Causes
Causes of Diabetes – Dr. Wright, MD – YouTube
Link found between consuming trans fat and aggression
Due to the fact that the human brain (excluding water) is composed mostly of fatty acids, it is understandable how synthetically produced trans fats could adversely affect brain and psychiatric health. In fact, a recent animal study demonstrated that long-term trans fatty acid feeding in animals contributed to the incorporation of these fats in the brain, leading to increased susceptibility of developing movement disorders.
Potential Progress on Pink Slime in Schools
So it looks like the interest in pink slime in school lunches may be leading to changes.
Amid a growing social media storm over so-called “lean finely textured beef,” the Agriculture Department announced Thursday that, starting next fall, schools involved in the national school lunch program will have the option of avoiding the product.
Under the change, schools will be able to choose between 95 percent lean beef patties made with the product or less lean bulk ground beef without it. The change won’t kick in immediately because of existing contracts, according to a USDA official with knowledge of the decision.
Of course, there’s a lot of other issues to be concerned about with regard to the quality of meat being fed to children in schools. There is also no guarantee that schools will elect to make this change. To do so they have to fight the low-fat hype. But for concerned parents it seems like there should be some avenues to pursue to keep the pink slime out of their children’s stomachs.
‘Pink Slime’ in Supermarket ground beef and USDA school lunches
There been a sharp uptick of people searching google for “pink slime”. What is “pink slime”? You probably don’t want to know but you probably should know.
Pink Slime. Jamie Oliver Food Revolution. – YouTube
Gerald Zirnstein grinds his own hamburger these days. Why? Because this former United States Department of Agriculture scientist and, now, whistleblower, knows that 70 percent of the ground beef we buy at the supermarket contains something he calls “pink slime.”
“Pink slime” is beef trimmings. Once only used in dog food and cooking oil, the trimmings are now sprayed with ammonia so they are safe to eat and added to most ground beef as a cheaper filler.
70 Percent of Ground Beef at Supermarkets Contains ‘Pink Slime’ – ABC News
And that’s just for starters. Here’s more:
Continue reading ‘‘Pink Slime’ in Supermarket ground beef and USDA school lunches’ »
Summarizing water filter research
I put a lot of hours into doing the research on counter-top and shower water filters. But those article are long and detailed and I wanted to point people at just my conclusions and recommendations.
What I am choosing for myself are what I will call the mid-range recommendations. Since these filters will be used every day I’m willing to spend a bit more to get something significantly better but I’m not willing to pay for the top of the line. So these are not the cheapest and not the most expensive but hopefully the best bang for the buck.
Water Filter Recommendations
- Counter-top: Multi-Pure MPAD or MPADC – $260 – handles a number of contaminants that cheaper filters do not. Seems like a good design for a counter-top model.
- Shower: honestly I’m not sure what to recommend as of this date.
The effectiveness of food labeling regulations
This certainly looks like a victory for food labeling regulations and health education efforts.
Blood levels of trans–fatty acids (TFAs) in white adults in the U.S. population decreased by 58 percent from 2000 to 2009 according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study published in the Feb. 8 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. This is the first time CDC researchers have been able to measure trans fats in human blood.
CDC researchers selected participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) years 2000 and 2009 to examine trans–fatty acid blood levels before and after the Food and Drug Administration′s 2003 regulation, which took effect in 2006, requiring manufacturers of food and some dietary supplements to list the amount of TFAs on the Nutrition Facts panel of the product label. During this period, some local and state health departments took steps to help consumers reduce their daily consumption by requiring restaurants to limit their use of TFAs in food and increase public awareness campaigns about the health risks associated with TFAs.
Behavior altering parasites getting news coverage
It is good to see this subject getting some non-trivial press coverage:
Certainly Flegr’s thinking is jarringly unconventional. Starting in the early 1990s, he began to suspect that a single-celled parasite in the protozoan family was subtly manipulating his personality, causing him to behave in strange, often self-destructive ways. And if it was messing with his mind, he reasoned, it was probably doing the same to others…
What’s more, many experts think T. gondii may be far from the only microscopic puppeteer capable of pulling our strings. “My guess is that there are scads more examples of this going on in mammals, with parasites we’ve never even heard of,” says Sapolsky…
I certainly expect to see much more of this in the next few decades as we learn how human behavior is altered by parasites and other micro-organisms.
Researching counter-top water filters
I currently have an Aquasana AQ-4000 counter-top water filter. The water quality is very good but I’ve had similar problems to other AQ-4000 owners with hassle and problems when replacing filters. My last filter replacement left the unit leaking and I have been unable to stop the leaks. As others have noted, the quality of the filtration is good but the quality of the housing leaves something to be desired. So I’ve been researching other counter-top water filters to find a better replacement. Continue reading ‘Researching counter-top water filters’ »
Researching shower water filters
I’ve been using a shower filter for some time. I bought an Aquasana AQ-4105 which I’ve been pretty happy with. I thought I would do some research on what else is out there and whether I could find something better. My current apartment has a shower head which is mounted far too low on the wall which means I need a shower head with a wand for the extra height. Continue reading ‘Researching shower water filters’ »
When all you have is a hammer…
Doctors in the US have 2 primary modalities – medicine and surgery. I don’t want to discount some of the effective treatments that can result from those modalities. However, I keep hearing more and more stories of people having surgeries to remove organs and I really question whether this is in the patients’ best interests. Granted this is hopefully only performed when the organ appears diseased to the point where it will continue to cause health issues. I would still like to see effort focused on healing organs and I question the long term health of people who have had organs removed. I’ve been trying to find rates of organ removal but have been unsuccessful. It does appear that doctors are willing to cut out just about any organ, if wikipedia is to be believed: