Wednesday, September 26, 2012


Are the Water Wars Coming?





Photo Credit: udra/ Shutterstock.com


Al Jazeera / By Chris Arsenault

Almost half of humanity will face water scarcity by 2030 and strategists from Israel to Central Asia prepare for strife.

The author Mark Twain once remarked that "whisky is for drinking; water is for fighting over" and a series of reports from intelligence agencies and research groups indicate the prospect of a water war is becoming increasingly likely.

In March, a report from the office of the US Director of National Intelligence said the risk of conflict would grow as water demand is set to outstrip sustainable current supplies by 40 per cent by 2030.
"These threats are real and they do raise serious national security concerns," Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said after the report's release.

Internationally, 780 million people lack access to safe drinking water, according to the United Nations. By 2030, 47 percent of the world’s population will be living in areas of high water stress, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Environmental Outlook to 2030 report.
Some analysts worry that wars of the future will be fought over blue gold, as thirsty people, opportunistic politicians and powerful corporations battle for dwindling resources.

Dangerous warnings
Governments and military planners around the world are aware of the impending problem; with the US senate issuing reports with names like Avoiding Water Wars: Water Scarcity and Central Asia’s growing Importance for Stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"Water scarcity is an issue exacerbated by demographic pressures, climate change and pollution," said Ignacio Saiz, director of Centre for Economic and Social Rights, a social justice group. "The world's water supplies should guarantee every member of the population to cover their personal and domestic needs."With rapid population growth, and increased industrial demand, water withdrawls have tripled over the last 50 years, according to UN figures.

"Fundamentally, these are issues of poverty and inequality, man-made problems," he told Al Jazeera.
Of all the water on earth, 97 per cent is salt water and the remaining three per cent is fresh, with less than one per cent of the planet's drinkable water readily accessible for direct human uses. Scarcity is defined as each person in an area having access to less than 1,000 cubic meters of water a year.

The areas where water scarcity is the biggest problem are some of the same places where political conflicts are rife, leading to potentially explosive situations.

Some experts believe the only documented case of a "water war" happened about 4,500 years ago, when the city-states of Lagash and Umma went to war in the Tigris-Euphrates basin.

But Adel Darwish, a journalist and co-author of Water Wars: Coming Conflicts in the Middle East, says modern history has already seen at least two water wars.

"I have [former Israeli prime minister] Ariel Sharon speaking on record saying the reason for going to war [against Arab armies] in 1967 was for water," Darwish told Al Jazeera.

Some analysts believe Israel continues to occupy the Golan heights, seized from Syria in 1967, due to issues of water control, while others think the occupation is about maintaining high ground in case of future conflicts.
Senegal and Mauritania also fought a war starting in 1989 over grazing rights on the River Senegal. And Syria and Iraq have fought minor skirmishes over the Euphrates River.

Middle East hit hard
UN studies project that 30 nations will be water scarce in 2025, up from 20 in 1990. Eighteen of them are in the Middle East and North Africa, including Egypt, Israel, Somalia, Libya and Yemen.

Water shortages could cost the unstable country 750,000 jobs, slashing incomes in the poorest Arab country by as much as 25 per cent over the next decade, according to a report from the consulting firm McKinsey and Company produced for the Yemeni government in 2010. Darwish bets that a battle between south and north Yemen will probably be the scene of the next water conflict, with other countries in the region following suit if the situation is not improved.

Commentators frequently blame Yemen's problems on tribal differences, but environmental scarcity may be underpinning secessionist struggles in the country's south and some general communal violence.

"My experience in the first gulf war [when Iraq invaded Kuwait] is that natural resources are always at the heart of tribal conflicts," Darwish told Al Jazeera.

The Nile is another potential flash point. In 1989, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak threatened to send demolition squads to a dam project in Ethiopia.

"The Egyptian army still has jungle warfare brigades, even though they have no jungle," Darwish said.
On the Nile, cooperation would benefit all countries involved, as they could jointly construct dams and lower the amount of water lost to evaporation, says Anton Earle, director of the Stockholm International Water Institute think-tank.

"If you had an agreement between the parties, there would be more water in the system," he told Al Jazeera. The likelihood of outright war is low, he says, but there is still "a lot of conflict" which "prevents joint infrastructure projects from going ahead".

Differing views
Water scarcity, and potential conflicts arising from it, is linked to larger issues of population growth, increasing food prices and global warming.

There are two general views about how these problems could unfold. The first dates back to the work of Thomas Malthus, an eighteenth century British clergyman and author who believed that: "The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race."

In other words, more people and scant resources will invariably lead to discord and violence.
"Unequal power relations within states and conflicts between ethnic groups and social classes will be the greatest source of social tensions rising from deprivation," said Ignacio Saiz from the social justice group. "Water too often is treated as a commodity, as an instrument with which one population group can suppress another."Recent scholars, including Thomas Homer-Dixon, have analysed various case studies on environmental degradation to conclude that there is not a direct link between scarcity and violence. Instead, he believes inequality, social inclusion and other factors determine the nature and ferocity of strife.

Bolivia, South Africa, India, Botswana, Mexico and even parts of the US have seen vigorous water related protests, says Maude Barlow, author of 16 books and a former senior adviser to the UN on water issues.
"The fight over water privatisation in Cochobamba, Bolivia did turn into a bit of a water war and the army was called in," Barlow told Al Jazeera. "In Botswana, the government smashed bore holes as part of a terrible move to remove [indigenous bushmen] from the Kalahari desert. Mexico City has been forcibly taking water from the countryside, confiscating water sources from other areas and building fotresses around it, like it's a gold mine. In India, Coke will get contracts and then build fortresses around the water sources," taking drinking and irrigation water away from local people. "In Detroit 45,000, officially, have already had their water cut off."

Human rights
Strife over water, like conflicts more generally, will increasingly happen within states, rather than between them, Barlow says, with large scale agribusiness, mining and energy production taking control over resources at the expense of other users.

The IPPC, the UN panel which analyses climate science, concluded that: "Water and its availability and quality will be the main pressures on and issues for, societies and the environment under climate change."
Dealing with these pressures will require improved technologies, political will and new ideas about how humans view their relationship with the substance that sustains life.

"People have the right to expect access to a basic life resource like water by virtue of being human, regardless of the social situation they are born into," Saiz said. "Alongside the worrying development of water scarcity, I am hopeful that we will see increasing struggles to see access to water as a right, and not a priviledge."
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Chris Arsenault is an Al Jazeera web producer based in Doha.
5 Marijuana Compounds That Could Help Combat Cancer, Alzheimers, Parkinsons (If Only They Were Legal).






They don't even get you high, so why are these natural, non-toxic substances illegal? Because they're derived from cannabis.

Imagine there existed a natural, non-toxic substance that halted diabetes, fought cancer, and reduced psychotic tendencies in patients with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. You don’t have to imagine; such a substance is already here. It’s called cannabidiol (CBD). The only problem with it is that it’s illegal.


Cannabidiol is one of dozens of unique, organic compounds in the cannabis plant known as cannabinoids, many of which possess documented, and in some cases, prolific therapeutic properties. Other cannabinoids include cannabinol (CBN), cannabichromene (CBC), cannabigerol (CBG), and tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV). Unlike delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive cannabinoid in marijuana, consuming these plant compounds will not get you high. Nonetheless, under federal law, each and every one of these cannabinoids is defined as schedule I illicit substances because they naturally occur in the marijuana plant.


That’s right. In the eyes of the US government, these non-psychotropic cannabinoids are as dangerous to consume as heroin and they possess absolutely no therapeutic utility. In the eyes of many scientists, however, these cannabinoids may offer a safe and effective way to combat some of the world’s most severe and hard-to-treat medical conditions. Here’s a closer look at some of these promising, yet illegal, plant compounds.


Cannabidiol

After THC, CBD is by far the most studied plant cannabinoid. First identified in 1940 (though its specific chemical structure was not identified until 1963), many researchers now describe CBD as quite possibly the most single important cannabinoid in the marijuana plant. That is because CBD is the cannabinoid that arguably possesses the greatest therapeutic potential.


A key word search on the search engine PubMed Central, the U.S. government repository for peer-reviewed scientific research, reveals over 1,000 papers pertaining to CBD – with scientists’ interest in the plant compound increasing exponentially in recent years. It’s easy to understand why. A cursory review of the literature indicates that CBD holds the potential to treat dozens of serious and life-threatening conditions.


“Studies have suggested a wide range of possible therapeutic effects of cannabidiol on several conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cerebral ischemia, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, other inflammatory diseases, nausea and cancer.” That was the conclusion of researcher Antonio Zuardi, writing about CBD in the Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry in 2008. A 2009 literature review published by a team of Italian and Israeli investigators indicates that the substance likely holds even broader clinical potential. They acknowledged that CBD possesses anxiolytic, antipsychotic, antiepileptic, neuroprotective, vasorelaxant, antispasmodic, anti-ischemic, anticancer, antiemetic, antibacterial, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, and bone stimulating properties. Martin Lee, cofounder and director of the non-profit group Project CBD – which identifies and promotes CBD-rich strains of cannabis – agrees. Cannabidiol is “the Cinderella molecule,” writes Lee in his new book, Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana – Medical, Recreational, and Scientific (Scribner, 2012). “[It’s] the little substance that could. [It’s] nontoxic, nonpsychoactive, and multicapable.”


It’s also exceptionally safe for human consumption. According to a just published clinical trial in the journal Current Pharmaceutical Design, the oral administration of 600 mg of CBD in 16 subjects was associated with no acute behavioral and physiological effects, such as increased heart rate or sedation. “In healthy volunteers, … CBD has proven to be safe and well tolerated,” authors affirmed. A 2011 literature review published in Current Drug Safety similarly concluded that CBD administration, even in doses of up to 1,450 milligrams per day, is non-toxic, well tolerated, and safe for human consumption.


Yet despite calls from various researchers to allow for clinical trials to assess the use of CBD in the treatment of various ailments, including breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and schizophrenia, a review of the website – the online registry for federally supported federal trials worldwide – identifies only four US-based clinical assessments of CBD. Two of these are safety studies; the other two are evaluations of CBD’s potential to mitigate cravings for heroin and opiates. Sativex, a pharmaceutically produced, patented oromucosal spray containing extracts of THC and CBD, is also undergoing testing in North America for use as a cancer pain reliever under the name Nabiximols. The drug is already available by prescription in Canada, the United Kingdom, and throughout much of Europe for the treatment of various indications, including multiple sclerosis.


Presently, however, options for US patients wishing to utilize CBD are extremely limited. Most domestically grown strains of cannabis contain relatively little CBD and many smaller-sized cannabis dispensaries do not consistently carry such boutique varieties. A handful of prominent cannabis dispensaries, mostly in California and Colorado, do carry CBD-rich strains of cannabis or CBD-infused products. However, in recent months, several of these providers, such as Harborside Health Center in Oakland and El Camino Wellness in Sacramento, have been targeted for closure by the federal Justice Department, which continues to deny evidence of CBD’s extensive safety and efficacy.


Cannabinol

Cannabinol (CBN) is largely a product of THC degradation. It is typically available in cannabis in minute quantities and it binds relatively weakly with the body’s endogenous cannabinoid receptors. Scientists have an exceptionally long history with CBN, having first isolated the compound in 1896. Yet, a keyword search on PubMed reveals fewer than 500 published papers in the scientific literature specific to cannabinol. Of these, several document the compound’s therapeutic potential – including its ability to induce sleep, ease pain and spasticity, delay ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) symptoms, increase appetite, and halt the spread of certain drug resistant pathogens, like MRSA (aka ‘the Superbug’). In a 2008 study, CBN was one of a handful of cannabinoids found to be “exceptional” in its ability to reduce the spread MRSA, a skin bacteria that is resistant to standard antibiotic treatment and is responsible for nearly 20,000 hospital-stay related deaths annually in the United States.


Cannabichromene

Cannabichromene (CBC) was first discovered in 1966. It is typically found in significant quantities in freshly harvested, dry cannabis. To date, the compound has not been subject to rigorous study; fewer than 75 published papers available on PubMed make specific reference to CBC. According to a 2009 review of cannabichromine and other non-psychotropic cannabinoids, “CBC exerts anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and modest analgesic activity.” CBC has also been shown to promote anti-cancer activity in malignant cell lines and to possess bone-stimulating properties. More recently, a 2011 preclinical trial reported that CBC influences nerve endings above the spine to modify sensations of pain. “[This] compound might represent [a] useful therapeutic agent with multiple mechanisms of action,” the study concluded.


Cannabigerol

Similar to CBC, cannabigerol (CBG) also has been subject to relatively few scientific trials since its discovery in 1964. To date, there exist only limited number of papers available referencing the substance – a keyword search on PubMed yields fewer than 55 citations – which has been documented to possess anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and anti-bacterial properties. According to a 2011 review published in the British Journal of Pharmacology, “[A] whole plant extract of a CBG-chemotype … would seem to offer an excellent, safe new antiseptic agent” for the treatment of multi-drug resistant bacteria. A more recent review published this year in the journal Pharmacology & Therapeutics further acknowledges that CBG and similar non-psychotropic cannabinoids “act at a wide range of pharmacological targets” and could potentially be utilized in the treatment of a wide range of central nervous system disorders, including epilepsy.


Tetrahydrocannabivarin

Discovered in 1970, tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV) is most typically identified in Pakistani hashish and cannabis strains of southern African origin. Depending on the dose, THCV may either antagonize some of the therapeutic effects of THC (e.g., at low doses THCV may repress appetite) or promote them. (Higher doses of THCV exerting beneficial effects on bone formation and fracture healing in preclinical models, for example.) Unlike, CBD, CBN, CBC, CBG, high doses of THCV may also be mildly psychoactive (but far less so than THC).


To date, fewer than 30 papers available on PubMed specifically reference THCV. Over half of these were published within the past three years. Some of these more recent studies highlight tetrahydrocannabivarin’s anti-epileptic and anticonvulsant properties, as well as its ability to mitigate inflammation and pain – in particular, difficult-to-treat neuropathy.


Like CBD, THCV is on the radar of British biotech GW Pharmaceuticals (makers of Sativex). According to its website, the company has expressed interest in the potential use of tetrahydrocannabivarin in the treatment of obesity, diabetes and other related metabolic disorders. Though the compound has been subject to Phase I clinical testing, a keyword search on clinicaltrials.gov yields no specific references to any ongoing studies at this time.
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Paul Armentano is the deputy director of NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), and is the co-author of the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink (2009, Chelsea Green).  

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Top 10 Toxic Products You Don’t Need.

Top 10 Toxic Products You Don’t Need



by 



NOTE: This is a guest post by Margie Kelly Communications Manager at Healthy Child Healthy World.

Advertisers spent an astonishing $144 billion in 2011 to entice you to buy more and more stuff, so it’s not surprising that you have a home full of things you don’t need. Here’s a list of 10 toxic products you absolutely don’t need; you can get rid of them right away! Not only will your home be less cluttered, your health will improve by eliminating everyday items that contain toxic chemicals that contaminate your air, food and body.

1. Vinyl plastic: Vinyl is the worst plastic for the environment. Banned in over 14 countries and the European Union, PVC, also known as vinyl, is found in floors, wall coverings, and toys. Vinyl leaches phthalates (linked to hormone disruption) and lead (a potent neurotoxicant) — contaminating air, dust, and eventually you. Go PVC-free by reading packages and avoiding the #3 in the chasing arrows symbol (usually found on the bottom of a product).

2. Fragrance products: Chemical fragrances found in everyday products like air fresheners, dryer sheets, and perfumes can trigger asthma. Some of the chemicals mimic estrogen, a process that may increase the risk of breast cancer. For example, diethyl phthalate (DEP) is absorbed through the skin and can accumulate in human fat tissue. Phthalates are suspected carcinogens and hormone disruptors that are increasingly being linked to reproductive disorders. To be safe, choose fragrance-free products or use those scented with natural fragrances like essential oils.

3. Canned food: It’s probably shocking to find a food item on a toxic product list, but it’s no mistake. Food cans are lined with bisphenol-A (BPA). Most experts believe this is our main source of exposure to BPA, which has been linked to early puberty, cancer, obesity, heart disease, depression in young girls and much more. Many food brands have gone BPA free, including Campbell’s Soup. But beware: some companies have switched to BPS, BPA’s chemical cousin, which has been linked many of the same health effects. To be safe, opt for fresh, frozen, dried or jarred foods.

4. Dirty cleaners: Admit it: it’s a bit odd to wipe toxic chemicals all over your oven, floors, counters, and toilets to get them “clean.” Corrosive or caustic cleaners, such as the lye and acids found in drain cleaners, oven cleaners and acid-based toilet bowl cleaners are the most dangerous cleaning products because they burn skin, eyes and internal tissue easily. It’s simple and effective to use non-toxic cleaners or to make your own. You won’t miss the toxic fumes in your home either!

5. Pesticides: This is a huge category of products, but they deserve inclusion in their entirety because of how extremely toxic they are. They’re made to be. That’s how they kill things. But, solving your pest problem may leave you with another problem – residual poisons that linger on surfaces, contaminate air, and get tracked onto carpet from the bottom of shoes. There are so many non-toxic ways to eliminate pests and weeds. Next time, get on the offense without chemicals.

6. Bottled water: Americans buy half a billion bottles of water every week, according to the film The Story of Bottled Water. Most people buy bottled water thinking they’re avoiding any contaminants that may be present in their tap water. For the most part, they’re wrong. Bottled water can be just as, or even more, contaminated than tap water. In fact, some bottled water IS tap water – just packaged (in plastic that can leach chemicals into the water) and over-priced. Also, from manufacture to disposal, bottled water creates an enormous amount of pollution, making our water even less drinkable. Do yourself and the world a favor and invest in a reusable stainless steel water bottle and a water filter.

7. Lead lipstick: Can you believe lead, a known neurotoxin that has no safe level of exposure, is found in women’s lipsticks? A study by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration discovered lead in 400 lipsticks tested, at levels two times higher than found in a previous FDA study. There is no safe level of lead exposure. Pregnant women and children are at special risk, as lead can interfere with normal brain development. To find a safe lipstick, as well as other personal care products like shampoo and lotion, check out the Skin Deep Database.

8. Nonstick Cookware: Studies show that perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), which make products stain-and stick resistant, are linked to cancer and low birth weights. They are incredibly persistent and can now be found all over the globe, including in the bodies of polar bears. Not only are PFCs found in cookware, but microwave popcorn bags and pizza boxes, some dental flosses, furniture and clothing. To steer clear of PFCs, avoid products made with Teflon or list ingredients beginning with “fluoro” or “perfluoro.

9. Triclosan: This antibacterial agent is found in soaps, toothpastes, mouthwashes, deodorants, and even clothing. Studies have found triclosan may harm the human immune system, which makes people more likely to develop allergies, and reduces muscle strength in humans and animals. The FDA warns consumers to read labels for triclosan and recommends using plain soap to clean up. Instead of using antibacterial hand sanitizers made with triclosan, choose an alternative made with at least 60 percent alcohol.

10. Oil-based paints and finishes: There are 300 toxic chemicals and 150 carcinogens potentially present in oil-based paint, according to a John Hopkins University study. Still interested in coating your walls and furniture with this gunk? I hope not. Look for water-based options – ideally those that are low- or no-VOC. You could also explore natural finishes like milk paint and vegetable or wax-based wood finishes.What’s at the top of your list of toxic products you don’t need?


Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Is Alzheimers Caused By Too Much Sugar? How the American Diet Is as Bad for Our Brains as Our Bodies.







Yet another reason to load up on fruit and veggies—and work to wrest federal farm policy (which encourages the production of cheap sweeteners and fats)—from the grip of agribusiness.



The following article first appeared in Mother Jones. For more great content from Mother Jones, sign up for free email updates here.

Egged on by massive food-industry marketing budgets, Americans eat a lot of sugary foods. We know the habit is quite probably wrecking our bodies, triggering high rates of overweight and diabetes. Is it also wrecking our brains?

That's the disturbing conclusion emerging in a body of research linking Alzheimer's disease to insulin resistance—which is in turn linked to excess sweetener consumption. A blockbuster story in the Sept. 3 issue of the UK magazine The New Scientist teases out the connections.

Scientists have known for a while that insulin regulates blood sugar, "giving the cue for muscles, liver and fat cells to extract sugar from the blood and either use it for energy or store it as fat," New Scientist reports. Trouble begins when our muscle, fat, and liver cells stop responding properly to insulin—that is, they stop taking in glucose. This condition, known as insulin resistance and also pre-diabetes, causes the pancreas to produce excess amounts of insulin even as excess glucose builds up in the blood. Type 2 diabetes, in essence, is the chronic condition of excess blood glucose—its symptomsinclude frequent bladder infections, kidney, and skin infections, fatigue, excess hunger, and erectile dysfunction.

US Type 2 diabetes rates have tripled since 1980, New Scientist reports.

What's emerging, the magazine shows, is that insulin "also regulates neurotransmitters, like acetylcholine, which are crucial for memory and learning." That's not all: "And it is important for the function and growth of blood vessels, which supply the brain with oxygen and glucose. As a result, reducing the level of insulin in the brain can immediately impair cognition."

So when people develop insulin resistance, New Scientist reports, insulin spikes "begin to overwhelm the brain, which can't constantly be on high alert," And then bad things happen: "Either alongside the other changes associated with type 2 diabetes, or separately, the brain may then begin to turn down its insulin signaling, impairing your ability to think and form memories before leading to permanent neural damage"—and eventually, Alzheimer's.

Chillingly, scientists have been able to induce these conditions in lab animals. At her lab at Brown, scientist Suzanne de la Monte blocked insulin inflow to the brains of mice—and essentially induced Alzheimer's. When she examined their brains, here's what she found, as described by New Scientist:


Areas associated with memory were studded with bright pink plaques, like rocks in a climbing wall, while many neurons, full to bursting point with a toxic protein, were collapsing and crumbling. As they disintegrated, they lost their shape and their connections with other neurons, teetering on the brink of death.

For a paper published this year, Rutgers researchers got a similar result on rabbits with induced diabetes.
There's also research tying brain dysfunction directly to excess sugar consumption. In a 2012 study, UCLA scientists fed rats a heavy ration of fructose (which makes up roughly a half of both table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup) and noted both insulin resistance and impaired brain function within six weeks. Interestingly, they found both insulin function and brain performance to improve in the sugar-fed rats when they were also fed omega-3 fatty acids. In other words, another quirk of the American diet, deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids, seems to make us more vulnerable to the onslaught of sweets.

Another facet of our diets, lots of cheap added fats, may also trigger insulin problems and brain dysfunction. New Scientist flags yet another recent study, this one from University of Washington researchers, finding that rats fed a high-fat diet for a year lost their ability to regulate insulin, developed diabetes, and showed signs of brain deterioration.

Altogether, the New Scientist story makes a powerful case that the standard American diet is as devastating for our brains as it is for our bodies. The situation is tragic:

In the US alone, 19 million people have now been diagnosed with the condition, while a further 79 million are considered "prediabetic", showing some of the early signs of insulin resistance. If Alzheimer's and type 2 diabetes do share a similar mechanism, levels of dementia may follow a similar trajectory as these people age.

Yet another reason to load up on fruit and veggies—and work to wrest federal farm policy (which encourages the production of cheap sweeteners and fats)—from the grip of agribusiness.
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Grist staff writer Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture nonprofit and small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.  

Thursday, September 13, 2012


7 Unexpected Ingredients You Might Be Eating For Lunch Today.



7 Unexpected Ingredients You Might Be Eating For Lunch Today





Have you enjoyed any juice from a beaver’s butt lately? If you’ve been drinking any fruit-flavored drinks, then the chances are that you have. Castoreum, which is extracted from a beaver’s anal glands, is used to make artificial raspberry flavoring. Products using this flavoring include cheap ice cream, Jell-O, candy, fruit-flavored drinks, teas and yogurts.


  • In a recent fascinating segment of 60 Minutes entitled “The Flavorists: Tweaking tastes and creating cravings,” Morley Safer examined the multibillion dollar flavor industry, whose scientists create natural and artificial flavorings that make your mouth water and keep you coming back for more.

    Specifically, he looked at Givaudan, a Swiss company that employs almost 9,000 people in 45 countries, providing tastiness to just about every cuisine imaginable. Food companies know that flavor is what makes repeat customers. So they commission Givaudan to create what they hope will be a taste that people love, but that doesn’t linger too much, so that consumers will keep coming back for more.


    As Dr. David Kessler, former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says to Safer
    :
    “We’re living in a food carnival. The flavors are so stimulating, they hijack our brains.”
    And he goes on:

    “We’re eating fat on fat on sugar on fat with flavor. And much of what we’re eating with these flavors, you have to ask yourself, ‘is it really food?”

    In addition to beaver butt juice, here are seven other flavorings and additives you may want to know about:

    1. Aspartame: More popularly known as Nutrasweet and Equal, aspartame is found in foods labeled “diet” or “sugar free.” Aspartame is believed to be carcinogenic and accounts for more reports of adverse reactions than all other foods and food additives and flavorings combined. Aspartame is a neurotoxin and carcinogen.

    Found in: diet or sugar free sodas, diet coke, coke zero, jello (and other gelatins), desserts, sugar free gum, drink mixes, baking goods, table top sweeteners, cereal, breathmints, pudding, kool-aid, ice tea, chewable vitamins, toothpaste.

    2. Estrogen: Did you know that regular milk is full of hormones used by the milk industry to keep the cows knocked up and lactating all year round? So when you drink regular milk, you take a shot of hormones with it.

    Found in: All non-organic dairy.

    3. Sodium nitrate (or sodium nitrite): This is used as a preservative, coloring and flavoring in bacon, ham, hot dogs, luncheon meats, corned beef, smoked fish and other processed meats. This ingredient, which sounds harmless, is actually highly carcinogenic once it enters the human digestive system.
    Found in: hotdogs, bacon, ham, luncheon meat, cured meats, corned beef, smoked fish or any other type of processed meat.

  • 4. Spinach dust: In case you think you’re getting your daily serving of vegetables when you eat that green sheen on those veggie snacks, you might want to know that this is powdered spinach dust: spinach that has been dehydrated and sucked dry of any nutritional value.

    Found in: So-called “healthy” vegetable-flavored snack foods.

    5. TBHQ (butane): Tertiary Butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ as it is more commonly referred to as, is in fact a chemical preservative which is a form of butane. It is used in foodstuffs to delay the onset of rancidness and greatly extends the storage life of foods. So instead of your chicken nuggets being fresh, butane keeps them “fresh.”

    Found in: Frozen, packaged or pre-made processed foods with long shelf lives such as frozen meals, crackers, chips, cereal bars and fast food.

    6. Trans fat: Trans fat is used to enhance and extend the shelf life of food products and is among the most dangerous substances that you can consume. Found in deep-fried fast foods and certain processed foods made with margarine or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, trans fats are formed by a process called hydrogenation.

    Found in: margarine, chips and crackers, baked goods, fast foods

    7. Vanillin (wood pulp): Most vanilla flavoring is either made from petrochemicals or derived from a by-product of the paper industry. Ester of wood rosin, which comes from pine stumps, is in citrus-flavored sodas to keep the citrus flavor evenly distributed through the can.

    Found in: Artificially flavored yogurt, baked goods, candy and sodas.

    And in case you’re wondering about artificial flavors and natural flavors: both artificial and natural flavors are made by “flavorists” in a laboratory by blending either “natural” chemicals or “synthetic” chemicals to create flavorings.

    Artificial flavors are human-made chemical concoctions. Unlike artificial flavors, natural flavors are created from natural products – fruits, beef, chicken, spices – and transformed into chemical additives. So though it might make you feel better to see “natural flavoring” on a label, it isn’t necessarily better for you. Indeed, it’s a signal that the real thing is not included in the product.



    What Kind Of America Do You Believe In?



    What Kind Of America Do You Believe In?



    by



    There’s a lot of talk of how the country is more polarized politically now than at any point in our nation’s history. And while there’s no way to prove such a claim, a quick look at the party platforms of the Republicans and Democrats supports the idea that the right and the left have little common ground in ideas or beliefs.

    Take Medicare, for example. The Democratic party platform says the party opposes “any efforts to privatize or voucherize” the program. Republicans, on the other hand, want to gut the program for those under 55, changing it to an “income-adjusted contribution toward a health plan of the enrollee’s choice.” And Medicaid? Forget it. The whole thing is unconstitutional, say Republicans.

    The same is true for Social Security, of course. If Republicans are offering the equivalent of health savings accounts for Medicare patients they want Social Security turned over to Wall Street in the form of “personal investment accounts” that supplement the Social Security system.

    Translated out of political-speak, Republicans want to privatize the whole lot.

    There were a few surprise differences though. Republicans made a lot of hay out of the fact the original Democratic plank language didn’t mention Jerusalem or “God” Democrats quickly obliged the posturing to amend those planks and appease their critics.

    Where else to the parties differ? Well, just about everywhere. Democrats believe global warming is a real and serious threat that needs swift legislative action. Republicans do not. Democrats believe women have a fundamental life to make their own health care decisions. Republicans do not. Democrats believe the pro-life position supports families beyond birth. Republicans do not. Democrats believe in marriage equality and Republicans do not.

    But at the heart of the difference is a clash of vision. The Republican platform is a constrictive document with a bleak future that pines for the days when Jim Crow was the law and women knew their place.

    The Democratic platform, by contrast, is a vision of the future, a world where parenting is a shared responsibility, where equality means equality for all races and genders and where opportunity for economic advancement is still possible, even for the children of undocumented immigrants.

    So for the undecided voters out there, if there are any, they need to decide what vision of America they support. These platforms are not just campaign tools, they are articulations of a vision of leadership and beliefs for this country. And in less than two months when we elect a new president, these platforms will be the touchstone for future policy.

    Wednesday, September 5, 2012


    We Waste 23 Pounds of Food Per Month but We Don’t Have To.


    We Waste 23 Pounds of Food Per Month but We Don’t Have To


    by Peter Lehner, Executive Director, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)


    We’ve all been told, since childhood, that wasting food is bad—but it still happens. We buy food we don’t have time to cook. We forget about leftovers in the back of the fridge. We throw out food that’s stamped with yesterday’s date, assuming it must be dangerous to eat.

    We have the best of intentions, but a little bit of waste every day, all over the country, adds up. Americans, on average, throw away about 23 pounds of perfectly edible food, per person, every month. And that doesn’t even count the food we consume that, in retrospect, we probably shouldn’t have eaten in the first place!

    This wasteful habit would not only earn a scolding from your mother—it’s actually 50 percent more than what we wasted in the 1970s. For a family of four, it would be the equivalent of taking between $114 and $190 out of your wallet and putting it in the trash each month.

    Not at all helpful for your household’s bottom line. Plus, this is food that we haven’t even enjoyed. We’ve already sacrificed the time and effort to buy it, carry it home, maybe even cook it—and we don’t get the pleasure of eating it. So stopping this waste is actually about getting more: more time, more money, more freedom.

    A new NRDC report released on Tuesday, Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill, explains some of the common reasons why we end up tossing so many of our groceries. Food can spoil before we use it if we don’t store it properly, it can get lost behind other items in the fridge, or it gets tossed because we misjudge our food needs.

    Sometimes we just cook too much. Cooking portions have increased over time and large meals can lead to uneaten leftovers. The Cornell Food and Brand Lab reports that serving sizes in the Joy of Cooking cookbook have increased 33.2 percent since 1996. A recipe that used to “serve 10” now “serves 7” or the ingredient amounts are greater for the same number of servings.

    A few simple guidelines can help you save money and cut down on the amount of food that’s wasted at home.

    1. Plan your meals for the week, and then buy only what you plan to cook.
    2. Make a shopping list, and stick to it.
    3. Check your cupboards before you go to the store, to avoid buying doubles.
    4. Understand that for many products, the “use by” and “best before” dates are simply manufacturer recommendations for peak quality, and are not an indicator of food safety. Very often foods—particularly dry goods—are fine long after the date on the package. Trust your nose and common sense.

    Simply by following these guidelines, households in the UK were able to trim their food waste 18 percent. (You can find more food-saving tips from Britain’s national campaign, Love Food Hate Waste, as well as from NRDC’s fact sheet.)

    Cutting a little food waste goes a long way, because throwing away food wastes not only food itself, but the resources—land, fertilizer, water, paper, plastic, gas—that go into growing, packaging and transporting that food. Our food habits waste 25 percent of America’s freshwater and 4 percent of our oil. We spend $90 billion each year to make food that never gets eaten.

    Leaders around the world are worried about feeding the planet and talk of the need to boost food production. Let’s start by making sure we eat the food we’ve already got.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    This post is part of NRDC’s Wastelandseries, featuring people, towns, businesses and industries that are finding innovative ways to cut waste, boost efficiency and save money, time and valuable resources.

    Monday, September 3, 2012


    A World Without Labor Day?




    I’ve mentioned here before that I spent most of my childhood in LaGrange, Georgia, a town that was dominated in a profoundly feudal sense by Callaway Mills, one of the stalwarts in the fight against unionization of the southern textile industry. In the public schools there, we began classes each year on Labor Day, an impressive gesture of contempt for the American labor tradition.
    We are not that far from a major lurch in that direction on a national level. It received little national attention during the Republican National Convention, but South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s speech presenting her backward, poverty-stricken state as a union-free paradise of happy workers seemed very much the wave of the GOP future. With the exception of a handful of self-styled “progressives” or “liberals”—or such savvy pols as Richard Nixon who cut deals for political support with particular unions—Republicans have always been considered the “anti-labor” party. But they use to pay automatic respect to the basic legitimacy of unions and collective bargaining, certainly in the private sector. Not any more. Republicans used to hide their anti-union bias and when in power sought to roll back labor rights quietly through control of regulatory bodies like the National Labor Relations Board. There is every indication that if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan win on November 6, the kind of loud-and-proud in-your-face hostility to unions that I grew up with will become national policy instantly.
    Does that matter to Americans who aren’t union members, or are working in industries with little or not union presence to begin with? Of course it does. Unions greatly affect labor markets, and act to create upward pressure on wages and benefits—not to mention public safety net programs—affecting conditions of employment far from their specific bargaining units. And as Harold Meyerson points out in his Labor Day column today, the weakening of union power has played a big role in steadily eroding ability of wage earners to secure improvement in living standards despite rising skill levels and productivity:
    Are American workers becoming less productive? On the contrary, aWall Street Journal survey of the Standard & Poor’s 500, the nation’s largest publicly traded companies, found that their revenue per worker increased from $378,000 in 2007 to $420,000 in 2010. The problem is that workers get none of that increase. As economists Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon have shown, all productivity gains in recent decades have gone to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, in sharp contrast to the three decades following World War II, when Americans at all income levels shared in the productivity increases.
    The primary plight of U.S. workers isn’t their lack of skills. It’s their lack of power. With the collapse of unions, which represented a third of the private-sector workforce in the mid-20th century but just 7 percent today, workers simply have no capacity to bargain for their share of the revenue they produce.
    The implicit message of some business leaders and their political allies these days seems to be: you should count yourselves lucky for having any jobs at all, so shut up about your eroding wages and disappearing benefits and non-existent job security and under-seige public safety net!
    And an even more offensive implicit message is coming from the “we built that” rhetoric of the GOP, which doesn’t just deny government’s role in making individual business success possible, but that of workers as well, who are viewed as interchangeable, expendable material shaped and deployed by heroic “job creator” capitalists, to whom all glory, laud, honor and profits must accrue to keep the American economy moving.
    It’s a way of thinking and living that takes me back to the LaGrange, Georgia of the early 1960s. Better take advantage of this and every ensuing Labor Day. There’s no guarantee it won’t be, in some respect or another, the last.

    We Waste 23 Pounds of Food Per Month but We Don’t Have To.


    We Waste 23 Pounds of Food Per Month but We Don’t Have To


    by Peter Lehner, Executive Director, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)

    We’ve all been told, since childhood, that wasting food is bad—but it still happens. We buy food we don’t have time to cook. We forget about leftovers in the back of the fridge. We throw out food that’s stamped with yesterday’s date, assuming it must be dangerous to eat.

    We have the best of intentions, but a little bit of waste every day, all over the country, adds up. Americans, on average, throw away about 23 pounds of perfectly edible food, per person, every month. And that doesn’t even count the food we consume that, in retrospect, we probably shouldn’t have eaten in the first place!

    This wasteful habit would not only earn a scolding from your mother—it’s actually 50 percent more than what we wasted in the 1970s. For a family of four, it would be the equivalent of taking between $114 and $190 out of your wallet and putting it in the trash each month.

    Not at all helpful for your household’s bottom line. Plus, this is food that we haven’t even enjoyed. We’ve already sacrificed the time and effort to buy it, carry it home, maybe even cook it—and we don’t get the pleasure of eating it. So stopping this waste is actually about getting more: more time, more money, more freedom.

    A new NRDC report released on Tuesday, Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill, explains some of the common reasons why we end up tossing so many of our groceries. Food can spoil before we use it if we don’t store it properly, it can get lost behind other items in the fridge, or it gets tossed because we misjudge our food needs.

    Sometimes we just cook too much. Cooking portions have increased over time and large meals can lead to uneaten leftovers. The Cornell Food and Brand Lab reports that serving sizes in the Joy of Cooking cookbook have increased 33.2 percent since 1996. A recipe that used to “serve 10” now “serves 7” or the ingredient amounts are greater for the same number of servings.

    A few simple guidelines can help you save money and cut down on the amount of food that’s wasted at home.

    1. Plan your meals for the week, and then buy only what you plan to cook.
    2. Make a shopping list, and stick to it.
    3. Check your cupboards before you go to the store, to avoid buying doubles.
    4. Understand that for many products, the “use by” and “best before” dates are simply manufacturer recommendations for peak quality, and are not an indicator of food safety. Very often foods—particularly dry goods—are fine long after the date on the package. Trust your nose and common sense.

    Simply by following these guidelines, households in the UK were able to trim their food waste 18 percent. (You can find more food-saving tips from Britain’s national campaign, Love Food Hate Waste, as well as from NRDC’s fact sheet.)

    Cutting a little food waste goes a long way, because throwing away food wastes not only food itself, but the resources—land, fertilizer, water, paper, plastic, gas—that go into growing, packaging and transporting that food. Our food habits waste 25 percent of America’s freshwater and 4 percent of our oil. We spend $90 billion each year to make food that never gets eaten.

    Leaders around the world are worried about feeding the planet and talk of the need to boost food production. Let’s start by making sure we eat the food we’ve already got.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    This post is part of NRDC’s Wastelandseries, featuring people, towns, businesses and industries that are finding innovative ways to cut waste, boost efficiency and save money, time and valuable resources.