Want to Avoid a Thirsty Future? Eat Less Meat.

capl@washjeff.edu/Wikimedia Commons

—By Tom Philpott

Every year, Americans eat 200 pounds of meat each—equal to a little more than two Mcdonald's Quarter Pounders, per person, per day. That's about twice the global average; but now the rest of the globe (led by China) is catching up fast.

Except, by 2050, it's highly unlikely that Americans will be able to maintain anything close to current levels of carnivory, or that people in China, India, and other developing nations will be able to enjoy current US-style diets. There are a number of ways to reach this conclusion—for example, meat production is a massive generator of climate-changing gases—but here's one that seems pretty fundamental: There just isn't enough water.

In a new report—which makes bracing reading in this season of widespread drought, severe crop losses, and high food prices—the Stockholm International Water Institute does the math (hat tip to Grist's Philip Bump):

The analysis showed that there will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in Western nations.

The researchers found that industrialized nations currently get on average 20 percent of calories from animal protein (meat plus other products like milk and eggs). To produce the grain necessary to maintain that level and take it worldwide by 2050, farmers would need more usable water than the planet is capable of providing.

What level would work, according to the researchers? There will be "just enough water," they conclude, "if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5 percent of total calories." In other words, we non-vegans need to prepare ourselves and our children for radically different diets in the coming decades—eating about a quarter of the meat, eggs, cheese, etc we now do. Rather than relying heavily on animals for protein, we'll have to learn to consume much more of what we now feed animals: legumes and grains.

For me, the good news is that diets rich in beans, grains, and vegetables, supplemented by animal products at the margins, can be quite delicious and healthy. Indeed, high-flavor, low-meat cooking is precisely the philosophy behind my occasional Tom's Kitchen column. And the idea fits with my suspicion that at appropriately low levels, animals play a key role role in sustainable agriculture, for the simple reason that the most ecologically robust farming methods mimic natural systems. Managed carefully, ruminants like cows are capable of transforming grass that we can't digest into highly nutritious meat and milk, while at the same building organic matter in soil—just as bison have down on prairie lands for millennia. Hogs and chickens, kept on a small enough scale, can turn kitchen scraps and garden waste into meat, eggs (in the case of chickens), and powerful fertilizer. As the organic-farming pioneer Albert Howard has pointed out, "In Nature animals and plants lead an interlocked existence." What's not tenable are the vast animal factories that now dominate US livestock production—and increasingly, China's—and which would surely be needed on an even grander scale to provide the world with a US-style diet.

The bad news, though, is that there's little reason to believe we'll wean ourselves from over reliance on animal agriculture in any timely or orderly fashion. It's true that per-capita US meat consumption has dropped since the recession of 2008, but it remains well above global averages. Our meat industry, dominated by a few large companies, is politically powerful, and will resist any organized effort to reduce meat consumption. (See the US Department of Agriculture's recent cave-in to industry pressure against an effort to promote "Meatless Monday" among USDA employees).

And our meat industry is rapidly expanding into developing countries, including China and India, and is all too happy to help satisfy rising demand for meat. All of this means that humanity will likely draw down water resources severely before we're forced to cut way back on meat—causing massive environmental chaos, food price spikes, and hunger for the globe's poor. Here's how the investor Jeremy Grantham recently assessed the situation in The Financial Times:

Sadly, we are easily manipulated by vested interests, we passionately prefer good news to bad, we are more short-sighted than we think we are, and we are all too corruptible. The world is likely to act too slowly to conserve resources, improve farming technologies and discourage meat eating and waste, which accounts for between 30 and 40 per cent of all food from field to mouth. Our behaviour, which unnecessarily pushes up prices, will inadvertently cause malnutrition and outright starvation in poor countries.

That's a gloomy vision, but the fact that it rings true shouldn't drain us of hope. Across the globe, people are working on the ground to create ecologically sensible alternatives to the dominant farming model: diversified organic agriculture is booming in China and India, even as those nations' governments promote industrialization and concentrated-animal feedlot operations (CAFOs); and in Zambia and Malawi, farmers are using innovative cropping practices, not imported fertilizers, to increase yields of crops designed to be eaten directly by people, not animals. If scientists are correct that catastrophic droughts like this summer's are bound to become increasingly common, policy makers worldwide might be forced sooner rather than later to enact policies that encourage those alternatives and ramp down our reliance on cheap meat at all costs.

Are Your Skinny Jeans Starving the World?

John Steven F./Flickr

—By Tom Philpott

The cotton that feeds our appetite for fast fashion is taking up room that could be used for food crops.

Walk into an H&M, Zara, Forever 21, or any other fast-fashion outlet and you'll see it: people throwing bargain-priced jeggings, peacoats, and clingy tank tops into their carts as if they were buying staples at the supermarket. Shoppers with stodgier tastes do the same with $12 capris at Walmart and $20 blazers at Kmart. In 1985, Americans on average bought 31 items of clothing a year. Today, we buy roughly 60—more than one per week. And when we lug home our haul we're not shy about making room in the closet: We throw out 78 pounds (PDF) of textiles per person—five times as much as we did in 1970.

What gives? It isn't like we have more cash to burn—US median incomes have stagnated over the same period that our clothing habit has exploded. What's happened is clothes have gotten cheaper. Starting in the early 1990s, US clothing prices began a steady decline (before picking up a bit during the Great Recession), driven down by cheap imports from Asian clothing factories that were fed a steady supply of ever-cheaper cotton.

As food prices hover near all-time highs and millions go hungry, the biofuel boom has gotten much of the blame. But what about our hunger for cotton? Nearly half our clothes are made of the fluffy fiber, and around 2 percent (PDF) of cropland worldwide is devoted to it. That might not sound like much—but consider that cotton is the thirstiest crop in the world. And it commands fully 16 percent (PDF) of the insecticides consumed each year, more than any other single agricultural product.

China and India grow half of the globe's cotton. Have you heard of the farmer suicide epidemic (PDF) in India? It's largely concentrated among cotton farmers growing for the global market who are squeezed between high prices for seeds and low prices for cotton, according to a 2011 report by New York University's law school.

It's even worse in West Africa, where large amounts of prime farmland are devoted to cotton for export. Why do farmers put up with it? Because it's often their only opportunity to get access to supplies, says Tom Bassett, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign geography professor who studies cotton production in the region. Farmers buy pesticides and fertilizer from the cotton companies on credit before the season starts and use those resources not just on their cotton, but also on their food crops. The system keeps farm families fed but does little for the rest of sub-Saharan Africa's 800 million residents—a quarter of whom are chronically malnourished.

Now, it's impossible to draw a straight line between cotton production and any particular case of malnutrition. But we can question why farmers in places like Africa and South Asia are devoting land, resources, and time to growing fiber for skinny jeans while people in their own region don't have enough to eat. The reason? The cotton market is big business—its gravitational pull is much stronger than that of families who need food.

The eminent agriculture development expert Hans Herren, president of the Millennium Institute, told me that farmers in West Africa could profitably grow cotton in a way that also bolsters food security, but only under dramatically different market conditions. "With proper crop rotations and other low-input sustainable-farming techniques, you could double crop yields and produce plenty of food alongside cotton," he says. But farmers in those regions are set up to sell cotton to cotton traders; getting food from farm to market is more difficult.
Here in the land of disposable fashion, none of that matters much. In the age of Michael Pollan and slow food, more and more people think about where their dinner comes from and how it affects people and ecosystems on the way to their plates. Maybe it's time we did the same for our wardrobes. If we did, we might have an easier time coming around to the idea of "slow fashion."

So what are your options for a guilt-free closet? Vintage and secondhand, of course, are good options, and some major retailers (Patagonia, Eileen Fisher) encourage customers to send back used clothes—then repurpose them or offer them for sale at a steep discount. If thrift stores aren't your thing, many manufacturers (including H&M) now offer some products made from organic cotton, which requires fewer chemicals and a little less water. But most of it is grown in the same regions as conventional cotton—meaning the farmers still get a raw deal. By far, the most effective strategy is to give up the supermarket sweep approach to clothes shopping and instead buy a few durable pieces.

As for me, I'll be thinking twice next time I'm tempted to grab a cheapo item off the rack at a chain store. Come to think of it, I just might splurge on a spendy wool sweater I've been coveting. Considering how long it will last, it might not be so extravagant after all.

Embracing the Deliciousness of Fermented Foods Means Calling Truce in Our War on Bacteria.

Photo Credit: Ari LeVaux

AlterNet / By Ari LeVaux

Letting food sit at room temp and become colonized by airborne microorganisms runs counter to everything we know about food safety.

At a Korean superstore in Las Vegas, I watched an employee whose sole job, it seemed, was organizing a vast array of kimchee. Her domain consisted of thousands of plastic tubs of fermented fish and vegetables in various combinations, usually spicy. She darted about the immense display cases and scrutinized the tubs' arrangement, rearranging their contents like beads on a giant abacus.

My feeling, observing her that day, roughly sums up how I feel about the process of fermentation generally: a mixture of awe and fear. The process is like some potent voodoo that could give you special powers or torture you to death.

Letting food sit at room temperature and become colonized by airborne microorganisms runs counter to everything we're taught about food safety. But without this guided decomposition that we call fermentation there would be no bread, cheese, tequila, or kimchee.

The Art of Fermentation, by Sandor Katz (Chelsea Green), is therapy for my split impulses regarding fermentation. It's a hefty book, with extensive citations, that exhaustively explores the world's fermentation traditions, including vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy, and other foodstuffs. It recounts much of the history of this ancient art, right up to contemporary times, and is rich in practical knowledge that you can start applying immediately.

The book has given me the confidence to play with the process, and the understanding to ferment fruits and vegetables from my garden. I hope to become proficient enough to put away significant quantities of the summer's harvest via fermentation. In other words, I'm into it -- the process and the book. And I'm not the only one. At last check, The Art of Fermentation sits at #14 on the New York Times bestseller list. In the forward, Michael Pollan writes: "Katz's book is the main reason that my kitchen counters and basement floor have lately sprouted an assortment of mason jars, ceramic crocks, jelly jars, bottles, and carboys, the clear ones glowing with unearthly colors."

Anyone who reads this book might just find their own house similarly cluttered. My own fermentation-ware collection is rudimentary compared to Pollan's, but I've already caught myself looking at a beer growler in a new light, and I doubt it will be long till I spot a crock at a yard sale. In my three-week fermentation career I've already learned some important things, like how much more peaceful fermentation is than canning, and how easy it is to make booze that doesn't taste terrible. Too easy, really.

When Louis Pasteur demonstrated that many diseases are caused by living germs, the "war on bacteria," as Katz calls it, was officially on. Many lives were saved by the bacteria-killing process that became known as pasteurization and its many spawn: the countless methods that use heat, pressure, acid, and other means of preserving food by killing all the microorganisms in and around it. In short order, these methods widely replaced fermentation as the preservation method of choice.

While modern canning techniques work by killing, fermentation takes an opposite approach: promoting life. Specifically, the growth of bacteria and yeast that gradually create an alcoholic or acidic environment in which only certain microorganisms can live. "In this environment, Salmonella, E. Coli, Listeria, Costridium, and other food-borne pathogens cannot survive," Katz writes.

The playing field is tilted to favor either lactic acid bacteria like lactobacillus, or certain yeasts, like saccharomyces, to which we owe bread and booze. Katz quotes USDA vegetable fermentation specialist Fred Breidt as saying there's never been a documented case of food poisoning from fermented food. "Risky is not a word I would use to describe vegetable fermentation," he continues. "It is one of the oldest and safest technologies we have." Bacterial contamination on raw vegetables, by contrast, Katz points out, sickens people on a near daily basis.

In the tropics, long-term storage of fermented products is difficult because of the incessantly hot weather. Luckily, food grows year-round in that climate, so storage isn't necessary. Conversely, the places with the shortest growing seasons have the widest window of cool weather during which fermented products can be stored. Katz regularly stores fermented food all the way to spring, when food starts growing again in the hills of Tennessee, where he lives.

Katz refrains as much as possible from giving exact recipes. He instructs with broad strokes rather than micromanagement, teaching the principles behind each step in the process. That said, the book will give you a firm start on any fermentation path you could possibly wish to follow, and in many cases it's the only source you'll need, from making miso to fermenting mashed potatoes.

Embracing fermentation involves a truce in the war on bacteria. Such a peace means accepting that the microbes are basically in charge. In fact, "we" are mostly "them." Of the 3 million different genes identifiable in our bodies, only 30,000 are human genes. The rest are bacterial, representing thousands of species.

Making peace with microbes means understanding where and how and when they can hurt you. The first and foremost rule for novices: avoid fermenting animal products until you know what you're doing. And while this will come as a blow to some, dark green leafy veggies, like kale, can be traumatizingly foul-tasting, if technically non-poisonous, when fermented.

I've always been an old-school pickle-maker of the water-bathing, vinegar-brining, pressure-canning, kill-em-all school of food preservation. As I explore fermentation, it's a relief to leave behind the heavy artillery that canning involves, not to mention the heat of the kitchen. So far I've made some hooch from sun-dried apricots, a batch of barely fermented sun-dried apricot jam that's got a telltale tang to it, and a pint jar of mixed garden veggies: snow peas, baby carrots, garlic flowers and squash blossom buds. You can open a fermenting jar of pickles, unlike vinegar pickles, whenever you want for a snack, and after three days my veggies started to turn acidic. The flavors are strong, new and often weird. But when done right, like at the Korean superstore, fermentation offers a nearly endless myriad of delicacies that I'm looking forward to exploring.

Here's an excerpt from The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz on kraut-chi Basics:
Kraut-chi is a word I made up, a hybrid of sauerkraut and kimchi, the German and Korean words for fermented vegetables that we have adopted into the English language. The English language does not have its own word for fermented vegetables. It would not be inaccurate to describe fermented vegetables as “pickled,” but pickling covers much ground beyond fermentation. Pickles are anything preserved by acidity.

Most contemporary pickles are not fermented at all; instead they rely upon highly acidic vinegar (a product of fermentation), usually heated in order to sterilize vegetables, preserving them by destroying rather than cultivating microorganisms. “For pickles, fermentation was the primary means of preservation until the 1940s, when direct acidification and pasteurization of cucumber pickles was introduced,” writes Fred Breidt of the USDA.

My vegetable ferments are usually concoctions that do not fit any homogeneous traditional ideal of either German sauerkraut or Korean kimchi. But of course, everything I’ve learned about sauerkraut and kimchi reveal that neither of them constitutes a homogeneous tradition. They are highly varied, from regional specialties to family secrets. Nonetheless, certain techniques underlie both (and many other related) traditions, and my practice is a rather free-form application of these basic techniques rather than an attempt to reproduce any particular notion of authenticity.

In a nutshell, the steps I typically follow when I ferment vegetables are:
1 Chop or grate vegetables.
2 Lightly salt the chopped veggies (add more as necessary to taste), and pound or squeeze until moist; alternatively, soak the veggies in a brine solution for a few hours.
3 Pack the vegetables into a jar or other vessel, tightly, so that they are forced below the liquid. Add water, if necessary.
4 Wait, taste frequently, and enjoy!

Of course there is more information and nuance, which the rest of this chapter explores, but really, “Chop, Salt, Pack, Wait” is what most of it amounts to.
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Ari LeVaux writes a syndicated weekly food column, Flash in the Pan.

What Monsanto and Pepsi Don’t Want You to Know About Your Food.

by Emily L.


NOTE: This is a guest blog post from Stacy Malkan, media director for the Yes on 37 California Right to Know Campaign.

Welcome to election season, when big corporations spare no expense trying to get us to vote against our own self interest. Here in California, we’re bracing for a bomb of television commercials designed to convince us that labeling food is scary, weird and expensive.

In just the past week, a parade of corporations have donated nearly $25 million — before Labor Day is even upon us — to try to kill Proposition 37, a historic ballot initiative that would require labeling of genetically engineered foods.

New contributions freshly posted on the Secretary of State website reveal the companies that are forking over huge contributions to, and staking their brand names behind, a front group called “The Coalition Against the Deceptive Food Labeling Scheme,” which claims that Proposition 37 would “ban the sale of groceries” — even though it wouldn’t.

Proposition 37 would require companies to add a few words to existing labels to inform consumers if their food has been genetically engineered. Who could be against giving us accurate information about what’s in our food?

The Pesticide Peddlers: Monsanto leads the pack with $4.2 million and a newly posted honor at the bottom of the opposition website that says, “Major funding by Monsanto…”

Joining Monsanto are the rest of the “Big Six” chemical companies — DuPont, BASF, Bayer, Dow and Syngenta — who have poured a combined $13.5 million into fighting Proposition 37. Why?

These are the guys who make the pesticides and also sell or push the seeds that are genetically engineered to withstand the pesticides, thereby allowing them to … sell more pesticides. You get the picture.

“Rather than reducing the need for hazardous pesticides, herbicide-resistant seeds have driven a massive increase in herbicide use that has been linked to significant environmental and public health concerns,” explains Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD, senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network, in a statement supporting Proposition 37.

“It’s clear that genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant seeds are the growth engines of the pesticide industry’s sales and marketing strategy. These seeds are part of a technology package explicitly designed to facilitate increased, indiscriminate herbicide use and pump up chemical sales,” Dr. Ishii-Eiteman said.
According to a 2009 report by Chuck Benbrook, PhD, chief scientist at the Organic Center, farmers applied 318 million more pounds of pesticides over the first 13 years of commercial GE crop production (1996-2008), as a direct result of planting genetically engineered seeds. “GE crops are pushing pesticide use upward at a rapidly accelerating pace,” Dr. Benbrook wrote in the report.

Corn Syrup Crowd: Not far behind the chemical companies, the big junk food brands — Pepsi, Coke, Nestle, Kellogg — are lining up against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of their consumers who want to know if their food has been genetically engineered. These are the companies that are already providing information about genetic engineering to consumers in 49 other countries, but not in their own country.

Their Washington DC lobby group — the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) — has said that defeating Prop 37 is their “single-highest priority” this year, as Michele Simon reported. Imagine that: the nation’s biggest food companies have no other priority but to keep consumers in the dark about genetic engineering.

PepsiCo leads the Corn Syrup Crowd with $1.7 million in contributions, followed by Nestle and Coke, with $1.2 million each. Other food companies among the top 20 contributors to the No on 37 scare campaign are Conagra Foods ($1 million), Kellogg ($632,500), General Mills ($519,400), Hershey ($395,100), Smuckers ($388,000), Hormel Foods ($374,300), Bimbo Bakeries ($338,300), Ocean Spray Cranberries ($301,500) and Pinnacle Food Group ($266,100).

Look for these corporations and their lobby group to drop millions more in the weeks ahead in an effort to convince voters that adding a little bit of ink to labels will force them to raise the cost of groceries by “hundreds of dollars a year.”

As Ronnie Cummins asks on Alternet, “Why spend millions of dollars to keep ingredients secret — ingredients food manufacturers claim are perfectly safe — instead of spending a fraction of that amount to just list those ingredients on the labels they already put on every food product?”

And on the right side of history is the people’s movement for our right to know what’s in our food. With more than a million people already on board, the Yes on 37 Campaign is working to organize One Million More people to counter the opposition’s millions.

For its part, the Yes on 37 Right to Know campaign has raised about $2.7 million so far, a large portion of which has come from thousands of donors giving small contributions online. Funders also include leading businesses in the natural and sustainable food industry, including Lundberg Family Farms, Amy’s Kitchen, Nature’s Path, Nutiva, Organic Valley, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps and Dr. Joseph Mercola, who runs one of the largest health websites in the country.

These donors are standing behind the more than 1,000 endorsing organizations and the huge majority of Californians — 69%, according to a recent Pepperdine poll — who support Prop 37 and our right to know what’s in our food.

Can the public interest win out against the deceptive ad campaigns funded by pesticide peddlers and the corn syrup crowd?

In less than 90 days, we’ll know the answer. Now is the time to get involved. To help pass Prop 37, join us at www.CARighttoKnow.org, like us on Facebook and tweet about our right to know what’s in our food.
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Stacy Malkan is media director for the Yes on 37 California Right to Know Campaign. If voters pass Proposition 37 in November, California would be the first state in the U.S. to require labeling of genetically engineered foods. Forty nine other countries already require GE foods to be labeled.

Doped-Up Nation: How America Became a Country of Addicts.

The Fix / By Richard Juman

The external fixes to our internal problems are readily available, and every addiction fuels somebody else's craving—for cash.

We’re a nation of addicts. Would you care to dispute it?

Recent studies confirm an alarming reality: As a country, when it comes to dealing with personal problems, we use an external fix. Whether it's routine disruptions we face at work, the common crises at home, or our children trying to parse the maelstrom of media overload—the fact is that it's increasingly rare that Americans turn to internal or interpersonal resources to establish equilibrium. Instead, our first impulse is to seek out a quick and external source, which becomes both the cause of our problems, and the solution.

The first place people look is the simple dopamine spike. Most people have reliable techniques to make themselves feel better—or, as I like to say, to give themselves a little “dopamine spike.” Dopamine, as you probably know, is the neurotransmitter triggered by “rewarding events.” These pleasurable moments may occur naturally, but they are also the direct result of specific drugs, such as cocaine, methamphetamine or nicotine.

While we may admire the American impulse to applaud hard work, innovation, and daring, the rewards of these labors aren't immediate. We’re an impatient nation; we seek more immediate gratification. We’ve come to accept an approach of “why wait?”, so we grab ahold of whatever it takes to feel better, to keep feeling better, to make it through the day.

In our addicted culture, we go for the artificially-induced dopamine spike—and not just one, but one right after the next. Consider the following: Roughly one in ten Americans is currently an illicit drug user; nearly one quarter of American adults engage in binge drinking, many on a regular basis; and the majority of those with problem drug or alcohol use do not seek treatment for their problems.

Now, if we broaden the criteria that we use in thinking about addiction to include unhealthy coping mechanisms and other “ways-to-get-through-the-day”—we face staggering results. For one, most Americans have lost their ability to eat normally, with two-thirds of the nation’s adults meeting the definition of obese. As another example, approximately one out of every five American women is on an anti-depressant. I recently signed up with a new primary care physician. When she found out that I’m a psychologist, she asked me “Why is every kid in New York on Ritalin, and every adult taking Ambien?”
It’s an excellent question.

How is it that we’ve wrapped ourselves in the fuzzy dopamine blanket of substance misuse, prescription medication, compulsive eating, celebrity worship, compulsive shopping, internet addiction, video gaming, and compulsive sexual behavior?

Here’s one reason: these external fixes are readily available, and every addiction fuels somebody else's craving—for cash. The alcohol industry takes in over $100 billion a year; Big Tobacco earns $35 billion. Gambling, pornography, prostitution, and texting all add fuel to our country's dopamine fire.

The root issue is that direct, undiluted, authentic engagement with the world and others is a challenge, and the strategy of occasional mood alteration that many employ to "take the edge off" can slide into something more dangerous. Others end up in another kind of distorted dependence, finding that it's easier to move your onscreen avatar through the world than to actually navigate it on your own. What about the tragic case of the Korean couple who found it easier to raise a “virtual” baby in a popular internet cafe than to take care of their child who died while they were busy online?

The couple’s three-month old starved to death. She was only fed between sessions of the game. According to police, these parents “indulged themselves in the online game raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby. Here in Dopamine Nation, internet and video game addiction are real concerns.

Those of us who work in the addiction treatment community find our most critical task—helping clients find an authentic path to recovery—more challenging than ever. In part, this is due to a culture that seems engineered to foster dependence on artificially induced means to “feel OK.”

Turn on the TV, and the prevailing wisdom says there’s no reason to suffer discomfort. Moreover, we’re being instructed that continuous synthetic “adjustment” is the norm - in other words, there’s a pill for whatever ails you: ADHD, shyness, erectile dysfunction, fibromyalgia—you name it. Of course, abuse of these drugs is soaring, from anxiety medications to pain pills. But the problem is more insidious.

We’re so addicted to food that we literally have to seek surgical intervention to staple our stomachs in order to control our weight. Technologies allow us to seemingly be everywhere at once, but we’re never quite “right here now.”

These same devices create a state of continuous partial attention. We’re so busy attending to our screens and keys, so dependent on the next little dopamine surge that comes in the form of a text, that we turn our eyes from the road and accidents are increasing in record numbers.

Speaking of cars, picture this. Your vehicle is acting up, so you take it to the service station. You know there’s something wrong because it just doesn’t run the way it used to. You explain the problem to the mechanic, and he lays out your options.

“OK,” he says. “You have a choice. You can put some goop in the engine every day. It’s expensive, you’ll have to do it forever, and it may make the problem worse. Plus, we’ll never know what’s wrong. Or, I can lift the hood and see what’s going on.”

Which option would you choose?

We’re all human, and we like to feel good. Dopamine is naturally generated from any number of physical and emotional sources. The accumulation of externally generated dopamine, however, creates a vicious cycle of relief- seeking that ultimately spirals out of control. For those who are lucky – or smart – it lands patients in our offices where we can finally begin to “lift up the hood”—and actively address the real problems.
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Richard Juman is a licensed clinical psychologist who has worked in the field of addiction for over 25 years, providing direct clinical care, supervision, program development and administration across multiple settings. A specialist in geriatric care and organizational change, he is also the president of the New York State Psychological Association.  

Want Dumber Kids? Feed Them Junk Food.

by Cathryn Wellner

There are more compelling reasons to avoid junk food than a two-point drop in IQ, but a new study from the University of Adelaide in South Australia does show the impact of food on growing minds as well as bodies.

The study, led by Dr. Lisa Smithers, compared dietary patterns of more than 7000 children. Their diets were recorded at six months, 15 months and two years. When they reached the age of eight their IQ’s were tested.

Dr. Smithers says:

We found that children who were breastfed at six months and had a healthy diet regularly including foods such as legumes, cheese, fruit and vegetables at 15 and 24 months, had an IQ up to two points higher by age eight.

Those children who had a diet regularly involving biscuits, chocolate, lollies, soft drinks and chips in the first two years of life had IQs up to two points lower by age eight.

We also found some negative impact on IQ from ready-prepared baby foods given at six months, but some positive associations when given at 24 months.

Earlier studies have already shown an alarming increase in diet-related diseases in children. For example, Type 2 diabetes, traditionally referred to as “adult-onset” diabetes, is being diagnosed in children as young as two. Heart disease and certain cancers are also increasing in younger populations.

The new study doesn’t make excessive claims, and it is only one study. The results show minor effects and need to be verified by further research. However, they are part of a larger picture that should guide our thinking about food. While a couple of IQ points are unlikely to change a child’s future, when added to diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, they form a pattern that should influence what we feed children. As Dr. Smithers says:

While the differences in IQ are not huge, this study provides some of the strongest evidence to date that dietary patterns from six to 24 months have a small but significant effect on IQ at eight years of age,” Dr Smithers says.

It is important that we consider the longer-term impact of the foods we feed our children

How To Make Food Your Medicine.

By - Marcelle Pick, OB-GYN N.P., Co-founder, Women to Women

In the natural health world, we hear this phrase all the time: Use food as your medicine. But how do you actually go about making food your medicine? Are there special meals to cook when you feel sick? Are there foods that help prevent disease? Many women tell me this concept is overwhelming. But it doesn't have to be.

Plant foods have special molecules called phytonutrients that can turn on and off our DNA to help prevent disease as well as heal acute (short-term) sickness. Eating a diet rich in plant foods over time can prevent disease and enhance health. However, foods containing sugar, preservatives, and trans fats can turn on a cascade of inflammatory processes that ultimately lead to disease.

If you make no other health changes in your life, revising the way you eat can absolutely turn your health around. So how do you make food your medicine? Here's my short guide to using the most powerful drug we have.

Start with your plate.
The first thing is to make sure your plate of food is colorful. Bright colors and deep greens tell us that these foods are packed with nutrients and phytochemicals. The next thing you want to do is make sure half of your plate is vegetables. You should be trying to eat eight to 10 servings of vegetables a day. One quarter of the plate can be a lean protein like organic chicken, beef, trout, shrimp, or salmon. The last quarter can be complex carbohydrates, such as brown rice, sweet potatoes, quinoa, beans, or fruit.

Assess your hair, skin, nails, and energy levels.
We tend to separate our outer bodies from what is happening on the inside, but everything in the body is connected. When your nails and hair are weak, this could be a sign that you aren't getting enough nutrients in your diet. Skin problems can be an indicator of thyroid issues, GI problems, or a diet too high in sugar and preservatives. Your energy levels are also a great indicator of your overall health. Fatigue can be a sign of many different imbalances and is not something to chalk up to getting old. For more information, read my article on fatigue.

Pay attention to your family history.
What diseases tend to run in your family? Where do you see your own health vulnerabilities? Some people have trouble with digestion, others feel more at risk for heart and/or cholesterol problems. Diabetes and thyroid imbalances are also very common. As Dr. Mark Hyman writes in his blog on food and medicine, "We are learning from research in the field of nutrigenomics, that food 'talks' to our DNA switching on or off genes that lead to health or disease." So we can potentially change the expression of our genes by changing how we eat.

Here are some common chronic diseases and foods that can help prevent them:

Heart disease
Nuts are a wonderful option for heart health. Most nuts are packed with unsaturated fats, omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, vitamin E, L-arginine (which is helpful for artery structure), and plant sterols to help cholesterol. Resveratrol and alpha lipoic acid are also great supplements to add if you are concerned with heart health. I would recommend discussing the following tests with your doctor as well: fractionated cholesterol reading, high-sensitivity CRP (hs-CRP), fibrinogen level, homocysteine, hemoglobin A1C, fasting two-hour postprandial insulin and glucose levels.

Alzheimer's
The Mediterranean diet can do wonders for your health, especially when it comes to brain (and heart) health. Small (low-mercury) fish, nuts, colorful vegetables, and olive oil are all great choices for brain health. Antioxidants found in blueberries, dark leafy greens, red wine, and chocolate are all helpful as well.

Diabetes
The key to Type 2 diabetes prevention is glycemic control. Be sure to eat all carbohydrates with a good amount of fiber, healthy fat, and/or protein to help control the insulin spike that happens after eating a high-sugar/carbohydrate load. Certain minerals and spices can also help level blood sugar, like chromium and cinnamon.

Hypothyroidism
The best foods for thyroid support typically include iodine and selenium. Sea vegetables and seafood are great options for iodine, while Brazil nuts, mushrooms, and halibut are good sources of selenium. I've written a whole article on eating to support your thyroid with charts of thyroid-friendly foods.

For a great resource on staying well for life, read UltraPrevention by doctors Mark Hyman and Mark Liponis.

Food Is Our Most Powerful Drug
Most of us are conditioned to think that taking a pill out of a bottle will make us feel better. We don't generally think that fresh vegetables and fruit count toward healing. But it's true, food is the most powerful drug we have. Pay attention to what you eat, how it feels in your body, and get to know your healing foods. You will find that food offers much more than calories. It offers your ticket to a long and healthy life.