| WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ | |
 http://csua.com/feed/ | |
| ||||||
| 5/23 |
| 2006/5/30-6/2 [Health/Disease/General, Health/Women] UID:43220 Activity:nil |
5/29 My fitness trainer/nutritionist says I should try to eat all
organic food from now on. He claims my American wife is huge
because of lack of exercise (which we're addressing right
now), and also because of all the excess growth hormones
we take in from milk, cows, and chicken. He claims that
Europeans are thinner because they exercise more (no dispute
in that) and also they eat more organic food and meat from
happy animals that exercise more and are injected with less
hormones and antibiotics. He claims that unlike US meat,
European meat aren't subject to carbon dioxidation and red
dyes to make them look more appealing. He also claims that
European cows are are injected with less antibiotics and
hormones, so while they look smaller and thus less profitable
to sell and more expensive to buy than the US cows, they're
much healthier to eat. How much of what he says is real
and/or bullshit? Are Americans really eating much more growth
hormones, antibiotics, and other residual chemicals than
the Europeans? Do extra hormones really make you unhealthy?
\_ Um "organic" does not necessarily mean "better". Your guy is
full of shit. The average European plate is smaller, food is more
expensive, and public transportation is generally better (I didn't
see that many fat people in New York.) Pesticides and additives
and what not don't have much to do with your fitness, as poster
below correctly says. Avoid corn starch, white flour, processed
sugar, etc. etc. etc., whole books have been written on how to
eat well. A good rule I saw was that a portion of protein should
be about the size of a deck of cards. -John
\_ He's right from a nutrition point of view. I'm not sure it
matters from a trainer point of view. That is, it's not good
for you to eat hormone-laced beef but by doing so, although you
may be less healthy, you'll probably not weigh any more/less
than a person who eats 100% organic beef (all else equal).
\_ What is true is that Europe has been moving more and more towards
not allowing really bad ways of factory farming animals, while
in the USA the government keeps relaxing the rules unless some
disaster happens (like mad cow). We use 8 times as many anti-
biotics for livestock as people in this country.
\_ Yes, but our cow is bigger and more profitable. Case
in point, look at the government endorsed Monsanto
Corporation and how their products increased farmers'
yields and saved farm families from going bankrupt.
Case in point, most of our milk today is produced using
rBGH, a synthetic hormone that has helped countless American
girls blosom into full bodied women; European women on
the other hand look unhealthily anorexic because they
lack rBGH intake in their dairy products. Hormones +
antibiotics=good profit + beautiful women. I guess you
regulation-loving communists will never understand it.
\- i think that is horseshit. many europeans eat smaller
portion sizes [why a friend of mine immediately began
gaining weight after moving back from london/amsterdam/paris
back to SF. as an illustration compare an "italian pizza"
with a usa pizza]. why are you approaching this in generic
terms? are you interested in discussing nutrition and diet
\- Your brain has been classified as: small. ok thx.
\_ Re: portion size in US vs Europe etc:
http://csua.org/u/g15
or do you have a fitness goal. assuming the latter, dont
worry about "the europeans" and just figure out what you
should do exercise/dietwise to get there. i would start by
tracking your food to see where your calorie/fat/protein
\_ proper dieting with strict calorie intake and moderate
exercise are good. Lack of unnecessary growth hormones,
fat, and anti-biotics would be even better. rBGH,
a growth hormone banned for health reasons in every
industrialized country, is still used heavily in the U.S.
Monsanto's own data revealed that feeding IGF-1 (from
to rBGH) to adult rats for only two weeks significantly
increased body and liver weights, and bone length.
More critically, increased IGF-1 blood levels have been
incriminated as a major cause of cancer. IGF-1 induces
uncontrolled growth of normal human breast cells in tissue
culture, and has been incriminated in their transformation
to cancer cells.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/rBGH/milkismilk20405.cfm
is coming from and in what quantity. for example, at some
point i discovered i was ingesting maybe 1/3 of my calories
from sugary-liquids [fruit juice, orange juice, coke etc].
maybe you should ask your trainer/nutritionist what he/she
thinks about fruitcake. |
| 5/23 |
|
| csua.org/u/g15 -> www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/03/07/MNGRT5G2BV1.DTL For the last 30 years, the amount of food designed to be eaten at one sitting has ballooned to such an extent that most diners no longer have any idea what constitutes a reasonable amount of food. A single 20-ounce bottle of soda is actually 2 1/2 servings. Most Americans wouldn't know a sensible portion of pie if it hit them in the face. As a result, a cadre of the nation's top doctors and nutrition researchers agree that ground zero of the obesity crisis is this: America has no idea how to eat normally. "Super-sizing is a public health issue of the highest priority," said Harvard University's Dr. George Blackburn, a professor of nutrition and surgery, in testimony at a recent hearing of the Food and Drug Administration's obesity working group, whose recommendations are due out this month. Super-sizing has become so controversial that McDonald's, the corporation that popularized the concept, last week announced it was discontinuing its 42- ounce super-size soda and its 7-ounce super-size order of fries at its 13,000 US stores as part of a "healthy lifestyle initiative." Of course, customers can still get a large order of fries, which is 62 ounces -- still well above the original 24-ounce order of fries that McDonald's began serving in the 1950s. Portion creep really took hold in the 1970s, when McDonald's introduced a large order of fries and packaged-food manufacturers became enamored with the profits to be made from jumbo portions. Since then, foods like hamburgers and bagels have increased in size by 2 to 5 times. Even the 1997 revision of the "Joy of Cooking'' kicked up portion sizes, lowering the number of servings per recipe but keeping the amount of food the same. As a result, women are eating 300 more calories a day and men 168 more than they did 20 years ago, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And as any nutritionist will tell you, all it takes is 100 extra calories a day to gain 10 pounds a year. To work off those 100 calories, you'd have to walk 25 minutes each day. Physicians like Blackburn propose a simple fix: Begin a public health campaign to reduce by 10 percent the amount we eat every day. That's the least we can do in a country where two-thirds of adults are overweight. But to other health experts, getting the country to push away from the table will not be a simple matter of willpower; FDA-mandated serving sizes on packaged food and the US Department of Agriculture's Food Guide Pyramid guidelines have so confused consumers that people simply don't know how to eat realistically, they say. Furthermore, Americans are programmed to eat more than they should and can't stop eating even when they are full or the food doesn't taste good. "Part of the way our brain gets the message we're full is satiety, but we're not getting it," said Dr. David Spiegel, associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. We overeat, he says, because much of the food that makes up the American diet is inexpensive, dense with calories and highly processed. But it isn't satisfying, so we eat more to try to feel full. In food-centric European countries, he said, people aren't as obese because the quality of food is healthier and better tasting; Certainly, the portions are smaller -- even of junk food. A New York University study examining fast food in Europe in 1998-99 showed the largest order of fries in the United States contained 610 calories. That's one reason why obesity rates can be high among the children of new immigrants, said Nancy Lee Hsieh, who coordinates the nutritional needs for critical care patients at Stanford Hospital and Clinics. Hsieh herself experienced a sort of dietary whiplash when she arrived from Taiwan in 1972. "You're just not used to so many high-calorie products and sweets. Immigrants always have come on the promise of a land of plenty. Thanksgiving, which celebrates the first European immigrants, is based on eating until we're just about sick. The all- you-can-eat restaurant sprung up as early as the 1800s, when Chinese immigrants in San Francisco were looking for a way to attract hungry gold miners. It's no wonder we can't put down the fork, said Brian Wansink, a professor who founded the Food & Brand Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His team recently conducted a series of creative studies examining how certain cues and packaging sizes can make people eat more. In one experiment, students were invited to the lab for tomato soup. Others ate from a bowl with a hidden pump that kept them from getting to the bottom. The students with the trick bowl ended up eating a third more soup. In another, Wansink and his team took to a Chicago-area theater and handed 161 moviegoers coupons for free popcorn and a drink. One group was given fresh, hot popcorn in medium and large sizes. The other group received 14-day-old popcorn, also in medium and large buckets. People who received the larger buckets, whether stale or fresh, ate up to 61 percent more popcorn than those who got the smaller buckets. Those with the large containers of fresh popcorn still overate, but they stopped a little sooner than those with the stale popcorn. The researchers concluded that given better-tasting food, people will still eat more if given more, but they'll slow down sooner because they feel satisfied sooner. That's not to say exercise doesn't matter, the researchers said. "Most people think that portion sizes and 'evil companies' are responsible for us being overweight, and I think they are no more responsible than those things that keep us from being less active, such as garage door openers, elevators, PlayStation and the Internet," Wansink said. Peter Meehan, head of Newman's Own Organics, based in Aptos (Santa Cruz County), said food manufacturers walk a fine line when it comes to making snacks that satisfy, yet keep people coming back for more. He said it's common practice for food manufacturers to pull back a little on flavorings in some foods so consumers will not be completely satisfied with a small amount. "If you put too much coating or flavor on a chip, you say, 'Hey - that's good. It costs just pennies to increase the size of the package, but consumers are willing to pay much more to buy it. In fact, the bigger sizes often seem like a bargain -- after all, who can resist getting two fast-food pies for $1 or a 32-ounce Big Gulp that is half the price, per ounce, than its more reasonably sized 16- ounce cousin? For consumers, navigating the labels of food packaging can range from challenging to laughable. The US Department of Agriculture determines a different set of serving sizes on its food pyramid, based on general consumption amounts and health studies. Under USDA guidelines, one slice of bread, for example, is one serving, even though people usually eat two slices in a meal. For example, one frozen pot pie is listed as providing two servings, which allows the manufacturer to list 590 calories per serving even though most consumers eat the whole thing for a total of 1,140 calories, half of the calories most men need in a day. The FDA is under pressure from the Federal Trade Commission, consumer groups such as Center for Science in the Public Interest and professional health groups such as the American Dietetic Association to make serving sizes on packages less confusing. Although the FDA's obesity working group is studying nutrition labels, no formal proposal about serving size is under consideration. The USDA, on the other hand, is revamping the food pyramid and its related government recommendations next year. Restaurants are feeling similar pressure to reconsider portion sizes, although a study last year in the Journal of American Medical Association showed that although portions of salty snacks, fast-food hamburgers, fruit drinks and other products have increased significantly since 1977, restaurant portions were smaller. Serving sizes are a particular peeve of Emily Luchetti, pastry chef at Farallon restaurant in San Francisco, who has not changed the size of her desserts for years. She simply serves what she thinks is the best size for the... |
| www.organicconsumers.org/rBGH/milkismilk20405.cfm Despite Industry Propaganda Monsanto's Bovine Growth Hormone Still Threatens Public Health The "Milk is Milk" Industry Campaign Threatens Public Health CHICAGO, Feb. Last month, the Hudson Institute's agribusiness-funded Center for Global Food Issues launched an aggressive "Milk is Milk" campaign to assure consumers that there is no difference between natural milk and that from cows injected with Monsanto's genetically-engineered or recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) to increase milk production and profitability. This campaign is also aimed at preventing organic dairy farmers and retailers from making "false or misleading claims to be hormone-free, (and) nutritional and animal welfare perceptions, such as happier cows." Responding to Hudson's complaints, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it will take action against such misleading marketing practices. However, contrary to Hudson, there is a wealth of scientific information on the toxic veterinary effects of rBGH, major differences between rBGH and natural milk, and cancer risks posed by rBGH milk. Revealingly, Hudson uses the term rBST, recombinant Bovine Somatotropin, avoiding any reference to the word "Hormone" in Monsanto's original acronym rBGH. Cows hyper-stimulated by repeated rBGH injections are seriously stressed. Such evidence, detailed in confidential Monsanto files submitted to the FDA in 1987, was anonymously leaked to one of us (Epstein) in November 1989. These files revealed widespread pathological lesions, infertility, and chronic mastitis, treated with illegal antibiotics. Acting on this information, in 1990 the House Committee on Government Operations charged "that Monsanto and the FDA have chosen to suppress and manipulate animal health test data-in efforts to approve commercial use" of rBGH. This charge is also consistent with the Committee's 1986 report, "Human Food Safety and the Regulation of Animal Drugs." This concluded that the "FDA has consistently disregarded its responsibility-has repeatedly put what it perceives are interests of veterinarians and the livestock industry ahead of its legal obligation to protect consumers-jeopardizing the health and safety of consumers of meat, milk and poultry." By 1994, when FDA approved the use of rBGH under Monsanto's trade name Posilac, the label insert, seen only by dairy farmers, admitted that "its use is associated with increased frequency of use of medication in cows for mastitis," and some 20 other toxic effects. Such information on the Posilac label is clearly inconsistent with Hudson's criticism of "happier cow" claims by organic dairy farmers. Also contrary to Hudson, rBGH milk differs qualitatively and quantitatively from natural milk. Fat levels, particularly long chain saturated fatty acids incriminated in heart disease, are increased, while levels of a thyroid hormone enzyme are increased. Furthermore, the high incidence of chronic mastitis in rBGH injected cows results in contamination of their milk with pus, and with antibiotics used to treat the infection, with risks of allergic reactions and nationwide antibiotic resistance. Less well recognized is contamination of rBGH milk with the hormone itself, and immunological evidence of absorption of the hormone from the intestine. Even more seriously, rBGH milk is contaminated with high levels of the natural Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1), which regulates cell growth, division and multiplication throughout life, particularly in infants and young children; Eli Lilly, in its application for registration of rBGH, admitted that IGF-1 blood levels of injected cows are increased up to ten-fold. IGF-1 is resistant to pasteurization and digestion, and is readily absorbed from the small intestine. Monsanto's own data revealed that feeding IGF-1 to adult rats for only two weeks significantly increased body and liver weights, and bone length. More critically, increased IGF-1 blood levels have been incriminated as a major cause of cancer. IGF-1 induces uncontrolled growth of normal human breast cells in tissue culture, and has been incriminated in their transformation to cancer cells. Some 30 publications, dating back to 1985, have reported strong associations between increased IGF-1 blood levels with increased risks of colon, and breast cancers. A 1998 study, based on 300 healthy nurses, showed that elevated IGF-1 blood levels are strongly associated with up to a seven-fold increased risk of developing premenopausal breast cancer. This is the highest known risk, approximating to that of a strong family history. More recent studies have also shown strong associations between increased IGF-1 blood levels and prostate cancer. Of related concern is evidence that elevated IGF-1 levels inhibit the body's normal ability to protect itself from microscopic cancers by the natural process of programmed cell destruction, known as "apoptosis." This promotes the growth and invasiveness of early cancers, and also decreases their responsiveness to chemotherapy. Acting on this cumulative evidence, a 1999 European Commission report by a team of internationally recognized experts concluded: "Avoidance of rBGH dairy products in favor of natural products would appear to be the most practical and immediate "dietary intervention to . Furthermore, this warning has been endorsed (in our 2002 publication in a leading scientific journal) by over 100 leading independent experts in cancer prevention and public health, besides citizen activist groups. This endorsement was coupled with insistence that the public has an absolute right-to-know of information on avoidable causes of cancer, a democratic right which the agribusiness and FDA continue to subvert. MEDIA CONTACTS Samuel S Epstein, MD, professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, and Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition, 2121 West Taylor Street MC 922, Chicago, IL 60612; Ronnie Cummins, National Director, Organic Consumers Association, 6101 Cliff Estate Road, Little Marais, MN 55614; Fair Use Notice: The material on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes. It may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of scientific, environmental, economic, social justice and human rights issues etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 USC Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have an interest in using the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The information on this site does not constitute legal or technical advice. |