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By Hook or CrookThe Secret History of Big Pharma's Role in Creating and Marketing Heroin, LSD, Meth, Ecstasy and SpeedMost consumers think that street drugs are in an entirely different class than prescription drugs, and they believe that pharmaceutical companies would never manufacture or sell street drugs. But guess what? Drug companies actually invented many of the street drugs now considered to be the most devastating, including heroin and meth ("ice"). Here are seven facts you probably never knew about the connection between street drugs and pharmaceutical companies: 1. Heroin was launched as a medicine by Felix Hoffman, an employee of Bayer, only a few days after he invented aspirin. Bayer immediately applied for a trademark on the term "heroin," then began marketing the drug as a cure for morphine addiction. It was also marketed as cough syrup for children. 2. Parke-Davis, a subsidiary of Pfizer, promoted and sold cocaine. It even produced a "cocaine injection kit" complete with a syringe for shooting up. Skeptical? 3. A subsidiary of Novartis, Sandoz Laboratories, introduced the world to LSD in 1938, marketing it as a psychiatric drug named Delysid. This same drug company also created saccharin, the artificial chemical sweetener. 4. Drug giant Merck pioneered the commercial manufacture of morphine from opium and was a heavy pusher and marketer of cocaine. Merck also patented MDMA (Ecstasy, the rave drug). After World War II, Merck also began producing pesticides and food preservatives. 5. Ritalin is "speed" for children. A chemical amphetamine, Ritalin is made of controlled substances that would land you in prison if you sold them to a kid on the street, yet the drug is currently prescribed to millions of schoolchildren in the United States to treat a "brain chemistry condition" that was invented by the drug companies. 6. In the 1930's, drug companies marketed amphetamines as over-the-counter inhaler medicines for treating nasal congestion. Tablet amphetamines were also widely available in tablet form and frequently abused by students, truck drivers and other groups. 7. Meth was originally synthesized by chemists and later refined by drug companies. During WWII, "meth" was actually prescribed to soldiers by the U.S., Germany and Japan. Even Hitler was known as a "meth head" by his own staff. By the end of the war, millions of military personnel were addicted to the drug. Today, meth ("crank") is made from ingredients found in over-the-counter cold medicines. While a meth epidemic sweeps America, destroying entire communities and even threatening some states (Hawaii in particular), drug companies insist their cold medicines should remain over the counter and not be classified as controlled substances. There is currently no legislative effort whatsoever to ban over-the-counter cold medicines containing the chemicals used to create meth. Also related: Coca-Cola really did contain cocaine during its first few decades on the market (it also contained kola nut extract, hence the name). Cocaine was later removed from the formula and replaced with caffeine, a substance that is similarly addictive and serves much the same purpose. Once you realize the connection between street drugs and prescription drugs, it's easy to figure out why Big Pharma is such a strong supporter of the Partnership For A Drug-Free America -- because they don't want consumers getting their drugs from street dealers, they want people buying their drugs from drug companies! Drug companies' attempts to outlaw street drugs are little more than a way of eliminating the competition and monopolizing the drug market. Ultimately, Big Pharma is just another drug pushing cartel that has the same goals as any drug dealer: Convince customers they need your drug, get them hooked on it, and eliminate the competition. Courtesy of Healthy Cooking Tips Chef Tim Johnson Remember...Grace is upon you so eat to live!™ My,My,My, WhyBeyond Junk Vitamins: Secrets the Public Isn't Supposed to Know about the Vitamin Industry
Ever take a vitamin and actually feel your energy drop? There could be a reason for that: Some vitamins literally steal energy from your body's cells, while other vitamins delivered in a more natural chemical configuration actually donate energy to your cells!
In terms of nutrition, there's a huge difference between "junk" vitamins and higher end vitamins -- called "premethylated" vitamins. And while most low-end cosumer vitamin companies rely on the junk, energy-stealing forms of these vitamins, quality vitamin companies use the higher-end (and more expensive) premethylated forms. Here's one way you can tell the difference. Take any multivitamin product and look for the B vitamins section on the Nutrition Facts label. Cheap vitamins (non-methylated) will use standardized "USP" vitamins such as "Thiamin USP (thiamin HCL) vitamin B1." That's the chemical form of vitamin B1, and it actually requires a donation of cellular energy from your body before you can use it. The form of B12 in cheap vitamins is cyanocobalamin. Quality vitamins, on the other hand, will use the "coenzyme" forms of the B vitamins. These will often be listed with the word "coenzyme," and the form of vitamin B12 will appear as either methylcobalamin or hydroxycobalamin. That's a sure sign of a high-end, quality multivitamin. Here it is again: USP = cheap B12 as cyanocobalamin = cheap Coenzyme or methylated = quality B12 as hydroxycobalamin or methylcobalamin = quality People who experience no results from typical vitamin tablets usually see very obvious results from drinking Ola Loa. This is especially true for those with poor stomach acid production. And these positive health results are based on sound nutritional science, not any sort of stimulants like caffeine or guarana. People simply feel better, with more energy, because they're fueling their methylation biochemical pathways. (The boost in energy is especially noticeable in those who take statin drugs, since statins seriously interfere with normal cellular energy production.) But WHY are these methylated vitamins so superior to typical "junk" vitamins? And why is it most vitamin companies won't pay for quality ingredients like CoQ10? The dirty little secret of multivitamin companies: As much as 90% of a typical tablet is pure filler! How the body actually processes vitamins at the molecular level Why taking the wrong vitamins can actually HURT your health rather than helping it The hidden link between vitamin deficiencies and cancer, heart disease, blood clots, strokes, depression and other diseases Why it's nearly impossible to get adequate nutrition from food alone How your personal genetics greatly impact the biochemical pathways for processing vitamins into useful nutrients Why vitamin capsules often impede the digestion and assimilation of the nutrients they contain (and why dissolvable powders can be far superior) The difference between toxic B12 (the common form) and hydroxy B12 (the quality form), and why the good form costs $6,000 per kilogram Why conventional medicine is so slow to adopt nutritional science The crucial health role of key amino acids like TMG, and why they're important to include in quality supplement formulations Why common "vitamin water" is almost universally a nutritionally worthless product (with a few exceptions) Why multivitamins need to have not only the right nutrients, but the right RATIOS of nutrients to optimize the health effects Why glucosamine can be harmful to diabetics (and which nutrients help balance the blood sugar effects of glucosamine) Why nutrition should be the first thing checked by doctors before recommending common surgical procedures Why so many nutritional products are "sugared up" to meet the taste expections of consumers. Courtesy of Healthy Cooking Tips Chef Tim Johnson Remember...Grace is upon you so eat to live!™ Who Can You TrustFear of Eating These are anxious days at the lunch table. For all you know, there may be E. coli on your spinach, salmonella in your peanut butter and melamine in your pet's food and, because it was in the feed, in your chicken sandwich. Who's responsible for the new fear of eating? Some blame globalization; some blame food-producing corporations; some blame the Bush administration. and some blame Milton Friedman, I say everyone here is to blame. Now, those who blame globalization do have a point. U.S. officials can't inspect overseas food-processing plants without the permission of foreign governments - and since the Food and Drug Administration has limited funds and manpower, it can inspect only a small percentage of imports. This leaves American consumers effectively dependent on the quality of foreign food-safety enforcement. And that's not a healthy place to be, especially when it comes to imports from China, where the state of food safety is roughly what it was in this country before the Progressive movement. The Washington Post, reviewing F.D.A. documents, found that last month the agency detained shipments from China that included dried apples treated with carcinogenic chemicals and seafood "coated with putrefying bacteria." You can be sure that a lot of similarly unsafe and disgusting food ends up in American stomachs. Those who blame corporations also have a point. In 2005, the F.D.A. suspected that peanut butter produced by ConAgra, which sells the product under multiple brand names, might be contaminated with salmonella. According to The New York Times, "when agency inspectors went to the plant that made the peanut butter, the company acknowledged it had destroyed some product but declined to say why," and refused to let the inspectors examine its records without a written authorization. According to the company, the agency never followed through. This brings us to our third villain, the Bush administration. Without question, America's food safety system has degenerated over the past six years. We don't know how many times concerns raised by F.D.A. employees were ignored or soft-pedaled by their superiors. What we do know is that since 2001 the F.D.A. has introduced no significant new food safety regulations except those mandated by Congress. This isn't simply a matter of caving in to industry pressure. The Bush administration won't issue food safety regulations even when the private sector wants them. The president of the United Fresh Produce Association says that the industry's problems "can't be solved without strong mandatory federal regulations": without such regulations, scrupulous growers and processors risk being undercut by competitors more willing to cut corners on food safety. Yet the administration refuses to do more than issue nonbinding guidelines. Why would the administration refuse to regulate an industry that actually wants to be regulated? Officials may fear that they would create a precedent for public-interest regulation of other industries. But they are also influenced by an ideology that says business should never be regulated, no matter what. The economic case for having the government enforce rules on food safety seems overwhelming. Consumers have no way of knowing whether the food they eat is contaminated, and in this case what you don't know can hurt or even kill you. But there are some people who refuse to accept that case, because it's ideologically inconvenient. That's why I added Milton Friedman to the food safety crisis list, he called for the abolition of both the food and the drug sides of the F.D.A. What would protect the public from dangerous or ineffective drugs? "It's in the self-interest of pharmaceutical companies not to have these bad things," he insisted in a 1999 interview. He would presumably have applied the same logic to food safety (as he did to airline safety): regardless of circumstances, you can always trust the private sector to police itself. Courtesy of Healthy Cooking Tips
Chef Tim
Remember...Grace is upon you so eat to live!™
Help Me to Understand WhyThe Top Five Cancer-Causing FoodsEver wonder which foods should be strongly avoided by those at high risk for cancer? We can begin identifying cancer-causing foods once we know which ingredients in our food cause cancer. Some of those ingredients are food additives and chemicals used to enhance taste, while others are used strictly for appearance or to increase product shelf life. The key to avoiding cancer-causing foods is knowing which ingredients are carcinogens -- or cancer promoters -- and then reading food labels to permanently avoid consuming those ingredients.
Cancer tumors develop, in part, by feeding on sugar in the bloodstream. If you eat lots of sugary snacks loaded with simple carbs, you're loading your bloodstream with the chemical energy needed for cancer cells (and tumors) to proliferate. No biological system can live without fuel for its chemical processes, including cancer cells. Thus, one of the strategies to pursue for any anti-cancer diet is to eat low-glycemic diet. That means no refined sugars... ever! No refined grains (white flour, for example), no heavy use of sweeteners and the lifetime avoidance of sugary soda pop. Aside from starving tumors, eating foods low in sugar and avoiding simple carbs will also keep your weight in check while helping prevent blood sugar disorders such as type-2 diabetes. What to avoid on the labels: high-fructose corn syrup, sugar, sucrose, enriched bleached flour, white rice, white pastas, white breads and other "white" foods. The dangers of hydrogenated oils Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils -- another danger -- are developed from otherwise harmless, natural elements. To make them hydrogenated, oils are heated in the presence of hydrogen and metal catalysts. This process helps prolong shelf life but simultaneously creates trans fats, which only have to be disclosed on the label if the food contains more than 0.5 grams per serving. To avoid listing trans fats, or to claim "trans fat free" on their label, food manufacturers simply adjust the serving size until the trans fat content falls under 0.5 grams per serving. This is how you get modern food labels with serving sizes that essentially equate to a single bite of food. Not exactly a "serving" of food, is it? Besides being a cancer factor, trans fats promote heart disease, interrupt metabolic processes, and cause belly fat that crowd the organs and strain the heart. The essential fatty acids that the hydrogenation process removes are responsible for a number of processes in your body. When trans fats replace these essential fatty acids, they occupy the same space without doing the same job. The "anchor" portion of the fatty acid is in place (which is how the body recognizes the fatty acid and puts it to work) but the chemically active part of the fatty acid is twisted, distorted, and missing vital parts. After the hydrogenation process, the fatty acid can't biochemically function in the same way. Things like brain cell function, hormones, gland function, oxygen transport, cell wall function (keeping things in or out of your cells) and digestive tract operation (putting together nutrients and blocking allergens) are adversely affected. Food manufacturers don't tell you this on the product label, of course. Your body needs essential fatty acids and you are programmed to keep eating until you get them. If you're only eating trans fats, you'll never feel fully satiated, because your body will never get the fatty acids it needs for essential function. Since cancer needs high blood sugar and low oxygen levels, a person with lots of belly fat who just can't seem to put down those trans fat cookies or crackers (also loaded with flour and simple sugars) presents the ideal environment for the development of cancer. The acrylamide factor Since trans fats are often formed during the frying process, we should also talk about acrylamides. Acrylamides are not added into food; they are created during the frying process. When starchy foods are subjected to high heat, acrylamides form. A Swedish study found that acrylamides cause cancer in rats, and more studies are under way to confirm the understanding that acrylamides also cause cancer in humans. Sodium nitrite (and nitrates) Food companies add sodium nitrite into certain foods on purpose. This carcinogen is added to processed meats, hot dogs, bacon, and any other meat that needs a reddish color to look "fresh." Decades ago when meats were preserved, it was done with salt. But in the mid 20th century, food manufacturers started using sodium nitrite in commercial preservation. This chemical is responsible for the pinkish color in meat to which consumers have grown accustomed. Although today the use of refrigeration is largely what protects consumers from botulism and bacteria, manufacturers still add sodium nitrite to make the meat look pinkish and fresh. The nitrites themselves are not the problem. People get more nitrites from vegetables than they do from meat, according to research by the University of Minnesota. During the digestion process, however, sodium nitrite is converted to nitrosamine, and that's where the cancer problems begin. Nitrosamine is a carcinogen, but since it is not technically an ingredient, its presence can be easily overlooked on the packaging. Nitrosamines are also found in food items that are pickled, fried, or smoked; in things such as beer, cheese, fish byproducts, and tobacco smoke. Knowing about all these ingredients doesn't mean there is simply a "short list" of foods that should be avoided. You have to vigilant and read labels constantly. Here are the five worst offenders: * Hot dogs: The Cancer Prevention Coalition recommends that children should not eat more than 12 hot dogs per month because of the risk of cancer. If you must have your hot dog fix, look for those without sodium nitrite listed among the ingredients. * Processed meats and bacon: These meats almost always contain the same sodium nitrite found in hot dogs. You can find some without nitrites, but you'll have to look for them in natural grocers or health food stores. Bacon is also high in saturated fat, which contributes to the risk of cancers, including breast cancer. Limiting your consumption of processed meats and saturated fats also benefits the heart. * Doughnuts: Doughnuts contain hydrogenated oils, white flour, sugar, and acrylamides. Essentially, they're one of the worst cancer foods you can possibly eat. Reader's Digest calls doughnuts "disastrous" as a breakfast food, and many experts agree it's probably one of the worst ways to start the day. * French fries: Fries are made with hydrogenated oil and fried at high temperatures. Some chains even add sugar to their fry recipe to make them even more irresistible. Not only do they clog your arteries with saturated fat and trans fat, they also contain acrylamides. They should be called "cancer fries," not French fries. * Chips / crackers / cookies: These generally contain white flour and sugar as well as trans fats, but it's not enough to simply look for these ingredients on the label; you have to actually "decode" the ingredients list that food manufacturers use to deceive consumers. They do this by hiding ingredients (such as hiding MSG in yeast extract, or by fiddling with serving sizes so they can claim the food is trans fat free, even when it contains trans fats (the new Girl Scout cookies use this trick). Besides avoiding these foods, what else can consumers do to reduce their risk of cancer? The main things are simple: Eat unprocessed foods and base your diet largely on plants. Consume foods that have omega-3 fats and other essential fatty acids. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables; many common ones have known cancer-fighting properties. Get regular vigorous exercise, since tumors cannot thrive in highly oxygenated environments. Keep your blood sugar stable to avoid being an all-you-can-eat buffet for cancer cells. Eat foods high in natural vitamin C, a nutrient that deters the conversion of nitrite into nitrosamine and promotes healthy immune function. Make sure you get adequate amounts of cancer-fighting vitamin D through exposure to sunlight -- about 10 to 15 minutes each day if you have fair skin, or ten times as long if you have dark skin pigmentation. Stay well hydrated to ensure that your body rids itself of toxins. Avoid smoking and don't use conventional fragrance, cosmetics and personal care products -- virtually all of them contain cancer-causing chemicals. Preventing cancer is actually quite straightforward. Even the World Health Organization says that 70 percent of all cancers can be prevented with simple changes in diet and lifestyle. The truth is that most people give themselves cancer through the foods, drinks and products they choose to consume. In my opinion, over 90 percent of cancers are easily preventable. By the way, don't you find it interesting that the cancer industry seems to have no interest whatsoever in urging people to avoid eating sodium nitrite, or to stop using cancer-causing skin care products, or to get more sunlight on their skin so they can prevent cancer with vitamin D? As you'll read in many other articles I've written here, it is my firm belief that the cancer industry has no interest whatsoever in preventing cancer, and it primarily interested in treating cancer for profit. Coutesy of Healthy Cooking Tips
Chef Tim Johnson
Remember...Grace is upon you so eat to live!™ Lets change it before time runs outCongress ask for change Standards in School Snacks
Courtesy of Healthy Cooking Tips Chef Tim Remember...Grace is upon you so eat to live!™
Life in a Decaying WorldThe Beverage Acid Test Do you want to cut back on acidic beverages? Here’s a list that divides them into three categories , based on the degree of acidity. Although these beverages are most frequently mentioned as dietary causes of dental erosion, remember that citrus fruits, pickled foods, sourballs, and mints have also been cited as contributors. Most Acidic – Apple juice, soft drinks, Cranberry juice, Ginger ale, Grapefruit juice, Grape juice, Orange drink, Orange juice, Pineapple juice. Moderately Acidic – Apricot nectar, Club soda, Coffee ( brewed ), Peach nectar, Pear nectar, Prune juice, Sanka ( instant ), Tomato juice. Slightly Acidic – ( instant ), Half and half, Skim milk, Tea ( instant ), Whole milk. Eroded Enamel… periodontal disease is far more likely to land you in the dentist’s chair than another food-related problem called dental erosion. But both are worth trying to avoid, because treatment can be time-consuming and expensive. Dental erosion refers to a wearing away of the tooth enamel. However, it is not the same as the garden-variety tooth decay that we all know so well. The tooth decay process depends heavily on sugar and refined carbohydrates. By contrast, the list of nutritional factors linked to dental erosion bears little resemblance to the list of “most wanted” decay-producing foods. In addition, non-nutritional factors-certain medicines or occupational exposure- can also be the cause. Very acidic foods and beverages such as citrus juices and soft drinks are most frequently linked to dental erosion. Yet not everyone reacts the same way to these foods; consuming a lot of these foods does not guarantee that the teeth will suffer. But should you have this trouble, the list above will give you an idea of the beverages that are most acidic. A related factor that deserves mention is vitamin C. This popular vitamin is known for promoting dental health-and it deserves the credit. A few dentists have warned that in chewable form, however, supplements of the vitamin may actually promote erosion. Healthy Cooking Tips Chef Tim Remember…Grace is upon you so eat to live! ™
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