Neotame the next aspartame? FDA doesn’t require labeling of chemical sweetener created by Monsanto

via: NaturalNews
Monday, February 06, 2012
By: Jonathan Benson

[NaturalNews] Correction: The original version of this article stated that some U.S. Department of Agriculture certified organic products may contain neotame. Since the publishing of this article, NaturalNews has obtained a letter from the USDA’s National Organic Program Deputy Administrator, Miles McEvoy, explaining that neotame is NOT permitted for use in products labeled certified organic, or in products that contain the label “made with organic [specified ingredient or food group]. You can view a copy of this letter here:
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5088960.

And while Monsanto was the original creator of neotame back when it owned the NutraSweet Company, J.W. Childs Equity Partners II, L.P. today owns the NutraSweet Company, which includes ownership of neotame as well.

It could be lurking in the foods you eat every single day and you would never even know it. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declared that one of Monsanto’s creations, a synthetic sweetener chemical known as neotame, does not have to be labeled in food products, including even in organic food products.

A modified version of aspartame with even more added toxicity, neotame received quiet and unassuming FDA approval back in 2002, even though no safety studies have ever been conducted on the chemical (http://www.neotame.com/pdf/neotame_fda_US.pdf). In fact, an investigation conducted by Feingold.org found only four studies relating to neotame in the MEDLINE database.

Two of these “studies” were not studies at all, and the other two were actually one duplicate study conducted by NutraSweet, the company that produces and sells neotame.

So just like with aspartame, the FDA has once again approved for use a dangerous sweetener chemical that metabolizes into formaldehyde when consumed. Except this time, the chemical contains added 3-dimethylbutyl, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has listed as one of the most hazardous known chemicals, and it does not have to be labeled on any of the products to which it is added.

“Neotame has similar structure to aspartame — except that, from it’s structure, appears to be even more toxic than aspartame,” writes HolisticMed.com on its page about neotame. “Like aspartame, some of the concerns include gradual neurotoxic and immunotoxic damage from the combination of the formaldehyde metabolite (which is toxic at extremely low doses) and the excitotoxic amino acid” (http://www.holisticmed.com/neotame/toxin.html).

The FDA, the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), and the World Health Organization (WHO) all consider neotame to be safe for use, despite the fact that WHO actually published a paper seeking to establish acceptable daily intake levels for neotame. If neotame is so safe that it does not even have to be labeled, according to the FDA, then why do acceptable daily intake levels have to be established? And what is the point of establishing them in the first place?

This dog and pony show of special interest regulatory corruption is a travesty that will have global negative health consequences. Like most other toxins added to foods, neotame will most likely cause chronic damage over a long period of time, which means mainstream health authorities will get away with never having to admit that neotame is a dangerous toxin.

Sources for this article include:

http://articlesofhealth.blogspot.com

http://www.gaia-health.com

Read More At: NaturalNews.com

Seven toxic foods, drinks, and additives to cut out of your diet for good

via: NaturalNews
Tuesday, August 07, 2012
By: Ethan A. Huff

[NaturalNews] With so much conflicting information out there about which foods are healthy and which foods are not, it can be difficult for many people to determine how best to approach a healthy lifestyle that includes eating well. But a good place to start is to avoid these seven toxic foods, beverages, and additives that are quite common in the American diet.

Diet sodas and beverages sweetened with artificial chemicals. One of the more common dietary misconceptions in mainstream society today is the idea that “diet” beverages are somehow healthier than their sugar-sweetened beverages. Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal) saccharin (Sweet’N Low), and sucralose (Splenda) are among the more popular artificial sweeteners used in many diet sodas, juices, chewing gums, and other foods (http://www.naturalnews.com).

Not only are artificial sweeteners bad for your health (http://www.naturalnews.com), but they also tend to promote obesity (http://www.naturalnews.com/022785.html). If you want to protect yourself against chronic illness and toxicity — aspartame literally converts to formaldehyde in the body and causes metabolic acidosis — it is best to stick with either raw sugars or natural sugar substitutes like pure stevia extract.

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the silent killer. It is not really much of a secret anymore that HFCS, despite all the corn industry shilling, is a toxic sweetener that should be avoided (http://www.naturalnews.com/hfcs.html). Since it is linked to obesity, brain damage, low IQ, and even mercury poisoning, avoiding all foods that contain HFCS — this can include breads, cereals, and other seemingly innocuous foods — will do wonders for your health.

Most vegetable oils, including hydrogenated and ‘trans’ fat varieties. The misdirected war on saturated fats has convinced millions of people that unsaturated vegetable oils are a healthy alternative. Not only do many vegetables oils turn rancid quickly, which means they are toxic (http://healthwyze.org), but many of them also contain high levels of omega-6 fatty acids which, apart from omega-3 fatty acids, can cause severe health problems like heart disease and cancer. (http://www.naturalnews.com/022860.html)

Many vegetable oils are also derived from genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), including canola, soy, and corn oils. These same oils are often hydrogenated as well, a process that turns them into heart-destroying solid oils. Avoiding these and sticking instead to healthy fats like grass-fed butter, coconut oil, olive oil, and hemp oil will greatly improve your health and lower your risk of disease.

White bread, pasta, and other refined flour foods. They are cheap, plentiful, and come in hundreds of varieties. But white breads, pastas, and other foods made from refined flour are among the top health destroyers in America today. Not only are most white flour products carcinogenic because they are bleached and bromated, but they also lack vital nutrients that are stripped away during processing. Avoid them, and all processed wheat products if possible, to optimize your health.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG), carrageenan, and refined salt. Often hidden in foods under deceptive names (http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html), MSG is a pervasive salt chemical you will want to avoid that is linked to causing headaches, heart problems, brain damage, and other problems. Carrageenan, another chemical additive often hidden in “natural” and organic foods like nut milks and lunch meats, is similarly worth avoiding, as it can cause gastrointestinal upset and colon cancer. (http://www.cornucopia.org)

And processed salt, which is added to just about everything these days, lacks the trace minerals normally present in sea and earth salts, which means it ends up robbing your body of these vital nutrients (http://www.naturalnews.com/028724_Himalayan_salt_sea.html). Hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and stroke are just a few of the many conditions that can result from refined salt intake, so your best bet is to stick with unrefined sea salts and other full-spectrum salts.

Sources: 

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com/022785.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/hfcs.html

http://healthwyze.org

http://www.naturalnews.com/022860.html

http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html

http://www.cornucopia.org

http://www.naturalnews.com/028724_Himalayan_salt_sea.html

Read More At: NaturalNews.com

Splenda soon to unleash ‘Nectresse’ – Here’s what you need to know about this new ‘natural’ sweetener

via: NaturalNews
Tuesday, August 07, 2012
By: Jonathan Benson

[NaturalNews] McNeil Nutritionals, LLC, maker of the artificial sweetener Splenda, is gearing up to introduce a new “natural” sweetener known as Nectresse that will cater specifically to those looking for a healthy alternative to artificial sweeteners and sugar. But is Nectresse really as natural as McNeil claims it is, or is the product just another example of tricky marketing hype aimed at health-conscious consumers?

According to the Nectresse website, the product is “100 percent natural,” and is made from the heat-stable extract of an Asian melon known as monk fruit, or Lo Han. McNeil claims that Nectresse contains zero calories per serving, and that monk fruit is 150 times sweeter than sugar, which means that consumers do not need to use very much of it to effectively sweeten foods and beverages.

Nectresse contains other additives besides monk fruit

But monk fruit is not the only ingredient in Nectresse, nor is it even the primary ingredient. The first and most abundant ingredient in Nectresse is actually erythritol, a sugar alcohol commonly derived from corn, the vast majority of which has been genetically modified (GM) in the U.S. And the second ingredient in Nectresse is sugar, which is refined and more than likely comes from GM sugar beets.

The third ingredient in Nectresse is monk fruit, which McNeil explains is extracted using a natural process involving both water and heat rather than chemicals — this is good. But the fourth and final ingredient in Nectresse is molasses, which once again is a sugar that more than likely was derived from GM sugar beets — producers that use sugar from sugar cane, after all, typically indicate this on their ingredient labels.

Nectresse, not so natural after all

So three out of the four ingredients used in Nectresse appear to be derived from bioengineered crops, and two of these ingredients are refined sugars. And since erythritol is a sugar alcohol, as well as the most abundant ingredient in Nectresse, McNeil can legally claim under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines that Nectresse contains zero calories per serving.

But the fact that Nectresse more than likely contains ingredients derived from GM sources means that it is hardly the “natural” product that McNeil is hyping it up to be. Sure, Nectresse contains a little bit of monk fruit which, like the stevia plant, contains compounds that are naturally very sweet, but that do not provide the body with calories in the same way as sugar. But the other ingredients found in Nectresse can hardly be considered natural.

According to MonkFruit.org, (http://www.monkfruit.org/monk-fruit/68/food-beverage-manufacturers) monk fruit can actually be up to 200 times sweeter than sugar because it contains natural antioxidants known as mogrosides that have a strong, sweet taste, but that are not actually considered to be sugar. These mogrosides are unique to monk fruit, and they also contain zero calories.

By itself, in other words, monk fruit appears to be viable as a healthy, alternative sweetener that, because of its heat stability, can work better than stevia in certain food applications that require baking, sauteing, or other forms of heat cooking. Nectresse, on the other hand, appears to be an adulterated version of the monk fruit that represents the corporate food industry’s latest attempt at trying to cash in on the health-conscious.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.nectresse.com/

http://www.naturalnews.com/stevia.html

Read More At: NaturalNews.com

Reputations Won & Lost As Food Giants Dance With Non-Profits

via: GreenMedInfo
by: Vic Shayne Ph.D.
August 6, 2012

Peering into the politics of the food industry is like getting a peek behind the curtain where the Wizard of Oz is working the controls. It seems quite obvious that food giants like Kellogg work hard to become reputable and good not by the products they produce, but by the friends they make. You really have to look at the whole picture to see what’s going on in the PR arena to understand why, in the end, the consumer gets it in more ways than one.

Buying a reputation by supporting a cause

Besides assessing whether huge food processors are good or bad or just doing their job, we should consider the ethics of associations like the American Heart Association, the Dietitian’s Association and others who readily take the money of corporate sponsors. Does this prevent them from fully disclosing the truth about the unhealthy ingredients in many processed foods? You be the judge.

It’s blunt but to the point

This quote from Common Dreams is so succinct that it bears publishing: “The American Heart Association (AHA) has sullied its reputation by getting in bed with whatever corporation comes around with its checkbook open.”

Way back in 2004, reporter Robert Weissman wrote, ”Subway has given $4 million to the American Heart Association (AHA) since 2002, and will gave an additional $6 million through 2007. That’s a total of $10 million. In exchange, Subway gets to put the AHA ‘fighting heart disease and stroke’ logo on its materials throughout its chain of stores, according to an AHA spokesperson.”

Kellogg raises kids on sugar then tells them they should eat right

Here is a direct quote from Kellogg: “Kellogg Company in 2005 kicked off a partnership with the Girls on the Run®, a nonprofit organization that encourages girls ages 8-13 to be more active, eat right and live a balanced and healthy lifestyle. Kellogg is sponsoring Girls on the Run over three years as part of its Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes® Earn Your Stripes™ initiative.”

In 3/4 cup of Kellogg’s Frosted Flake there are 110 calories, zero fat, 140mg of sodium and 11 grams of sugar. Is this Kellogg’s idea of part of a “healthy lifestyle”?

Kellogg also states, “ To demonstrate its commitment and help call attention to this critical health issue, [Kellogg's] Smart Start Healthy Heart has launched a major heart health initiative. In addition to providing national support for the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women movement, this initiative includes free health screenings, community events, and on-pack promotions.”

It’s ironic that the maker of so many deleterious sugar-drenched dead food provides health screenings and claims to care about heart disease.

The list of sponsorships by Kellogg goes on. They talk about cancer, obesity and heart disease as being terrible and they say they work for at-risk elementary children.

An optimist might say this is confusing, given Kellogg’s line of processed foods. A more realistic view is to say that they’re riding both sides of the fence. And worse, groups like the AHA allow them to do so by censoring the truth in return for some huge donations.

Why pick on just one company?

Kellogg is but one in a list of corporations that put money in the hands of nonprofits while touting good health programs and serving millions of suffering people junk food. General Mills, the makers of Chocolate Cheerios, claims on their website that this product is a “good source of calcium.” Really? I don’t think so. A good source of calcium is broccoli, organic milk or kale. In a long list of good sources of calcium, Chocolate Cheerios wouldn’t be anywhere near the top.

Then there’s Post, purveyors of Fruity Pebbles children’s cereal. Like the others, they also get the seal of the American Heart Association. No comment necessary.

Kraft is proud to help children make healthy lifestyle choices. How again?

Kraft Foods says it “is proud to collaborate with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation,” an association  “founded by the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation in 2005…to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity by 2015 and to empower kids nationwide to make healthy lifestyle choices.”

So, Kraft, maker of something that’s not cheese but is called cheese food, is concerned about our children’s health? Kraft’s Singles contains zero fat. Zero. How can anything made of cheese not contain fat? By the way, good fat is essential to everyone’s health. It feeds the nerves, fuels the hormonal system, is needed for bone and brain development and healthy skin. There’s also no calcium in Singles. How can a milk product not contain calcium? But Kraft gives some big bucks to nonprofits, so that make everything hunky dory.

Who’s sponsoring the American Dietetic Association?

Dietitians get mad at me for writing these kinds of things, but let’s be honest — the American Dietetic Association (ADA) is sponsored by some companies who produce substances that are bad for the health. Go to their website and see what I mean. You will find Coca Cola, Hershey, Mars, Kellogg, General Mills and Pepsico, among others.

Continue Reading At: GreenMedInfo.com

Why is McDonald’s the Official Restaurant of the Olympics?

via: NaturalSociety
by: Anthony Gucciardi
August 3, 2012

McDonald’s restaurants are the very epitome of poor health, with their McNuggets most notably containing chemicals used in breast implants and silly putty, so why have the Olympic games officials adopted the restaurant chain as their official restaurant of the Olympics? Considering the Olympic games represent some of the most conditioned athletes across the globe, it seems quite bizarre that the face of the entire event would be that of Ronald McDonald.

With the media frenzy surrounding the Olympic games, it’s easy to see why McDonald’s continues to be a major sponsor (dishing out cash for over 35 years). A massive marketing opportunity is presented to the company that involves aligning itself with a ‘healthy’ and fit event. In fact, McDonald’s is reaping in the benefits as even some of the most decorated Olympic finalists are chomping down on their disease-linked frankenburgers. It was reported that ‘the most highly decorated Olympian’ Michael Phelps gorged himself at McDonald’s after winning a gold medal at the Olympics.

Phelps and fellow gold medalist Ricky Berens reportedly ate a toxic feast of two Quarter Pounders with cheese, one six-piece McNugget (each of which contains 7 different ingredients to compose the fake chicken ‘meat’), a medium McFlurry, and two medium french fries. Great news for McDonald’s, bad news for viewers.

McDonald’s fast food has been linked in scientific research to depression, with those who ate fast food 51 percent more likely to be depressed than those consuming very little or none of the food. McDonald’s has also been heavily criticized for including ‘pink slime’ into their products, which is essentially scrap meat drenched in ammonium hydroxide. And that’s really not the worst of it.

Taking another look at the highly popular McNuggets, it’s easy to see why McDonald’s food items contain some of the most concerning chemicals in the entire food industry. The kind that athletes and viewers looking to live a healthy lifestyle should avoid at all costs. McNuggets contain a large list of ingredients, including autolyzed yeast extract (similar to MSG), dimethylpolysiloxane (a type of silicone being phased out as a breast implant substance due to safety concern), safflower oil (often genetically modified), and of course butylhydroquinone (derived from petroleum to ‘preserve freshness’).

So why is it that McDonald’s is the official restaurant of the Olympics? It seems that the corporation is desperate to attach to athletic events in order to push itself as a health-conscious chain, when in reality it is likely one of the largest contributors to the breeding of disease in the United States. But of course their executive likes to think differently. In a press release on how McDonald’s ‘cares about your health’ that sought to piggyback on the success of the Olympic games, one exec states:

“Customers recognize McDonald’s as a responsible, trusted brand that stays current with their lifestyles.”

Could it be any more obvious just how little this company actually cares about your health? McDonald’s has no place being the official restaurant of any event or organization supposedly representing the face of health and fitness across the globe.

Read More At: NaturalSociety.com

Coca-Cola Expelled From Bolivia

via: SilverVigilante
by: SV
August 1, 2012

A new age is arriving in Bolivia. An age devoid of Coca-Cola. According to the Bolivian government, “this will mark the end of capitalism and usher in a new era of equality” in the nation.  The expulsion of Coca-Cola from the region follows a year after the nation banned McDonalds as well. From RT:

“December 21 of 2012 will be the end of egoism and division. December 21 should be the end of Coca-Cola,” Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca announced.

The coming ‘end’ of the Mayan lunar calendar on December 21 of this year has sparked widespread doomsaying of an impending apocalypse. But Choquehuanca argued differently, claiming it will be the end of days for capitalism, not the planet.

“The planets will align for the first time in 26,000 years and this is the end of capitalism and the beginning of communitarianism,” said Choquehuanca as quoted by Venezuelan newspaper El Periodiquito.

The minister encouraged the people of Bolivia to drink Mocochinche, a peach-flavored soft drink, as an alternative to Coca-Cola. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez followed suit, encouraging his country to ditch the American beverage for fruit juice produced in Venezuela.

Continue Reading At: SilverVigilante.com

Food Industry Won’t Take out Harmful BPAs

via: NaturalSociety
by: Lisa Garber
July 30, 2012

What do latchkey kids, college students, and busy parents have in common?  Well, one thing is that they save valuable time and money by cooking with canned foods. The bad news? Tagging along with these foods is a hefty dose of bisphenol A.

According to a past study conducted by the nonprofit Consumers Union, 18 of 19 canned foods contained 22 micrograms of BPA per serving—116 times more than the ‘daily recommended limit.’ Progresso, Del Monte, Campbell’s, Annie’s, and Hormel soups took the BPA lead. Unfortunately, BPA still continues to taint food cans today.

BPA Affects Fertility

Researchers have linked BPA consumption to hyperactivity, aggression, depression, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, various cancers, and reproductive difficulties including Anogenital distance. Males with short AGD have been found to have 7 times the chance of being sub-fertile. This is a troubling statistic given that prenatal BPA exposure through parental consumption is associated with shortened AGD.

Men alone are not at risk, however. The journal Human Reproduction published a study that found women who miscarried three or more times had markedly high levels of BPA compared to mothers of successful pregnancies.

Food Industry’s Ties to BPA

That the food industry has remained largely silent despite this barrage of research means one thing: they’re making too much money to change. As said by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the FDA has repeatedly failed “to safeguard the food supply.” Even the Environmental Protection Agency left BPA off the list of chemicals needing stricter regulation after a heart-to-heart with lobbyists.

Though even while, until now, both companies and manufacturers have been slow to remove BPA, the chemical is slowing inching it’s way out of food and consumer products. One most recent decision was made by the FDA to ban BPA in baby bottles. But even with BPAs departure, companies are beginning to use a close relative of BPA known as bisphenol-S. Unfortunately, this BPS chemical is also toxic.

Staying BPA-Free

Still, there’s no need to despair. Just because the industry isn’t on the side of healthful eating doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the convenience of canned foods. Eden Foods lines most of its cans with oleoresin (a plant-based lining) and puts acidic foods like tomatoes in paper cartons often used for soups.

You can even DIY canned foods with a home canning kit and BPA-free lids. Parents wary of BPA’s effects on their children’s health as well as their future fertility can even make canning a family venture, with benefits to be reaped for months!

To naturally reverse the effects of BPA, try drinking black tea and eating foods—like sauerkraut and kimchi—high in probiotics.

Additional Sources:

MotherJones

Read More At: NaturalSociety.com

Raw milk man James Stewart retains law group, motion to dismiss all charges being reviewed Monday

via: NaturalNews
by: Mike Adams
July 29, 2012

[NaturalNews] California “raw milk man” James Stewart, who has been persecuted by California officials for his “crime” of distributing unpasteurized milk, is currently held in Ventura county jails. Yesterday, he met with his new legal team, led by Matt Bromund of the Bromund Law Group in Ventura (www.BromundLaw.com). Bromund, who has also represented Sharon Palmer of Healthy Family Farms, is very familiar with the tactics now being attempted by the Ventura County D.A. to try to paint farmers as criminals.

As NaturalNews previously reported, both Ventura County and L.A. County are waging a vicious persecution campaign against Stewart (http://www.naturalnews.com/035197_James_Stewart_Sharon_Palmer_Ventura…), and we have learned this is because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has ordered state authorities to prosecute James in order to “set an example” so that no one else across the country even considers selling raw milk. The FDA even provided around $80,000 in grant money, plus a network of spies and infiltration operatives (http://www.naturalnews.com/033428_FDA_secret_war.html) to aid in the persecution campaign.

California attorney Ajna Sharma-Wilson is also on Stewart’s legal team, working as an adjunct attorney to help in the case. She describes James Stewart as “…being treated like a political prisoner.”

She told NaturalNews yesterday: “Every move he’s making is being scrutinized. I’ve visited jails hundreds of times, I’ve never been treated like that. There’s something going on. They want to take down james and they’re doing everything possible from every angle. The entire Ventura county case is about Character assassination to make James look like a criminal.”

Motion to dismiss to be reviewed as early as Monday

Matt Bromund told NaturalNews he intends to file a motion to dismiss all charges against Stewart, and that such a motion could be reviewed by a judge as early as Monday (but could also take much longer, depending on the circumstances).

Bromund is very optimistic about the outcome. “I think the motion to dismiss the case should be very easy for the judge to grant. [Stewart] should get prompt resolution at law on this case, and in the mean time he’s going to get all kinds of extraordinary scrutiny because there is an agenda that has been set by various agencies of California.”

That agenda, as NaturalNews readers well know, is to destroy raw milk and persecute anyone who touches it. This is the new model of police state crony capitalism in America: Big industry runs the regulators, and the regulators are criminal gangs that misuse their power to destroy any competition of their corporate masters. The agenda to “get James Stewart,” after all, is really a protection racket to make sure the pasteurized milk industry — offering dead, pasteurized, artificially homogenized milk with high levels of pus and blood — has no competition from fresh, local food producers which run far cleaner operations (http://www.naturalnews.com/035039_raw_milk_pasteurized_CDC.html).

Continue Reading At: NaturalNews.com

American fast food diet unleashes disease epidemic sweeping across Asia

via: NaturalNews
Thursday, July 26, 2012
By: Ethan A. Huff

[NaturalNews] Though increasingly looked down upon here in the U.S. as a sign of slothfulness and low socioeconomic status, routine fast food consumption in some parts of the world is actually considered to be culturally desirable. But as foreigners progressively adopt the American fast-food lifestyle in place of their own native foods, rates of chronic disease are skyrocketing, including in East and Southeast Asia where diabetes and heart disease rates are off the charts.

According to a recent study published in the journal Circulation, globalization continues to usher U.S.-style fast food into East Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, and Cambodia, where natives, especially those from the younger generations, are quickly adopting things like hamburgers and fries in place of their traditional fare. And based on the data, this Western fast food craze is responsible for a significant uptick in cases of diabetes and heart disease.

For their study, a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota (UM) School of Public Health analyzed data on more than 60,000 Singaporeans of Chinese descent. Study participants were interviewed beginning in the 1990s, and followed and tracked for about ten years. At the end of the study, researchers compared the participants’ eating habits to rates of chronic disease.

They found that, among participants who were between the ages of 45 and 74 at the beginning of the study, 1,397 died of cardiac illness by the end of the study, and 2,252 developed type-2 diabetes. Those who ate fast food two or more times a week were 27 percent more likely than others to develop type-2 diabetes, while the same group was 56 percent more likely to die from cardiac illness.

Those who ate American-style fast food four or more times a week were even worse off, as they were nearly twice as likely to die of cardiac illness than participants who ate no fast food. And interestingly, it was only American-style fast food that was linked to the disease uptick — native fast foods like dim sum, noodles, and dumplings did not appear to increase the participants’ risk of developing chronic disease.

“Many cultures welcome (Western fast food) because it’s a sign they’re developing their economies,” says Andrew Adegaard, author of the study from the UM School of Public Health. “But while it may be desirable from a cultural standpoint, from a health perspective there may be a cost. It wasn’t their own snacks that was putting them at increased risk, but American-style fast food.”

Sources for this article include:

http://www.health.umn.edu

http://www.reuters.com

http://www.scientificamerican.com

Reading More At: NaturalNews.com

The New York Times Admits That Virtually Every Major News Organization Allows The News To Be Censored By Government Officials

via: AmericanDream
July 23, 2012

In one of the most shocking articles that the New York Times has ever put out, a New York Times reporter has openly admitted that virtually every major mainstream news organization allows government bureaucrats and campaign officials to censor their stories.  For example, almost every major news organization in the country has agreed to submit virtually all quotes from anyone involved in the Obama campaign or the Romney campaign to gatekeepers for “quote approval” before they will be published.  If the gatekeeper in the Obama campaign does not want a certain quote to get out, the American people will not see it, and the same thing applies to the Romney campaign.  The goal is to keep the campaigns as “on message” as possible and to avoid gaffes at all cost.  But this kind of thing is not just happening with political campaigns.  According to the New York Times, “quote approval” has become “commonplace throughout Washington”.  In other words, if you see a quote in the newspaper from someone in the federal government then it is safe to say that a gatekeeper has almost certainly reviewed that quote and has approved it.  This is another sign that “the free and independent media” in this country is a joke.  What we get from the mainstream media is a very highly filtered form of propaganda, and that is one reason why Americans are turning away from the mainstream media in droves.  People want the truth, and more Americans than ever realize that they are not getting it from the mainstream media.

The following quote comes from the recent article in the New York Timesmentioned above and it is absolutely jaw dropping….

The quotations come back redacted, stripped of colorful metaphors, colloquial language and anything even mildly provocative.

They are sent by e-mail from the Obama headquarters in Chicago to reporters who have interviewed campaign officials under one major condition: the press office has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name.

Most reporters, desperate to pick the brains of the president’s top strategists, grudgingly agree. After the interviews, they review their notes, check their tape recorders and send in the juiciest sound bites for review.

The verdict from the campaign — an operation that prides itself on staying consistently on script — is often no, Barack Obama does not approve this message.

This is an article that everyone needs to read.  If you have not read it yet, you can find it right here.

What all of this means is that both the Obama campaign and the Romney campaign essentially have “veto power” over any quotes from those campaigns that we see in the newspapers.

According to the New York Times, virtually every major news organization has agreed to submit their quotes for “quote approval”….

It was difficult to find a news outlet that had not agreed to quote approval, albeit reluctantly. Organizations like Bloomberg, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Reuters and The New York Times have all consented to interviews under such terms.

This is absolutely disgusting, and it goes against everything that our media is supposed to stand for.

Continue Reading At: EndOfTheAmericanDream.com