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The Glycemic Index is a very useful way to determine how quickly the carbohydrate (sugar) in a food will be absorbed into the blood stream, but the Glycemic Load is an even better measure of determining the insulin response and therefore how fattening a food is.

The Glycemic Index is a list of foods that compares how quickly 50 grams of carbohydrate within the food will raise your blood sugar as compared to 50 grams of sugar alone.

To calculate the Glycemic Index of a food, scientists measure out the quantity of a particular food needed to obtain 50 grams of carbohydrate, they feed that quantity of food to test subjects, and measure the blood sugar response.

They then compare the blood sugar response of the food with the response from 50 grams of straight sugar, which is given a GI value of 100. For example, four slices of white bread has about 50 grams of carbohydrate, and gives a blood-sugar response of roughly 70 to 73% that of straight sugar, and therefore has a GI of 73, if we take the high number.

The more quickly the sugar is dumped into the blood stream, the higher the insulin response, the greater the fat storage and chance for disease. The closer the number is to 100, the closer the food acts like sugar in the body and the more fattening and the more destructive it is. A GI value of 55 or less is considered low.

The problem with the Glycemic Index is that although it looks at how quickly the sugar that is in the food is put into the blood stream, it does not consider serving size at all. One might have to eat a whole lot of some foods to get that 50 grams of carbohydrate in order to figure out the GI.

For example, it takes 1 1/2 pounds of carrots to get the 50 grams of carbs upon which the GI is based. Not many people eat 1 1/2 pounds of carrots at one sitting however. Glycemic Load takes into account serving size, which therefore provides an even more useful number.

Glycemic Load is calculated by taking the number of grams of carbohydrate in the serving of the food being consumed, multiplying that with the GI value, and then dividing by 100. I like this boiled potato example, written by Bill Campbell, PhD, CSCS.

“For example, a boiled potato has a glycemic index of 101 and a Mars® candy bar has a glycemic index of 65. However, the average serving size of a baked potato is about 150 grams (5.3 oz) and contains 17 grams of carbohydrate. Conversely, a Mars® candy bar serving size is only 60 grams (2.1 oz) but contains 40 grams of carbohydrate. The boiled potato has a glycemic load of 17, while the Mars bar is 26. Thus, even though the potato has a higher glycemic index, the Mars® candy bar has a greater effect on blood glucose than the potato even though the size of the Mars® candy bar is less than half that of the potato.”

A Glycemic Load of under 10 is considered low and would make for the best food choices, particularly if they are unprocessed. Click here for a list of foods and their Glycemic Index and Load.

Note how almost all the grains and cereals, even ones considered healthy like steel-cut oats, have a high glycemic load. For those that fatten up easily or are at higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease or cancer, eating pastured steak or eggs along with lots of veggies would therefore make for a healthier breakfast choice.

These lists contain the foods specified alone.  One can also greatly affect the blood-sugar/insulin response by eating the food with protein and/or fat which blunts the blood sugar response. Putting butter on a slice of bread or cream on porridge makes it less fattening than having the bread or porridge alone.

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This post was written by Dr. Jo Ann Holoka, Jacksonville Bioidentical Hormones Expert. Dr. Holoka is part of BodyLogicMD, a network of highly trained physicians across the country who use BHRT (bioidentical hormone therapy) integrated with nutrition and fitness planning to help those suffering from hormone imbalance.

Our diet plays a crucial role in how youthful we look and feel. If you want to maintain optimal health in your 40’s, 50’s and beyond, it’s important that your diet includes foods that have been scientifically proven to reduce the effects of aging. The trouble with aging is that too many of us think of it as being a problem that must be solved. When in reality, it’s inevitable. However, while we may not be able to turn back the hands of time, there are steps that women and men can take to improve how well we age, and it all starts with what we put into our bodies.

If you wish to follow in the footsteps of Ageless celebrities like Suzanne Somers, there’s no need to waste your money on costly supplements or “miracle” remedies. If you’re still searching for the esoteric fountain of youth, a good place to start would be at your local grocery store.

1. Lypocene – Lycopene is a nutrient found in a variety of foods, such as tomatoes, watermelon, guava, pink grapefruit, papaya and rose hips. This nutrient works as an antioxidant, helping to rid the body of harmful free radicals and oxidative stress. Studies suggest that lycopene may reduce the risk of heart disease, several types of cancer and even osteoporosis.
2. Beta-carotene – Beta-carotene can help to prevent macular degeneration, night blindness and other vision problems. Additionally, beta-carotene has been shown to boost collage levels, giving skin more elasticity and improving the overall quality and texture of skin. Foods that contain beta-carotene include carrots, apricots, lettuce, peppers and spinach.
3. Flavonoids – Flavonoids also have great antioxidant properties. They also help reduce inflammation, which is at the root of a variety of disease and medical conditions. Perhaps the most notable flavonoid is resveratrol. Resveratrol is found in most red wines and has been shown to prevent blood clots, reduce LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and prevent damage to blood vessels, reducing the risk of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease.
4. Vitamin D – It’s estimated that nearly 90 percent of American adults are vitamin D deficient. Many experts believe that vitamin D deficiency is to blame for a higher incidence of cancer and heart disease in American women and men. Vitamin D is found naturally in foods such as milk, cheese, butter, eggs, fish and oysters. It’s important to have your vitamin D levels assessed by your doctor to see if supplementation is necessary bring you within a normal range. Recommendations vary, but a daily intake in the range of 800 to 1,000 IU is likely to benefit most adults.
5. Breakfast – We’ve all heard the stale cliché “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Still the vast majority of us are “breakfast skippers.” Eating a well-balanced breakfast is an excellent way to jumpstart the body’s metabolism. Numerous studies have shown that people who skip breakfast are more likely to deal with weight gain and other consequences of “starvation eating.” The bottom line is: skipping breakfast is setting yourself up for failure.

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Just as Vitamin D did in the last couple of years, Vitamin K will soon explode into everyone’s consciousness, and with good reason. Vitamin K helps prevent osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and some cancers like non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and prostate cancer in particular.

Vitamin K is a fat soluble vitamin that is not on the radar of most people, yet it is very important for many bodily functions. It comes in two main forms, K1 and K2, but it is the K2 version which seems to be particularly helpful to the above diseases.

Vitamin K1 is most well known for its role in blood clotting, whereas Vitamin K2 is now understood to regulate calcium by keeping it out of the places we don’t want it, like arteries and joints, and putting into the places we do, like bones and teeth.

Vitamin D3 is responsible for helping us absorb calcium, and Vitamin K2 is responsible for directing where that calcium goes. By controlling where calcium goes, Vitamin K2 helps prevent both heart disease and osteoporosis. So taking that calcium supplement without having enough bio-available Vitamin D3 and K2 may be more harmful than helpful.

Inflammation of the arteries is the root cause of cardiovascular disease, which in itself is largely caused by an inflammatory diet that includes too much omega 6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, primarily from the vegetable oils that we are told to cook with like corn oil, soy oil, canola oil etc., along with too much sugar, flour products and processed food. The best solution in my opinion is to stop eating those foods, which would prevent systemic body inflammation in the first place.

Once the arteries are inflamed, the body’s response is to send cholesterol, a powerful antioxidant, to the area to repair the damage. If there is not enough K2, calcium is also frequently deposited at the damaged site, which results in plaque building up in the arteries. Vitamin D3 and K2 work together to prevent the calcification of the arteries from occurring. There are many scientific studies that suggest that increased Vitamin K2 intake decreases risk as well as deaths from heart disease.

Vitamin K2 plays a key role in preventing and possibly reversing osteoporosis. Osteocalcin is a protein that “turned on” by Vitamin K2, and its role is to organize the deposition of calcium and phosphorus into the boney matrix as well as into teeth. If there is not enough K2 around to turn on the osteocalcin, the body can’t properly get the minerals into the bones. Furthermore, Vitamin K2 is also
keeps calcium out of the cartilage at the joint surfaces.

Our primary source of K2 is our gut, as it is made by the good bacteria that live there, so any digestive problems such as ulcerative colitis, celiac disease or Crohn's may result in a deficiency. So might a diet high in processed food, sugar and flour which promotes the growth of unhealthy gut bacteria, thereby crowding out the good bacteria that makes the K2. Broad-spectrum antibiotics would also destroy the gut bacteria making it impossible to manufacture K2. If you’ve been on antibiotics, take probiotics to repopulate your gut with good bacteria. Liver problems may also interfere with K2, due to the liver’s importance in vitamin storage. Also since Vitamin K is fat soluable, very low fat diets make it harder to assimilate.

K2 is most plentiful in the Japanese fermented soy food called natto, but I admit when I took a look at the stuff I could not bring myself to eat it. Looked like brown, moldy soybeans covered in slime. Then again, perhaps if I suffered from heart disease I would plug my nose and gobble it down, as studies show that those that eat the most natto have the fewest deaths from the disease. Other food sources of K2 albeit in much smaller quantities include goose-liver pate, hard and soft cheeses made from raw, pastured milk, pastured egg yolks and butter. K1, needed for blood clotting, is found  primarily in leafy-green vegetables like collard greens, spinach and kale, and a small amount of this K1 the body converts into K2.

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People choose to be vegetarian for many reasons, such has to avoid supporting cruelty to animals, for personal health, and for the health of the planet. Is vegetarianism really the best choice for achieving these objectives?

I’ve spoken to a lot of vegetarians as they come through my door for various reasons, and I know that the decision to avoid eating meat is not taken lightly. These people have struggled with the ethics of the issue, and have concluded that vegetarianism fits best with their integrity.

I too have given the issue a great deal of thought, but ultimately I’ve concluded that it is possible to eat a diet that includes meat in a way that fully values the life of an animal as much as a vegetarian would, and does not compromise the planet.

Many people believe that eating red meat is inherently unhealthy. They believe that red meat causes cancer and heart disease among other things, so becoming vegetarian would ensure greater health. But what would one have eaten 1000 years ago if one lived in a northern climate where the land was covered in snow for 6 months of the year? What would one eat in the middle of winter? Would it be even possible to be a vegetarian under those circumstances? I would bet that in the winter, animal foods would provide most if not all of the food eaten.

According to scientists and medical doctors that travelled the globe visiting traditional cultures before contact with "white man's food", those cultures were all extremely healthy, had perfect teeth and bone structure, and NONE of those cultures were vegetarian. They did not even have words in their language for today's chronic diseases.

Might it be that the reason red meat is linked to these diseases is that we are eating red meat from feed-lot animals that are not given their natural diet but instead one filled with antibiotics and hormones? They are kept confined in tiny pens so they get no exercise, and they are never let outside? Sick animals cannot make a healthy human.

However there is no evidence to show that eating meat from animals that ate their natural diet during their lifetime, and spent their days outside in the fresh air and sunshine is unhealthy. Pastured meat has a completely different fat profile than GMO corn-fed factory farmed meat. Pastured meat is higher in omega 3s and ALA, and is lower in saturated fat. Pastured animals have no need for antibiotics as they are healthy.

Most often when someone initially becomes a vegetarian their health improves dramatically, not only because this diet forces one to eat more vegetables, but also because usually vegetarians eat a whole-food diet and are more likely to avoid processed and packaged food. They are more likely to cook their food fresh, and will eat more of their food raw. These are huge steps in the right direction for improving health.

But human beings are omnivores, meaning our digestive tracts are designed to eat flesh foods. Some nutrients that we need to be healthy are extremely difficult to get without eating meat, and after a few years on a vegetarian diet, health can become compromised. A diet without meat means a diet very high in carbohydrates, which might be very problematic in sensitive individuals, even if those carbohydrates are whole.

If one needs animal foods to be healthy, is it a good idea to avoid them altogether? Do we fault the lion for eating a deer? Should the lion become a vegetarian too? Everywhere one looks in nature, life eats life and often killing in nature is far more brutal than what one would find in a meat-packing plant.

I agree that factory farming is terrible for the animals that have to endure that life. The animals spend their entire lives indoors crowded together, often standing or lying in their own excrement. They frequently don’t even have enough room to turn around. Beaks of chickens and tails of pigs are cut off. They are fed an unnatural diet they would never choose for themselves – one that accelerates their growth so they can be slaughtered sooner.

And because the pace that big-agribusiness animals are moved through the killing floor, sometimes the kill isn't clean, and the animals also suffer a painful death. Anyone with a heart that sees animals in these terrible, smelly, over-crowded places would be horrified, and it is understandable that knowing of such cruelty, one might choose to become a vegetarian.

But what if the animal lives its life fully expressing its cowness, or chickeness, or pigness, ending with only one bad day? Cows and chickens out in the fields, the cows doing what cows do best – grazing with the herd, and chickens doing what they do best – scratching in the cow paddies for the maggots they like so much. Pigs wallowing in mud to keep themselves cool. To me it is different if I know the animal had a good life, and that I’m eating it after its one bad day. After all, we all will have to face that one bad day too, at some point.

If we were all to become vegan (a vegetarian that consumes no animal products at all, including no eggs nor dairy), which is certainly what some vegans believe is the right thing to do, one might ask what would become of the animals we currently raise to eat? I think if there were no more need for them, it would make no economic sense to raise them, and they would soon go the way of the dodo bird. Do we really want a planet with no cows, chickens or pigs? Would cows, chickens and pigs choose extinction for their species if given the choice?

I also wonder sometimes why we don’t seem to have the same concern over killing plants to eat. They are also life-forms that communicate and interact with other life-forms. Is it only life that has eyes and a beating heart that ethically we should not kill? Furthermore, many plants actually eat animal protein in the form of insects, so if it is okay for a plant to eat meat, surely we can feel okay about it too?

Then there is the question of saving the planet. Raising animals in factory farms is not sustainable. The “excrement ponds” full of antibiotic and hormone-filled animal waste leaches into ground water and runs off into streams, polluting our drinking water as well harming the fish and amphibian life. There is a huge carbon footprint farming this way due to the chemical fertilizers used to grow the feed, and the transportation costs to carry the corn to the animals. Feed-lot animals are raised on oil. Not raising animals this way would be far friendlier to the planet, and this is another reason that people turn to vegetarianism.

But the other option is to raise animals on solar power, not oil. Fence off a portion of a field, let the cows in and allow them to eat the food they are meant to eat – grass. The following day, move the electric fence to another part of the field, and give the cows access to fresh pasture. Three days later, let the chickens into the area that the cows were, so they can tramp through the cow paddies and find the maggots and other goodies. The chickens will also fertilize the field with their manure, and they will spread all this manure around with their pecking and scratching. Because the grass is now short due the the grazing, the roots will drop to match the height of the leaf above the ground. This further nourishes the soil, and causes rapid grass growth. In about 5 weeks, that area of pasture can be grazed again, and the process repeats itself.

The key to make the system work is it must be a mixed farm rather than a one crop / one animal farm. We need to copy how nature works, and help it along to make it more efficient. Plants nourish the animals, which nourish the plants with their waste, and around the circle we go. No antibiotics needed since the animals are not sick. No chemical fertilizers needed because the animal waste provides the nourishment the plants need. Far less expensive an operation, because there are fewer big, expensive, permanent buildings involved. Chickens are moved from field to field in light, wheeled structures that can be pulled by a tractor, and the cows can walk themselves. The cows are happy, the chickens are happy, the farmer is happy, and to top if off, this system of farming improves soil year to year, and it sequesters carbon! For more on this, read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, see Food Inc. or Fresh. Furthermore, this system of farming raises an enormous amount of food – as much or more than a factory farm.

We need to honour the food that nourishes us, and say thank you to the animals and plants that were sacrificed for our meal. This can be as much a spiritual practice as the spirituality that people seek by becoming vegetarian. We CAN choose what food we eat carefully, making sure the animals we eat lived a good life and only had one bad day rather than a lifetime of bad days. We CAN choose to shop from farmers who grow food in a sustainable way, and replenish the earth rather than deplete it by only choosing pastured animals along with organic, biodynamic or permiculture farming methods. In this way, even if we do choose to include animal foods in our diet, we can feel good about giving our bodies, our spirit, our conscience, and our planet what it needs to be healthy.

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I had no idea that GMO trees existed until about a month ago, and my first reaction was – what's the big deal? I forgot about the fruit from trees, so I didn't immediately understand the dangers they pose. GMO trees are currently being grown for fruit, pulp and paper in 100 to 150 test plots around the US today, especially in the south. They are also grown in other hot countries around the world. This article is based on the short documentary narrated by Dr. David Suzuki called “A Silent Forest”.

Unlike carefully breeding animals or plants of the same species to bring out specific desirable traits through many generations (vertical inheritance), genetic modification involves inserting the DNA of one species into another completely unrelated species to create something that could never happen through cross-pollination or hybridization (horizontal inheritance).

The biotechnologists have no real control over where the genes of one species are going to land within the genome of the other species, and they have absolutely no idea of what the expression of that gene will be in the context of its new, unrelated genome. And they also have no idea what the unintended consequences might be of the new creation on the environment, and on the insects, plants and animals that might interact with it.

The trees are being modified in a number of different ways. One modification is to insert the genes of a bacteria called bacillus thuringiensus (Bt) into the DNA of the tree in order to make it pest resistant. Bt toxin is expressed in every cell within the tree, including the root, trunk, leaf and flower from the time it sprouts and throughout the plant’s entire life. The idea is that by making the tree toxic to insects, one would not need to use chemical insecticides.

However, the insects that are not killed by the Bt toxin breed with each other so with each insect generation they are becoming more resistant to the toxin. Therefore, stronger or more powerful chemicals are required in order to control these “super insects” than had the trees not been genetically modified in the first place. The other unintended consequence is that non-targeted insects are also killed off, like ladybugs and monarch butterflies, which have dropped 75 percent since the introduction of Bt corn.

Trees live for a very long time, and will be putting out this toxin and killing insects their entire life cycle. Will Bt toxin concentrate in the tissues of animals that eat the insects and the animals that eat those animals in the same way DDT did? We don’t know. Insects are vital for pollination of plants, for predation and as food for other species, so eliminating insects will have a devastating effect on life that relies on them. We are already concerned about the diminishing bee population so is it really a good idea to eliminate other insects that pollinate plants? What animal species will die out once the insects are gone? What other animals higher up the food chain will be threatened or become extinct?

Apparently it is already known that Bt toxin leaches into the soil altering the microbial community, and contaminating soil as well as ground and surface water far away from where the Bt trees and corn were originally grown. How many community water supplies near fields of GMO corn have been contaminated with Bt toxin?

There is more and more evidence that Bt crops like corn can cause allergies and respiratory problems in humans. Tree pollen can travel for hundreds of miles, so the health impacts for humans of Bt trees might be significant. Cornell University is growing GMO apple trees, and there is a real risk of allergic reaction in those that unknowingly eat them, as GMO foods are still unlabelled.

Hawaii is dealing with the problem of spot fungus on the GMO papayas they are growing, and farmers have found that instead of saving themselves money by planting the GMO variety, they are spending much more in toxic fungicides which they need to spray on their crops every 10 days. Needless to say, spraying so frequently must be taking its toll on the health of the farmers as well.

There is evidence of cancer in animals fed GMO food, and when one considers that GMO corn has the bt toxin in each cell of the plant, one must wonder what the cumulative effect of our consuming that toxin might be. This is why I have repeatedly suggested that if we are going to eat corn or corn-containing products, probably better to choose organic to avoid the unlabelled GMO varieties.

Another genetic modification that is being used in trees is to make them resistant to Round Up, the herbicide containing glyphosate that is manufactured by Monsanto. This means that any plant that contains this gene won’t be killed by the herbicide. This modification is also widely used in canola crops all over North America. Since the crop won’t be affected, it is known that farmers that plant Round-Up Ready crops spray their crops with three times the amount of herbicide than those that use the GM variety.

Glyphosate is extremely harmful to the soil, earthworms, birds and animals that come in contact with it, and it runs into waterways impacting larger animals that drink from them. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, commercial agricultural chemicals that are sprayed onto crops and run off into streams and rivers are the largest polluters of waterways.

Farmers that are regularly exposed to glyphosate have higher incidence of miscarriage, pre-mature births, and non-hodgkins lymphoma. Regularly spraying forests with glyphosate would be devastating to the forest ecosystem, killing off all underbrush and endangering the animals that use that underbrush as habitat.

Another problem is that the pollen from trees can travel for hundreds of miles, contaminating native forests with the various GMO variants. Many organic papaya farmers in Hawaii have lost their certification due to contamination from the GMO papaya crops due to wind-carried pollen. It would not take long for single US GMO-tree plantation to contaminate all the forests in North America.

So, biotechnology’s solution is to implant a sterility gene into the tree genome so that it can’t reproduce. They have been talking about using the sterility gene in food crops too. If there is any problem with this terminator technology, there is the possibility of the sterility gene being spread to native species potentially killing forests. Even Monsanto says they can’t guarantee 100 percent sterility or that the technology will work all the time.

So, a tree plantation with these GMO traits would have no insects, would have no undergrowth and would be filled with toxic herbicide chemicals. 95 percent of the trees would be sterile, so would have no pollen, seeds, fruit or other food for animals or birds to eat, so none would be living there. The 5 percent of trees that are not sterile would be contaminating the neighbouring native forests with the implanted genes, creating larger areas without life.

Because most of the trees would be sterile, their energy would be directed to growth rather than reproduction, resulting in overuse of ground water, drying out the land creating desert. This would impact the viability of other crops as well as reduce the water available for livestock, potentially increasing hunger in indigenous populations. Self-sustaining communities would be forced to leave the land due to the drying up of soil caused by neighbouring GMO tree plantations.

And of course there is the legal issue. So far, the courts have ruled that life can be owned and treated as a commodity. According to legal precedents, the contaminated trees would become the property of Monsanto no matter whose land they are on. Farmers have been charged and prosecuted by Monsanto for GMO plants found on their property even though the seeds got there via the wind, birds or flooding.

Furthermore, even if only a small percentage of a crop is contaminated, the courts have ruled that the entire crop then belongs to the biotech company. So farmers can lose their rights to their property overnight through no fault of their own should Monsanto decide to enforce its patent rights. In the case of trees, Monsanto would gain control of private as well as government land. So what might that mean for national parks? Is this what we want?

In summary, GMO trees are a threat to all animal and plant life in the forests of the world, including the forests themselves as they use up the available water. Glyphosate and Bt toxin threaten insect, plant, animal and human health and we will be unable to stop these toxins from contaminating other plants, soils and the ground water. Hopefully it is not already too late to put the genie back in the bottle, but if we value life on this planet we need to try.

As consumers, we can use our purchasing power to choose wood and paper products that are not made from GMO trees. Kinko’s Copies use non-GMO paper, so support them, and tell the big companies like Home Depot to switch to non-GMO sources of wood and paper products if they want your business. Ultimately, if there is no market for the GMO products, the biotech companies will be forced to stop producing the GMO seeds. Please watch the 45 minute documentary entitled “The Silent Forest” for a more complete understanding of this issue.

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It is possible that the FDA and Health Canada may be approving a GMO Atlantic salmon for human consumption in the near future.

Genetic modification came onto my radar again this past month due to news that the FDA is considering approval for the first time ever, of a genetically-modified flesh-food for human consumption – GMO Atlantic salmon. It is very easy to forget that GMO foods exist as they are unlabelled in North America, yet many of us are eating foods that contain GMO ingredients many times a day since they are in 70 to 75% of foods in the grocery store. Any non-organic foods that have ingredients made from corn, (high-fructose corn-syrup, corn starch, corn oil, pop corn etc.), soy (soy lecithin, soy oil, soy milk etc.) or canola are most certainly GMO. And of course, grain-fed cows are usually fed GMO corn – another reason to choose grass-fed!

The biotech company AquaBounty Technologies, that invented and is patenting “AquAdvantage Salmon", genetically engineered it to grow much more quickly and much larger than the typical Atlantic salmon by inserting the Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF-1) genes of a chinook salmon and the antifreeze genes of the pout fish (an eel) into its DNA.

AquaBounty, whose corporate headquarters are in Waltham Mass., side-stepped the FDA rules by growing the fish for US consumption in Canada and in Panama. In this way they are able to avoid the US environmental assessments, and the FDA is relying on private consultants hired by the company in order to determine environmental safety.

We can’t really know at this early stage if there is any risk to human health from eating these GMO salmon that have extra IGF-1 genes. But we do know that in the States, Bovine Growth Hormone fed to cattle means IGF-1 gets into the milk.(Bovine Growth Hormone is banned in Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan). We know that IGF-1 accelerates puberty, and we also know that girls are going through puberty at younger and younger ages these days. IGF-1 is also linked to breast, prostate and colon cancer. So, at what point should we start getting worried about the cumulative effects of IGF-1 in the various edible food-like substances (Michael Pollan's word) that are coming into the market?

The environmental risk may also be significant. Because these GMO salmon are so big, should they escape they would be very attractive to the wild Atlantic salmon. Although they are bred to be sterile, apparently about 1% are viable, and they would contaminate the wild stocks. Also the 99% that are sterile and mating with the wild salmon would mean that a lot of salmon fry don’t hatch potentially devastating the stocks. We know that escaped farmed Atlantic-salmon damaged wild Pacific-salmon stocks, and none of those salmon were GMO.

I am personally very uncomfortable with the idea of a company being allowed to patent a life-form, thus "owning" it for profit. Despite concerted efforts to prevent it, fish escapes are bound to happen. So, in a worst case scenario, AquaBounty would have the legal right go after fishers who catch escaped or hybridized GMO salmon in their nets. It isn't outside the realm of possibility that AquaBounty could eventually claim to own the entire Atlantic salmon fishery.

Sounds crazy? We only need to look to Monsanto, the biotech giant in the States, to see what happens when "life" becomes proprietary. Monsanto has forced its patent rights on farmers who had no intention of growing GMO crops, but were unlucky enough to have their crops contaminated by the GM seeds that the wind carried onto their fields. Percy Schmeiser, a Saskatchewan farmer was sued by Monsanto for exactly that. He fought the case all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, that ruled that Monsanto’s patent was valid. Chilling in my opinion, as a farmer has no control over the wind.

If this salmon gets FDA and Health Canada approval it is unlikely that it will be labelled GMO, as the FDA and the biotech companies realize that most people won’t purchase it if they know it is genetically modified. Best to keep the consumer in the dark to ensure sales. So as consumers, we will have another reason to only purchase wild salmon, although even they might be contaminated if there were an escape.

US Senator, Mark Begich, along with 10 other senators are trying to stop the FDA from approving GMO salmon for human consumption. If you are a US or Canadian citizen and you want this stopped, perhaps talk to your government representative.

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Related tips:
GMO – crossing the species barrier
Deceptive food labelling

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The one-size-fits-all food guides do not work for most of us. We are all different, and a diet that works well for one person won’t work at all for someone else. By listening to what our bodies are telling us, we can figure out the best way to eat for ourselves.

The USDA is working towards putting out its 2010 Dietary Guidelines, and so far based on what I’ve seen, I’m thinking they are still heading down the wrong path. For the first time the guidelines are going to be geared towards the unhealthy, obese and type 2 diabetes population, and rather than lowering the intake of grains which would make a huge difference for that population, they are lowering fat intakes even further. Surely after 30 years of food guides that have suggested high carb low fat diets along with concurrent increasing rates of obesity and type-two diabetes, it is abundantly obvious that this strategy isn’t working? Perhaps the powers that be need to review Albert Einstein’s famous quote “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” US citizens and organizations have until July 15th to submit commentary and research to the panel that is going to be putting out the guidelines. Perhaps there is still time to change them for the better. Scroll down to June 18th and find a letter sent by someone with Type 2 Diabetes. I think he is bang on with his critical commentary and kudos to him for stepping up to the plate. You will notice as you scroll through the list that much of the input and commentary for the new food guide is from the food industry pushing their agenda.

The USDA is making some positive changes, like lowering salt intake guidelines to 1500mg per day, shifting to whole grains from refined, and lowering added sugar and trans fats. But the biggest changes in the new guide look to be lowering saturated fat (hard fats) consumption from 10% to 7% and trying to get people to eat more vegetable oils instead. Olive oil is fine, but increasing consumption of omega 6 polyunsaturated plant oils will increase body inflammation and is a very bad idea. And decreasing overall fat intake further tends to increase intake of processed starch, which also diminishes health by increasing problems with insulin.

Food guides in general can't work, because we are all different metabolically speaking. We need individualized food guides. The current food guides work for maybe 15 to 20% of the population, but they are quite wrong for the majority of us. Switching the guide to put veggies as the most important (not fruit), animal foods as the next most important, and whole grains less important than both would help 80 to 85% of the population in my opinion. But even that wouldn't work for some. The only guideline that would help absolutely everyone would be to suggest a diet that consists of only unprocessed food, something that is unlikely to happen as governments need to pander to the food companies. Food politics plays a big role in what we are told to eat.

So, if one can't rely on the food guides because the one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn't work for most of us, what can one do? No problem. It really isn't too hard to figure out how to eat in a way that makes us feel great if we take the time to pay attention.

When we are hungry, our body is telling us it needs NUTRIENTS. But what we tend to do is eat anything that will fill us up to take away the hunger pangs, not thinking much about nutrients. Often a muffin or a cookie will do the trick. But there isn't much in that muffin or cookie to nourish us, and as soon as the body realizes that the nutrients it was looking for did not arrive in the snack, it makes us hungry again. So, should we repeat the process, we will be eating lots of calories, leaving the body still hungry.

A meal should last a minimum of three hours. If you are hungry before those three hours are up, either there were nutrients missing in your meal that your body needs, or there weren't enough of certain nutrients. The easiest way to ensure you are providing adequate nutrients is to only eat unprocessed food, and to make sure you have a mix of animal foods and plant foods in each meal. Then play with the ratio of animal to plant foods to see which ratio keeps you satisfied longer. Include fresh vegetables to ensure you are getting the vitamins and minerals too. By paying attention to what our bodies are telling us, we can create our own personalized food guide which might turn out to be quite different from the one the governments are suggesting.

In my experience, most people need to eat some animal foods at each meal, and some people actually need a surprisingly large ratio of flesh foods to vegetables at each meal to be at their best and to last at least three hours. And for those people, that high protein/fat diet will actually make them healthier (lower blood sugar, triglyceride levels, decrease inflammation markers, improve LDL to HDL ratio etc). I think that people that decide to become vegetarians initially do really well because they move from a diet of processed food to unprocessed food which drastically increases nutrition. But not many do well long term on a vegetarian diet as there are some nutrients in animal foods that are difficult to obtain from plant foods. Supplementing a plant-based diet with some animal foods can make all the difference.

The point is some people do well on a plant-based diet supplementing with a bit of meat, and others do well on an animal-based diet supplementing with some vegetables, and most of us need a diet that lies somewhere between those two extremes. We each need to figure out for ourselves what ratio of plant foods to animal foods works best for us by listening to what our bodies tell us and eating the ratio that makes us feel good and keeps us satisfied for at least three hours. The only valuable food guideline that can be generalized to everyone is that we need to eat the best quality food we can access in its least processed form, preferably from our own garden, farmer's market, food coop. Eating healthy requires time in the kitchen. Any animals or animal products we eat should have eaten their natural diet during their lifetime – stay away from factory-farmed meats, poultry, eggs and dairy. And finally, if you are not hungry, don’t eat!

Very soon I'll be offering my nutrition seminar online – people have told me they leave the course with complete clarity on how to know whether or not a food is healthy to eat. And months later when I run into those that have taken the course, I am told what a difference the information has made to their lives. So look out for it soon!

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Contrary to popular belief, hormones play a greater role in weight control than calories do. If you are trying to lose weight, it would make sense to focus your efforts on controlling the hormone responsible for your excess weight.

Most people that decide they want to lose weight try the “eat less, exercise more” approach, and a few people get results. Many others just feel hungry and tired, not to mention frustrated.

Eating less calories than one burns might work for some, but if the diet is not sufficient in protein, vitamins and minerals, the body will reallocate its resources eating up your muscle tissue and taking minerals from your bones in addition to burning that body fat in order to keep the body functioning.

If you are hungry, your body is telling you it needs nutrients. Losing muscle mass will decrease your metabolism and make it easier to put on weight once you go off the diet.

And we also probably all know of someone who eats next to nothing yet simply does not lose any weight despite consistent effort. Controlling calories is usually not the answer. So rather than starve yourself, why not look at which hormones might be responsible for your fat pattern, and work towards controlling those hormones in particular?

There are primarily three hormones that control fat deposition, and where one carries the excess weight can be a clue as to which hormones are involved. Often more than one hormone is involved, but the description below can give a starting point.

1. Insulin: People that tend to get fat all over – fat neck, fat ankles, fat wrists, fat back of the hand – tend to be fat due to a problem controlling insulin.
2. Cortisol: People that tend to get fat around the trunk and belly yet have skinny legs and arms are likely to have an issue with cortisol. A distended belly without too much excess fat around the back of the ribs is more likely due to a food sensitivity. (Of course one can have a food sensitivity and have a cortisol issue at the same time.)
3. Estrogen: People, usually women but not always, that tend to put on fat around the hips and upper legs, yet are relatively slender in the waist and upper body tend to have a problem of excess estrogen, or a problem of estrogen not being balanced adequately with progesterone.

Insulin is the easiest of the three hormones to control, but it requires strict diet change to do so. Because insulin's job is to take sugar out of the blood stream and store it as fat, the obvious way to control insulin is to stop eating foods that convert into sugar quickly, including all foods that contain sugar and flour.

Read labels and avoid foods that contain ingredients that end in "ose" like glucose, fructose, sucrose, lactose, galactose, maltose, dextrose etc., and ingredients that end in "accharides" like disaccharides or monosaccharides.

Many processed foods including frozen diet meals contain sugar, so even though they may be low in calories and fat, they will still make you fat. Avoid products that contain flour, like bread, pasta, crackers, cakes, cookies etc.

Make sure every meal and snack also contains protein and fats in order to slow the sugar into the bloodstream and to blunt the insulin response.

Doing some exercise, even simply a walk after meals can help burn off the blood sugar so it is not stored as fat. Going on a strength-training program to increase muscle mass will also improve insulin sensitivity.

If you have this fat pattern, do what you can now to alter how you eat, because you are on your way to Syndrome X and Type 2 Diabetes. If you already have Type 2 Diabetes, talk to doctor about keeping you off insulin, as injecting extra insulin may lower blood sugar, but it will just make you fatter and less healthy in the long run.

Remember that high insulin levels, whether secreted by the body or injected, not only store excess blood sugar as fat, but also increase blood pressure, increase the body's fight and flight response, and decrease thyroid function by decreasing T3 production, all of which makes one more prone to cardiovascular disease. No matter what the fat pattern, everyone can improve their health by controlling for insulin.

Cortisol is our stress hormone, and if cortisol levels remain chronically high, fat tends to be deposited around the organs, which is a particularly dangerous fat distribution pattern.

Many people that have been put on corticosteroid type drugs like prednisone, probably notice that they put on weight and can't take it off no matter how little they eat and how much they exercise.

First step would be to ask your doctor for another kind of drug, or better yet, work towards getting off all drugs by finding the causes of the problems and addressing those rather than treating the symptoms with drugs.

Cortisol is released as a response to any kind of stress, from physical stress such as pain, to nutritional stress such as too much or too little of particular nutrients, to emotional stress, so anything that can be done to eliminate causes of stress should be addressed.

Going to bed too late is an example of a stress that will increase cortisol levels, and studies show that those that tend to burn the midnight oil tend to be fatter than those that don't. Stimulants like coffee, tea and sugar also increase cortisol levels.

The type of exercise that works best for this fat pattern is lower intensity long duration exercise like walking, yoga, tai chi, and qi gong. Running and other very intense cardiovascular exercise will probably make the situation worse.

And having a coffee after your exercise session is a bad idea. Examine all aspects of your life for stress inducers and do what you can to reduce or eliminate them. Have those difficult conversations so you can move on, and learn to only concern yourself with things that you can control.

Cortisol levels should be high first thing in the morning, and should gradually diminish as the day goes on. In order to address a poor circadian cortisol rhythm, it can be very worthwhile to seek out a Functional Medicine doctor for a circadian salivary cortisol test.

Once your cortisol rhythm is known, a treatment protocol can be suggested to help you. This is a long process, so do not expect overnight results. Please note that low calorie, low fat diets are more likely to negatively impact cortisol levels rather than improve them, which might explain why some people on these diets do not lose weight.

Estrogen dominance, either from excess estrogen or estrogen unbalanced by progesterone tends to cause fat to be deposited in the hips, buttocks and upper legs, and people with this fat pattern are more sensitive to estrogen than others.

If this is your fat pattern, you need to do all you can to limit your exposure to estrogen by avoiding use of oral contraceptives, plastics which are high in xenoestrogens, soy products which are very estrogenic (soy is in many processed foods so read labels carefully), as well as meats, eggs and dairy from factory farms where hormones are used to fatten up the animals and to increase milk production. Finding non-medicated, pasture-fed meat, dairy and eggs would be a priority for this fat pattern.

Seeing a Functional Medicine Doctor to get tested for estrogen and progesterone balance might be a good idea. Sometimes bioidentical hormone creams can be helpful although they are very difficult to dose correctly which in my opinion is a problem.

It should be noted that children are particularly susceptible to estrogen which can cause severe problems later in life, so reducing exposure to endocrine disruptors that mimic estrogen is extremely important.

This post is undeniably very simplistic. As becomes obvious when the studies below are examined, all the above hormones affect the others, and most of us have more than one hormone imbalance; we are indeed complicated beings.

However working towards improving our hormone function will lead to greater weight loss as well as overall better health than going on low calorie, low fat diets which may indeed stress hormonal systems further.

If you are in the Vancouver area, my colleague Judy Chambers is doing a seminar entitled "Hormone Hell-p" June 7 from 7-8h30pm. Click here to register.

If you want to share this article, scroll to the very bottom and click the “share” icon to post on Facebook, Twitter etc. If you want to subscribe or search for other posts by title or by topic, go to www.wellnesstips.ca.

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What both our parents ate before we were conceived, as well as our prenatal and childhood nutrition impacts not only our adult health, but also determines what we look like. So if you want your kids to grow up healthy and good looking, choose their food carefully.

I had always thought that our appearance was determined by the genes we received from our parents, and that is obviously true, but I had not realized how large a role nutrition played in determining the full potential of our genes until I studied nutrition in a historical context.

The easiest way to understand this is to look at the issue from an architectural point of view. You have the plans for a beautiful and strong building that must be built by a particular date. (The Olympics are coming?)

So, you set out to begin your task, but the materials required are not available in the quantities needed to build it to the specifications in the blue print. This building must be built, so you are forced to alter the plan to make best use of the materials that you do have.

Hopefully better quality materials will come at some point, and you can try and improve the quality of the structure if that happens, but there are no guarantees.

The plans are asking for wide doorways going into large rooms, but because there don’t seem to be any thick, long beams available to support the roof over such large rooms, the rooms must be made smaller to accommodate the strength of the support struts that are available. Suddenly, the beautiful and strong building is looking smaller and more ordinary.

The same thing happens in the human body. Our genes provide the blueprint for a beautiful and strong body, but if we don't provide the raw materials (food) needed to create what is in the blueprint, the body must reallocate its resources and do what it can with what is available.

This shows up in the skull by a narrowing of the width of the head and jaw, resulting in less room for all the teeth. Teeth are forced to fight for bone space and often come in crooked, or they overlap, resulting in large orthodontist bills.

In adult bodies, inadequate raw materials in childhood shows up also as a smaller pelvis and ribcage, and long limbs. Smaller pelvises in women make child birth more difficult. If the bone structure of the trunk is narrow, the internal organs are permanently more squished, and there are potentially smaller openings for nerves and blood vessels heading into the limbs, making them more susceptible to irritation or damage.

Also if the length of the nose is smaller than the forehead to the hairline or the distance between the chin and the bottom of the nose (small middle third), the nasal passages and sinuses may be too small compromising breathing, which has enormous impacts on the health of the body.

Not too much one can do about widening the skull or the pelvis as an adult, which is why feeding our kids properly is so important to preventing these issues later.

In the western world we have plenty of food and most of us eat more than enough calories, yet many of us including our kids are still malnourished. How is that possible?

Weston A. Price came up with the saying "Proteins and fats make us GROW, and carbohydrates make us GO". Our cells are made structurally with protein and fats, while carbohydrates provide most of the energy to run the system.

So if the raw materials needed to build bones are quality animal proteins and fats, and a child is eating a diet too low in those nutrients to fulfill his/her genetic blueprint, his/her body will be forced to decrease the amount of bone it can make.

Bones become thinner, therefore less strong, and generally smaller in size. Because bone forms the framework for our body, an inability to make enough bone while growing compromises our structure and our appearance as adults. It is important to note that one can be quite overweight and still have a small pelvis and ribcage.

Whole sources of carbohydrates provide our body the fuel to it needs to function, and the vegetables in particular are a good source of vitamins, minerals and phyto-nutrients.

Carbohydrates can be converted into protein and fat in the body, and vegetarians that know about how to combine their grains and legumes properly can successfully make up all the amino acids (building blocks of protein) needed to make cells.

A few vegetarians might be able to get enough protein this way to keep their structure healthy over the long term. I think it is risky to put growing children on vegetarian diets, because if the child needs more protein and saturated fat than a vegetarian diet can provide, their skeleton will be compromised. Most of us being omnivores, really do need to eat enough flesh foods and animal fats to obtain the raw materials to grow and keep our structure strong.

The problem with the current grain-based diet recommendations is that many of us are eating too many processed grains in the form of flour as well as sugars at the expense of vegetables, grass-fed proteins, wild fish and animal fats, so despite eating plenty of calories, our cells are malnourished.

For example, a common breakfast might be Shredded Wheat with skim milk, a glass of orange juice and perhaps a piece of toast with jam. Except for some protein in the milk, everything else in this meal is carbohydrate – and the least healthy kind of carbohydrate at that.

These foods turn into sugar very quickly in the body causing a spike of insulin, which will then store that blood sugar as body fat unless the individual exercises. In addition, high sugar diets pull calcium from the bones further compromising bone integrity. There is no animal fat in this meal, so none of the fat soluble vitamins will be absorbed, and no calcium will be able to get into the bones. Even the orange juice doesn't contribute much to nourish the body unless it is fresh squeezed, as pasteurized juices have next to no vitamins left in them, and are best considered as flavoured sugar water.

Compare that breakfast to one made up of a small bowl of steel cut oats soaked overnight then cooked and served with whole milk, and a fried egg served on a bed of steamed spinach with some cherry tomatoes on the side. One gets protein and animal fats in the egg and dairy, carbohydrates in the oatmeal and veggies, along with lots of vitamins and minerals in the veggies and fats. This meal will probably keep one satisfied longer because it is more nourishing.

If you are hungry within two hours of your previous meal, most likely that meal did not give your cells adequate nutrition. They are starving for something, and that something is probably NOT more flour and sugar.

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Take this quiz and see how you well you do at picking the healthier fats. What choice would you make in each pairing below?

a) stick margarine
b) butter

a) lard
b) shortening

a) coconut oil
b) grape-seed oil

a) olive oil
b) canola oil

a) peanut oil
b) palm oil

a) tub margarine
b) butter

a) 35% cream
b) creamer

a) corn oil
b) beef fat

a) fish oil
b) soy oil

If you picked butter, lard, coconut oil, olive oil, palm oil, butter, cream, beef fat and fish oil, congratulations, you know how to choose the healthier options!  Margarine, shortening and creamer are examples of trans-fats and should be avoided at all costs, as study after study shows how dangerous trans-fats are to our cardiovascular system, even in very small amounts. The most recent study discussed at the American Heart Association conference this past week suggested that trans fats increase the risk of stroke by 30% in post-menopausal women. When we hear the phrase "artery clogging", we should think immediately of trans fats, and not lump saturated fats in there as well. These are completely different fats that act very differently in the body, trans fats being extremely destructive, and saturated fats being vital for our survival. I'm not suggesting we need to eat large amounts of saturated fats to be healthy – just that we need not fear them and go out of our way to avoid them.  They havean important role to play
in a healthy diet.

Tub margarine often advertises that it has 0 trans-fats, but that is because food manufacturers are allowed to label it as such if the amount per serving is less than 0.5 grams. This does not mean they have no trans fats, and if one eats a lot of margarine and other products with such a label the trans fats can add up. Furthermore, the polyunsaturated oils in the margarines have to be altered somehow to solidify them, and if they are not hydrogenated, they are interesterified, which does not guarantee that they are healthy.

Shortening replaced lard (pig fat) in baked goods when the erroneous fear of saturated fats became the norm, and currently baked goods such as pastries, donuts, muffins, cookies, crackers, pie crusts and pizza dough contain trans fats much more often than not. Unless you bake your own and can control the ingredients, trans fats (along with the flour and sugar) in these products makes for a powerful health reason to not to buy and eat them. Look at the ingredient list, and if you see a "partially hydrogenated" or "hydrogenated" plant oil, that is a trans fat. If your pantry contains shortening, throw it out and buy lard for your baking needs. Yes, you can still find it in the grocery store, and it is a MUCH healthier choice.

We have known for at least 20 years that trans fats are deadly. Why have governments not yet banned them from the food supply considering the amount of money they would save in health-care spending? Another example of how governments give in to food-manufacturing lobbies rather than do what should be done for the health of their populations.

TThe other common misunderstanding with respect to fats and oils involves polyunsaturated omega 6 plant oils, which are widely believed to be healthy despite the growing evidence of systemic inflammation that they cause in the body. Most of the devastating diseases that are affecting us today have a large inflammatory component, and the dramatic increase in plant oil consumption since 1910 parallels the dramatic increase in diseases like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. Before 1910 plant oils other than olive, coconut and palm oils did not exist, and our chronic disease rates were very low. Eating plant/seed oils like canola, safflower, soy, corn, grape seed, peanut, cotton seed oil and any foods that contain them is a very unhealthy practice in my opinion.

Dr. Lands said in his presentation at a recent NIH conference on omega 3 and omega 6 fats (scroll to minute 12 to see the start of the presentation) that "People that have more than half of their highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) as omega 6 HUFA, they really have a very high incidence of cardiovascular death. Those that have less than half of their omega 6 HUFA in their membrane phospholipids predominantly, they really have low incidence of death." (Minute 26 in presentation). Dr. Lands suggested that one should think of these omega 6 plant oils as "insurgents" in the body, and omega 3 fatty acids as the "armour" to protect against "the insurgents". Eating sea foods which contain lots of omega 3s, or fish/krill oils do help protect the body from the systemic inflammation the omega 6 fats cause, but it makes more sense to stop eating the insurgents in the first place. All the same, the more omega 6 one consumes, the more omega 3 one needs to counteract the damage of the omega 6. So if one eats a salad dressing made with canola or soy oil, or food cooked in a vegetable oil, take some extra fish or krill oil as protection. Walnuts are considered to be a high omega 3 nut, but the amount of omega 6 in walnuts is 5X higher than the amount of omega 3, so trying to use walnuts to improve one's omega 3/6 ratio won't work, even though it has a much better ratio than any other nut.

Notice that all the fats and oils listed in the quiz above as unhealthy for us were all invented in the last 100 years. Stick to fats that we have been eating for thousands of years and avoid the newly invented fats in order to stay healthy.

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