Next Up: Soylent Green (Soylent White Already in Production…)

by Ravi
You may just want to check out where your rice is coming from.

I’m old enough to remember the shock and awe at the sci-fi flik “Soylent Green” where good ‘ol Chas Heston discovered that the food solution for the over-crowded, polluted and no longer productive earth was to re-process the dead and dying into “Soylent Green” chips – food from the bodies of the dead.

It was truly a “camp” film and it quickly became  (and still is) a kind of classic symbol of our over-crowded earth, the stretching of our limited resources by rampant, unthinking over-population. The thing is – back in the 1970’s it was still campy sci-fi.  The world population was just clicking over 3 billion and although for those who were paying attention, the red flags were starting to pop up regarding over-population, underproduction of food, crop failures and starvation, most people were complacent and happily ignorant.

The Great Gluten-Free Goof-Game – Are you Playing It?

by Ravi

MMMMMMM, Those delicious almond flour/rice flour pancakes for breakfast today were super! And the gluten-free honey bread sandwiches for lunch? Killer, Mom!  You’ve got the recipe down on that one! And these crispy gluten-free rolls with dinner – YUM!

Sound familiar? Well – you’re playin’

The Great Gluten-Free Goof Game!

The Wholesome Blueberry Quiz, or Truth in Labeling… NOT

by Ravi

I ran across this tidbit that so definitively answers any remaining notion that the labeling of food is honest, or even vaguely honest, I just had to re-post it.

A bogger by the name of Amy Kubal at her site Fuel As Rx had this *great* bit of label de-construction – Enjoy and take heed (hints to the wrong answer in BLUE…):

The Wholesome Blueberry Quiz

Okay, quiz time! What do these foods have in common: Total Pomegranate Blueberry Cereal, Betty Crocker Blueberry Muffins, Kelloggs Blueberry Poptarts,  Kelloggs Blueberry Muffin Frosted Mini-Wheats, and Special K Blueberry Fruit Crisps?

If you answered blueberries, you are WRONG!!

Even though the product name says ‘blueberry‘ and the packages hold pictures of the fruit – there are absolutely NO blueberries in these foods! In fact Betty Crocker’s blueberries are a less than wholesome mixture of dextrose, corn flour, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, sugar, citric acid, artificial flavor, blue #1, and red #40. The Special K Fruit Crisps version of a blueberry looks like this – apple powder (hey at least there’s some fruit – right??), partially hydrogenated soybean oil, fructose, sugar, red #40, and blue #1.

The 'wild" part is that they contain NO BLUEBERRIES!

On the plus side, these crisps are enhanced with a bit of blueberry puree concentrate… And the Total Pomegranate Blueberry Cereal – you guessed it! Not a pomegranate OR blueberry to be found.

How do they get away with this??

They just do it.

I guess I should start a blog series on the (almost foreign) language of food labeling. (hhmmmm, not a bad idea…)

Post part of Real Food Wednesday – return here

Post part of Simple Lives Thursday return here

Do you have any blatant lies on labels to expose? Do it here!

Get Stupid & Get Cancer in Convenient, BPA-lined-Hormone-Disrupting Can

by Ravi

If you have not tossed the cola/soda yet – then this post is my effort to get you to do so and do so NOW.

FIRST, we have the study:

“Brain functional magnetic resonance imaging response to glucose and fructose infusions in human.”

published in the journal:

Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, Volume 13, Issue 3, pages 229–234, March 2011

which simply states that:

“In normal weight humans, cortical responses to infused glucose are opposite to those of fructose. Differential brain responses to these sugars and their metabolites may provide insight into the neurologic basis for dysregulation of food intake during high dietary fructose intake.”

Vit D: Big Pharma Dumbing Down and Confounding the Discussion

by Ravi
There is simply no question that our natural-health arch-nemesis Big Pharma is behind the huge dis-information campaign against natural vitamin D including the (absurd) reduced daily recommendations recently issued by the  IOM (U.S. Institute of Medicine).  Here is a very insightful review of what our world’s REAL drug pushers are up to. Reader comments below this article are also quite valuable.

Big Pharma is clearly re-doubling its efforts to further diminish our natural herb/supplement use on the American side of the pond as we approach the implementation of the disastrous Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD) which virtually outlaws all non-western herbal remedies throughout Europe – yes – all!  And the SAME contingent is hard at work trying to get YOUR herbs outlawed here in the US.

Are YOU Sustainable?

Greenpeace (with many  concerned activists helping) has successfully embarrassed giant Costco into stopping the sale of endangered, unsustainable fish selling at their big box stores.  While some may criticize – the fact is that this IS a step in the right direction for our oceans which are deeply threatened and perhaps already damaged beyond repair.

Here’s the story on Costco’s excellent actions.

But this begs the question – are YOU sustainable? Do you give a damn about the oceans and the future of our wondrous ocean environment?

“Shunning” Whole Foods, (and you don’t have to be Amish)

Web Definition: “Shunning”

“Shunning is the act of deliberately avoiding association with, and habitually keeping away from an individual or group. It is a sanction against association often associated with religious groups and other tightly-knit organizations and communities. Practiced by the Amish as a kind of social punishment  for improper behavior.”

by Ravi

As little as 6 months ago, we were (somewhat reservedly) defending Whole Foods as  a kind of only and last choice for at least SOME conscious food shopping experience.

How things can change.

Serious to Lose Weight? then LEARN TO SHOP!

by The DaiaSolGaia Community

Wanna be more successful losing weight?

Then get real.  Having foods around that are NOT part of your program – (ANYWHERE in the house or within reach) is tempting fate – or worse yet – tempting your questionable will power (you are over-weight after all, yes?…)

Success going Paleo/Primal to lose weight (Paleo/Primal diet explained here) is no different than success with any other venture in your life – you must decide, choose your path and put you mind and will to the task!  Happily, the wonder of the paleo diet is that, although there are “rules” on what NOT to eat, what you CAN eat is immensely satisfying, delicious, and you really do not have to “count calories”.

Getting “The Skinny” on Getting Skinny With the Paleo/Primal Diet

by Ravi

If you click around the Paleo/Primal Diet world, it’s pretty hard to miss all the exceptional stories of weight loss and, in fact, that many people try and love the paleo diet for that very reason (besides all the great tasting food you get to eat!).

It takes a bit of mental gymnastics to “get” this one central premise (after a generation of bad conditioning) – but …

eating meat and fat DOES NOT MAKE YOU FAT!*

*unless (of course) you are stuffing down several Big Macs and a shake combining refined carbs, sugar and cheap fatty meat all in one horrid meal!

The Stinking Rose a Smelly Sham? – Garlic’s Obscure Shadow

by Ravi

LIES! Here’s the TRUTH! Urban Myth! Garlic is Great! Garlic is a NEUROTOXIN! Garlic CURES ALL DISEASE! Garlic de-synchronizes your brain! Eat garlic everyday! Don’t eat garlic!

Don’t ya just love the internet?

I just recently had an e-mail exchange with an interesting man who brought to my attention a respected researcher’s seriously negative comments about garlic. In an effort to present you (dear reader…) with some “real” information, and also because, like most avid cooks, I have many forms of garlic in my seasoning arsenal and have consumed garlic liberally for years, I definitely wanted to see if there was any substance to the claim that there are compounds in garlic that are neuro-toxic (!!??). Consider,  as recounted in my recent sugar article here – I was brought up on refined white sugar and would have argued like hell with you 25 years ago if you had suggested that this white death was in fact, white death!  I’ve had to accept that my life-long attitude towards sugar has changed with the new information I have learned – so, what about garlic?

What did I find out about the infamous, much loved Stinking Rose?

Very compelling stuff actually. And not all rosy-smelling.