Natural Communities Magazine A magazine devoted to the local natural wellness culture.

In spite of increased awareness of the role of food and lifestyle in chronic, degenerative disease, Americans continue to eat junk like there is no tomorrow. For some, chronic food indulgence can rightly be called an addiction. What do we do when we can’t stop eating food that will kill us in the end? Please consider the following.

1. Be clear on what you want.

To stop food addiction, you need to want something positive, ultimately, that will make sacrificing food worthwhile. Many experts on motivation and personal discipline, however, claim that you have to want your end goal so badly that you vow to allow nothing to get in your way. I don’t agree. With this vow tactic, we tend to pump ourselves up, psyche ourselves out and set ourselves up for self-sabotage. Let’s get real. Don’t run rough shod all over yourself. It isn’t necessary and leads to failure nearly every time.

Relax and think about what’s important to you. Why do you want to give up harmful (or harmful amounts) of food? Better health? More energy? A more attractive physique? Allow yourself to feel this desire. Imagine getting what you want and acknowledge how wonderful it will be to accomplish it. That will do for now. It is OK if you aren’t 100% convinced that you can do it. We deal with doubts and self-sabotage in step two.

2. Respect your cravings.

This is why pumping yourself up doesn’t work. It sets in motion an opposing set of reactions that will get you in the end. Your cravings for bad food are real. If you’ve been giving in for years, your body has probably developed a chemical dependency. You may use food for stress reduction and not have effective alternatives. More importantly, you may have a part of you that simply doesn’t care about your health. And this is the kicker.

At the risk of being perceived as a pessimist, I will say the following: Life-long smokers, heavy drinkers and drug addicts commonly admit in counseling that they just “don’t care” if their habits end up killing them. Their lack of caring about their life makes them nearly impossible to help. Many believe that addicts need to hit “rock bottom” before they decide to take control of themselves. Often, however, rock bottom is their final resting place.

Why the extreme example? Because we need to learn to respect the power of our darker cravings if we are to heal them (Respect. Not indulge.) On the psychological side of the health equation, cravings represent deep, unmet needs that have long been ignored. This is powerful stuff. Most of us live in such a distracted, stressed out state that our deeper needs for love, acceptance and other forms of psychological nourishment are scarcely recognizable. If you think I am being an extremist here, just consider how many people willfully throw away decades of their lives for a daily pack of cigarettes. Would they do that if they were otherwise completely fulfilled?

Acknowledge that your persistence in eating foods that harm you may involve a deeper lack of caring on your part. Respect it. Consider why this may be the case and honor this powerful part of you. When you feel your food cravings escalate, take a mental step back and notice your internal dialogue. Do you say, “Oh, who cares? It doesn’t really matter if I eat this.” Healing this tendency requires patience. You can’t force this part of you to change any more than you can force anyone to change. If, however, you accept and respect this part of you, without attempting to coerce yourself, you will find yourself in a more cooperative state more of the time. Progress is sure to follow!

3. Do what naturally slender people do.

NLP trainers have studied naturally slender people and discovered a common pattern in their eating habits. Naturally slender people enjoy food, even junk food. What sets them apart is their ease in ending a meal or snack before they over do it. How? Rather than eating for taste alone, natural slender people eat for how it makes them feel. They vividly imagine how each bite of food will make them feel minutes and even hours after they swallow.

Try it during your next meal. Before taking each bite, imagine chewing, swallowing and digesting the food over the next several hours. How will it make you feel? Do you imagine feeling light and energetic? Or will that next bite of food push you over the edge toward a bloated, energy-drained next several hours? When you get beyond the taste of the next bite and onto the feeling he food will give you, your motivation is much easier to shift away from food indulgence and toward feeling good!

About the author:
Mike Bundrant is a retired mental health counselor, NLP trainer and publisher of Healthy Times Newspaper.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033038_food_addiction_solutions.html#ixzz1SYyIVUJX

In what is perhaps the first major demonstration of courageous opposition to government tyranny, members of a Louisville, Ky.-based food cooperative recently put local and state regulatory officials in their place.

After an official from the Louisville Metro Department of Health and Wellness (LMDHW) issued both its own cease-and-desist order, as well as a quarantine order from the Kentucky Department of Health Services, against co-op members obtaining their own raw milk, members defied the order and took their milk anyway, replacing the two orders with their own signed note declaring personal ownership of their rightfully-obtained raw milk.

It all began when an inspector from LMDHW showed up at the co-op meeting spot, which in this case was a church basement. The inspector proceeded to issue the two orders to one of the co-op administrators, as well as to the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF), a lawyer from whom was contacted after the inspector arrived on the scene.

But as members began to arrive to pick up their milk and noticed the orders, they jointly wrote and signed a simple note declaring that both the milk and the cows it came from were their own personal property, and they proceeded to take the milk in defiance of the phony orders.

The incident proves yet again the woeful ignorance of government workers who, in this case, did not even understand the legal role of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concerning food. In their “Notice and order of quarantine / voluntary destruction,” officials wrote that the quarantine would remain until “all milk products … are shown to be in compliance with FDA and state of [Kentucky] food code,” even though the FDA has no such food code governing intrastate commerce.

The FDA, of course, is only permitted to regulate interstate commerce, not in-state food transactions like the ones that take place at the Louisville co-op. Not only are the co-op members not actually selling raw milk — they merely pick up what is already theirs under their legal herd share agreement — but none of the milk ever crosses state lines during its transaction time. And yet government workers had the audacity to issue a phony quarantine on this milk in the name of complying with made-up FDA guidelines.

In a similar act of courage, Wisconsin farmer Vernon Hershberger last year cut quarantine tape that was placed on his refrigerators by deputies and state inspectors after they decided that he was in violation of state laws concerning raw milk.

Hershberger did not actually sell the milk, but rather distributed it to the legal owners of his cows, which constituted his buying club members. Since deciding to defy that erroneous order, Hershberger has been distributing milk to his buying club members ever since, without any government interference.

These incidents and several others point to a shift in Americans’ approach to government tyranny, at least as it concerns raw milk. Honest citizens buying or otherwise obtaining honest food such as raw milk no longer appear willing to just lie down and take government abuse.

Hopefully the incidents also represent a change in the way governments respond to civil disobedience. As individuals increasingly band together and fight back against the abuse, it will send a clear message to Big Brother that “We the People” are in charge, and that they work for us.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032956_food_co-op_raw_milk.html#ixzz1Rnkmoyq3

Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS) holds that parents should not be allowed to exempt their children from vaccinations: at least not without some required medical “counseling.” Their article addresses vaccine-hesitant parents and how they are not heeding scientific evidence but buying into mistrust of government, and media and celebrity hype. Those parents who him-haw “complicate things,” “So new, innovative approaches are needed to reach vaccine-hesitant parents who are susceptible to the messages of the antivaccine folks.”

So what does this counseling consist of? Gathering ideas from different pro-vaccine groups, the article coaches doctors to use social media “intervention” and pressure, fear-raising statistics, getting the parent alone for one-on-one talk, ultimatums and cold shoulder (i.e. refusal to see children till vaccinated), appealing to their sense of community, and breaking down their fears using empathy.

But why would parents be concerned about vaccine safety? It’s not like they can read about the ingredients, find scientific data to the contrary, hear from bereaved parents or that the Vaccine Compensation Injury Program has doled out more than $1.8 trillion in vaccine-injury claims…oh, wait.

If only 2-3% of parents are adamantly opposed to vaccinations, as they say, then what are they worried about? They want laws to demand mandatory vaccinations for everyone, but in the meantime they want doctors to aggressively appeal to those parents who are teetering on the edge of refusal.

In fact, the state of Washington is leading the effort with quietly passed legislature requiring doctors to sign off on doctor-approved religious exemption provided by parents and file to the state.

Note: Dr. Paul Offit of PIDS who co-wrote the statement is paid handsomely by Big Pharma. His comments that a baby’s immune system would withstand 10,000 vaccinations appeared in Newsweek where he said it was closer to 100,000 vaccinations! He expects that to quell parents’ fears how exactly?

~Health Freedoms, healthfreedoms.org

Vaccine Baby Deaths

“The greatest lie ever told is that vaccines are safe and effective” – Dr. Len Horowitz
The Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society recently issued a position statement that “opposes any legislation or regulation that would allow children to be exempted from mandatory immunizations based simply on their parents, or, in the case of adolescents, their own secular personal beliefs.”

In the statement, Infectious Diseases in Children, editorial board member Paul A. Offit, MD and others said any legislation being considered should contain certain provisions; notably, that parents who are claiming exemptions be given counseling about the importance of immunization to their own children, as well as to the community overall.

Unfortunately they are not talking about genuine counseling but instead forced propaganda brain conditioning sessions.These are the terrorists I wrote about in my free e-book The Terror of Pediatric Medicine and now also in Humane Pediatrics. It was sad for me, tragically so, that Fukushima happened the week I launched both my pediatric site and this new book, which creates a new paradigm for the practice of pediatrics and the care of the very young. Most of the officials and pediatric organizations are staffed with human beings of questionable character and integrity for they cherish their poisonous vaccines more than life itself. Dr. Offit and all these others are the ones who need counseling about how to return to a humane state of consciousness. That really is, for all practical purposes a real impossibility, so I am not sure what should be done with the lot of them.

“The primary reason cited by parents who are reluctant or who refuse to vaccinate is concern over safety and efficacy of vaccines. Lack of trust in the government, the perception that their children were not at great risk and that vaccine-preventable diseases were not severe are additional reasons often given by parents,” goes a vaccinationist’s propaganda article.
The total award paid as of August 6, 2008 was $1,804,415,262.35.  — National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
On May 4, 2011 a new study by Neil Z. Miller and Gary S. Goldman was published online by SAGE, entitled “Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity?” This study is another in a long line of studies revealing evidence showing the more vaccines a baby receives, the more chance they have of dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
“Crib death” was so infrequent in the pre-vaccination era that it was not even mentioned in the statistics, but it started to climb in the 1950s with the spread of mass vaccination against diseases of childhood.  — Harris L. Coulter, PhD

Newborn babies are the most vulnerable of all beings. Vulnerability says it all when it comes to a newborn infant. It is easy to hurt most beings but little babies are the most vulnerable and the easiest to hurt. Parents are of course vulnerable to their infants vulnerability but most pediatricians would just squash both parents and their infants in their mania to vaccinate—to inject poisonous substances and heavy metals directly into their bloodstreams.

Children deserve the best medical treatment from the best form of medicine human intelligence can implement. What they get is the worst. Pediatricians start attacking babies almost the minute they come out of the womb. They are monstrous beasts and perhaps that label is too kind. One of the reasons civilization needs to crash hard is that these arrogant ones need to be extinguished from the human experience, purged from civilization so we can regain our humaneness.

Who Knows Best?

Many pediatricians refuse to offer services to parents who only want partial vaccines or who refuse them altogether, according to Infectious Diseases in Children editorial board member and practicing pediatrician, Richard Lander, MD. “At issue is the parents’ rights vs. that of the community or that of the minor,” Lander said in an interview. Lander thinks he knows what is best for the community and for minors but his assumptions and perceptions are based on a cruel arrogant type of medical consciousness. Doctors like Lander have both closed hearts and closed minds and cannot entertain the possibility that they have been terribly wrong about the vaccine question.

Dr. Stan Block says, “All of us in pediatrics know the routine for the two-month-old checkup. Perform the routine history and physical examination. Dispense routine advice. Administer routine vaccines.

Then the impasse begins. About 75% of parents are totally respectful of and adhere to our immunization recommendations.” The remaining 25 percent are scared witless of the dangers and side effects that pediatricians insist are not there but actually are there according to formal statistics in the government’s vaccine damage database. After all, the government pays out billions of dollars to parents whose children have been severely hurt by vaccines that your local card-carrying pediatrician will swear to his or her last breath are safe.

Dr. Ari Brown writes:

Suspicious parents can be reassured of vaccine safety with proper communication strategies, openness and empathy. There are four types of parents when it comes to vaccines: 1) believers—those who believe vaccination is safe and necessary; 2) relaxed—those who are cautious but still trust their physicians; 3) cautious—those who don’t really have a problem with vaccines until seeing media coverage or speaking with friends; and 4) the unconvinced—those who staunchly believe that not getting vaccinated is in the best interest of their child. Pediatricians should target the cautious parents, who are typically scared but respond to education efforts. Many parents have been put off by physicians whom they felt were condescending. Physicians must maintain proper and sensitive communication habits despite time constraints with each patient. Break down their fears and see where they’re coming from. Fewer and fewer parents are asking about specific vaccines and instead have this global, vague mistrust. If you ask them to specify their fears, you can respond appropriately.

Many doctors sink to the level of using openness and empathy to try to manipulate and trap parents into doing something against their child’s best interest. If they are fooled they might then have to regret that for the rest of their lives if their child suffers harm. There is no appropriate response to vaccine fears because they are too be greatly feared. Only an absolute animal of a person would inject ethyl-mercury or aluminum directly into the bloodstream of an infant. Parents who are fooled are not to be blamed for mostly they are mislead by their pediatricians who need the money more than they need integrity, honesty, and humility—all humane qualities being deliberately thrown out the window in medical school.

Dr. Brown continues saying:

The most effective pitch for a vaccine is one that is emotional and personal. You can throw out all the science and data and research, but at the end of the day, what really makes families comfortable is that you yourself are vaccinated and that you vaccinate your own kids. You must reassure your patients that you wouldn’t do anything different.

I have heard many stories through the years about doctors who do not vaccinate their own children but do it to other people’s kids.

The vaccine controversy seems to be a never-ending one. It is obvious from how pediatricians write that they are 100 percent sure that they are absolutely and undeniably right. If one studies the question hard enough it becomes evident that they are terribly wrong. To test that, all you have to do is present some hard evidence to your pediatrician and see how hard he or she hits the ceiling or bounces up against a wall. Confronting an oncologist or a pediatrician with solid information against something they adamantly promote immediately dissolves their smiles and empathetic nods, and they get downright mean. Their dark side surfaces and you can see they are not to be trusted with your children’s lives.

In England

“‘Sixteen jumbo jets crash killing everyone on board, 6,500 lives lost.’ Can you imagine that headline—everyone would be talking about it there would be a public outcry. Well, in the UK, at least 17 babies die every day; that is every day; almost 6,500 babies die every year. Where is the public outcry? There is none because they are babies; there are only platitudes and promises the next time will be different,” write Colette Murphy and Jo Hart.

Malnutrition, lead poisoning, vaccines, inappropriate medical care, violence, drugs, incarceration, HIV, and poverty wreck many postindustrial U.S. cities, all leave tiny victims in their wake. I don’t know how many children around the world die or are damaged by vaccines every year but we know that number to be quite substantial.

Vaccines Cause Cancer and Other Diseases

The steady escalation in the number of vaccines administered has been followed by an identical rise in the incidence of autoimmune diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, subacute lupus erythematosus, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, asthma) seen in children. While there is a genetic transmission of some of these diseases, many are probably due to the injury from foreign protein particles, mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde and other toxic agents injected in vaccines.

In the early 1900s an astute Indiana physician, Dr. W. B. Clarke, stated, “Cancer was practically unknown until compulsory vaccination with cowpox vaccine began to be introduced. I have had to deal with 200 cases of cancer, and I never saw a case of cancer in an unvaccinated person.”

Interestingly, this week the U.S. National Institutes of Health said that the strong-smelling chemicalformaldehyde causes cancer. The NIH said Friday that people with higher measures of exposure to formaldehyde are at increased risk for certain types of rare cancers, including those affecting the upper part of the throat behind the nose.

Dr. Mark Sircus is a natural health expert and self-sufficiency advocate.  He is the author of several must-read books including titles such as Survival Medicine For the 21st Century,Winning the War on Cancer, and Humane Pediatrics.  You can find all of Mark’s informative articles at his website http://imva.info/humane-pediatrics/.

Source:  http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/06/23/push-to-reprogram-parents-on-vaccines-disallow-exemptions/

There are a number of proven natural alternatives to reducing your risk of heart attack, but one of the most effective to do that, new research has shown, is through meditation.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, meditation through the continuous repetition of a mantra, can reduce high blood pressure, thickening of the arteries and cholesterol. Researchers say it can even help protect against diabetes.

“This is a seminal finding,” said Dr. Norman Rosenthal, of the NIMH.

“The prevention of heart attack and stroke and actual lengthening of lifespan by an alternative treatment method is exceedingly rare, if not unprecedented,” he said. “If Transcendental Meditation were a drug conferring so many benefits, it would be a billion-dollar blockbuster.”

The reason why meditation is so effective, say researchers, is because it is a primary catalyst in reducing stress, a condition known to create or contribute to a host of medical problems.

Scientists and researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin followed 201 African-American men and women who averaged 59 years old and who had been suffering with arterial narrowing for nine years. Half the group received instruction in Transcendental Meditation in combination with their regular treatment, while the other half was given advice on modifying their diets and exercise regimens.

Those who meditated did so for 20 minutes twice a day.

The study found that those who meditated were 47 percent less likely of dying or of having a heart attack or stroke, compared with those who were treated traditionally.

Participants who were especially enthusiastic about the meditation or who experienced higher-than-normal stress levels, the end results were even more dramatic, researchers said.

“These findings are the strongest documented effects yet produced by a mind-body intervention on cardiovascular disease,” said Prof. Theodore Kotchen, co-author of the study. “The effect is as large or larger than major categories of drug treatment for cardiovascular disease.”

Added co-author Dr. Robert Schneider: “This study builds on previous research findings showing that the Transcendental Meditation program reduces high blood pressure, high cholesterol, insulin resistance, psychological stress, and atherosclerosis, and takes it to the next step - lower rates of death, heart attack, and stroke.”

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032897_meditation_heart_attacks.html#ixzz1RK75yvQs

Even a cursory glance at the new USDA food plate icon reveals it is leaps and bounds ahead of both the 1992 and 2005 Food Pyramids. For starters, it is not a pyramid, it is a plate, which makes it far easier to apply when you’re actually at the dinner table.

There are other prominent improvements as well, such as finally cutting down on grains and increasing the amount of veggies recommended.

As you may remember, the 1992 Food Pyramid had grains as the largest bottom block of the pyramid, and it encouraged Americans to eat 6-11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta a day. This excess of carbohydrates, most of them refined, is precisely the opposite of what most people need to stay healthy.

As Marion Nestle, a professor in the department of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, told CNN:

“It promoted eating so many grain servings, it was promoting obesity.”

The 2005 pyramid was not much better. It included a series of vertical colored stripes of varying widths to represent different food groups. It, too, advised that grains should make up the bulk of your diet, and was widely criticized for being confusing and offering little useful information. The new Food Plate has at least grasped the concept that grains should not make up the majority of your diet … but it still has a long way to go before it will offer a meal plan that will truly support optimal health.

Where is the Fat?

You may notice that fats are practically invisible on the new plate icon. In fact, except for a small portion of dairy, which is advised to be fat-free or low-fat, they are missing entirely. There is no mention of the importance of dietary fats, even the “politically correct” ones like the monounsaturated fats in olive oil and nuts, such as pecans (canola oil is also in this category, but I advise avoiding it and using olive oil instead). Of course, one of the most important of the healthy fats is animal-based omega-3, which is also absent from the plate.

Deficiency in this essential fat can cause or contribute to very serious health problems, both mental and physical, and may be a significant underlying factor of up to 96,000 premature deaths each year. For more information about omega-3’s and the best sources of this fat, please review this previous article.

Not surprisingly, the U.S. government still has not acknowledged all of the data showing that saturated fat is actually an incredibly healthy, nourishing and all natural fat that humans have been thriving on for generations.

Saturated fats provide the building blocks for your cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormone like substances that are essential to your health, and saturated fats from animal and vegetable sources (such as meat, dairy, certain oils, and tropical plants like coconut) provide a concentrated source of energy in your diet.

When you eat fats as part of your meal, they slow down absorption so that you can go longer without feeling hungry.

In addition, they act as carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Dietary fats are also needed for the conversion of carotene to vitamin A, for mineral absorption, and for a host of other biological processes. To get these healthy saturated fats in your diet, you need to eat animal foods like butter and other full-fat raw dairy products and eggs, but these foods are still demonized by the establishment.

Trans Fats Not Mentioned

There is also no mention to avoid the true killer fat, trans fat, which is found in processed and fried foods, such as French fries and fried chicken, doughnuts, cookies, pastries and crackers. This is the most consumed type of fat in the United States, despite the fact that there is no safe level of trans fat consumption, according to a report from the Institute of Medicine.

Trans fat raises LDL (bad cholesterol) levels, and lowers HDL (good cholesterol) levels, which of course is the complete opposite of what you need in order to maintain good heart health!

In fact, trans fats — as opposed to saturated fats — have been linked repeatedly to heart disease. They can also cause major clogging of your arteries, type 2 diabetes and other serious health problems – but they were not even addressed at all.

Low-Fat Pasteurized Dairy is Not a Healthy Choice

Another faulty recommendation made by the new Food Plate is to eat fat-free or low-fat dairy. Again, the saturated fats in full-fat organic raw dairy are actually good for you, and this has been proven by numerous studies.  For instance, research shows that consuming full-fat dairy may help reduce your risk of:

• Diabetes: Palmitoleic acid, which occurs naturally in full-fat dairy products and meat, protects against insulin resistance and diabetes. One study found people who consumed full-fat dairy had higher levels of trans-palmitoleate in their blood, and this translated to a two-thirds lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to people with lower levels.
• Cancer: Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a type of fat found naturally in cow’s milk, significantly lowers the risk of cancer. In one study, those who ate at least four servings of high-fat dairy foods each day had a 41 percent lower risk of bowel cancer than those who ate less than one. Each increment of two servings of dairy products equaled a 13 percent reduction in a woman’s colon cancer risk.
• Weight: Women who ate at least one serving of full-fat dairy a day gained 30 percent less weight over a nine-year period than women who ate only low-fat (or no) dairy products.
• Heart Disease: People who ate the most full-fat dairy were less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, according to a 16-year study of Australian adults.

The type of dairy recommended by the U.S. government may as well not even be on your plate, as not only is it lacking in healthy fat, but also it is pasteurized. I do not recommend consuming pasteurized dairy products of any kind. When I discuss dairy being healthy, I am referring to the organic, unprocessed raw varieties.

Pasteurizing milk significantly diminishes its biological value and destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamins, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamin B12 and vitamin B6, kills beneficial bacteria, and actually promotes pathogens.

Organically raised, grass-fed raw milk, on the other hand, naturally contains hundreds of healthy, “good” bacteria, including lactobacillus and acidophilus. There are also several coliform families of bacteria. It’s important to realize that there are over 230 different kinds of E. coli, and only two or three of them are actually pathogenic and will cause you to get sick.

The rest are actually beneficial for your gut.

Raw milk also contains vitamins, which are virtually eliminated by the pasteurization process of commercial milk. But it’s the presence of beneficial bacteria that make raw milk such an outstanding food source to promote the growth of healthy bacteria in your intestine, which in turn has a significant, beneficial impact on your overall immune function.

Another Issue: Too Many Fruits

The new Food Plate advises Americans to “make half your plate fruits and vegetables.” This is a step in the right direction, but to truly be healthy most people will need to limit their fruit consumption — it should not be nearly equal to your veggie consumption, as the Food Plate suggests.

While it’s true that fruits contain beneficial vitamins and other antioxidants, they also contain fructose.  Fructose is the number one source of calories for Americans with most consuming 500% more than their ancestors did a mere century ago. Until they are able to lower fructose levels to 1900 levels than fruit needs to be avoided and only vegetables consumed for carbohydrates.

Please remember that over three-quarters of the population has insulin resistance. How do you know if you have insulin resistance?  If you have any of the following conditions it is a safe bet you have it:

•  Diabetes
• High blood pressure
•  Overweight
• High Cholesterol
•  Cancer

If you have insulin resistance it would be strongly recommended to limit your total grams of fructose from fruit to below 15 grams per day.

To be fair, the USDA’s MyPlate site does recommend drinking water instead of sugary drinks – and this is key to keeping your fructose consumption in check.

Your Vegetables are More Contaminated than You Think

As you increase your veggie consumption, a wise choice for your health, it’s important to be aware that many vegetables contain high levels of pesticides. A new analysis by the USDA actually revealed at least 34 unapproved pesticides on cilantro samples.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers 60 percent of herbicides, 90 percent of fungicides, and 30 percent of insecticides to be carcinogenic, and most are damaging to your nervous system as well. In fact, these powerful and dangerous chemicals have been linked to numerous health problems such as:

• Neurotoxicity and Parkinson’s disease
• Disruption of your endocrine system
•  Carcinogenicity
• Immune system suppression
• Miscarriages, male infertility and reduced reproductive function

This information alone should give you pause when considering whether to buy local, organic vegetables or not. USDA Organic farmers (and many small, local organic farms working without certification), must use different standards when growing vegetables. These standards include not using pesticides and other chemicals, including synthetic fertilizers.

Remember, One Diet is Not Right for All

Finally, the inherent problem with any one-size-fits-all food plan is that no one diet is right for everyone. Your body has a unique biochemistry that predisposes you to thrive on a specific ratio of macronutrients derived from fresh whole foods. That diet is certainly not one that’s focused on the relatively “new” inventions in the food arena, like white bread, white sugar and processed cheese.

Instead, it may be high in green vegetables and healthy fats, or you may require a higher protein percentage with your meals. We are all uniquely designed and require customized plans. This is why I highly recommend a program called Nutritional Typing, which is a central part of my health plan and is available for free on my site.

For many years we charged $29 for this test, but I didn’t want the cost of the test to prevent anyone from taking it. So please take advantage of this free test. Nutritional typing is a way to determine what YOUR customized diet is, and it is not even a one-size-fits-all within each nutritional grouping, as the USDA’s Food Plate is. If you take nutritional typing seriously, its guidelines will help you modify your food intake until you find the right balance for your optimal health.

Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/06/23/new-food-pyramid-changes-to-less-grains-more-veggies.aspx

Most Americans are unaware that they eat a steady diet of genetically modified food.  This is mainly because the GMO giants, as if ashamed of their creation, refuse to allow labels on food that contains genetic engineering.

Consumers are also generally distracted by all the other things on food labels that they’re supposed to be concerned about. And when they are exposed to information on GMOs, it’s usually from a mainstream source featuring “philanthropist” Bill Gates beaming a smile while expounding the “benefits” that GMOs bring to starving people.

They typically don’t hear about studies that show crop yields with GMOs are actually lower than with non-GM crops, or that they require far more pesticides than heirloom seeds, or that some are patented “terminator” seeds that don’t re-germinate, which ensures an eventual monopoly over food.  Or, perhaps one of the worst findings, that hamsters in one study became completely infertile, among other disturbing effects, after only 3 generations of eating GM soy.

“Let’s be clear. As of this year [2008], there are no commercialized GM crops that inherently increase yield. Similarly, there are no GM crops on the market that were engineered to resist drought, reduce fertilizer pollution or save soil. Not one.” – former US EPA and US FDA biotech specialist Dr. Doug Gurian-Sherman.

Clearly these results would most benefit a sinister agenda of food control and population reduction through proven effects on health and sterility.  But they’re not the only reasons consumers should be concerned about eating genetically modified food. Supporting GMOs in any capacity, not least through ignorance, has countless negative consequences.

Here are five reasons not to eat genetically modified food:

1. GMOs destroy the environment: The repeated use of land for single-crop agriculture (monoculture), whether GMO or not, has resulted in dead soil that requires heavy doses of chemical fertilizer and pesticides to be productive. Significantly, GMOs were primarily designed to be resistant to powerful pesticides to encourage their use. These deadly pesticides are applied in heavier doses than traditional crops need and then leach into waterways, polluting everything in their path.  It is widely accepted that this phenomenon is largely responsible for the Gulf Dead Zone that now spans the size of New Jersey.  Furthermore, the backbone of industrial agriculture, now led by GM crops, is fossil fuels. From plowing, fertilizing, planting, applying pesticides, harvesting, to delivery for consumption; our food system is dangerously dependent on oil.  In short, any food innovation that destroys the environment clearly will not be beneficial to humanity.

2. GMOs are unhealthy: GM foods have undergone little long-term safety testing for humans, but several animal tests have shown negative health effects. Recently, a major study verified that the substance used in most major pesticides including best-selling Roundup, glyphosate, causes birth defects. And in 2007, another independent study proved that Roundup induced sterility in male lab rats.  Could this be the reason for the massive decline in fertility seen in human males? A2009 study found that glyphosate caused “total cell death in human umbilical, embryonic and placental cells within 24 hours.” As mentioned above, the 2010 study on hamsters eating GM soy, as reported by Jeffrey Smith:

After feeding hamsters for two years over three generations, those on the GM diet, and especially the group on the maximum GM soy diet, showed devastating results. By the third generation, most GM soy-fed hamsters lost the ability to have babies. They also suffered slower growth, and a high mortality rate among the pups.

It should also be noted that nearly all studies pertaining to eating GMOs resulted in some form of bacterial gut rot and new allergies in the test animals.  So, we still don’t have conclusive studies that genetically mutated foods are bad for our health, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire.  Don’t get burned.

3. Unnatural genetic contamination: Releasing any foreign genetic mutation into the wild can have unpredictable consequences. It has been compared to the disastrous results of releasing a new animal species that isn’t native to a territory — except GMOs are not native to any territory. GMOs aggressively cross-contaminate neighboring organic plants, causing incalculable damage. An unapproved GM rice that was grown for only one year in field trials was found to have caused extensive contamination of the US rice supply. A Spanish study found that GM maize “has caused a drastic reduction in organic cultivations of this grain and is making their coexistence practically impossible”.  Worse still, the GM Giants know this happens and actually sue farmers for patent infringement when their organic plants become genetically mutated.  Can it get more evil?  Sadly, yes it can…

4. GMO cartel has a near monopoly over food: It is estimated that over 90% of soy fields in America are planted with Monsanto GMOs, as reported by BestMeal; “In 1996, when Monsanto began selling Roundup Ready soybeans, only 2% of soybeans in the US contained their patented gene. By 2008, over 90% of soybeans in the US contained Monsanto’s GMO gene.”  In another powerhouse soy producer, Argentina is reportedly planted with 98% GMO soy, and more than half of all global soy belongs to Monsanto. And GM corn is quickly nearing monopolistic numbers as well.

Incidentally, Big Ag giants had much help from the American taxpayer in creating their monopoly through farm and corn ethanol subsidies, which unfairly undercuts competition from heirloom farmers abroad. Furthermore, the U.S. government has been directly funding the research and development of these products, yet the monopoly fiercely protects its private patents.  The very notion of patenting food would seemingly allow for a complete ownership of food, and life itself.  The growing monopolistic nature of food is perhaps more frightening than the possible health effects. Break the monopoly by supporting local food producers.

5. Destroys farmers: Besides the cross-contamination that destroys organic farmers, the actual GMO farmers are not much better off.  In fact, it may be more appropriate to refer to them as share croppers for GMO masters. They are at the mercy each year to Big GMO for seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, and in many cases, financing.

Source: http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/06/27/5-reasons-not-to-eat-gm-foods/