkins. “I felt I had my mother back, and she feels a lot better, too.”
Now 87, Ms. Katz still lives alone in Manhattan and feels well enough to refuse outside assistance.
Still, her daughter wondered, “Why aren’t B-12 levels checked routinely, particularly in older people?”
It is an important question. As we age, our ability to absorb B-12 from food declines, and often so does our consumption of foods rich in this vitamin. A B12 deficiency can creep up without warning and cause a host of confusing symptoms that are likely to be misdiagnosed or ascribed to aging.
A Vital Nutrient
B-12 is an essential vitamin with roles throughout the body. It is needed for the development and maintenance of a healthy nervous system, the production of DNA and formation of red blood cells.
A severe B-12 deficiency results in anemia, which can be picked up by an ordinary blood test. But the less dramatic symptoms of a B-12 deficiency may include muscle weakness, fatigue, shakiness, unsteady gait, incontinence, low blood pressure, depression and other mood disorders, and cognitive problems like poor memory.
Labs differ in what they consider normal, but most authorities say a deficiency occurs when B-12 levels in adults fall below 250 picograms per milliliter of blood serum. Like all B vitamins, B-12 is water-soluble, but the body stores extra B-12 in the liver and other tissues. Even if dietary sources are inadequate for some time, a serum deficiency may not show up for years.
If the amount of B-12 in storage is low to begin with, a deficiency can develop within a year, even more quickly in infants.
Recommended dietary amounts of B-12 vary: 2.4 micrograms daily for those age 14 and older, 2.6 micrograms for pregnant women and 2.8 micrograms for nursing women. Barring circumstances that impair B12 absorption, these are levels easily obtained from a well-balanced diet containing animal protein.
In its natural form, B-12 is present in significant amounts only in animal foods, most prominently in liver (83 micrograms in a 3.5-ounce serving). Good food sources include other red meats, turkey, fish and shellfish. Lesser amounts of the vitamin are present in dairy products, eggs and chicken.
Those at Risk
Natural plant sources are meager at best in B-12, and the vitamin is poorly absorbed from them. Many strict vegetarians and all vegans, as well as infants they breast-feed, must consume supplements or fortified breakfast cereals to get adequate amounts.
Certain organisms, like the bacterium Spirulina and some algae, contain a pseudo-B12 that the body cannot use but may result in a false reading of a normal B-12 level on a blood test. Despite claims to the contrary, laver, a seaweed, and barley grass are not reliable sources of B-12.
In animal foods, B-12 is combined with protein and must be released by stomach acid and an enzyme to be absorbed. Thus, chronic users of acid-suppressing drugs like Prilosec, Prevacid and Nexium, as well as ulcer medications like Pepcid and Tagamet, are at risk of developing a B-12 deficiency and often require a daily B-12 supplement.
Stomach acid levels decline with age. As many as 30 percent of older people may lack sufficient stomach acid to absorb adequate amounts of B-12 from natural sources. Therefore, regular consumption of fortified foods or supplementation with 25 to 100 micrograms of B-12 daily is recommended for people over 50.
Synthetic B-12, found in supplements and fortified foods, does not depend on stomach acid to be absorbed. But whether natural or synthetic, only some of the B12 consumed gets into the body. Treatment to correct a B-12 deficiency typically involves much larger doses than the body actually requires.
Free B-12 from both natural and synthetic sources must be combined with a substance in the stomach called intrinsic factor to be absorbed through the gut. This factor is lacking in people with an autoimmune disorder called pernicious anemia; the resulting vitamin deficiency is commonly treated with injections of B-12.
Although most doctors are quick to recommend injections to correct a B-12 deficiency, considerable evidence indicates that, in large enough doses, sublingual (under-the-tongue) tablets or skin patches of B12 may work as well as injections for people with absorption problems, even for those with pernicious anemia.
Most often, a daily supplement of 2,000 micrograms is recommended for about a month, then lowered to 1,000 micrograms daily for another month, then lowered again to 1,000 micrograms weekly. Sublingual B12 or B12 patches, or even B12 lollipops, can be helpful for people who require a supplement but cannot swallow pills.
Others at risk of developing a B-12 deficiency include heavy drinkers (alcohol diminishes B12 absorption), those who have had stomach surgery for weight loss or ulcers, and people who take aminosalicylic acid (for inflammatory bowel disease or tuberculosis) or the diabetes drug Metformin (sold as Glucophage and other brands). Patients who take the anticonvulsants phenytoin, phenobarbital or primidone are also at risk.
Large doses of folic acid can mask a B-12 deficiency and cause permanent neurological damage if normal levels of B-12 are not maintained. Supplements of potassium impair B-12 absorption in some people.
Although a B-12 deficiency can raise blood levels of the amino acid homocysteine, a risk factor for heart disease and stroke, supplements of B-12 have not reduced cardiovascular risk.
And while high homocysteine levels are linked to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, lowering them with B-12 supplements has not been shown to improve cognitive function. However, in one study, among women with a poor dietary intake of B12, supplements of the vitamin significantly slowed the rate of cognitive decline."
So how many elderly have been misdiagnosed over the years since Aricept was invented? How much money did Big Pharma make selling pills, and how many nursing homes sold beds when some of these people just needed a good steak every night?
As far as supplementation goes, sublingual pills are only as good as your digestive juices are in dissolving it under your tongue--if you don't produce enough digestive juices on your own (due to meds, or naturally), that little under-the-tongue pill is just going to sit there, taking an hour or more to dissolve. It's best to solve your digestive ailments BEFORE you venture into solving your B-12 ailments, and here's how:
If you take a med that suppresses the formation of stomach acid, or don't produce enough on your own, you can either take a tablespoonful of vinegar right before taking a B-12 pill, or by using a product called Pancreatin after every meal (it contains all the different types of digestive aids: fat, protein, carbs). The formula that handles proteins only is called ox bile. Other supplements are also available for separate digestion remedies of either fat, proteins, or carbs, but Pancreatin is a combination of all three.
Paleo and other "cave" eaters rest assured--we eat enough meat to get our B-12 requirements...for now. Things may change when you get older, or suddenly have to go on digestive juice inhibitor meds.
Doctors will push for injections if you need supplementation, because shots bypass the whole digestive juice problem. I say if you're having digestive juice problems, B-12 malabsorption is just one of your worries--there's calcium, certain vitamins, and other substances required for daily life that you aren't absorbing either.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Longevity Will Be the New Inequality (in the U.K., at least)
From Wired. As everything else makes its way across the pond, this will too. As more and more of us go to a low-carb way of eating, we can expect this to occur here as well.
"The world’s population will polarize in terms of life expectancy to the point where longevity will be the new inequality, according to Sarah Harper, a professor of gerontology at the University of Oxford.
Speaking at Intelligence Squared’s If Conference, she explained how 10 million people living in the UK today — 20 percent of the population — will make it to 100 years old. “We currently have 11,000 centenarians, but will have half a million by 2050 and one million by the end of the century. So when the Queen is sending out her telegrams or e-mails or writing on someone’s wall in 2040, it will be 50,000 a year,” she said.
Incremental longevity means that we are adding five hours of live expectancy each day. She added that if we can conquer cardiovascular disease in the UK — which she sees as highly probable — we will immediately add an additional 12 years. She was keen to emphasize that, contrary to some claims [such as those of Richard Seymour] it is highly unlikely that the first person to live to 1,000 is already alive today.
However, the cost of some of the longevity measures and the varying levels of healthcare across the globe mean that this longevity will not distributed evenly. She explained: “We have places like Sierra Leone where 35 is still the life expectancy, whereas rich Americans and Chinese can live until 150 while most people die in their 80s and 90s.”
One of the main challenges of radical longevity is the fact that it is easier to regenerate certain body parts such as organs, but not our skeleton. Harper argued that advances in stem cell research, combined with nanotechnology and genetic research can address this.
Another challenge is how we rethink our lives. “The idea that we’ll have a period of time in education, a period of time in work and a huge period of time in leisure will move to a more fluid life course,” she argued. “We will delay a lot of our life transitions [such as having children or retiring] if we are going to live life for 150 years. But are they going to be healthy years? Or frail and disabled?”
She added: “It’s crazy to retire at 55 if you have the mental and physical capacity of a 30-year-old. I’d like to ditch chronological age. It’s about keeping healthy and active and not frail.”
My concern with longevity: what are we going to do to occupy ourselves, now that everything's been technologized to the point of push-button living? We can practically get our daily household chores done in an hour, or have them done by machines altogether, so how are we going to use up the other 23 hours in each day? Busy people being pulled in many directions by time/place/energy restrictions fueled the tech boom, and now it appears as though it may be all for naught if we're going to have more time to get things done.
I'm thinking about the Amish right now. Even without electricity, and seemingly mounting farm/house chores (both personal and communal), they still only manage to spend about 4-5 hours a day getting stuff done.
There would likely be a large contingent of bored people hanging around...and asking "live longer for WHAT?" Well, if the economy stays the same or gets worse, we'll be needing that time to accumulate adequate funds for retirement.
One possible advantage I see is manned space travel--we wouldn't be able to go very far, but we could spend more time getting there and back...now if only the political will and funding were there to match it.
"The world’s population will polarize in terms of life expectancy to the point where longevity will be the new inequality, according to Sarah Harper, a professor of gerontology at the University of Oxford.
Speaking at Intelligence Squared’s If Conference, she explained how 10 million people living in the UK today — 20 percent of the population — will make it to 100 years old. “We currently have 11,000 centenarians, but will have half a million by 2050 and one million by the end of the century. So when the Queen is sending out her telegrams or e-mails or writing on someone’s wall in 2040, it will be 50,000 a year,” she said.
Incremental longevity means that we are adding five hours of live expectancy each day. She added that if we can conquer cardiovascular disease in the UK — which she sees as highly probable — we will immediately add an additional 12 years. She was keen to emphasize that, contrary to some claims [such as those of Richard Seymour] it is highly unlikely that the first person to live to 1,000 is already alive today.
However, the cost of some of the longevity measures and the varying levels of healthcare across the globe mean that this longevity will not distributed evenly. She explained: “We have places like Sierra Leone where 35 is still the life expectancy, whereas rich Americans and Chinese can live until 150 while most people die in their 80s and 90s.”
One of the main challenges of radical longevity is the fact that it is easier to regenerate certain body parts such as organs, but not our skeleton. Harper argued that advances in stem cell research, combined with nanotechnology and genetic research can address this.
Another challenge is how we rethink our lives. “The idea that we’ll have a period of time in education, a period of time in work and a huge period of time in leisure will move to a more fluid life course,” she argued. “We will delay a lot of our life transitions [such as having children or retiring] if we are going to live life for 150 years. But are they going to be healthy years? Or frail and disabled?”
She added: “It’s crazy to retire at 55 if you have the mental and physical capacity of a 30-year-old. I’d like to ditch chronological age. It’s about keeping healthy and active and not frail.”
My concern with longevity: what are we going to do to occupy ourselves, now that everything's been technologized to the point of push-button living? We can practically get our daily household chores done in an hour, or have them done by machines altogether, so how are we going to use up the other 23 hours in each day? Busy people being pulled in many directions by time/place/energy restrictions fueled the tech boom, and now it appears as though it may be all for naught if we're going to have more time to get things done.
I'm thinking about the Amish right now. Even without electricity, and seemingly mounting farm/house chores (both personal and communal), they still only manage to spend about 4-5 hours a day getting stuff done.
There would likely be a large contingent of bored people hanging around...and asking "live longer for WHAT?" Well, if the economy stays the same or gets worse, we'll be needing that time to accumulate adequate funds for retirement.
One possible advantage I see is manned space travel--we wouldn't be able to go very far, but we could spend more time getting there and back...now if only the political will and funding were there to match it.
Laptops With Wi-fi May Damage Sperm
From HealthDay News. Part of a news roundup--scroll down to second story.
"Laptops' Wi-Fi May Damage Sperm: Study
A new study raises questions about whether using wi-fi on a laptop could harm a man's sperm.
Semen samples from 29 healthy donors were each divided into two pots. One pot was stored for four hours next to a laptop wirelessly connected to the Internet and the other pot was stored under identical conditions, but without the laptop, BBC News reported.
The researchers found that sperm in the pot next to the laptop were damaged. Their ability to swim was reduced and they had changes in the genetic code they carry. While heat can harm sperm, the researchers don't believe this damage was caused by heat from the laptop.
The study appears in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
Experts said this test was not conducted in a real-world setting and the findings should not cause men undue worry. However, they recommended more studies, BBC News reported."
Do you know anybody who actually uses these things ON their laps? I tried one--they get hot.
"Laptops' Wi-Fi May Damage Sperm: Study
A new study raises questions about whether using wi-fi on a laptop could harm a man's sperm.
Semen samples from 29 healthy donors were each divided into two pots. One pot was stored for four hours next to a laptop wirelessly connected to the Internet and the other pot was stored under identical conditions, but without the laptop, BBC News reported.
The researchers found that sperm in the pot next to the laptop were damaged. Their ability to swim was reduced and they had changes in the genetic code they carry. While heat can harm sperm, the researchers don't believe this damage was caused by heat from the laptop.
The study appears in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
Experts said this test was not conducted in a real-world setting and the findings should not cause men undue worry. However, they recommended more studies, BBC News reported."
Do you know anybody who actually uses these things ON their laps? I tried one--they get hot.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Duck, Duck...GOOSE!
Talk about an economic myth handed down through the generations!
Last weekend, we hopped back onto the cat ownership bandwagon--we now have two beautiful "blue" cats. One Russian Blue-ish, and the other Maine Coon-ish. The Russkie has a food allergy that I'm solving with my homemade food, and the other one could care less about real food made with real ingredients--thank god he eats meat scraps.
The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we decided to go buy a whole duck, after having duck breast for Thanksgiving and seeing cat approval to the point of passivity and mommy-baby loving on each other (even though they're both males). I don't know if it was the meat or the fat that did it, but there are no more aggressive episodes of male posturing in this house.
I don't know about you, but I was under the impression (up til now) that duck was one of those foods eaten by 8-figure income earners who ride around in long cars, wear mostly tuxedos, and speak in a Hawwwvawwd Yawwwd accent. Duck, crab, and a few other foods were classified as "rich only" foods in my mind for most of my life...until I went hunting for one (with shopping cart, not gun).
I already know liver is talked about in rich circles, and that liver is one of the cheapest organ meats widely available...if you can get past the taste. All those "Hannibal Lechter" foods (minus the fava beans and Chianti) are actually cheap by comparison with muscle meats, and yield much more nutrition.
It isn't the meat--it's what they do to the meat that makes it sound rich, French, and starts the mental imagery which leads to assumptions.
Duck IS available in regular grocery stores, although you'd have to skirt past the multitudes of turkeys out on display this time of year to find them. Having found one at Kroger for less than the cost of a whole chicken (per pound), I was quite surprised on two counts: availability and price.
I am aware that like lamb (another "rich food"), duck deflates from a good-sized bird down to a huge pile of grease with little meat, but I didn't mind--the grease was what I was after. You cannot order just the duck fat online without paying a hefty price, then again for shipping--it must be FedEx'd overnight in a refrigerated carton. Local sources here were nil--I even tried foreign markets, Jewish delis, butchers, and restaurant supply stores as well as the international foods aisles at grocery stores. My only option was to make the fat myself, which I did.
Now that I have what I was really after, I can do all the things that people do with "rubber chicken": soup, salads (instead of sandwiches), casseroles, etc. I can do RUBBER DUCK meals--that amuses me. Since there's only two adults in the house, we don't need much meat in the way of leftovers.
Now, on the hunt for goose (pun intended). There are several spots where real live Canadian geese hang out in this town, never flying south for winter (maybe this IS south for them?). I figure if I get desperate enough, I can just drive to one of their spots, grab one, wring out the fat, and put it down again.
Thinking of Ebeneezer Scrooge, or even Scrooge McDuck? Hell, I'm going to EAT one of them!
As for the crab, I had the same experience with dungeness crab--after reading about the nutritional aspects of crab from Primal Toad's blog, I went a-Googling to see which crab type was highest in Omega-3's, and came up with dungeness. A local grocery store had a sale, so in I went and bought a few clusters. Since Hubby grew up in crab country, he knew just how to dismantle and dispose of the unwanted parts, and the four of us proceeded to chow down. As obligate carnivores, my cats eat as Paleo as their biology allows.
Yes, dungeness crab is expensive compared to other meats (even other crabs), but the ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 (if I did my math right) was astounding and worth every penny! I don't even want to know how much nutrition I bought that day--it would boggle my mind.
As economic and nutritional myths come tumbling down around here, I'm anxious to see what the goose hunt reveals to me.
Last weekend, we hopped back onto the cat ownership bandwagon--we now have two beautiful "blue" cats. One Russian Blue-ish, and the other Maine Coon-ish. The Russkie has a food allergy that I'm solving with my homemade food, and the other one could care less about real food made with real ingredients--thank god he eats meat scraps.
The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we decided to go buy a whole duck, after having duck breast for Thanksgiving and seeing cat approval to the point of passivity and mommy-baby loving on each other (even though they're both males). I don't know if it was the meat or the fat that did it, but there are no more aggressive episodes of male posturing in this house.
I don't know about you, but I was under the impression (up til now) that duck was one of those foods eaten by 8-figure income earners who ride around in long cars, wear mostly tuxedos, and speak in a Hawwwvawwd Yawwwd accent. Duck, crab, and a few other foods were classified as "rich only" foods in my mind for most of my life...until I went hunting for one (with shopping cart, not gun).
I already know liver is talked about in rich circles, and that liver is one of the cheapest organ meats widely available...if you can get past the taste. All those "Hannibal Lechter" foods (minus the fava beans and Chianti) are actually cheap by comparison with muscle meats, and yield much more nutrition.
It isn't the meat--it's what they do to the meat that makes it sound rich, French, and starts the mental imagery which leads to assumptions.
Duck IS available in regular grocery stores, although you'd have to skirt past the multitudes of turkeys out on display this time of year to find them. Having found one at Kroger for less than the cost of a whole chicken (per pound), I was quite surprised on two counts: availability and price.
I am aware that like lamb (another "rich food"), duck deflates from a good-sized bird down to a huge pile of grease with little meat, but I didn't mind--the grease was what I was after. You cannot order just the duck fat online without paying a hefty price, then again for shipping--it must be FedEx'd overnight in a refrigerated carton. Local sources here were nil--I even tried foreign markets, Jewish delis, butchers, and restaurant supply stores as well as the international foods aisles at grocery stores. My only option was to make the fat myself, which I did.
Now that I have what I was really after, I can do all the things that people do with "rubber chicken": soup, salads (instead of sandwiches), casseroles, etc. I can do RUBBER DUCK meals--that amuses me. Since there's only two adults in the house, we don't need much meat in the way of leftovers.
Now, on the hunt for goose (pun intended). There are several spots where real live Canadian geese hang out in this town, never flying south for winter (maybe this IS south for them?). I figure if I get desperate enough, I can just drive to one of their spots, grab one, wring out the fat, and put it down again.
Thinking of Ebeneezer Scrooge, or even Scrooge McDuck? Hell, I'm going to EAT one of them!
As for the crab, I had the same experience with dungeness crab--after reading about the nutritional aspects of crab from Primal Toad's blog, I went a-Googling to see which crab type was highest in Omega-3's, and came up with dungeness. A local grocery store had a sale, so in I went and bought a few clusters. Since Hubby grew up in crab country, he knew just how to dismantle and dispose of the unwanted parts, and the four of us proceeded to chow down. As obligate carnivores, my cats eat as Paleo as their biology allows.
Yes, dungeness crab is expensive compared to other meats (even other crabs), but the ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 (if I did my math right) was astounding and worth every penny! I don't even want to know how much nutrition I bought that day--it would boggle my mind.
As economic and nutritional myths come tumbling down around here, I'm anxious to see what the goose hunt reveals to me.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Laughable: National Events Highlight Difficulties of Living on Less
From the Gant Daily (PA--yep, Penn State). Yes, I will be interjecting commentary, and will be including corroborating commentary links--this mythical beast NEEDS to be slain!
"Members of Congress, faith-based organizations and other groups this month participated in observances such as the National Food Stamp Challenge and National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week to draw attention to the daily struggles of the unemployed and poor. A specialist in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences said these special-attention events also illustrate the complexities of modern food insecurity.
The Food Stamp Challenge dared religious and political leaders and others to try feeding themselves for a week on $4.50 a day — the average amount received by anyone on the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, previously known as food stamps. Elise Gurgevich, state coordinator of Penn State Extension’s Nutrition Links program, said such demonstrations serve a good purpose but miss the harder part of life on food stamps.
“It is an eye-opening experience for legislators to figure out how they are going to make that money stretch, and how they’re going to get enough calories into their diet while eating nutritiously,” she said. “It’s doable, but it takes planning and work.”
So people on food stamps are automatically incapable of planning and work, or is the whole program designed to take the planning and work out of it? I say the lack of planning and work is what got them ON the program to begin with, so by all means, why change now?
Gurgevich said during these special events, people can rise to the challenge and do it for a short period because they know they soon will resume their normal routines and diets. “But people who rely on SNAP benefits to feed their families don’t do it for just a week,” she pointed out. “When those sacrifices become your lifestyle, it’s much more of a burden.”
I got news for ya honey--millions of people already do it voluntarily in something called "frugal living,"and they don't do it short-term. Sacrifice isn't a burden when you know you're doing it for a reason.
Mary Lou Kiel, training specialist for Penn State Nutrition Links, explained that the average person needs to be educated or trained to be a better shopper.
“If you really want to eat a nutritious diet on such a limited budget, you need to put in the time looking at store advertising circulars, finding out what’s on sale, planning your meals in advance and figuring out how what you buy for one meal can be used for a second meal on day two or three,” Kiel said. “You have to stick to your plan and not be swayed by what you see in the store.”
No--you need to examine those shelf labels closely to find PRICE PER UNIT, then compare it to other like items in the store. Then you need to be able to do coupon math, then you also need to determine if this food item is actually FOOD and NUTRITIOUS, or just junk in fancy packaging.
You don't even need a calculator in the store any more.
Knowing where satiety actually comes from (and it isn't just more food) is what helps you plan, prepare, and stretch meals.
Kiel noted that Penn State Extension provides training across Pennsylvania on shopping smarter, determining if generic brands are as nutritious as higher-priced options and using unit pricing to get more ounces for less money. “The classes we offer are very helpful to people, and they learn a lot. All of us can benefit from being better shoppers, but people living on SNAP benefits need to learn all the tips about what are the better choices.”
Just try to get people's attention on that one---the classes and websites ARE beneficial (if you eat grains, beans, and dairy), but few people actually use these resources. The classes should be required.
The Nutrition Links program offers free nutrition-education programs to participants eligible for public assistance to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve a healthful diet on a limited budget. Participants are taught in small or large groups or individually. Programs are tailored to be appropriate for the age, culture, reading ability and physical or developmental limitations of a particular audience.
With a national unemployment rate hovering near 9 percent and 45 million people receiving SNAP benefits nationwide, people who don’t have as much experience with economizing really have to focus on it, Gurgevich said. The tips offered by Extension nutrition advisers present both practical advice and a new way of thinking for people unaccustomed to living on a limited income.
“There are a lot more people who now need Nutrition Links services because they haven’t grown up being as aware of economizing options,” she explained. “So we’ve had to focus our program more on shopping and how to stretch your food dollars and supplies, in addition to food preparation and nutrition.
Experts point out that sometimes it’s a tradeoff between spending time and spending money. “For instance, you can buy prepared salad in a bag, but it’s much cheaper if you buy lettuce, wash it yourself and put it in your own plastic bag,” Keil said “Buying meat in the economy package and breaking it into sizes that work for your family usually is less expensive.”
So is ditching the microwave-ready food!
But she cautions that buying in larger quantities may not be cheaper if you are not able to use it all before it spoils. “Also, you can use coupons, but don’t buy things that you don’t really need just because you have a coupon,” she said. “Sometimes even when you have coupons for purchases on brand-name products, the store brand is still more economical.”
Gurgevich advises people who are new to watching their budgets that canned and frozen fruits and vegetables are also very nutritious, and those products may be more cost-effective than fresh produce, depending on the season. “Fresh foods are still the best, but you shouldn’t limit yourself only to fresh.”
Learn how to buy cold, get home, and subdivide for the freezer, getting smaller portions to use at a time, lessening the risk of spoilage. Learn how to buy fresh and freeze yourself, extending the harvest into the off-season.
A useful tool in trimming the family food budget is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new Choose My Plate campaign. Developed to encourage consumers to build healthy eating habits based on the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the system uses a colorful plate diagram to encourage consumers to make healthy choices. Kiel said planning meals around it also can save money.
Not really--it invites you to consume foods you don't really need.
“Make sure that you’re getting your fruits and vegetables to fill half of your plate,” she said. “The protein, which is the most expensive part, should fill only a quarter of your plate. Make 50 percent of your grains whole, and pick low-fat dairy choices for either milk or cheese. You’ll combine good nutrition with low cost.”
Penn State Extension’s Nutrition Links program provides low-income Pennsylvanians with information and training to make limited food dollars go farther. In the 2010-2011 programming year, the program reached almost 7,000 Pennsylvania families, benefiting more than 21,000 people. And the number of new families enrolled increased by almost 70 percent during the reporting period.
The one big key to economic salvation in the kitchen is to SHORTEN THE SHOPPING LIST. Do we really need 40 different kinds of pasta shapes, or 6 different kinds of cheese all going at once?
Taken further: do we really need grains, beans, and dairy at all? Nope. In fact, we really don't need much food at all to get our nutrition requirements--it just depends on whether or not you're willing to eat them, or willing to sacrifice to spend the money on them.
At one time, I used to have a Food Stamp Cheat Sheet permanently posted at the top of the blog, but I got tired of giving handouts...of information that should be obvious. I even demonstrated how I could buy and eat ORGANICALLY (with no coupons) using an allotment for 2 adults in my state. Right now, there's a lady with 9 kids living on HALF her food stamp allotment equivalent--if she can feed 10 people on half the food stamp ration for a family that size, nobody's got anything to complain about!
For about the last decade (before I went Paleo), I've been posting in one site or another about frugal living and how to do it. I finally pulled up my rope ladder and shut the door behind me when I switched to a health format--it's much more positive this way. Flailing frugal wannabes are depressing with all their money woes, and they get even worse with their perceived work-arounds, like hyper-couponing. The most money is saved, and the most health is gained, by buying less to begin with, and avoiding all those supposed "savings" tools which are of no use if you're making the right buying decisions to begin with.
Can we say M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G? The want creation machine still churns...
This is why the Food Stamp Cheat Sheet only comes out when I get invited to take the Food Stamp Challenge, and it may even cease to come out at all in the future--there are such better ways with food now, thanks to the Paleo crowd--not only are they shortening the shopping list even more than I was myself, but showing good economic alternatives to what we're all taught as nutritional gospel. They're also exposing the truth about that myth-laden nutritional and health gospel, in that mainly the choir who sings it is really a bunch of naked emperors--picture THAT in church!
Yes, Virginia, there are many, MANY adults left behind in this food/money game, and the government health/nutrition standards "choir" will make sure they stay that way...right where Big Pharma can get their mitts on them! At this rate, they may as well take a place around the giant economic cog that needs turning (a la Conan the Barbarian) and walk their own circular trench beneath it.
No muscles will be built, unfortunately.
"Members of Congress, faith-based organizations and other groups this month participated in observances such as the National Food Stamp Challenge and National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week to draw attention to the daily struggles of the unemployed and poor. A specialist in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences said these special-attention events also illustrate the complexities of modern food insecurity.
The Food Stamp Challenge dared religious and political leaders and others to try feeding themselves for a week on $4.50 a day — the average amount received by anyone on the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, previously known as food stamps. Elise Gurgevich, state coordinator of Penn State Extension’s Nutrition Links program, said such demonstrations serve a good purpose but miss the harder part of life on food stamps.
“It is an eye-opening experience for legislators to figure out how they are going to make that money stretch, and how they’re going to get enough calories into their diet while eating nutritiously,” she said. “It’s doable, but it takes planning and work.”
So people on food stamps are automatically incapable of planning and work, or is the whole program designed to take the planning and work out of it? I say the lack of planning and work is what got them ON the program to begin with, so by all means, why change now?
Gurgevich said during these special events, people can rise to the challenge and do it for a short period because they know they soon will resume their normal routines and diets. “But people who rely on SNAP benefits to feed their families don’t do it for just a week,” she pointed out. “When those sacrifices become your lifestyle, it’s much more of a burden.”
I got news for ya honey--millions of people already do it voluntarily in something called "frugal living,"and they don't do it short-term. Sacrifice isn't a burden when you know you're doing it for a reason.
Mary Lou Kiel, training specialist for Penn State Nutrition Links, explained that the average person needs to be educated or trained to be a better shopper.
“If you really want to eat a nutritious diet on such a limited budget, you need to put in the time looking at store advertising circulars, finding out what’s on sale, planning your meals in advance and figuring out how what you buy for one meal can be used for a second meal on day two or three,” Kiel said. “You have to stick to your plan and not be swayed by what you see in the store.”
No--you need to examine those shelf labels closely to find PRICE PER UNIT, then compare it to other like items in the store. Then you need to be able to do coupon math, then you also need to determine if this food item is actually FOOD and NUTRITIOUS, or just junk in fancy packaging.
You don't even need a calculator in the store any more.
Knowing where satiety actually comes from (and it isn't just more food) is what helps you plan, prepare, and stretch meals.
Kiel noted that Penn State Extension provides training across Pennsylvania on shopping smarter, determining if generic brands are as nutritious as higher-priced options and using unit pricing to get more ounces for less money. “The classes we offer are very helpful to people, and they learn a lot. All of us can benefit from being better shoppers, but people living on SNAP benefits need to learn all the tips about what are the better choices.”
Just try to get people's attention on that one---the classes and websites ARE beneficial (if you eat grains, beans, and dairy), but few people actually use these resources. The classes should be required.
The Nutrition Links program offers free nutrition-education programs to participants eligible for public assistance to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve a healthful diet on a limited budget. Participants are taught in small or large groups or individually. Programs are tailored to be appropriate for the age, culture, reading ability and physical or developmental limitations of a particular audience.
With a national unemployment rate hovering near 9 percent and 45 million people receiving SNAP benefits nationwide, people who don’t have as much experience with economizing really have to focus on it, Gurgevich said. The tips offered by Extension nutrition advisers present both practical advice and a new way of thinking for people unaccustomed to living on a limited income.
“There are a lot more people who now need Nutrition Links services because they haven’t grown up being as aware of economizing options,” she explained. “So we’ve had to focus our program more on shopping and how to stretch your food dollars and supplies, in addition to food preparation and nutrition.
Experts point out that sometimes it’s a tradeoff between spending time and spending money. “For instance, you can buy prepared salad in a bag, but it’s much cheaper if you buy lettuce, wash it yourself and put it in your own plastic bag,” Keil said “Buying meat in the economy package and breaking it into sizes that work for your family usually is less expensive.”
So is ditching the microwave-ready food!
But she cautions that buying in larger quantities may not be cheaper if you are not able to use it all before it spoils. “Also, you can use coupons, but don’t buy things that you don’t really need just because you have a coupon,” she said. “Sometimes even when you have coupons for purchases on brand-name products, the store brand is still more economical.”
Gurgevich advises people who are new to watching their budgets that canned and frozen fruits and vegetables are also very nutritious, and those products may be more cost-effective than fresh produce, depending on the season. “Fresh foods are still the best, but you shouldn’t limit yourself only to fresh.”
Learn how to buy cold, get home, and subdivide for the freezer, getting smaller portions to use at a time, lessening the risk of spoilage. Learn how to buy fresh and freeze yourself, extending the harvest into the off-season.
A useful tool in trimming the family food budget is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new Choose My Plate campaign. Developed to encourage consumers to build healthy eating habits based on the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the system uses a colorful plate diagram to encourage consumers to make healthy choices. Kiel said planning meals around it also can save money.
Not really--it invites you to consume foods you don't really need.
“Make sure that you’re getting your fruits and vegetables to fill half of your plate,” she said. “The protein, which is the most expensive part, should fill only a quarter of your plate. Make 50 percent of your grains whole, and pick low-fat dairy choices for either milk or cheese. You’ll combine good nutrition with low cost.”
Penn State Extension’s Nutrition Links program provides low-income Pennsylvanians with information and training to make limited food dollars go farther. In the 2010-2011 programming year, the program reached almost 7,000 Pennsylvania families, benefiting more than 21,000 people. And the number of new families enrolled increased by almost 70 percent during the reporting period.
The one big key to economic salvation in the kitchen is to SHORTEN THE SHOPPING LIST. Do we really need 40 different kinds of pasta shapes, or 6 different kinds of cheese all going at once?
Taken further: do we really need grains, beans, and dairy at all? Nope. In fact, we really don't need much food at all to get our nutrition requirements--it just depends on whether or not you're willing to eat them, or willing to sacrifice to spend the money on them.
At one time, I used to have a Food Stamp Cheat Sheet permanently posted at the top of the blog, but I got tired of giving handouts...of information that should be obvious. I even demonstrated how I could buy and eat ORGANICALLY (with no coupons) using an allotment for 2 adults in my state. Right now, there's a lady with 9 kids living on HALF her food stamp allotment equivalent--if she can feed 10 people on half the food stamp ration for a family that size, nobody's got anything to complain about!
For about the last decade (before I went Paleo), I've been posting in one site or another about frugal living and how to do it. I finally pulled up my rope ladder and shut the door behind me when I switched to a health format--it's much more positive this way. Flailing frugal wannabes are depressing with all their money woes, and they get even worse with their perceived work-arounds, like hyper-couponing. The most money is saved, and the most health is gained, by buying less to begin with, and avoiding all those supposed "savings" tools which are of no use if you're making the right buying decisions to begin with.
Can we say M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G? The want creation machine still churns...
This is why the Food Stamp Cheat Sheet only comes out when I get invited to take the Food Stamp Challenge, and it may even cease to come out at all in the future--there are such better ways with food now, thanks to the Paleo crowd--not only are they shortening the shopping list even more than I was myself, but showing good economic alternatives to what we're all taught as nutritional gospel. They're also exposing the truth about that myth-laden nutritional and health gospel, in that mainly the choir who sings it is really a bunch of naked emperors--picture THAT in church!
Yes, Virginia, there are many, MANY adults left behind in this food/money game, and the government health/nutrition standards "choir" will make sure they stay that way...right where Big Pharma can get their mitts on them! At this rate, they may as well take a place around the giant economic cog that needs turning (a la Conan the Barbarian) and walk their own circular trench beneath it.
No muscles will be built, unfortunately.
Public Gardens Kept Lush By Volunteers in Bad Times
From Gannett News-Press.
"When city officials in San Jose, Calif., cut back on tending the Municipal Rose Garden because of budget troubles, area residents watched as the flowers struggled and the weeds flourished.
After several seasons of neglect, local rose enthusiasts Beverly Rose Hopper and Terry Reilly stepped in to save the garden, which dates to 1932.
“It was a disgrace,” Hopper recalled. “It was time to either fix it or bulldoze it.”
They rallied volunteers and assigned them work days. In 2007, they created the Friends of the San Jose Rose Garden, dedicated to maintaining and improving the garden.
Budget cuts in recent years have led a growing number of volunteers to pitch in and help cities, counties and states maintain public parks, green spaces and gardens, said Bill Beckner, a research manager with the National Recreation and Park Association in Ashburn, Va.
He cautioned that local governments and others who enlist volunteers must address liability issues, develop job descriptions and training programs, and determine whether using volunteers violates any union contracts. “You really should have this thought out before the people show up at your door,” he said.
Some volunteers have gardening and landscaping skills to share. Others simply see value in green spaces and want to help maintain them, he said.
“In some of the cases, the people are associated with civic groups that keep an eye out for things they can do for the community,” he said.
Civic groups and businesses were eager to assist when officials in Cobb County, Ga., asked for help maintaining landscaped gateways along the county borders, said Jonathan Jenkins, director of the county’s solid waste department. Volunteers plant flowers and pick up trash.
“Their efforts make Cobb County look good without county money going out of our pocket,” he said.
The Virginia Department of Transportation last year asked residents for help mowing the grass along state roadways after its mowing budget was slashed from $32,000 to $18,000. Twenty-three volunteers signed up, said department spokeswoman Shannon Marshall.
And when the Seattle Public Library asked for help this summer with outdoor maintenance, many answered the call. Liz Morris was one; she spent about six hours raking and weeding at two library branches. Morris, who lives in an apartment, said she enjoyed being outside doing yard work. She also liked that she was helping the library, which has cut nearly $5 million from its operating budget since 2009.
“Any way I can support them in delivering services that I value as relevant to our community seems like a great opportunity to me,” she said.
Volunteers have made all the difference at New Orleans’ City Park, which was seriously damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The 1,300-acre park now operates with 85 employees, down from 115 before the storm, and holds monthly work sessions for volunteers. They have planted trees, created flower beds and are even constructing a miniature golf course.
“Volunteers are the lifeblood of the park,” said Steve Ryman, City Park’s volunteer manager.
The Friends of the San Jose Rose Garden also have done great work, said Mollie Tobias, the city’s volunteer coordinator. The garden was named “America’s Best Rose Garden” after the organization started tending the bushes.
The group’s efforts convinced the city to expand its volunteer opportunities, Tobias said. San Jose began organizing regular work days for volunteers to spruce up playgrounds, pick up trash and plant flowers. The number of work days has grown from 40 in 2008 to 81 in 2010.
“People know the parks just can’t do it on their own,” Tobias said. “Their contributions are priceless.”
This would be a good spot for Obama's federally-funded legion of gardening college students to work--does this not count as infrastructure?
"When city officials in San Jose, Calif., cut back on tending the Municipal Rose Garden because of budget troubles, area residents watched as the flowers struggled and the weeds flourished.
After several seasons of neglect, local rose enthusiasts Beverly Rose Hopper and Terry Reilly stepped in to save the garden, which dates to 1932.
“It was a disgrace,” Hopper recalled. “It was time to either fix it or bulldoze it.”
They rallied volunteers and assigned them work days. In 2007, they created the Friends of the San Jose Rose Garden, dedicated to maintaining and improving the garden.
Budget cuts in recent years have led a growing number of volunteers to pitch in and help cities, counties and states maintain public parks, green spaces and gardens, said Bill Beckner, a research manager with the National Recreation and Park Association in Ashburn, Va.
He cautioned that local governments and others who enlist volunteers must address liability issues, develop job descriptions and training programs, and determine whether using volunteers violates any union contracts. “You really should have this thought out before the people show up at your door,” he said.
Some volunteers have gardening and landscaping skills to share. Others simply see value in green spaces and want to help maintain them, he said.
“In some of the cases, the people are associated with civic groups that keep an eye out for things they can do for the community,” he said.
Civic groups and businesses were eager to assist when officials in Cobb County, Ga., asked for help maintaining landscaped gateways along the county borders, said Jonathan Jenkins, director of the county’s solid waste department. Volunteers plant flowers and pick up trash.
“Their efforts make Cobb County look good without county money going out of our pocket,” he said.
The Virginia Department of Transportation last year asked residents for help mowing the grass along state roadways after its mowing budget was slashed from $32,000 to $18,000. Twenty-three volunteers signed up, said department spokeswoman Shannon Marshall.
And when the Seattle Public Library asked for help this summer with outdoor maintenance, many answered the call. Liz Morris was one; she spent about six hours raking and weeding at two library branches. Morris, who lives in an apartment, said she enjoyed being outside doing yard work. She also liked that she was helping the library, which has cut nearly $5 million from its operating budget since 2009.
“Any way I can support them in delivering services that I value as relevant to our community seems like a great opportunity to me,” she said.
Volunteers have made all the difference at New Orleans’ City Park, which was seriously damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The 1,300-acre park now operates with 85 employees, down from 115 before the storm, and holds monthly work sessions for volunteers. They have planted trees, created flower beds and are even constructing a miniature golf course.
“Volunteers are the lifeblood of the park,” said Steve Ryman, City Park’s volunteer manager.
The Friends of the San Jose Rose Garden also have done great work, said Mollie Tobias, the city’s volunteer coordinator. The garden was named “America’s Best Rose Garden” after the organization started tending the bushes.
The group’s efforts convinced the city to expand its volunteer opportunities, Tobias said. San Jose began organizing regular work days for volunteers to spruce up playgrounds, pick up trash and plant flowers. The number of work days has grown from 40 in 2008 to 81 in 2010.
“People know the parks just can’t do it on their own,” Tobias said. “Their contributions are priceless.”
This would be a good spot for Obama's federally-funded legion of gardening college students to work--does this not count as infrastructure?
Low Vitamin D Linked to Heart Disease, Death
From Yahoo Health. A simple blood test can determine your levels. If you have dairy allergies, or are not consuming dairy, you should definitely have levels checked. I did, and was deficient--I now take 5000 units twice daily (as per doctor's orders).
"In people with low blood levels of vitamin D, boosting them with supplements more than halved a person's risk of dying from any cause compared to someone who remained deficient, in a large new study.
Analyzing data on more than 10,000 patients, University of Kansas researchers found that 70 percent were deficient in vitamin D and they were at significantly higher risk for a variety of heart diseases.
D-deficiency also nearly doubled a person's likelihood of dying, whereas correcting the deficiency with supplements lowered their risk of death by 60 percent.
"We expected to see that there was a relationship between heart disease and vitamin D deficiency; we were surprised at how strong it was," Dr. James L. Vacek, a professor of cardiology at the University of Kansas Hospital and Medical Center, told Reuters Health.
"It was so much more profound than we expected."
Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a range of illnesses, but few studies have demonstrated the reverse -- that supplements could prevent those outcomes.
Vacek and his team reviewed data from 10,899 adults whose vitamin D serum levels had been tested at the University of Kansas Hospital, and found that more than 70 percent of the patients were below 30 nanograms per milliliter, the level many experts consider sufficient for good health.
After taking into account the patients' medical history, medications and other factors, the cardiologists found that people with deficient levels of vitamin D were more than twice as likely to have diabetes, 40 percent more likely to have high blood pressure and about 30 percent more likely to suffer from cardiomyopathy -- a diseased heart muscle -- as people without D deficiency.
Overall, those who were deficient in D had a three-fold higher likelihood of dying from any cause than those who weren't deficient, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Cardiology. Moreover, when the team looked at people who took vitamin D supplements, their risk of death from any cause was about 60 percent lower than the rest of the patients, although the effect was strongest among those who were vitamin D deficient at the time they were tested.
The study does not prove that vitamin D is the cause of the effects seen -- other factors, like disease, could be responsible both for the differences in health and the differences in vitamin D levels, for instance.
Previous research has indicated that many Americans don't have sufficient levels of vitamin D, however. The latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey estimated that 25 percent to 57 percent of adults have insufficient levels of D, and other studies have suggested the number is as high as 70 percent.
Vacek said he believes so many people are deficient because we should get about 90 percent of our Vitamin D from the sun and only about 10 percent from our food. The human body makes vitamin D in response to skin exposure to sunlight.
Certain foods, like oily fish, eggs and enriched milk products are also good sources of D. A sufficient amount of Vitamin D absorption from the sun would require at least 20 minutes of full-body exposure each day in warmer seasons, and most people aren't outside enough, Vacek said.
In the northern United States and throughout Canada, experts say the sun isn't strong enough during the winter months to make sufficient vitamin D, even if the weather was warm enough to expose the skin for a long time.
It means that adults should consider getting their Vitamin D levels checked through a simple blood test, Vacek said, and take vitamin D supplements. Generally, Vacek recommends that adults take between 1,000 to 2,000 international units (IU) of Vitamin D each day.
"If you're not deficient, Vitamin D is not a magic pill that will make you live longer," Vacek said.
"Its benefit is in people who are deficient. If you're low, it makes sense to be put on replacement therapy and have a follow-up a couple months later to make sure your levels come up."
If you test low, you'll get a prescription for some ungodly-sounding amount of units to take (such as 50,000 units), which is one little pill weekly. When my prescription ran out, I simply divided the number of ungodly units per week by 7, then went in search of the OTC version that came closest. I take them twice daily so the dose doesn't fade away overnight.
Note: we're talking VITAMIN D-3 here, not D-2--the kind found in dairy products. Cod liver oil has some, but not enough per dose to make it meaningful--as far as Vitamin D goes, you'd have to drink the whole bottle every day! Being a sun-god trying to get your D-3 can turn you into a skin cancer god, so supplements are a good call here.
Here are the foods ranked highest in Vitamin D of any sort. Here is the difference between D-2 and D-3.
"In people with low blood levels of vitamin D, boosting them with supplements more than halved a person's risk of dying from any cause compared to someone who remained deficient, in a large new study.
Analyzing data on more than 10,000 patients, University of Kansas researchers found that 70 percent were deficient in vitamin D and they were at significantly higher risk for a variety of heart diseases.
D-deficiency also nearly doubled a person's likelihood of dying, whereas correcting the deficiency with supplements lowered their risk of death by 60 percent.
"We expected to see that there was a relationship between heart disease and vitamin D deficiency; we were surprised at how strong it was," Dr. James L. Vacek, a professor of cardiology at the University of Kansas Hospital and Medical Center, told Reuters Health.
"It was so much more profound than we expected."
Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a range of illnesses, but few studies have demonstrated the reverse -- that supplements could prevent those outcomes.
Vacek and his team reviewed data from 10,899 adults whose vitamin D serum levels had been tested at the University of Kansas Hospital, and found that more than 70 percent of the patients were below 30 nanograms per milliliter, the level many experts consider sufficient for good health.
After taking into account the patients' medical history, medications and other factors, the cardiologists found that people with deficient levels of vitamin D were more than twice as likely to have diabetes, 40 percent more likely to have high blood pressure and about 30 percent more likely to suffer from cardiomyopathy -- a diseased heart muscle -- as people without D deficiency.
Overall, those who were deficient in D had a three-fold higher likelihood of dying from any cause than those who weren't deficient, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Cardiology. Moreover, when the team looked at people who took vitamin D supplements, their risk of death from any cause was about 60 percent lower than the rest of the patients, although the effect was strongest among those who were vitamin D deficient at the time they were tested.
The study does not prove that vitamin D is the cause of the effects seen -- other factors, like disease, could be responsible both for the differences in health and the differences in vitamin D levels, for instance.
Previous research has indicated that many Americans don't have sufficient levels of vitamin D, however. The latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey estimated that 25 percent to 57 percent of adults have insufficient levels of D, and other studies have suggested the number is as high as 70 percent.
Vacek said he believes so many people are deficient because we should get about 90 percent of our Vitamin D from the sun and only about 10 percent from our food. The human body makes vitamin D in response to skin exposure to sunlight.
Certain foods, like oily fish, eggs and enriched milk products are also good sources of D. A sufficient amount of Vitamin D absorption from the sun would require at least 20 minutes of full-body exposure each day in warmer seasons, and most people aren't outside enough, Vacek said.
In the northern United States and throughout Canada, experts say the sun isn't strong enough during the winter months to make sufficient vitamin D, even if the weather was warm enough to expose the skin for a long time.
It means that adults should consider getting their Vitamin D levels checked through a simple blood test, Vacek said, and take vitamin D supplements. Generally, Vacek recommends that adults take between 1,000 to 2,000 international units (IU) of Vitamin D each day.
"If you're not deficient, Vitamin D is not a magic pill that will make you live longer," Vacek said.
"Its benefit is in people who are deficient. If you're low, it makes sense to be put on replacement therapy and have a follow-up a couple months later to make sure your levels come up."
If you test low, you'll get a prescription for some ungodly-sounding amount of units to take (such as 50,000 units), which is one little pill weekly. When my prescription ran out, I simply divided the number of ungodly units per week by 7, then went in search of the OTC version that came closest. I take them twice daily so the dose doesn't fade away overnight.
Note: we're talking VITAMIN D-3 here, not D-2--the kind found in dairy products. Cod liver oil has some, but not enough per dose to make it meaningful--as far as Vitamin D goes, you'd have to drink the whole bottle every day! Being a sun-god trying to get your D-3 can turn you into a skin cancer god, so supplements are a good call here.
Here are the foods ranked highest in Vitamin D of any sort. Here is the difference between D-2 and D-3.
Here We Go With the Fat Police: Obese Third-Grader Gets Taken From Mom, Placed in Foster Care
From ABC News. First, a child gets removed for being too fat, then a child gets removed because the parents are starving him out of fear of getting fat! So much for a more photogenic nation...
"A Cleveland third grader who weighed more than 200 pounds was taken from his mother after officials reportedly said she did not do enough to help the boy, who suffered from a weight-related health issue, to lose weight.
“They are trying to make it seem like I am unfit, like I don’t love my child,” the boy’s mother, who was not identified, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “It’s a lifestyle change and they are trying to make it seem like I am not embracing that. It is very hard, but I am trying.”
Officials first became aware of the boy’s weight after his mother took him to the hospital last year while he was having breathing problems, the newspaper reported. The child was diagnosed with sleep apnea and began to be monitored by social workers while he was enrolled in a program called “Healthy Kids, Healthy Weight” at the Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital.
The boy lost a few pounds, but recently began to gain some back, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. At that point, the Department of Children and Family Services asked a juvenile court for custody of the boy, citing his soaring weight as a form of medical neglect, according to the newspaper.
Taking obese children from their families has become a topic of intense debate over the past year after one high-profile pediatric obesity expert made controversial comments in the Journal of the American Medical Association advocating the practice in acute cases.
“In severe instances of childhood obesity, removal from the home may be justifiable, from a legal standpoint, because of imminent health risks and the parents’ chronic failure to address medical problems,” Dr. David Ludwig co-wrote with Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health.
A trial is set for the boy’s ninth birthday next month to determine whether his mother will regain custody.
But one family who has been in the same position as the Ohio family told ABC News they disagreed with the practice when “Good Morning America” spoke with them in January.
“Literally, it was two months of hell. It seemed like the longest two months of my life,” mother Adela Martinez said.
Her daughter, 3-year-old Anamarie Regino, weighing 90 pounds, was taken from her parents and placed into foster care a decade ago.
Anamarie didn’t improve at all in foster care, and she was returned to her parents. The young girl was later diagnosed with a genetic predisposition.
“They say it’s for the well-being of the child, but it did more damage than any money or therapy could ever to do to fix it,” Martinez said.
Anamarie Regino, who is now a teenager, agreed.
“It’s not right, what [Dr. Ludwig] is doing, because to get better you need to be with your family, instead of being surrounded by doctors,” she said.
When told of the Regino case, Ludwig said his solution of state intervention did not always work.
“Well, state intervention is no guarantee of a good outcome, but to do nothing is also not an answer,” he said."
Has anyone bothered to check for an underlying medical condition, or did they all just go by appearances and scale numbers?
"A Cleveland third grader who weighed more than 200 pounds was taken from his mother after officials reportedly said she did not do enough to help the boy, who suffered from a weight-related health issue, to lose weight.
“They are trying to make it seem like I am unfit, like I don’t love my child,” the boy’s mother, who was not identified, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “It’s a lifestyle change and they are trying to make it seem like I am not embracing that. It is very hard, but I am trying.”
Officials first became aware of the boy’s weight after his mother took him to the hospital last year while he was having breathing problems, the newspaper reported. The child was diagnosed with sleep apnea and began to be monitored by social workers while he was enrolled in a program called “Healthy Kids, Healthy Weight” at the Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital.
The boy lost a few pounds, but recently began to gain some back, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. At that point, the Department of Children and Family Services asked a juvenile court for custody of the boy, citing his soaring weight as a form of medical neglect, according to the newspaper.
Taking obese children from their families has become a topic of intense debate over the past year after one high-profile pediatric obesity expert made controversial comments in the Journal of the American Medical Association advocating the practice in acute cases.
“In severe instances of childhood obesity, removal from the home may be justifiable, from a legal standpoint, because of imminent health risks and the parents’ chronic failure to address medical problems,” Dr. David Ludwig co-wrote with Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health.
A trial is set for the boy’s ninth birthday next month to determine whether his mother will regain custody.
But one family who has been in the same position as the Ohio family told ABC News they disagreed with the practice when “Good Morning America” spoke with them in January.
“Literally, it was two months of hell. It seemed like the longest two months of my life,” mother Adela Martinez said.
Her daughter, 3-year-old Anamarie Regino, weighing 90 pounds, was taken from her parents and placed into foster care a decade ago.
Anamarie didn’t improve at all in foster care, and she was returned to her parents. The young girl was later diagnosed with a genetic predisposition.
“They say it’s for the well-being of the child, but it did more damage than any money or therapy could ever to do to fix it,” Martinez said.
Anamarie Regino, who is now a teenager, agreed.
“It’s not right, what [Dr. Ludwig] is doing, because to get better you need to be with your family, instead of being surrounded by doctors,” she said.
When told of the Regino case, Ludwig said his solution of state intervention did not always work.
“Well, state intervention is no guarantee of a good outcome, but to do nothing is also not an answer,” he said."
Has anyone bothered to check for an underlying medical condition, or did they all just go by appearances and scale numbers?
Sunday, November 27, 2011
More Smoke Than Fire---Nutrition Packed Into School Lunches (in MT)
From the Billings Gazette (MT).
"When Congress blocked new school meal nutrition rules that were under consideration by USDA, new reports said politicians were “fighting over fries” and that food industries stymied efforts to provide students with healthier lunches.
That’s not what’s happening in Billings area schools, nor in most schools across the country. Want to know what K-12 students are having for lunch?
Take a look in Billings Public Schools cafeterias and you’ll see fresh fruit and veggie bars. The high schools have “chop sticks” stations where noodles, lean meat and veggies are served in Chinese-style take-out cartons. There’s pizza, too. But this isn’t your typical pizza pie. All Billings school pizza has a yummy whole-grain crust and low-fat USDA commodity cheeses. In addition to low-sodium commodity tomato sauce, the taco pizza is piled with lean beef, lettuce, fresh tomatoes and veggie salsa. Students can add more veggies and salsa. Trumoo chocolate milk is a student favorite — delicious with calcium and protein, yet fat free with little added sugar.
Trumoo is one of many examples of how industry has worked to meet nutrition guidelines for schools with food that kids will eat, said Dayle Hayes, Billings dietitian and author. The white, whole-grain pizza crust served in Billings area schools is a ConAgra product.
Healthier commodity foods
USDA has changed the nutrient profile for 180 commodities that are now lower in fat, sugar and sodium than when most of today’s parents were in school.
Bette Hunt, who is in charge of Sodexo food services for Billings public and Catholic schools as well as Lockwood, has worked for years with local nutrition experts and food suppliers to make school meals healthier. Hunt recently hosted a meeting for local food producers to discuss how they would supply school programs. A recent statewide school food service meeting in Helena brought in suppliers to showcase healthy products for school meals.
“The overall message is that industry, government and Sodexo have really changed food,” Hayes said.
Hunt and Hayes know that students will choose foods that taste good, not necessarily foods that are nutritious.
“You don’t really want to advertise whole grains and brown rice,” Hayes said. “You want to offer good food.”
French fries and other greasy, fried potatoes haven’t been on local school menus for years. However, baked potato wedges and baked potato bars where students can help themselves to healthy toppings are featured in local cafeterias. A recent national survey found that 89 percent of U.S. schools don’t serve French fries.
With school lunches already on track to be healthier, why was there a congressional lunch debate?
The National Institute of Medicine proposed new school meal standards to USDA in January. USDA asked for public comment and within 90 days received more than 130,000 responses. Many involved an IOM proposal that four “starchy” vegetables be served no more than once a week. Those vegetables are potatoes, green peas, corn and fresh lima (butter) beans. USDA was in the process of reviewing public comment and word was circulating in nutrition circles that the “starchy vegetable limit” would be modified, according to Hayes, who worked for the National Potato Council on this issue. The American Dietetic Association and school food professionals had objected to the OIM guidelines.
“We heard USDA had conceded the starchy vegetable point and the sodium standard also was being considered,” said Virginia Mermel, who has long chaired the School Health Advisory Committee for Billings. Mermel, who holds a doctoral degree in nutrition and works from Billings, said the IOM drew up school meal guidelines without involving dietitians or food service experts. She said that the IOM’s extremely low proposed sodium limit would be appropriate for an adult who had extremely high blood pressure.
“Sodium is not a problem in school meals,” Mermel said.
“The things Congress did last week do not set back meal standards in any way,” Hayes said.
The congressional school food fight and much national media coverage of it was more smoke than fire. What parents and taxpayers should know is that local school lunches offer healthier choices than ever before — thanks to collaboration between local volunteers, schools and food suppliers.
Congress didn’t have to intervene by blocking rules that hadn’t even been adopted when it passed a partial budget bill. However, our lawmakers found it easier to stand up for starchy vegetables than to finish the national budget, which is now nearly two months past due."
Well, there's healthy and there's HEALTHY. The point is that by going around, under, or in spite of the government, somebody managed to get things done. Things can get done better if caring individuals took charge of what their kids ate during the day, and didn't leave it in the hands of a renegade nutritionist or a penny-pinching superintendent. The fact that they're using institutional commodity foods (big cans full of BPA) and government salt guidelines (too high? too low? who knows?) should be alarming enough!
Maybe people in Montana can relax a little, but what about the other 49 states? Well, here's some similar good news coming out of Kansas.
"When Congress blocked new school meal nutrition rules that were under consideration by USDA, new reports said politicians were “fighting over fries” and that food industries stymied efforts to provide students with healthier lunches.
That’s not what’s happening in Billings area schools, nor in most schools across the country. Want to know what K-12 students are having for lunch?
Take a look in Billings Public Schools cafeterias and you’ll see fresh fruit and veggie bars. The high schools have “chop sticks” stations where noodles, lean meat and veggies are served in Chinese-style take-out cartons. There’s pizza, too. But this isn’t your typical pizza pie. All Billings school pizza has a yummy whole-grain crust and low-fat USDA commodity cheeses. In addition to low-sodium commodity tomato sauce, the taco pizza is piled with lean beef, lettuce, fresh tomatoes and veggie salsa. Students can add more veggies and salsa. Trumoo chocolate milk is a student favorite — delicious with calcium and protein, yet fat free with little added sugar.
Trumoo is one of many examples of how industry has worked to meet nutrition guidelines for schools with food that kids will eat, said Dayle Hayes, Billings dietitian and author. The white, whole-grain pizza crust served in Billings area schools is a ConAgra product.
Healthier commodity foods
USDA has changed the nutrient profile for 180 commodities that are now lower in fat, sugar and sodium than when most of today’s parents were in school.
Bette Hunt, who is in charge of Sodexo food services for Billings public and Catholic schools as well as Lockwood, has worked for years with local nutrition experts and food suppliers to make school meals healthier. Hunt recently hosted a meeting for local food producers to discuss how they would supply school programs. A recent statewide school food service meeting in Helena brought in suppliers to showcase healthy products for school meals.
“The overall message is that industry, government and Sodexo have really changed food,” Hayes said.
Hunt and Hayes know that students will choose foods that taste good, not necessarily foods that are nutritious.
“You don’t really want to advertise whole grains and brown rice,” Hayes said. “You want to offer good food.”
French fries and other greasy, fried potatoes haven’t been on local school menus for years. However, baked potato wedges and baked potato bars where students can help themselves to healthy toppings are featured in local cafeterias. A recent national survey found that 89 percent of U.S. schools don’t serve French fries.
With school lunches already on track to be healthier, why was there a congressional lunch debate?
The National Institute of Medicine proposed new school meal standards to USDA in January. USDA asked for public comment and within 90 days received more than 130,000 responses. Many involved an IOM proposal that four “starchy” vegetables be served no more than once a week. Those vegetables are potatoes, green peas, corn and fresh lima (butter) beans. USDA was in the process of reviewing public comment and word was circulating in nutrition circles that the “starchy vegetable limit” would be modified, according to Hayes, who worked for the National Potato Council on this issue. The American Dietetic Association and school food professionals had objected to the OIM guidelines.
“We heard USDA had conceded the starchy vegetable point and the sodium standard also was being considered,” said Virginia Mermel, who has long chaired the School Health Advisory Committee for Billings. Mermel, who holds a doctoral degree in nutrition and works from Billings, said the IOM drew up school meal guidelines without involving dietitians or food service experts. She said that the IOM’s extremely low proposed sodium limit would be appropriate for an adult who had extremely high blood pressure.
“Sodium is not a problem in school meals,” Mermel said.
“The things Congress did last week do not set back meal standards in any way,” Hayes said.
The congressional school food fight and much national media coverage of it was more smoke than fire. What parents and taxpayers should know is that local school lunches offer healthier choices than ever before — thanks to collaboration between local volunteers, schools and food suppliers.
Congress didn’t have to intervene by blocking rules that hadn’t even been adopted when it passed a partial budget bill. However, our lawmakers found it easier to stand up for starchy vegetables than to finish the national budget, which is now nearly two months past due."
Well, there's healthy and there's HEALTHY. The point is that by going around, under, or in spite of the government, somebody managed to get things done. Things can get done better if caring individuals took charge of what their kids ate during the day, and didn't leave it in the hands of a renegade nutritionist or a penny-pinching superintendent. The fact that they're using institutional commodity foods (big cans full of BPA) and government salt guidelines (too high? too low? who knows?) should be alarming enough!
Maybe people in Montana can relax a little, but what about the other 49 states? Well, here's some similar good news coming out of Kansas.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Not Health News, But Could Be Mental Health News One Day: Malls Track Shoppers' Cell Phone Signals
From CNN. Still think your smart phone is so smart? The tracking doesn't stop at the malls, folks. Cell phone towers track you as long as your phone is on.
"Attention holiday shoppers: your cell phone may be tracked this year.
Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year's Day, two U.S. malls -- Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. -- will track guests' movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones.
While the data that's collected is anonymous, it can follow shoppers' paths from store to store.
The goal is for stores to answer questions like: How many Nordstrom shoppers also stop at Starbucks? How long do most customers linger in Victoria's Secret? Are there unpopular spots in the mall that aren't being visited?
While U.S. malls have long tracked how crowds move throughout their stores, this is the first time they've used cell phones.
But obtaining that information comes with privacy concerns.
The management company of both malls, Forest City Commercial Management, says personal data is not being tracked. "We won't be looking at singular shoppers," said Stephanie Shriver-Engdahl, vice president of digital strategy for Forest City. "The system monitors patterns of movement. We can see, like migrating birds, where people are going to."
Still, the company is preemptively notifying customers by hanging small signs around the shopping centers. Consumers can opt out by turning off their phones."
How about we just leave our phones at home as if they were connected to landlines? Callers can leave voice mails--you don't have to be there to answer every single stinkin' call and text!
Better idea: just stay home with your phone. You shouldn't be hitting the malls anyway, when the best deals are AFTER the holidays (from January through April). Considering that desperate people are showing up at stores with pepper spray, guns, and god knows what else, staying home sounds like the safest choice of all. I expect December door-buster sales will be met with mustard gas, rocket launchers, then nukes--how else do you escalate from guns and pepper spray?
Be on the lookout for military attack drones. :)
"Attention holiday shoppers: your cell phone may be tracked this year.
Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year's Day, two U.S. malls -- Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. -- will track guests' movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones.
While the data that's collected is anonymous, it can follow shoppers' paths from store to store.
The goal is for stores to answer questions like: How many Nordstrom shoppers also stop at Starbucks? How long do most customers linger in Victoria's Secret? Are there unpopular spots in the mall that aren't being visited?
While U.S. malls have long tracked how crowds move throughout their stores, this is the first time they've used cell phones.
But obtaining that information comes with privacy concerns.
The management company of both malls, Forest City Commercial Management, says personal data is not being tracked. "We won't be looking at singular shoppers," said Stephanie Shriver-Engdahl, vice president of digital strategy for Forest City. "The system monitors patterns of movement. We can see, like migrating birds, where people are going to."
Still, the company is preemptively notifying customers by hanging small signs around the shopping centers. Consumers can opt out by turning off their phones."
How about we just leave our phones at home as if they were connected to landlines? Callers can leave voice mails--you don't have to be there to answer every single stinkin' call and text!
Better idea: just stay home with your phone. You shouldn't be hitting the malls anyway, when the best deals are AFTER the holidays (from January through April). Considering that desperate people are showing up at stores with pepper spray, guns, and god knows what else, staying home sounds like the safest choice of all. I expect December door-buster sales will be met with mustard gas, rocket launchers, then nukes--how else do you escalate from guns and pepper spray?
Be on the lookout for military attack drones. :)
Friday, November 25, 2011
New App Measures Heart Rate, Breathing Rate via i-Pad Camera
From Yahoo Health.
"Philips recently launched an iPad app dubbed Vital Signs Camera that can measure your heart rate and breathing via the tablet's camera.
Released last week in the iTunes Store, the $0.99 app claims it can measure heart rate by determining the blood flow to your face based on the color of your skin along with your breathing rate as detected by the motion of your chest.
"As long as you sit still and aren't wearing bulky clothing, it can figure out your vital signs in a few seconds with surprising accuracy," writes MacNewsWorld in a review of the new app. "More than anything else, it may be more of a demonstration of technologies we'll soon be seeing used by actual medical pros."
In development for three years, Philips is not seeking approval from the US Food and Drug Administration as a medical device, and has added a disclaimer that the app is "for entertainment purposes only."
The app is similar of Azumio's popular Stress Check app, which transforms your iPhone into a stress gauge. To use, hold your index finger over the iPhone's camera flash for two minutes. The app then claims to measure your blood flow to indicate elevated stress levels."
These (along with the solar panel charger mat) could come in handy for Third World countries, remote areas, and the doctors serving there. Here's a video demonstration.
"Philips recently launched an iPad app dubbed Vital Signs Camera that can measure your heart rate and breathing via the tablet's camera.
Released last week in the iTunes Store, the $0.99 app claims it can measure heart rate by determining the blood flow to your face based on the color of your skin along with your breathing rate as detected by the motion of your chest.
"As long as you sit still and aren't wearing bulky clothing, it can figure out your vital signs in a few seconds with surprising accuracy," writes MacNewsWorld in a review of the new app. "More than anything else, it may be more of a demonstration of technologies we'll soon be seeing used by actual medical pros."
In development for three years, Philips is not seeking approval from the US Food and Drug Administration as a medical device, and has added a disclaimer that the app is "for entertainment purposes only."
The app is similar of Azumio's popular Stress Check app, which transforms your iPhone into a stress gauge. To use, hold your index finger over the iPhone's camera flash for two minutes. The app then claims to measure your blood flow to indicate elevated stress levels."
These (along with the solar panel charger mat) could come in handy for Third World countries, remote areas, and the doctors serving there. Here's a video demonstration.
Aspirin Not Worth the Risks for Healthy Women
From Yahoo Health.
"Aspirin is a bad bargain for healthy women trying to stave off heart attacks or strokes, although it's commonly used for that purpose, according to Dutch researchers.
In a new report, they say 50 women will need to take the medication for 10 years for just one to be helped -- and that's assuming they are at high risk to begin with.
"There are very few women who actually benefit," said Dr. Jannick Dorresteijn of University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands. "If you don't want to treat 49 patients for nothing to benefit one, you shouldn't treat anyone with aspirin."
The new study adds to a long-standing controversy over aspirin, one of the world's most widely used drugs.
Doctors agree it's worth taking for people who've already had a heart attack or a stroke, but they are less certain when it comes to so-called primary prevention.
"We all appreciate that the average treatment effect is very small, but that some patients may benefit more than others," Dorresteijn told Reuters Health.
Today, leading medical groups like the American Heart Association recommend aspirin for people at increased risk for heart problems.
But the Dutch findings, published in the European Heart Journal, suggest many women would still be taking the drug needlessly.
Dorresteijn and his colleagues analyzed data on nearly 28,000 healthy women age 45 and above who had received either aspirin or dummy pills in an earlier U.S. trial.
The women on aspirin generally took a low dose of 100 milligrams every other day.
Overall, aspirin cut the rate of heart attacks, strokes and death from heart disease from 2.4 percent to 2.2 percent.
"Nine out of 10 women experience less than a one-percent risk reduction for cardiovascular disease in the next ten years, so that is a really small treatment effect," said Dorresteijn.
He added that aspirin comes with side effects, too. For instance, it can cause bleeding ulcers and make people more likely to bruise due to its blood-thinning effects.
And although it's cheap -- at only a few dollars per month of treatment -- putting lots of healthy people on the drug would be a big expenditure in the health care budget, Dorresteijn said.
After subtracting the serious side effects from the health gains, the Dutch team found doctors would have to be willing to treat a lot of women to get a net advantage.
"Women older than 65 years of age benefit more than average, but still for those women the benefit was so small that you would need to treat 49 for nothing to prevent one event," said Dorresteijn. "Of course it's disappointing, because you would like a medication to be effective."
Earlier this year, two large reviews of previous aspirin trials yielded similarly sobering results. One found a tiny reduction in heart attacks with aspirin and no effect on death rates or strokes. The other showed as many as 1,111 men and women would need to take aspirin daily for the duration of the trials to prevent just one death.
The government-backed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force advises that men age 45 to 79 take aspirin to stave off heart attacks, as long as the benefit outweighs the risk of bleeding.
For women age 55 to 79, aspirin is recommended to prevent strokes, with the same caveat.
Dr. Michael LeFevre of the USPSTF said he wasn't surprised by the Dutch findings, but added that it muddied the potential benefit on stroke by including heart attacks in the analysis.
The number of women who would need to be treated with aspirin to prevent a stroke depends on their baseline risk. If you are willing to treat only 50 women to see a net benefit for one -- that is, taking into account serious bleeds -- a woman's baseline 10-year stroke risk would have to be as high as 19 percent.
"So if that is our threshold, almost no women will qualify," LeFevre said in an email, noting that treating 1,000 such women in their 60s will prevent 32 strokes and cause 12 bleeding ulcers.
"The central message of this study is really that there are an awful lot of women who are taking aspirin for prevention who should not be taking aspirin," he added in a telephone interview with Reuters Health. "I think the task force would agree with that."
Dr. Franz Messerli, who heads the high blood pressure program at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, said there are much better ways to curb stroke risk than taking aspirin.
"First and foremost," he told Reuters Health, "make sure your blood pressure is perfectly well-controlled… because blood pressure is by far the most important risk factor for stroke."
That can be achieved by changing diet and exercise habits, or by blood pressure medications like diuretics, beta-blockers or calcium channel blockers.
People may also want to rein in their cholesterol levels, Messerli added, although cholesterol-lowering drugs themselves are controversial in primary prevention.
"The question of primary prevention has not been resolved," he said. "The good news is that that there are two ongoing randomized trials that hopefully will allow us to come to firm conclusions."
If you have allergies to aspirin-based products, have ringing in the ears, or already take fish oil, in addition to other risks mentioned above, aspirin's definitely NOT on your list. Fish oil thins the blood as well as aspirin does, although it does nothing for headaches.
If the FDA had to give drug approval for aspirin today, it wouldn't pass--too many risks, and it certainly wouldn't have made it to OTC status. Unfortunately, a replacement for both pain and swelling that doesn't nuke your kidneys has yet to be found.
"Aspirin is a bad bargain for healthy women trying to stave off heart attacks or strokes, although it's commonly used for that purpose, according to Dutch researchers.
In a new report, they say 50 women will need to take the medication for 10 years for just one to be helped -- and that's assuming they are at high risk to begin with.
"There are very few women who actually benefit," said Dr. Jannick Dorresteijn of University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands. "If you don't want to treat 49 patients for nothing to benefit one, you shouldn't treat anyone with aspirin."
The new study adds to a long-standing controversy over aspirin, one of the world's most widely used drugs.
Doctors agree it's worth taking for people who've already had a heart attack or a stroke, but they are less certain when it comes to so-called primary prevention.
"We all appreciate that the average treatment effect is very small, but that some patients may benefit more than others," Dorresteijn told Reuters Health.
Today, leading medical groups like the American Heart Association recommend aspirin for people at increased risk for heart problems.
But the Dutch findings, published in the European Heart Journal, suggest many women would still be taking the drug needlessly.
Dorresteijn and his colleagues analyzed data on nearly 28,000 healthy women age 45 and above who had received either aspirin or dummy pills in an earlier U.S. trial.
The women on aspirin generally took a low dose of 100 milligrams every other day.
Overall, aspirin cut the rate of heart attacks, strokes and death from heart disease from 2.4 percent to 2.2 percent.
"Nine out of 10 women experience less than a one-percent risk reduction for cardiovascular disease in the next ten years, so that is a really small treatment effect," said Dorresteijn.
He added that aspirin comes with side effects, too. For instance, it can cause bleeding ulcers and make people more likely to bruise due to its blood-thinning effects.
And although it's cheap -- at only a few dollars per month of treatment -- putting lots of healthy people on the drug would be a big expenditure in the health care budget, Dorresteijn said.
After subtracting the serious side effects from the health gains, the Dutch team found doctors would have to be willing to treat a lot of women to get a net advantage.
"Women older than 65 years of age benefit more than average, but still for those women the benefit was so small that you would need to treat 49 for nothing to prevent one event," said Dorresteijn. "Of course it's disappointing, because you would like a medication to be effective."
Earlier this year, two large reviews of previous aspirin trials yielded similarly sobering results. One found a tiny reduction in heart attacks with aspirin and no effect on death rates or strokes. The other showed as many as 1,111 men and women would need to take aspirin daily for the duration of the trials to prevent just one death.
The government-backed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force advises that men age 45 to 79 take aspirin to stave off heart attacks, as long as the benefit outweighs the risk of bleeding.
For women age 55 to 79, aspirin is recommended to prevent strokes, with the same caveat.
Dr. Michael LeFevre of the USPSTF said he wasn't surprised by the Dutch findings, but added that it muddied the potential benefit on stroke by including heart attacks in the analysis.
The number of women who would need to be treated with aspirin to prevent a stroke depends on their baseline risk. If you are willing to treat only 50 women to see a net benefit for one -- that is, taking into account serious bleeds -- a woman's baseline 10-year stroke risk would have to be as high as 19 percent.
"So if that is our threshold, almost no women will qualify," LeFevre said in an email, noting that treating 1,000 such women in their 60s will prevent 32 strokes and cause 12 bleeding ulcers.
"The central message of this study is really that there are an awful lot of women who are taking aspirin for prevention who should not be taking aspirin," he added in a telephone interview with Reuters Health. "I think the task force would agree with that."
Dr. Franz Messerli, who heads the high blood pressure program at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, said there are much better ways to curb stroke risk than taking aspirin.
"First and foremost," he told Reuters Health, "make sure your blood pressure is perfectly well-controlled… because blood pressure is by far the most important risk factor for stroke."
That can be achieved by changing diet and exercise habits, or by blood pressure medications like diuretics, beta-blockers or calcium channel blockers.
People may also want to rein in their cholesterol levels, Messerli added, although cholesterol-lowering drugs themselves are controversial in primary prevention.
"The question of primary prevention has not been resolved," he said. "The good news is that that there are two ongoing randomized trials that hopefully will allow us to come to firm conclusions."
If you have allergies to aspirin-based products, have ringing in the ears, or already take fish oil, in addition to other risks mentioned above, aspirin's definitely NOT on your list. Fish oil thins the blood as well as aspirin does, although it does nothing for headaches.
If the FDA had to give drug approval for aspirin today, it wouldn't pass--too many risks, and it certainly wouldn't have made it to OTC status. Unfortunately, a replacement for both pain and swelling that doesn't nuke your kidneys has yet to be found.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
A Mother's Food Choice Can Shape Baby's Palate
From the WA Post.
"What if a mother could predispose her child to like broccoli or Brussels sprouts — or at least to not make a face and spit it out — by what she ate during pregnancy?
Some health-care practitioners are suggesting that if mothers include a wide range of foods in their diet during pregnancy, they can shape their children’s food preferences. Those choices, researchers say, have the potential to reduce the risks of diabetes and obesity.
The concept is called prenatal flavor learning.
The flavor and odors of what mothers eat show up in the amniotic fluid, which is swallowed by the fetus, and in breast milk. There is evidence that fetal taste buds are mature in utero by 13 to 15 weeks, with taste receptor cells appearing at 16 weeks, researchers say.
“With flavor learning, you can train a baby’s palate with repetitive exposure,” said Kim Trout, director of the nurse midwifery/women’s health nurse practitioner program at Georgetown University.
Trout recently co-authored a paper that reviews the evidence on prenatal flavor learning and its implications for controlling childhood obesity and diabetes, among the country’s most pressing health problems. She is incorporating the concept into the curriculum of Georgetown’s two-year midwifery master’s degree program. Starting in January, the reproductive health course for first-year students will include that concept in the section on prenatal care and nutrition, she said.
As a practicing midwife, she also advises patients who want to know what they can do to maximize their baby’s health.
“I tell them there is good evidence that their babies could develop flavor preferences based on what they’re eating, and I also tell their partners if they are doing the cooking,” said Trout, who commutes between Washington and Philadelphia, where she sees patients at a private obstetrics-gynecology practice that is part of the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school and health system.
Some expectant mothers say the concept makes sense, and for those who enjoy eating a variety of food, so much the better.
“I’m not a picky eater. I love all foods,” said Elizabeth Hooks, 29, of Philadelphia, who is one of Trout’s patients. Hooks, 19 weeks pregnant, said she does not want her child to “be a member of the fast-food nation.” She added: “If I can start now, that’s wonderful.”
Hooks works in the corporate office of the retailer Anthropologie. Her lunch on a recent weekday included a wide sampling from the cafeteria salad bar: chicken and cranberry salad, asparagus, tomato and mozzarella salad, and fresh kiwi.
The concept of prenatal flavor learning is not widely known among the general population or among health-care professionals who take care of pregnant women.
But even those who aren’t familiar with the research say they don’t see a downside if the science can be used to encourage healthy eating.
“It’s a new one on me,” said Cynthia Bullock Flynn, a nurse-midwife and general director of the Family Health and Birth Center in the District. “It sounds very interesting. We certainly counsel moms to eat their vegetables when they’re pregnant.”
Sumi Sexton, a family-medicine physician in Arlington County and an assistant professor at Georgetown’s medical school, said practitioners encourage mothers-to-be to eat healthy foods as a way to model that behavior for their children.
“If the science supports it and the baby is getting an acquired taste through the amniotic fluid and breast milk, great,” she said. “It’s only reinforcing what I’m telling you to do anyway.”
Of course, that’s not to say that this approach will somehow lead to kids reaching for another helping of broccoli over chocolate cake. Children’s preference for sweets most likely evolved because sweet-tasting foods are high in energy, according to research, and their preference for salty foods is related to the need for minerals. Their rejection of bitter tastes most likely evolved because most poisonous compounds are bitter.
Exposing infants in the womb to the somewhat bitter flavor of vegetables, for example, makes those vegetables more palatable when offered as solid foods, researchers said.
Obviously, there are other factors that determine what people like to eat. And it’s very possible that a child will never learn to like broccoli no matter how much of it Mom ate while pregnant, Trout said.
She said researchers have also found that flavor learning prepares babies for the foods of their culture. If that culture features fast foods and large amounts of sweets, however, children will be at higher risk of developing diabetes and obesity.
Trout said she sees evidence in her own life. When she was pregnant with her daughter, she adhered to a strict nutritional plan that she taped to her refrigerator. Her daughter has a good diet and is a great cook, she said. Her son prefers fast food such as chicken wings, the kind of food Trout ate while working as an intern.
Just another reason to go heavier on the greens this Thanksgiving."
All this may work if there aren't two conditions involved:
1. Mom's food allergies, whether she knows about them or not.
2. Picky eaters, which may or may not be caused by an inherited hyper-palate or hyper-olfactory sense (heightened taste and smell).
My own mother seemed to have a wheat problem and didn't know it, but she was far from a picky eater--I've been known to enjoy liver, cooked spinach, and cooked beets on the same plate as a kid. Now, it's liver, and RAW spinach and RAW beets in a salad. I wish the Paleo diet was around when she was--it would've helped her enormously.
I'm just thankful she got to introduce me to the pleasures of foreign breads and cheeses while I could still tolerate them: Ruggenbrot, yetoast, pumpernickel, and of course, her favorite: cold sauerkraut. I haven't eaten any in years, but could go for some right now straight from a jar.
She also liked the wursts best, so we regularly had mini-German snack-a-thons. Had I known what the bread was doing to us both, I would've stuck with the wursts and used dill pickle spears for dipping, ditching both the bread and the cheese.
"What if a mother could predispose her child to like broccoli or Brussels sprouts — or at least to not make a face and spit it out — by what she ate during pregnancy?
Some health-care practitioners are suggesting that if mothers include a wide range of foods in their diet during pregnancy, they can shape their children’s food preferences. Those choices, researchers say, have the potential to reduce the risks of diabetes and obesity.
The concept is called prenatal flavor learning.
The flavor and odors of what mothers eat show up in the amniotic fluid, which is swallowed by the fetus, and in breast milk. There is evidence that fetal taste buds are mature in utero by 13 to 15 weeks, with taste receptor cells appearing at 16 weeks, researchers say.
“With flavor learning, you can train a baby’s palate with repetitive exposure,” said Kim Trout, director of the nurse midwifery/women’s health nurse practitioner program at Georgetown University.
Trout recently co-authored a paper that reviews the evidence on prenatal flavor learning and its implications for controlling childhood obesity and diabetes, among the country’s most pressing health problems. She is incorporating the concept into the curriculum of Georgetown’s two-year midwifery master’s degree program. Starting in January, the reproductive health course for first-year students will include that concept in the section on prenatal care and nutrition, she said.
As a practicing midwife, she also advises patients who want to know what they can do to maximize their baby’s health.
“I tell them there is good evidence that their babies could develop flavor preferences based on what they’re eating, and I also tell their partners if they are doing the cooking,” said Trout, who commutes between Washington and Philadelphia, where she sees patients at a private obstetrics-gynecology practice that is part of the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school and health system.
Some expectant mothers say the concept makes sense, and for those who enjoy eating a variety of food, so much the better.
“I’m not a picky eater. I love all foods,” said Elizabeth Hooks, 29, of Philadelphia, who is one of Trout’s patients. Hooks, 19 weeks pregnant, said she does not want her child to “be a member of the fast-food nation.” She added: “If I can start now, that’s wonderful.”
Hooks works in the corporate office of the retailer Anthropologie. Her lunch on a recent weekday included a wide sampling from the cafeteria salad bar: chicken and cranberry salad, asparagus, tomato and mozzarella salad, and fresh kiwi.
The concept of prenatal flavor learning is not widely known among the general population or among health-care professionals who take care of pregnant women.
But even those who aren’t familiar with the research say they don’t see a downside if the science can be used to encourage healthy eating.
“It’s a new one on me,” said Cynthia Bullock Flynn, a nurse-midwife and general director of the Family Health and Birth Center in the District. “It sounds very interesting. We certainly counsel moms to eat their vegetables when they’re pregnant.”
Sumi Sexton, a family-medicine physician in Arlington County and an assistant professor at Georgetown’s medical school, said practitioners encourage mothers-to-be to eat healthy foods as a way to model that behavior for their children.
“If the science supports it and the baby is getting an acquired taste through the amniotic fluid and breast milk, great,” she said. “It’s only reinforcing what I’m telling you to do anyway.”
Of course, that’s not to say that this approach will somehow lead to kids reaching for another helping of broccoli over chocolate cake. Children’s preference for sweets most likely evolved because sweet-tasting foods are high in energy, according to research, and their preference for salty foods is related to the need for minerals. Their rejection of bitter tastes most likely evolved because most poisonous compounds are bitter.
Exposing infants in the womb to the somewhat bitter flavor of vegetables, for example, makes those vegetables more palatable when offered as solid foods, researchers said.
Obviously, there are other factors that determine what people like to eat. And it’s very possible that a child will never learn to like broccoli no matter how much of it Mom ate while pregnant, Trout said.
She said researchers have also found that flavor learning prepares babies for the foods of their culture. If that culture features fast foods and large amounts of sweets, however, children will be at higher risk of developing diabetes and obesity.
Trout said she sees evidence in her own life. When she was pregnant with her daughter, she adhered to a strict nutritional plan that she taped to her refrigerator. Her daughter has a good diet and is a great cook, she said. Her son prefers fast food such as chicken wings, the kind of food Trout ate while working as an intern.
Just another reason to go heavier on the greens this Thanksgiving."
All this may work if there aren't two conditions involved:
1. Mom's food allergies, whether she knows about them or not.
2. Picky eaters, which may or may not be caused by an inherited hyper-palate or hyper-olfactory sense (heightened taste and smell).
My own mother seemed to have a wheat problem and didn't know it, but she was far from a picky eater--I've been known to enjoy liver, cooked spinach, and cooked beets on the same plate as a kid. Now, it's liver, and RAW spinach and RAW beets in a salad. I wish the Paleo diet was around when she was--it would've helped her enormously.
I'm just thankful she got to introduce me to the pleasures of foreign breads and cheeses while I could still tolerate them: Ruggenbrot, yetoast, pumpernickel, and of course, her favorite: cold sauerkraut. I haven't eaten any in years, but could go for some right now straight from a jar.
She also liked the wursts best, so we regularly had mini-German snack-a-thons. Had I known what the bread was doing to us both, I would've stuck with the wursts and used dill pickle spears for dipping, ditching both the bread and the cheese.
Can a Traditional Thanksgiving Green Bean Casserole Go Paleo?
From Chicago Now. Fingers aren't numb any more, but one's wrapped in a huge bandage.
"As of 2 Thanksgivings ago, STS (the author) was officially kicked off cooking duty. Why? Because I made the kind of Green Bean Casserole that you find under the section "healthy eating" in all the magazines and cookbooks - you know the kind with diced tomatoes. You start making the green bean casserole by sauteeing the green beans in a pan with olive oil, a little garlic, some spice to taste, add the tomatoes and tiny bit of Miracle Whip, bake for about 15 min....my family was NOT going to have that - no way, no how.
So I bring the red and white wine every Thankgiving (and a little extra "thank you host" special beer for the brother in law) and I'm perfectly fine with it. I will eat the traditional green bean casserole with the canned beans, cream of mushroom soup, french fried onions from a can, etc., along with the turkey, stuffing, corn casserole, sweet potatoes, bread, sausage (yes the brother in law is big on sausage) and maybe a salad? Not sure.
Now if I was healthy eating hardcore I'd just bring all of my own stuff to eat, but that would be very snobby of me and I would be missing out on some really good food. So I'll try to use cardinal rule diet tip number 1: control the portions on Thursday; eat slower, in moderation. I'll TRY, I said, but I'm not too optimistic that it will happen because after the main meal there's apple and pumpkin pie, with homemade whipped cream, coffee...YUM.
Yep...I'm having tradtional Thanksgiving food tomorrow (well except the sausage - every family has their "thing")...but then I was thinking: what would it be like if Thanksgiving's traditional green bean casserole went paleo? So I googled "green bean casserole paleo" and there were quite a few hits!
If you don't know about paleo, or The Paleo Diet, it is all the rage right now in types of dieting. Some endurance athletes swear by it. Simply put, being on a paleo diet means to eat everything like our ancestors would, specifically those who lived in the in the Paleolithic Era. It has been shown as effective as a detox option as well as a potential diabetic diet and, with weight control possibilities, claims have been made that one can lose weight fast by being on a paleo diet, but I'm not sure I'm into that. Regardless:
from US News & World Report , a section on Best Diets :
So no legumes? That means no green beans are to be consumed using a paleo diet as it is a "grain legume," something that was farmed and not grabbed by our paleolithic ancestors as a means for nourishment.
BAH HUMBUG... Ok well, then there are varieties of green bean casserole that are paleo-esque.
One blogger uses kale instead of green beans in a Green (Not Bean) Casserole. Nell Stephenson, nutrition expert, triathlete and a huge advocate of the paleo diet, says to scrap the whole casserole altogether and go for something like brussel sprouts . Another blogger says to try her French Green Bean Casserole W/Crispy Shallots , which uses fresh green beans, crimini mushrooms and her very own Creamy Cashew Gravy recipe.
That last recipe sounds scrumptious, but that will have to be a personal recipe.
I'm not sure anything I'm eating on Thanksgiving will be Paleo; for that matter, the same probably goes for Christmas. You know, ever since I started this fitness for wellness journey almost 3 years ago I realized that I'm not a huge fan of processed food anyway - it mostly just tastes funny. I will still try to plan out my meals accordingly, but I will stick to portion control and moderation over the holidays - it's the only way to go. I will just enjoy the food I eat...and:
We'll keep savoring really good food over the holidays, especially the non-paleo, traditional, good ol' fashioned green bean casserole."
Stick with the turkey and B-I-L's sausage--the only two things NOT coming from a can! I don't even want to know who's going to come away with what BPA levels.
As for the casserole replacement, we chose a salad. Just meat, salad, and some sort of pumpkin dessert--who needs more?
"As of 2 Thanksgivings ago, STS (the author) was officially kicked off cooking duty. Why? Because I made the kind of Green Bean Casserole that you find under the section "healthy eating" in all the magazines and cookbooks - you know the kind with diced tomatoes. You start making the green bean casserole by sauteeing the green beans in a pan with olive oil, a little garlic, some spice to taste, add the tomatoes and tiny bit of Miracle Whip, bake for about 15 min....my family was NOT going to have that - no way, no how.
So I bring the red and white wine every Thankgiving (and a little extra "thank you host" special beer for the brother in law) and I'm perfectly fine with it. I will eat the traditional green bean casserole with the canned beans, cream of mushroom soup, french fried onions from a can, etc., along with the turkey, stuffing, corn casserole, sweet potatoes, bread, sausage (yes the brother in law is big on sausage) and maybe a salad? Not sure.
Now if I was healthy eating hardcore I'd just bring all of my own stuff to eat, but that would be very snobby of me and I would be missing out on some really good food. So I'll try to use cardinal rule diet tip number 1: control the portions on Thursday; eat slower, in moderation. I'll TRY, I said, but I'm not too optimistic that it will happen because after the main meal there's apple and pumpkin pie, with homemade whipped cream, coffee...YUM.
Yep...I'm having tradtional Thanksgiving food tomorrow (well except the sausage - every family has their "thing")...but then I was thinking: what would it be like if Thanksgiving's traditional green bean casserole went paleo? So I googled "green bean casserole paleo" and there were quite a few hits!
If you don't know about paleo, or The Paleo Diet, it is all the rage right now in types of dieting. Some endurance athletes swear by it. Simply put, being on a paleo diet means to eat everything like our ancestors would, specifically those who lived in the in the Paleolithic Era. It has been shown as effective as a detox option as well as a potential diabetic diet and, with weight control possibilities, claims have been made that one can lose weight fast by being on a paleo diet, but I'm not sure I'm into that. Regardless:
from US News & World Report , a section on Best Diets :
Paleo diets are based on a simple premise—if the cavemen didn’t eat it, you shouldn’t either. So long to refined sugar, dairy, legumes, and grains (this is pre-agricultural revolution); hello to meat, fish, poultry, fruits, and veggies. What you eat and how much depend on your goals or the specific program you’re on, if you choose to follow one.
So no legumes? That means no green beans are to be consumed using a paleo diet as it is a "grain legume," something that was farmed and not grabbed by our paleolithic ancestors as a means for nourishment.
BAH HUMBUG... Ok well, then there are varieties of green bean casserole that are paleo-esque.
One blogger uses kale instead of green beans in a Green (Not Bean) Casserole. Nell Stephenson, nutrition expert, triathlete and a huge advocate of the paleo diet, says to scrap the whole casserole altogether and go for something like brussel sprouts . Another blogger says to try her French Green Bean Casserole W/Crispy Shallots , which uses fresh green beans, crimini mushrooms and her very own Creamy Cashew Gravy recipe.
That last recipe sounds scrumptious, but that will have to be a personal recipe.
I'm not sure anything I'm eating on Thanksgiving will be Paleo; for that matter, the same probably goes for Christmas. You know, ever since I started this fitness for wellness journey almost 3 years ago I realized that I'm not a huge fan of processed food anyway - it mostly just tastes funny. I will still try to plan out my meals accordingly, but I will stick to portion control and moderation over the holidays - it's the only way to go. I will just enjoy the food I eat...and:
We'll keep savoring really good food over the holidays, especially the non-paleo, traditional, good ol' fashioned green bean casserole."
Stick with the turkey and B-I-L's sausage--the only two things NOT coming from a can! I don't even want to know who's going to come away with what BPA levels.
As for the casserole replacement, we chose a salad. Just meat, salad, and some sort of pumpkin dessert--who needs more?
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
BPA Levels Rise 1221% After 5 Days of Eating Canned Soup
From Medical News Today. I felt you just HAD to see this one before marching off to make your favorite green bean casserole, pumpkin pie from a canned mix, or serving canned cranberry jelly for dinner tomorrow.
"Volunteers who had one can of soup per day for five days had urine BPA (bisphenol A) levels rise by over 1,221% compared to the same people who had consumed freshly made soup daily for five days, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health reported in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association). The authors say their study is one of the few to measure human BPA levels after consuming canned products.
Lead author, doctoral student, Jenny Carwile, who studies at the faculty's Department of Epidemiology, said:
Bisphenol A (BPA)
Bisphenol A or BPA, molecular formula C15H16O2, is an organic compound that is used to make polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins, among other things. BPA is an estrogenic - it has properties which can mimic the effects of the human hormone estrogen - it is an endocrine disruptor.
BPA is added to the lining of foods and drinks cans and, according to studies, interferes with reproductive development in animals, including humans. BPA levels in humans have been associated with a higher risk of developing several diseases and conditions, including obesity, diabetes type 2, and cardiovascular diseases.
BPA has also been found in polycarbonate bottles, which are identified by recycling number seven, as well as dentistry sealants and composites.
In 2008, concern regarding BPA became a public theme in the media after the governments of several nations questioned its safety - many retailers in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australasia made moves to remove BPA-containing food products from their shelves.
A 2010 US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) report expressed concern regarding exposure of BPA to fetuses, infants and young children. Canadian authorities declared BPA a toxic substance in 2010 - the first country to do so. BPA is banned in baby bottles in the European Union and Canada.
Prenatal exposure to BPA has been associated with subsequent neurological difficulties.
The Harvard Study on the impact of canned soup on human BPA levels
Jenny Carwile and Karin Michels set out to determine whether the consumption of canned soup might raise concentrations of urinary BPA, compared to the consumption of freshly-made soup.
Their 75 volunteers consisted of students and staff from the Harvard School of Public Health. They were divided into two groups: One group ate a 12-ounce serving of canned soup (vegetarian), one a day for five days. Then they washed-out for two days. This was followed by a same-sized portion of 100% freshly-made soup once a day for five days.
The other group did the same, but the other way round; starting off with daily freshly made soup, followed by a two-day washout, and then five days of daily canned soup.
The urine sample results from the two groups were similar, and showed that at the end of the five days on canned soups their HPA urine concentrations were 1,221% higher, compared to levels at the end of five days on freshly-made soup.
Further studies are required to determine how long urine levels remain high, the researchers stressed. They suspect the higher BPA levels may be temporary.
Senior author, Karin Michels, said:
Funding: the Allen Foundation and the Environmental Epidemiology from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences both provided grants to pay for this study."
The only BPA-free canned products I'm aware of are Eden brand, which are sold in health food stores and grocery stores with a "natural foods" aisle. If you have access to a Kroger or Harris Teeter grocery store, they carry Eden brand--otherwise, try a health food store. For next year's dinner, you might go to Amazon and order yourself supplies ahead of time--they carry Eden and brands I've never heard of, but Eden is what I'm recommending for freedom from BPA.
For plastics, the Ziplock brand is another that omits BPA from it's recipe. Here is more info on how to spot a BPA-laden plastic product.
"Volunteers who had one can of soup per day for five days had urine BPA (bisphenol A) levels rise by over 1,221% compared to the same people who had consumed freshly made soup daily for five days, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health reported in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association). The authors say their study is one of the few to measure human BPA levels after consuming canned products.
Lead author, doctoral student, Jenny Carwile, who studies at the faculty's Department of Epidemiology, said:
"Previous studies have linked elevated BPA levels with adverse health effects. The next step was to figure out how people are getting exposed to BPA. We've known for a while that drinking beverages that have been stored in certain hard plastics can increase the amount of BPA in your body. This study suggests that canned foods may be an even greater concern, especially given their wide use."
Bisphenol A (BPA)
Bisphenol A or BPA, molecular formula C15H16O2, is an organic compound that is used to make polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins, among other things. BPA is an estrogenic - it has properties which can mimic the effects of the human hormone estrogen - it is an endocrine disruptor.
BPA is added to the lining of foods and drinks cans and, according to studies, interferes with reproductive development in animals, including humans. BPA levels in humans have been associated with a higher risk of developing several diseases and conditions, including obesity, diabetes type 2, and cardiovascular diseases.
BPA has also been found in polycarbonate bottles, which are identified by recycling number seven, as well as dentistry sealants and composites.
In 2008, concern regarding BPA became a public theme in the media after the governments of several nations questioned its safety - many retailers in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australasia made moves to remove BPA-containing food products from their shelves.
A 2010 US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) report expressed concern regarding exposure of BPA to fetuses, infants and young children. Canadian authorities declared BPA a toxic substance in 2010 - the first country to do so. BPA is banned in baby bottles in the European Union and Canada.
Prenatal exposure to BPA has been associated with subsequent neurological difficulties.
The Harvard Study on the impact of canned soup on human BPA levels
Jenny Carwile and Karin Michels set out to determine whether the consumption of canned soup might raise concentrations of urinary BPA, compared to the consumption of freshly-made soup.
Their 75 volunteers consisted of students and staff from the Harvard School of Public Health. They were divided into two groups: One group ate a 12-ounce serving of canned soup (vegetarian), one a day for five days. Then they washed-out for two days. This was followed by a same-sized portion of 100% freshly-made soup once a day for five days.
The other group did the same, but the other way round; starting off with daily freshly made soup, followed by a two-day washout, and then five days of daily canned soup.
The urine sample results from the two groups were similar, and showed that at the end of the five days on canned soups their HPA urine concentrations were 1,221% higher, compared to levels at the end of five days on freshly-made soup.
Further studies are required to determine how long urine levels remain high, the researchers stressed. They suspect the higher BPA levels may be temporary.
Senior author, Karin Michels, said:
"The magnitude of the rise in urinary BPA we observed after just one serving of soup was unexpected and may be of concern among individuals who regularly consume foods from cans or drink several canned beverages daily. It may be advisable for manufacturers to consider eliminating BPA from can linings."
Funding: the Allen Foundation and the Environmental Epidemiology from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences both provided grants to pay for this study."
The only BPA-free canned products I'm aware of are Eden brand, which are sold in health food stores and grocery stores with a "natural foods" aisle. If you have access to a Kroger or Harris Teeter grocery store, they carry Eden brand--otherwise, try a health food store. For next year's dinner, you might go to Amazon and order yourself supplies ahead of time--they carry Eden and brands I've never heard of, but Eden is what I'm recommending for freedom from BPA.
For plastics, the Ziplock brand is another that omits BPA from it's recipe. Here is more info on how to spot a BPA-laden plastic product.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
A Note From Frugal Land: Think Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) Has the Best Deals? Think Again!
From Time.
Pertinent part: "A new Consumer Reports study actually says that when it comes to highly recommended electronics, shoppers tend to see cheaper prices—or at least prices that aren’t more expensive—if they wait until after Black Friday has passed by. Cyber Monday too."
The rest of the article goes into detail--see it if you care to read more.
Pertinent part: "A new Consumer Reports study actually says that when it comes to highly recommended electronics, shoppers tend to see cheaper prices—or at least prices that aren’t more expensive—if they wait until after Black Friday has passed by. Cyber Monday too."
The rest of the article goes into detail--see it if you care to read more.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
USDA Targets Stores in Food Stamp Trafficking
From the AP. Food stamp trafficking has been going on for generations, and they're JUST NOW starting to do something about it? Maybe they finally learned something from the Katrina survivors and FEMA debit-card misuse.
"A criminal swindle of the nation's $64.7 billion food stamp program is playing out at small neighborhood stores around the country, where thousands of retailers are suspected of trading deals with customers, exchanging lesser amounts of cash for their stamps.
Authorities say the stamps are then redeemed as usual by the unscrupulous merchants at face value, netting them huge profits and diverting as much as $330 million in taxpayer funds annually a year. But the transactions are electronically recorded and federal investigators, wise to the practice, are closely monitoring thousands of convenience stories and mom-and-pop groceries in a push to halt the fraud.
Known as food stamp trafficking, the illegal buying or selling of food stamps is a federal offense that has resulted in 597 convictions nationwide and $197.4 million in fines, restitution and forfeiture orders, over the past three years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of the Inspector General. The USDA last month awarded a 10-year contract worth up to $25 million to Fairfax, Va.-based SRA International, Inc., to step up the technology used to combat fraud.
"It's misuse of the program. It's a misuse of taxpayer dollars at a tough time. Not only the people who need the program are having a tough time, but the people who are paying for the program are having a tough time, too," said Kevin Concannon, USDA Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services.
The fraud is almost always found among the 199,000 smaller stores that process 15 percent of the nation's total food stamp transactions, Concannon said.
In Providence, for example, federal prosecutors in August charged former 7-Eleven franchisee Syed Shah, 43, with conspiracy for letting customers turn in their stamps for lesser amounts of cash and purchase items like soap, over-the-counter medication and laundry detergent that are not allowed under USDA rules, court records show. Federal agents began investigating Shah's store in July 2008.
Agents said the practice brought an increase in sales.
Christopher Robinson, a USDA special agent, said Shah "believed that if they did not give customers cash for the food stamp benefits then they would lose that business."
Shah has been given a chance to negotiate a plea deal, court records show. His attorney, Scott Lutes, declined comment.
The modern food stamp program was created in 1977 to help low-income families. Benefits are loaded onto plastic debit cards that can only be redeemed at authorized stores. More than 45 million people were receiving benefits as of August, according to program figures, nearly half of them children.
Nationwide, 234,000 stores are authorized to accept food stamps, including 35,000 supermarkets where 85 percent of benefits are redeemed, Concannon said.
Last year, 931 stores nationally were dismissed from the food stamp program for trafficking and 907 others were sanctioned for lesser violations — 37 percent of the nearly 5,000 retailers being investigated. A March USDA report found more than 8 percent of the large and small stores, 210,000 in all, allowed people to cash in their benefits between 2006 and 2008.
The analytical tools officials are turning to have paid off, they say. Even though food stamp spending has ballooned from $22.7 billion to $64.7 billion since 1995, the misuse of benefits has dropped from four cents to a penny on every dollar spent, said Food and Nutrition Service spokesman Aaron Lavallee.
The USDA says it's enhancing the computerized tools used by fraud investigators to track illegal transactions by using geospatial analysis to identify scammers, scanning social media sites for evidence of fraud and using mathematical formulas to zero in on retailer abuses. The agency uses a massive database to track transactions and flag possible scamming stores.
Red flags include spikes in redemptions at stores or customers spending most or all of their monthly benefits during a single shopping trip.
The agency has told states that they can strip benefits from people who sell them online or use them to purchase beverages that have hefty bottle redemption rates, only to cash in on the bottle return, Concannon said.
USDA last month urged states to examine food stamp recipients who shopped at stores where trafficking occurred, he said.
Investigators said redemptions at Shah's store skyrocketed from $228,000 in 2008 to nearly $1 million last year and far exceeded that of other 7-Eleven stores.
Shah told Robinson there was a system for arranging the deals.
"If a customer was very loyal, and used his store on a regular basis, then they would charge these customers less to provide them with cash back for their food stamps," Robinson said.
The affidavit did not disclose how much investigators believe Shah fraudulently pocketed in benefits. Shah told investigators he lost the franchise last year because he violated food stamp program rules, according to an affidavit.
A 7-Eleven spokeswoman said Shah was stripped of his franchise after the store conducted its own investigation. Margaret Chabris said 7-Eleven has access to its franchises' sales activity and can identify fraud. She added the store is now run by 7-Eleven's corporate operation.
"He's taking people, like, stupid for their money because the people let them do it. That's bad," said Zenaida Velez, 46, who lives near the 7-Eleven Shah formerly owned. Velez said the $375 she gets in monthly food stamp benefits doesn't cover the cost of feeding her three children.
"That's a shame," Velez said. "They give it for the kids."
Earlier this year, two brothers from Somalia were each sentenced to five years in federal prison after investigators found their small convenience store in Wyoming, Mich. trafficked about $400,000 in benefits for food stamps and Women, Infants and Children benefits over four years, according to USDA inspectors. Investigators also found the brothers conspired with another retailer in Ypsilanti, Mich., to move more than $300,000 illegally to the Middle East and Africa through an unlicensed money system.
The fraud has even touched the restaurants, where several states have set up programs to let food stamp recipients buy hot meals.
A California restaurant owner was sentenced in February to more than three years in federal prison for skimming $1.3 million in food stamp benefits by depleting electronic benefit transfer cards of their balances — one cent at a time, according to investigators.
Tyra Carmon, 40, who occasionally shopped at Shah's 7-Eleven in Providence, remembered how investigators swarmed the store and cashiers stopped accepting food stamp benefits until just a few months ago.
"I didn't play that food stamp game," said Carmon, who uses the program for herself and two children.
"When I use my food stamps, I treasure them so much," she said."
So when are they going to get around the tons of elderly who sell cigarettes and beer/booze for food stamps, or the casinos that still let you use a food stamp debit card in their ATMs to receive cash...for gambling, what else? This went on in New Orleans with FEMA cards, and went on in California at casinos.
Even vouchers get sold back and forth much like the dead presidents we use for cash now.
Whatever gets done with those debit cards is going to make money for someone other than the recipient--banks are going to take a transaction fee, merchants (or others) who convert them to cash are keeping some of the total value back, etc., so even going back to the old system (or a voucher system) wouldn't even help.
It seems to me the only way to prevent fraud among these programs is to literally hand out the items entitled to, with no money or money-substitutes ever being involved in the process--but that's Communism, isn't it? Then, we're handing out and not handing up.
"A criminal swindle of the nation's $64.7 billion food stamp program is playing out at small neighborhood stores around the country, where thousands of retailers are suspected of trading deals with customers, exchanging lesser amounts of cash for their stamps.
Authorities say the stamps are then redeemed as usual by the unscrupulous merchants at face value, netting them huge profits and diverting as much as $330 million in taxpayer funds annually a year. But the transactions are electronically recorded and federal investigators, wise to the practice, are closely monitoring thousands of convenience stories and mom-and-pop groceries in a push to halt the fraud.
Known as food stamp trafficking, the illegal buying or selling of food stamps is a federal offense that has resulted in 597 convictions nationwide and $197.4 million in fines, restitution and forfeiture orders, over the past three years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of the Inspector General. The USDA last month awarded a 10-year contract worth up to $25 million to Fairfax, Va.-based SRA International, Inc., to step up the technology used to combat fraud.
"It's misuse of the program. It's a misuse of taxpayer dollars at a tough time. Not only the people who need the program are having a tough time, but the people who are paying for the program are having a tough time, too," said Kevin Concannon, USDA Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services.
The fraud is almost always found among the 199,000 smaller stores that process 15 percent of the nation's total food stamp transactions, Concannon said.
In Providence, for example, federal prosecutors in August charged former 7-Eleven franchisee Syed Shah, 43, with conspiracy for letting customers turn in their stamps for lesser amounts of cash and purchase items like soap, over-the-counter medication and laundry detergent that are not allowed under USDA rules, court records show. Federal agents began investigating Shah's store in July 2008.
Agents said the practice brought an increase in sales.
Christopher Robinson, a USDA special agent, said Shah "believed that if they did not give customers cash for the food stamp benefits then they would lose that business."
Shah has been given a chance to negotiate a plea deal, court records show. His attorney, Scott Lutes, declined comment.
The modern food stamp program was created in 1977 to help low-income families. Benefits are loaded onto plastic debit cards that can only be redeemed at authorized stores. More than 45 million people were receiving benefits as of August, according to program figures, nearly half of them children.
Nationwide, 234,000 stores are authorized to accept food stamps, including 35,000 supermarkets where 85 percent of benefits are redeemed, Concannon said.
Last year, 931 stores nationally were dismissed from the food stamp program for trafficking and 907 others were sanctioned for lesser violations — 37 percent of the nearly 5,000 retailers being investigated. A March USDA report found more than 8 percent of the large and small stores, 210,000 in all, allowed people to cash in their benefits between 2006 and 2008.
The analytical tools officials are turning to have paid off, they say. Even though food stamp spending has ballooned from $22.7 billion to $64.7 billion since 1995, the misuse of benefits has dropped from four cents to a penny on every dollar spent, said Food and Nutrition Service spokesman Aaron Lavallee.
The USDA says it's enhancing the computerized tools used by fraud investigators to track illegal transactions by using geospatial analysis to identify scammers, scanning social media sites for evidence of fraud and using mathematical formulas to zero in on retailer abuses. The agency uses a massive database to track transactions and flag possible scamming stores.
Red flags include spikes in redemptions at stores or customers spending most or all of their monthly benefits during a single shopping trip.
The agency has told states that they can strip benefits from people who sell them online or use them to purchase beverages that have hefty bottle redemption rates, only to cash in on the bottle return, Concannon said.
USDA last month urged states to examine food stamp recipients who shopped at stores where trafficking occurred, he said.
Investigators said redemptions at Shah's store skyrocketed from $228,000 in 2008 to nearly $1 million last year and far exceeded that of other 7-Eleven stores.
Shah told Robinson there was a system for arranging the deals.
"If a customer was very loyal, and used his store on a regular basis, then they would charge these customers less to provide them with cash back for their food stamps," Robinson said.
The affidavit did not disclose how much investigators believe Shah fraudulently pocketed in benefits. Shah told investigators he lost the franchise last year because he violated food stamp program rules, according to an affidavit.
A 7-Eleven spokeswoman said Shah was stripped of his franchise after the store conducted its own investigation. Margaret Chabris said 7-Eleven has access to its franchises' sales activity and can identify fraud. She added the store is now run by 7-Eleven's corporate operation.
"He's taking people, like, stupid for their money because the people let them do it. That's bad," said Zenaida Velez, 46, who lives near the 7-Eleven Shah formerly owned. Velez said the $375 she gets in monthly food stamp benefits doesn't cover the cost of feeding her three children.
"That's a shame," Velez said. "They give it for the kids."
Earlier this year, two brothers from Somalia were each sentenced to five years in federal prison after investigators found their small convenience store in Wyoming, Mich. trafficked about $400,000 in benefits for food stamps and Women, Infants and Children benefits over four years, according to USDA inspectors. Investigators also found the brothers conspired with another retailer in Ypsilanti, Mich., to move more than $300,000 illegally to the Middle East and Africa through an unlicensed money system.
The fraud has even touched the restaurants, where several states have set up programs to let food stamp recipients buy hot meals.
A California restaurant owner was sentenced in February to more than three years in federal prison for skimming $1.3 million in food stamp benefits by depleting electronic benefit transfer cards of their balances — one cent at a time, according to investigators.
Tyra Carmon, 40, who occasionally shopped at Shah's 7-Eleven in Providence, remembered how investigators swarmed the store and cashiers stopped accepting food stamp benefits until just a few months ago.
"I didn't play that food stamp game," said Carmon, who uses the program for herself and two children.
"When I use my food stamps, I treasure them so much," she said."
So when are they going to get around the tons of elderly who sell cigarettes and beer/booze for food stamps, or the casinos that still let you use a food stamp debit card in their ATMs to receive cash...for gambling, what else? This went on in New Orleans with FEMA cards, and went on in California at casinos.
Even vouchers get sold back and forth much like the dead presidents we use for cash now.
Whatever gets done with those debit cards is going to make money for someone other than the recipient--banks are going to take a transaction fee, merchants (or others) who convert them to cash are keeping some of the total value back, etc., so even going back to the old system (or a voucher system) wouldn't even help.
It seems to me the only way to prevent fraud among these programs is to literally hand out the items entitled to, with no money or money-substitutes ever being involved in the process--but that's Communism, isn't it? Then, we're handing out and not handing up.
Childhood Obesity Fears Gone Amok--Parents Accused of Starving Baby to Avoid Chilhood Obesity
From Yahoo Health.
"A Wisconsin couple has been charged with one felony count of child neglect. Christopher and Mary Sultze, of Appleton, are accused of starving their baby to keep her from becoming obese, according to the AP.
The baby was born weighing a little over eight pounds. Allegedly the baby gained only five pounds in fourteen months. She was born in July of 2010 and weighed only thirteen pounds in September. One doctor said the baby had no subcutaneous fat, another said she would have to weigh twenty-two pounds more to make her age charts.
The baby's medical condition was a mystery to physicians when she did not gain weight. They tracked her progress, or lack of it, over months. The doctors ran tests to see if there was a medical problem that was interfering with her weight gain. After the baby was admitted to the hospital, she gained eight ounces in one day. The parents were extremely upset at the suggestion of feeding their baby more calories. The parents wanted to remove their girl from the hospital against doctors advice. The father said he did not want obese or fat kids, and he was afraid the baby would get fat at the hospital.
The father said he had a blocked artery at the age of 25. It is not clear if reports that large babies have a tendency to become obese, according to USA Today, made any difference in the parents starvation tactics. While no one wants an obese baby, it is not clear that large babies automatically go on to become obese. Doctors are not in total agreement about putting any baby on a strict diet, says MSNBC. Avoiding putting juice in bottles and having regular mealtimes with the whole family seem to indicate sensible ways to reduce undue infant weight gain.
Christopher Sultze, 35, was released on bond and was ordered to have no contact with the child involved. Mary Sultze, 36, waived a preliminary hearing, so she could continue caring for her other three children. She cannot have contact with the infant she is accused of starving. No report on the condition, age or weight of the remaining children was given.
The couple could face a year and a half in prison and $25,000 in fines."
Considering the amount and variety of contradictory medical news lately, I don't really blame them for becoming confused and hyper-vigilant, but listening to the pediatrician and breast feeding should've been paramount.
"A Wisconsin couple has been charged with one felony count of child neglect. Christopher and Mary Sultze, of Appleton, are accused of starving their baby to keep her from becoming obese, according to the AP.
The baby was born weighing a little over eight pounds. Allegedly the baby gained only five pounds in fourteen months. She was born in July of 2010 and weighed only thirteen pounds in September. One doctor said the baby had no subcutaneous fat, another said she would have to weigh twenty-two pounds more to make her age charts.
The baby's medical condition was a mystery to physicians when she did not gain weight. They tracked her progress, or lack of it, over months. The doctors ran tests to see if there was a medical problem that was interfering with her weight gain. After the baby was admitted to the hospital, she gained eight ounces in one day. The parents were extremely upset at the suggestion of feeding their baby more calories. The parents wanted to remove their girl from the hospital against doctors advice. The father said he did not want obese or fat kids, and he was afraid the baby would get fat at the hospital.
The father said he had a blocked artery at the age of 25. It is not clear if reports that large babies have a tendency to become obese, according to USA Today, made any difference in the parents starvation tactics. While no one wants an obese baby, it is not clear that large babies automatically go on to become obese. Doctors are not in total agreement about putting any baby on a strict diet, says MSNBC. Avoiding putting juice in bottles and having regular mealtimes with the whole family seem to indicate sensible ways to reduce undue infant weight gain.
Christopher Sultze, 35, was released on bond and was ordered to have no contact with the child involved. Mary Sultze, 36, waived a preliminary hearing, so she could continue caring for her other three children. She cannot have contact with the infant she is accused of starving. No report on the condition, age or weight of the remaining children was given.
The couple could face a year and a half in prison and $25,000 in fines."
Considering the amount and variety of contradictory medical news lately, I don't really blame them for becoming confused and hyper-vigilant, but listening to the pediatrician and breast feeding should've been paramount.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Why You Forgot What You Were Just Doing
From the Body Odd. I thought it was just Old Batdom setting in. At least I know where my keys are!
"Have you ever walked into a room and realized you don’t remember what you’re doing there? Yeah, us too. Well thankfully science finally explains why: It’s the doorway’s fault, a new study finds.
“When you go from room to room, your brain identifies each room as a new event and sets a new memory trace to capture the new event,” says study author Gabriel Radvansky, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Notre Dame.
Like a chapter marker, doorways end old episodes and begin new ones, as far as your brain is concerned. This makes it difficult to retrieve older memories because they’ve already been filed away, Radvansky says.
Radvansky suggests physically carrying a reminder of what your intent is: “For example, if you want to go from the living room to the kitchen to get a snack, you may forget why you went to the kitchen when you get there because this is a new event, and you may have been distracted. But, it would be easier to remember if you walked into the kitchen with something to remind yourself of what you wanted, such as a bowl.”
Don’t keep bowls in the living room? That’s OK. Form your hand into a bowl shape when you walk to the kitchen. If you’re going from room to room to fetch a pair of scissors, hold your index and middle fingers in a scissor shape to help the memory stay intact."
I've been driving Hubby mad with my little written notes to myself (in a digital age).
"Have you ever walked into a room and realized you don’t remember what you’re doing there? Yeah, us too. Well thankfully science finally explains why: It’s the doorway’s fault, a new study finds.
“When you go from room to room, your brain identifies each room as a new event and sets a new memory trace to capture the new event,” says study author Gabriel Radvansky, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Notre Dame.
Like a chapter marker, doorways end old episodes and begin new ones, as far as your brain is concerned. This makes it difficult to retrieve older memories because they’ve already been filed away, Radvansky says.
Radvansky suggests physically carrying a reminder of what your intent is: “For example, if you want to go from the living room to the kitchen to get a snack, you may forget why you went to the kitchen when you get there because this is a new event, and you may have been distracted. But, it would be easier to remember if you walked into the kitchen with something to remind yourself of what you wanted, such as a bowl.”
Don’t keep bowls in the living room? That’s OK. Form your hand into a bowl shape when you walk to the kitchen. If you’re going from room to room to fetch a pair of scissors, hold your index and middle fingers in a scissor shape to help the memory stay intact."
I've been driving Hubby mad with my little written notes to myself (in a digital age).
For Nutritional Punch, You Can't Beat Plant-Based Foods
From HealthDay News. Oh yeah? Well SOMEBODY did!
"Those in the know consider fruits and vegetables among the healthiest foods around.
U.S. government health experts now encourage Americans to fill half their plates with fruits and vegetables. Weight Watchers' new system assigns no points to nearly all fruits and vegetables, making them a truly "guilt-free" option.
But, really, what's the big deal? Why is it so important to eat more veggies?
Nutritionists can rattle off a long list of reasons when asked that question. Vegetables and fruits are dense in nutrients but light on calories. They contain rich amounts of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fiber. Eating more veggies and fruits has been linked to decreased risk for such health problems as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer.
Despite this, many people seem to have a hard time eating vegetables, something that's developed the reputation of being a chore rather than a pleasure. President Barack Obama even likened the need to finish difficult debt ceiling negotiations to the need to "eat our peas."
More than nine of 10 Americans consume fewer fruits and vegetables than the daily amount recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's dietary guidelines, which ranges from 2 cups to 6½ cups, according to the "Fruits and Veggies -- More Matters" health initiative, a national program aimed at increasing consumption of plant-based foods.
"I would say many of my current clients get maybe a cup of vegetables and maybe a fruit throughout the day, if I'm being generous," said Jessica Crandall, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator in Denver and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.
Getting a serving of vegetables or fruit is not difficult because a single serving is not a large amount, said Angela Ginn, a nutrition education coordinator and diabetes educator at the University of Maryland Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology at Maryland General Hospital, who's also a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.
"A whole cup raw or a half-cup cooked is considered a serving for vegetables," Ginn said.
But there's a lot of nutritional power packed into that cup or half-cup. Though the precise benefit varies by type of fruit or vegetable, it could include a significant amount of:
Even the micronutrients that give fruits and vegetables their color are important sources of antioxidants, which have been shown to help prevent an array of diseases.
"Your phytonutrients that have all those vibrant colors, those are things that fight against chronic diseases," Ginn said. "You find them in your fruits and vegetables more in abundance than you will in whole grains or in meat or dairy products."
According to Crandall:
Fruits and vegetables also contain a large amount of fiber. Fiber has a number of health benefits and also helps make people feel more full, reducing their consumption of other higher-calorie foods, Crandall said.
"Most people think fiber is just good for digestion," she said, "but it's also helpful for lowering cholesterol, keeping your blood sugars stable and helping you feel full throughout your day."
But even those who are already sold on eating more fruits and veggies sometimes find it tricky to work sufficient amounts into their day-to-day eating, say both Crandall and Ginn. They suggest getting creative.
For instance, work veggies into recipes that don't normally contain them. "It's just the little things you can do, even if you add grated carrot to your favorite muffin or grated zucchini to your pancakes," Ginn said. "You can sneak them into your food in ways where you don't even taste them, but you receive the nutritional benefit."
They also suggest cutting up fruits and veggies so they're bite-sized and available for snacking. As Crandall said, "Make a vegetable tray so they are easier to use, so you don't have a cucumber rotting in the back of the fridge."
And don't worry about whether you're eating fresh, frozen or canned vegetables. They're all good for you. Fresh or frozen vegetables might have slightly more nutrients, Ginn and Crandall said, but canned veggies are cheaper and available throughout the year. Just be sure to rinse canned veggies, to reduce the amount of sodium they contain, or buy low-sodium alternatives."
So in order to AVOID all the sugar that comes with many of these produce items, we should probably start buying fresh, peeling the coat off, and eating IT, instead of the whole fruit/vegetable? That's where all the nutrients and fiber hang out anyway--just under the skin!
Where are the nutrients in a can of something that's been sitting in the store for a year or two?
As for the fiber and water keeping people full-feeling, doesn't fat and protein do the same thing with little sugar? Without sugar, there's greatly-reduced risk of cancers, osteoporosis, bad teeth, and all the other reasons given above for eating colorful fruit in the first place.
I'm just sayin'. I think Primal Toad would say with me, and possibly one or more Paleo gurus. Eddie (from the link at the top) would probably say to screw the produce altogether.
It's just nice to know the Powers That Be may finally be giving up on the grain gravy train when it comes to nutrition know-how. Now they just have to find a way out from under the influence/policy/dependence game they've created for themselves.
"Those in the know consider fruits and vegetables among the healthiest foods around.
U.S. government health experts now encourage Americans to fill half their plates with fruits and vegetables. Weight Watchers' new system assigns no points to nearly all fruits and vegetables, making them a truly "guilt-free" option.
But, really, what's the big deal? Why is it so important to eat more veggies?
Nutritionists can rattle off a long list of reasons when asked that question. Vegetables and fruits are dense in nutrients but light on calories. They contain rich amounts of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fiber. Eating more veggies and fruits has been linked to decreased risk for such health problems as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer.
Despite this, many people seem to have a hard time eating vegetables, something that's developed the reputation of being a chore rather than a pleasure. President Barack Obama even likened the need to finish difficult debt ceiling negotiations to the need to "eat our peas."
More than nine of 10 Americans consume fewer fruits and vegetables than the daily amount recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's dietary guidelines, which ranges from 2 cups to 6½ cups, according to the "Fruits and Veggies -- More Matters" health initiative, a national program aimed at increasing consumption of plant-based foods.
"I would say many of my current clients get maybe a cup of vegetables and maybe a fruit throughout the day, if I'm being generous," said Jessica Crandall, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator in Denver and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.
Getting a serving of vegetables or fruit is not difficult because a single serving is not a large amount, said Angela Ginn, a nutrition education coordinator and diabetes educator at the University of Maryland Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology at Maryland General Hospital, who's also a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.
"A whole cup raw or a half-cup cooked is considered a serving for vegetables," Ginn said.
But there's a lot of nutritional power packed into that cup or half-cup. Though the precise benefit varies by type of fruit or vegetable, it could include a significant amount of:
Calcium, which promotes healthy bones and teeth, and is needed for proper functioning of muscles and nerves.
Folate, which reduces a woman's chances of having a child with a birth defect.
Iron, which is necessary for healthy blood and cell function.
Magnesium, which prevents muscle cramping and high blood pressure and is needed for healthy bones and proper enzymatic function.
Potassium, which helps maintain healthy blood pressure.
Vitamin A, which keeps eyes and skin healthy and helps protect the body against infection.
Vitamin C, which aids in healing cuts or wounds and helps keep teeth and gums healthy.
Even the micronutrients that give fruits and vegetables their color are important sources of antioxidants, which have been shown to help prevent an array of diseases.
"Your phytonutrients that have all those vibrant colors, those are things that fight against chronic diseases," Ginn said. "You find them in your fruits and vegetables more in abundance than you will in whole grains or in meat or dairy products."
According to Crandall:
Blue and purple fruits and vegetables contain anthocyanins, which have been shown to help fight some cancers and are helpful in anti-aging and memory function. They are found in blueberries, blackberries, plums, grapes, figs and raisins.
Green fruits and vegetables contain luteins, which lower cancer risk and help promote better vision and strong bones and teeth. They are found in avocados, kiwi fruit, pears and apples.
Red fruits and vegetables contain anthocyanins and lycopene, which can help keep the heart healthy, maintain better memory function and lower the risk for some cancers.
Fruits and vegetables also contain a large amount of fiber. Fiber has a number of health benefits and also helps make people feel more full, reducing their consumption of other higher-calorie foods, Crandall said.
"Most people think fiber is just good for digestion," she said, "but it's also helpful for lowering cholesterol, keeping your blood sugars stable and helping you feel full throughout your day."
But even those who are already sold on eating more fruits and veggies sometimes find it tricky to work sufficient amounts into their day-to-day eating, say both Crandall and Ginn. They suggest getting creative.
For instance, work veggies into recipes that don't normally contain them. "It's just the little things you can do, even if you add grated carrot to your favorite muffin or grated zucchini to your pancakes," Ginn said. "You can sneak them into your food in ways where you don't even taste them, but you receive the nutritional benefit."
They also suggest cutting up fruits and veggies so they're bite-sized and available for snacking. As Crandall said, "Make a vegetable tray so they are easier to use, so you don't have a cucumber rotting in the back of the fridge."
And don't worry about whether you're eating fresh, frozen or canned vegetables. They're all good for you. Fresh or frozen vegetables might have slightly more nutrients, Ginn and Crandall said, but canned veggies are cheaper and available throughout the year. Just be sure to rinse canned veggies, to reduce the amount of sodium they contain, or buy low-sodium alternatives."
So in order to AVOID all the sugar that comes with many of these produce items, we should probably start buying fresh, peeling the coat off, and eating IT, instead of the whole fruit/vegetable? That's where all the nutrients and fiber hang out anyway--just under the skin!
Where are the nutrients in a can of something that's been sitting in the store for a year or two?
As for the fiber and water keeping people full-feeling, doesn't fat and protein do the same thing with little sugar? Without sugar, there's greatly-reduced risk of cancers, osteoporosis, bad teeth, and all the other reasons given above for eating colorful fruit in the first place.
I'm just sayin'. I think Primal Toad would say with me, and possibly one or more Paleo gurus. Eddie (from the link at the top) would probably say to screw the produce altogether.
It's just nice to know the Powers That Be may finally be giving up on the grain gravy train when it comes to nutrition know-how. Now they just have to find a way out from under the influence/policy/dependence game they've created for themselves.
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