Drug Farms in Our Head – Eat What We Think
"Every time we fire a thought in our brain, we make chemicals, which produce feelings and other reactions in the body.... The three means by which we communicate chemically are neurotransmitters, peptides, and hormones." -- Evolve Your Brain, Joe Dispenza, 2007.Turns out that our incredible human bodies are just little drug factories cranking out all sorts of chemicals that make us who we are. Our thoughts produce emotions that produce chemicals that produce reactions and so on (recursiv...
Paying the Price: Kidney Stones Rise in Kids
This past October, the New York Times had a story reporting on the rise in kidney stones in children. Putting aside melamine – the now infamous substance that Chinese manufacturers used to phony up the protein results in infant formula, pet food (and likely more) – apparently one factor is excessive salt.We’re not talking just salty chips and fries either. It’s packaged and processed foods and even sports drinks. Also linked to kidney stones are the sweeteners used in sodas (which ...
Green Food: More Than Popeye Imagined
We all know that greens are good for us. Popeye had spinach, George Bush the Elder had broccoli (ok, it was his nemesis, but that's another story). Hopefully, most of us who have opened our eyes to the role of food in our lives now eat and enjoy lots of greens in lots of delicious ways (kale and potato soup, spinach with garlic, tatsoi salad, etc).Now, there’s a new type of green – the eco-friendly type – that is all the rage now that the world seems to be unraveling at the seams: ...
Food A.D. Artificial Digestion That Is.
Yesterday, a story on foodnavigator.com reported on the so-called "model gut," developed by scientists at the Institute of Food Research (IFR) in the UK. The IFR says the product, first announced in 2006, is the only model of the human stomach that simulates the physical, mechanical, and biochemical processes that occur during digestion.The ostensible purpose (aside from a licensable product that food and drug companies wanna buy) is to improve food screening, drug development, and to ...
Are You Thirsty? Honest Tea? Honestly!
In an issue of Organic Processing, an organic industry trade mag published this fall (yes, odd as it seems, it is an industry), Seth Goldman, the President of Honest Tea (over $27 million in U.S. sales last year) defended his decision to partner with Coca-Cola. He explains that he can still do good, do even more... that his company can still walk the walk on integrity and values. Maybe.Putting aside any issues with the Coca-Cola Company (for another day, that is, because we sure got 'em), ...
In a Rut? Create Your Gut!
and security of our food supply is not all there is to know in order to wake up and eat better. Of course, we all want clean good food. But, one of the most important concepts to help you wake up is the phenomenon of conscious metabolism. Experience shows that just as we can literally "change our mind," by changing how we think, perceive and interact with the world that surrounds us, so too can we "change our metabolism."There is much talk about how the body's metabolic meter, which ...
What You Don’t Know… GMO and What You Eat
How many of us have ever heard of the Codex Alimentarius?Not many, we suspect. Which is too bad because it affects the food we eat, whether we know it or not. The Codex, simply stated, is an international body that adopts standards, codes of practice, guidelines and other recommendations for all things food-related (labelling, additives, hygeine, pesticides, etc).As it is intimately connected with and its standards are referenced in trade and trade agreements, it can also have the force of ...
Got De Skills? Losing the Art of Knowing How
Recently, we heard a lecturer who spoke about the de-skilling of the Western population. Apparently, we no longer perform tasks that for generations before us were basic to daily life. We cannot build, fix, construct, process, and create as our ancestors did. This is definitely true when it comes to how people eat. These days, there are folks who can barely do more than open a package to heat something up, preferring to order in, carry-out or let someone else do it. Bad idea.Fact is, you ...
R-E-S-P-E-C-T…What Good Clean Food Means To Me
Clean Food. Real Food. Good Food. We hear about it all the time. For each of us, it means something slightly different. Some of us think about terrorism (think "poison-the-food-supply" as terror tactic), tainted products (spinach anyone?), unprocessed food or tasty food. To us, we think it's all about respect.How often do you think about the people who are part of the "food chain?" These are the folks that plant, grow, process and prepare what you are putting into your mouth. For most of ...
It’s On the Label, OK? Now Get Off Our Backs!
A new coordinated effort from some of the world's largest food companies will be announced next week at the American Dietetics Association annual conference -- the Smart Choices Program. With backers that include food companies Kraft Foods, General Mills Inc., Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc., ConAgra, Kellog Co., and Unilever US, retailers like WalMart, and public health-oriented groups such as the Tufts' Friedman School of Nutrition Science and the American Heart Association, it's a ...
