Finally Science Confirms the Secret Key to Weight Loss

from http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Finally-Science-Confirms-the-Secret-Key-to-Weight-Loss-19046.aspx

This is one of the most important posts I have written on health so I want you to carefully read this.

My site has been around for over 10 years and from day one I have been extolling the importance of insulin in nearly all chronic degenerative diseases. Well now we have a landmark study confirming that insulin is the central part of the weight-loss equation.

There are over 200 million Americans who are overweight, and collectively they are carrying around an extra 5 BILLION pounds of excess fat.

What the Boston researchers specifically found was that those who secreted high insulin levels had a far more difficult time losing weight than those who secreted low levels of insulin .

I am very grateful that these researchers produced this landmark confirmation of insulin truth. Unfortunately, they completely blew the interpretation of what they found. So let me help you sort through the researchers' confusion.

Like most scientists they want to attribute the problem to your genes. They want you to believe that 200 million Americans are heavy because they have flawed genetics that make them hypersecrete insulin.

Folks, nothing could be further from the truth.

The reason 200 million Americans are overweight is not because of flawed genetics that cause them to make excessive insulin. Hypersecretion of insulin is an effect -- NOT the cause. The reason 200 million are overweight is because they have impaired insulin receptor sensitivity.

Impaired Insulin Receptor Sensitivity

How do your insulin receptors stop working effectively?

Very simple.

This is a natural consequence that occurs when you don't exercise and move the way you were designed to. Your body dynamically makes this adjustment because the receptors are not being used. This is very similar to what happens if you lie in bed for a few weeks; your muscles start to atrophy. Some have called this the "use it or lose it" phenomena.

So when your insulin receptors become desensitized the only way your body can adjust is to make MORE insulin. You become an insulin hypersecretor.

Why Is This Important?

Once your body releases insulin it immediately starts to inhibit your fat-burning hormone called hormone-sensitive lipase. This hormone is responsible for releasing fat into your bloodstream to be utilized as fuel. Once this enzyme is inhibited, your body is unable to burn fat and will then begin utilizing amino acids from your muscle and carbohydrates as fuel.

This will cause you to become abnormally hungry, which further feeds this vicious cycle.

The key is to have LOW levels of insulin so your body can produce large amounts of hormone-sensitive lipase and burn fat all day so you can look thin and slim.

You might want to pick up the paper edition of this week's Time magazine as the online version of How the World Eats only shows one of the pictures from Japan, which for the most part is really healthy food. No wonder they live over 80 years. They show a picture of a family from Chad, which is virtually no food, and then a picture of food for a typical U.S. family.

This is one of the most powerful graphic illustrations as to why the United States has an obesity epidemic. Nearly all of the U.S. food (over 90 percent) was highly processed junk food. Of course, if you shop at a grocery store you probably see this all the time. It is shocking what people are putting into their bodies.

Processed junk foods will absolutely impair your insulin receptor sensitivity.

So What Can You Do?

The bottom line is very simple here, folks. Keep your insulin levels low, very low. You can measure this with an inexpensive blood test that nearly any doctor can draw for you. Your level should be about 2 or 3. The way you lower it to these levels is by exercising, avoiding processed foods and refined carbs, and by eating the appropriate amounts of carbs for your nutritional type.

This is NOT rocket science. If you apply these simple principles you will see dramatic and remarkable improvements not only in your ability to achieve your ideal weight but also in just about every other chronic degenerative disease .

Personally, I think it is criminal malpractice that fasting insulin levels are not aggressively monitored in all cases of cancer and heart disease, because they are central to the causes of both of these diseases.

Time Magazine June 11, 2007

The Journal of the American Medical Association May 16, 2007; 297:2092-2102

Related Articles:

Insulin and Its Metabolic Effects

Insulin Receptors in Brain Tied to Appetite and Weight Gain

Insulin May Raise Homocysteine

Teen Loses Feet In Six Flags Accident

Michael,
Good thing you celebrated Fathers Day with me and Grampy instead of going to Six Flags.
--Dad

Teen Loses Feet In Six Flags Accident

13-Year-Old Was Riding Superman Tower Of Power Ride In Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky., June 22, 2007

---

The Superman Tower of Power at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, June 21, 2007.  (CBS) Quote "I seen the cable come back and hit people." eyewitness Chris Stinnett WHAT DO YOU THINK? Go To Comments

(CBS/AP) Officials at a Louisville amusement park say both of a teenage girl's legs were severed above the ankle while on a thrill ride at the park.

Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom spokeswoman Wendy Goldberg says the accident happened around four-45 p-m yesterday on the Superman Tower of Power.

"It swung and I heard a lot of people screaming," said eyewitness Chris Stinnett. "I seen the cable come back and hit people."

Goldberg says it's unclear at what point during the ride the 13-year-old girl was injured. She was taken to University Hospital. There was no immediate word last night on her condition.

The ride lifts passengers 177 feet straight up, then drops 154 feet, reaching a speed of 54 miles-per-hour according to the park's Web site.

The ride has been shut down indefinitely while park officials investigate what caused the accident. The rest of the park remained open.

© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

When Doctors Strike, Fewer People Die

When Doctors Strike, Fewer People Die
from http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/When-Doctors-Strike--Fewer-People-Die-18998.aspx

In 1973 doctors in Israel staged a month-long strike and during that month, mortality fell by 50 percent. A couple of years later, a two-month work stoppage by doctors in the Columbian capital of Bogotá led to a 35-percent decline in deaths. And during a "work slowdown" by doctors in Los Angeles protesting against the sharp increase in premiums for liability insurance, the number of deaths fell by 18 percent.

Once doctors were back at work full time, mortality immediately jumped back to the previous level. Every year, 1.2 million Britons are hospitalized as a result of improper medical care. In the United States – where 40,000 people are shot to death each year – the chance of getting "killed" by a doctor is three times greater than being killed by a gun. And every year significantly more people die from an infection sustained while in the hospital than as a result of traffic accidents.


Ode Issue 999

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

Over 20 years ago, the American culture critic Ivan Illich wrote that health care has become a threat to our health. More recently, Gary Null performed a comprehensive literature review and found that the conventional medical system is responsible for killing nearly 800,000 people every year in the United States alone. Today we live twice as long, on average, compared to a century ago, but this progress is not due to modern medicine. Cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis and dysentery were already on the decline when antibiotics and vaccines were introduced. The primary reason? Hygiene and enough food to avoid famines. As the above linked article makes clear, however, as far as modern medicine goes, 80 percent of the most common treatments and drugs have not even been thoroughly tested, and do not contribute at all to your health. In fact, they likely even threaten it. For example, excessive use of antibiotics can not only lead to resistance, but can also damage your body's natural, friendly bacterial balance. Recent research also shows that mammograms more often lead to cancer than detect it , and that it is often safer not to operate on prostate cancer. When 118 oncologists at a major cancer institute in the United States were asked whether they would opt for chemotherapy if they were cancer patients, three-quarters said they would turn it down. Why? Because cancer treatment is "ineffective and unacceptably poisonous." And yet, a great many people subject themselves to this poisonous therapy. Patients have become objects in a system in which technology is the master. The defenseless patient is the inevitable result of the fact that health care has degenerated into an industrial system in which procedures are more important than people. There Is Another Way Healing is actually a complex process in which -- contrary to the accepted western view -- not only medicine and tangible cells play a role, but also intangible aspects such as hope, belief, trust and will. Doctors know from experience that patients who ask about their problems and results usually fare better. A mother can produce antibodies in her breast milk when her baby is suffering from an infection. Chinese, Indian, Native American and other traditional medicine practices are geared toward supporting your body's self-healing processes. These traditions assume that nature is perfect and that the body wants to be healthy. Aside from the fact that the alternative therapies such as homeopathy and acupuncture have numerous proven healing effects, they also generally show more respect for patients. They take an integral approach instead of merely addressing the symptoms. And the natural medical doctor generally spends more time and attention on his patients. He listens to their whole story, including their feelings of sadness and despair. Attention and care are crucial. But these are qualities seldom found in the modern health care system. Doctors who want to give their patients attention are hounded by hospital administrators and insurance companies clamoring for "efficiency." It is telling that The Economist recently argued that health care could learn a whole lot from McDonald's in the area of efficiency. Take Control of Your Health Taking responsibility means more than sticking to a diet. It means asking questions. What can I do myself? How can I live my life differently? What lifestyle would suit me better? It means no longer seeing the doctor as an all-knowing master, but as a partner who can help find the best method of healing. It means seeking the best therapies both in conventional and alternative medicine. In the very near future I hope to offer you some customized coaching programs that will be able to help you in your health journey. Stay tuned as this will be a fun ride!!

Related Articles:

Death by Medicine

Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death

Severe Doctor Shortage by 2020 May Increase U.S. Lifespan

What Riedel did wine glasses, Jim Koch is doing for beer mugs

Hey look.  What Riedel did wine glasses, Jim Koch is doing for beer mugs.

"as far as beer goes, this is the first one designed specifically for a lager beer by people who aren't in the glass industry. And it definitely makes a difference in experiencing taste and aroma."

from http://www.boston.com/yourlife/articles/2007/06/20/with_new_design_foam_follows_function/

	THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

Jim Koch, president of the company that brews Sam Adams beer, says his is the first beer glass created not by marketers or designers, but by a brewer interested in one thing: how beer tastes when poured into it. (John Bohn/Globe Staff) With new design, foam follows function By Joseph P. Kahn, Globe Staff  |  June 20, 2007 Build a better mousetrap, Emerson observed, and the world will beat a path to your door. Build a better beer glass, and first you'll need a squadron of scientists, engineers, and other experts versed in such concepts as nucleation site , volume-to-surface ratio, foam retention, and profile-attribute analysis method. This is exactly what Boston Beer Company president Jim Koch has done. His company, which brews Samuel Adams , has commissioned a new type of beer glass, and it's starting to show up in bars and pubs. "Maybe 2 percent of beer drinkers wonder why no one's done it before -- and 98 percent wonder why anyone would bother to. It's now the number-one selling item at our brewery," says Koch, whose gift shop sells shirts, caps, mugs, and other Sam Adams-branded gear along with the new glasses, priced at $8 each . Bold new design or brazen attempt to inject fresh fizz into an old product, the Samuel Adams Boston Lager Pint Glass was rolled out in February . According to Koch and others who worked on the project, it's the first beer glass created not by marketing experts or glass designers but by a brewer interested in one thing only: how beer tastes when poured into it. No one has challenged that claim, and no one is likely to, says Paul Pacult , a consultant on the project and editor of the Spirit Journal newsletter . "I've consulted on glass shapes for wine and whiskey," says Pacult. "But as far as beer goes, this is the first one designed specifically for a lager beer by people who aren't in the glass industry. And it definitely makes a difference in experiencing taste and aroma." Koch has already given and sold samples of the glasses in nearly a thousand bars from coast to coast. He doesn't deny there's a word -of-mouth marketing angle to his new glass. It's just not the kind most beer companies would come up with, he maintains. "In the sense that if the beer tastes better you sell more beer, yes," Koch says when asked if the new glass is a marketing ploy to sell lager. "But we're not trying to make money off this glass. Or introduce a new line of bar jewelry." Any data to measure whether it's boosted sales of Sam Adams? "None yet," says Koch. Appealing to suds snobs who embrace what might be called a microbrew mentality, the new glass has more curves than Josh Beckett throws in an eight-inning outing and includes features like a beaded rim ("creates turbulence, releasing aromas as beer enters mouth," according to a Sam Adams flier), outward-turning lip (to enhance "sweetness detection"), thinner walls to keep the brew colder in hand, and, if you can digest all this after a pint or two, a "nucleation site lasered into the bottom for increased hop aroma release." The glass can be found at taverns throughout the Boston area, where it's paired exclusively with Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Customer reaction at the Rattlesnake Bar & Grill has been positive, according to co-owner Tony Castagnozzi -- so much so that he has to keep replacing the glasses. "People are stealing them left and right," he says. At the Sunset Grill & Tap in Allston, owner Mark Kadish offers 112 different brews on tap, served in 60 kinds of beer vessel. The new glass "looks great, it's comfortable to hold, and it really does affect the taste," gushes Kadish. "And I'm a guy who'll happily drink beer out of a Dixie Cup." More than a year in the making, the new glass was inspired by a French wine expert who joined Koch's corporate board and convinced the brewmeister that glass design could do for a tasty lager what it does for a piquant syrah. Koch personally tested 150 varieties of beer glass before turning to Cambridge-based TIAX Laboratories to quantify the optimal lager-delivery system. Founded in 2002 , TIAX absorbed the remnants of Arthur D. Little Inc., a firm famous for its consumer-product research, after the latter folded. Its sensory team has been around since the 1940s, says TIAX technology marketer Jonaki Egenolf , and has worked with beer-making clients in the past, although mostly from a packaging standpoint. "This was unique, the first time anyone took a close look at beer glassware," Egenolf says. TIAX scientists began by establishing a flavor profile for Sam Adams lager in both bottles and kegs. They then compared 20 to 30 glass designs on features like rim angle and top diameter. Later they conducted a more in-depth study testing more than a dozen new designs before the final prototype was configured and turned over to a German glassmaker . "We were not wearing the hat of a consumer or industrial designer," Egenolf says. "Jim didn't want us to focus on aesthetics. It was all about qualities like 'mouth tingle.' " Feedback from bar owners has been mixed, Koch admits, because the glasses don't stack as neatly as conventional ones do. "That's OK," he says. "I didn't expect everyone would throw away their old glasses overnight. Besides, it really only works with bigger, more flavorful beers. It will not make Natty Light taste like Sam Adams." It won't make Sam Adams Lager sell like Bud Light, either. Still, says Boston University marketing professor Patrick Kaufmann , "Beer has a huge social dimension to it. If you can get people talking about a familiar product in a new and positive way, you're tapping into marketing's single most important source for attitude change, which is word of mouth. Can a new glass do that? Maybe." Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@globe.com.

© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
 

Is Goji Juice Really as Good as it is Being Promoted As?

from http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Is-Goji-Juice-Really-as-Good-as-it-is-Being-Promoted-As--19061.aspx

Is Goji Juice Really as Good as it is Being Promoted As?

That's the million-dollar question being asked, and answered, in this video, which exposes the truth about the latest health craze sweeping across Canada and into the United States.

Goji juice is hyped as the cure-all remedy for 34 different ailments, including arthritis , diabetes and cancer. But the truth is both shocking and infuriating, as they uncover the lack of nutritional value of the goji juice in the lab.

Earl Mendel—the well-respected author of the Vitamin Bible—is the face of Himalayan Goji, and he's making some pretty hefty claims about the berry. And that's the problem. Upon probing, he admits he's talking about the berry—not necessarily the juice!

Himalayan Goji juice is not sold in stores, but rather through a multi-level marketing plan. At about $50 per bottle, there's lots of money being made, but there does not seem to be enough proof to back up the amazing health claims of the juice itself.

CBC News Marketplace January 24, 2007

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

Goji juice is hyped as the cure-all remedy for 34 different ailments, including arthritis, diabetes and cancer. But the truth is both shocking and infuriating. In the lab, goji juice proves to have little nutritional value.

Earl Mendel -- the author of the Vitamin Bible -- is the face of Himalayan Goji, and he's making some pretty hefty claims about the berry. And that's the problem. Upon probing, he admits he's talking about the berry -- not necessarily the juice!

Himalayan Goji juice is not sold in stores, but rather through a multi-level marketing plan. At about $50 per bottle, there's lots of money being made, but there does not seem to be enough proof to back up the amazing health claims of the juice itself.

Now, please understand that I have nothing against Goji berries. I fully believe that they are a powerhouse of nutrition and loaded with beneficial antioxidants and micronutrients. I even consume them myself.

However,  this appears to be a classic example of sleazy nutritional marketing that exaggerates the benefits of a good food, adulterates it and then puts it in a multi-level marketing scam that fleeces good people of their hard-earned money with very little benefit.

In general, fruit juice is not the best way to consume a fruit. It is typically better to consume the whole fruit.

Most of traditional medicine fails to recognize that the sugars in fruit juice contribute to major distortions of insulin balance. I believe that fruit juice and pasteurized milk are two of the most misunderstood foods in our culture. Most people believe they are health foods, while the polar opposite is true. They tend to be pernicious fluids that worsen most people's health.

Juicing your vegetables at home, however, is a very different matter. Juiced vegetables do not have the absurdly high sugar content of fruit juice, and vegetable juicing can be a very healthy practice.

Related Articles:

All-Natural Fruit Juices are Not as Healthy as You Think

Freshly Squeezed Juice Still Not Healthy

Fruit Juice Increases Colicky Babies and Need for Eye Glasses

 

Why didn't we think of this? :)

The child of a middle-class family in Portsmouth, R.I., Haney won admission to Harvard in 1980. To help pay his tuition, he began cleaning toilets in campus housing, where he noticed that fireplaces were going unused. So, he and a friend drove a truck to New Hampshire, bought a large load of firewood, and brought it back to Harvard Yard. They made $4,000, and an entrepreneur was born.

from http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2007/06/18/bitter_vision_grows_in_the_sugarcane_fields/

Bitter vision grows in the sugarcane fields

Filmmaker moved by workers' plight

By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff  |  June 18, 2007

WAYLAND -- Back in the beginning -- before the film-festival award, before the cease-and-desist letter and the threat of a lawsuit, before the attention from Congress and Amnesty International -- before all that, Bill Haney had nothing more in mind than a few modest steps to improve healthcare in the Dominican Republic.

But then Haney sat down for lunch with an intense, charismatic priest, the Rev. Christopher Hartley . The priest told him, point-blank: "The biggest contribution you could make would be to explore the conditions of the people in my parish."

With those words, the wheels were set in motion for a project that would consume three years of Haney's life and immerse him in a world that would appall, anger, and ultimately inspire him. He discovered both a movie and a mission -- not that Haney has ever made much of a distinction between the two.

That world was the "bateyes," the workers' enclaves near the sugarcane fields in the Dominican Re public where Haitian migrants toil. The conditions under which the Haitian cane-cutters live and work are the subject of Haney's wrenching new documentary, "The Price of Sugar." Narrated by Paul Newman, the movie was screened over the weekend at the Nantucket Film Festival and Provincetown International Film Festival.

"The Price of Sugar" depicts the lives of the Haitian workers as marked by hunger, arduous labor, and day-to-day desperation. It is a title -- and a film -- designed to make US consumers think about the human cost of sweetening their morning coffee. "We told a small story so we could tell a big story," said Haney, 45, sitting in his book-lined home office, noting that the Dominican Republic exports much of its sugar to the United States . "This story is partly how US consumers and taxpayers subsidize things they don't know about and would never support if they did know. It's what capitalism looks like if unchecked by the hand of government."

"The more I got into the story, the more shocking and powerful it became," added Haney. "We saw intimidated, almost traumatized Haitians. Frequently, there would be guys with weapons on horses who would ride around us. They never pointed a gun at me, but we were told that if the Haitians tried to flee they would be captured and beaten. These overseers were a law unto themselves."

US Representative James McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, who met with Haney last Wednesday in Washington, said he found the film deeply troubling and plans to organize screenings for other members of Congress.

"We're going to look into this issue," said McGovern. "Anyone who sees this will want to take action."

Called into priesthood

At the center of the film is Hartley, the impassioned and implacable son of a wealthy family who startled his parents by announcing, as a teenager, that he wanted to become a priest. "He had a moment of feeling he was called by God, and instead of living the life of a wealthy playboy, he went to Calcutta and worked with Mother Teresa for 20 years," Haney said. When he was assigned to San Jose de los Llanos, a town in the Dominican Republic , Hartley began championing the cause of the Haitian migrant workers. That set him at odds with the Vicini family, the sugar barons whose plantations are the focus of "The Price of Sugar."

"He's a complicated guy," Haney says. "He's not a saint. He could occasionally be self-righteous. But this guy has given up every material thing. He's committed to the poorest of the poor. . . . It's the heroic tale of how one person can really make a difference."

But it is not a story with a happy ending. Hartley was removed from his parish and, he has said, forced to leave the country last year under pressure from the Vicini family and the Dominican government. Haney, meanwhile, may soon be the target of a lawsuit by the Vicini family. Grupo Vicini, the family-run company under which the sugar plantations operate, hired the powerful Washington law firm Patton Boggs, which sent Haney a letter last month demanding he stop showing the movie. The cease-and-desist letter from Patton Boggs attorney Read K. McCaffrey says that the film contains false statements and misrepresentations, and that it is defamatory of his clients "and, indeed, of the country itself."

McCaffrey declined the Globe's request for an interview, saying through a spokesman that he was unable to comment "since this matter will involve litigation." McCaffrey told the IPS news agency this month that he had visited the bateyes and had "seen conditions that are significantly better than those in this documentary. It is unfortunate that the film is being shown as something accurate when it is propaganda."

Campos de Moya, vice president of communications for Grupo Vicini, could not be reached for comment. His assistant said he was out of the country.

** said he stands behind the accuracy of his film, adding that he hired fact-checkers before releasing it. "These lawsuits are designed to bully you," he said. "Nobody wants to spend five, six, seven years being sued. But it's not going to stop us from showing it."

So far, the reception from audiences has been favorable. In March the film, written and directed by Haney, and produced by him and Eric Grunebaum , won the Audience Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. In addition, Amnesty International has asked Haney for permission to screen "The Price of Sugar" to its chapters as part of an effort to build support for legislative change to help the sugar workers.

A life-altering experience

All in all, making the film was a transforming experience for Haney, who was no stranger to life transformations already.

The child of a middle-class family in Portsmouth, R.I., Haney won admission to Harvard in 1980. To help pay his tuition, he began cleaning toilets in campus housing, where he noticed that fireplaces were going unused. So, he and a friend drove a truck to New Hampshire, bought a large load of firewood, and brought it back to Harvard Yard. They made $4,000, and an entrepreneur was born. Before his freshman year was over, Haney had started his own company, built around a technology to reduce air pollution.

Over the next two decades, he would help launch more than a dozen technology companies. But as he reached his late 30s, Haney began to feel restless.

"I was sort of groping around, trying to figure out what I could do that might be useful," he said. He had been bitten by the filmmaking bug when he helped finance a couple of films (including Errol Morris's "Fast, Cheap & Out of Control"). So he and a friend, Tim Disney (son of Roy Disney and great-nephew of Walt Disney), decided to make movies .

Haney attended a screenwriting seminar led by the famed Robert McKee (memorably featured in "Adaptation") and began writing scripts. The first collaboration between Haney and Disney, "A Question of Faith," won critical respect but flopped commercially. But in the past seven years he and Disney have been involved in the production of a dozen more films.

It is clear that the poverty and misery he saw while shooting "The Price of Sugar" shook him to the core. "The extreme vulnerability of the people," Haney said slowly. "That's how most people in the world live. It's very scary to have a child and think you won't be able to take care of them. To live that way and still find meaning, still find joy, still find God: I found the courage required to get through their daily lives inspiring."

Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com.  

Fat From Grass-Fed Cows Helps You Lose Weight

from http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Fat-From-Grass-Fed-Cows-Helps-You-Lose-Weight-18477.aspx

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a fatty acid that's been praised for its ability to fight cancer, diabetes and fat, is in the news again. This time, a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has found that CLA does, in fact, help people to lose weight. The meta-analysis found that people who took 3.2 grams of CLA a day had a drop in fat mass of about 0.2 pounds a week (that's about one pound a month) compared to those given a placebo. Previous studies have also shown that CLA appears to reduce body fat while preserving muscle tissue, and the compound has become a huge boon to the supplement market, popular with bodybuilders and dieters alike. However, there is one major caveat here, and that's the source of the CLA. If you buy CLA supplements you are likely to get the side effects discussed in the article -- increases in blood levels of C-reactive protein, lipoprotein and leptin (signs of heart disease) and even an increase in insulin resistance (a sign of type 2 diabetes). Why? Because when you take CLA in supplement form you are getting the fat unnaturally and out of balance. The absolute BEST way to get CLA is naturally from grass-fed beef. Grass-fed animals have from three to five times more CLA than grain-fed animals. So if you're looking to get more CLA in your diet, please do so naturally. Aside from grass-fed beef, dairy products from grass-fed cows like raw milk, raw butter and raw milk cheese are also good choices for CLA, which allows you to pick the foods that apply to your nutritional type. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition May 2007, Vol. 85, No. 5, 1203-1211 The New York Times May 29, 2007   Dr. Mercola's Comment: Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a fatty acid that's been praised for its ability to fight cancer and diabetes, is once again in the news, this time for its ability to help you lose weight. Previous studies have shown that CLA reduces body fat while preserving muscle tissue, making the compound a huge boon to the supplement market, popular with bodybuilders and dieters alike. What's more, studies have shown that CLA may also: Increase your metabolic rate, a positive benefit for promoting normal thyroid function Help maintain normal cholesterol and triglyceride levels Enhance your immune system However, there is one major caveat here, and that's the source of the CLA. If you buy CLA supplements you are likely to get the side effects discussed in the article -- such as increases in blood levels of C-reactive protein and increased insulin resistance. Why? Because when you take CLA in supplement form you are getting the fat unnaturally and out of balance. The absolute BEST way to get CLA is naturally from grass-fed beef (grass-fed animals have from three to five times more CLA than grain-fed animals). So if you're looking to get more CLA in your diet, please do so naturally. Aside from grass-fed beef, dairy products from grass-fed cows such as raw milk , raw butter and raw milk cheese are also good choices for CLA. Related Articles: The Growing Demand for Grass-Fed Beef in America Lower Your Risk of Colon Cancer With the Right Fat The Truth About Saturated Fat

Keep home smelling fresh with essential oils

from http://tailorednews.com/TMsubscribe/ViewOnline.asp?u=rSLahi7TCDiJN&t=&l=&e=&m=

Scents of Home
As dog lovers know all too well, it's often not easy to keep a dog-friendly house clean and fresh smelling. Instead of turning to products laden with artificial scents and other chemicals, Stacy from Florida has a better idea:

"I have two 'love of my life' Rottweilers that live in/outdoors in Southern Florida with me. I vacuum frequently and something that has helped me tremendously keep my green-clean house smelling lovely is putting organic cotton balls with approximately 10 drops of essential oils into the vacuum cleaner bag. The scent lasts until I change my vacuum bag, just about once a month.

I have received so many compliments on my yummy smelling house--essential oil favorites are orange, lemon, rosemary, rose and lavender. Who needs all those toxic air fresheners and aerosol cans?! Simple. Effective. Inexpensive. Earth Friendly. Health Friendly. Doggie Friendly. Try it--you'll like it!

Even if you don't have indoor pets, this tip sounds like a winner. With or without pets, what do you do to keep your house smelling nice?

Share your "green" idea with us! If we select your tip to publish in our blog and fl@vors newsletter, we'll mail you a $25 Whole Foods Market gift card. Help us positively support the environment and share your idea today.

Post your tip on our new Whole Green Blog.

laptops for every student

Whatever happened to Gov. Romney's plan to give every student a laptop?
--Phillip

For each poor child in world: a laptop

MIT Media Lab to unveil $100 hand-crank device to lift developing nations

By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff  |  September 28, 2005

Nicholas Negroponte, cofounder of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will show off a model of a $100 hand-crank laptop today that he designed as an educational device for children in remote areas.

But a cheap computer that does not rely on batteries or electricity could also serve as a life-saving communications tool following a natural disaster. Just as New Orleans city officials used an Internet telephone system to call for aid during Hurricane Katrina, emergency workers might come to rely on wind-up laptops equipped with wireless Internet access.

''We have been asked directly about this," said Negroponte, who will show a model of the device today at an MIT technology conference. ''Remember that the military used wind-up radios for years."

While the idea may sound promising for post-disaster communications, it still has serious drawbacks. A wireless laptop, however inexpensive, would be of no use unless it was within range of a functioning Internet base station. Such stations might well be destroyed in a hurricane, earthquake, or terrorist attack, rendering the laptop useless.

In any case, the plan is to pass them out by the millions to boost school performance in developing countries, and in Massachusetts. The concept has already been embraced by government officials in Brazil, Thailand, and Egypt. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has jumped onto the bandwagon, with a plan to issue the laptops to the state's schoolchildren.

Negroponte plans to have working prototypes of his machine by early next year, with mass production to begin by the final quarter of 2006. There are no plans to make the laptops available to general consumers.

The idea was born in 1999, when Negroponte and his wife set up two schools in Cambodia and equipped all of the students with laptops. He was so impressed with the results that he now wants to create a laptop cheap enough to provide one to every poor child in the world.

''The computer provides the only way to give students a real foundation in 21st-century skills," Negroponte said.

In January, Negroponte joined Media Lab colleagues Joe Jacobson and Seymour Papert to create One Laptop Per Child, a nonprofit organization to design and distribute the ultra-cheap computers. The group is working with chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., and Jacobson's own company, E Ink Corp. of Cambridge, which makes ''electronic ink" display screens. These displays consume a fraction of the power used by today's laptop screens, and could be made for as little as $30 each, far cheaper than current laptop screens.

The One Laptop Per Child computer can also keep costs down by using flash memory chips in place of a mechanical hard drive, and a low-powered processor to deliver enough performance for basic computing tasks and Internet access. The laptop will connect to the online world with a wireless connection. It will also include ''mesh networking" technology that lets each laptop communicate automatically with any other machine in range. If just one laptop has direct access to the Net, others can easily connect to it and share a single online connection. The entire package, although it can be powered by standard electric current, runs on a plentiful power source -- human muscles turning a crank mounted on the side of the computer.

''Our interest is really in Third World development," Papert said. ''I believe that it's essential to solving the problems of poverty, violence, and environment, to have better education."

Papert said that Thailand's prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, Brazil's president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, and Egypt's ministry of education have all expressed interest in the plan.

But Romney believes many Massachusetts students could also benefit from the laptops. He said he was already considering a plan to buy laptops for each of the state's middle and high school students at $500 apiece. But then Secretary of Administration and Finance Eric Kriss told him about MIT's $100 laptop plan. After meeting in July with Media Lab officials, Romney concluded that the lower price tag of their proposed computer could enable the state to roll out the program more quickly.

Last week, as part of an education reform plan, Romney proposed to spend $54 million to buy one of Negroponte's laptops for every student. The first three grades would get computers during fiscal year 2007, while students in the other three grades would get them the following year. The computers would be gifts, so that students could keep them after graduating.

Romney admitted that the case for student laptops remains inconclusive. But he added that ''the evidence so far is positive."

For Negroponte, Massachusetts' decision to adopt his laptops is a valuable endorsement of the One Laptop Per Child campaign.

''I am always asked in my travels through the developing world: 'If this is such a good idea, why isn't America doing it?' " Negroponte said. ''Well, now they are."

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.  

Soy's New Competition: Hemp

from http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Soy-s-New-Competition--Hemp-17889.aspx

Since 2005, sales of hemp food products have risen by more than 50 percent, spawning an $8.6-million industry. While the United States currently prohibits commercial cultivation of industrial hemp, it allows the import of seeds, oil, flour and other hemp byproducts to be manufactured into ready-to-eat foods in the United States.

There are now hundreds of hemp foods available online and on supermarket shelves. The newest addition, hemp milk, is experiencing phenomenal sales.

Hemp can be used as an alternative to soy products such as soy milk, which some people can't tolerate. Many are attracted to hemp's taste and nutritional value.

Research suggests that the fatty acids in hemp can help reduce risk of cardiovascular ailments. However, the ALA omega-3 in hemp is not the same as the eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) omega-3 fatty acid found in fish oil, which have been shown to be heart-healthy. ALA does convert into EPA or DHA in the body, but only at a rate of about 1 percent.

Los Angeles Times May 14, 2007

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

In the past two years, sales of hemp food products in markets and grocery stores rose by more than 50 percent, propelling the unassuming seed to an $8.6-million industry.

Hemp was first cultivated in China more than 6,000 years ago, and was used as a food source long before soy foods. Unlike soy -- whose prominence in natural food circles is a direct result of aggressive marketing by the edible oil industry -- hemp seeds pack a powerful nutritional punch. You can find it in hundreds of products, including shakes, snack bars, breads, ales and hempacinos.

Two tablespoons of shelled hemp seeds contain about 11 grams of protein and 2 grams of unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids. Hemp oil also has a better-than-average ratio -- about 3 to1 -- of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, although, as mentioned above, the omega-3 is not the same omega-3 found in fish- or krill oil. Krill oil is still your best source of vital omega-3s and antioxidants that are so lacking in our modern diet.

Additionally, hemp, like flax, is loaded with highly beneficial water-soluble fibers.

If you are concerned that you might get high from these hemp food products, don't be. The government has made certain that commercially grown hemp does not contain the psychoactive ingredient THC.

Related Articles:

Are You Taking the Right Type of Omega-3 Fats?

New Findings About Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Depression

Newest Research Reasons Why You Should Avoid Soy

Fwd: LIVESTRONG Day - Success

From: Doug Ulman, Lance Armstrong Foundation <doug@laf.org>

 

LIVESTRONG Day 2007 was a tremendous success. Thousands of people from across the country united together to show their support in making cancer a national priority – and we made a huge impact.

 

Lance and more than 200 advocates spent the day on Capitol Hill urging elected officials to support the Cancer Screening, Treatment and Survivorship Act of 2007 (S. 1415 and H.R. 2353), new bipartisan legislation introduced by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) in the U.S. Senate and Representatives Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Sue Myrick (R-NC) in the House of Representatives. 

 

The legislation offers a bold expansion of access to early detection and corresponding early treatment and survivorship services.  In addition to the 65,000 emails sent to members of the House and Senate in support of these bills, 20 states and more than 25 cities across the country recognized LIVESTRONG Day with official proclamations. It is not too late to show your support. Send a letter to your elected officials in support of this important legislation.

 

In addition to the efforts in Washington, D.C., approximately 230 LIVESTRONG Day events were held in communities across the country to increase awareness and show support for the fight against cancer.  

 

From the Empire State Building shining  yellow on LIVE STRONG Day to a luminaria event in Las Vegas to an online "yellow" recipe contest , so many people took action to demand that our nation's leaders invest in resources, treatment and services for people affected by cancer – and I could not be more proud. Make sure your voice is heard. Support the Cancer Screening, Treatment and Survivorship Act of 2007 today .

 

LIVESTRONG,

 

Doug Ulman

President, Lance Armstrong Foundation

www.livestrong.org

the Summer Olympics have uprooted more than 2 million people over the past two decades

from http://www.boston.com/sports/articles/2007/06/06/are_builders_making_way_or_making_waves/

Are builders making way or making waves?

By John Powers, Globe Staff  |  June 6, 2007

Yesterday's report that the Summer Olympics have uprooted more than 2 million people over the past two decades touches a nerve with Beijing, which reportedly will have moved out nearly that many to prepare for next year's Games.

"It is shocking and entirely unacceptable that 1.25 million people have already been displaced," said Jean du Plessis , executive director of the Geneva-based Center on Housing Rights and Evictions, which studied the effect that seven past and future Olympics have on residents.

Urban renewal isn't just an inevitable byproduct of hosting the Games, it's one of the main reasons cities bid for them to get long-delayed projects off the ground. Barcelona's waterfront makeover for the 1992 Olympics was a huge part of the city's renaissance, and Beijing's massive construction works have brought the booming capital into the 21st century. The downside, though, is undeniable, especially for poorer residents who are evicted to make room for Olympic venues.

Chinese officials, who dismissed the 1.25 million figure as "groundless," insist that everyone who has been relocated was paid and suitably resettled.

"Not one single household has been forced to move out of Beijing," said foreign ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu.

Re: Next book: Flyboys at Sterns on June 15th

Here's something relevant to discuss in relation to James Bradley's Flyboys, which prominently describes the attacks on civilians as a means of waging WWII.
--Phillip

The losers? Innocent civilians

By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist  |  June 4, 2007

from http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/06/04/the_losers_innocent_civilians/

MANCHESTER, N.H.

The Democrats still blink. Debate moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Dennis Kucinich if he would try to knock off Osama bin Laden with a missile even if it would kill some innocent civilians.

Kucinich said, "I don't think that a president of the United States who believes in peace and who wants to create peace in the world is going to be using assassination as a tool."

The rest of the Democrats crawled into a hole of vacillation.

Barack Obama said, "I think Dennis is right. I don't believe in assassinations, but Osama bin Laden has declared war on us, killed 3,000 people, and under existing law, including international law, when you've got a military target like bin Laden, you take him out. And if you have 20 minutes you do it swiftly and surely."

A few moments later, Blitzer asked the candidates to raise their hands if they would authorize an assassination even if "innocent civilians would die."

Everyone except Kucinich limply raised their hands.

Joe Biden chimed in, "it would depend on how many innocent civilians."

John Edwards added, "There's not information, not enough information."

Hillary Clinton said, "That is a very difficult to answer in the abstract. . . . You have to be very careful about how you proceed. So you know, yes, if we could do it without a tremendous amount of collateral damage, I think, maybe with one or two exceptions, we would give the order to do it."

So for all the talk about who among the Democrats is most against the war, Iraqi civilians remain too abstract to say "Enough!"

Yes, we lost 3,000 people during 9/11. But between 64,000 and 600,000 Iraqi civilians are now dead because of our invasion and the resulting civil war.

Are we not done killing innocents in the name of bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and weapons of mass destruction?

By their vacillation, the Democrats still say no. The Republicans are laughing.

International High acts as surrogate parent to push immigrant teenagers to college careers

Why is this school successful?  Because the teachers are committed.  See highlights below.
--pws

from http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/06/03/schools_caring_helps_students_beat_odds/

School's caring helps students beat odds

International High acts as surrogate parent to push immigrant teenagers to college careers

By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff  |  June 3, 2007

The teenagers spoke not a word of English when they came to Boston four years ago. Some left parents behind in Guatemala, Cape Verde, and Haiti. Others arrived with only a primary school education.

They were the first class to enter Boston International High, created in 2003 to educate recent immigrants. The school, with flags from 42 countries lining its entryway, had a unique mission: Take some of the most vulnerable students in Boston's public school system, get them to graduate from high school, and go to college.

Next week , every senior at the Jamaica Plain school will graduate. All 35 have been accepted to college, most to four-year universities. They have beaten bleak odds stacked against them: Nearly a quarter of the city's students whose first language is not English never graduate from high school.

Boston International High succeeded because it addressed students' every need, students said. Their teachers, counselor and headmaster often acted as surrogate parents. They found students after-school jobs and temporary housing. They helped prepare them for college entrance exams and took them on college visits. Many teachers, immigrants themselves, empathized with the students' struggles.

"Before you can even teach someone science, history, math, you need to know all the challenges they're facing," said Oscar Santos , the school's headmaster.

Some Boston educators initially questioned the wisdom of segregating non-English speakers in the 180-student school. But specialists on immigrant education from around the nation hold up the holistic approach of Boston International as an example other cities should follow. Educators from Australia, Venezuela, Spain, and England have visited the school to see how to duplicate it.

The school's close attention to students' personal challenges is rare, educators said. The students are particularly at risk because they're older and have to simultaneously learn a new language and advanced academic material. These students in the past would have been dispersed among the city's 38 high schools. Some would have been placed in English language programs. Some might have received scant help.

The key at Boston International, Santos said, has been finding teachers willing to go well beyond their job description.

Jimmy Georges , a student from Haiti, came to Boston to live with his older sister and help support his parents, a policeman and hairdresser respectively, back home. He works at a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

"I didn't have no mommy and daddy to support me," he said. "Sometimes I look at myself and I'm proud of myself because I'm going to get my high school diploma."

Georges's schooling was nearly derailed last year when a stray bullet grazed his forehead as he was traveling in a car on Blue Hill Avenue.

After the shooting, he rarely ventured outside his home except to go to school. In class, he was distracted, and his grades plummeted.

"My body was in school but my mind wasn't really there," Georges said.

He met regularly with a counselor and scaled back his academic schedule. He frequently argued with the headmaster, who wanted him to make up his work after school.

"He was always fussing me, pushing me to move on," said Georges, 18, who improved his grades this year and earned a scholarship to Bunker Hill Community College.

Marlene Miranda , a senior from Cape Verde, initially balked at attending Boston International when her father dropped her off at the school, a red brick building attached to a playground. A former elementary school with no gym or athletic fields, Boston International did not fit Miranda's image of an American high school.

She was so intimidated on the first day that she refused to say her name when the teacher asked. But she soon appreciated the school's small size, warm atmosphere, and high expectations.

Teachers handed out their cellphone numbers and encouraged students to call for help. They came early and stayed late, tutoring students and helping them revise essays. They held optional classes on Saturdays, partnering with faculty members from the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

When 18-year-old Miranda was accepted to Bridgewater State, the headmaster and college counselor called the university and got her a $15,000-a-year scholarship because her family could not afford the tuition.

"Nobody thought I would make it," said Miranda. "I never even thought I'd go to college. Back home, you don't have the opportunity to be what you want. If I go back, I'm a nobody."

The toughest road at the school has been for students who are in the country without proper documentation. They do not qualify for financial aid, and, like Miranda, cannot afford college on their own.

In January, a 20-year-old from Guatemala and six of his classmates met with an immigration lawyer at school to discuss their college options and the process of getting their green cards.

The student, who does not want his name published for fear of repercussions, came to the United States for work to support his parents, who stayed behind in their farming village. He had only attended school until the sixth grade in Guatemala, and enrolled at Boston International initially to meet other teens and to learn English to find a better job.

Instead, he said, he found a second family in supportive teachers and classmates -- and motivation. The headmaster told him that his lack of schooling did not dictate his intelligence, and he expected the teen to graduate.

He was among a group of students who were not that literate in their native languages. They received intensive instruction in English upon their arrival.

Ada Sepulveda, who teaches English to newcomers, requires them to choose a book to read every night from the elementary-level books filling baskets in her classroom.

"They know we were supposed to have done this yesterday, last week, last year," Sepulveda said. "There's an urgency."

In every class, teachers incorporate mini-English lessons. Posters plaster the classroom of math teacher Apolinario Barros to remind students of the words and symbols for subtraction, division, and other terms.

The Guatemalan student will graduate despite several hardships. His father died in a car accident in Guatemala two years ago. The day after he found out, the student returned to school, which raised more than $700 to help his mother pay for the funeral.

He never skipped a day this year as he juggled a 32-hour-a-week job at a restaurant in Jamaica Plain. He failed the English MCAS four times, but his math teacher and headmaster told him he would succeed if he worked hard. And Santos spoke with the teen's boss about allowing him to stay after school for extra help.

Two months ago, he passed the state exam, a graduation requirement.

"Anything that happens, I can take it," the student said later. "I didn't expect to be all the way here. I want to see how far I can go."

Potential Deception and Destruction of Healthy Chocolate

 

Potential Deception and Destruction of Healthy Chocolate
from http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Potential-Deception-and-Destruction-of-Healthy-Chocolate-15862.aspx

May 14, 2007

Members of the Chocolate Manufacturers of America (CMA), such as Hershey, Nestle and Archer Daniels Midland, initially posing as an interested citizens group, have covertly petitioned the FDA to "modernize food standards" by allowing products containing little or no cocoa butter to still be labeled chocolate.

This would allow products that were essentially a mix of milk, artificial sweeteners and hydrogenated trans fats to be sold as chocolate.

Trans fats have been directly linked to several debilitating illnesses, including heart disease. They lower levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol while increasing levels of LDL ("bad") cholesterol. Increased LDL makes the arteries more rigid and causes arterial clogging.

Cocoa prices have increased recently due to speculation that a dry summer this year could impair cocoa production in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The ingredients that could be used to replace cocoa, under the terms of the proposal, are considerably cheaper.

NewsWithViews.com May 4, 2007

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

Considering science is proving how eating minimally-processed chocolate   can provide you with boatloads of beneficial antioxidants, you'd think big business couldn't and wouldn't do anything to mess that good news up.

Guess again, folks.

You may soon see sales of "chocolate" that is a mixture of artificial sweeteners, 2 percent milk fats and the very health-harming trans fats. Convinced the threat of fake chocolate is a real one, a dozen American manufacturers (headed by Warren Buffett's See's Candies) are fighting the plan.

The powerful NewsWithViews feature linked above describes this latest chocolate deception as no different a stunt from the one pulled by the margarine and shortening industries on consumers a half-century ago, pressuring the FDA to sanction trans-fatty margarine as a "healthy" alternative to butter.

The health benefits conferred by real chocolate could be vast, based on research documenting the beneficial effects of epicatechin-rich cocoa on the Kuna Indians in Panama.

The incidence of four deadly and major diseases -- cancer, heart failure, diabetes and stroke -- only affect 10 percent of the Kuna, far fewer than is typical. Some scientists are calling for epicatechin to be regarded as an essential vitamin; in fact, according to at least one expert, the prevalence of the aforementioned diseases could even be regarded as an epicatechin deficiency.

All the more reason to consider the source when it comes to choosing the right chocolate for your health -- you want the minimally-processed dark kind. But before you consider consuming any chocolate at all, I urge you to review some simple guidelines first.

However, please be cautious if you are a protein nutritional type or have high inulin levels that are nearly universally present in those with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or weight to lose. If you are in that group you will want to limit all chocolate intake until your insulin levels normalize.

Related Articles:

Should You Eat Chocolate?

Why You MUST Stay Away From Processed Chocolate

Can Eating Chocolate Feel Better Than a Kiss?

basil keeps flies away; trap fruit flies with vinegar

from Whole Foods email about Whole Green Blog

Several of us have been having issues with fruit flies in our kitchens, so we were thrilled to read Shannon's tip on our Whole Green Blog:

"I find that flies and fruit flies can be quite the nuisance in the summer. (Especially in a house with no screens!) Cider vinegar and/or red wine are sure fire fruit fly traps. Use any sort of container with a small opening. The flies can get in, but not out. Keep the container in the kitchen and change daily. To keep away regular flies, keep a few potted basil plants around in your kitchen. It will keep the flies away as well as give you delicious fresh herbs all year long."

Fwd: Slow Food

Slowing Down

from http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/hungrymind/slowingdown.html

When did you last take the time to truly enjoy a meal? To savor the flavors individually or in concert with a well chosen wine? Perhaps linger over dessert and a final sip of sauterne with friends or family, fully immersed in — and aware of — the pleasure that is food and its partaking?

When did you last contemplate the food before you? Its origins, its history, its journey to you and the people responsible for growing it or raising it or crafting it?

For most of us, the answer is probably "a long time" or even "I can't remember." Some of you may even answer "never." But each day, there are more people who can say "last week" or "yesterday" or even "everyday." These are the folks who have discovered and embraced the concept of Slow Food.

It is an idea whose time has come. Slow Food is the antithesis of "fast food" and "fast life," products of a society in which speed is worshipped at pleasure's expense. It is an attempt to instill a measure of gastronomic composure and reflection into a world obsessed with haste. Its genesis was inevitable in an era when factory farms are replacing artisans, artificial flavors are replacing natural ones, and fads rule.

Slow Food, both the term and the idea, is now embodied in an international organization active in 100 countries. It emerged from a 1986 protest against the opening of a McDonald's restaurant near Rome's famed Spanish Steps. Wielding bowls of penne pasta, Carlo Petrini, the founding father of Slow Food, and his associates, stormed the golden arches and a revolutionary movement was born.

It's a movement with a soul, one that cares deeply about food artisans and their methods, preserving those unique flavors and gastronomic experiences that are disappearing beneath the twin juggernauts of corporate agriculture and mindless bureaucracy. By promoting the pleasures that can be found only in food, Slow Food has alerted many to the value of locally grown food, to food that tastes good, to food that is pure and from which farmers and artisans can make a living.

Slow Food is not about haute cuisine, painstaking preparation, culinary elitism or ostentatious consumption. The opposite is true. It is about peasant food, the unabashed celebration of simple meals and unadulterated flavors from a time when such things mattered. It's also about knowledge and education — knowing about the food we eat and where it comes from and teaching children and adults that there are gastronomic choices they can make that will give them pleasure, improve their health, and help the environment by promoting biodiversity, animal welfare and responsible agriculture.

Slow down. Take those few extra seconds to smell the wine's bouquet, or the perfume of those flowers on the table. Revel in the odors and activities of the kitchen. Enjoy the flavors on your plate and bask in the conviviality and love around your table.

Be curious. Seek out local food artisans. Ask questions about the food you buy. Insist on purity. Educate yourself about the food you need to fuel your life. But most of all, rediscover the sheer joy of eating. Alice Waters was correct when she wrote: "Slow food can teach us the things that really matter — compassion, beauty, community, and sensuality — all the best that humans are capable of."

Bon appétit!

MySpace vs. Workplace

During the day you're all business; at night you like to let loose and have some fun. No problem with that -- unless you share your adventures with others on the Internet.

By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff  |  May 29, 2007

At 35, Eva Montibello is not exactly ancient, and she considers herself reasonably Internet-savvy. Still, it never would have occurred to her to scrutinize a MySpace page the way she would, say, a resume.

When she did so, she found it an eye-opening -- and eye-widening -- experience.

Montibello, the marketing manager at a Newton-based consulting firm, was screening job candidates last year when an application came in from a recent college graduate. As she prepared to set up an interview with the applicant, one of her younger co - workers asked a fateful question: "Did you check out her MySpace page?"

Montibello did so, and there on the applicant's public profile she found what she calls "all kinds of compromising photos," including one of her applicant Jell-O -wrestling. Still, that "wasn't necessarily an issue" to Montibello or her boss. "The real issue came when my boss was interviewing her and mentioned it, and the person was like 'Oh, yeah, it was so funny,' and was so cavalier about it, instead of being responsible," she says.

They ultimately hired someone else. The applicant's blase reaction to questions about her MySpace photos "wasn't the deal - breaker, but it was a factor," says Montibello. "We had another candidate who was equally qualified, and who showed up at the interview and was professional all the way. When you're comparing two or three people, everything matters."

Like it or not -- and many employees emphatically do not -- social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are creating an increasingly murky workplace terrain.

What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens on MySpace can make it into the wider world, whether it is office gossip, racy photographs, or first-person accounts of weekend revelry. Conversations -- about work, about bosses, about co - workers -- that used to take place at water coolers or on barstools now potentially have a much larger audience. With one high-speed collision after another between MySpace and the workplace, the personal and the professional are converging in new and unpredictable ways.

Yet there is no consensus on where the line should be -- or even if there should be a line.

"Whatever I do outside or after work shouldn't be brought up against my work review," contends Lydia Fabiano, 23, of Braintree, who has a MySpace page she allows co - workers to see. "Just about every person has their own thing that they do outside of work. As long as it doesn't hinder your work performance, it should be two separate things. Whatever I do at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night shouldn't matter at all to my boss."

However, employers don't necessarily see it that way. The clash between the interests of employers and the private lives of employees has been on vivid display recently.

The Defense Department, citing concerns about too much "recreational traffic" on MySpace and a dozen other websites, announced that it was cutting off access to the sites by military personnel. A supervisor in an Olive Garden restaurant in Florida was fired after she posted photos or herself, her daughter, and other restaurant employees hoisting empty beer bottles. (The restaurant contended the photos could damage the company's brand). A university in Pennsylvania, contending she had promoted underage drinking, denied a 27-year-old woman a teaching degree just before graduation after she posted a photo of herself that was titled "Drunken Pirate."

She filed a lawsuit against the university, but Harvey Schwartz, a Boston attorney who specializes in civil rights and employment discrimination, says that in general, he doesn't think sites like MySpace will be considered private from a legal standpoint. "I don't really see it as much of a legal issue," says Schwartz, of Rodgers, Powers & Schwartz. "If you're putting something up on the Internet, anybody can read it. I don't think you should complain if somebody reads it who you hadn't planned on reading it.

"This is something that people are going to be learning. It's a new area," he adds . "It's just like when e - mail first happened. People were wild and crazy with what they said on e - mails, and it came back to bite them. People are going to learn the same thing about MySpace."

On the most basic level, employers worry about lost productivity. Lynda Slevoski , vice president of Associated Industries of Massachusetts , says she hears increasing complaints from employers about employees dawdling on MySpace during company time. "Because you can do so many things on MySpace -- you can get e-mail, you can do chat groups, you can have a virtual baby shower -- there are more ways for an employee to be sidetracked at work to do all this stuff," Slevoski says. "At some companies, people are spending more than half their time on MySpace, as opposed to working. And they're utilizing company equipment."

Employees, meanwhile, have their own set of concerns. Some wonder whether employers are using MySpace profiles to violate the privacy of employees or applicants and obtain personal information to which they are not entitled. Warren Agin, a Boston attorney who specializes in Internet law, says employers would run afoul of antidiscrimination laws if they use a MySpace page to learn, say, that a job applicant is gay, and decide not hire him or her on that basis.

"There are many aspects of MySpace profiles that are not legal on job applications," notes Jody Kordana, an administrative assistant at Pittsfield Community Television . "Say a woman goes for a job interview, and she passes the standard recruitment process, and someone goes to her MySpace page and discovers she's a single mother or she had stated something about her difficulties in finding good child care." That, Kordana says, could lead some employers to unfairly conclude "she might not be reliable."

"MySpace is a social site. The whole idea is to make some friends, or to have old friends find you, on a social level," says Kordana, 34, who also works as an actress. "And we should be completely free to do that. But on a professional level, we're having to censor ourselves from potential future employers. How much control do we want the companies to have over our private lives? If you are proving yourself in the workplace and you are not putting the image of your employer at risk, I feel that your private life is yours."

While the issue sorts itself out, there will continue to be episodes that illustrate how MySpace has complicated the relationship not just between employers and employees, but among employees as well.

Take the case of Dana Schaeffer of Burlington. When she started a new job a year ago, Schaeffer, now 42, required training from two co - workers who were in their 20s. At home one night about two weeks after she started the job, she was on her own MySpace page when, she recalls, she thought to herself: "Hmm, I wonder in anybody in my office has it. They seem like a pretty techno-savvy place." So she typed in the name of one co - worker, checked out his MySpace page, then typed in the name of another, and went to that page . . . and was stopped cold. There was a vituperative message about her, directed to a co - worker. She went to that person's page, and found an even more vicious reply to the original message.

It was devastating for Schaeffer. "They went back and forth on how much they couldn't stand working with me," she says. "I was absolutely, absolutely horrified. It was very hurtful."

She said nothing to her co - workers, and still hasn't. But in hindsight, Schaeffer has figured out what she should have said to them -- and they are words that could stand as a mantra for the modern workplace: "I have a MySpace page, and I know you do too."

Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com.  

Amgen sponsored the Tour of California

Didn't the Fat Cyclist suggest something like this on his blog?  I think he wrote (facetiously) that drug makers should sponsor racing teams to show how well their drugs worked.
--Phillip

from http://www.boston.com/sports/other_sports/cycling/articles/2007/05/24/long_road_ahead/?page=3

Cycling and doping have become so linked in recent years that Amgen , which invented the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO) frequently abused by riders, decided to sponsor the Tour of California as a way of stressing EPO's benefits for people suffering from anemia.

"We're using this as a platform to educate the public," said Mary Klem , spokeswoman for the California-based firm, which insisted that the race's athletes be tested for EPO, which is banned in Olympic sports. "Our mission is to serve patients. Our medicines are vital to people with serious illnesses."