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Farm Food Voices DC 2010 A Local Foods Feast for Congress

Posted by Liz Reitzig on February 28, 2010

Springtime is the time for planting seeds.  While farmers across the country will begin this process, they are also coming together in DC to plant a different kind of seed in the minds and hearts of their legislators: the seeds that lead to a bountiful harvest of access to local foods.  The National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association (NICFA) is hosting its fourth annual Small Farm and Ranch Grassroots Lobby Day and Legislative Reception on March 10, 2010.  As our farmers cultivate the land for a rich yield in the future, so must we build and cultivate relationships with our legislators so that we are represented in the halls of Congress.  Farmers, restaurateurs, chefs and consumers will spend the morning meeting with legislators and staffers to discuss the importance of having our laws reflect our right to access local foods from the producers we choose.  In the early evening, we will all gather to serve our legislators and their staffers a local foods feast prepared by the regions best chefs and caterers.

Local restaurants and caterers will join with our nations farmers to highlight the beauty and bounty of America’s farms.  While we are emphasizing and are predominately showcasing local foods, we are also grateful to have products, (in the past usually only available from overseas, such as olive oil and charcuterie) from small farms around the nation.

Legislators need to know where good food comes from.  This is an opportunity for them to make the connection that will help our farming freedom thrive and continue giving us access to healthy, safe food.  We hope that the foods you contribute and prepare inspires them to stand up for our country’s small farmers.

In previous years, it has greatly impressed our legislators and their aides to have farmers and producers literally standing behind their products. Many of the participants will send someone to represent their farm, product or restaurant.  It is through encounters such as these that we will begin to harvest, from our Legislators, and indeed our culture, a loyalty to local foods.  And they will begin to realize that the safest food system is through neighbor-to-neighbor food transactions.

Once again, Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms will emcee the event with a great line-up of speakers.

Please check our website for additional details, the days agenda and how to contact your legislators.

Last year’s Farm Food Voices

Posted in Congress, Events, Food freedom, Inspiration, Politics, government, lobbying, raw milk, seeds | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Eat Well, Live Well: Real Milk and Grass-fed Meats

Posted by Liz Reitzig on February 28, 2010

Real Milk

On April 26, 2008, agents of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture raided the farm of a peaceful Mennonite farmer and stole upwards of $50,000 worth of products and equipment.  What was the crime?  The farmer, a real folk hero, Mark Nolt, was selling his farm fresh milk to customers who wanted it.  Yes, that’s right, milk.  From January-April for the past four years, I, and several other young mothers, have spent countless hours working with the Maryland legislature to reinstate sales of fresh milk in my home state of Maryland where fresh milk is prohibited.  So what is it about this white stuff that has peaceful farmers risk getting raided and young mothers like me jumping into the political fray to fight for something?  Farm fresh milk from old-fashioned grassfed cows, like the milk Mark produces, is the most wholesome food a person can obtain.

Rich, delicious fresh milk is the perfect food.  Not only is it the best accompaniment to a meal, or perfect as a snack, but also the nutritional benefits of fresh milk are outstanding.  Choc full of bioavailable calcium, vitamin C, phosphorous, other vitamins and minerals, fresh milk offers the body probiotics and enzymes absent in most cooked foods.  It these living components of fresh milk that help the body build immunity.  Mothers watch in awe as their children, who suffered from chronic infections, asthma, eczema, or behavioral problems while drinking pasteurized milk, suddenly regain their health and vigor when they switch to fresh milk.  And, for all children, it is the ultimate in a quick meal.  Real milk—it’s how to eat well.

But, the benefits of fresh milk from a local farm where the cows graze do not end with the eating well.  These benefits extend to the environment and the local economies and communities.  When someone chooses to support a local grass-based dairy with a few cows, they are choosing to support a model of agriculture that honors and respects the natural cycle.  This has obvious positive implications for the eco-systems on which we all depend.  Furthermore, engaging in direct trade with a farmer means that they are receiving the entire cost of the product and earning that profit themselves rather than that going to a processor or large industry.  In turn, the community benefits from the wealth of the farmers.  This is an efficient economy based on solar input.  Knowing that how you choose to purchase milk can help to create vibrant health in your family while supporting an ecological farmer and economically stimulating small, rural communities, now that’s a great feeling.  Real milk—it’s how to live well.

So if fresh milk is great for us, for the environment and for local economies, why is it illegal in half the states and so hard to find in many of the other states?  There is really no easy answer to this rather ironic conundrum.  As I have discovered in MD and Mark Nolt discovered in PA, the status quo will go to great lengths to maintain their tight control of the food supply—especially fresh milk.  State and federal regulators argue that it is for safety that all milk must be pasteurized before consumption.  But clearly that can’t possibly be the real issue because it is perfectly legal—and in fact encouraged through advertising—for me to feed my four growing children fast food three meals a day.  I can also smoke or drink around them.  Not that I would of course, but it does give less credibility to the argument that pasteurizing milk is for “safety”.

The laws will change.  Availability of fresh milk will become ubiquitous.  Mark will keep selling fresh milk to customers who demand it, even at risk of another raid, while I, and hundreds of other moms across the country, continue to tromp through the halls of our legislature and demand the restoration of our right to feed our families as we choose.  And everyone has their own choice to make: fresh milk with all its accompanying health, environmental and economic benefits, or the pasteurized status quo.

Grass-fed meats

A few weeks ago a friend of mine approached me who recently recovered from cancer.  With her immune system shot and still very weak, she developed multiple systemic infections in her body including a horrendous fungal infection.  The new naturopath she goes to instructed her to eat plenty of grassfed beef for her recovery and for her immune system to regain strength.  Grassfed beef, as well as other pastured meats, offer greater nutrition and flavor than their confinement raised counterparts.  For example, pasture-based livestock roam outdoors absorbing sunlight and converting that sunlight into vitamin D in their bodies, which is then readily available to us in their meats.  Omega 3 fatty acids have received wide publicity lately for their role in fighting cancer.  They are also credited for being the “heart healthy” fat and helping reduce high blood pressure.  Not surprisingly, grassfed meats have much higher amount of omega 3s than other meats.

As I have journeyed into buying pastured meats for my family, I have wanted to learn as much as possible about what I am eating and why.  I’ve become somewhat infatuated with several farming publications.  My subscription to Stockman Grass Farmer teaches me all about the benefits to the land, animals and people, of pastured meats.  Not only is meat from animals on pasture healthier and more flavorful, it comes from animals that live a far greater life than those of animals in confinement.

Pastured meats are clean meats that are relatively low in toxins.  The grass that is the main ingredient in their diets generally does not get sprayed or fertilized with chemicals.  A bovine’s system is designed to graze and digest pasture grasses and legumes; chickens need grass in their diets; sheep graze; pigs, and goats, though not grazers, still thrive in an outdoor environment where they get the sunlight and space they need.  It is this harmony with nature that allows these animals to live well and provide us with the nutrition necessary to stay healthy, or as in the case of my friend, recover from disease.

As with buying milk from a small, local farm, buying meat the same way contributes identical benefits to the farmer, the surrounding communities and the environment.  Suddenly, choosing a grassfed steak becomes not only a scrumptious, healthy choice, but also a great earth-conscious choice and economic boon to the small producer’s community.  Eating well means a greater life for you, the farmer and animals.  Eat well to live well.

Posted in Family Wellness, Food freedom, Nutrition, Politics, government, heart disease, raw milk | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Promising Cancer Therapy Trial Trashed

Posted by Maureen Diaz on February 27, 2010

From the Cancer Decisions website comes this news, of the demise of Dr Nicholas Gonzalez’ NIH sponsored clinical trail.  Many are familiar with the work of Dr. Gonzales, who has accomplished so much in the field of alternative healing.  And yet, it as with countless other successes in this field, we have still more proof that the Powers That Be really don’t want these things to succeed.  Read on:

Sunday, 22 June 2008
Many readers have asked what happened to the National Institutes of Health-sponsored clinical trial of the Gonzalez regimen, the one that used orally administered enzymes for the treatment of pancreatic cancer?

In the 1980s, Nicholas Gonzalez, MD, was a disciple of Robert A. Good, MD, PhD, director of Sloan-Kettering Institute, New York. With Good’s encouragement, he began a project (while still a Cornell medical student) to evaluate the enzyme treatment of cancer promoted by William Donald Kelley, DDS, of Grapevine, Texas.

Gonzalez felt this treatment was beneficial and eventually opened an office in Manhattan to treat patients using this protocol. He presented 25 of his best cases to the NCI’s Division of Cancer Treatment (DCT) in July 1993. The pilot study was published in 1999 in the journal Nutrition and Cancer (Gonzalez 1999). Because of the positive findings of this pilot study, first the National Cancer Institute and then the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) proposed a formal clinical trial of the method.

A decade ago, hopes were high and this trial was promoted as a sterling example of how conventional and alternative medicine could work together for the good of patients, by seeking the truth about the relative merits of various contesting treatments. For example, John Chabot, MD, of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center of Columbia University, and Dr. Gonzalez spoke from the same podium at the 1999 Center for Mind-Body Medicine conference. It seemed like a transcendent moment.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a grant of $1.4 million to Dr. Gonzalez. Alas, this clinical trial ran into trouble almost as soon as it was launched in March 1999. The trial was originally designed to randomize 90 pancreatic cancer patients to receive either gemcitabine (Gemzar) chemotherapy or a large daily dose of orally administered pancreatic enzymes. But the key word was ‘randomize’ – patients were to be randomly assigned to one or the other group by the computer equivalent of a coin toss. However, most people who were attracted to this trial wanted the enzyme therapy, and not a 50-50 chance of getting chemotherapy. So in the end only three eligible patients agreed to be randomized in this fashion.

Sensing an approaching impasse, in 2000, NIH intervened to change the design. According to a government statement of the time:

“The design of the trial is now changing to a single-armed, non-randomized case-cohort study where patients will only be enrolled in what was the nutritional arm. Researchers plan to compare patients on the Gonzalez regimen to a concurrently accrued group of patients being treated with gemcitabine, although such comparisons are known to be difficult because patients selected for the newer or older treatments may not be entirely comparable.”

In fact, the ‘de-randomization’ of the trial was a major blow to its credibility. I was on a panel of government advisors that was asked to endorse this decision. In a conference call a representative of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated clearly that his agency would not accept the results of any trial that was not fully randomized. Yet the NIH strongly recommended the change and the panel in question voted in favor of changing the protocol for pragmatic reasons.

I will not attempt to trace the deterioration of this trial in the next few years. Simply put, after the “honeymoon” phase of 1999-2000, there came a period of increasing tension between Dr. Gonzalez and the Columbia University investigators. Dr. Gonzalez claimed that after Columbia was chosen as the site of the trial, “the money went into their bank account, all of it, never to be seen again” (personal communication, June 19, 2008). He also claims that he wasn’t adequately compensated for his treatment of the patients.

The newly non-randomized trail was supposed to accrue between 72 and 90 participants within the first three years. But it dragged on and on, with insufficient recruitment and a growing atmosphere of disagreement. Finally, in 2007 the trial was suspended. Its entry at www.clinicaltrials.gov states: “This study is ongoing, but not recruiting patients.” In fact, the trial in its current incarnation is unlikely ever to start up again.

According to Columbia’s own Web site, the Irving Center diagnoses and treats 3,500 cancer cases per year. I find it amazing that Columbia University could not recruit 72 to 90 suitable participants over 8 years. But that was not the limit of potential patients. There could also be referrals from other centers.

Each year, more than 37,000 Americans are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and 34,000 die of this disease. Many people are eventually told that they have the kind of incurable, inoperable disease that was targeted in this trial. Yet NCI and Columbia University between them apparently could not find 70 people to fill the trial, even though about a quarter of a million such patients were diagnosed with this cancer in the US during the period in question.

Imagine if the NCI and NIH, sponsors of the trial, had released a series of press releases, or launched a vigorous advertising campaign, whose purpose was to inform the American public about the availability of this non-toxic dietary treatment for cancer. They could probably have populated a dozen such trials! It seems to me that the basic difficulty was a lack of genuine interest or enthusiasm on the part of the academic participants.

At the same time, the trial came under tremendous pressure from doctors and compliant journalists who opposed the testing of alternative treatments. Sometimes this opposition was little more than a hatchet job.

It was unfortunate that, as time progressed, most of the medico-political support for the trial drained away. At the time of its initiation, some of its prominent supporters included not just members of Congress, but Drs. Ernst Wynder, head of the American Health Foundation, New York; William Fair, MD, chairman of urology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York; Karen Antman, MD, professor of medicine and pharmacology at Columbia’s medical school, and director of Columbia’s Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center; Michael A. Friedman, deputy director of the National Cancer Institute; Wayne Jonas, MD, director of the Office of Alternative Medicine (now the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine); and John Paul Jones III, research vice president of the giant Proctor & Gamble company.

What a difference a decade makes! Wynder and Fair died soon afterwards; Antman and Friedman moved to even more prestigious jobs; Jonas was replaced by a new NCCAM director, who was indifferent (if not downright hostile) to the project; and Jones retired from P&G. By 2007, Gonzalez himself had become “One Man Alone” – ironically, the title of his 1990 monograph on the program’s developer, William Donald Kelley, DDS. One hundred years after John Beard, DSc, of the University of Edinburgh, first proposed the treatment of cancer with pancreatic enzymes, this plausible approach still lacks a rigorous clinical trial in humans.

Because of the radically different interpretations being put forward about the trial, Dr. Gonzalez submitted the dispute for adjudication to the Office for Human Research Protection (OHRP), a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services. On February 25, 2008 OHRP sent a letter to Steven Shea, MD, Vice President and Dean of the Columbia Center, which is now available online.

This letter from the OHRP confirms some of Dr. Gonzalez’s accusations concerning the conduct of this failed trial. The most surprising government finding was as follows: “We note that Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) found that for 40 of 62 subjects it appeared that informed consent was not documented with a signed written consent form prior to the initiation of research activities involving human subjects.”

Read that over-nearly two-thirds of the participants were not even properly informed of the risks and benefits of participation in the trial!

There were other irregularities as well. The OHRP requested of Columbia’s dean: “Please provide us with a corrective action plan that addresses the above determinations by March 21, 2008.” The letter does not state whether or not any corrective plan has been proposed.

Dr. Gonzalez alleges much more widespread malfeasance on the part of his erstwhile academic collaborators. It certainly seems that the OHRP charges, although mildly phrased, confirm that all was not as it should have been at Columbia. Given the fact that two-thirds of the subjects did not give proper informed consent – responsibility for which rested entirely with Dr. Chabot and Columbia – one wonders exactly what prospective patients were told about the relative merits of the two arms of the trial. I understand that at least one Congressman, Dan Burton (R-IN), has taken an interest in the failure of this once-promising trial. It is certainly time for a full-scale Congressional investigation of this failure – of what exactly went wrong and, in the broader sense, whether the public is getting the truth about the potential benefits of alternative treatments for cancer.

NOTE: The formal title of the trial was “A Phase III Study of Gemcitabine Compared With Pancreatic Enzyme Therapy Plus Specialized Diet (Gonzalez Regimen) in Treating Patients Who Have Stage II, Stage III or Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer.” The principal investigator was the aforementioned Dr. Chabot. The project number was P30-CA13696.

Signature
–Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

References:

OHRP letter to Dr. Shea:
http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/compliance/letters/index.html

Gonzalez’s Web site:
http://www.dr-gonzalez.com

Gonzalez and Chabot spoke on same podium:
http://www.cmbm.org/mind_body_medicine_RESEARCH/1999-Transcripts/sa2.html

Gonzalez NJ, Isaacs LL. Evaluation of pancreatic proteolytic enzyme treatment of adenocarcinoma of the pancreas, with nutrition and detoxification support. Nutr Cancer. 1999;33(2):117-24.

Irving Center’s Web site:
http://hiccc.columbia.edu/?page=patientcare

“Little more than a hatchet job.” See for example my discussion of Washington Post article:
http://www.ralphmoss.com/qanda/question012200.shtml

Trial still listed at clinicaltrials.gov:
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00003851?term=gonzalez+enzymes&rank=1
Last Updated ( Saturday, 28 June 2008 )


Posted in FDA, Politics, big pharma, cancer, government | 1 Comment »

RAW . . . ROASTED . . . SPROUTED?

Posted by Debbie Wysocki on February 26, 2010

WHY SPROUT?
That’s a good question.

I was certainly clueless.

First we got to  organic . . . then we got to raw . . . now you’re telling me we need to eat sprouted nuts?

Tell me why please.  There certainly is a price difference.  Although, with a little work, you can sprout your own nuts
(and other things) yourself.  As a mom, I keep a bag of raw sprouted almonds in my car at all times along with some
fruit to make sure none of the kids strave for too long.  So know that raw AND sprouted tastes good.
So still the question WHY?

While it’s important to me to make sure my family eats well, I couldn’t remember why we went to sprouted.
After doing a little research, I found a great article at www.JigsawHealth.com that explains all the phases of a nuts life
shares

ROASTED . . . RAW . . . SPROUTED?

Nuts come from around the world in a variety of shapes and sizes. Most nuts come from the seeds or dried fruits of trees
and have an outer shell that both protects the nut and keeps the healthy fats inside the nut from spoiling.

After being picked, most nuts are dried—not only to improve flavor and add more crunch to the texture, but to preserve them.
These are what we know as raw nuts.

From there, the marketing of nuts begins: shelled or unshelled, salted or unsalted, roasted, sprouted, candied, spiced,
packaged, or bulk. But let’s talk about how nuts get processed—and what happens to their nutritional content in the process.

RAW (or unroasted) NUTS. Contrary to popular belief, raw nuts are not simply plucked from trees and sold on a grocery store
shelf. As mentioned previously, most nuts are dried to preserve them and improve their flavors and textures. These are raw nuts. While raw nuts are fairly nutritious and have no added fat, they’re often bland and tasteless.

Raw nuts also contain enzyme inhibitors which help to protect the seed and keep it from germinating too early and dying off.
This also helps to keep the species going.

But these enzyme inhibitors, when introduced into the body, actually neutralize the enzymes your body uses to control
inflammation and aid in digestion. In fact, eating nuts with these enzyme inhibitors can cause the pancreas to swell.

There are only two ways to destroy these enzyme inhibitors: 1) roasting, which also destroys the enzymes, and 2) sprouting,
which keeps the beneficial enzymes intact.

ROASTED NUTS. While roasted nuts have a lot more flavor than raw nuts, there are some definite disadvantages to them:
1) added oils, 2) added ingredients, 3) more difficult to digest, and 4) less nutritional value.

Nuts can be either dry roasted or roasted in oil. As you probably already know, dry-roasted nuts contain less fat than
nuts roasted in oil. In fact, roasting nuts in oil is a lot like deep frying—nuts are dumped into highly saturated palm
kernel or coconut oils, adding about a gram of fat and 10 calories per ounce to nuts with an already high fat and calorie
content.

Then roasted nuts are often heavily salted and almost always have other ingredients added to them such as sugar,
corn syrup, MSG, preservatives, and other additives.

In addition, many people have trouble digesting nuts because of the high fat content. Adding more fats during roasting makes
them even more difficult to digest.

Finally, roasting destroys much of the nutritional content of nuts. Vitamin B, particularly vitamin B1 (thiamine), which
helps produce energy and keep the heart healthy, is most often killed off in roasting.

And, as mentioned previously, roasting not only destroys the enzyme inhibitors, it destroys the enzymes needed by the body
to help with digestion.

So roasted nuts may have more flavor than raw nuts—but at a price: your health.

SPROUTED NUTS. Sprouted nuts neatly solve the nutrition problem of roasted nuts and the tastelessness of raw nuts.
And, the process is not new. It dates back thousands of years and is still practiced today in non-meat-eating cultures
where nuts are a staple food.

This traditional process, called sprouting.  It does not begin with drying as in the case of raw or roasted nuts.
Instead, freshly picked nuts are soaked for 24 hours in water and a pinch of sea salt, causing the nuts to begin germinating.

The nuts are then removed from the solution and slowly dried at a very low temperature with low humidity. This slow drying
process destroys the enzyme inhibitors, releasing the full nutritional content of the nut and allowing the body’s natural
enzymes to more easily digest the nuts.

While much more time-consuming, sprouting makes nuts more digestible, gives them much greater nutritional value, makes
them crunchier, and best of all, releases an unmistakably fresher flavor.

****

As a footnote from me, Debbie, you can purchase either raw or raw, sprouted nuts.  OR, you can purchase raw nuts and sprout
your own (see the instructions below).  It is relatively simple and the instructions below are only from one website.
I have a friend that simply soaks her almonds overnight and then roasts thems for about an hour on a very low temperature.
Last but not least, if you have not incorporated raw, sprouted nuts into your diet, you might want to take a second look:

Almonds
Brazil Nuts
Cashews
Hazelnuts
Peanuts
Pecans
Pistachios
Pumpkin Seeds
Walnuts

Nuts are good sources of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, good fats, and protein.

***

Kim Harris from www.TheNourishingGourmet.com shares that soaking grains is vital to proper health — in fact,  she
says ‘grains that are not soaked equal poor digestive worth and blocked vitamins and minerals.’  She goes on to
say ‘Soaked grains equal better digestive worth and make vitamins and minerals available to absorb.’  Visit
www.TheNourishingGourmet.com for detailed instruction in soaking various grains and extensive recipes.  This is
definitely a ‘thumbs up’ website!

***
Sprouting Instructions (from www.SproutPeople.com)
Yields approximately 1 Cup (1/2 lb.) of Sprouts

Prep 2/3 Cup of seed (nuts) then transfer (if necessary) into a bowl or into your Sprouter.
Add 2-3 times as much cool (60-70 degree) water.
Mix seeds up to assure even water contact for all.
Allow seeds to Soak for 4-12 hours.
Empty the seeds into your sprouter if necessary.  Drain off the soak water.

Rinse thoroughly with cool (60-70°) water and Drain thoroughly.

Set anywhere out of direct sunlight and at room temperature (70° is optimal) between Rinses.

Rinse and Drain again in 8-12 hours. And, perhaps one more…Rinse and Drain in 8-12 hours.
Stop here unless you are doing a science experiment or growing an almond tree seedling.

Note: Almond sprouts are not intended to germinate fully, their germ is meant to bulge but not put out a root.
That is why they are called Soaks.

Also: You can skip that last Rinse and Drain without altering your crop at all!

As always, we suggest that you taste your crop at EVERY RINSE – including the very first – just after the Soak period.
The soaked seeds are already alive and are now super-nutritious – and – they now have no enzyme inhibitors
(a very good thing indeed) so they’ll digest themselves and nourish you.

****

Debbie Wysocki is the owner of Women with Dreams and residual Money secrets – companies that empower the average person to live an extraordinary life by teaching how to build profitable businesses in the network marketing arena. She is a wife, mom, volunteer, a top producer in the MLM industry, a real estate investor, author, trainer, and former Beverly Hills financial analyst who is passionate about helping others succeed. Her motto is ‘How you do anything, is how you do everything!’For more information or to contact Debbie directly:  Debbie@WomenWithDreams.com 954-781-6629

Posted in MLM, Nutrition, Sprouted Grains, Sprouted Nuts, debbie wysocki, liberation diet, liberation wellness, sally fallon | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Yearning for Learning?

Posted by Jenny Westerkamp, RD on February 25, 2010

I’ve collected a bunch of great resources for diving deeper into wellness. Feel free to add your favorites in the comments!

Books

The Liberation Diet by Kevin Brown and Annette Presley

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig

The Guide to Healthy Eating and Gluten-free Cooking by David Brownstein

The Whole Soy Story by Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD

The Fourfold Path to Healing by Thomas S. Cowan

The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid, ND

Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills by Russell L. Blaylock, MD

Eat Fat Lose Fat by Mary G. Enig and Sally Fallon

Performance Without Pain by Kathryn Pirtle

Organizations

American Nutrition Association

Weston A. Price Foundation

The International & American Associations of Clinical Nutritionists (IAACN)

Eat Wild

Blogs

Whole Health Source Blog

Real Food Media Blog Network

NourishingKitchen.com

Weston A Price Blog

Nutrient Dense Blog

Jenny Westerkamp, RD is a registered dietitian and nutrition consultant for SportFuel and Eat Like the Pros, both based out of the Chicago suburbs. SportFuel is an integrative nutrition practice, while Eat Like the Pros is an organic meal delivery service. Jenny is also the co-founder of All Access Internships, a website dedicated to serving the dietetic student community. She enjoys writing about real food and has contributed a variety of websites, newsletters, online magazines, and blogs.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

KINGS AND QUEENS

Posted by Julie Burns on February 25, 2010

Are supplements important and necessary?

Yes, but we believe that diet is KING, while food based supplementation is QUEEN! As many studies have shown, the nutritional content in our food system has dropped dramatically over the last 100 years. Add in hectic lifestyles, daily stress, social eating habits, strenuous athletic activities, alcohol intake and the picture becomes even bleaker. While diet will always form the critical foundation for optimal health and wellness, wisely selected supplementation guided by a trained health professional is the ideal.

Remember that supplements are unregulated and thoughtful consideration is needed to ensure their healthfulness, safety, and even legality (especially for athletes subjected to drug testing). That is just one of the reasons why we use and recommend food based supplements.

The second and more important reason is that food based supplements work best because the body can assimilate nutrients from nature’s premium foods the best! Have you ever heard the story about the broken watch? Someone gives you a working watch and then they break it into tiny pieces, then reassemble the watch and return it to you. Will it still work? The pieces are all there, but does it function as a whole unit still and do you still want it? This is very similar to how isolated nutrients work—those commonly found in synthetic over the counter or even professional grade vitamin and mineral supplements.

Please also consider the source of the isolated nutrients in these types of products. For example, many B vitamins are derived from coal tar! The supplements that we recommend are derived from concentrated whole foods and sometimes herbs as these bioavailable and bioactive supplements nutrients work synergistically and gently in the body for optimal health—just as nature intended.

At SportFuel, we have designed a package of foundational supplements that we believe will round out a strong, real food based diet. These include:

  • Fermented Cod Liver Oil – a great source of food-based vitamins A, D and K
  • Whole Food Based Multivitamin – a broad-based source of whole food nutrients
  • Digestive Enzyme support – gentle digestive support from plant based enzymes
  • Powdered Green Drink – an essential source of minerals for those not getting 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables. Powdered greens can be very energizing and alkalizing!

Beyond general recommendations, our customized nutritional testing package provides a map of each person’s individual needs to guide appropriate diet and supplementation.

To real food and food based supplements!

Julie H. Burns, MS, RD, CCN is founder of SportFuel and Eat Like the Pros®, both located in the Chicago suburbs. SportFuel is an integrative nutrition consulting firm, while Eat Like the Pros is an organic meal delivery service. Julie’s past and current clients include the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team, Chicago White Sox baseball team, Chicago Bears football team, Chicago Bulls basketball team, Northwestern University’s varsity teams, Next Level Performance and individual pro and elite athletes.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Feeding Your Family Well: Anyone Can Do It!

Posted by Maureen Diaz on February 24, 2010

When talking with others about feeding their family well, I often hear the same mantra:  ”Well that’s fine for you, but it would not work for me; I could never do that!”  What do people think I am, Super Woman?  Married to an independently wealthy man?  Hmm.

People by and large buy into two false notions: that good food is too expensive, and too time consuming to prepare.

First, preparing nutritious, tasty food does not necessarily require endless hours in the kitchen.  It just takes planning.

To be succesful, you must plan to have a variety of basic foods on hand at all times.  Ingredients such as bones to make stock; unprocessed whole milk, ground meats and quality cheeses from grass-based farms; onions, garlic, celery and herbs; a few fresh vegetables, in season.  Add to that butter, quality extra virgin olive oil, lard or tallow, and coconut oil.  And don’t forget unrefined salt such as Celtic or Himalayan Sea Salts.  With these basic ingredients much can be accomplished!

My family’s meals are usually fairly simple and made in quantity.  For instance, last weekend I made a huge stock pot full of chili (heavy on the meat, light on beans, btw).  I had started with 5# of pinto beans which were soaked for 24 hours with vinegar and water before being rinsed and cooked.  I removed several quarts of beans to the freezer for future meals, and added 5# of ground beef which was browned and added to the pot along with lots of my favorite tomatoes (Muir Glen Fire Roasted Crushed) and spices (chipotle pepper flakes, chili powder, ground cumin).  That one pot of delicious chili fed our large family for several meals, with the added benefit of a few single portions in the freezer for my husband when he’s away from home.  The frozen beans will make quick work of quesadillas with the addition of seasoned meat, shredded raw milk cheddar cheese, and my fermented salsa.

Last week I made chicken stock, again a whole stock pot full, from which I have made 4 separate meals (various soups, and  some of the meat went into a Mexican-style chicken dish).

Notice the yellow fat-a sign that our chickens were eating real food!

Broth is a constant at our house.  It is nearly always available from our freezer for spontaneous, and easy, soups, casseroles or rice dishes.  It adds great flavor and excellent nutrition to vegetables and roasts as well.  Just simmer up a pot full for a wide variety of options!  We may make meat loaf, or casserole, or any number of other things.  But all is made in large quantity with several meals put away in the freezer for another day, or to be consumed as “leftovers” the next.  Easy!

Also, I like to chop onions and garlic in the food processor for spontaneous use during the week.  A quart will last in the fridge for at least that long, if  not used up.  You may also choose to brown ground meat, with or without seasoning, to be frozen and thawed for more quick meals.  Add to that frozen or chopped and dehydrated summer vegetables, along with some of that broth from the freezer, and you’ve got a delicious meal in minutes!

Breakfast for us is as easy as a frozen berry smoothy made with berries from our own orchard, and homemade raw milk yogurt.  Add an egg or two, fresh cream, a teaspoon of vanilla and a pinch of stevia, and you’ve a crowd pleaser!  Oatmeal or fried potatoes are quick to make up (soak the oats overnight before cooking) and will add real staying power for your kids and husband to get through the morning!

We often just make a pan of scrambled eggs with loads of cheese and butter, and perhaps a piece of hot buttered toast for everyone’s morning meal.  This is a delicious, nutritious, and filling way to start the day!

If possible, making your main meal of the day early, rather than later, can also help free up some time.  If you can get the food prep and dishes out of the way at lunch time, dinner can be light and easy-and more healthful too!  It is easier on the body to handle a larger meal earlier in the day, allowing the digestive system a much needed rest.  Likely you’ll sleep better too!

One last tip for easing your kitchen time is to enlist the help of your family.  Even the youngest of children can “help” in the kitchen, as long as they are able to sit on a stool at the counter.  Our youngest, now 3, loves to help by adding ingredients, pre-measured in ingredient cups, to the pot or bowl.  She also peels my garlic and helps to stir batters.  Is she messy?  For sure!  Efficient?  Not yet, but give her another year or two of practice and she’ll be a fantastic help!  Our other children are all able to prepare (and clean up) breakfast, make bread, and even prepare dinner on their own if needed or wanted.  All of the children have been brought up at Mama’s elbows in the kitchen, frying eggs or whatever is needing to be done.  I train them when they are young so that they become proficient cooks who enjoy, and are comfortable in, the kitchen.  What a blessing to me they are!

One sweet daughter helps in the kitchen!

Now as to the cost factor, while it is true that boxed, packaged, processed food is definitely easy to prepare, is it also really cheap?  Really?  Consider the high cost of cheap food.

First, our tax dollars go to pay massive subsidies to the “food” industry.  To processors, factories, and promoters of “cheap” food.  The farmers also receive subsidies to help defray their costs, as do other middle men along the way.  I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that those dollars could be put to much better use- in my own household!

Then think about the cost of being sick due to the weakened state of our bodies as a result of consuming all of that fake food; indeed, the cost is great!  Cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, weakened immune responses, genetic disorders, and more-all due to the toxins and lack of nutrients in our “food”!  Is it really cheaper to eat cheaply?  I don’t think so!

But it is also possible to eat well on almost any budget; you don’t need to be wealthy to afford good food!  But how do we afford this good, nutritious, real food, when money is tight?

To begin with, when shopping at a grocery store, shop only the perimeter.  This would include fresh produce, meats, cheeses, butter, etc; but not processed food. If at all possible, however, I would recommend you avoid the grocery store!

Our family’s food comes primarily from local farmers, direct.  We go to the farm.  We see how they are raising and handling the food they put on their own tables, and which we are considering for ours.  We even witness the health of their own families, as well as their fields and livestock.  These are real indicators as to the nutrient value and safety! of the foods these farmers produce.  As an added bonus, great flavor accompanies nutrient dense foods!

Everything we buy, we buy in quantity.  Cheese by the 5lb. block.  Beef by the half or whole.  Vegetables by the bushel.  We are even able to get our fresh, raw milk in 5 gallon buckets!  When buying in quantity everything is cheaper, and this extends beyond the farm.  I pick up salt in bulk bags, grain by the 25-50lb. sack, even tea and herbs by the pound (www.mountainroseherbs.com); it always saves us money to purchase this way, with the added benefit that I rarely run out of things (and “not running out of things” means we are not running out to get those same items, at a higher cost).

We keep things simple, for the most part.  While I love preparing wonderful meals for family and friends, I save the extravagant meals for special times.  And I delight in preparing delicious, simple foods and presenting them to guests; they are often wowed by real food alone, and don’t need all the frills!  Nutritious, real food tastes fantastic, when prepared thoughtfully and well.

Most people can supplement their family’s food budget by growing their own.  Many urban families are keeping chickens now for eggs and meat.  They also act as recyclers and composters, taking scraps from the family’s table and turning it into wonderful compost, eggs, and meat. (See www.themodernhomestead.us)  And container gardening is such a simple way to make use of even limited space; much can be grown in containers from your own little deck or patio, and fresh herbs and greens can be available year round from a sunny window.  If you’ve at least an acre, perhaps you can even keep a couple of dairy goats, or a family cow?  Our family has done this very thing off and on over the years, with the added benefits of meat from the offspring, and fertilizer for our garden and orchard!

So shop frugally and wisely, buying only real food-direct from the farm when possible; do everything in quantity; keep things simple; and grow your own if you can.  You’ll be amazed at how well your family can eat, be blessed by the resulting vitality, and still be able to keep your food budget within reason by following these simple tips!

Posted in Big Agriculture, Butter, Family Wellness, Food freedom, Inspiration, Nutrition, Time Management, cancer, heart disease, liberation diet, liberation wellness, motivation, obesity, processed food, raw milk, wapf, weston price | 9 Comments »

Practical Ways to Bring Fermented Foods in Your Diet

Posted by Sadiqua Hamdan on February 24, 2010

What are Fermented Foods?

The term fermented sounds distasteful, but the results of this ancient preparation and preservation technique are actually delicious.  It was common practice to preserve vegetables and fruits in cans and other airtight containers using lactic acid fermentation.  The lactic acid causes the food to pleasantly sour (think of pickles), increases the vitamin and mineral content of the food, provides a rich source of digestive enzymes, supports immune function and preserves the food for months at a time.

Sadly, today’s industrial food model has changed these traditional foods into something else.  Although it is not difficult to make your own fermented foods, most people would prefer the convenience of buying them.  However, convenience comes with a higher price tag, because they are not found in most grocery stores.

Many cultures still preserve their food the old fashioned way.  Examples of fermented foods include sauerkraut, kimchi, chutney, unpasteurized cheese, sour cream, pickles, yogurt, olives, buttermilk, kombucha, miso, tempeh and kefir.

Where Can I Find Fermented Foods?

1.  Learn to Make Fermented Foods in Your Kitchen

It’s easy to make fermented foods – but there are a few things a beginner should watch out for (it’s easy to make a bad batch when you first start).  Pick up your copy of Wild Fermentation, a book written by Sandor Ellix Katz.  This author is dedicated to the discussion of fermentation and provides over 100 basic delicious recipes that are easy to make at home.  www.wildfermentation.com is an excellent website that offers additional useful resources, including a fermentation support forum.

2.  Local Farmer or Farmer’s Market

Another easy way is to connect with your local dairy farmer who sells unpasteurized dairy products, such as cheese, sour cream, yogurt, and buttermilk.  These are real sources of dairy – and naturally produced as fermented foods.  To find a Farmer’s Market near you, visit www.localharvest.org

3.  Buy Online

www.grainfieldsaustralia.com

www.itsalivefood.com

www.culturesforhealth.com

www.zukay.com

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This Saturday on the Liberation Wellness Hour – Pete Kennedy ESQ.- Defending the Local Farmer

Posted by Kevin Brown on February 24, 2010

This Week on the Liberation Wellness Hour – Pete Kennedy ESQ.- Defending the Local Farmer

Pete Kennedy ESQ. is an attorney in Florida and serves as the President of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and Vice President of the Farm-to-Consumer Foundation. He works on dairy issues, particularly, the right of farmers to distribute raw milk and raw milk products direct to consumers. Each week, he helps members of the Fund with cow- or goat-share operation start-ups. He compiled the original “State Raw Milk Laws” and “State Raw Milk Summaries” posted at www.realmilk.com. Pete is currently working with others to challenge the federal ban on the interstate shipment of raw milk for human consumption.

For Farmers and Consumers Defending the Right to Buy and Protecting the
Right to Sell Nutritious Food Directly from the FarmThe Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund is a 501 (c) (4) non-profit organization made up of farmers and consumers joining together and pooling resources to:
•     Protect the constitutional right of the nation’s family farms to provide processed and unprocessed farm foods directly to consumers through any legal means.
•     Protect the constitutional right of consumers to obtain unprocessed and processed farm foods directly from family farms.
•     Protect the nation’s family farms from harassment by federal, state, and local government interference with food production and on-farm food processing.


The Liberation Wellness Hour Radio Show can be heard each week on Saturday at 12noon EST on

Liberty Works Radio Network, on BlogTalkRadio.com/LiberationWellness, and on Zubeo

The Shows Website is LiberationWellnessHour.com

Posted in Big Agriculture, Butter, FDA, Family Wellness, Fear, Food freedom, Inspiration, Nutrition, Politics, big pharma, cancer, faith, god, liberation diet, liberation fitness, liberation wellness, liberation wellness hour, processed food, raw milk, sally fallon, wapf, weston price | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Corporate Baking Giant Sara Lee Hijacks Organics!

Posted by Kevin Brown on February 22, 2010

February 22, 2010

For Immediate Release

View:  http://www.cornucopia.org/2010/02/corporate-baking-giant-sara-lee-hijacks-organics/#more-2619

Contact:  Charlotte Vallaeys, 978-369-6409

Mark Kastel, 608-625-2042

Corporate Baking Giant Sara Lee Hijacks Organics

“EcoGrain” Marketing Blitz — Greenwashing New Bread Produced with Toxic Agrochemicals as Something Better Than Organic

Cornucopia, Wisconsin: With the growing success of organics, and increasing consumer interest in buying foods that were grown on sustainable farms without toxic chemicals, Sara Lee Corporation has launched, with much fanfare, a marketing campaign for its Earthgrains bread, chock-full of environmental-friendly catchphrases.

Sara Lee claims that “Eco-Grain™,” an ingredient actually used in small proportions in its Earthgrains brand breads, is more sustainable than organic grain.  What has been described as a “crass and exploitive marketing ploy” has angered many in the organic community.

“Corporations like Sara Lee clearly want to profit from consumers’ interest in ecological and healthy food production.  But unlike organic companies, Sara Lee is doing practically nothing to ensure its ingredients are truly ecologically produced,” said Charlotte Vallaeys, a Food and Farm Policy Analyst at The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based organic industry watchdog.  “It’s a crass example of a corporation trying to capitalize on the valuable market cachet of organic, while intentionally misleading consumers—without making any meaningful commitment to protect the environment or produce safer and more nutritious food.”

The Cornucopia Institute, a farm policy research group, points out that the farmers who grow Eco-Grain differ very little from most conventional grain producers who use petroleum-based fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides, and have little in common with certified organic farmers.

The one attribute that Sara Lee uses to differentiate Eco-Grain production is that the farmers, although they use chemical fertilizers, incorporate technology that has reduced fertilizer usage by 15%.  In contrast, as mandated by federal law, organic farmers are required by law to reduce their synthetic fertilizer use by 100%.

Organic farmers use natural fertilizers, compost and crop rotations to enrich the long-term health of the soil, without damaging the environment or potentially contaminating the food produced.

However, Cornucopia’s Vallaeys points out that, “Even if their new fancy wheat were truly superior, each Earthgrains 24 ounce loaf contains only 20% flour from Eco-Grain, with the remainder of the bread’s wheat coming from regular, conventional wheat.  The total reduction in chemical fertilizer use in a loaf of EarthGrains bread therefore amounts to a meager 3%.”

“Even though they’ve done a countrywide media rollout, including underwriting spots on National Public Radio, Sara Lee is, in essence, playing a shell game,” said Mark A. Kastel, Codirector at The Cornucopia Institute.  “Even as they had the audacity to promote a bread with just 20% of their ‘value added’ wheat, the rest of their product line has 0% content of the Eco-Grain.  If advertising executives could be charged with malpractice, this would be a major felony,” Kastel said.

The Cornucopia Institute has written to the CEOs of both Sara Lee and NPR requesting that the “misleading and unethical” packaging and advertising campaign, and associated advertising and underwriting, be immediately suspended while the corporations investigate their propriety.

In addition to the organic prohibition against chemical fertilizers, federal regulations also prohibit organic farmers from using toxic pesticides that are commonly applied to conventional wheat fields, including those growing “Eco-Grain.”

One such pesticide typically used in conventional wheat production is 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), which EPA researchers have correlated with numerous birth defects of the respiratory and circulatory systems, as well as defects like clubfoot, fused digits and extra digits.  Other research has linked the use of toxic pesticides on wheat fields to increased cancer mortality rates.

And, in addition to chemical fertilizers and pesticides, conventional wheat farmers sometimes use synthetic fungicides and other chemicals to treat their fields.

“For Sara Lee to claim that their wheat is ecologically grown and sustainable, when they appear to make no effort to reduce or eliminate their use of toxic pesticides, that have terrible effects on the environment and public health, is highly disingenuous,” says Nathan Jones, who grows organic wheat in King Hill, Idaho and chairs the Organic Advisory Board of the Idaho State Department of Agriculture.

In addition to shunning toxic agrochemicals, organic farmers are required to improve the long-term health of their soil, and increase biodiversity on their farms.

“Unfortunately, this is another example of a major agribusiness trying to blur the line between products labeled ‘organic’ and ‘natural’,” stated Kastel, who acts as Cornucopia’s Senior Farm Policy Analyst.  “It seems that some corporations, like Sara Lee, appear more interested in corporate profit and greenwashing than true environmental stewardship, and are doing everything they can to take advantage of this confusion among consumers,” Kastel added.

“The term ‘natural’ on products like bread is not regulated by state or federal government,” says Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition at New York University. “Companies that use the term ‘all natural’ essentially come up with their own definition.”

In addition, some of Sara Lee’s other bread ingredients, such as soy oil and soy lecithin, are grown and processed using genetic engineering and chemical extraction with the toxic solvent hexane, both technologies that are banned in organic production.

In online marketing materials, Sara Lee even claims that farming methods used to produce its “100% Natural” bread “have some advantages over organic farming.”  They cite only one ecological advantage, claiming that organic farmers require more land than conventional growers.

“This claim does not hold up against recent scientific data,” said Alison Grantham, Research Manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, an agricultural research, education and outreach group.  “Long-term trials, such as our nearly 30-year-old Farming Systems Trial, show long-term average organic farming systems’ crop yields match conventional farming system yields, and that the improvements in soil health achieved by organic management actually support higher yields during droughts.”

“I just can’t believe that Sara Lee would claim to be more sustainable than organic bakers like me,” affirms Daniel Leader, a certified organic bread baker and owner of Bread Alone Bakery in the Hudson Valley, New York.  “In deference to my customers, I’ve made an investment in real sustainability by going organic, and for Sara Lee to tarnish the good name of organics, and even claim to be superior to organic bread, is simply unacceptable.”  Bread Alone Bakery is certified by the Northeast Organic Farmers Association, a certifier accredited by the USDA.

Sara Lee’s longtime ad jingle campaign doesn’t seem to be ringing true for organic farmers, bakers and consumers—“Everybody doesn’t like something, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.”  It will remain to be seen whether spending more money on marketing and advertising than on Eco-Grain itself will pay off for the agribusiness giant.

More:

For more information on the difference between Earthgrains bread and organic bread, The Cornucopia Institute has prepared a fact sheet, available at http://www.cornucopia.org/eco-grain/eco-grain-fact-sheet.html

The Earthgrains/Eco-Grain investigation is the first in a series of Natural Versus Organic profiles that The Cornucopia Institute will be issuing in 2010.

The campaign is intended to empower consumers and wholesale buyers with marketplace knowledge so that they can make good, discerning purchasing decisions—providing their families and customers with truly superior food that pays dividends for human health, the environment and society.

The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit farm policy research group, is dedicated to the fight for economic justice for the family-scale farming community.  Their Organic Integrity Project acts as a corporate and governmental watchdog assuring that no compromises to the credibility of organic farming methods and the food it produces are made in the pursuit of profit.  Their web page can be viewed at www.cornucopia.org.



Posted in Big Agriculture, Butter, Family Wellness, Food Addiction, Food freedom, Nutrition, big pharma, cancer, god, government, liberation wellness, obesity, processed food, sally fallon, visionary trainers, wapf | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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