And now, to continue my whacked out voodoo health journey, here’s some fascinating information about the almighty banana, a fruit you’ll never look at the same way again after reading this. (And thanks to my mother for forwarding the email from which I copied this information.) I usually manage to consume a banana every day or two, and will step it up a notch after this.

By the way, they’re a great ingredient with which to sweeten a fruit smoothie. I was concerned on my recent 12-day trip to Las Vegas that I’d lose track of my healthy food regimen: when I discovered my condo had a blender and that there was a Whole Foods supermarket at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and the 215, I knew I would be fine, with smoothies every morning. The recipe was easy-peasy: coconut juice, powdered super-food supplement, some frozen blueberries, a half or full banana.

Okay, here’s the skinny on bananas:

Bananas contain three natural sugars -- sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber. A banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy.

Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes.

But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.

Depression: According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS: Forget the pills -- eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Anemia: High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat high blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power: 200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school (England ) were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation: High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers: One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.

Nerves: Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.

Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and chips. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.

Ulcers: The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature control: Many other cultures see bananas as a “cooling” fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand, for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.

Smoking & Tobacco Use: Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Strokes: According to research in The New England Journal of Medicine, eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40 per cent!

Warts: Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart, with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape!

So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrate, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around. So, maybe it's time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, “A banana a day keeps the doctor away!”

PS: Bananas must be the reason monkeys are so happy all the time! I will add one here; want a quick shine on our shoes?? Take the INSIDE of the banana skin, and rub directly on the shoe... polish with dry cloth. Amazing fruit!

Unless we have an emergency we tend to forget about the importance of planning and being prepared. Emergency Preparedness Week brings this information to the forefront of our minds, but how many of us really pay heed to this information! Are you prepared? Do you stay abreast of what is happening in the world around you that might trigger an emergency locally? Do you follow Emergency Management provincially for weather related emergencies, pandemics or other health related emergencies such as SARS?

Preparedness starts at home but does not end there. Workplaces should also train their employees and be prepared for emergency situations. The government of Canada has provided resources for each and every one of us to use as a guide to prepare. Take the time this week to refer to this link and find out how you can prepare your family, friends, and even those in your workplaces for emergency situations. Find out what to do before, during and after an emergency.
http://www.getprepared.gc.ca/index-eng.aspx

Do you have qualified first aiders on site in your workplaces? Take this week and check all certificates to ensure they are current. Register workers to take first aid training to ensure you have a qualified first aider on each shift and job site.

Do you have an emergency management plan in place? Do you have individual emergency plans for persons with disabilities? Do you have an emergency plan at home? Are you sure you are prepared?

My grandfather taught me many lessons as a child that until adulthood I thought was silly and unnecessary. With health and safety being at the forefront of my mind with my line of work, I see the value in his teachings today. He taught St. John’s Ambulance first aid training throughout the county’s around Guelph and received a citation from the Governor General Rolland Michener for his loyal and dedicated service to the safety and wellbeing of many of us in Southern Ontario.

As my grandfather would say, “the safety and wellbeing of others is everyone’s responsibility”. So take the time this week to educate yourself on how you can protect your loved ones, your friends and co-workers if and when an emergency situation strikes.

Save a life – it may be your own! - Don’t react; make the changes and necessary plans today!

I have friends who don’t know how I can stand to spend more than a week in Sin City but they don’t do Las Vegas like I do it.

First off, I don’t stay on The Strip – too crowded and overwhelming.

Instead, I stay at a timeshare resort called Grandview that’s in the very south end of the city. I use a savvy points leasing strategy to stay at timeshare resorts, paying 10 cents on the dollar compared to most folks. The Grandview is a 5-star resort with lots of amenities. The one-bedroom condo I have for the week has stainless steel appliances, marble counter tops, a large sunken tub, etc. etc. The best thing is that it’s away from The Strip and I have a feeling more of being in the desert than Las Vegas.

One great thing about this town is you’re pretty much guaranteed to have good weather. It’s been in the nineties Fahrenheit all week and sunny. I’m going for a hike in the Valley of Fire, which is a desert canyon full of “painted desert” rock formations.

I’ve been up to the strip a few times, mostly to walk around. I’ll be heading back Tuesday evening to the Luxor to take in Chris Angel’s magic show “Believe” and again on Friday to see Carlos Santana, my favorite living guitar player, at the House of Blues. (Lucky me!)

I was here four years ago and Vegas is even bigger than I remember it. The scale of development is astounding. Today I went for a stroll through Mandalay Bay resort. There seemed to be no end to it. I paid $18 to visit the very large and beautiful shark display and aquarium, which is as good as anything I’ve seen elsewhere. It’s Sea World scale. And that was just one tiny part of Mandalay Bay, which adjoins Luxor (the resort that looks like an Egyptian pyramid and has a huge sphinx out front) and another that looks like a medieval castle, all connected with a monorail.

In addition to the activities I took a short class in how to play Craps and have so far converted my $40 investment into $160 after two sessions at the tables. I plan to play a few more times and see if I can increase my winnings, but will not spend more than the initial $40 outlay, as I’m just a beginner. It’d be cool if I could win enough to pay for my show tickets.

One benefit of staying in a condo instead of a hotel room is being able to cook for myself. My unit has a blender so I’ve maintained my morning routine of healthy fruit and supplement shakes, plus granola with almond milk. I’ve eaten a lot of salads and avoided fast food, so it’s possible to stay in Vegas and not over-eat or get unhealthy. I’ve made it to the gym most days too.

Oh, and they have a Whole Foods here, too! lol

Well, that’s enough of a blog entry while on holiday. I’m back to my regular schedule next week. Talk to you then, folks…

I’m researching an article about the health benefits of tea, about which I will write in greater depth another time. This weekend I met a woman who works for the Sloane Tea Company as their “sommelier” – the first person in North America to achieve this designation. My talk with her will be part of that article.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share this article from PreventDisease.com about toxic sodium fluoride in green tea. Don’t simply assume that drinking tea is entirely good for you; there are risks like anything else and this article has some great advice!

Here’s the link, and the article.

http://preventdisease.com/news/10/080610_green_tea_fluoride.shtml

Did You Know Green Tea Contains Dangerous Levels of Toxic Sodium Fluoride?

Green tea has emerged as a major natural substance in fighting diseases like heart disease, cancer and helping with weight loss. It's been mass marketed to billions around the world and many sip it religiously everyday in the hopes that it will make them healthier. All except for one thing, it contains toxic sodium fluoride.

A study in the January 2005 issue of the Journal of American Medicine also found that instant teas appear to contain excessive levels of sodium fluoride. Green tea is one of the worst culprits having double the amount of fluoride as black tea. Brick tea has the highest fluoride concentration and symptoms of fluorosis have been seen in Tibetan children and adults who drink large amounts of this kind of tea.

Tea plants accumulate fluoride in their leaves over time, so the oldest leaves contain the most fluoride, while the youngest contain the least. Therefore, white tea (which is made from youngest leaves and buds) is your best bet to reduce fluoride exposure.

In another study in Caries Research (1996) 30:88-92 Fluoride content in caffeinated, decaffeinated and herbal teas, the average fluoride concentration of infusions prepared from decaffeinated (green & black) tea were found to be 3.19 ppm and ranged from 1.01 to 5.20. This was unexpectedly higher than caffeinated tea and such a difference was statistically significant in this study. It is thought that this is due to the high fluoride content in the water involved in the de-caffeination process, which then would also make coffee similarly decaffeinated high in fluoride content.

In addition, the caffeine in tea has a great augmentative effect on the bio-availability of fluoride. In 1990 researchers at the University of Texas even theorized that "the rise in incidence of dental fluorosis in North America is mainly due to the replacement of water intake by caffeine-containing beverages among the young population.

A very important study from 1998 conducted at the Nanchang University in China showed that in older rats fed green tea water extract or green tea leaves, the cerebrum calcium contents were significantly decreased and aluminum contents increased. Zinc contents in the cerebrum were also gradually decreased with the increase of tea leaves dose and tea concentration. The cerebrum is the portion of the brain (frontal lobes) where thought and higher function reside.

Tea Exempt From Contaminant Levels Defined by Government

Fluoride in tea is much higher than the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) set for fluoride in drinking water which is 4 parts per million (ppm). About 50 percent of fluoride (from any source) is deposited in the bone and teeth; the other half is excreted.

The MCL is set so as to only avoid the third and crippling stage of this disease. It is set at 4ppm => 4mg/liter, assuming that people will retain half of this amount (2mg), and therefore be at a "safe" level. The EPA scientists, whose job and legal duty it is to set the MCL, declared that this level was set fraudulently by outside forces, and that 90% of the data showing the mutagenic properties of fluoride were omitted. Chemical toxicologist and former EPA consultant Nancy Webert stated "once that EPA started receiving funding from sources that were not disclosed to the public, fluoride studies and safety limits took a back seat to other interests." Webert believes the United States Government was fully aware of these foreign interests and did nothing to protect Americans from current levels of fluoride poisoning in drinking water.

How Does Fluoride Affect The Body?

Tea leaves accumulate more fluoride (from pollution of soil and air) than any other edible plant. Coincidently, fluoride content in tea has risen conconcurrently and dramatically with global tea consumption over the last 20 years.

Drinking high levels of fluoride can cause bone-forming cells to lay down extra skeletal tissue, which increases bone density. At the same time, it also increases bone brittleness that can result in a disease known as skeletal fluorosis. So while bones are more dense, they are also more brittle. Skeletal fluorosis can produce:

•Bone, muscle and joint pain
•Calcification of ligaments
•Bone spurs
•Fused vertebrae
•Difficulty moving joints

Says Dr. Whyte, "When fluoride gets into your bones, it stays there for years, and there is no established treatment for skeletal fluorosis, No one knows if you can fully recover from it." In other words, fluoride accumulates in your body.

According to one estimate, the first phase of skeletal fluorosis could easily develop in as few as five years if a person were to consume the amount of fluoride found in three or four cups of green tea every day.

While in 1976 a Belgian analysis showed content of between 50 and 125 ppm fluoride in 15 varieties of tea, a Polish study in 1995 found fluoride content of up to 340 ppm in 16 varieties of black tea. A major Canadian study published in 1995 reports average fluoride content in tea to be 4.57 mg/l in the 1980's.

Babycenter.com, a pro-fluoridation infant medical group lists a cup of black tea to contain 7.8 mgs of fluoride, which is roughly the same amount as if one were to drink 7.8 litres of water in an area fluoridated at 1ppm.

Virtually every company selling green tea advertises it's high fluoride content as "beneficial" in preventing cavities, promulgating the misleading and false data supplied for the last 50 years by the ADA/CDA and other dental health trade organizations, as well as various public health agencies. There are NO double-blind studies anywhere proving the efficacy of fluoride as a caries preventative. There ARE double-blind studies proving adverse health effects, at the level of 1ppm (1mg/l) in water. There are no studies documenting safety at any intake level.

Drinking a cup of tea with fluoride content as mentioned above (7.8mg) would mean a fluoride intake much higher than amounts which were actually given as medication to treat hyperthyroidism (over-functioning thyroid) for numerous decades - in several countries - specifically to reduce thyroid activity.

To make matters much worse for human health, fluorides in teas are found together with aluminum. The combination of aluminum and fluorides in tea is of urgent concern, due to the increased damage done by fluorides when in the presence of aluminum, especially neurological and renal damage. It also increases the extent to which aluminum can be absorbed by the body, which has been linked to Alzheimer's disease.

Aluminum by itself is not readily absorbed by the body, however in the presence of fluoride ions, the fluoride ions combine with the aluminum to form aluminum fluoride, which is absorbed by the body. Aluminum eventually combines with oxygen to form aluminum oxide or alumina. Alumina is the compound of aluminum that is found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease.

What Can You Do?

Stick to white tea which has the least amount of fluoride by ratio. Favour purchasing organic tea over conventional. It doesn't mean all organic teas will be absent of fluoride, but the methods for cultivation are typically superior to conventional growers and some may even use purified water for the soil to grow their teas and herbs.

Marco Torres is a research specialist, writer and consumer advocate for healthy lifestyles. He holds degrees in Public Health and Environmental Science and is a professional speaker on topics such as disease prevention, environmental toxins and health policy.

Sources:

fluoridealert.org
greentealibrary.com
drweil.com
poisonfluoride.com
sixwise.com
cmbi.bjmu.edu.cn

“On spaceship Earth there are no passengers. We are all crew.”

Apropos of that, I offer this small example of another change in my lifestyle in support of sustainability.

Every other week for six months during the winter I drive from my flat in Toronto’s west end to a condo I rent in Collingwood, Ontario. My two sons live in Collingwood with their mom and I host them up there when it’s my weekend so they can stay in their winter ski programs at Blue Mountain (where one teaches).

In the warm months my kids often take the bus to Toronto to visit me, and I sometimes visit Collingwood midweek and have the kids over to my friend Linda’s place; she lets me use it while she’s in the city every Tuesday through Thursday.

It’s a lot of driving back and forth, two hours each way, but long ago I made the trip managable by stopping for lunch or coffee at the midway point, which is usually Orangeville. I got in the habit of going to a fast food outlet close to the highway: a Tim Horton’s on one side and a Wendy’s on the other. I would often have a hamburger and fries at Wendy’s, and get my coffee from Timmy’s. Sometimes I’d eat a bagel with cream cheese at Tim Horton’s, with a donut and a tea.

As I started shifting to a healthy diet a few months ago, I eventually realized this was a pattern I had to break. Wendy’s food is no worse than most fast food, but like the other outlets, many of the selections are high in salt and fat, and empty carbs. The staff at the Orangeville outlet are perfectly nice, but one is always aware of the factory-like kitchen in which they work, and it’s always go-go-go at Tim Horton’s because counter staff are also dealing with drive-thru customers. Nowadays there’s very little on the menu at Tim Horton’s that fits with my dietary preferences, and I received a petition recently from a group that claims the coffee ship chain continues to buy pork products from industrial-scale producers whose pigs are raised in cruel “gestation crates” whose metal bars prevent almost any physical movement. (Apparently some other fast food restaurants like McDonald’s have ceased buying from such producers.)

Here’s a URL for the campaign:

http://sumofus.org/campaigns/tim-hortons/?akid=396.713134._EvaEe&rd=1&sub=fwd&t=4

Last week I drove “off the beaten path” in search of an alternative; as luck would have it, just five minutes west on Orangeville’s main street I found a terrific small coffee shop-style family–run restaurant that serves specialty fruit smoothies and all kinds of organic treats, fresh soup, salads, and gourmet coffee. Settling into the warm and cozy atmosphere, I realized I had found my new rest stop on the drive between Collingwood and Toronto. Over a beet salad and a delicious coffee I checked email on my laptop, and lingered longer than usual because it was so nice. And the bill was about the same as I had paid for several years each time I stopped at the fast food places. In fact it might have been a little cheaper.

But the thing that spoke to me more than the health aspect was the quality of the human interaction. I had a nice chat with the proprietor, who is a nutritionist (who, it turned out, had written out some useful information on a white board in the restaurant about the different enzymes in the body and how the work – something ya ain’t gonna see at Wendy’s!). I noticed different regular patrons coming in and out and having lively chats with the proprietor and other staff. The whole experience was much more “humanized” at this establishment, and I vowed to step up my game further, and stop patronizing corporate restaurant chains and fast food places. I might wander into one from time to time for lack of other options, but I’m making a concerted effort to spend my money on small, local family-run businesses that serve healthy food and provide a warm and enjoyable environment. If we all did the same, we’d have a very different society in many respects.

As a final note, I’m reminded that on several trips to Vermont over the years – sometimes for skiing, other times just passing through – I noticed that this philosophy has been embraced by the residents of that state for a long time. There are not so many fast food outlets there, but there are many family-run restaurants, with lots of home-cooked healthy choices on the menu, and things like artisan local beers, etc. So if you’d like to see what a whole society looks like when it embraces this concept, take a trip to Vermont!

The regulations under OHSA concerning reprisal complaints have the OWA scrambling. The changes to the reprisal complaints/referrals enhance the authority for MoL inspectors to address referral issues directly. These changes are part of a MOL initiative to strengthen worker protection from reprisals.

Effective April 1, 2012 a new regulation under the OHSA set out the functions of the Office of the Worker Advisor OWA and the Office of the Employer Advisor OEA in respect to reprisals under Section 50 of the OHSA.
Under Ontario Regulation 33/12, Offices of the Worker and Employer Advisers:

• the functions of the OWA are to educate, advise and represent non-unionized workers in relation to reprisals and reprisal complaints and referrals made to the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB); and,

• the functions of the OEA are to educate, advise and represent employers with fewer than 50 employees in respect of reprisal complaints and referrals to the OLRB.

The OWA and OEA services are still free of charge to qualifying workers and employers.
MOL inspectors now have the authority to refer a worker’s complaint of reprisal directly to the OLRB, in certain circumstances, and with the worker’s consent. The Chair of the OLRB can now expedite proceedings related to the resolution of reprisal complaints and referrals.

For more information on these changes and each of the Worker and Employer Advisors, go to their websites at:

The people wondered why they were falling ill.

“Please save us!” they asked the king.

The king could not to tell them the truth, for his wife -- an evil queen -- had cast a spell over him and all the farmers that made them blindly do her bidding, feeding the poisons to the farm animals as well as spraying it on the crops. For though the poison made the people grow fat and sick, and die of diabetes, cancer and heart disease, it also made the animals grow large and fat quickly, so they could be killed and chopped up for their meat sooner. They could even be fed cheap grains and not wander the lands eating grass (their natural food). The poisoned crops grew quickly, with no insect daring to go near them. And bees and other pollinators that did approach the crops became sick just like the people, as did the other inhabitants of their hives and colonies.

The poisoned food allowed the queen to collect more gold and treasure, which she kept in a vault inside the castle. As the people became sicker and sicker, the queen got richer and richer.

Over time, the treasure made the queen mad with power.

The animals got sick from the poisons that made them grow fast. The king’s royal vet begged the queen to let the cattle wander in the pastures, and eat the green grass.

“Please, your majesty, let the animals roam!” he asked the queen, trembling with fear before her throne.

“No, you insolent fool!” yelled the queen, and ordered her men-at-arms to drag him to the dungeon deep below the castle.

Instead, she ordered that the cattle be made to stand knee deep in their own filth and eat the fattening grains that were unnatural to them.

The queen treated all the other farm animals this way, ordering the farmers keep the pigs away from sunlight in metal pens so small they could not move in any direction. The pigs would cry and some would go mad and chew off their neighbor’s tails or gnaw their own limbs, but no one could hear their wailing far away in their dark crowded barns.

For the chickens it was the same, though the farmers complained the chickens would peck themselves and each other from frustration with their horrible lives.

“This would be solved,” the farmers told the queen fearfully, “if the chickens could run outside a little bit each day.”

But the queen was furious, because exercise would stop the birds from getting fat and ready for slaughter fast enough. Instead, she devised a wicked plan.

“If pecking is the problem, then chop off their beaks!” she said coolly.

The farmers agreed and went away trembling, thankful to still be in possession of their heads.

All went well for a time for the evil queen and her mesmerized farmers. Gold and treasure filled the coffers of her vault, until another and then another had to be built. Gold and silver coins poured from every strongbox, and piles of precious metal, diamonds and rubies lay in every corner of every room.

But over time a problem emerged. So many people were becoming sick from the poisons in the food that the hospitals were overflowing, and the cost of caring for the sick and dying threatened to bankrupt the kingdom. As the population aged, more and more treasure was needed to treat them.

The royal doctors asked the king for help, but it was no use.

The queen could have stopped the poisons being put in the food of the people, but instead she had another wicked idea.

She retreated to her rooms and her cauldron, and used dark magic to create potions that would be sold to the people as medicine. She would charge the people for this medicine and grow rich from their treatment, just as she grew rich from feeding them. She sold the people her potions and lotions, even though it rarely cured them. She grew richer and richer even as the people became sicker and poorer.

And so it was in this faraway land, where there was never a happy ending.

Be thankful, readers, that you live in a country where nothing like this could happen. Where chemical companies sell growth hormones, pesticides, herbicides and genetically-altered seeds with only the public’s welfare in mind, and not their profits. Thank the industrial food system for its efficiency in producing food inexpensively, with you in mind, not just the bottom line. Be grateful that the large pharmaceutical companies promote inexpensive, natural and preventative solutions to prevent diabetes, cancer and heart disease, and don’t just invest in expensive medicines in which they can obtain a patent. Be thankful that the medical system in our land recognizes the value of prevention and does not waste the people’s money treating disease only after a person falls ill. And give praise to our government, that is doing a superb job protecting the public interest and health, and is not at all in collusion with the large companies that give it money and flood its offices and committees with lobbyists.

Be grateful that your belief in the system is not belief in some fairytale.

The week got away from me due to the latest magazine deadline (pushing out the April/May edition of Solid Waste & Recycling) and Easter added to time limitations to contact the company for more details. I promise to follow that up in a later post, but if you’re keen in the interim the company is named Silk Road Teas and their website is here:

http://www.silkroadteas.com/servlet/the-template/about/Page

The universe often works in strange ways. The week before I’d bought a Vitamix blender, and wrote about that in an earlier post. The machine is working brilliantly at helping me create (so far) very vitamin and mineral rich smoothies. One of the benefits of the machine is that it keeps the pulp in the blend; I usually keep the pulp and fibre in, but one could strain some or all of it out.

Anyway, it had occurred to me that it’d be nice sometimes to just extract the pure juice without the pulp, but I didn’t feel like laying out the cash for a separate juicer, having just bought a fairly expensive Vitamix. Well, wouldn’t you know that I was out walking the dog and discovered a neighbor three doors down had put a box on their front lawn containing items for anyone to take, for free. And what were they? A Juiceman Jr. juicing machine (I am not making this up); an old-fashioned electric machine with a spinning top that squeezes the juice from oranges and grapefruit halves (if you push them down); and, a hefty commercial-grade (but manageably small) gelati (Italian ice cream) machine. All in perfect order! With owner’s manuals, too! (All I had to do was recycled a few coffee cups and pop cans that were in the box.)

I immediately used the Juiceman Jr. to juice some organic veggies that were getting to their expiry point, mostly celery and carrots that were lying around, and enough parsley and other greens to fill a 12 oz glass with delicious fresh juice.

So you see, sometimes if you just adopt good intentions to start juicing and live a healthier life, the universe will deliver little presents to you like this. I believe it’s called Karma.

I want to update you about a few quick items in point form, then share a terrific list of eight “superfoods” I found online:

1. I was amused and pleased over the Easter weekend visiting with relatives to see that my mother and stepfather have taken to drinking brightly colored fruit and/or veggie smoothies. My stepfather is 85 years old and I hope and expect this new habit will give him energy and help maintain his health for years to come. Way to go!

2. I bought a copy of Eat Raw, Eat Well: 400 Raw, Vegan & Gluten-Free Recipes by Douglas McNish who was interviewed on CBC radio’s Sunday morning. The book seems destined to be one of the stock items in the kitchens of healthy food eaters, and is already being referred to as the Bible of raw cuisine. I tried the recipe for avocado and cucumber salad, which was delicious and easy to make. (Here’s a tip for you, courtesy of my nephew Nathaniel on the weekend, who at age 18 is already an accomplished cook. It’s notoriously difficult to determine, when buying them, whether avocados are ripe or not. If you buy some that need ripening, immerse them in a bag filled with regular baking flour and within a day, voila! the avocados will be ripe!)

3. A friend who knows a great deal about health foods told me about Lucuma, which I ordered from my local health food store.

Here’s a (slightly edited) summary of Lucuma (powder) from the website of Navitas Naturals (http://www.navitasnaturals.com/) from where you can order some, or ask your health food store to do so. And below that, the article on the eight superfoods we should all be consuming.

Lucuma (loo-ku-mah): a sweet and edible fruit of the Lucuma tree (Pouteria obovata, or Lucuma obovata), resembling a persimmon in appearance. The orange and yellow pulp of this exotic, sweet fruit was once hailed the “Gold of the Incas,” where it has been cultivated since ancient times. A native to the highlands of Peru, Chile, and Ecuador, the fruit of the beautiful evergreen lucuma tree has been honored spiritually as well as in cuisine due to its exquisite composition.

Today, lucuma continues to enjoy enormous popularity in its native lands, and in some countries is actually favored over classics like chocolate and vanilla as an ice cream flavor. Navitas Naturals offers lucuma in a whole fruit powder form that makes incorporating it into delicious recipes a dream.

Lucuma is considered a healthy alternative sweetener as it lends a sweet taste to recipes, but is very low in sugars. With naturally occurring beta-carotene, niacin, and iron, lucuma powder is a welcome antidote to notorious “empty calorie” sweeteners.

Here’s the article by Allison Young from Women’s Health that was reproduced online in the “fitbie” section of MSN. You can read the original and view photos here:

http://fitbie.msn.com/slideshow/new-superfoods-you-should-be-eating

And here’s the text:

Kefir

It has more protein and less sugar than yogurt, but with the same creamy texture, tangy taste, and probiotics. These healthy bacteria are a known immune enhancer, and may protect against colon cancer, says Tamara Freuman, R.D.

Try It Instead of yogurt in salad dressings or smoothies. Plain kefir is in the dairy aisle, but Lifeway makes a dessert-ready frozen variety too.

Jicama

This slightly sweet and crunchy root veggie stars inulin, a belly-flattening fiber that acts as a prebiotic to promote helpful bacteria in the gut. It's also an excellent source of vitamin C, which may boost collagen and fight wrinkles.

Try It Cooked or raw in slaws, stir-fries, tacos, and salads, or tossed in lime juice and sprinkled with chili powder. Find it at farmers' markets or Mexican groceries.

Chia

One tablespoon of these nutty-tasting edible seeds has as much fiber as a bowl of oatmeal, plus bone-building calcium and heart-healthy omega-3s. Chia is also a good source of iron, which many women don't get enough of, notes Freuman.

Try It On cereal, salads, and soups, or use it to thicken puddings and stir-fries. (The seeds absorb liquid and acquire a gel-like texture.) Available at natural grocery stores.

Sprouts

Three-day-old broccoli plants may contain up to 50 times more of the anticancer agent sulforaphane than mature stalks, but without the pungent taste, says Kate Geagan, R.D., author of Go Green Get Lean.

Try Them On sandwiches, wraps, pizza, baked potatoes, stews, stir-fries, tacos, and just about anything else you can think of. Pick some up at your grocery store or local farmers' market.

Black Garlic

Fermentation gives this garlic its sweet, clove-and-caramel flavor and concentrates its natural antioxidants to nearly double that of a raw bulb. These compounds help lower cholesterol and can help decrease cancer risk, says Janet Helm, R.D., of NutritionUnplugged.com. And the black stuff comes with no nasty breath!

Try It In fondue, sauces, pizza, and, believe it or not, cookies, brownies, and cakes. Order some at blackgarlic.com

Kelp

A possible anti-breast-cancer crusader, kelp is loaded with vitamin K, calcium, and other essential nutrients. And its natural alginate fiber may help block fat, says nutritionist Christine Avanti.

Try It In powdered form, mixed into meatballs and soups; use sheets (kombu) as uber-low-cal wrappers. Some specialty stores carry Sea Tangle Kelp Noodles (kelpnoodles.com), which have just six calories per serving!

Nutritional Yeast

A single serving of these cheese-like flakes has an incredible nine grams of satiating protein and provides more than your RDA of B vitamins to help boost energy, squash stress, and decrease your risk for chronic diseases.

Try It As a dairy-free sub for Parmesan on popcorn, potatoes, pasta, or scrambled eggs. You can find this yeast in specialty markets or health-food stores.

Barley

This sweet, nutty supergrain is rich in niacin (for healthy hair and skin) and cancer-fighting lignans. Plus, "the soluble fiber keeps your cholesterol levels healthy, cutting your risk for heart disease," says Geagan.

Try It In place of pasta, rice, or oatmeal. Or swap Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain Barley Flour (bobsredmill.com) for up to a third of the flour in baked goods. Both are available at regular grocery stores.

As an aside, I’m using the term “cancer-free lifestyle” as short-hand for healthy living, to have more impact than just “healthy living” which everyone says they’d like to do more of. I think everyone has a (justified) deep-seated fear of cancer, and I believe that a bit of fear is usually necessary to get us off the fence and stop procrastinating about eating as we should. It’s also worth noting that the word “cancer” is itself short-hand for a phenomenon that’s naturally occurring in the body -- a topic to which I will return in a later online article. The things we eat to be cancer-free are also, of course, mostly the same things we would eat to be free of diabetes or heart disease.

Every one of us typically has about 750,000 cancer cells in our bodies at any given time, being kept in check by killer blood cells constantly absorbing and destroying them. As long as our immune systems are strong, we’ve little to fear. (And while 750,000 sounds like a lot, compared to the billions of healthy cells in our bodies, it’s actually a very tiny number.) The word “cancer” more generally describes the tumors that occur when cancer takes root somewhere in the body: mutated cells multiply out of control and the body wraps these cells with healthy tissue to insulate the cancerous cells as best it can from the rest of the body (while it figures out what to do).

Anyway, on to this week’s changes, which started with the unexpectedly quick arrival mid-week of my Vitamix blender, which I hadn’t expected for several more days. I had bought, as mentioned in an earlier post, a factory-reconditioned model for $100 less that comes with the same seven-year warranty as new. This offset the $100 extra I spent to acquire both the “wet” and “dry” processing containers, as I intend to blend or grind dry cereal and nut-type foods as well as wet things like veggies and fruit for smoothies.

I could hardly wait until the weekend to go shopping for fresh ingredients to blend into various concoctions. In fact I didn’t wait! Mid-week I poured some water (and the tail end of a small container of juice) into the wet Vitamix container and chopped up some carrots, celery, parsley and other vegetables that were at the point of needing to be used up soon. I really didn’t need to chop as much as I did because the Vitamix liquefied everything effectively. I could have kept the machine running longer and made it very liquid, but chose with my first vegetable smoothie to settle on a coarser texture. It tasted great, and I’ll play with various spices and combinations of things to come up with even better tasting mixes.

I’m continuing with Vega powder for my morning smoothie, but have started mixing it in the Vitamix with things like apples or melon. As I suspected, one can easily toss in beneficial fibre (and other) supplements and notice even notice they’re in there. (This is a great way to get extra nutrition into kids.) A favorite is the Organic “Linusprout” supplement (sprouted milled flax seed powder).

On the weekend I had a joyous shopping experience at a market that’s only open on Saturdays in Toronto and that I hope has its equivalents in other cities. It’s called the Evergreen Brickworks -- part of a site restoration project on Bayview Avenue (near Pottery Road) where a market, craft rooms, an interpretative centre, etc. have been installed inside and around the buildings of a former brick factory and clay pit. This place comes into its glory in the spring when the farmer’s market opens up, but even in the off season I was impressed and surprised by the number of indoor merchants offering all manner of organic and natural foods, and at quite reasonable prices.

I filled a reusable cloth shopping bag with the following items (some of which are not easy to come by elsewhere):

• Chia seeds (imported directly by the vendor -- called “horizontal trade”) from Mexico;
• Hulled hemp hearts (grown organically and locally);
• Raw dry cacao beans (pronounced “ka-kow” these are the raw material of chocolate and are an omega super food, hundreds of times more potent than many other omega-rich foods.) The beans were horizontal-imported direct from the Lacandon forest in the Chiapas area of Mexico. (It’s cool just learning this stuff!);
• Natural organic chocolate (made from the same cacao beans) -- one a spicy flavor containing five different kinds of chili, the other a natural vanilla;
• Locally-produced organic soy in three different flavors (for adding to stir fry in place of meat);
• Free-range eggs (truly free, where the chickens get to run around);
• A package of stewing beef from a natural meats producer (grass fed, animal gets to walk around in the sun and rain, no unnecessary antibiotics or growth hormones, etc.);
• Cheese made from water buffalo and some sheep’s milk feta. (I’m lactose intolerant and although I’m totally off dairy, I want to indulge in a slice of cheese now and again, and have feta for my Greek salads.)

It’s worth noting that each of the above purchases was made from vendors at stalls and it was a real pleasure talking to them about how they grow or otherwise produce their wares. It was a more social and “human” experience than shopping under the fluorescent lights of a conventional and impersonal supermarket. Some of the vendors suggested I try this or that item that I then bought in small quantity, the vendors inviting me to return next week to buy more or less of whatever agrees with me.

It was all so… cool! (And there were live musicians performing, which gave the place a kind of folksy vibe, too.)

Since the farmer’s market isn’t open yet I headed next to Toronto’s only Whole Foods supermarket (in Yorkville, where else?) to buy produce and a few more exotic goodies. Visiting a Whole Foods for the first time is a mind-blowing experience! I have been to Whole Foods in the United States before, so it wasn’t totally strange to me, but in this instance I was looking at everything through new (health-aware) eyes and greatly appreciated what was on offer.

Finally, there was the organic kale, beets and cilantro that wasn’t available in the small organic section of my local Metro supermarket. (All of these have found their way into my vegetable smoothies, and the beets became a wonderful beet salad made with a “turning slicer” I bought at Health Service Centre Inc. on Bloor Street West.) Kale, beets and cilantro are incredible health foods but difficult to consume enough of without making smoothies, so I strongly recommend buying a Vitamix or similar blender/juicer. (Note that if you already own a Cuisinart, you can get started with juicing right away and defer buying a blender until you’re in the habit.)

The Whole Foods walk-through was a “through the looking glass” experience: imagine a regular-looking supermarket where everything is organic or natural, and tons of merchandise is from recycled. Imagine a store whose owners have clearly sat down over the years and asked themselves, “How can we make every single item in this store the healthiest and most environmentally protective it can be?”

I’m sure that the critics will find fault, and I know Michael Pullen discovers various shortcomings in his excellent book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I will report some of the critiques of Whole Foods in this space another time, but, really, this place is just so vastly superior to any regular supermarket it’s mind blowing. And while I will always choose to buy from farmer’s markets and individual vendors such as the ones at the Evergreen Brickworks, when I need certain items, more choice and at least some convenience, I’ll be headed to Whole Foods. (Are you listening Loblaws? Metro? This is part of a major trend and you better get with it! Walmart isn’t the only “death star” to your business spinning around out there. Expand your organics sections in a big way soon, please!)

At Whole Foods I also managed to pick up a very interesting and harder-to-find item: that’s a bag of raw Maca (in powdered form). This is called by some the “Inca superfood”). The Maca was recommended by a yoga teacher friend of mine whose daughter lives in Peru. The brand I bought is from Navitas Naturals which harvests it from the Junin Plateau of the Peruvian Andes. (Ya gotta just love buying stuff like this!) The label explains that for centuries Maca has been used for increasing stamina, libido and to combat fatigue. Maca is a nutrient-dense whole food packed with vitamins, plant sterols as well as essential minerals, fatty and amino acids. It’s expensive, but one bag lasts a long time as you add small amounts to your smoothies and cereal concoctions. (I hope to find a horizontal-trade source eventually.)

I mixed and “powderized” the Maca, hemp hearts and raw cacao beans in the dry container of my blender, then mixed that into the large jar of homemade granola-type cereal I described in an earlier article, thus making that cereal even more of a superfood than it already was. (And due to the cacao beans it now has a slightly chocolate taste.)

Here are some interesting end-notes to this week’s online column:

1. I’ve cut back on the size of the fruit smoothies I serve myself for breakfast and the veggie ones I pour for lunch, as well as the bowl of homemade cereal I normally douse with a bit of almond milk. I’ve found that this “nutrient-dense” food leaves me feeling full for hours. I have trouble consuming more than about an 8 oz smoothie serving, and I use only one small scoop of granola-type cereal, not the two I initially thought I needed.

2. There’s a biological reason for this (see below), related to why I no longer crave carbohydrates of the type I used to eat all the time. I’m simply not interested in the pasta or bread that I used to eat lots of, often with butter or cheese or creamy sauces. I don’t even eat potato chips anymore, although when I feel like a cheesy snack there are some organic baked cheese puff kind of things I sometimes enjoy (and that are often on sale, I’ve noticed, probably because they don’t fly off the shelves like Doritos…). And I can’t even eat more than half a small bag of those.

3. Akin to this, I no longer patronize fast food restaurants, and even avoid corporate restaurant chains of any kind. I prefer to give my money to family-run or small-scale businesses, and I find their food is better for the most part anyway. (There’s a casual cafeteria-style place around the corner I sometimes go to for lunch that’s run by some Tibetans that has great food cheap; you’d swear their vegetarian chili had meat.)

4. The reason for all of the above is that my metabolism is changing; I’m slimming down because my body is finally getting the nutrition it’s been craving for years, instead of empty calories from starchy and fatty prepared foods (not to mention fast food). My guess is that my immune system is getting a boost from the fresh and raw superfoods. Without even planning to do so, I realized on the weekend that my diet is now at least 70 per cent raw. I’m getting a lot of vitamins and minerals from the smoothies and homemade cereal concoctions, plus the salads I usually have for dinner along with the occasional serving of non-factory farm meat.

A note about next week: I’m scheduled for a physical with my family doctor this week, and will be tested for a range of indicators of my overall health. It’ll be interesting to compare this six months and a year from now, in terms of things like blood pressure, cholesterol and so on. I bought some Ph test paper from my local health food store and will report on the testing I’ve started on my body’s level of alkalinity (versus acidic, which is very cancer-friendly). Just so you know, my first test showed my Ph at 6.2 to 6.4, which is optimal, but I need to test every day and come up with an average.

In a future blog I’m also going to write about the health benefits of tea (especially herbal teas), which I now drink in the afternoon instead of coffee (which I only have early in the morning). If you want to get a jump on what I’m going to say, I recommend you watch a fascinating movie that may be available at your local video store. (In my case, I watched it on my $8-per-month Netflix, the best value in entertainment.) The movie is entitled “All in This Tea” and is a wonderful documentary about the adventures of David Lee Hoffman -- a tea importer who traveled around the China years ago discovering the world’s best teas in provinces such as Fujian, Anhui, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hunan, Yunnan and Guangxi. He almost single-handedly resurrected the industry of artisanal and rare tea growing and making that was being obliterated by state-run factories using inferior chemically-sprayed teas. Ultimately he sold his business (Silk Road Tea) and I’ll be reporting how you can find or direct-order this marvelous tea today from the new owners who still buy their tea in the way Hoffman pioneered.

A listing and description of the film can be found here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1015968/

After I started this article series I realized quite quickly that documenting my own personal changes from an ordinary diet and lifestyle to a much healthier low-toxicity “cancer prevention” one was going to be a long journey. I’ve found that once you make the decision to go this route, with “no excuses,” it’s just incredible how many sources of toxicity are around, and how many changes one needs to make.

And a rather profound thought occurred to me this past week also, which is that, in terms of dangers to our health from food, our society in 2012 is stuck at about the place it was in the 1970s with respect to the industrial pollution, before the first sweeping environmental legislation outlawed the direct release by factories of toxic effluent into the soil, rivers and air. Nowadays, there’s a toxic pipe alright, and it’s sticking in our mouths!

The good news is that, so far, the process has been easier than I thought – a pleasure really. Among the discoveries I’ve made is that it’s highly rewarding to research what I need to change not only because the information is interesting, but because it has got me into conversation with people much more than in the past, in situations like grocery shopping, that used to just be a chore.

Fact is, most people who work at health food stores, organic supermarkets and farmers markets are passionate about what they do and love to share information. When you start reading labels, it’s natural to ask the person in the aisle beside you what they know or think about a particular product or additive. The people at the cash register need only minimal prompting to give advice and even offer recipes or links to information resources. It’s all part of the fun stepping outside the impersonal factory farm/industrial food and chemical agri-business system (that’s controlled by a handful of mega-corporations) and into another realm inhabited by real people connected personally to a different linkage between field and dinner plate.

This week I offer readers three really terrific links. One is to a fabulous online article from The Daily Beast by Dr. Mark Hyman about the how the health system has it all wrong, and how our efforts should be focused on prevention of diabetes and obesity, not treating all the related diseases that could have been prevented in the first place with dietary and lifestyle changes.

Another link is to a wonderful CNN interview in which host Wolf Blitzer talks to former President Bill Clinton about his shift to a plant-based diet and other changes in order to prevent arteriosclerosis, followed by an interesting Q&A with health experts who fill in further details.

The other link is to a film that you really must find and watch, which is the best film I’ve ever seen explaining proper diet and health, in an entertaining and informative way; the producers have made the film available online for free for a short time (to promote it virally across the internet). If the free viewing time period is over by the time you click on the link, you can nevertheless inexpensively order the film for download along with some related educational materials. (Search on Google under the film’s name “Hungry for Change” or look for their page on Facebook.)

The links are all below (scroll down) and I’ve copy/pasted the article from The Daily Beast in its entirety for your added convenience.

Before I give you the links, I thought I’d quickly mention some of the personal changes I've made in the past week:

1. Visited my family doctor and scheduled a complete physical (something I commit to do every spring, especially now that I’m in my 50s). He will order blood work at that meeting specifically to test for things like cholesterol and other health indicators I want him to monitor over the next six months and beyond as I make my lifestyle changes.

2. I committed to cut down my coffee consumption to just one cup per day. Why? In addition to the usual reasons such as too much caffeine makes me jittery, coffee is highly acidic. An acidic metabolism is a perfect environment for cancer to establish itself and grow. (Note that in a future post I will list the foods that promote acid and the ones that are alkaline; you want reduce the former and eat more of the latter.)

3. I disposed of all the under-the-counter commercial chemical cleaners in my bathroom and kitchen. No exceptions! No excuses! In place of these I have containers (some of them spray bottles) containing vinegar, water, lemon juice and baking soda. (I’m using recipes from municipal waste and recycling websites to make my own cleaning concoctions that work as well as the commercial products.) In case you’re interested, making this change took about 10 minutes of disposal time, and about an hour of extra time at the supermarket and the dollar store buying the ingredients and containers. (For some of my containers and spray bottles I actually rinsed out and reused some of the containers that formerly contained commercial products.)

4. I ordered a Vita-Mix commercial-quality blender/juicer. This was a very expensive item that cost about $600. (Note that I ordered a factory-reconditioned unit that comes with the same seven-year warranty as a new one, and saved $100.) I’m happy to spend this money as “juicing” is by far the fastest and easiest way to create smoothies with the fruit and veggie servings we really need to consume each day (especially deep green chlorophyll-rich vegetables like parsley and kale that are “super foods”). Over time it will more than pay for itself as I’ll be able to make my own drinks and sauces, and spend less money on health food store powders and additives.

5. While I await my Vita-Mix blender’s arrival, I’ve started a totally new breakfast routine with two main components: smoothies and special granola cereal. I have a nutrient dense smoothie made from adding “Vega” brand powder to almond milk. (This is the fastest, easiest and healthiest way to start having shakes for breakfast.) It helped that a health store had the large-size containers on sale for half price; with extra $5-off coupons I bought four containers for myself and two for a friend for just $30 each! These will last for months, and I’ll add some of the powder to my own smoothie concoctions. (Another great powder product to add or drink on its own is GreensPlus, which you can sometimes fine on sale.)

6. Regarding the granola cereal, I surpassed my own expectations on Sunday morning by creating my own custom blend breakfast cereal. I simply bought many of the ingredients I saw on very expensive health food store cereal mixes and created my own version, then stored it in an empty “Vega” smoothie container, making sure to keep everything very dry so it stores well. For about $25 I made what will easily be a month’s supply, saving perhaps a hundred dollars or more (and it’s delicious!). The ingredients I used this time around (simply mixing a heaping handful or a “cup” of each in a large dry bowl) were as follows: sprouted milled flax seed powder, quinoa, sprouted chia seed powder, walnut crumbs, coconut flakes, raw sunflower seeds, ground almond, cranberries and nuts, and hemp hearts (to which I add organic honey and almond milk when serving). This was SO EASY I can’t believe I waited so long to try it!

Now, here are the links I promised above to some great videos and an article:

Link for the terrific movie “Hungry for Change” about diet and health:

http://www.hungryforchange.tv/

Link to the CNN interview with Bill Clinton about his plant-based diet (from inside a website that sells water ionizing machines):

http://www.waterionizer.org/site/898596/page/4025676

Link to the excellent article by Dr. Mark Hyman on The Daily Beast about why preventing diabetes and obesity is the “ounce of prevention” cure to hundreds of other illnesses that will cripple the medical system and the whole economy if we just wait for people to get sick.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/23/the-real-fight-over-healthcare-should-be-against-diabetes-and-obesity.html

And below is the article reproduced for your convenience here:

The Real Fight Over Health Care Should Be Against Diabetes and Obesity

Forget the Supreme Court hearing over Obama’s health-care bill, the real fight should be against the obesity and diabetes tsunami engulfing America. Dr. Mark Hyman on why doctors and the health system has it all wrong.

by Mark Hyman, MD | March 23, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

In the run-up to the presidential election, the political debate is heating up around Obamacare. As the Supreme Court prepares to deliberate on the individual mandate, the single biggest question is hauntingly absent from the campaign discourse.

How do we stop and turn back the tsunami of chronic disease, in particular, diabesity—the continuum of obesity, pre-diabetes, and diabetes that is the major driver of 21st-century suffering and health-care costs? Diabesity is the hidden cause of most heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, stroke, dementia, many cancers (breast, colon, prostate, pancreas, liver, and kidney), and even depression. Yet is it almost never treated directly because there is no good drug for it.

Over the next 20 years $47 trillion will be spent around the world to address chronic diseases caused by diabesity. How our next president addresses this will determine whether or not we bequeath a bankrupt, desperately sick nation to our children, the first generation of Americans who will live sicker and die younger than their parents.

The good news is while we cannot solve problems like war or natural disasters, we can solve diabesity. We haven’t been able to win the war in Afghanistan, but we can win this war on chronic disease. Diabesity is nearly 100 percent preventable, treatable, and very often curable. As Donald Rumsfeld said, this is a “known known.” The science is clear, the strategies well documented (if little applied). Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Tea Partiers alike all have have the potential to get sick and must face this problem square on.

Diabesity affects one in two Americans, yet is not diagnosed in 90 percent of those who have it. In fact, there are no national screening recommendations for pre-diabetes or for persons at high risk for diabetes. The implications of this medical blind spot are staggering—the single biggest cause of chronic disease is overlooked and not treated 90 percent of the time.

Twenty-five percent of those over 65, one in five African-Americans, and one in 10 across the whole population have diabetes. One in three children born today will have diabetes in their lifetime. And pre-diabetes affects up to 150 million Americans. Diabetes alone accounts for one in three Medicare dollars spent. Diabetics cost health plans five times more than nondiabetics ($20,000 vs. $4,000). By 2014, when 16 million more citizens are eligible for Medicaid, the burden of costs will be even greater.

Seventy percent of the federal budget is for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. By 2042, 100 percent of the federal budget will be required to pay for Medicare and Medicaid, leaving nothing for defense, transportation, education, agriculture, environment, or anything else. This is unsustainable. We need a collective, bipartisan national campaign with the passion and vision of President Kennedy’s call to action to put “a man on the moon by the end of this decade.”

The insurance reform at the heart of the Affordable Care Act allows for better access to medical care, including medication and surgery. It laudably promotes improved efficiencies, reduction in medical errors, better care coordination, and implementation of best practices.

But what if we are coordinating the wrong kind of care? What if our best practices are the wrong practices? Our toxic industrial diet, our sedentary lifestyle, chronic stress, and environmental toxins cause diabesity and its attendant downstream ills (often mislabeled as something else, such as hypertension, cancer, heart disease, dementia). Drugs and surgery are feeble, ineffective, costly, and often harmful treatments for lifestyle-induced illness. They are misguided efforts at best, dangerous at worst. Mounting evidence proves that the solution to lifestyle- and diet-driven obesity-related illnesses won’t be found at the bottom of a prescription bottle; they will be found at the end of our fork.

We don’t have “evidence-based” medicine. We have “reimbursement-based” medicine.

Prescription medication for lifestyle disease has failed to bend the obesity, disease, and cost curves. Statins have been recently found to increase the risk of diabetes in women by 48 percent. And factoring in the increased risk of diabetes when statins are used to prevent first heart attacks, there is no net benefit, and significant potential harm from statin use in the over 20 million Americans who take them.

Avandia, for example, the No. 1 blockbuster drug for type 2 diabetes, has caused nearly 200,000 deaths from heart attacks since it was introduced in 1999. The large ACCORD trial found in more than 10,000 diabetics that intensive blood sugar lowering with medication and insulin actually led to more heart attacks and deaths.

A recent study found that more than 75 percent of stent placements for heart disease don’t help at all to reduce heart attacks and deaths, are harmful, and unnecessarily increase health-care expenditures. Yet the number of angioplasties and stent placements performed has increased, not decreased.

We don’t have “evidence-based” medicine. We have “reimbursement-based” medicine. Doctors do what they get paid to do, not what the science shows they should do.

Train a new army of 1 million community health workers like the barefoot doctors of China who can support their peers in creating health.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is an extensively studied, scientifically validated set of strategies that work better, faster, and cheaper than medication and surgery and can be implemented at scale with little cost by lay people in local communities and in medical practices.

Intensive lifestyle therapy—not wellness counseling or prevention, but lifestyle treatment of existing chronic disease—focusing on pre-diabetes, diabetes, and heart disease has been proven to work better than medication or surgery. Currently, this is not implemented in our health-care delivery system or in community-based programs in any meaningful way. But it can and should be.

While the individual mandate and insurance reform are the main focus of the debate surrounding ObamaCare, little known but potentially transformative provisions of the Affordable Care Act provide the seeds of change for our entire health care system. These provisions, the National Diabetes Prevention Program (section 10501), Prevention and Public Health Fund (section 4002), creation of community health teams (section 3502), and incentives for states to prevent chronic illness among Medicaid beneficiaries (section 4108), could help stem the tide of chronic disease.

There are plenty of pilot programs, demonstration projects, and examples of the success of intensive, community-based lifestyle programs to improve health-care outcomes and reduce costs. Current provisions for payment and innovation within the health-reform bill set the stage for expansion of these programs.

The Diabetes Prevention Program showed that a structured lifestyle-change program could reduce the progression to diabetes by 58 percent, working better than any other known treatment. The study, published in 2002 in the New England Journal of Medicine, was based on outdated and contraindicated nutritional advice from the old Food Pyramid recommending a low-fat diet for diabetes prevention. The study was performed when bread and pasta were still king, and our government encouraged us to eat 8-10 servings a day of bread and cereals, which are now known to directly drive the risk of diabetes. And yet still, it was more effective than any medication.

This model has been scaled in communities and organizations across America, including a partnership with the Center for Disease Control, YMCA of America, and United Health Group using lay health coaches to implement the program. While the dietary recommendations are still less than ideal, these programs are working. Imagine what a program based on 21st-century nutritional science could do. And these programs have been conservatively documented to save billions.

Over the last few years, a number of examples of the power of community-based peer-support models have emerged. At Saddleback Church Rick Warren, Mehmet Oz, Daniel Amen, and I enrolled more than 15,000 congregants in a lifestyle-change program delivered with online support in small peer-support groups. The church members lost 250,000 pounds in a year, and many reversed diabetes, reduced or eliminated medication, and avoided hospitalization. We changed the culture of the church—changed what was served at bible breakfasts, at work, and at home. Participants learned to create health together—to shop, cook, eat, exercise, and play together. We didn’t treat disease. We didn’t create a weight-loss program. We taught people self-care and how to care for one another, and together they created a miracle—something heath care or health-care reform has not been able to achieve.

Innovative community-based models also can change our default choices for how we live, move, eat, and play. If the things that create health are easy to access and things that create disease are hard to get to, extraordinary change occurs. In Albert Lea, Minn., a pilot project was designed to create healthy choices and limit bad ones. Kids who weren’t allowed to eat in hallways and classrooms, for example, lost 10 percent of their weight. In Thailand, one community garden is irrigated by an old bike hooked up to a generator run by patients with diabetes. They get exercise and grow healthy food at the same time.

This model has been replicated across the world—including Peers for Progress that created pilot programs to treat diabetes in Cameroon, Uganda, Thailand, and South Africa based on peer support. The peer-support-group models were more effective than conventional medical intervention for improving the health of diabetics, and health-care costs decreased 10-fold.

Health it seems happens outside the clinic, where people live, work, play and pray. We need to rethink how we treat chronic disease. It is not only better medical management, which often just barely if at all staves off complications and death, but with high-science, low-cost, high-touch innovations. A comprehensive integrated strategy can solve this problem. Start with revised screening guidelines to identify the 90 percent of pre-diabetics and the 25 percent of diabetics never diagnosed. Build new practice models and reimbursement for group visits to deliver lifestyle medicine in more effective and cost-efficient ways. Support and scale proven community-based peer-support models of lifestyle change. More than 20 percent of Americans are out of work. Train a new army of 1 million community health workers like the barefoot doctors of China who can support their peers in creating health. Set a national goal for America of losing 1 billion pounds in a year.

Retool medical education to train future doctors in lifestyle and food treatment. Support private-public partnerships to create community environments that foster a healthier lifestyle. Fully fund the programs that work (lifestyle change) and stop paying for what doesn’t work (most angioplasties and stents and statin use). Implement the little-known provisions from the Affordable Care Act that can effect change. Prioritize the work of the newly formed National Council on Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health, an interagency council focused on creating a healthy America outside of the clinic and hospital. Fund these programs, test them, implement them, measure them, and then let the good ones flourish.

We can’t win the war in Afghanistan, and we have been losing the war on cancer, but this is one war we can win. We just need to mobilize.

The past week was an incredible one for me in terms of personal changes; I accomplished many more changes than I thought I would or could in just seven days. Which leads me to a side-statement: that this healthy eating/healthy living stuff is a lot easier than you may think. Once you get your head around shopping in health food stores (and the health food section of larger supermarkets) and start reading product labels, you’ll find your habits changing really quickly.

I can’t describe everything I did this week, but a highlight would have to be my trip to a very large health food supermarket in Newmarket (just north of Toronto) that was recommended to me by my friend Barbara (who demonstrates new products in health food stores, so she’s a great resource). I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that after my hour or so shopping there, my eyes teared up in the parking lot. I wondered why I suddenly felt weepy, but it was clear: it can actually be a very emotional experience when you finally realize you’re breaking with the “system” inside of which you’ve lived your whole life, by which I mean the industrial food and personal care or cleaning products. The feeling that comes with breaking one’s ties with Big Pharma and Big Agra (my term for the modern chemical-based agricultural-industrial complex) in one’s personal life and introducing choice is actually somewhat overwhelming.

The supermarket, called Nature’s Emporium, is really huge, on a scale with box-store supermarkets like Metro, Loblaws, etc. Just walking through the place was an education. I was impressed with the large offerings of organic produce, including not-so-easy-to-find organic potatoes and onions, among other things, and quite reasonably priced.

The main goal of my shopping trip was to pick up a few large (1029 g) containers of a powdered health shake that Barb recommended with the brand name “Vega” (from Sequel) that was on sale (due to the fact that producer is changing the ingredients a little and wants to sell the existing supply before new marketing hits the streets). I paid about $40 each for two large containers, which I noticed sell in regular supermarkets for about $70. Having now tried the product, I plan to go back and buy even more while the sale is in effect (if there’s any left!).

Instead of regular granola and almond milk, breakfast for me now consists of a Vega shake, that I create by mixing the powder with either water or almond milk in my handy Magic Bullet mini-blender. (The advantage of the Magic Bullet is that the mixing container is also the drinking cup for single servings.) Vega is gluten free and the label extols its virtues as a “complete whole food health optimizer” and “an all-in-one natural plant-based formula.” Reading the nutritional list on the label, it looks pretty complete. Although the directions suggest two scoops of powder, I find the formula is robust enough that I can only manage one, before feeling full.

The other components of my breakfast include a very small serving of a granola-type cereal with the amusing name “Holy Crap” that was featured on the TV show Dragon’s Den and that was recommended to me by my local health food store. I combine this with some fresh fruit (e.g., cantaloupe), a bit of organic honey, almond milk and a tablespoon of coconut oil. On top of this I still have a cup of black coffee, so that actually constitutes quite a large meal and I feel very full until lunchtime. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that I also use the shake to wash down a high-quality men’s multi-vitamin, a capsule of wild Alaskan salmon oil, and a capsule of acidophilus (which contributes to healthy intestinal flora).

After less than a week of breakfasts of this sort, I feel a marked increase in my energy level and general feeling of well being. (I’ll report back about other modifications I make to my breakfast regimen in future posts.)

Here’s a list, in no particular order, of other activities and changes I’ve made this past week:

At Nature’s Emporium (www.naturesemporium.ca) I picked up some eco-friendly dish detergent and laundry detergent.

I bought some baking soda, vinegar and lemon juice, to use for general cleaning of kitchen and bathroom sinks and fixtures.

I filled a plant spray bottle with vinegar and put it in the shower, along with a squeegee wiper (the idea being to quickly spray and wipe down the shower stall after each use, and avoid using commercial cleansers).

Concerned about possible carcinogens and endocrine disruptors, etc. in face creams, skin creams and after shave products, I dropped in to the Organic Beauty Boutique (www.organicbeautys.com) in Collingwood (where I rent a ski condo for winter weekends) and bought a small jar of moisturizing skin balm made from about a dozen organic oils and unguents. I now use this soothing ointment on my face and in place of after shave, and it does a great job. Though it cost around $30, it will last a long time (I’m guessing six months, maybe even a year, depending on how much I use it).

I haven’t found organic sources for everything yet, but am emphasizing salads and raw and cooked vegetable dishes for lunch and dinner nowadays. I even found some baked organic cheese puffs on sale to offer the kids a healthier evening snack in front of the TV.

With the warm weather I decided to barbeque some meat over the weekend (I am still an omnivore) but avoided red meat, choosing this time pork that the label told me was grown without antibiotics or any kinds of growth hormones. But it was still bought from a large supermarket and I intend to source a local producer of “natural meat” soon; by “natural meat” I mean meat from animals raised on farms where the animals get to walk around and eat grass or whatever else is natural to them, and not from animals raised on feed lots standing knee deep in their own manure, being fed corn to make them grow faster and antibiotics because this makes them sick. Ideally I wish to find meat from a farm where I can actually talk to the farmer and take a walk around, but that may be several weeks away.

(Note that when researching a freelance article I wrote long ago for On The Bay magazine in Collingwood, I learned the distinction between “organic” meat and “natural” meat. For me, the distinction is pretty meaningless and I’m happy for now to settle for natural meat; in order to qualify for an organic certification, a meat producer has to pass various tests that are almost impossible, and raise the price of the product dramatically with little additional benefit. A natural meat producer can come pretty close to the same mark, without incurring that kind of expense. But I admit it’s a “buyer beware” situation and I advise readers to research their own natural meat source personally; talk to an independent butcher or shop that sells such products, and ask to visit the farm and take a look around, asking questions. Nothing beats doing your own direct research to ensure the meat you buy is free from most antibiotics, growth hormones, and the sort of general animal cruelty that’s ubiquitous in industrial meat production systems.)

Lastly, I watched a couple of online films that I plan to write about next week, one of which is entitled Cancer is Curable Now that you can watch for free here:

http://www.canceriscurablenow.tv/promo/free-directors-cut

It contains really fascinating information, and you may wish to watch it yourself and not wait until next week for my review. The film is a summary version of a series of videos and print resources designed to educate people with cancer about the wide variety of treatment options available to them worldwide, that may be chosen in addition to, or in place of, traditional radiation and chemotherapy. The film is very fair and really quite remarkable.

Oh, and I booked an appointment with a dietician and will get some blood work done later this week, to help form a more accurate snapshot of my current health as I start making these food and lifestyle changes. I’ll update readers about that too next week.

My focus this week is going to be on coconut oil, the newly discovered benefits of which (including fighting Alzheimer’s disease) will (pun intended) “blow your mind.”

First a quick update on a couple of health related fronts. This series follows my progress in personally being the guinea pig in an ordinary person’s conversion to healthy living. Each week I’m making at least one significant change in my diet and personal environment. The big one this week is coconut oil, but I first wanted to mention almond milk and candles.

After learning a few weeks ago that soy milk and most other soy products are not the healthy substitute for dairy that I had assumed, I switched over to almond milk. I have to say that I really don’t notice the difference much, and really enjoy almond milk on my granola cereal. I will presently be switching away from granola cereal toward having a bright green shake for breakfast, but I’ll get into detail on that in a later post. Almond milk is great, but be careful to choose the better variety in the refrigerated section of your grocery story over the kind sold in large polycoat drink boxes. Better still, choose the kind sold in the health food section of your grocery store, or even a health food store. (Note: when I purchase an industrial blender in the next few weeks I will begin making my own almond milk, and will write about that at that time.)

The other item I wanted to quickly mention is candles. Avoid buying candles, especially the inexpensive kind sold in places like Winners and Home Sense, or any store where you don’t know who made them and how. The reason? Many candles are made with inexpensive wicks form China (and elsewhere) that are loaded with lead. Burning candles indoors is one of our greatest exposures to lead in the environment. Instead, buy only beeswax candles, preferably from local suppliers and craftspeople. These are generally safe. The best substitute for regular candles is the kind I bought in quantity a few weeks ago at the Home Depot: battery-operated candles (you know, the thick round kind) that are programmed to clicker just like a real candle. The ones I bought have a mild vanilla scent and are indistinguishable from regular candles, and there’s no burning involved. I even bought two that work as wall sconces. Over time you’ll save a lot of money with these, and be able to safely create a charming mood in your home.

Now, on to coconut oil.

Below I provide a link to a CBN News segment entitled “Coconut Oil Touted as Alzheimer's Remedy.” This is one of the most interesting health-related news items I’ve come across in some time.

In this segment, Dr. Mary Newport describes her husband Steve’s positive treatment for Alzheimer’s disease using coconut oil.

Newport describes Alzheimer's as being a kind of “diabetes of the brain” in which insulin problems prevent brain cells from accepting glucose, their primary fuel. However, an alternative brain fuel exists in the form of “ketones”; ketones are metabolized in the liver after you eat medium-chain triglycerides, which happen to be found in pure coconut oil.

Newport added coconut oil to her husband Steve's diet, and discovered he made stunning improvements in just two weeks, managing (for instance) to complete a “clock” test (a common Alzheimer’s patient exercise that involves drawing a clock face) that he was unable to do before.. Two to three months later he was able to read and function almost like normal.

The experience inspired Newport to write a book: "Alzheimer's Disease: What if there was a cure?"

The CBN segment goes on to describe a ketone ester that’s much more intense than coconut oil that’s been developed by Dr. Kieran Clarke of Oxford University, who complains that she needs millions of dollars in funding to mass produce the material, which is not considered profitable. (It’s difficult to imagine she won’t get more money after the viral circulation of the CBN news segment, given the number of people hoping for a cure to Alzheimer’s.)

The show producers warn consumers that it’s important to buy the “non-hydrogenated” version of coconut oil, since the hydrogenated variety is the same as dangerous trans fat. (I bought a 454 g jar of pure organic coconut oil at a health food store for $21 and i'm sure you could get more for less by shopping around or ordering online.)

Years ago coconut oil was mistakenly criticized for raising cholesterol, but it turns out that was before it was understood there are two kinds of cholesterol. Coconut oil doesn’t raise the "bad" LDL cholesterol but rather the "good" HDL cholesterol. Until now, this mistaken assumption has not been corrected in the general media.

CBN News describes how coconut oil can help reduce symptoms and possibly cure effects not only of Alzheimer's disease but also Parkinson's disease, ALS, epilepsy, dementia, schizophrenia and autism. It’s a natural antibiotic and can be used on the skin as a superior replacement for most skin creams.

Here are the most useful links related to this story, and you can also scroll down for a bit more information.

The CBN program on coconut oil can be viewed here:

http://www.cbn.com/media/player/index.aspx?s=/mp4/LJO190v1_WS

You can read an interesting article about “160 uses for coconut oil” here:

http://wakeup-world.com/2012/03/02/160-uses-for-coconut-oil/

I feel compelled to reproduce the following quote from the CBN website in which a professor of nutrition offers some important information on the science of how glucose and ketones fuel brain cells. It turns out a person (and especially a diabetic) wouldn’t want to ramp up their consumption of coconut oil while eating a high carbohydrate diet. Here’s the quote:

“As a professor of nutrition who teaches metabolism I'd like to suggest a few things. 1) It's interesting and promising to see cases in which the production of ketone bodies appears to reduce some symptoms of Alzheimer's, however it is unlikely that this is a due to a direct effect of lack of insulin to help get glucose into brain cells. Glucose gets into brain cells using a glucose transporter -- but unlike many other cell types, the glucose transporter in brain cells is not dependent upon insulin, as it is in muscle and adipose tissue. This does not mean that ketone bodies are not important, it just means that's not the mechanism. The truth is that we really don't know why the brain cells are not taking up and using glucose for energy in a normal way -- it could be the person is not making sufficient transporters for glucose, or not converting glucose to energy once glucose is in the cell. Whatever the reason for the lack of ability to use glucose, ketone bodies can overcome this problem as the brain can use them without glucose transporters, and metabolize them by a different pathway than glucose (which uses glycolysis as the first part of metabolism) whereas fatty acids use beta oxidation as the first part of metabolism. 2) Although coconut oil, which contains medium chain triglycerides (MCT) which are absorbed differently than long chain triglycerides (LCT) -- the fatty acids from MCT go directly through the portal vein to the liver whereas the MCT are absorbed and made into triglycerides in the intestinal cells and travel in the lymph in chylomicrons -- the liver (which is the organ that makes ketones) -- will not make a lot of ketones if glucose levels are high. Thus, for this to work, one would also have to be on a low carbohydrate diet. On a low carbohydrate diet stored triglycerides in fat break down, go to the liver and form LOTS of ketone bodies -- much more than could be achieved with a few tablespoons of coconut oil. Blood glucose levels are low, and ketone bodies are high, and the brain uses ketone bodies. 3) What is NOT desirable is to stay on a high carbohydrate diet and attempt to form ketone bodies at the same time. That is what can happen during diabetes when blood glucose is high, and glucose can't get out of the blood into muscle cells or fat cells (ineffective insulin), the cells get the signal that they are starving because they don't have glucose and they start breaking down triglycerides for energy and one has high glucose and high ketones at the same time. This is not a normal physiological condition and can lead to undesirable consequences. Bottom line is: diabetics with ineffective insulin should not attempt to induce ketosis and otherwise "normal" individuals should not attempt to induce ketosis by taking significant amounts of MCT without accompanying the MCT with a ketogenic, low carbohydrate diet. Sorry for being so long winded but I really felt a professional obligation to write.”

Lastly, here’s a detailed summary of the CBN program that goes into greater detail than I have above, from the CBN News website. (Please forward all this information to anyone you know who has Alzheimer’s disease or is especially at risk for it.):

Fact Source

Sources of information used in the creation of this edition of A Closer Look include the book Alzheimer's disease: What If There Was a Cure? The Story of Ketones by Mary T. Newport, MD (Copyright © 2011; Published by Basic Health Publications, October 7, 2011), Dr. Mary Newport’s blog: Coconut Oil and Ketones, and the CBN News story “Coconut Oil” by medical reporter Lorie Johnson that first aired on January 5, 2012.

About the Author

Since 1983, Mary T. Newport, M.D., has provided care to newborns. She is currently the founding director of the newborn intensive care unit at Spring Hill Regional Hospital in Florida. However, since 2000, she has been the primary caregiver to her beloved husband, Steve, who first showed signs of Alzheimer's disease while in his early 50s. Dr. Newport researched ways to keep him functional for as long as possible. She discovered research showing that medium-chain fatty acids, which act as an alternative fuel in the insulin-deficient Alzheimer's brain, can sometimes reverse symptoms or at least stabilize the disease. Steve responded amazingly well to the daily doses of coconut oil and MCT (medium-chain triglyceride) oil Dr. Newport served him with every meal—a regimen he continues to follow to this day in order to maintain his considerable improvements. Using her husband’s experience as the case study, in July 2008, Dr. Newport wrote an article, "What If There Was a Cure for Alzheimer's Disease and No One Knew?" which was circulated around the world and became the subject of a lecture she presented at the 2010 Alzheimer's Disease International Conference in Thessaloniki, Greece. You can learn more about Dr. Newport and her reasons for becoming an ardent advocate for ketone ester research on her blog: Coconut Oil and Ketones.

Note: Before beginning any new health regimen, it is important to consult your family physician or health care professional first. The information given in this issue of A Closer Look is for your consideration. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Before starting or stopping any exercise routine or nutritional supplementation, please consult your family physician or health care professional about any contraindications that would make doing so inadvisable.

The opinions presented here or on The 700 Club do not necessarily represent the views of CBN.
E290 Copyright 2012 by The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc., 977 Centerville Turnpike
Virginia Beach, VA 23463.

A CLOSER LOOK

Fight Alzheimer's Disease With Coconut Oil

Five million people have Alzheimer's disease and that number is expected to increase exponentially as baby boomers enter their golden years. If you have a loved one with this dreaded disease you should know that, in some people, coconut oil slows the progression of Alzheimer's and may also prevent it. One of those people is Steve Newport. His Alzheimer's has slowed considerably. Some of his symptoms even reversed, thanks to the unlikely treatment prescribed by his wife, Dr. Mary Newport, a physician who runs a neonatology ward at a Tampa, Florida, hospital.

Dr. Mary Newport became determined to help her husband after the severity of his disease was revealed upon taking an Alzheimer's test in which the person being tested is asked to draw the face of a clock. "He drew circles and several numbers just in a very random pattern, didn't really look anything like a clock," she said. "And the doctor pulled me over to the side and said, ‘You know, he's actually on the verge of severe Alzheimer's at this point, he's beyond moderate.’ So that was very, very devastating news."

WHAT IS ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE?

Dr. Newport began learning everything she could about her husband's disease. "It appears to be a type of diabetes of the brain and it's a process that starts happening at least 10 or 20 years before you start having symptoms and it's very similar to type 1 or type 2 diabetes in that you develop a problem with insulin." In this case, insulin problems prevent brain cells from accepting glucose, their primary fuel. Without it, they eventually die. But there is an alternative fuel: ketones, which cells easily accept. Ketones are metabolized in the liver after you eat medium-chain triglycerides, like those found in coconut oil.

So Dr. Newport added coconut oil to the diet of her husband, Steve. Just two weeks later, he took the clock test again and demonstrated stunning improvement. Newport said, "I thought at the time, was it just good luck? Was it a lot of prayer? Was it the coconut oil? And I thought, well, we're going to keep the coconut oil going," she said.

Three weeks later Steve took the clock test a third time and continued to perform better on it. And it wasn't just intellectually, he also improved emotionally and physically. "He was not able to run; he was able to run again," she recalled. "He could not read for about a year and a half, but after two or three months, he was able to read. Instead of being very sluggish, not talking very much in the morning, he would come out in the morning with energy, talkative and joking, and he could find his water and his utensils." Steve's success is documented in a book called Alzheimer's Disease: What If There Was a Cure? The Story of Ketones by Mary T. Newport, MD (Copyright © 2011; Published by Basic Health Publications, October 7, 2011).

ANOTHER KETONE SOURCE?

And while coconut oil is encouraging in the battle against Alzheimer's disease, there's something even more powerful available—but at a price. A team of biochemists led by Professor Kieran Clarke at England's Oxford University have developed a ketone ester that packs a punch ten times greater than coconut oil. "It reaches quite considerably higher levels," said Clarke, "and you can get whatever levels you want depending on how much you drink." The problem is, they need millions of dollars to mass-produce it. "It's very expensive. And so we can't make very much of it ourselves," said Clarke. "And what we would like is funding so we could actually scale up and make it. But of course there's no real profit in manufacturing stuff like that, and so people really don't want to fund that sort of thing."

So until a high-potency ketone ester is available to the general public, coconut oil is still a good ketone source. Just make sure it's pure, in other words, non-hydrogenated. Avoid any hydrogenated oil, including hydrogenated coconut oil, because hydrogenated oils are the same thing as dangerous trans fats. Look on the list of ingredients for the word "hydrogenated."

INCREASE YOUR GOOD CHOLESTEROL WITH COCONUT OIL

Some people are afraid to eat coconut oil because they think it's bad for your heart. But it's actually very healthy. Dr. Beverly Teter, lipid biochemist, is a researcher at the University of Maryland who specializes in the area of dietary fat. She says years ago coconut oil was criticized for raising cholesterol. But scientists have since learned there are two kinds of cholesterol: LDL, the bad kind, and HDL, which is very good for you, and is the kind coconut oil raises. "So they put out the message that it increased serum cholesterol," explained Dr. Teter, "but the truth of the matter is, it was helping the profile of the serum cholesterol. That never has been corrected in the public press, and I think that's the reason people have misconceptions about it."

BEYOND ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

Not only does coconut oil improve cholesterol levels, but Dr. Teter says the way it helps the brains of some Alzheimer's patients can be extended to people with Parkinson's disease, ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), epilepsy, dementia, and even schizophrenia and autism.

COCONUT OIL—A NATURAL ANTIBIOTIC

Coconut oil is a natural antibiotic but without the negative side effects. Dr. Teter says because of that, it can also help defend against viruses like HIV and herpes viruses. "The coconut oil tends to keep the bacteria down so that if you're assaulted with a virus your immune system can concentrate on the virus. It doesn't have to concentrate on 27 other bacteria that day," she explained.

HAVE OTHERS EXPERIENCED IMPROVEMENTS?

Since the St. Petersburg Times published Dr. Newport’s article "What If There Was a Cure for Alzheimer's Disease and No One Knew?" on October 29, 2008, she has received many reports from caregivers about their loved ones, and has also read on various forums and online message boards about people who have had dramatic improvements like Steve. They include such improvements as: better social interaction, better recognition of loved ones, improved conversation, resumption of activities, better appetite, better sleep, having more energy and being more talkative. Many others experience more subtle improvement or very gradual improvement that turns into very significant improvement over several months. Others feel they see no change, but their loved one has at least stabilized and not worsened. Several people have e- mailed Dr. Newport telling her that until they stopped taking the coconut oil, they did not realize how much the oil was helping them. Dr. Newport recommends that caretakers keep a journal, so that they can decide months down the road if there has been improvement.

She has also heard from some people with diseases other than Alzheimer’s who believe they have seen some improvements, including other forms of dementia (FTD, CBD), Parkinson’s, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s), Huntington’s, MS, bipolar disease, even glaucoma and macular degeneration (which affect neurons).

STEVE'S DIET

Dr. Newport has received many thank-you letters from people whose loved ones with Alzheimer’s were helped after they followed Steve's diet. Dr. Newport explained the overall eating plan she and her husband follow in addition to adding coconut and MCT oils to their daily diet: “We adhere to a ‘whole food’ diet, and avoid processed foods, and reduce carbohydrate intake overall. We eat fish several times a week; poultry, occasional beef, fresh, or fresh frozen, fruits and vegetables; whole grain bread, rice or pasta (relatively small amounts); eggs, whole dairy, goat milk/cheese, coconut oil and coconut milk. For lunch meats we eat ‘all natural’ brands that have no artificial color or preservatives. We buy organic, cage-free, or free-range whenever possible. We do have the occasional treat but overall we stick with this program.” Dr. Newport adds, “Using coconut oil capsules is not an efficient way to give the oil since the capsules are relatively expensive and contain only 1 gram of oil per capsule, whereas the oil is 14 grams per tablespoon.”

STEVE’S OTHER SUPPLEMENTS

In addition to taking coconut/MCT oil, Steve also takes a combination of fish oil and cod liver oil (rich in vitamins A and D). It’s been shown that people with Alzheimer’s disease as a group are deficient in DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid) and DHA is a large component of the brain and crucial to its normal functioning. Dr. Newport referred to a study that showed that people with Alzheimer’s may be deficient in an enzyme in the liver that converts the shorter vegetable form of omega-3 fatty acids found in soybean and flax oils to the DHA and EPA forms of omega-3 fatty acids needed by the brain and other organs. Therefore she believes that it is important to include a marine source of omega-3 fatty acids in the diet. She recommends an algae form marketed to pregnant women, available in pharmacies, to those who have a problem taking fish oil. Coconut oil contains some omega-6, but no omega-3 fatty acids.

INCORPORATING COCONUT OIL INTO YOUR DIET

According to Dr. Newport, coconut oil can be substituted for any solid or liquid oil, lard, butter or margarine in baking or cooking on the stove, and can be mixed directly into foods already prepared. Some people take it straight with a spoon, but for most people it may be hard to swallow this way and more pleasant to take with food. When cooking on the stove, coconut oil smokes if heated to greater than 350 degrees F. or medium heat. You can avoid this problem by adding a little olive or peanut oil. Coconut oil can be used at any temperature in the oven when mixed in foods.

Coconut milk is a combination of the oil and the water from the coconut and most of the calories are from the oil. Look for brands with 10 to 13 grams of fat in 2 ounces. Look in the grocery store’s Asian section. Some brands are less expensive but are diluted with water. Coconut cream is mostly coconut milk and sometimes has added sugar. Flaked or grated coconut can be purchased unsweetened or sweetened and is a very good source of coconut oil and fiber and has about 15 grams oil and 3 grams fiber in ¼ cup. Frozen or canned coconut meat usually has a lot of added sugar and not much oil per serving. A fresh coconut can be cut up into pieces and eaten raw. A 2” x 2” piece has about 160 calories with 15 grams of oil and 4 grams of fiber. MCT Oil (medium-chain triglycerides) are part of the coconut oil and can also be purchased in some health food stores or online. This may be useful for people who are on the go and do not have much time to cook. Also, MCT oil is used as energy and not stored as fat, so it may be useful for someone who wants to lose weight, if substituted for some of the other fats in the diet. Coconut water does not usually contain coconut oil, but has other health benefits. The electrolyte composition is similar to human plasma and is useful to prevent or treat dehydration.

The above nutrition and research information along with support information for caretakers, recipes, and so much more are available at Dr. Newport’s website www.coconutketones.com

I was about to write a blog entry about my latest dietary chances in my ongoing experiment in detoxification of my own body, in which I would have mentioned a few things such as the replacement of dairy milk with almond milk for things like my cereal (guess what, it tastes about the same if not better and is far healthier); however, a friend sent me the link below to a very interesting 22 minute video entitled “Let Your Life Be a Friction to Stop the Machine” and that advertises itself as a “must watch video” and “brief and crucial history of the United States”.

Now I know from having just written the cover story for the forthcoming Spring edition of HazMat Management magazine, which reports the findings of our recent environment industry survey, that at least one person complained that the editorials in the magazines I edit are sometimes too left-of-centre politically. I found that comment interesting, and it got me thinking. I do need to state that I don’t consider myself right or left wing politically, and in fact I reject those labels as themselves part of a divisive societal mythology that keeps us from finding and implementing real solutions to problems in this world. I find the whole business of reducing every opinion to “left” and “right” stupid and paralyzing. There’s a smugness on Fox News and NPR (just to pick two networks commonly thought of as right and left leaning) that I can’t bear, but even that is simplistic.

So I’m going to ask readers to set aside their (I would argue conditioned) tendency to dismissively label things left and right, and watch the following video. Yes, it is a propaganda piece, but perhaps it’s a propaganda piece itself created to fight propaganda… Even if you find yourself disagreeing, like trying on a clothing item in a store and then deciding not to buy it, it costs you nothing to wear these ideas for a half hour or so.

Even if you decide you don’t agree with this video at all, it’s thought provoking and certainly expresses what many people in the Occupy movement believe, and you owe it to yourself to see the world through their eyes, even if temporarily.

Myself, I don’t agree with everything in it, but I do think the video nicely captures the problem of extreme concentration of wealth in the United States, issues around how the US projects its power internationally (and related military misadventures), and the cronyism that recently turned Wall Street into a rigged casino that benefitted the few at the expense of the many.

Anyway, here you go…

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30620.htm#idc-cover

The first is Inside Job, the highly regarded and award-winning expose on the finance and mortgage loan crisis that led to the most recent US recession; it connects all the dots of what was actually a conspiracy and virtually a coup d’état in the US, against which the Occupy movement protested.

The second, which I just watched on the weekend on NetFlix, is entitled Food Inc., and it does for the American industrial food system pretty much what Inside Job did for Wall Street, and just as well. Even though I had read Michael Pullen’s excellent The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Pullen is interviewed throughout the movie, much of which picks up the themes of his book) I have to say I, um, really had no idea. It’s one thing to read about this stuff, quite another to see the size and scale of some of these food processing plants via footage from cameras smuggled inside.

And the final section on Monsanto and how it has treated farmers in the context of its GM soy bean product, well… just watch the movie…

All of which brings me to one evening in January when I attended an evening class on “stoveless cuisine” presented by Alexi Bracey – former personal chef to super-fit actor Wil Smith and possibly the emerging Martha Stewart of the raw and organic food movement. (See www.stovelesscuisine.com) The evening was a step in my personal journey to get off the industrial food gravy train and detoxify my body, which I’m chronicling in detail on this blog over the next six months or so, in a kind of reverse version of Supersize Me (another doc you really must view, by the way).

Bracey taught us to prepare dishes from uncooked fruit and veggies, preserving nutrients destroyed by the temperatures in normal cooking.

Bracey teaches that raw and organic foods can taste as good or better than the processed and chemical-laden fare we usually eat. I can attest that the “pasta” dish she served -- made from vegetables and pureed nuts – indeed tasted like creamy fettuccini Alfredo with bacon bits! And don’t even get me started on the non-flour raspberry ganache chocolate cake… (I will write about her techniques and recipes in detail in future posts.)

That evening I learned much about the common mistakes people make when trying to eat healthier. In addition to Bracey’s teaching, the conversation around the dinner table was awesome, as the people who had come out for this were very “up” on their understanding of the North American diet and what’s wrong with it. (Read the article I posted in this space last week for more on that.)

I feel compelled to share this information with readers, because our government is definitely not protecting us. Given the rise in cancer, diabetes and other diseases where prevention is the best cure, what you don’t know really can kill you!

Here are some highlights from my recent learnings, to help you reduce the carcinogens and “obesegens” in the bodies of you and your family members.

Most people are aware of animal cruelty, growth hormones and antibiotics in products from the industrial meat production industry, so I won’t belabor the point that we should reduce meat in our diet. We should also eliminate nutritionally-bankrupt processed foods that are may contain a vast array of artificial colors and flavors, processed grains, sugar, and (lots of) salt. These should be replaced by real foods that people ate in ancient times: fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, seeds, and legumes. Buy organic, non-GM foods at health food stores and farmer’s markets.

We should also avoid anything with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), sugar or artificial sweeteners like aspartame (that increases sugar cravings). Agave is also to be avoided as it’s highly processed and contains high fructose. Look instead for dessert ingredients like e cinnamon, vanilla, and stevia. (Interestingly, the sugar industry is currently engaged in a legal tussle with the producers of HFCS, claiming the latter seeks to confuse HFCS in the minds of consumers with real sugar.)

Want to lose weight? Don’t just avoid fats: your body needs some healthy fats (in moderation) derived from nuts, seeds, coconut oil and avocados. The powerful dairy industry has taught us that we need milk, cheese, and yogurt for calcium and as a source of cultured probiotics. However, anything but a modest dairy consumption can contribute to health problems; dairy slows digestion and creates mucus in the body, setting the stage for disease. We should instead seek calcium from dark leafy greens and sesame seeds, and cut back on acid-forming dairy and soft drinks.

An unfortunate side effect of the Neolithic revolution (which moved us from being hunter-gatherers to settled village dwellers) was that it ultimately set us on the path of filling our bellies with white rice, flour, and refined grains for which our metabolisms are poorly adapted. These break down quickly, have little nutritional value or fibre, and cause blood sugar spikes that lead to cravings, which boost obesity. Yet they are now the bulk of our diet!

Grains such as wheat are difficult for humans to process because they contain gluten (to which many of us are also allergic). We must supplant these with high-fibre super grains like millet or quinoa.

I already knew that colorful, natural vegetables contain high vitamin levels. But I was surprised to learn that soy is not a healthy protein. Soy is a trypsinogen and goitrogen-blocker that slows thyroid function and can block the full assimilation of proteins. It’s extremely mucus and acid-forming, and is often genetically modified. In place of tofu, soymilk, soybean oil, and other soy products, we should seek better vegetable sources of protein such as quinoa, nuts, and seeds.

The point of all this is to say that Alexi Bracey’s stoveless cuisine perfectly addresses these problems. It goes beyond vegetarianism in also promoting that we buy organic, and prepare without heat! Again, more on this in a future post, but it has a lot to do with chopping the vegetables in certain ways, and covering them in yummy sauces that satisfy our desire for all things creamy, yet are actually made from things like almonds and other nuts that have been soaked overnight in water, then liquefied in an industrial blender. (Yes, there’s a learning curve, like anything worthwhile, in order to know how to do this, but having tasted the result and being convinced of the merit of the exercise, I feel I simply must learn!)

On a related note, I now buy canned tomatoes and tomato sauce only in glass jars, as the resin linings of tin cans contain bisphenol-A and the acid in tomatoes can cause 50 mcg of BPA per litre to leach out. Another no-no is microwave popcorn. Chemicals, including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), in the lining of the bag are part of a class of compounds that may be linked to infertility in humans and liver, testicular, and pancreatic cancer in animal tests. Microwaving causes the chemicals to vaporize into your popcorn. (It makes me ill to think how often I’ve served this to my kids almost all their young lives.)

Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t touch a non-organic potato, or serve one to my kids. Same goes for apples, farmed salmon and corn-fed beef. (Again, you needn’t listen to me; go watch Food Inc.)

I hope I haven’t depressed you! My goal is to inspire you to conduct your own research and move toward a healthier diet. In the next edition I’ll address alternatives to toxin-laced home and personal care products.

The American Diet and What’s Wrong with It

http://www.kimberlysnyder.net/blog/2011/09/26/the-american-d

Since the 1980s, obesity has risen drastically in America. So has the prevalence of type 2 diabetes and autoimmune disorders. Clearly, something is occurring that has led to an alarming change in the health of many Americans in the course of a single generation.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Americans have also changed the way they’ve eaten in the past 20 years. Many of the foods Americans consume as part of their regular diet would not even be recognizable to their great grandparents as something edible. These tremendous changes to the diet have left Americans in a health lurch, and the best way to turn many of the country’s health crises around is to change the way we eat.

So what’s wrong with the American diet, and how can we fix it? (I do believe there’s hope!)

1. The problem: Processed foods

It seems more Americans than ever before are eating meals out of packages, boxes, jars, cans and bottles. While these foods are convenient, many are nutritionally bankrupt. Others contain a vast array of chemicals in the form of artificial colors and flavors. They are also likely to contain processed grains, sugar, and lots of salt. Because these foods make up the bulk of many diets, Americans are getting a potentially toxic brew of fake foods and chemicals that the body doesn’t know what to do with. How to fix it: Eat real food. What is real food? It is the plant foods people ate generations ago before industrialized foods took over. Real foods include fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, seeds, and legumes.

2. The problem: High-fructose corn syrup, sugar, and artificial sweeteners

America has a sweet tooth. Some form of sweetener, like HCFS, sugar, or artificial sweetener, is nearly ubiquitous in processed foods. Many manufacturers prefer HCFS because it is affordable and promotes browning in baked goods.

Studies on HCFS have yielded some disturbing results that suggest the body may process it in such a way that it has a deleterious effect on the liver. Sugar and HCFS both contribute to the prevalence of type 2 diabetes and obesity. Likewise, artificial sweeteners like aspartame increase sugar cravings, and their long-term effects on the body remain virtually unknown. Agave is highly processed and contains a high fructose content, and is not recommended.

How to fix it: Eliminate sweeteners from your diet. If you crave something sweet, eat foods flavored with beneficial dessert ingredients like e cinnamon, vanilla, and stevia.

3. The problem: Fear of fats

A belief exists that fat makes you fat, and is therefore bad for you. It’s true some fats are unhealthy, but there are many healthy sources of fat, as well. Your body needs these some healthy fats for glowing skin, strong cells and also to remain satiated. The belief that all fats are bad has caused Americans to limit beneficial ingredients essential for good health. Commercial “fat free foods” are often laden in sugar, which has contributed to obesity. How to fix it: Eat healthy fats in moderation. Healthy fats come from coconut oil, avocados, nuts, and seeds.

4. The problem: Dairy

The enormously powerful dairy industry has Americans convinced they need milk, cheese, and yogurt for calcium and as a source of cultured probiotics. With high levels of lactose intolerance and issues efficiently processing casein in adults, however, dairy consumption contributes to a number of health problems. Dairy also slows digestion and creates mucus in the body.

How to fix it: Seek calcium from vegetable sources like dark leafy greens and sesame seeds, and regularly eat Probiotic and Enzyme Salad for a healthy source of beneficial intestinal flora. Cutting back on acid-forming foods like dairy and soda, help you keep your body’s supply of calcium intact, which is an alkaline mineral.

5. The problem: Diet soda

May people believe diet soda is a healthy choice because it does not have any calories. Diet soda, however, is a chemical brew with no nutritional value. It can even contribute to demineralization of bones and teeth, as well as creating acid in the body.

How to fix it: Drink water with a squeeze of lemon or lime, but remember to have it between meals rather than with them.

6. The problem: Big breakfasts

The old adage, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” has led millions of Americans to overdo it. A heavy breakfast can actually slow you down, especially if it contains animal proteins and other heavy ingredients. It actually makes you more tired, which will inspire you to snack more and consume more caffeinated beverages.

How to fix it: Have a Glowing Green Smoothie for breakfast. It is light and moves quickly through your digestive system, providing you with vitamins, minerals, enzymes and energy. If you’re hungry a few hours later, have a bowl of oatmeal, but make sure you are eating whole oats and not instant.

7. The problem: Pesticides and genetic modification

Industrial farming has changed the way America grows its plant foods. Many fruits, vegetables, and grains are grown from seeds that have been genetically modified to bring out certain properties or better accept pesticides, and conventionally farmed foods are covered in chemicals to keep pests away. GMO foods are often lower in minerals and other nutrients, and are grown on less than healthy soil, which results in foods that are less nutritious as well.

How to fix it: Buy organic and non-GMO foods. You can find these foods at health food stores, farmer’s markets, or by joining a CSA.

8. The problem: Refined carbohydrates

Flour, white rice, and similarly refined grains break down quickly in the body and have very little fiber or nutritional value. They also cause blood sugar spikes that lead to cravings. Yet, these foods make up the bulk of the American diet. Many grains, such as wheat, may be especially difficult for the human body to process because they contain gluten. A large percentage of people are allergic to gluten, and even those who aren’t have difficulty digesting it.

How to fix it: Try high fiber, super grains like millet or quinoa instead.

9. The problem: Lack of variety

The American diet lacks variety. Many people eat the same few foods over and over again, or eat mostly white and brown foods. This can lead to serious nutritional deficiencies, weight gain, and lack of energy.

How to fix it: Eat a variety of produce across the spectrum of color. Colorful, natural foods have high levels of vitamins. The more colors of vegetables you select, the more likely you are getting the vitamins your body needs for vibrant health.

10. The problem: Soy

Many foods contain soy, which the American population has been led to believe is a very healthy protein. Soy, however, is a goitrogen and trypsinogen-blocker, which slows down thyroid function and can block our bodies’ full assimilation of proteins. It also extremely mucus and acid-forming, and is often modified genetically.

How to fix it: Avoid tofu, soymilk, soybean oil, and other soy products. Instead, seek quality vegetable sources of protein such as quinoa, nuts, and seeds. Miso and tempeh, which are fermented soy products (which reduces some of its harmful properties) are okay occasionally.