CLOSE
Health

0 1375

Here’s a fact that’ll make you think twice about your baby’s formula: some of the infant formula sold in Portland tested positive for genetically modified soy modified to withstand intensive pesticide spraying. This was found during lab testing by the Center for Food Safety.

The CFFS found that Similac Soy Isomil and Enfamil Prosobee Powder Soy Infant Formula contained soy engineered to resist Monsanto’s glyphosate and Bayer Crop Science’s glufosinate.

“I think most moms purchasing infant formula have no idea they are feeding their baby a product that has been genetically engineered to survive exposure to high levels of chemical pesticides,” Aurora Paulsen, with the Center’s Portland office said of their disturbing findings.

“Everything we know from the recent medical literature suggests we should be doing everything possible to reduce infant exposure to chemicals. Finding soy in infant formula that has been genetically engineered specifically to survive high levels of chemical pesticide spraying is a real concern and takes us in the wrong direction,” said Ray Seidler, a scientist and former US Environmental Protection Agency employee who, in the past, has been an outspoken critic of GMO crops.

Last year, Oregon voters voted down a measure that would label all products that contained genetically modified ingredients. The measure narrowly failed by 1.2%, with a bit more than 50% voting no.

Image credit: nerissa’s ring, Flickr

0 1717

This video highlights just how gross some processed foods can be. AgileHProducts, a YouTube user with many different time lapse videos, decided to see if a twinkie would rot in the same way as a tomato.

The results probably won’t shock you.

After 25 days, the tomato is withered and rotten, while the twinkie is still looking rather fresh. “Fresh.”

The longevity of the twinkie can probably be attributed to the lack of dairy products in it. In addition, professor Roger Bennati of George Stevens Academy decided to put a twinkie in a glass box back in 1976. And there it is, still today, still as much of a twinkie as it’s ever been. What a gross food. (scroll down for picture!)

oldesttwinkie

0 4118

This is absolutely amazing. I hear a lot of people making the claim that they can’t grow a garden because they have a small yard. Hooey I say! And so says the Dervaes family, who have successfully grown 6,000 pounds of food on 1/10th of an acre of land.

This suburban family grows 400 different species of plants, producing 4,300 pounds of vegetable food, 900 chicken and 1,000 duck eggs, and 25 pounds of honey. On top of that, they get seasonal fruit from their fruit trees, grown on site at their Los Angeles home.

The Dervaes family has an edge on some of us by living in a climate where you can garden year round, but don’t take that is discouragement.

You can grow food whevever you are with whatever you have. Unless you’re in Antarctica. Good luck gardening there.

0 12883

There are days where I just can’t bring myself to cook, which is where fast food can come in handy. But there’s one fast food joint that no one should visit: McDonalds. There are tons of disgusting additives and weird ingredients in that burger you’re about to munch on. Read on:

Ammonium Sulfate

Ammonium sulfate is used to fertilize soil and kill bugs. It’s also in the buns at McDonalds. You’ll be well fertilized and bug free! And also maybe pretty sick. Best to put the Big Mac down.

Silcone Oil

Chicken McNuggets have been shown in labs to contain dimethylpolysiloxane, or silicone oil. Silicone oil is used to produce contact lenses and other medical devices. McDonalds also had to recall a million chicken nuggets recently due to plastic being found in them. How delightful.

Cystein-L

What the hell is this? Cystein-L is an amino acid that is synthesized from duck feathers. It helps to flavor the meat, bread, and pastries apparently. I never knew duck feathers could make fast food taste so much better. Quack!

THBQ

THBQ, or tert-Butylhydroquinone, is a preservative found in 18 McDonalds foods. It can be lethal, but the FDA says in small doses it’s fine. Still though, we stand by our statement that if you can’t pronounce the ingredients, don’t eat it.

Propylene Glycol

This is a chemical found in antifreeze, e-cigarettes, and your McDonalds burgers. Enjoy!

Dimethylpolysiloxane

Say that ten times fast. Almost every fried fast food item at McDonalds contains this chemical, and so does silly putty, caulking, shampoos, heat resistant tiles, and contact lenses. I don’t think that burger will help you see better, wash your hair for you or make you heat resistant. You might try pressing yourself against a newspaper at some point to see if the ink sticks to you though.

Carminic Acid

Have you ever eaten bugs? Hey, I’m not opposed to munching down on some bugs, but the carminic acid in the meat at McDonalds is synthesized from components of the Chochineal beetle. Delish.

Cellulose

Pretty much every fast food item contains this compound derived from wood pulp.

Silicone Dioxide

Also known as industrial sand. This one actually isn’t McDonalds specific. This is found in Wendy’s chili to keep it from clumping.

Bon apetite.

Image credit: Robyn Lee, Flickr

0 2747

On average, 600,000 Americans die every year from heart disease related health problems, like heart attack and stroke. That’s a lot of people, and really goes to show how pervasive heart disease is in our society. Poor diet, cigarette smoking and excessive drinking are often the root causes. Some are more susceptible to others, particularly if heart disease runs in your family. Of course, any plan to help prevent or reverse heart disease must involve exercise and proper diet, but this 800-year-old heart disease cure is worth a shot.

Opatika Hildegard von Bingen, who lived in the 13th century and died at the ripe old age of 81 pioneered this remedy. Her recipe would be later prescribed by some doctors for treating heart disease.

Opatika thought that every household should use this heart disease remedy, which has been shown to be successful in helping people with a variety of heart diseases. It’s also been used for tremors, irregular heartbeats, tachycardia, and can even be used for people suffering angina pectoris.

Like we said earlier, this remedy is good for you even if you don’t have heart disease. Preventative medicine is the best kind, after all.

You will need:

  • 10 bunches of fresh parsley
  • 4 cups of red or white wine
  • 2 tablespoons of wine vinegar
  • 10 ounces of organic honey

Simply put the ten bunches of parsley in the liter of wine and add the wine vinegar. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes on low heat until it begins foaming. Then add your 10 ounces of honey. Leave it to simmer on a low temperature setting for four minutes, then drain the mixture when cool. Once cooled, put into a bottle that has been cleaned very well with alcohol. Close the lid tightly and it’s ready for use.

Simply consume a tablespoon of it daily. You don’t need to take much! You might find a sediment at the bottom of the bottle. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly edible.

0 6106

Sarah Smith is a 42 year old British woman and the mother of two. For a while, she had been noticing chronic headaches, constipation, indigestion, and a variety of other health problems. Her doctor recommended that she try an experiment before seeking any kind of medication: drink three liters of water a day for a month. Pretty novel concept. A doctor prescribing water instead of pills?

Sarah had noticed herself in decline. She was 42 but looked ten years older. She had dark circles around her eyes, deep wrinkles in her face, spots on her skin; signs of someone much older. Hear older appearance was matched by feeling ten years older too. Even her lips were wrinkled! These signs she mistook for aging but were really dehydration.

Chronic dehydration weakens you severely over time. Your organs won’t function as well, it will be more difficult to get oxygen to your cells, and it can lead to some pretty severe conditions. But after one week, Sarah started feeling better. Her headaches were gone and her digestion improved.

On the 28th day, she felt healthy, her vitality had returned, she lost a little bit of weight, the dark circles around her eyes were gone; she looked like a woman her age, not a decade older.

A good rule of thumb for drinking water is to halve your body weight and drink that many ounces of water a day. So a 200 lb man should drink 100 ounces of water. I’ve heard of people drinking an ounce of water per pound of bodyweight, but if you’re chronically dehydrated, best not to overdo it at first.

Drink up!

0 11576

Yeah, it’s no secret that Coke and other sodas are pretty terrible for your health. The warnings about them are everywhere, but sometimes words aren’t as strong as what we can see with our own eyes. And this video is quite the eyeopener!

How much sugar is in a soft drink? One person took this question to the next level. Ignorance is hardly bliss in this situation. It’s time to rethink soda and consider it a different way. Coke is a chemical mess loaded with sugar and is killing us. Time to take soda off the shopping list.

Image credit: PlayBuzz

0 6015

The cure for cancer is an elusive goal for researchers around the world. One of the greatest struggles with killing cancer isn’t exactly the killing part, but it’s not killing the rest of you. Alternative medications like turmeric and hemp oil can be effective for some people, but it’s been difficult to apply those cures to all types of cancer. More on that:

“In learning the molecular biology of cancer pathways, and in learning that what the evidence actually shows the effect of natural product extracts on various relevant molecular targets in various cancers, we see that there’s actually quite a large amount of evidence that supports using various molecules, natural products, and pharmaceuticals that are already approved and that have been around for a long time to affect anti-cancer activity along that pathway at that target. That’s called molecularly targeted anti-cancer treatment, and it’s widely practiced in oncology today.What’s not widely practiced is the use of the natural products for the molecularly targeted anti-cancer activity. I provide that for my patients because the evidence base suggests and supports the use of these treatment recommendations.”

Check out the video below. It’s pretty incredible.

0 3168

High fructose corn syrup is one of those ingredients found in a lot of different common items, especially items mass-produced by corporations. Coca-Cola, Stove Top Stuffing, Kellogg’s cereals, Capri-Sun, as well as various candies, condiments, sweets and breads all contain the additive.

Related: The Full List Of Products Containing High Fructose Corn Syrup.

But a new study out this week shows that consuming even ‘normal’ quantities of high fructose corn syrup is considerably more toxic than consuming sucrose or table sugar, and can lead to diminished reproductive health and inevitably a shorter life span.

The study shows that when female mice were fed a diet containing 25% of calories from added fructose and glucose carbohydrates found in corn syrup, they diet at a rate of 1.87 times higher than female mice on a diet in which 25% of calories came from table sugar.

“This is the most robust study showing there is a difference between high-fructose corn syrup and table sugar at human-relevant doses,” says biology professor Wayne Potts, senior author of a new study scheduled for publication in the March 2015 print issue of The Journal of Nutrition.

This research is among the first to differentiate between the effects of the fructose-glucose mixture found in corn syrup and regular table sugar.

“When the diabetes-obesity-metabolic syndrome epidemics started in the mid 1970’s, they corresponded with both a general increase in consumption of added sugar and the switchover from sucrose being the main added sugar in the American diet to high-fructose corn syrup making up half our sugar intake,” says Waye Potts, senior author of the paper and University of Utah biology professor.

Even with this new information, food corps are still working hard to peddle high fructose corn syrup containing products to the public. They’ve even tried renaming the ingredient so they can label their products as high fructose corn syrup free to trick customers into buying their products.

At the end of the day, we have no choice but to know the industry’s tricks and read the labels. Read. The. Labels. It’s the only way to know for certain the contents of our products.

1 957

My life can get kind of hectic sometimes, and I’m sure yours can too. That’s one of the reasons why I like taking quick 5 minute meditation breaks throughout the day. It’s a great way to recharge yourself midway through the day. Let’s get into the five reasons why we should all be meditating.

For starters, it increases your mental clarity. Do you ever get that midday fuzziness in your mind? Find it hard to focus? Meditation can help you put an end to that. Doctors studying the brain using Electroencephalography (say that ten times fast) have discovered that during meditation, the brain’s alpha and theta waves drop, while beta waves increase. This basically means that you’re consciously choosing to relax and your brain is responding by also relaxing. This relaxation helps keep the brain focused throughout the day.

Meditation helps you keep emotional balance. Slowing down your mind gives you a chance to become a little more self-aware and acknowledge some of the feelings you’re having. This is a great time to sort out things that might be bothering you. When you come out of your meditation, you may feel like you can take on whatever emotional challenges you had.

Meditation kicks stress right in the ass. You know what stresses me out? Stressful stuff. Stuff like work, paying bills, and balancing my life. But meditation doesn’t just reduce mental stress, it reduces physical stress and can help lower your blood pressure. This again has to do with telling our brains to slow down. When this happens, our nervous system relaxes, our blood pressure drops, tightness loosens, and breathing becomes easier.

Meditating daily improves your emotional intelligence. This is different from keeping yourself emotionally balanced. Meditation helps us be emotionally intelligent, which means that you consciously choose to move to new emotional states with the understanding that our attitude plays a massive part in how successful we are. It’s important to balance your emotions.

And lastly, meditation improves ease of neuroplasticity. Wait, what the hell is that? It’s the most important benefit of the five. Basically, you’re rewiring your brain to react more positively to live. You’re teaching yourself to pick up on cues that allow you to grow and be congruent with others. And this will help you through the challenges of life.

I definitely hope this has inspired you to sit down for a peaceful meditation today. I know I will!

Prev1...8910...14Next Page 9 of 14
©