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December 4, 2012

We’re Eating What? The Drugstore in U.S. Meat.

Filed under: Health News — Tags: , , , — admin @ 1:21 PM

We’re Eat­ing What? The Drug­store in U.S. Meat

Food con­sumers sel­dom hear about the drugs oestradiol-17, zer­a­nol, tren­bolone acetate and melenge­strol acetate and the names are cer­tainly not on meat labels. But those syn­thetic growth hor­mones are cen­tral to U.S. meat pro­duc­tion, espe­cially beef, and the rea­son Europe has banned a lot of U.S. meat since 1989.

Zer­a­nol, widely used as a growth pro­moter in the U.S. beef indus­try, is known for its “abil­ity to stim­u­late growth and pro­lif­er­a­tion of human breast tumor cells” like the “known car­cino­gen diethyl­stilbe­strol (DES),” says the Breast Can­cer Fund, a group ded­i­cated to iden­ti­fy­ing and elim­i­nat­ing envi­ron­men­tal causes of breast can­cer. Zer­a­nol may “play a crit­i­cal role in mam­mary tumori­ge­n­e­sis” and “be a risk fac­tor for breast can­cer,” agrees a recent paper from the Col­lege of Food Sci­ence and Nutri­tional Engi­neer­ing at China Agri­cul­tural Uni­ver­sity in Beijing.

Why is such a drug, that requires “Appro­pri­ate Per­sonal Pro­tec­tive Equip­ment” for use– “lab­o­ra­tory coat, gloves, safety glasses and mask”–routinely used in U.S. meat pro­duc­tion and not even labeled?

Melenge­strol acetate, a syn­thetic prog­estin put in feed, is 30 times as active as nat­ural prog­es­terone, says the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion (EC) and tren­bolone acetate, a syn­thetic andro­gen, is sev­eral times more active than testos­terone. Tren­bolone acetate is admin­is­tered as ear implants com­monly seen at live­stock oper­a­tions. Oper­a­tors say the implants and the ears are removed from the human food sup­ply at the slaugh­ter­house. Do they become feed for other animals?

Why does the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion ban meat made with such chem­i­cals? “There is an asso­ci­a­tion between steroid hor­mones and cer­tain can­cers and an indi­ca­tion that meat con­sump­tion is pos­si­bly asso­ci­ated with increased risks of breast can­cer and prostate can­cer,” says the EC’s Com­mit­tee on Vet­eri­nary Mea­sures. “The high­est rates of breast can­cer are observed in North Amer­ica, where hormone-treated meat con­sump­tion is high­est in the world,” it says, adding that the same sta­tis­tics apply to prostate can­cer.  In fact, Kwang Hwa, Korea, has only seven new cases of breast can­cer per 100,000 peo­ple, says the EC report, whereas non-Hispanic Cau­casians in Los Ange­les have 103 new cases per 100,000 peo­ple. The breast can­cer rate also increases among immi­grant groups when they move to the U.S., says the report, sug­gest­ing causes are not genetic but envi­ron­men­tal. In the over­ar­ch­ing search for a “cure,” is the “cause” of a lot of pos­si­ble U.S. breast can­cer overlooked?

Another growth drug used in U.S. beef, pork and turkey–yes turkey–is rac­topamine an asthma-like drug called a beta ago­nist. Like growth hor­mones, rac­topamine lets live­stock oper­a­tors pro­duce more weight more quickly from their ani­mals. Rac­topamine was inte­grated into the food sup­ply under reporters’ and con­sumers’ radar more than ten years ago. It became a favorite on U.S. farms when its abil­ity to increase mus­cle by “repar­ti­tion­ing” nutri­ents and slow­ing pro­tein degra­da­tion was dis­cov­ered in a laboratory.

Unlike other vet­eri­nary drugs used in U.S. meat that are with­drawn before slaugh­ter (or thrown away as ears) rac­topamine is begun in the days before slaugh­ter and never with­drawn. It is given to cat­tle for their last 28 to 42 days, to pigs for their last 28 days, and to turkeys for their last seven to 14 days. Mar­keted as Paylean for pigs, as Optaflexx for cat­tle, and as Top­max for turkeys, rac­topamine is not just banned in Europe, it is banned in 160 countries.

Pub­lic health offi­cials and live­stock spe­cial­ists are increas­ingly ques­tion­ing the drug’s wide and often clan­des­tine use. “Rac­topamine usage ben­e­fits pro­duc­ers, but not con­sumers. It is bad for ani­mal wel­fare and has some bad effects on humans,” said Don­ald Broom, a pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of Cambridge’s depart­ment of vet­eri­nary med­i­cine, at a forum on the topic in Taipei ear­lier this year.

In China, the Sichuan Pork Trade Cham­ber of Com­merce reported that more than 1,700 peo­ple have been “poi­soned” from eat­ing Paylean-fed pigs since 1998 in 2007, it seized U.S. pork for its rac­topamine residues.

Thanks to the black hand of Big Meat on USDA and FDA poli­cies, the drug­store in U.S. meat is largely hid­den from food con­sumers. So are the health effects of the cheap, ubiq­ui­tous and unwhole­some meat. END

Martha Rosenberg’s acclaimed expose of Big Food, Born with a Junk Food Defi­ciency, is now avail­able in book­stores, libraries, online and as an ebook in time for the holidays.

This Blog is moderated. It is created to be informative, inspiring and uplifting. Our positive philosophy at Bragg is to communicate with love and respect. As Paul and Patricia Bragg teach, in expressing your thoughts and opinions to others, ask yourself: "Is it good, is it kind, is it necessary?" All comments that do not fit this philosophy will not be posted.

October 9, 2012

24th Annual Senior Expo of Santa Barbara

Filed under: Bragg Live Food Products,Health News — admin @ 9:38 AM

24th Annual Senior Expo of Santa Barbara

This Blog is moderated. It is created to be informative, inspiring and uplifting. Our positive philosophy at Bragg is to communicate with love and respect. As Paul and Patricia Bragg teach, in expressing your thoughts and opinions to others, ask yourself: "Is it good, is it kind, is it necessary?" All comments that do not fit this philosophy will not be posted.

September 25, 2012

Genetic Roulette Movie

Filed under: Health News — admin @ 11:16 AM

To see the movie, GENETIC ROULETTE, you must now go to http://geneticroulettemovie.com/. They are charg­ing a nom­i­nal fee of $2.99 to raise funds for the cam­paign effort.

Genetic Roulette Movie

This Blog is moderated. It is created to be informative, inspiring and uplifting. Our positive philosophy at Bragg is to communicate with love and respect. As Paul and Patricia Bragg teach, in expressing your thoughts and opinions to others, ask yourself: "Is it good, is it kind, is it necessary?" All comments that do not fit this philosophy will not be posted.

January 20, 2012

Exercise Boosts Kids’ Academic Performance

Filed under: Health Articles,Health News,Uncategorized — admin @ 8:00 AM

Exer­cise Boosts Kids’ Aca­d­e­mic Performance

Chil­dren Who Are Active in Sports or Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion
May Do Bet­ter in School, Research Suggests

Jan. 3, 2012 — Phys­i­cal activ­ity may help chil­dren exer­cise their brains as well as their bodies.

A new review sug­gests that chil­dren who are active in sports or phys­i­cal activ­ity per­form bet­ter at school.

Researchers say phys­i­cal activ­ity may enhance children’s brain func­tion and think­ing skills by increas­ing blood and oxy­gen flow to the brain, as well as trig­ger­ing the release of feel-good hor­mones like endor­phins.

For Com­plete Article

This Blog is moderated. It is created to be informative, inspiring and uplifting. Our positive philosophy at Bragg is to communicate with love and respect. As Paul and Patricia Bragg teach, in expressing your thoughts and opinions to others, ask yourself: "Is it good, is it kind, is it necessary?" All comments that do not fit this philosophy will not be posted.

November 21, 2011

Wise Prevention Helps Keep You Healthy Youthful and Vigorous!

Filed under: Bragg Book Excerpts,Health News,Patricia Bragg — admin @ 8:00 AM

Wise Pre­ven­tion Helps Keep You Healthy, Youth­ful and Vigorous!

Length­en­ing life by spe­cial treat­ment for chronic mis­eries often means merely adding years of ill health and mis­ery to a person’s life. This is often called the liv­ing death. Who wants to extend life just to suf­fer? We say, the healer’s func­tion is to pre­vent sick­ness and dis­ease. No per­son is able to heal you! Only you can heal your­self! In order to be healthy it’s essen­tial to learn how to live healthy in order to be healthy always. They say – An ounce of pre­ven­tion is worth a ton of cure!

This Blog is moderated. It is created to be informative, inspiring and uplifting. Our positive philosophy at Bragg is to communicate with love and respect. As Paul and Patricia Bragg teach, in expressing your thoughts and opinions to others, ask yourself: "Is it good, is it kind, is it necessary?" All comments that do not fit this philosophy will not be posted.

November 17, 2011

Lycopene

Filed under: Health Articles,Health News — admin @ 10:45 AM

Lycopene

What can high-lycopene foods do for you?

  • Pro­tect your cells from the dam­ag­ing effects of free radicals
  • Help pre­vent the oxi­da­tion of cho­les­terol, thereby slow­ing the devel­op­ment of atherosclerosis

What events and lifestyle fac­tors can indi­cate a need for more high-carotenoid foods?

  • Smok­ing and reg­u­lar alco­hol consumption
  • Low intake of fruits and vegetables

Foods high­est in lycopene include toma­toes, pink grape­fruit, water­melon, and guava. Other foods con­tain­ing small amounts of lycopene include per­sim­mon and apri­cots.

For Com­plete Article

Toma­toes are a great source of lycopene!

This Blog is moderated. It is created to be informative, inspiring and uplifting. Our positive philosophy at Bragg is to communicate with love and respect. As Paul and Patricia Bragg teach, in expressing your thoughts and opinions to others, ask yourself: "Is it good, is it kind, is it necessary?" All comments that do not fit this philosophy will not be posted.

November 16, 2011

Apple Cider Vinegar for Feet Combating Corns, Callouses and Warts

Filed under: Bragg Book Excerpts,Health News,Patricia Bragg — admin @ 8:00 AM

Apple Cider Vine­gar for Feet Com­bat­ing Corns, Cal­louses and Warts

For Corns and Cal­louses: First soak affected areas in warm water with 1/3 cup ACV for 20 min­utes. After soak, rub areas briskly with coarse towel, then gen­tly use a pumice stone or wand. Now apply full-strength ACV-soaked gauze ban­dage overnight, and in the morn­ing pre­pare a fresh ACV soaked ban­dage for day­time use. These treat­ments help soften and dis­solve corns and cal­louses. Check shoes for com­fort and fit. Wrong shoes are main cause of corns, cal­louses, bunions and blis­ters. For casual wear, Birken­stock shoes are great and use orthotic inserts when needed. Give your­self weekly pedi­cures, mas­sages and exer­cise feet daily. Doing this while watch­ing TV is ideal. Treat your­self to foot reflex­ol­ogy ther­apy (page 108). Walk­ing bare­foot on sand, grass and at home is ben­e­fi­cial. Be good to your feet – they carry you through life! We kept famous foot Dr. Scholl going strong, healthy and alert to almost 100 years young!

This Blog is moderated. It is created to be informative, inspiring and uplifting. Our positive philosophy at Bragg is to communicate with love and respect. As Paul and Patricia Bragg teach, in expressing your thoughts and opinions to others, ask yourself: "Is it good, is it kind, is it necessary?" All comments that do not fit this philosophy will not be posted.

November 11, 2011

The Healthy Plant-Based Daily Food Guide

Filed under: Bragg Book Excerpts,Health News,Patricia Bragg — admin @ 10:30 AM

The Healthy Plant-Based Daily Food Guide

The Healthy Plant-Based Daily Food Guide Pyra­mid is much dif­fer­ent than other food guide pyra­mids you may have seen. This food pyra­mid is based on a more opti­mal diet eat­ing plan of healthy veg­e­tar­ian foods. There are no “junk foods” found in this pyra­mid. For those want­ing to eat a health­ful, bal­anced veg­e­tar­ian  diet, this pyra­mid pro­vides an excel­lent guide. It is in har­mony with the Bragg Healthy Lifestyle prin­ci­ples of opti­mal nutrition.

At the foun­da­tion of the pyra­mid is distilled/purified water. We rec­om­mend dis­tilled water as the opti­mal source of water to drink. It is the health­i­est and purist type of water. We rec­om­mend drink­ing at least eight glasses of dis­tilled water daily. Rec­og­nize that you also “eat your water” by eat­ing healthy plant foods such as raw fruits and veg­eta­bles. The eight glasses you drink is in addi­tion to the water you take in from your plant-based foods.

After the water base, the next pyra­mid level is whole grains. This includes all whole grain foods, includ­ing cere­als, pasta, and brown rice. We rec­om­mend eat­ing three to four serv­ings a day of whole grains. An exam­ple of a serv­ing of whole grains is one slice of whole grain bread, one-half cup cooked grains or cereal, or pasta. One ounce of a ready-to-eat whole grain cereal is also a serv­ing in this group.

We next rec­om­mend eat­ing at least six to eight serv­ings of veg­eta­bles every day. Try to eat two-thirds of these veg­etable serv­ings raw and only one-third of your serv­ings lightly cooked for opti­mal nutri­tion! Exam­ples of a serv­ing of veg­eta­bles are one-half cup of cooked veg­eta­bles, one cup of raw veg­eta­bles includ­ing salad, and three-fourths of a cup of veg­etable juice.

We next rec­om­mend eat­ing at least four to six serv­ings of fruits 4 daily. Here again we rec­om­mend to have most of your fruit serv­ings raw, organic and uncooked. Exam­ples of a fruit serv­ing include: one apple, banana, orange or pear; one-half cup of fruit, three fourths of a cup of fruit juice, and one-fourth cup of dried fruits.

It is impor­tant to have at least four to six serv­ings each day of calcium-rich foods. You do not need to get your cal­cium from dairy prod­ucts. There are plenty of other non-dairy, veg­e­tar­ian cal­cium alter­na­tives. (See chart pg. 52). These include soymilk, tofu and high cal­cium greens. Exam­ples of serv­ing sizes for the calcium-rich food group include: one-half cup of soymilk; one-quarter cup of tofu; one cup of raw or cooked calcium-rich greens like kale, col­lards, broc­coli or Chi­nese greens; and one-quarter cup of almonds.

Beans, legumes, nuts and seeds, and veg­e­tar­ian meat alter­na­tives are excel­lent sources of veg­etable pro­tein in the veg­e­tar­ian diet. It is rec­om­mended to have two to three serv­ings from this group each day to meet your pro­tein needs. Exam­ples of veg­etable pro­tein serv­ings include: one cup of cooked legumes (beans, lentils, dried peas); one-half cup of tofu; one serv­ing of a veg­e­tar­ian meat sub­sti­tute such as a soy-based veg­e­burger or “veg­gie” meat slices; three table­spoons of nut but­ter; or one-quarter cup of raw nuts.

In order for you to get your essen­tial fatty acids we rec­om­mend eat­ing health­ful fats from foods such as nuts and seeds (flax seeds and wal­nuts are excel­lent sources of omega-3 fatty acids), flaxseed oil, and Bragg Organic Extra Vir­gin Olive Oil. Tak­ing dietary sup­ple­ments that pro­vide vit­a­min D and vit­a­min B12 are also rec­om­mended because some­times these nutri­ents can be miss­ing or at low lev­els in cer­tain veg­e­tar­ian diets if they are not prop­erly balanced.

The Healthy Plant-Based Daily Food Guide Pyra­mid pro­vides you with nutri­tional guide­lines that can be help­ful in prepar­ing health­ful, deli­cious veg­e­tar­ian meals for you and your family.

Plant Based Food Pyramid

This Blog is moderated. It is created to be informative, inspiring and uplifting. Our positive philosophy at Bragg is to communicate with love and respect. As Paul and Patricia Bragg teach, in expressing your thoughts and opinions to others, ask yourself: "Is it good, is it kind, is it necessary?" All comments that do not fit this philosophy will not be posted.

November 1, 2011

Eat Your Cauliflower

Filed under: Health Articles,Health News,Uncategorized — admin @ 11:23 AM

Eat Your Cauliflower

You’ll want to include cau­li­flower as one of the cru­cif­er­ous veg­eta­bles you eat on a reg­u­lar basis if you want to receive the fan­tas­tic health ben­e­fits pro­vided by the cru­cif­er­ous veg­etable fam­ily. At a min­i­mum, include cru­cif­er­ous veg­eta­bles as part of your diet 2–3 times per week, and make the serv­ing size at least 1–1/2 cups. Even bet­ter from a health stand­point, enjoy cau­li­flower and other veg­eta­bles from the cru­cif­er­ous veg­etable group 4–5 times per week, and increase your serv­ing size to 2 cups.

As with all veg­eta­bles be sure not to over­cook cau­li­flower. We sug­gest Healthy Sautée­ing cau­li­flower rather than the more tra­di­tional meth­ods of boil­ing or steam­ing, which makes them water­logged, mushy and lose much of its fla­vor. Cut cau­li­flower flo­rets into quar­ters and let sit for 5 min­utes before cook­ing. For great tast­ing cau­li­flower add 1 tsp of turmeric when adding the cau­li­flower to the skillet.

The Health­i­est Way of Cook­ing Cauliflower

From all of the cook­ing meth­ods we tried when cook­ing cau­li­flower, our favorite is Healthy Sauté. We think that it pro­vides the great­est fla­vor and is also a method that allows for con­cen­trated nutri­ent reten­tion. Begin by cut­ting cau­li­flower flo­rets into quar­ters and let sit for at least 5 min­utes to enhance its health-promoting ben­e­fits. To Healthy Sauté cau­li­flower, heat 5 TBS of broth (veg­etable or chicken) or water in a stain­less steel skil­let. Once bub­bles begin to form add cau­li­flower flo­rets (cut into quar­ters) and turmeric, cover, and Healthy Sauté for 5 minutes.


For Com­plete Article

This Blog is moderated. It is created to be informative, inspiring and uplifting. Our positive philosophy at Bragg is to communicate with love and respect. As Paul and Patricia Bragg teach, in expressing your thoughts and opinions to others, ask yourself: "Is it good, is it kind, is it necessary?" All comments that do not fit this philosophy will not be posted.

October 14, 2011

Exercise Counteracts Ageing Effects

Filed under: Health News — admin @ 9:35 AM

Exer­cise Coun­ter­acts Age­ing Effects

Keep­ing active won’t let you live for­ever, but it can stave off the rav­ages of time.

As we age, our bod­ies change in ways that chal­lenge ath­letic abil­ity. But exer­cise also can slow down — and in some cases even pre­vent — some of the phys­i­o­log­i­cal rav­ages of time. “A lot of things that we thought were just inher­ent to the age­ing process and were going to hap­pen no mat­ter what don’t really have to hap­pen if you main­tain an appro­pri­ate lifestyle,” says Jim Hag­berg, a pro­fes­sor of kine­si­ol­ogy at the Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land in Col­lege Park.

In a 2011 study in the jour­nal Pro­ceed­ings of the National Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences, the researchers showed that the exer­cise pre­vented many of the phys­i­o­log­i­cal symp­toms of age­ing as well as pre­ma­ture death in the mice — to the point where they were indis­tin­guish­able from non-genetically altered mice.

“We pro­tected not just the mus­cles — which peo­ple con­cep­tu­ally would say, ‘Well, yeah, it makes sense that if you run, your mus­cles will be pro­tected’ — but even their cataracts, their kid­neys, their gonads,” Tarnopol­sky says.

Sim­i­lar results can be seen in humans. For 21 years, researchers at Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity have stud­ied the effects of con­sis­tent exer­cise on 284 run­ners 50 and older. In a 2002 arti­cle in the Archives of Inter­nal Med­i­cine, they reported that — 13 years into the study — a con­trol group of 156 sim­i­lar peo­ple who exer­cised much less on the whole than the run­ners had a 3.3 times higher death rate than run­ners as well as higher rates of disabilities.

In a 2008 study in the same jour­nal, they reported that after 19 years, 15% of run­ners had died, com­pared with 34% of the con­trol group. After 21 years, run­ners had sig­nif­i­cantly lower dis­abil­ity lev­els than non-runners; their death rates from car­dio­vas­cu­lar events, can­cer and neu­ro­logic dis­or­ders were much lower than in non-runners — 65 of the run­ners had died of car­dio­vas­cu­lar, neu­ro­logic and can­cer events com­pared with 98 deaths in the con­trol group.

“You’re 100 times bet­ter … as an ath­lete train­ing in your 40s and 50s than a seden­tary per­son in your 20s, any way you look at it,” Tarnopol­sky says.


For Com­plete Article

This Blog is moderated. It is created to be informative, inspiring and uplifting. Our positive philosophy at Bragg is to communicate with love and respect. As Paul and Patricia Bragg teach, in expressing your thoughts and opinions to others, ask yourself: "Is it good, is it kind, is it necessary?" All comments that do not fit this philosophy will not be posted.

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