One man's meat is another man's poison

Cf. [Lucretius De Rerum Natura iv. 637] quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum, what is food to one person may be bitter poison to others.

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Which symbol would you rather be?

Here is a great blog from The Smaltz on how the Food Wheel (trim, active and rolling) became the Food Pyramid (bottom heavy and stationary):

Continue reading "Which symbol would you rather be?"...

Sleeping with the Devil?

"The American Academy of Family Physicians today announced the Consumer Alliance, a new corporate partnership program, with its first alliance partner, The Coca-Cola Company."

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Simply irresponsible...

A website dedicated to increasing awareness around Crohn's Disease and not one single mention of Gluten anywhere on the site. I am simply appalled: http://www.crohnsandme.com/

I would not recommend this site to anyone needing information on Crohn's Disorder.

Inflammation: A basic way in which the body reacts to infection, irritation or other injury, the key feature being redness, warmth, swelling and pain. Inflammation is now recognized as a type of nonspecific immune response.

More information: In technical terms, the inflammatory response directs immune system components to the site of injury or infection and is manifest by increased blood supply and vascular permeability which, in technical terms, allows chemotactic peptides, neutrophils, and mononuclear cells to leave the intravascular compartment. Microorganisms are engulfed by phagocytic cells (e.g., neutrophils and macrophages) in an attempt to contain the infection in a small-tissue space. The response includes attraction of phagocytes in a chemotactic gradient of microbial products, movement of the phagocyte to the inflammatory site and contact with the organism, phagocytosis (ingestion) of the organism, development of an oxidative burst directed toward the organism, fusion of the phagosome and lysosome with degranulation of lysosomal contents, and death and degradation of the organism. When quantitative or qualitative defects in neutrophil function result in infection, the infection usually is prolonged and recurrent and responds slowly to antimicrobial agents. Staphylococci, gram-negative organisms, and fungi are the usual pathogens responsible for these infections.

What doesn't kill you, will only make you sicker.

Whether you are ready to admit it or not, you need to know that you are part of a medical experiment. There is no need to determine if this experiment is intentional or not, you simply need to know that it is happening... every day.

Let's take a look at an example: Let's say you join your friends for a day at the local ski resort. Rather than packing a lunch, you choose to eat at the ski lodge. In general, this amounts to 2 options: the restaurant, or the cafe/cafeteria. The former offers the expected fare: salads, specials, meat dishes, pasta, baked potatoes, etc. While the latter offers the obligatory burgers, pizza, chili fries, corn dogs, candy bars, etc.

For the sake of this post, we will ignore the "hidden" foods: hydrogenated oils, MSG, aluminum, artificial flavors/colors. We will simply address the choices offered to you, or lack thereof.

How do you think these establishments decided on the food choices they offer? Public demand? Somehow I find that very unlikely? More likely it depends on what is most available from the wholesale distributors: wheat products, nuts, nightshades, etc. Then how do the distributors decide on what they will offer? By what is most readily available from producers? Farmers? And what goes into the decision making process of the farmers and growers? Government incentive? Pricing models?

Now, I am not crying 'CONSPIRACY!'. I am just hoping that you will stop and think about what decisions are behind the food that this country eats. What if everyone stopped buying the food offered at these establishments? What if the public used their dollars to bargain for better choices?

Think about this next time you are deciding where to eat dinner...