This is a letter I wrote to Public Citizen recently. Public Citizen has been pushing for a single payer system as a far more efficient way to take care of our health care needs:
Dear Public Citizen,
I agree that a single payer health care system makes a great deal more sense than preserving the profits of the health insurance and drug industries, but whatever the system, we will never get health care costs under control until we break the control that the drug industry has on our medical education system. The teaching of nutrition as a healing art has been deliberately removed from the education of our health professionals, thanks to an accreditation system that focuses on diagnosis and drug treatment. Yet a truly well nourished body that is free of toxins has a remarkable ability to heal itself.
There are a growing number of doctors who are learning to guide their patients toward healing with nutrition, herbs and supplements and detoxification (see list below), freeing them of the poor health and financial burden of chronic disease, though they must pay for these therapies, which are rarely covered by insurance. Unfortunately these doctors are often attacked by medical boards and blackballed by their fellow professionals because health professionals are taught to view these therapies with great skepticism (Trust Us, We're Experts!).
I reviewed my nutrition textbooks and found that each has a section on 'food fallacies.' I was appalled at the mis-information in those chapters - so even dietitians have been brainwashed in these matters. Even worse, some of the common dietary advice given is based on poor and misinterpreted science, such as the advice to avoid saturated fats and cholesterol, which the food industry has exploited to convince the public to use unsaturated vegetable oils that we now realize contribute to inflammation, an underlying cause of many health problems (The Oiling of America).
These problems are complex, as they involve not only the drug industry, but also the food and agriculture industries that supply us with poor quality, over-processed foods that contribute to poor health (and damage the environment in the process). But we will never solve these problems if we do not understand them. I urge Public Citizen to become acquainted with these issues, as they are all intertwined - health care reform, organic farmers producing quality food and carbon sequestration, advertising of unhealthy products, even Wall Street money-makers. There are many links to useful information and commentary on my website.
Kris Johnson, retired dietitian
American Holistic Medical Association http://www.holisticmedicine.org/
International College of Integrative Medicine http://www.icimed.com/
The Institute for Functional Medicine http://www.functionalmedicine.org/
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Fat be not proud
It seems like there are item daily in the newspaper that I'd like to respond to. Here's a recent letter to The Blade responding to a Blade editorial called 'Fat be not proud' http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091206/OPINION03/912060316 (4th letter down the page)
While it's true that obesity is a major and growing health problem in our country, Congress and industry certainly need to share the blame. Agricultural subsidies support the growing of far too much wheat, corn and soybeans than we need, while our food industry turns them into the heavily advertised processed foods that line our grocery store shelves, foods that are stripped of essential vitamins and mineral that contribute to good health and laced with processed vegetable oils that undermine our health. Then our health authorities have provoked fat phobia, telling us to eat less fat and cholesterol, more fiber, and exercise more - none of which has proved particularly effective for successful weight loss. In Good Calorie, Bad Calories, Gary Taubes traces the research showing that the carb foods we're advised to eat are the very foods that contribute to weight gain, diabetes, and all the associated health problems. Cutting calories by trying to eat a low fat diet while avoiding high carb foods leaves you hungry and unhappy. My advice - avoid processed foods, limit carbs, overcome your fat phobia, eat natural whole foods, including meat, butter and eggs from pasture raised animals - the foods our ancestors ate without being plagued by diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Let's put our unemployed back to work doing the wonderfully satisfying job of raising high quality fruits, vegetables, grains and pastured animals on well managed organic farms that can be very bit as productive as our present commercial agriculture, while supporting, rather than undermining our health, our communities and the environment.
Kris Johnson, retired dietitian
There's more on my Website if you want to pursue these issues:
Carb Issues
Planning Healthy Meals
Justice and Agriculture Issues
While it's true that obesity is a major and growing health problem in our country, Congress and industry certainly need to share the blame. Agricultural subsidies support the growing of far too much wheat, corn and soybeans than we need, while our food industry turns them into the heavily advertised processed foods that line our grocery store shelves, foods that are stripped of essential vitamins and mineral that contribute to good health and laced with processed vegetable oils that undermine our health. Then our health authorities have provoked fat phobia, telling us to eat less fat and cholesterol, more fiber, and exercise more - none of which has proved particularly effective for successful weight loss. In Good Calorie, Bad Calories, Gary Taubes traces the research showing that the carb foods we're advised to eat are the very foods that contribute to weight gain, diabetes, and all the associated health problems. Cutting calories by trying to eat a low fat diet while avoiding high carb foods leaves you hungry and unhappy. My advice - avoid processed foods, limit carbs, overcome your fat phobia, eat natural whole foods, including meat, butter and eggs from pasture raised animals - the foods our ancestors ate without being plagued by diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Let's put our unemployed back to work doing the wonderfully satisfying job of raising high quality fruits, vegetables, grains and pastured animals on well managed organic farms that can be very bit as productive as our present commercial agriculture, while supporting, rather than undermining our health, our communities and the environment.
Kris Johnson, retired dietitian
There's more on my Website if you want to pursue these issues:
Carb Issues
Planning Healthy Meals
Justice and Agriculture Issues
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Vegetarian Myth
I recently read the book, The Vegetarian Myth, and found it fascinating. http://www.lierrekeith.com/work.htm
"In The Vegetarian Myth, Lierre Keith argues that a vegetarian diet isn’t the way to save the planet. Part memoir, part nutritional primer, and part political manifesto, The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability challenges everything we know about food politics." From Pegasus Bookstore
And from Blogtalkradio:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/undergroundwellness/2009/10/08/the-vegetarian-myth-with-lierre-keith
The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith, a former vegan, pokes gaping holes in the moral, political, and nutritional reasons for a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle. * Learn how agriculture and its monocrops are eroding our precious topsoil, destroying ecosystems, and yes, killing animals. * Find out how our basic nutritional needs cannot be met by a meatless diet. * Listen in as Lierre details how the "vegetarians live longer" mantra is simply not true.
I like what Susan Schenck has to say about the book on Basil & Spice:
http://www.basilandspice.com/nutrition/book-review-the-vegetarian-myth-by-lierre-keith.html
Of course this is controversial, as there are some persons on a vegan diet who claim to be perfectly healthy - so there are comments on Amazon that take issue with some of her points. I was immediately reminded of lectures I attended last weekend at the Wise Traditions Conference by Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, MD, who uses proteolytic enzymes against cancer. His second lecture was about the autonomic nervous system and its relationship to nutrition. He related the story of a dentist named Dr. Kelley, who cured himself of pancreatic cancer using a vegetarian diet, but then nearly killed his wife with the same diet, reviving her only by adding meat to her diet. The point being that people vary greatly in their dietary needs - one diet does not fit all! If you are strongly sympathetic dominant and you take certain vitamins & minerals they will make you feel worse, but will make a parasypathic dominant person feel better.
More in this interview on Dr. Gonzalez' website:
http://www.dr-gonzalez.com/crayhon.htm
And also here where he talks about his treatment protocol:
http://www.dr-gonzalez.com/clinical_pearls.htm
Dr. Mercola also talks about knowing your metabolic type
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/02/26/metabolic-typing-part-three.aspx
If you have persistent health problems it would be good to learn more about this.
And don't pay any attention to Quackwatch - a front for the medical industry. If you don't understand why there is so much misinformation out there you should read Trust Us, We're Experts How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future
by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
A word to the wise!
Kris
"In The Vegetarian Myth, Lierre Keith argues that a vegetarian diet isn’t the way to save the planet. Part memoir, part nutritional primer, and part political manifesto, The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability challenges everything we know about food politics." From Pegasus Bookstore
And from Blogtalkradio:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/undergroundwellness/2009/10/08/the-vegetarian-myth-with-lierre-keith
The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith, a former vegan, pokes gaping holes in the moral, political, and nutritional reasons for a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle. * Learn how agriculture and its monocrops are eroding our precious topsoil, destroying ecosystems, and yes, killing animals. * Find out how our basic nutritional needs cannot be met by a meatless diet. * Listen in as Lierre details how the "vegetarians live longer" mantra is simply not true.
I like what Susan Schenck has to say about the book on Basil & Spice:
http://www.basilandspice.com/nutrition/book-review-the-vegetarian-myth-by-lierre-keith.html
Of course this is controversial, as there are some persons on a vegan diet who claim to be perfectly healthy - so there are comments on Amazon that take issue with some of her points. I was immediately reminded of lectures I attended last weekend at the Wise Traditions Conference by Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, MD, who uses proteolytic enzymes against cancer. His second lecture was about the autonomic nervous system and its relationship to nutrition. He related the story of a dentist named Dr. Kelley, who cured himself of pancreatic cancer using a vegetarian diet, but then nearly killed his wife with the same diet, reviving her only by adding meat to her diet. The point being that people vary greatly in their dietary needs - one diet does not fit all! If you are strongly sympathetic dominant and you take certain vitamins & minerals they will make you feel worse, but will make a parasypathic dominant person feel better.
More in this interview on Dr. Gonzalez' website:
http://www.dr-gonzalez.com/crayhon.htm
And also here where he talks about his treatment protocol:
http://www.dr-gonzalez.com/clinical_pearls.htm
Dr. Mercola also talks about knowing your metabolic type
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/02/26/metabolic-typing-part-three.aspx
If you have persistent health problems it would be good to learn more about this.
And don't pay any attention to Quackwatch - a front for the medical industry. If you don't understand why there is so much misinformation out there you should read Trust Us, We're Experts How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future
by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
A word to the wise!
Kris
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Arts as Business
Monday night I went to an event called The Magic of Tanzania, a glorious celebration of the artwork of a group of women artists from Tanzania, all eager to sell some of their wares. It was an outstanding evening, highlighted by an incredible style show of creations by fashion designer, Fatma Amor. See http://www.artistsoftanzania.org/ for details of this exchange program.
This article from the New York Times reports the problems artists and crafts people in Vietnam are having as the market for their craft work has plummeted thanks to the worldwide recession:
FOREIGN DESK September 29, 2009
Rural Ventures in Vietnam Suffer in the Global Crisis By SETH MYDANS
"Looking out across his green rice fields, Nguyen Van Truong can take pride in hedging his bets when he joined the global marketplace more than a decade ago and began to make money. When Vietnam began a tentative engagement with the world economy in the mid-1990s, Mr. Truong was one of the first people to see profit in his local craft, embroidery, and he joined with other villagers in marketing it for export and domestic sales."
The point is that arts and crafts can be good business in prosperous times, but they are the subject of highly discretionary spending, so you can't always count on such sources of income.
Another thought - from Organic Consumers Association:
World Food Day - Organic Is the Answer to Food Security
"Organic agriculture puts the needs of rural people and the sustainable use of natural resources at the centre of the farming system. Locally adapted technologies create employment opportunities and income. Low external inputs minimize risk of indebtedness and intoxication of the environment. It increases harvests through practices that favor the optimization of biological processes and local resources over expensive, toxic and climate damaging agro-chemicals...in response to a frequently asked question: Yes, the world can be fed by the worldwide adoption of Organic agriculture. The slightly lower yields of Organic agriculture in favorable, temperate zones are compensated with approximately 10-20% higher yields in difficult environments such as arid areas."
-International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements World Food Day, October 12, 2009 LEARN MORE
What is the connection here? If you have an arts and crafts business you need a back up plan. In Vietnam, those who retained land on which to grow their food survived, because they were self-sufficient and could feed themselves. When I was visiting in Dodoma, Tanzania, a few years ago, I was struck by how often people raised some of their own food - a vegetable garden, banana & papaya trees, and a few animals - goats, chickens. Those folks knew they couldn't rely on their meager salaries or small businesses for all their needs. The article from OCA emphasizes how essential these small farming operations are to relieving poverty and hunger around the world. Items of beauty add richness and depth to our lives, and can be a source of wealth for producers, but we dare not forget that the foundation of prosperous communities are the gifts of the earth that feed and clothe and house us. When people are pushed off their land by big corporations and the purported "efficiencies" of commercial agriculture and the "Green Revolution," poverty and hunger invariably increase for many, while untold riches accrue to some. Justice is not served.
For more on this on this theme I recommend this book, "Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice" found here: http://www.foodfirst.org/.
Footnote: Agricultural yields with sophisticated eco-farming methods can be just as productive as conventional agriculture, while protecting the environment, supplying more nutritious foods, and avoiding the need for pesticides. Check with these agricultural consultants, and especially http://www.highbrixgardens.com/.
This article from the New York Times reports the problems artists and crafts people in Vietnam are having as the market for their craft work has plummeted thanks to the worldwide recession:
FOREIGN DESK September 29, 2009
Rural Ventures in Vietnam Suffer in the Global Crisis By SETH MYDANS
"Looking out across his green rice fields, Nguyen Van Truong can take pride in hedging his bets when he joined the global marketplace more than a decade ago and began to make money. When Vietnam began a tentative engagement with the world economy in the mid-1990s, Mr. Truong was one of the first people to see profit in his local craft, embroidery, and he joined with other villagers in marketing it for export and domestic sales."
The point is that arts and crafts can be good business in prosperous times, but they are the subject of highly discretionary spending, so you can't always count on such sources of income.
Another thought - from Organic Consumers Association:
World Food Day - Organic Is the Answer to Food Security
"Organic agriculture puts the needs of rural people and the sustainable use of natural resources at the centre of the farming system. Locally adapted technologies create employment opportunities and income. Low external inputs minimize risk of indebtedness and intoxication of the environment. It increases harvests through practices that favor the optimization of biological processes and local resources over expensive, toxic and climate damaging agro-chemicals...in response to a frequently asked question: Yes, the world can be fed by the worldwide adoption of Organic agriculture. The slightly lower yields of Organic agriculture in favorable, temperate zones are compensated with approximately 10-20% higher yields in difficult environments such as arid areas."
-International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements World Food Day, October 12, 2009 LEARN MORE
What is the connection here? If you have an arts and crafts business you need a back up plan. In Vietnam, those who retained land on which to grow their food survived, because they were self-sufficient and could feed themselves. When I was visiting in Dodoma, Tanzania, a few years ago, I was struck by how often people raised some of their own food - a vegetable garden, banana & papaya trees, and a few animals - goats, chickens. Those folks knew they couldn't rely on their meager salaries or small businesses for all their needs. The article from OCA emphasizes how essential these small farming operations are to relieving poverty and hunger around the world. Items of beauty add richness and depth to our lives, and can be a source of wealth for producers, but we dare not forget that the foundation of prosperous communities are the gifts of the earth that feed and clothe and house us. When people are pushed off their land by big corporations and the purported "efficiencies" of commercial agriculture and the "Green Revolution," poverty and hunger invariably increase for many, while untold riches accrue to some. Justice is not served.
For more on this on this theme I recommend this book, "Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice" found here: http://www.foodfirst.org/.
Footnote: Agricultural yields with sophisticated eco-farming methods can be just as productive as conventional agriculture, while protecting the environment, supplying more nutritious foods, and avoiding the need for pesticides. Check with these agricultural consultants, and especially http://www.highbrixgardens.com/.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Response to "Call To Action" by Sen Baucus
Response to REFORMING AMERICA’S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM: A CALL TO ACTION
By Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
As a dietitian I am concerned that one crucial element is missing in all the discussion about reforming our health care system. The Baucus Call to Action calls for "a "RightChoices" card that guarantees access to recommended preventive care, including services like a health risk assessment, physical exam, immunizations, and age and gender appropriate cancer screenings recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force." Unfortunately this type of 'preventive' care is a path into the pharmaceutical-based care that medical doctors are trained in, which is the path we are presently on - more obesity and chronic disease treated with drugs, not the lifestyle changes that are needed. Medical doctors are not taught how excellent nutrition with careful supplementation and detoxification can heal the ailing body and prevent more serious problems, unless they go out of their way to get special training later in their career when they realize the problems that relying on drugs causes. In fact medical doctors, and even conventional dietitians, are taught to consider many effective nutritional therapies as "food fallacies," and doctors who use nutritional therapies (sometime called Complementary and Alternative Medicine or CAM) are attacked by their medical boards, and some even have their licenses removed because they did not follow 'accepted protocols,' in spite of the healing and vibrant health they have brought to their patients.
An example is John Dommisse, M.D. www.johndommissemd.com , who had his license revoked by the Arizona medical board, in spite of his accomplishments. The medical board acted outrageously to squash a doctor using innovative nutritional approaches, as his efforts to appeal have been rejected on trivial grounds. As he says on his website "nutritional medicine is much more successful and effective in chronic diseases than standard/conventional medicine is."
Something similar is happening in the state of Washington, as related by Dr. Jonathan Wright, M.D. in his newsletter http://tinyurl.com/jonWright, quoting: "Unfortunately, holistic physicians in Washington state are under political attack by the Medical Quality Assurance Commission (MQAC). Several physicians are being persecuted by MQAC because they offer their patients holistic healthcare. These doctors are being dragged through hearings and are under investigation because the MQAC believe that these doctors should have their medical licenses revoked for not practicing "traditional" mainstream [drug-based] medicine." (Please understand that drugs are crutches that cover up symptoms, but rarely correct the underlying cause, and often cause side effects that lead to the use of another drug, and another, and another.)
These are the very doctors who will bring down the cost of health care by leading their patients toward healthier lives at relatively modest cost! We must break the monopoly that pharmaceutical therapeutics has on our medical care system. CAM must become a standard of care taught in our medical schools, and supported by the medical establishment. CAM practitioners, including naturopaths and well trained nutritionists must be recognized as effective sources of guidance for patients seeking holistic health care. When insurance companies see the dollars saved by these alternative therapies, they will begin to insist that all doctors become skilled in the use of these therapies. They might even push for reform of our food system, as noted by Michael Pollan in a recent New York Times opinion piece, called Big Food vs Big Insurance
I see nothing in the current health care reform proposals that would give an incentive to citizens to lead a healthier lifestyle, for example, by avoiding the processed foods that are so detrimental to health but fill our grocery store shelves. If every visit to the doctor is covered by insurance, where is the incentive to lead a healthy life so visits to the doctor are rarely needed, since it is easier to take a pill than to reform kitchen activities? Health Savings Accounts, accompanied by catastrophic health insurance, should be an option for those who want to pursue alternative paths to good health, allowing us to spend our health care dollars on herbs and supplements (and real food) rather than drugs and surgery, and who, as a result, rarely get sick.
Reforming our health care system is a monstrous job, considering all the vested interests involved, who stand to lose money if we have true reform. We spend an enormous amount of money on health care now, with mediocre results. I pray that Congress will understand what is needed for true reform, resist the blandishments of the vested interests, and enact reforms that cuts costs not only by cutting waste and fraud, but also by enabling true health and effective healing through holistic health care.
Carolyn 'Kris' Johnson
Williston, Ohio
By Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
As a dietitian I am concerned that one crucial element is missing in all the discussion about reforming our health care system. The Baucus Call to Action calls for "a "RightChoices" card that guarantees access to recommended preventive care, including services like a health risk assessment, physical exam, immunizations, and age and gender appropriate cancer screenings recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force." Unfortunately this type of 'preventive' care is a path into the pharmaceutical-based care that medical doctors are trained in, which is the path we are presently on - more obesity and chronic disease treated with drugs, not the lifestyle changes that are needed. Medical doctors are not taught how excellent nutrition with careful supplementation and detoxification can heal the ailing body and prevent more serious problems, unless they go out of their way to get special training later in their career when they realize the problems that relying on drugs causes. In fact medical doctors, and even conventional dietitians, are taught to consider many effective nutritional therapies as "food fallacies," and doctors who use nutritional therapies (sometime called Complementary and Alternative Medicine or CAM) are attacked by their medical boards, and some even have their licenses removed because they did not follow 'accepted protocols,' in spite of the healing and vibrant health they have brought to their patients.
An example is John Dommisse, M.D. www.johndommissemd.com , who had his license revoked by the Arizona medical board, in spite of his accomplishments. The medical board acted outrageously to squash a doctor using innovative nutritional approaches, as his efforts to appeal have been rejected on trivial grounds. As he says on his website "nutritional medicine is much more successful and effective in chronic diseases than standard/conventional medicine is."
Something similar is happening in the state of Washington, as related by Dr. Jonathan Wright, M.D. in his newsletter http://tinyurl.com/jonWright, quoting: "Unfortunately, holistic physicians in Washington state are under political attack by the Medical Quality Assurance Commission (MQAC). Several physicians are being persecuted by MQAC because they offer their patients holistic healthcare. These doctors are being dragged through hearings and are under investigation because the MQAC believe that these doctors should have their medical licenses revoked for not practicing "traditional" mainstream [drug-based] medicine." (Please understand that drugs are crutches that cover up symptoms, but rarely correct the underlying cause, and often cause side effects that lead to the use of another drug, and another, and another.)
These are the very doctors who will bring down the cost of health care by leading their patients toward healthier lives at relatively modest cost! We must break the monopoly that pharmaceutical therapeutics has on our medical care system. CAM must become a standard of care taught in our medical schools, and supported by the medical establishment. CAM practitioners, including naturopaths and well trained nutritionists must be recognized as effective sources of guidance for patients seeking holistic health care. When insurance companies see the dollars saved by these alternative therapies, they will begin to insist that all doctors become skilled in the use of these therapies. They might even push for reform of our food system, as noted by Michael Pollan in a recent New York Times opinion piece, called Big Food vs Big Insurance
I see nothing in the current health care reform proposals that would give an incentive to citizens to lead a healthier lifestyle, for example, by avoiding the processed foods that are so detrimental to health but fill our grocery store shelves. If every visit to the doctor is covered by insurance, where is the incentive to lead a healthy life so visits to the doctor are rarely needed, since it is easier to take a pill than to reform kitchen activities? Health Savings Accounts, accompanied by catastrophic health insurance, should be an option for those who want to pursue alternative paths to good health, allowing us to spend our health care dollars on herbs and supplements (and real food) rather than drugs and surgery, and who, as a result, rarely get sick.
Reforming our health care system is a monstrous job, considering all the vested interests involved, who stand to lose money if we have true reform. We spend an enormous amount of money on health care now, with mediocre results. I pray that Congress will understand what is needed for true reform, resist the blandishments of the vested interests, and enact reforms that cuts costs not only by cutting waste and fraud, but also by enabling true health and effective healing through holistic health care.
Carolyn 'Kris' Johnson
Williston, Ohio
Letter to the President
Dear President Obama,
I am concerned that health care reform will be ineffective unless the monopoly of the conventional drug/surgery paradigm is broken. Our present system is too driven by the search for profits which the insurance system just supports. With our present system effective natural therapies, such as natural foods, supplements and detoxification, that restore health and help the body heal, are blacklisted while patentable drugs and expensive surgeries, touted at "science-based," are reimbursed by insurance in spite of their long list of side effects and their poor record correcting the underlying causes of disease. Health care practitioners who use natural therapies are ignored and often condemned by their peers, who are brainwashed by their training into thinking that drugs are the answer, thanks to the excessive influence of the drug industry. Yet these natural therapy advocates often guide patients to successful healing, with therapies that the patient must pay for, when conventional doctors who were unable to help are covered by insurance. This system is broken and must be fixed!
If you would like to know what real health care reform should involved, you should talk to:
- Dr. James Roberts, M.D., in Toledo, Ohio, who reduced the cost of cardiac care and brought health and healing to his patients by using natural therapies rather than drugs and surgery - http://www.heartfixer.com/
- Dr. Julian Whitaker, M.D., in Newport Beach California, who brings health and healing to his patients with diabetes and many other common health problems using natural therapies rather than drugs - http://www.whitakerwellness.com/
- Dr. Joseph Mercola, D.O., in Chicago, who brings health and healing to his patients with natural therapies, and won’t even take insurance because it is of such little benefit to his patients. He hosts a huge popular website, mercola.com, providing valuable guidance in how to stay healthy - http://naturalhealthcenter.mercola.com/
- Dr. David Brownstein, M.D., in West Bloomfield, Michigan, who brings health and healing to patients with puzzling ailments, whose conventional doctors has overloaded them with ineffective drugs, using supplements and natural hormones - http://www.centerforholisticmedicine.com/
- Dr. Bruce West, D.C., Monterey, California, who has brought health and healing to his readers for over 25 years through an informative newsletter, Health Alert, on natural therapies – http://www.healthalert.com/, 831-372-2103
- Dr. Samuel Epstein, M.D., who has documented the misguided and ineffective ‘war on cancer’ in his book "Cancer-Gate: How to Win the Losing Cancer War - http://www.preventcancer.com/
- Dr. Jonathan Wright, M.D., who has been helping his patients heal with nutritional therapies, along with the best of traditional medicine for 27 years. http://www.wrightnewsletter.com/
There are many others! As a dietitian by profession, with a masters in nutrition, now retired and ‘reformed,’ I understand the excessive influence of the drug and food industries on my training and practice, as I promoted the conventional ‘wisdom’ about food, until in retirement I read more widely and realized the benefits of natural whole foods, not Egg Beaters, Heart Smart margarine, and Hamburger Helper. The commercial agriculture/food industry is another piece in the puzzle of our sky-rocketing health care costs, along with our desire for cheap, convenient food, but that’s an issue for another day.
Thank you for your attention to these urgent issues. Let’s develop a system that pays doctors and hospitals to keep patients well, rather than paying more the sicker they become.
Carolyn K. Johnson, MS nutrition
Williston, Ohio
Also sent to Democratic Leadership Team & Pres. Obama 6/5/09
Obesity taking toll on U.S. health care
Obesity continues to make headlines - not surprising, because the very recommendations that contribute to obesity are still being touted by the 'experts'. Looking at Cleveland Clinic's website for their recommendations, I see skim milk (actually good for fattening pigs), various margarines & oils (modern vegetable oil industries don't want you to know that obesity and chronic disease have risen right along with the rise in oil consumption), soy foods (the soy industry doesn't want you to know all the problems that modern soy foods can cause), artificial sweeteners (the industry certainly doesn't want you to know of their links to obesity), low fat this and that - though there is precious little evidence that restricting traditional fats contributes to obesity, but lots of evidence that carbs, with their effects on blood sugars and insulin, are the real culprits. USDA and the food industry don't want us to know that we don't need all the wheat & corn concoctions recommended on the Food Pyramid - bad for business! The pop industry refuses to acknowledge how bad refined sugar is for us. My fellow dietitians don't want to look seriously at the evidence and admit that they've been wrong about butter and saturated fat all these years. Dietitians will scream foul, but they don't realize how brainwashed they are by the system that makes money off all this. FDA threatens anyone claiming nutritional healing, yet they approve all kinds of drugs developed from natural healing substances into patentable forms (read profitable), in spite of their many side effects. Is it any wonder that health care reform is so contentious with all these conflicting interests making money off our ill health!
It might contribute to the recession if we had real health care reform and got truly healthy!
It might contribute to the recession if we had real health care reform and got truly healthy!
Big Food vs. Big Insurance
Excellent article by Michael Pollan on the potential influence of the health insurance industry on the food and agriculture industries.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The Health Care Problem, continued
In spite of all the talk abut health care reform, few are identifying the real reasons why there is so much resistance to changing our system in which we spend enormous amount of money on "health" care while so few of us are genuinely healthy (without reliance on drugs!). A truly well nourished body has remarkable healing abilities, but the food industry makes lots of money supplying us with unhealthy, but profitable, processed foods stripped of essential nutrients and laced with unnatural additives. So the food industry would loose if we supported our health by eating natural, unprocessed nutritious foods to support our health. The drug industry, which makes enormous profits on our drug dependency, would lose if we maintained our health with real food, inexpensive herbs, and nutritional supplements. Hospitals would lose if we were healthy and rarely needed to go to the hospital. Conventional doctors, who have little real knowledge about nutrition, would lose, as we would rarely need medical care, instead visiting our local savvy nutritionist or naturopath for guidance in developing our individual nutritional path to vibrant health. Notice I did not say 'dietitian,' because as a dietitian myself I know that my training was heavily influenced by the food industry and biased against herbs and supplements - I had to learn that on my own after I retired, and I learned that some of the things I had been telling my patients, such as 'use margarine, not butter,' were just plain wrong - heavily influenced by the vegetable oil industry.
Why do most doctors know so little about nutrition? As I said before, our accreditation system was developed by in the early 20th century by Carnegie and Rockefeller, who had large vested interests in pharmaceuticals, so only medical schools teaching a pharmaceutical approach received accreditation.* The numerous schools that taught a nutritional approach had to close. Was this based on sound science? No! It was money speaking, and it still speaks today! What do we need to do? Break the monopoly that conventional medicine has in our illness care system. There is a growing list of doctors who have learned nutritional approaches on their own and are bringing true health and healing to their patients, at much lower cost, yet they are often reprimanded and ostracized for their unconventional ways of practicing. Recognize the value of those who are well trained in nutritional therapies. Pay doctors and nutritional therapist to keep us well without reliance on drugs, which treat symptoms, but rarely correct the underlying causes. Fund the research that demonstrates the efficacy of these therapies - drug companies sure don't want to do it! Give us all some incentives to stay well and develop truly healthy life styles and eating habits.
Likely to happen? Don't hold your breath. Some will complain about contributing to the recession because of all those lost jobs in the illness care industry!
* This information courtesy of THE LIBERATION DIET, by Kevin Brown, CPT, NC & Annette Presley, RD, LD, CPT, another reformed dietitian.
Why do most doctors know so little about nutrition? As I said before, our accreditation system was developed by in the early 20th century by Carnegie and Rockefeller, who had large vested interests in pharmaceuticals, so only medical schools teaching a pharmaceutical approach received accreditation.* The numerous schools that taught a nutritional approach had to close. Was this based on sound science? No! It was money speaking, and it still speaks today! What do we need to do? Break the monopoly that conventional medicine has in our illness care system. There is a growing list of doctors who have learned nutritional approaches on their own and are bringing true health and healing to their patients, at much lower cost, yet they are often reprimanded and ostracized for their unconventional ways of practicing. Recognize the value of those who are well trained in nutritional therapies. Pay doctors and nutritional therapist to keep us well without reliance on drugs, which treat symptoms, but rarely correct the underlying causes. Fund the research that demonstrates the efficacy of these therapies - drug companies sure don't want to do it! Give us all some incentives to stay well and develop truly healthy life styles and eating habits.
Likely to happen? Don't hold your breath. Some will complain about contributing to the recession because of all those lost jobs in the illness care industry!
* This information courtesy of THE LIBERATION DIET, by Kevin Brown, CPT, NC & Annette Presley, RD, LD, CPT, another reformed dietitian.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
The Health Care Problem
Are you aware that allopathic medicine has been high-jacked by the drug industry. MD's are taught to diagnose disease and prescribe the appropriate drug, which does not address the underlying cause of the illness, and often has side effects requiring yet another drug, more side effects, and more drugs. They are not taught the remarkable healing powers of the body if it is given appropriate nutrition and support. The very health professionals who do have this knowledge, naturopaths, homeopathic physicians, nutrition oriented chiropractors, and a few self-schooled nutrition oriented MD's, are usually not covered by insurance, yet they are the ones who can lead us to true health, avoiding the enormous cost of the present system of unhealthy processed food, and drugs to treat the inevitable health problems.
About one hundred years ago Carnegie and Rockefeller, who had large vested interests in pharmaceuticals, established the accreditation system for medical schools. Only schools teaching a pharmaceutical approach to medicine received accreditation. Before that there was plenty of competition from natural, homeopathic and nutritional approaches. Health reform will not succeed in reducing the present astronomical costs until we break the monopoly that conventional allopathic medicine and the drug industry have on our health care system.
Don't fall for the notion that health care should be based on "science-based research," since an estimated half of what doctors do now has no basis in good research. Good unbiased nutrition research is so expensive and so complicated, and proper controls so difficult, that it is easy to conduct a nutrition research project that shows no benefit of nutrition - important variables were neglected, poor quality supplements used, too short a duration, etc. Unfortunately good research is often ignored, thanks to the bias toward drug therapy. I saw that in my own training.
Excellent health, with minimal reliance on drugs, should be the gold standard for judging excellent of care. Our health care professionals should understand and utilize the value of careful planned, high quality nutritional supplements to support health and healing, or our health care costs will continue to escalate!
About one hundred years ago Carnegie and Rockefeller, who had large vested interests in pharmaceuticals, established the accreditation system for medical schools. Only schools teaching a pharmaceutical approach to medicine received accreditation. Before that there was plenty of competition from natural, homeopathic and nutritional approaches. Health reform will not succeed in reducing the present astronomical costs until we break the monopoly that conventional allopathic medicine and the drug industry have on our health care system.
Don't fall for the notion that health care should be based on "science-based research," since an estimated half of what doctors do now has no basis in good research. Good unbiased nutrition research is so expensive and so complicated, and proper controls so difficult, that it is easy to conduct a nutrition research project that shows no benefit of nutrition - important variables were neglected, poor quality supplements used, too short a duration, etc. Unfortunately good research is often ignored, thanks to the bias toward drug therapy. I saw that in my own training.
Excellent health, with minimal reliance on drugs, should be the gold standard for judging excellent of care. Our health care professionals should understand and utilize the value of careful planned, high quality nutritional supplements to support health and healing, or our health care costs will continue to escalate!
Health Care Reform and the Medical Monopoly
Are you aware that allopathic medicine has been high-jacked by the drug industry. MD's are taught to diagnose disease and prescribe the appropriate drug, which does not address the underlying cause of the illness, and often has side effects requiring yet another drug, more side effects, and more drugs. They are not taught the remarkable healing powers of the body if it is given appropriate nutrition and support. The very health professionals who do have this knowledge, naturopaths, homeopathic physicians, nutrition oriented chiropractors, and a few self-schooled nutrition oriented MD's, are usually not covered by insurance, yet they are the ones who can lead us to true health, avoiding the enormous cost of the present system of unhealthy processed food, and drugs to treat the inevitable health problems. About one hundred years ago Carnegie and Rockefeller, who had large vested interests in pharmaceuticals, established the accreditation system for medical schools. Only schools teaching a pharmaceutical approach to medicine received accreditation. Before that there was plenty of competition from natural, homeopathic and nutritional approaches. Health reform will not succeed in reducing the present astronomical costs until we break the monopoly that conventional allopathic medicine and the drug industry have on our health care system.
Don't fall for the notion that health care should be based on "science-based research," since an estimated half of what doctors do now has no basis in good research. Good unbiased nutrition research is so expensive and so complicated, and proper controls so difficult, that it is easy to conduct a nutrition research project that shows no benefit of nutrition - important variables were neglected, poor quality supplements used, too short a duration, etc. Unfortunately good research is often ignored, thanks to the bias toward drug therapy. I saw that in my own training.
Excellent health, with minimal reliance on drugs, should be the gold standard for judging excellent of care. Our health care professionals should understand and utilize the value of careful planned, high quality nutritional supplements to support health and healing, or our health care costs will continue to escalate!
Don't fall for the notion that health care should be based on "science-based research," since an estimated half of what doctors do now has no basis in good research. Good unbiased nutrition research is so expensive and so complicated, and proper controls so difficult, that it is easy to conduct a nutrition research project that shows no benefit of nutrition - important variables were neglected, poor quality supplements used, too short a duration, etc. Unfortunately good research is often ignored, thanks to the bias toward drug therapy. I saw that in my own training.
Excellent health, with minimal reliance on drugs, should be the gold standard for judging excellent of care. Our health care professionals should understand and utilize the value of careful planned, high quality nutritional supplements to support health and healing, or our health care costs will continue to escalate!
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Healthcare Reform and Our Food System
The headlines are discouraging – ‘Obesity rates soar among boomers,’ ‘Serious ailments in our health-care debate.’ Somehow things don’t change.
I wrote this letter to the Blade 3 years ago:
"I am disappointed that the Blade is promoting the misleading recommendation that a low fat diet is still best. True, if you follow a low fat diet, you avoid the troublesome fats, like trans fats and highly refined vegetables oils that are too high in omega-6 fats while short in valuable omega-3’s, and you limit the high calorie feed-lot fattened meat that is lacking in omega-3’s, vitamin E and antioxidants that are found in good pasture raised meat. But you can still fill up on white bread, low fat cookies and ice cream, leaving you short on many vitamins and minerals, while lacking the good fats that leave you satisfied and supply essential fat soluble vitamins. The real secret is to avoid highly processed and refined foods, but watch the sparks fly from the food industry when you say that! If you eat old fashioned whole foods in moderation – fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy from pastured animals, butter, whole grains properly prepared, you’d do well. The notion that saturated fats are not good for you is based on bad science, however much you see that repeated. After all mother’s milk is high in saturated fat! But the company that saturated fat often keeps just makes it seem bad by association."
So what do I see in today’s Blade – a recipe for ‘Creamy Caramelicious Milksicles’ from that "expert" authority, the National Dairy Council. What does it contain? Low fat milk, sugar, cornstarch, and caramel topping – 20% of low fat calories from milk and 80% from highly processed and refined foods of little nutritional value! It works out to about 125 calories each milksicle, containing a measly quarter cup of milk, missing the valuable nutrients in the cream, and leaving you hungry for sure for something more satisfying. The typical dietitian response – ‘kids need the calories.’ My response – those kids need the calories and nutrients in real foods. We have no idea what the long term consequences of such empty calories will be, though the research of Dr. Weston A. Price revealed that when previously healthy isolated groups of people started eating Western refined foods they developed cavities, crooked teeth and a host of other health problems. What a shame that Dr. Price’s research has been ignored (suppressed?) in our modern world of commercial foods.
Why is that? A thumbs-up review of "The Liberation Diet" in the new issue of the Wise Traditions Journal gives a clue: "About one hundred years ago Carnegie and Rockefeller, who had a large vested interest in pharmaceuticals, established the accreditation system for medical schools. Only schools teaching a pharmaceutical approach to medicine received accreditation. Before that there was plenty of competition from natural, homeopathic and nutritional approaches." I can see signs of that same heavy handed influence in the world of dietetics. The milksicles of dubious value are the result. Healthcare reform will never succeed if we don’t also somehow reform the food system.
I wrote this letter to the Blade 3 years ago:
"I am disappointed that the Blade is promoting the misleading recommendation that a low fat diet is still best. True, if you follow a low fat diet, you avoid the troublesome fats, like trans fats and highly refined vegetables oils that are too high in omega-6 fats while short in valuable omega-3’s, and you limit the high calorie feed-lot fattened meat that is lacking in omega-3’s, vitamin E and antioxidants that are found in good pasture raised meat. But you can still fill up on white bread, low fat cookies and ice cream, leaving you short on many vitamins and minerals, while lacking the good fats that leave you satisfied and supply essential fat soluble vitamins. The real secret is to avoid highly processed and refined foods, but watch the sparks fly from the food industry when you say that! If you eat old fashioned whole foods in moderation – fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy from pastured animals, butter, whole grains properly prepared, you’d do well. The notion that saturated fats are not good for you is based on bad science, however much you see that repeated. After all mother’s milk is high in saturated fat! But the company that saturated fat often keeps just makes it seem bad by association."
So what do I see in today’s Blade – a recipe for ‘Creamy Caramelicious Milksicles’ from that "expert" authority, the National Dairy Council. What does it contain? Low fat milk, sugar, cornstarch, and caramel topping – 20% of low fat calories from milk and 80% from highly processed and refined foods of little nutritional value! It works out to about 125 calories each milksicle, containing a measly quarter cup of milk, missing the valuable nutrients in the cream, and leaving you hungry for sure for something more satisfying. The typical dietitian response – ‘kids need the calories.’ My response – those kids need the calories and nutrients in real foods. We have no idea what the long term consequences of such empty calories will be, though the research of Dr. Weston A. Price revealed that when previously healthy isolated groups of people started eating Western refined foods they developed cavities, crooked teeth and a host of other health problems. What a shame that Dr. Price’s research has been ignored (suppressed?) in our modern world of commercial foods.
Why is that? A thumbs-up review of "The Liberation Diet" in the new issue of the Wise Traditions Journal gives a clue: "About one hundred years ago Carnegie and Rockefeller, who had a large vested interest in pharmaceuticals, established the accreditation system for medical schools. Only schools teaching a pharmaceutical approach to medicine received accreditation. Before that there was plenty of competition from natural, homeopathic and nutritional approaches." I can see signs of that same heavy handed influence in the world of dietetics. The milksicles of dubious value are the result. Healthcare reform will never succeed if we don’t also somehow reform the food system.
Monday, May 11, 2009
A New Avenue of Inquiry
I have been reading the most incredible book:
Virtual Medicine, second edition
by Keith Sccott-Mumby, MD, PhD.
"The Birth of Energy Medicine in the West"
Ancient Healing Arts combine with Western Scientific Technology to Create a Medical Revolution.
He makes the connection between quantum physics and many traditional healing arts, such as acupuncture, homeopathy, Reiki, light/color therapy, gem therapy, and more, which utilize healing energies that Western medicine stubbornly refuses to recognize. There are machines now which can measure and utilize these electromagnetic energies to effect remarkable healing. Dr. Mumby uses these machines along with quality nutrition, supplements and lifestyle changes to bring about healing in patients with really stubborn and puzzling health issues. If you want to broaden your education on health I’d recommend reading this book! Challenging, but very rewarding
Dr. Keith's websites:
http://www.alternative-doctor.com/
http://www.dietwisebook.com/
http://www.askdoctorkeith.com/
And he’s WAPF friendly - quotes from the Weston A Price Foundation website
http://www.alternative-doctor.com/nutrition/mythslies.htm
Happy Reading,
Kris
Virtual Medicine, second edition
by Keith Sccott-Mumby, MD, PhD.
"The Birth of Energy Medicine in the West"
Ancient Healing Arts combine with Western Scientific Technology to Create a Medical Revolution.
He makes the connection between quantum physics and many traditional healing arts, such as acupuncture, homeopathy, Reiki, light/color therapy, gem therapy, and more, which utilize healing energies that Western medicine stubbornly refuses to recognize. There are machines now which can measure and utilize these electromagnetic energies to effect remarkable healing. Dr. Mumby uses these machines along with quality nutrition, supplements and lifestyle changes to bring about healing in patients with really stubborn and puzzling health issues. If you want to broaden your education on health I’d recommend reading this book! Challenging, but very rewarding
Dr. Keith's websites:
http://www.alternative-doctor.com/
http://www.dietwisebook.com/
http://www.askdoctorkeith.com/
And he’s WAPF friendly - quotes from the Weston A Price Foundation website
http://www.alternative-doctor.com/nutrition/mythslies.htm
Happy Reading,
Kris
Friday, April 10, 2009
Garden Adventures
Hurrah! I have a real compost pile going. I followed the general guidelines in Steve Solomon’s book, Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times, see http://tinyurl.com/SolomonCompost . I made it big enough and layered it properly with garden soil to inoculate with soil microbes and cottonseed meal for extra nitrogen, and watered it properly with rain water plus some urine. It has heated up to 150ºF nicely. What inspired me was Steve’s suggestion to accumulate compostable brush in a pile over the season and let it dry. Then in the fall construct the compost pile. I’m a few months late, but I had the piles of dry stuff to work with, and it should compost quickly now, with the approach of warm weather instead of winter. When it’s finished I’ll mix it with some Complete Organic Fertilizer, for a high quality soil amendment.
I’m experimenting with another soil amendment – some biochar. Charcoal has a remarkable ability to hold trace minerals in it’s structure, as you can see here http://www.holon.se/folke/carbon/charring_methods.shtml and is very long lasting compared to compost. It is the foundation of some excellent historic garden soils found in the Amazon, called terra preta. Since I have a sizable meadow area with lots of last years dry flower stalks, I have lots of potential biochar. The customary way of getting rid of the dry flower stalks in a prairie is to burn the area – not practical in my confined area. So I came up with a way of burning them that works quite well to make biochar. I took an old rusty barrel from behind the garage, and to confine the heat and limit the air intake, I put an old rusty garbage can in the barrel. The rusty holes provided plenty of ventilation for the ‘pyrolysis’ stage of the burning. I stuff the garbage can with broken dry stalk and light the fire with a wad of newspaper and a match. Then as it burns down I break up more stalks in short lengths of about a foot and pitch them into the fire carefully so as they burn they settle down into the pile of glowing embers in the bottom of the can. When I have a fair amount of glowing coals, I let the fire die down and put the lid on the barrel to limit air access while I get some water. Then I douse the coals with water and put the lid back on to let everything cool. The next day I dump the char into a bucket and charge it with fertility by pouring on some nutrient rich liquid – urine works fine – and letting it soak. Now it’s ready to mix into the garden soil. Scattered lightly around the base of cabbage plants it’s reported to be a good snail, and presumably slug, deterrent. Maybe the squash bugs won’t like it either! For more on biochar see http://tinyurl.com/biochar22. The goal of course is to raise high quality, high brix produce in the garden – see http://tinyurl.com/gardenMaxNutrition
Hurrah! I have a real compost pile going. I followed the general guidelines in Steve Solomon’s book, Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times, see http://tinyurl.com/SolomonCompost . I made it big enough and layered it properly with garden soil to inoculate with soil microbes and cottonseed meal for extra nitrogen, and watered it properly with rain water plus some urine. It has heated up to 150ºF nicely. What inspired me was Steve’s suggestion to accumulate compostable brush in a pile over the season and let it dry. Then in the fall construct the compost pile. I’m a few months late, but I had the piles of dry stuff to work with, and it should compost quickly now, with the approach of warm weather instead of winter. When it’s finished I’ll mix it with some Complete Organic Fertilizer, for a high quality soil amendment.
I’m experimenting with another soil amendment – some biochar. Charcoal has a remarkable ability to hold trace minerals in it’s structure, as you can see here http://www.holon.se/folke/carbon/charring_methods.shtml and is very long lasting compared to compost. It is the foundation of some excellent historic garden soils found in the Amazon, called terra preta. Since I have a sizable meadow area with lots of last years dry flower stalks, I have lots of potential biochar. The customary way of getting rid of the dry flower stalks in a prairie is to burn the area – not practical in my confined area. So I came up with a way of burning them that works quite well to make biochar. I took an old rusty barrel from behind the garage, and to confine the heat and limit the air intake, I put an old rusty garbage can in the barrel. The rusty holes provided plenty of ventilation for the ‘pyrolysis’ stage of the burning. I stuff the garbage can with broken dry stalk and light the fire with a wad of newspaper and a match. Then as it burns down I break up more stalks in short lengths of about a foot and pitch them into the fire carefully so as they burn they settle down into the pile of glowing embers in the bottom of the can. When I have a fair amount of glowing coals, I let the fire die down and put the lid on the barrel to limit air access while I get some water. Then I douse the coals with water and put the lid back on to let everything cool. The next day I dump the char into a bucket and charge it with fertility by pouring on some nutrient rich liquid – urine works fine – and letting it soak. Now it’s ready to mix into the garden soil. Scattered lightly around the base of cabbage plants it’s reported to be a good snail, and presumably slug, deterrent. Maybe the squash bugs won’t like it either! For more on biochar see http://tinyurl.com/biochar22. The goal of course is to raise high quality, high brix produce in the garden – see http://tinyurl.com/gardenMaxNutrition
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
A headline in today's paper reads "Study finds 1 in 5 U.S. 4 year olds are obese" I had to comment!
The finding that 1 in 5 U.S. 4 year olds are obese is not surprising considering the heavy dose of sugar, white flour, and refined vegetable oils provided by many of the foods in our grocery stores. It’s a mistake to blame fat for our obesity epidemic when the carbs in sugar and flour are more readily converted to fat in the body. It’s a crime that our schools have been convinced to remove whole milk from the schools to cut calories. People should be aware that skim milk is good for fattening pigs, while they will lose weight if fed coconut oil (and pig metabolism is remarkably similar to human metabolism in that respect)! I’m waiting for the day when our media and our politicians will have the courage to place the blame where it belongs – on our agriculture and food industries and their addiction to corn, soy, and wheat, and all the refined and processed foods made from them. In the name of sustainability let’s put the animals back out on pasture where they belong and do what it takes to encourage our small local farmers to produce real food and our families to prepare and eat it.
The finding that 1 in 5 U.S. 4 year olds are obese is not surprising considering the heavy dose of sugar, white flour, and refined vegetable oils provided by many of the foods in our grocery stores. It’s a mistake to blame fat for our obesity epidemic when the carbs in sugar and flour are more readily converted to fat in the body. It’s a crime that our schools have been convinced to remove whole milk from the schools to cut calories. People should be aware that skim milk is good for fattening pigs, while they will lose weight if fed coconut oil (and pig metabolism is remarkably similar to human metabolism in that respect)! I’m waiting for the day when our media and our politicians will have the courage to place the blame where it belongs – on our agriculture and food industries and their addiction to corn, soy, and wheat, and all the refined and processed foods made from them. In the name of sustainability let’s put the animals back out on pasture where they belong and do what it takes to encourage our small local farmers to produce real food and our families to prepare and eat it.
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