#health #nutrition #bpa #FDA
Wow. Following on from my bpa post the other day on canned food here's a few more things to worry about in your food supply and your health. Food is medicine and our nutritional source's are in many cases bad medicine. They are affecting our health.
Food Horror!!
It is hard to understand how we can end up with so many threats in our food supply. When you consider how long some of the technologies we use have been around why the effects on nutrition and health haven't been better studied and reported is a mystery that opens us all up for serious health risks.
Take the example in the article of microwave popcorn releasing a chemical into the popped corn that causes infertility. We know this and the microwave popcorn is sold without any kind of warning label? Even though companies are voluntarily phasing the chemicals out by 2015 so they obviously know about the health issues? All this with an FDA watchdog who should be protecting us?
The mind really does boggle. I guess it is time to get more serious about forming a local food coop to source fresh groceries from local farmers who grow organically.
Theoretically the best health move you can make is to eat plenty of fresh living food like vegetables and fruits that haven't been treated with tons of chemicals and pesticides. But eating vegetables from a can is obviously now out. Fresh vegetables can be contaminated like the recent Lysteria outbreak here in Denver from Rocky Mountain grown Cantelopes.
At the point we are at with the technology and knowledge we have why is it so hard to come up with a guide on eating for health and protection of the nutritional values of our food?
Showing posts with label Nutrition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nutrition. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Food as Medicine
#health #environment
It is probably not news to those of you who have been following me for a while that I have way too many ideas and not enough time or resources to implement them all.
One is to create a budget medicine website. The idea being that you take the easily available natural products and you document what conditions / ailments they help people with. You invite in a community to weigh in on the recommendations, to talk about side effects or their own personal experiences, and to provide advice and help for those who are looking into using these alternatives.
Before a lot of the drug companies came along there were natural remedies passed down from generation to generation and used with some success. In some cases drug companies are using elements of those natural remedies in their drugs.
For example red yeast rice has the same effect as lovastatin does on cholesterol and has somehow ended up being banned in the US. I use a hot drink made from cayenne pepper, honey, and lemon to cure my sore throats instantly. I take tumeric and cayenne to help fight inflammation in my body and I read studies have shown tumeric works almost as well as ibuprofen . I take gin soaked raisins which seem to help me with arthritis pain (psychosomatic?)
We are at a point in America where way too many people can't afford medication. In other parts of the world the medications just aren't available. A lot of folks don't realize that there are some cheap alternatives to drugs. In some cases I am convinced that after paying for their meds people don't have enough let to buy food to eat right which means their health conditions are just going to compound over time. Wouldn't it be great if they could alter their diet and gain a lot of the benefits they currently experience from their meds without the costs? It may not be possible for every medication but at least having options makes people a little better off.
Anyway this article made me think once again about that goal.
This extinction will have a big impact on us as a species as well
A project about 12 down my list of things to do. Maybe one day to have the funds to rigorously test natural foods and herbs against big pharma drugs and quantify the results. No one is throwing tons of money around to determine exactly what impact asparagus and other foods have on disease.
An Ayurvedic Doctor once told me 'food is medicine and medicine is food'. Everything we take into our body has an effect on us. One of the keys to good health is to understanding what that effect is. It will be different from one person to the next but there are certain common results that are observed and can be leveraged. If we take the time to capture and analyze the data and share it.
Stay healthy.
It is probably not news to those of you who have been following me for a while that I have way too many ideas and not enough time or resources to implement them all.
One is to create a budget medicine website. The idea being that you take the easily available natural products and you document what conditions / ailments they help people with. You invite in a community to weigh in on the recommendations, to talk about side effects or their own personal experiences, and to provide advice and help for those who are looking into using these alternatives.
Before a lot of the drug companies came along there were natural remedies passed down from generation to generation and used with some success. In some cases drug companies are using elements of those natural remedies in their drugs.
For example red yeast rice has the same effect as lovastatin does on cholesterol and has somehow ended up being banned in the US. I use a hot drink made from cayenne pepper, honey, and lemon to cure my sore throats instantly. I take tumeric and cayenne to help fight inflammation in my body and I read studies have shown tumeric works almost as well as ibuprofen . I take gin soaked raisins which seem to help me with arthritis pain (psychosomatic?)
We are at a point in America where way too many people can't afford medication. In other parts of the world the medications just aren't available. A lot of folks don't realize that there are some cheap alternatives to drugs. In some cases I am convinced that after paying for their meds people don't have enough let to buy food to eat right which means their health conditions are just going to compound over time. Wouldn't it be great if they could alter their diet and gain a lot of the benefits they currently experience from their meds without the costs? It may not be possible for every medication but at least having options makes people a little better off.
Anyway this article made me think once again about that goal.
This extinction will have a big impact on us as a species as well
A project about 12 down my list of things to do. Maybe one day to have the funds to rigorously test natural foods and herbs against big pharma drugs and quantify the results. No one is throwing tons of money around to determine exactly what impact asparagus and other foods have on disease.
An Ayurvedic Doctor once told me 'food is medicine and medicine is food'. Everything we take into our body has an effect on us. One of the keys to good health is to understanding what that effect is. It will be different from one person to the next but there are certain common results that are observed and can be leveraged. If we take the time to capture and analyze the data and share it.
Stay healthy.
Would you like BPA with that?
#health #nutrition #bpa
I replaced all our plastic storage containers and dishes a year or so ago with glass and silicone lids. Specifically to discard the risk of BPA. BPA stands for Bisphenol_A which is either harmless or deadly depending on who you believe.
Bisphenol_A
Pro BPA site
Another Pro BPA .org site
I don't really care if it is bad or not. I'd just rather not be exposed to it if I can avoid it.
It turns out it didn't make a bean of difference since we didn't stop eating canned food over that time and this study shows some mind blowing levels of BPA in people who do eat a lot of canned products.
BPA levels in people who eat canned food
We've been canning for more than a hundred years although I don't know when they added the plastic lining on the inside. I am assuming this lining is leaching the BPA into the food. I guess I can't complain too much since before the lining we were dealing with botulism and listeria and other fun goodies from the canned goods. But with the BPA issue being known for years and given the longevity of canning as a food preservation technique, you would think someone would have looked at the process at some point and asked 'is there any health risks associated with what we are doing here?'
Why wouldn't BPA be checked for? Perhaps more importantly why would there be non profit websites protesting that BPA is perfectly safe?! Does it strike anyone else as odd that a non profit would make a mission out of protecting a version of plastic?
Now I am wondering at the logistics of creating some sort of home BPA test. Either on the products or on BPA levels in our own blood streams. Like a skin prick test.
My gut feeling tells me BPA is not good for anyone and with two little boys in the house the last thing I want is to expose them to it. So why not go down the glass route over plastic storage and limit family exposure to it where possible? I haven't heard many people say glass was toxic or potentially gave prepubescent kids hormonal development earlier than they should.
One of the ways I want to eventually change the world is to build a company that simply independently monitors and reviews products and brands that are in our food chain. The government doesn't do a good enough job. Not just on BPA but on a whole variety of food issues.
Definitely time for us to limit canned foods in our home. What about you?
I replaced all our plastic storage containers and dishes a year or so ago with glass and silicone lids. Specifically to discard the risk of BPA. BPA stands for Bisphenol_A which is either harmless or deadly depending on who you believe.
Bisphenol_A
Pro BPA site
Another Pro BPA .org site
I don't really care if it is bad or not. I'd just rather not be exposed to it if I can avoid it.
It turns out it didn't make a bean of difference since we didn't stop eating canned food over that time and this study shows some mind blowing levels of BPA in people who do eat a lot of canned products.
BPA levels in people who eat canned food
We've been canning for more than a hundred years although I don't know when they added the plastic lining on the inside. I am assuming this lining is leaching the BPA into the food. I guess I can't complain too much since before the lining we were dealing with botulism and listeria and other fun goodies from the canned goods. But with the BPA issue being known for years and given the longevity of canning as a food preservation technique, you would think someone would have looked at the process at some point and asked 'is there any health risks associated with what we are doing here?'
Why wouldn't BPA be checked for? Perhaps more importantly why would there be non profit websites protesting that BPA is perfectly safe?! Does it strike anyone else as odd that a non profit would make a mission out of protecting a version of plastic?
Now I am wondering at the logistics of creating some sort of home BPA test. Either on the products or on BPA levels in our own blood streams. Like a skin prick test.
My gut feeling tells me BPA is not good for anyone and with two little boys in the house the last thing I want is to expose them to it. So why not go down the glass route over plastic storage and limit family exposure to it where possible? I haven't heard many people say glass was toxic or potentially gave prepubescent kids hormonal development earlier than they should.
One of the ways I want to eventually change the world is to build a company that simply independently monitors and reviews products and brands that are in our food chain. The government doesn't do a good enough job. Not just on BPA but on a whole variety of food issues.
Definitely time for us to limit canned foods in our home. What about you?
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