Food or Foodstuff?

Image by elmada via Flickr

Just after high school, I once worked for a hotel chain. Not the most glorious job, but it was something. You get to see all sorts of human behavior, good and bad, when you work somewhere that people typically hold in their minds as a temporary residence. I wish I could remember the name of the nice, older lady who always smelled of Jessica McClintock perfume as she was such a delight to chat with.

On the other hand, I certainly won't miss the party-loving folks who seemed to assume that you just love to pick up after them because hey - you're getting paid to do it, right? (Based on the amounts of mess, sometimes and often you can answer that: WRONG.)

After one particularly large, but thankfully not too rowdy, group left, we found mountains of leftover "food." The typical party faire; there were bags of Doritos, 2-litre bottles of pop in many varieties, pizza boxes, and so forth. There was something a little extra in this case, too: A huge stack of Lunchables. You know what I'm talking about - those prepared lunch snack packs that are marketed to busy parents of schoolage children. They contain an amazing variety of non-food food nowadays, but back when this happened it was mostly limited to lunch meat, cheese, jello, crackers, and so forth.

Usually when a guest left something important, or if they left as much unopened food as they did this time, they would be back soon to claim it, so we did what we usually did: We set it in a back room and forgot about it.

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What Can I Drink Instead of Soda?

Image via Wikipedia

By now hopefully you already recognize that drinking pop or soda is wrong. That fountain may flow abundantly and cheap, but it comes at a severe cost down the road. So what options do you have?  There are other ways to get inexpensive, convenient, and delicious drinks in your diet.

Are you thinking diet pop? Not the best choice if you choose one of the major brand labels. Not only will diet brands possibly increase your weight, but these kinds of drinks can and probably will kill you, in the long run. In general, you should try to avoid as many man-made or processed foods as possible, and diet drinks are typically only sweetened by ingredients that corporations can make a killing on, pun intended. There are alternative diet sodas, however, and some of these might be to your liking.  First, let me introduce you to a rising brand:

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Why Americans Are Fat

Created by OnlineEducation.net. Click through to see the original size.

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So, should I take Emergen-C, then?

Image by bubble dumpster via Flickr

A reader asked me today what my opinion of Emergen-C was, considering that I recommended against supplementing with Airborne to combat colds and flu. Honestly, I enter this analysis with feelings of ambivalence; I've used Emergen-C quite a number of times, and believe that were I to go look, I could probably still find a bunch of packets in our cupboards at home or even my drawers at work.

On the other hand, the more I have studied healing and nutrition through consumption of real (organic, local) food, I've also found reason to suspect Emergen-C, too, might not be all that it's cracked up to be.

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Airborne vs. Cold and Flu?

Although fewer people seem to be complaining that they are sick or have the flu already this year, that doesn’t mean the “season” is over. It’s important to remember that the best treatments for colds and flu are natural and may already be in your kitchen. However that is not going to stop major corporations from compiling their own unique blend of drugs, herbs, and/or vitamins into an easy-to-swallow pill or effervescent formula.

Enter Airborne.

You probably already know it. It was introduced on the sly to groceries like Trader Joe’s and billed as a new and natural medicine “invented by a teacher.” The logic, of course, being that teachers are around many sick kids and must therefore be experts on staying healthy.

Around our house, we tested Airborne in the early days when it first came out. What can you say? It was fizzy and had a strong Vitamin-C kick to it. We couldn’t really tell whether when we got better it was due to taking Airborne or just… because. However it stuck around the household for a good long while because something was better than nothing, because we didn’t know better, and because we at least didn’t want to use any drugs.

It would appear that most proponents of the medicine testify that it works to fight colds simply because of their belief that it does. To be fair, believing that you are going to get better will actually help – that idea has been proven elsewhere. But $20 for three plastic tubes of belief is a pretty high price point just to cure a cold.

By now, of course or hopefully, you have heard about the class action lawsuit about the bogus clinical investigation originally claimed as proof by Airborne. It was settled out of court, and possibly-maybe some people cashed in on the refund. No, it was not right for Airborne to essentially stage a clinical study – not at all. But mostly, they were (are) very careful to make you think it cures colds, so they were just smart enough to have found ways to sell through the loopholes in American law.

Even after all this, you may still have some Airborne left over, or are still buying and using it today. You should really stop. Not only is it a really expensive way for you to get a few vitamins and herbs that you could be more economically purchasing in other methods, but it can actually harm you.

Taking Airborne according to its instructions could land you with acute Hypervitaminosis A, which is a fancy way of saying an overdose of vitamin A. You’ll probably recover, but it’s still nothing to play around with. While we’re on the subject of Vitamin A, you should also know that you should really be consuming it along with Vitamin D, and vice-versa. The Weston A Price foundation explains how these two vitamins have a cooperative effect on each other.

Airborne contains added glutamine. Not being an expert on gluten-free living, I can only say that it is a precursor to the excitotoxin glutamate. Simply put, you should not be in a position where you need to supply additional glutamine to your diet; it should be provided naturally by the foods you choose.

There are at least three sugar substitutes in this product. Did you find them? Much like their deceptive packaging which might lead you to believe Airborne is effective against colds, finding the sugar substitutes is something you really have stop and search for. There is Acesulfame Potassium – that is, Acesulfame K, sorbitol, and sucralose (or Splenda). Depending on the type of chemical, artificial sugars should either be avoided, or avoided at all costs.

Finally, or hopefully finally, even the Vitamin C in Airborne could pose a problem. The National Council Against Health Fraud explains that adult version of Airborne has 1000 mg of vitamin C, which at the recommended dosage contains enough vitamin C to increase oxalate and urate excretion and thus may cause kidney stones.

So the next time you feel a cold coming on, skip the Airborne, and just go eat a few cloves of garlic. You’ll be better off in body as well as in pocketbook.

A special thanks to YourGlutenFreeRecipes, DO, and GC for advice and links about this article.

Additional Resources:

Who Has Time for This?

Go Ask Alice

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The Amazing Cabbage

Last weekend while attending the Weston A Price Foundation's 2009 Wise Traditions conference, we were delighted to see a wide array of healthy food offerings. There were many fermented products, and naturally one of the most prevalent was fermented cabbage, or sauerkraut.

The lunch on Saturday was served in buffet style and it was hard to choose with what to fill one's plate. Fortunately for my palate the first option was a sauerkraut that I had never encountered before. I say fortunately because never in my life have I ever tasted a better kraut. While I can only guess at the ingredients my impression of it would describe it as an "Apple Cinnamon Sauerkraut" -- strange, but delicious.

With that in mind, I would like to remind you about your vegetables, and how eating them can really keep the doctors - and their drugs - away. Cabbage, in particular.  It's such a plain, boring vegetable if you just look at the raw produce. I'll readily admit and agree with that. But it is, to me, practically the soul of umami - that strange fifth sensation that is hard to exactly describe.

A cup of raw, shredded cabbage will give you calcium, phosphorus, iron, sodium, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, and a little B-complex. It also has a high amount of sulphur - an often overlooked mineral.  At least, until the cabbage is digested, of course; most people are probably familiar with its sometimes-inconvenient but natural after effects!  But sulphur is very good for you; members of the Brassica family such as cabbage, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and broccoli inhibit the growth of harmful chemical carcinogens within the body.

That's right. That means anti-cancer.

If that miraculous property of cabbage weren't enough to make it a daily staple of your diet, it is also been determined to neutralize toxic effects of excess cobalt, nickel, and copper in your body. It lowers serum cholesterol, calming agitated nerves and anxiety - thus it's an anti-depressant and can help you get to sleep at night. Oh, and cabbage is also effective at breaking down stools.

But we're not done yet. Cabbage juice, and fermented sauerkraut juice has been recommended to help expecting women get over their morning sickness very quickly. It's a fantastic and natural antacid - much cheaper and more natural than over-the-counter ulcer/heartburn medication. It has even been verified in treating hangovers.

Now is a great time to look to some old-world recipes for solutions to new-world problems. Bring on the borscht and sauerkraut!


For more information, read John Heinerman's Encyclopedia of Healing Juices.


This post is part of Prevention Not Prescription Tuesdays on the Kathleen Show.

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The Crux of Aspartame

This little tidbit of information alone, that aspartame in the body becomes formaldehyde, should be enough to convince anyone to steer far clear of aspartame. The fact that this kind of additive could ever have been approved by the FDA ought to give you serious second thoughts about ever trusting a government agency ever again.

Don't forget, too, that true food advocates such as Michael Pollan and Marion Nestle advise eating non-processed foods as much as and whenever possible. Never forget that aspartame and other artificial sweeteners are as far from natural as you can get.

Respect your body and don't poison it.

in reference to:

"When ingested, the methyl ether in aspartame becomes highly toxic methyl alcohol which is also known as methanol or wood alcohol and can be lethal in doses as small as four ounces. The methanol from aspartame is broken down into formaldehyde which is dangerous toxin that the body is unable to eliminate."
- Why You'd Be Crazy to Consume Aspartame (view on Google Sidewiki)

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• Did Diet Coke Cause My Cancer? (simplygreen.co.za)
• The dangers of Aspartame. (informationonhealth.blogspot.com)

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You need a bigger team.

Image via Wikipedia

This post is part of Fight Back Friday, hosted by FoodRenegade . It's a little bit of a book review, a little bit of a shout-out to some real foodies out there, and a little bit of a testimony to faith that we can change our food for the better.

I'm right in the middle of a book that I can't put down. It's called The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O'Brien and Rachel Kranz. I highly recommend it! I love how these things just find their way into my life. I hadn't even heard of this book and one day last week my wife brought it home from the library. It's about Robyn's personal journey of discovery about how the food we eat is controlled by major corporations and government agencies - to our detriment.

At the beginning of chapter five she relates her feelings of self-blame mixed with a sense of despair at how people she knew didn't seem to want to know the truth. I can empathize with her. It takes strength to discuss with someone just how bad things like HFCS or Splenda are while they're sipping away at their favorite carbonated beverage. It hurts to see a loved one eating deceptively bad foods - like Yoplait yogurts or wheat bread that's really white - when you know these things can be making them sick, and it feels like a heavy burden trying to push the truth to places where it's not welcome.

Here is that excerpt from the book that I thought particularly moving:

Cover via Amazon

The next morning, I sat down at the breakfast table with my four children. "You know how Mommy has been really busy with her computer lately?" They all nodded. "Well, Mommy is learning a lot of new things about chemicals in the food that we eat, and it makes me worried." Five-year old Colin quietly gave me a hug. John buzzed around the table, and six-year old Lexy asked, "Is it about Tory's allergies?" "Well, sort of. But it's not only Tory," I said. "There are chemicals in our food that might be bad for all of us. Now that I know this, I have to do something about it to protect all of you. And I have to help other people learn, so that their kids are safe, too." This was the point when Colin absolutely floored me. He asked, "How many people are on your team?" I almost had to laught. "Not too many right now, Colin. But luckily I've got you, Lexy, John, Tory, and Daddy -- that's my team." Colin shook his head and looked me straight in the eye. "Mommy," he said, "you need a bigger team."

It's at this point in reading that I realized I've got a good team - even if we're not literally working together, we're all working for a common goal. Sometimes my team is indeed hand-in-hand, as in the case of my wife whom I'm eternally grateful for. She, like I, and like Robyn O'Brien, is unceasingly working for a good, healthy life for our children - all of our children. But this other part of my "team" are all of these other people out there online, or in the public, standing up and being outspoken about our right to real food.

In a "Follow Friday" fashion, but with a little more detail, here some of the people I look up to and appreciate knowing on Twitter and the web:

vinmiller : Tweets the right amount of high-quality information and links. Inspirational and has positive attitude to share. He's interested in diet, exercise, the pharmaceutical industry, and more - plus he slips some entertaining tidbits in every now and again.

cheeseslave : You can't look very far in the twittersphere without running into something being retweeted from or by her. Reading her stuff is like listening to a real person who cares about you and your health. She posts a lot about the foods that you may have been told are bad for you - and you'll probably learn a lot from her.

kitchenkop : Talks about making and eating real food, and isn't afraid to be politically incorrect about it! She lists recipes and food tips, and above all else encourages you to do your own research.

kathleenshow : She started in the pharmaceutical industry - a regular insider, a legal pusher ;) But she realized what she was doing one day and now fights back.  She's made movies and has a regular radio/podcast talk show. Her positive attitude is infectious!

PlasticLess : As you might guess from the name, he talks about reducing the use of plastic, recycling, and keeping the planet clean. He's also concerned with green technology like solar power and has another account, SolarIdeas, where he talks about that. Plastic use is related to healthy food because it is both a direct, short-term contaminant as well as a hidden, long-term one.

JamButter : A foodie I wouldn't be surprised to see in a documentary as an expert some time! He's down with local, organic food and talks about the business/industrial food sphere as well. He has SO much information to share, and says it in a way that's easy to take in.


Unfortunately, I can't list all of you all right now - there are so many to mention! ... But I'll keep moving through the list every so often as I go about blogging. You're my heroes, and I am so appreciative that you're ALL there, standing up for our kids, and our world! 

One last thank-you to someone who I've recently bumped into online, though. Thank you, KC, for leading me on to Zemanta by using it yourself. I can't seem to find a Twitter account for you, so if you read this, let's hook up there.

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