Creating a New Mission Statement

Interesting article in the Times about creating a mission statement for self improvement in life. My mission to save this article has been accomplished!

More Red Meat, More Mortality

The Times has a very short article on a study correlating red meat consumption with a higher chance of mortality.

Got Milk? You Don't Need It

A good article in the Times about the issues with drinking milk.

This article also contains a link to an article about issues with the drugs used to combat acid reflux.

More food leads to more weight

An interesting article about a mathemetician's findings about why there's an obesity epidemic in the U.S.. His answer: more cheaply available food since the 1970's.

Being Optimistic

This is a good read in the Times today.

Best and Worst of Pesticides in Produce

Want to know what produce rates the best or worst in terms of pesticides?  My friend Barbara told me about this handy guide from the Environmental Working Group:

http://static.ewg.org/reports/2011/foodnews/pdf/2011EWGPesticideGuide.pdf

Cancer is a Preventable Disease

Something to read...

Superbugs

I'm not much of a fan of Nicholas Kristof, but he did have a good op-ed in yesterday's Sunday Times. It was about the meat-borne bacteria that are becoming immune to antibiotics (KPC Klebsiella is resistant to all FDA-approved antibiotics). I wonder if Kristof was prompted to write this column after seeing Food, Inc himself.

Anyway, it's good to have more publicity about how dangerous eating meat can be with the way it's produced and that it requires so much in antibiotics. In the USA, 70 percent of antibiotics are used for healthy livestock. 14% for sick livestock, and 16% for humans and their pets.

My only quibble with Kristof's column is that he says vegetarians are vulnerable to antibiotic resistance nurtured in hog barns. He continues:

Microbes swap genes, so antibiotic resistance developed in pigs can jump to microbes that infect humans in hospitals, locker rooms, schools or homes.

I don't doubt that this is true, but I am very skeptical about the chances of that happening in comparison to it happening because of eating meat. These microbes can jump to carnivores too! Kristof is never one to rock the boat, and he seems to be implying here that you're no safer being a vegetarian than being a carnivore. In this whole context of bacteria, I very much doubt this.

Bone Vitality

For some reason I was awake and listening to the People's Pharmacy on KERA 6am Saturday morning. I hardly ever listen to this show in part for the obvious reason, but I felt fortunate to listen to this one. It was on bone vitality. The first guest was medical journalist Michael Castleman who with a coauthor recently came out with the book Building Bone Vitality: A Revolutionary Diet Plan to Prevent Bone Loss and Reverse Osteoporosis.

At least in the radio show, Castleman's main point was that taking calcium supplements Or drinking alot of milk has not been shown to make much of a difference in bone vitality. Rather, a diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables plus exercise is the best prescription for maintaining strong bones. The reason is that there are other nutrients besides calcium that are necessary for bone health (I think manganese and phosphorus were a couple mentioned), and one gets these from fruits and vegetables.

Also pointed out was that a diet high in animal protein causes the blood to become acidic, and this causes calcium to come from the bones to maintain a ph balance in the blood. I first read about protein leeching calcium from the bones 20 years ago during the early days of my vegetarian period. Perhaps this view is gaining traction.

The second guest on the show was Walter Willett, MD, DrPH, and a chairman of the nutrition department at Harvard's school of public health. He was of course more politically non-committal about Castleman's claims, particularly about animal protein, but he didn't refute Castleman's calcium claim. He was behind a diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables. What nutritionist wouldn't be?

One small negative about the show is that Joe Graedon, one of the show's hosts, seemed to distance himself from Castleman's protein claim ("it's out there") when talking with Willett. Yet when he and his wife Terry were talking to Castleman earlier, there wasn't any skepticism expressed on either hosts' part. A little two-faced I thought.

Toothless Paper Tiger

Here is a very good interview by Kathy Freston at huffingtonpost.com of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. Dr. Esselstyn explains how the western diet is the great contributor to heart disease.

E. coli contamination in ground beef

Ben Garvin, New York Times

A good feature article in the Times today regarding E. coli contamination in ground beef. Makes one think more carefully when buying the stuff.

With video and Graphic: Anatomy of a Burger

Two weeks in a row on Sundays for good feature articles. Last week's article to come.