High intake of the artificial sweetener aspartame may lead to the degeneration of brain cells and various mental disorders, according to a research review conducted by South African scientists from the University of Pretoria and the University of Limpopo and published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"We propose that excessive aspartame ingestion might be involved in the pathogenesis of certain mental disorders, and also in compromised learning and emotional functioning," the researchers concluded.

The review of prior research found that aspartame, marketed as NutraSweet, Equal, Canderal and Tropicana Slim, leads to both direct and indirect changes in the brain when consumed in high quantities. Among these effects, the chemical can disrupt amino acid metabolism and structure, degrade nucleic acids, and interfere with the function of nerve cells and hormonal systems. It also appears to change the concentration of certain neurotransmitters in the brain.

The researchers also noted that aspartame appears to cause excessive signaling of nerve cells, and nerve cell damage or even death. By disrupting the functioning of the cells' mitochondria, or energy source, aspartame leads to a cascade of effects on the whole system.

"The energy systems for certain required enzyme reactions become compromised, thus indirectly leading to the inability of enzymes to function optimally," the researchers wrote.

This directly contradicts a review published in 2007, which concluded that "aspartame is safe at current levels of consumption   no credible evidence was found that aspartame is carcinogenic, neurotoxic, or has any other adverse effect on health."

Aspartame is a widely used artificial sweetener, particularly in food and beverage products marketed as low calorie or "diet." It is used in more than 6,000 products around the world.

The chemical has been controversial since its introduction, with a number of studies linking it to cancer and neurological and behavioral disorders. People have reported experiencing headaches, insomnia and even seizures from aspartame consumption.

The FDA and the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), however, continue to insist that the sweetener is safe.

Courtesy of Healthy Cooking Tips

Chef Tim Johnson

Remember...Grace is upon you so eat to live!

Servings: Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

1 12-ounce jar marinated artichokes, drained, coarsely chopped
1 cup grated Fontina cheese
1/2 cup (packed) drained, coarsely chopped oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
1 tablespoon dried basil
4 5-ounce skinless boneless chicken breast halves                                              
2 tablespoons olive oil

Preparation

Although none of the provisions is likely to surprise the biotech industry, their formal appearance after years of discussion is expected to energize a field whose commercial potential is huge but so far unrealized.

The agency's regulatory control of animals will be considerably stronger than its oversight of genetically engineered plants and microorganisms. The latter -- or substances derived from them -- are on the market and, in some cases, have proved controversial.

The guidelines tell companies what the FDA wants to know about their work at virtually every stage of creating an engineered animal.

For example, biotech firms will be asked to provide the molecular identity of snippets of DNA inserted in an animal's genome, as well as where the genetic message lands and whether it descends unaltered through subsequent generations. The FDA also wants to be told how the genetic alterations might change an animal's health, behavior and nutritional value.

The companies also should inform the agency how they will keep track of animals, prevent them from mingling with their non-engineered cousins and dispose of them when they die.

Genetically engineered animals -- salmon, pigs, cows and goats are in development -- are expected to have two main uses. Some will be food animals whose new genetic endowment makes them disease-resistant, faster-growing or more nutritious. Others will be genetically engineered to produce medically useful substances, such as hormones or antibodies, in their organs or body fluids.

Pigs that are able to more easily absorb phosphorus, and therefore need less feed supplementation, are being developed in Ontario. Goats that produce spider silk in their milk are being made in Wyoming.

Food that is produced from genetically engineered animals will not have to be labeled as such. However, if the genetic manipulation changes the nutritional content -- for example, by increasing a beneficial form of fat -- that must be declared on the label.

The specific requests in the guidelines are not mandatory. However, biotech companies seeking FDA approval to commercialize genetically engineered animals must follow federal drug laws. The guidelines are meant to show how they can do that.

The FDA has been providing the advice on an informal basis for about 10 years, The guidelines will be open for public comment for 60 days.

"We are simply clarifying what we've always done, and will continue to do," he said.

There was general agreement that something in writing on the subject has been needed for a while.

It is past due for the federal government to finally recognize that genetically engineered animals are on the horizon and need regulation and oversight.

The action will drive investor confidence, of the Biotechnology Industry Organization. "They know that we will reach commercialization of a product." At the moment, about a dozen of the organization's 1,200 member companies are developing genetically engineered animals.

But the new guidelines drew criticism from groups worried about possible environmental, ecological and physiological hazards of bioengineered animals. The experience of genetically modified plants is rife with examples of unintentional dissemination of the organisms, and their interbreeding with unmodified members of their species.

"The first time that the public will learn about a genetically engineered animal will be the day it is approved. This requires that you completely trust the FDA to do this right, and I don't think folks trust FDA that much.

The FDA is laying claim to regulatory authority over what it calls "GE animals" through an unusual legal argument.

The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act defines a drug as anything that alters the "structure or function" of a person or animal. Adding a gene to an animal through recombinant technology changes at least the animal's structure and probably its function, as well.

In the new guidelines, the FDA argues that "recombinant DNA constructs" inserted into animals are by definition drugs. However, because the DNA constructs are physically inseparable from the whole animals, the latter also fall under the agency's regulatory control.

You can't regulate the drug without regulating the animal. "So, effectively, we are putting controls on the animal rather than on the little piece of DNA."

With this strategy, virtually no genetically engineered animal will escape FDA scrutiny during its development and testing. This is not true with plants.

The FDA regulates genetically modified plants whose nutritional content is altered, in which case they become "food additives." The Environmental Protection Agency regulates them when the new genetic endowments provide pesticide-like actions.

Although the animal-is-drug strategy will allow the FDA to regulate genetically engineered animals without getting further authority from Congress, the unintended effects of that strategy worry some consumer groups.

Although companies will have to provide detailed information about their work starting from the earliest stage, the FDA is prohibited by law from revealing that information to the media or the public. That is because much of the information is proprietary, competitive and extremely valuable. The agency cannot even acknowledge that a company has a "new drug application" on file.

Consequently, discussions that occur during the development of a genetically engineered animal about its safety and effectiveness will not include consumer or watchdog groups.

Although the guidelines say that the FDA may ask a company to submit an environmental impact statement with its application for approval of a genetically engineered animal, the agency cannot reject a drug strictly on environmental grounds.

Some groups are worried about the effects of unanticipated mixing of genetically engineered animals with others -- for example, the escape of fast-growing salmon into the open ocean, where they could breed with wild species.

I don't think what's being announced will protect humans and the environment from all the potential risks that a genetically engineered animal may pose.

Courtesy of Healthy Cooking Tips

Chef Tim Johnson

Remember...Grace is upon you so eat to live!

If you are following sound advice on how to get a good night's sleep but are still having trouble sleeping soundly, you may want to try eating a bedtime snack that combines a concentrated dietary source of tryptophan with a healthy carbohydrate-rich food.

Tryptophan is an amino acid that your body cannot make; you must obtain it from the foods that you eat. Once tryptophan crosses your blood-brain barrier to gain access to your brain, it is used to make a hormone called serotonin.

Serotonin acts within your body to promote feelings of sleepiness, calm, and relaxation.

Without adequate levels of serotonin in your system, you will have a hard time feeling sleepy enough to rest soundly. And without adequate levels of tryptophan within your brain, you will not be able to produce significant amounts of serotonin.

The challenge with shuttling tryptophan through to your brain is that it has to compete with other amino acids for access to the limited number of channels that line your blood-brain barrier. And tryptophan tends to be outnumbered by other amino acids in natural foods.

The key to getting enough tryptophan to your brain to sleep well at night is to combine a tryptophan-rich food with a carbohydrate-rich food. This is because ingesting a carbohydrate-rich food causes your body to release insulin, which diverts many of your other amino acids away from your brain, leaving tryptophan with little competition to cross your blood-brain barrier to gain access to your brain.

Here is a list of some healthy foods that are naturally rich in tryptophan:

* Beans

* Whole grains, including rice

* Lentils

* Chickpeas

* Hazelnuts

* Peanuts

* Sunflower seeds

* Sesame seeds

* Miso (fermented soy beans)

* Raw dairy products (if you can tolerate dairy)

If you combine any of the food listed above with a healthy carbohydrate-rich food as an evening snack, you will provide your body with a good opportunity to produce enough serotonin to facilitate a good night's rest.

What follows are some suggestions for healthy meals and snacks that combine a tryptophan-rich food with a carbohydrate-rich food:

1. Rice with miso soup

2. Whole grain pita with hummus (add tomato and red onion slices for flavor)

3. Whole grain crackers with organic peanut butter (add a touch of honey for sweetness, if desired)

4. Rice with lentils

5. Rice, black beans, and guacamole

6. Hummus with steamed broccoli

7. Whole grain toast

Clearly, the possible combinations of tryptophan-rich foods and carbohydrate-rich foods are endless. Be creative and enjoy the process of figuring out which combinations suit your palate and help you sleep like a bear.

Courtesy of Healthy Cooking Tips

Chef Tim Johnson

Remember...Grace is upon you so eat to live!

The incidents prompted renewed calls for reform and stricter oversight of food safety. Some lawmakers are even suggesting stripping the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture of their inspection duties and giving them to a new agency. Yet the FDA in particular has long been starved of funding and understaffed. Its workload, meanwhile, is rapidly expanding as the global food chain grows larger, more complicated, and less transparent, all of which adds to the agency's already overcrowded plate.

Congress is under pressure to take up major food-safety legislation this fall that would offer sweeping proposals for regulatory change. The country's appetite for reform, however, is likely to collide with an uncomfortable reality: The responsibility for food safety, as it works today, lies heavily in private hands. Even as bacterial outbreaks have become more high-profile and the financial fallout from recalls more severe, the government has been handing off many food-safety responsibilities to industry. Food safety today is a business-and a booming one at that.

For most Americans, however, the FDA is still the public face of food safety. It was created in 1906 amid the fervid response to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which exposed unsanitary conditions in meatpacking factories. Today, the duties are split. The USDA handles meat, and the FDA takes care of pretty much everything else. But in reality, oversight of farms and food plants has gradually changed hands. A pivotal moment came in the mid-1990s, after 21 people in Connecticut and Illinois were hospitalized during a huge lettuce-related outbreak of E. coli that was ultimately tied back to a grower in California. In response to this and other incidents, federal officials worked with academics and industry to come up with a set of voluntary guidelines to avoid future outbreaks.

Courtesy of Healthy Cooking Tips

Chef Tim Johnson

Remember...Grace is upon you so eat to live!

By fake fragrances I mean that they're not found in nature. Oh sure, they may smell like a rose, or mint, or apple, but what goes into creating that aroma has nothing to do with the flower or fruit. Virtually all perfumes, scented laundry soaps and fabric softeners, so-called air fresheners (they should be called air poisoners) and many cleaning products are scented with fakegrances. Even dry cleaners are getting into the act, handing back clothes that are clean, pressed and exuding fragrance.

Perfumes are All Fake

Well, almost all. Unless they're pure essential oils, they're made from a nasty brew of dozens if not hundreds of chemicals which are, of course, a secret. For example, the benzene family of chemicals tends to have a sweetish aroma that is very popular among perfumers. The benzenes are petroleum-based, so they're cheap, easy to come by, and, by the way, a known cause of leukemia. It was one thing when a woman spritzed some benzene on her wrist before a romantic evening, but it's quite another when it's everywhere from clothes to cars to the restroom in the dentist's office.

Or how about those phthalates, plastics that can interfere with the normal sexual development of a fetus or infant. Phthalates have recently been banned from toys in California which is great, but how about clothes and bed sheets? Apparently phthalates make perfumes stick around longer so they're in just about everything scented.

Asthmatics Should Look for Fakegrances as Causes

I don't want to downplay those good old-fashioned allergens such as ragweed and cats, but according to the Environmental Working Group, "Fragrance formulas are considered to be among the top five known allergens and can trigger asthma attacks." Are doctors giving this information to their asthmatic patients? Not very often.

I'll bet you didn't know that many processed foods contain fakegrances. Take for example diacetyl, a chemical that gives microwave popcorn its buttery flavor and aroma, and also causes serious lung disease when heated and inhaled frequently. Diacetyl is being phased out of microwave popcorn, but not before many popcorn factory workers were permanently disabled by it. Now it might take a lot of microwave popcorn fumes to knock down an adult, but how about a child with asthma?

For optimal health, it's important to avoid fakegrances, and it's also important to speak up if they're in a public area. You'll be amazed at how many other people will suddenly admit they hate fakegrances when you speak up. If someone in your workplace is using heavy perfume, or there's a so-called air freshener in the restroom, do something about it. You have a right to breathe clean air.

How about products that claim to be "natural scented"? Sorry about that, but "naturally scented" means absolutely nothing. It probably smells like something in nature such as apple or rose or jasmine, but it's likely made from the same old nasty chemical brew, complete with carcinogens, xenohormones and allergens. The only way to be sure that a scented product is for real is to read the label. If it says, "pure essential oils" or "lavender oil" for example, it's the genuine article.

Courtesy of Healthy Cooking Tips

Chef Tim Johnson

Remember...Grace is upon you so eat to live!