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Top 20 Low-Carb Headlines Of 2011

Posted by Jimmy Moore on December 31, 2011

The year 2011 has come to a close and before we welcome in 2012 (which I anticipate to be an AWESOME year for healthy low-carb living!) I think it’s important to look back on some of the best moments of the past twelve months. No, widespread acceptance of the high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb message has NOT taken place and we’re still many years away from that happening…although we’re inching closer to it becoming a reality each and every day. And while it can sometimes feel like nobody in the mainstream world of nutrition and health is really paying attention to the work so many of us are doing promoting livin’ la vida low-carb, along comes our first low-carb headline of 2011 I’ll highlight with 1. this June 2011 column by Dr. Oz where he mentions my famous trademark in the first paragraph–yeah baby, Dr. Oz knows who I am and the message I’m communicating to so many enthusiastic fans of the low-carb lifestyle on a daily basis! The low-carb message will not be denied.

By the way, as an aside (but a really interesting one), I received an e-mail invitation a couple of weeks ago from a producer at The Dr. Oz Show who wanted me to appear as a guest talking about food addiction. Awesome, they want somebody to articulate what it is like to have an addiction to food as I once did and then overcame it. NOPE! Unfortunately, what they wanted me to talk about was how it DOESN’T exist! Say what? Apparently they’re not reading my blog that closely because I wholeheartedly believe in the concept of food addiction, especially to carbohydrates which I had just blogged about regarding Jessica Biel that same week they contacted me. Needless to say, I turned them down because I’m not sacrificing what I truly believe in just to be on a popular national health television show watched by millions of television viewers. I do have a sense of integrity and ethics that would never allow me to make such a boneheaded decision no matter how alluring the offer. Plus, can you imagine how it would have been edited to make me look incredibly stupid? No thanks!

Anyway, back to 2011 and all of the support we saw in the mainstream press for low-carb living. WOW! When I wrote the “Top 10 Low-Carb Headlines Of 2010″ one year ago, I was thrilled by the increased positive attention being paid to this way of eating that so many of us love and adore for the incredible weight and health changes for the better it has made in us. But there were so many this year that I had to double that number to the Top 20 Low-Carb Headlines Of 2011! Incrementally, we are making a difference and I fully anticipate this kind of excellent coverage of support for saturated fat, promotion of real foods, the meteoric rise of the Paleo diet, the lack of scientific evidence for the low-fat diet, famous people turning to low-carb living, low-carb, high-fat food shortages because of increased demand, the effects of formerly incurable diseases being improved and reversed because of ketogenic diets, and so much more! It’s gonna be loads of fun to watch all of this unfold before our eyes in 2012, but let’s take a quick look back on the other 19 low-carb headlines of 2011:

2. Saturated fat: Not as bad as you think

While it’s not a perfect article by any means, it does articulate that you should be eating at least some saturated fat. This is a far cry from the don’t-you-dare-eat-saturated-fat-or-you’ll-die message we’ve been hearing from so-called health “experts” for decades. When an RD starts talking about keeping saturated fat in your diet, then you know a radical shift is beginning to take place in nutritional education (which makes sense now that this January 2010 study from Dr. Ronald Krauss has virtually vindicated saturated fat). Again, the column has it’s flaws telling people to limit their consumption of saturated fat, but now it’s not an all or nothing proposition anymore. And that’s a good healthy start.

3. USDA finds in favor of grass-fed cows

Because of overzealous vegan activists, red meat tends to be labeled as the bad guy in health for allegedly being a culprit in heart disease, obesity and cancer. And yet all of these studies examining “red meat” tend to focus on grain-fed cows and processed meats. But what about grass-fed cows? Do these same health issues that are oft-repeated in the media exist from meat that comes from humanely-treated, grass-eating cows provided by your local farmer? Well this story show we’ve got an unlikely ally in the real food debate–the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). As much as we rail against them for their asinine Dietary Guidelines, the fact is they’ve got it right on this one. The environmental impact of grass-fed cows raised outdoors in a pasture field is minimal compared with factory farm-raised cattle. The sustainability factor of creating grass-fed meats and this newfound support from the USDA might make it become more mainstream in the years to come. Now if we could just get them to promote this real, whole food in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines in a few years.

4. Fad diet is thousands of years old

Paleo diets continued to make a strong showing in mainstream media coverage in 2011, including this one featuring a fellow diet and health blogger named Melissa Joulwan from “The Clothes Make The Girl” blog (you might recall I recently reviewed her new book called Well Fed). The column did a fabulous job of promoting what Paleo eating is–no grain, dairy, processed foods, sugar or legumes–and to eat like our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Melissa articulated some excellent points, including how she was scared to eat fat at first which is a very real fear of people beginning a high-fat, low-carb type of diet for the first time. Additionally, she explained how it’s not just sugar but foods that turn to sugar in the body that people need to be concerned about and that’s a solid message for people to be exposed to. This column was definitely one of the bright spots of 2011 for Paleo low-carb living!

5. Deadly cost of low-fat dieting

After years of getting a free pass as the holy grail of all nutritional plans despite the lack of evidence to support it as a sustainable way to manage weight and health, it seems the low-fat diet fad is finally nearing its end. You gotta love it when you hear British doctors stating that a low-fat diet “lacks vital vitamins and minerals” that lead to “long-term problems” with health. They add that they are concerned about the “dangerous” trend to eat low-fat and low-calorie rather than focusing on foods that will nourish their bodies. This message has been sorely needed for the past thirty years and suppose it is better late than never. I’d LOVE to see these same kind of warning bells being sound by American physicians and dietitians who are sick and tired of seeing the same old failed results of their low-fat diet advice! That day of reckoning will be here sooner rather than later as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other chronic health issues persist.

6. The low-fat food myth and other fictions

It wasn’t a good year for conventional wisdom. This Australian newspaper takes a look at a lot of the bad dietary advice we’ve been given over the years and shares why it is dead wrong. Things like “eat low-fat foods,” “coconut oil is bad for you,” “eggs will increase your cholesterol,” and “red meat is bad for you.” Sure, there are some strange statements in the column (i.e. “We still need to eat carbohydrates”), but they push people towards the foods that are less bad for them. Again, it’s an excellent move in the direction of healthy high-fat, low-carb living.

7. Bikini Model Christine Teigen’s Top 5 Low-Carb Meals

I couldn’t have been happier to see this column featuring the favorite low-carb recipes of a swimsuit model named Chrissy Tiegen (who was named “Rookie of the Year” in the 2010 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue). She’s a big-time fan of eating low-carb and not the low-fat version of it like so many in the entertainment/Hollywood arena tend to do. If you follow her Twitter feed, then you’ll see she’s a lover of meat and doesn’t take too kindly to vegans telling her what she can and can’t eat. LOVE THIS! My favorite low-carb recipe from her is the “Stuffed Red Bell Peppers”…but they all look incredible! See more of Chrissy’s recipes at her “So Delushious!” blog (I love the tag line of her blog: “Personal random ramblings from a girl who loves bacon and can’t be fat”). I’m working on getting her on my podcast for an interview in 2012.

8. Low-carb diet may help overweight girls beat obesity risk

As much as we hear about childhood obesity and trying to find a cure for it, low-carb diets have up until this point been all but rejected as too “extreme” to use in overweight kids. But this research found a reduced-carbohydrate diet produced great weight loss even when carb counts were as high as 43 percent of calories. Can you imagine how much better they’d do if carbohydrates were reduced even more? Getting adolescents off of the sugary, carbohydrate-rich junk and fast foods would make a huge difference in reducing obesity rates. Unfortunately, the simplistic message of “Let’s Move” promoted by well-meaning people like First Lady Michelle Obama just isn’t the answer.

9. Exceptional rise in butter consumption

After four decades of decline in butter sales in the Scandinavian country of Finland, butter sales actually INCREASED in 2011 thanks to the increased popularity of low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) diets taking place in that region of the world. People have stopped consuming margarine and going back to what their grandparents ate–real butter! Can you imagine how the American media would respond if butter consumption rose to an average of 7 pounds a year? I know I personally eat a lot more than that and wouldn’t touch margarine with a ten-foot pole. Could this trend come to the United States? I sure hope so!

10. Butter shortage in Norway as low-carb-crazed dieters devour country’s stockpile

Meanwhile, in neighboring Norway butter has become such a hot commodity that they’ve now run out of butter! Holy cow! Sales soared in October and November along with a reduction in production due to a wet summer and now their enthusiasm for LCHF has led to this rather precarious predicament. Enterprising marketers are attempting to sell butter there on the black market for around $13 which seems absurd to Americans where butter is plentiful. Again, could you imagine having a butter SHORTAGE in the United States? How wonderful would that be if it was because more people are eating low-carb, high-fat? Of course, there’s always coconut oil. If you missed comedian Stephen Colbert’s classic take on the Norway butter shortage, then click here and be prepared to laugh your head off! This is super exposure for our message.

11. Facebook top 2011 search for Google Sweden

After those last two stories, this one should come as no surprise. In Sweden where LCHF has become a household name thanks to the great work of pioneers there like Dr. Annika Dahlqvist and Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt (who will be a part of my special “Encore Week” best of 2011 podcasts next week on “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show”), one of the top Google searches there in 2011 was for low-carb, high-fat diets. WOO HOO! Congratulations to the enthusiastic LCHF bloggers and promoters of this way of eating there for making such a strong statement in the nutritional culture there. My dream is to see that happen in the United States taking the lead of our Swedish friends which is why I started my “Eat Like A Swede” blog this year. The closest thing we’re seeing is the exponential rise in Google searches for “Paleo Diet.” And that’s not such a bad thing either.

12. Are Low Carb Diets Bad for the Brain?

If you only read the headline, then you would think this column is anti-low-carb. But read closer…the conclusion is that eating low-carb ketogenic diets does NOT harm brain health. Of course, we knew that already since low-carb neurosurgeon Dr. Larry McCleary has said on my podcast that ketones are the preferred fuel for the brain. So why wouldn’t you eat low-carb, high-fat? DUH!

13. Low-carbohydrate diets look good for the prevention and treatment of cancer

One of the great people we have working on our side in the mainstream media is Dr. John Briffa in the UK (who will be joining us as a guest speaker on The Low-Carb Cruise in May 2012). Dr. Briffa is a physician who understands the purpose of carbohydrate-restriction and communicates key research that backs up this stance. This article is a fine example of such reporting as it relates to the relationship between low-carb diets and cancer.

14. Low-Carb, High-Protein Diet Slows Cancer Growth In Mice, Study Finds

Here’s yet another story on a study of low-carb diets and cancer looking at mice that was published in the June 14, 2011 issue of Cancer Research that confirms what Dr. Eugene Fine is showing in his RECHARGE trial at the Einstein College of Medicine. Reducing carbohydrates starves cancer cells and slows the growth of malignant tumors. I wrote about much of this research on cancer in my second book 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb.

15. Low-carb, high-fat diets add no arterial health risks to obese

That low-carb, high-fat Atkins diet is gonna clog your arteries! If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard this one uttered over the years, then I’d be a bazillionaire by now. But this useless bit of information couldn’t be more wrong according to two studies that came out of Johns Hopkins in 2011. They found no harmful vascular changes from eating this way and weight loss was more efficient than those who consumed the low-fat diet. The researcher Kerry Stewart noted that the “overemphasis on low-fat diets has likely contributed to the obesity epidemic in the United States by encouraging an overconsumption of foods high in carbohydrates.” Ya think?

16. Intermittent, Low-Carbohydrate Diets More Successful Than Standard Dieting, Study Finds

Although I’m not so sure about the intermittent aspect of eating a low-carb diet, it’s good to see that this on again, off again low-carb diet outperformed the low-calorie diets for weight loss and insulin control. They claim that eating low-carb twice weekly will give you these benefits, but what if people did it 6-7 days weekly? But in the spirit of incrementalism, I’d love it if people ate low-carb at least two times a week…it’s a start.

17. Modified Atkins Diet Shows Promise as Treatment for Epileptic Children in Indian Clinical Trial

I first shared about the work Dr. Eric Kossoff is doing with using a modified Atkins approach for treating epilepsy in Episode 367 of my podcast. The effectiveness of the ketogenic diet for children having seizures continues to manifest itself in studies like this one out of India. When we move the focus away from weight loss (which is a nice side effect of healthy high-fat, low-carb diets like Atkins) and on to the health improvements that happen from eating this way like on diseases like epilepsy, I think it becomes quite obvious that this isn’t some passing fad that’s harming our health as it is often mischaracterized by those who oppose it. These kind of stories have to make people second guess whether to believe all of the hyperbole they’ve been hearing about low-carb diets. It’s nothing but great exposure for the low-carb lifestyle in my eyes.

18. Low Carb Diets Are Okay

Well, gee, thanks for your permission for us to eat this way, American Diabetes Association (ADA)! Four years after making the proclamation that diabetics can consume a low-carb diet for weight loss for up to one year, they’re still harping on that message and bragging about how they’re the ONLY major health organization to show support for low-carb diets. And yet, they still only see low-carb as a weight loss tool and not as an actual therapy for treating diabetes. The great low-carb diabetes physician Dr. Mary Vernon is quoted in the column stating this position by the ADA is “not enough and it isn’t respectful enough of how effective this is as a change in patients”–especially those with Type 2 diabetes. While I’m glad the ADA promotes low-carb diets at all even if it is for weight loss, can you imagine how much more of an impact they would have on the actual blood sugar control of diabetics if they promoted this way of eating for treating their diabetes? But as we saw with the ADA’s refusal to publish Judy Barnes Baker’s low-carb cookbook, we’ve still got a long way to go.

19. Food Trends and Eating Habits in 2011

Can you believe what landed at #3? They proclaim that “low-carb diets rule” citing the top four “fasting rising” diets on Google are all low-carb ones. Granted, not all of them are high-fat, low-carb diets, but it’s good exposure for the message of carbohydrate restriction. If we can get people to eat low-carb first, then maybe they’ll end up on blogs like mine, listen to podcasts, participate in forums, etc. to learn why adding in dietary fat is a crucial part of their health equation. Incidentally, “gluten-free” was also a hot trend in food in 2011 and “backyard farming.” Real food, wheat-free, low-carb living is making waves!

20. Top 10 Weight-Loss Trends of 2011

And finally, look what hit the top of the top trends at Shape magazine in 2011–The Paleo Diet! Thanks to the tireless efforts of people like Robb Wolf, Dr. Loren Cordain, Nora Gedgaudas, and a whole bunch of new Paleo bloggers and cookbook authors, this new old trend is probably here to stay for many more years to come! And it coincides quite nicely with those of us who choose to eat high-fat, low-carb, too! Incidentally, CrossFit was also on this list which embraces the Paleo Diet as the nutritional plan of choice for those who engage in this intense exercise routine. Vitamin D also made the list which is a hot topic in the low-carb community with supplementation promoted by the likes of people like Dr. William Davis. Intermittent fasting landed on this weight loss trends of 2011 list too…yet another subset of the Paleo/low-carb blogosphere. The takeaway from all of this–yes, we’re helping get the message out to the people who need to hear it the most!

Did you think 2011 was a great year for low-carb? Tell me your thoughts and any significant headlines that you think I might have missed. Here’s hoping for lots more awesome press for livin’ la vida low-carb in 2012. Bring it!

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Jimmy Moore is the popular blogger, podcaster and author of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb who lost 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004 and quickly established himself as a highly influential layperson in the field of health and nutrition. His wildly successful Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Blog has been educating, encouraging and inspiring readers since 2005 and his accompanying iTunes podcast The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore is one of the most listened to health broadcasts online today featuring hundreds of enchanting interviews with the leading voices in the world of diet and healthy living! Jimmy’s latest book compiling all the knowledge he has learned along his journey is called 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: How The Health Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He lives in Spartanburg, SC with his beautiful wife Christine and their three cats!

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Raw Milk Bill

Posted by Kevin Brown on December 30, 2011

A743/S2702 NJ Raw Milk Bill

Very important hearing in Trenton, Thursday, Jan 5, at 1pm.

VOTE ON RAW MILK BILL:  THURS, JAN 5, 1PM
This hearing is crucial — we want a YES vote from the Economic Growth committee.

Please come to Trenton, bring supporters, bring your family.  Bring written testimony, be ready to speak briefly if there is time.

A big show of support for raw milk (ie, lots and lots of people !!!) is really important to influence the legislative process in favor of raw milk.

LAME DUCK SESSION
Thursday, Jan 5 is one of the last meetings in this lame duck session — we have a very short window now to get raw milk legalized in NJ.  We want to succeed now so we don’t have to start the process all over again.

HEARING PROCEDURE:
- Please submit any written testimony (multiple copies if possible) to the committee aide before the meeting starts.
- Please fill out a witness slip to indicate your support for the bill, and use the checkboxes to indicate if you wish to speak.

LOBBYING
If you want to come early and speak with senators in the hallways, we are building an informal group of people interested in speaking directly to senators.  We’re asking this lobbying group to dress conservatively and have 30 second speeches ready to catch senators’ attention.  And there will be handouts to give senators.

NEXT IMPORTANT DATE:  MON, JAN 9
If the bill is successfully voted out of committee on Jan 5, then we hope it can be posted to the full Senate for a vote on Jan 9, so please keep this day available also — it may be important to show support on Jan 9 too.

CARPOOLING
Please contact Carol carolrice@optonline.net to offer or request a ride.

DRIVING, PARKING & BUILDING INFO
Be sure to bring ID such as drivers license so you can get a visitor pass at the guard desk inside the building.

Use this address for online searches because the State House Annex is right across the street:
162 W State St, Trenton NJ 08625

Local directions in Trenton from Rt 29:
- Rt 29 N or S
- Take exit for Calhoun St
(If Rt 29 S, choose ramp for Calhoun toward Capitol Complex)
(If Rt 29 N, choose ramp for Calhoun toward Princeton/New York)
- Hard right at light onto State St
- State House Annex is on right (across from Taylor St)

For more driving directions:
www.njleg.state.nj.us/legislativepub/directions.asp

State House Annex:
Between the state library and the state house, directly across the street from 162 State St.
For more help:  (609) 292-4840 www.njleg.state.nj.us

Parking:
www.trentonparking.com

Visitor parking
As soon as you get off the Calhoun exit onto State St, look on the right for the state museum.  Right by the museum there is free visitor parking and there may be a state trouper outside to direct you into the garage, which is connected directly to the State House Annex.

Street parking
Metered street parking within a half block of the state house is safe.  Requires frequent trips to feed quarters to the meter.  Occasional spots open up during the day.  Farther away is not safe as cars are broken into on a daily basis.

Reasonable parking also available at the
Trenton Marriott Downtown (609) 421-4000
Continue down State St away from Calhoun
R onto Willow/Barrack
then L onto Lafayette
Ask the hotel for directions to the State House Annex.

More information:
www.njleg.state.nj.us
www.foodshedalliance.org
www.gardenstaterawmilk.org
Garden State Raw Milk on Facebook

Sign up for alerts:
www.westonaprice.org
www.foodshedalliance.org

To check the meeting schedule for the NJ State Senate Economic Growth Committee:
- Go to www.njleg.state.nj.us
- Under COMMITTEES, choose Senate Committees
- Find Economic Growth, then click View Schedule
- Click the meeting date, check for A743 & S2702 on the list of bills

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Posted in Big Agriculture, Family Wellness, Food freedom, heart disease, liberation diet, liberation wellness, Nutrition, raw milk, weston price | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Let Your Kids Get High

Posted by Kevin Brown on December 30, 2011

Let Your Kids Get High

Joette Calabrese, HMC, CCH, RSHom(Na)

Wait. Did you think I meant…….
No, no. Not that kind of high.
I‟m talking about a high fever. In fact, it‟s high time we all understood that getting a fever has phenomenal value in the short and long term.
This was known back in the late 1700‟s, when Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the Father of Homeopathy, acknowledged that fever is an occasion.
An occasion for what though?

First off, a fever provides lifelong immunity by completing a short term illness. Secondly, fevers help to prevent what would otherwise become chronic illness as long as they‟re not suppressed. But when a fever is suppressed, so is the illness it was trying to combat. In the end, that same illness is simply heaved into the future. And there it looms in the form of chronic disease.

Let me explain.
Fever is the marker of a stimulated and activated immunological reaction. The virus or bacteria is the provoking agent which triggers a normal response from the white blood cells. The pain, fatigue and fever that ensues is what we call being sick.

My goal was to be sure that my children were allowed to complete their childhood illnesses with a good high fever, so that the cell remediated responses could clear the illness fully. I never used sponge baths of alcohol or warm water. Instead, allowing the fever to flourish was paramount to the long term wellness of my child. In fact, it was an opportunity for wellness.
In other words, when someone (especially a baby or child) is sick, not only is a fever a natural response, but it‟s also an indicator that there‟s a “so far, so good” action occurring.

Fevers symbolize positive reaction.
But you might ask, “Can‟t fevers be dangerous?”
Well, it depends on the temperature. Some say that 106.7° is the danger point and that this kind of fever is usually caused by an intracranial hemorrhage from trauma, as opposed to a
strep or viral infection. Other medical experts are convinced that above 107° is the threatening high point.

Nonetheless, most infections in childhood diseases limit the febrile response to about 105°.
Fevers do not just build up immunity and gird the body against future colds and flu‟s. In fact, Dr. Thomas Cowan, a recent speaker at the Weston A. Price Conference in Dallas, aptly said, “Every time I treat fever, I‟m treating cancer in the future.” He was referencing evidence which shows that cancer is the result of suppressed fever and he went on to say that the fever‟s response is the way we maturate our white blood cells.
His sentiments are that we should embrace the febrile response because fever is not an illness at all…it‟s simply a symptom. Indeed, an illness can cause damage, but a fever is not the illness, it‟s only the febrile response.

And this response is a therapeutic one, too; fevers cure the problem by “cooking” off the virus or bacteria.
In the last 50 years, there hasn‟t been even one thread of evidence showing that fevers cause damage, unless they‟re outside of the normal range.
Why then, have we treated it? If you ask a candid pediatrician, he will tell you that it‟s because the parents entreat him to “Do something!” Then, if you ask parents, they say the reason they treat fever is because their doctor told them to do it.

Sounds like the cat running around trying to catch its tail…a rather silly reason to place our children into a risky setting, wouldn‟t you agree? Instead, let‟s base our parental decisions on sounder judgment.
If you must treat fever, let me share the methods I‟ve used for my own children and which I‟ve taught to mothers and others over the years.
Yes, fevers are uncomfortable, but the authentic goal is not to suppress the fever, but to keep your child hydrated with lots and lots of good quality fluids. Here are my guidelines:

Treating Fever Guidelines
· Offer kombucha
· Give your child water with fresh lemon and Bioplasma (a homeopathic mixture made by Hyland‟s)
· Hand over a cup of ice chips…flavored with lemon and raw honey
· Make some freshly squeezed fruit juice (at home) and dilute it with water
· Offer a warm cup of raw milk with a splash of vanilla

· Provide a tall glass of refreshing cold milk
· Have your child sip on a mug of bone broth
· Suggest a glass of kefir
· Mix some yogurt in water with a bit of raw honey
· Blend raw honey with a splash of vinegar in water
· Whip up some homemade ice cream with raw milk and cream
· Brew herbal teas, such as chamomile or rose hip
· Freeze some popsicles made from any of the above drinks

Then, keep your child in bed. Hold him, read to him, pray with him and smile with confidence.

That’s how we treat fever. The only thing that goes into his mouth is what you‟ve concocted in the kitchen via your motherly hands. No suppression, no synthetic pills and no short term illness thrown into the future to bankrupt your child‟s long term health.
Once you understand how important it is to allow the body to finish the good work of healing via fever, you‟ll be girded for an important step in autonomy. And autonomy is a critical step in authentic family wellness.

So the next time the kids get high, instead of calling in the psychologists, celebrate with a tall glass of kombucha and know that your parenting skills have developed enough to allow your child to cure himself.

If you yearn to learn, contact Joette Calabrese at HomeopathyWorks.net for a free, 15 minute SKYPE or phone session and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for you and your family’s lifestyle strategy. For a download of our new, printer-friendly First Aid Chart, go to www.homeopathyworks.net and find it in the “Free Downloads and Articles” box. Don’t forget to check out all the information on Joette’s upcoming system designed for moms. Just click Yearn to Learn.

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Foods That Are Good For Your Teeth

Posted by Dr. Richard Walicki on December 29, 2011

In a previous article, Foods That Are Bad For Your Teeth, I reviewed three broad categories of foods that can be detrimental to your dental health.  These were sugars and sweeteners, low fat foods, and foods that contain white, especially bleached, flour.

With this article I would like to spend some time talking about an area that I feel receives entirely too little attention – whether by patients, or dentists, for that matter.  Possibly, this comes about for the simple reason that by the time many patients arrive at the dentist they are looking for resolution of a specific problem.  In this sense, the market has conditioned both patients and doctors into focusing upon the end-game.

This has its place and fills a need.   Patients who are in pain do not generally want to hear about what they should be eating – they want to handle their pain.   Yet, knowing what foods can repair teeth may be a key element in establishing their future long-term dental stability.

In today’s economic climate, health care has undergone many challenges and the consumer has been faced with high medical and dental costs.  Consequently, health care is not infrequently reserved for the handling of emergencies.  This is actually counter-productive, as emergency dental care is also expensive.  Couple this with efforts by the patient to reduce costs, and the “treatment” may be a decision to remove the offending tooth.  Later, when the patient starts to regret his choice and seeks tooth replacements, he may find that replacement costs are many times more than had they handled the problem once discovered.

Economics can also influence the quality of the food we consume.  In an effort to save money many consumers will also select lowest cost items.  These are typically quite profitable for the producer but are usually highly processed and very unprofitable for your health.

So what do you need to know?

Let’s start with this simple concept:  If what you eat comes out of a box, a jar, a can, or a plastic wrapper, it has been processed.

Your diet is the single most important thing that you can control to create or maintain a healthy mouth.  When you eat too many processed foods – especially those that contain sugars and bleached flour – you create effects that may not be immediately noticed by you.  For example, the level of blood sugar can become elevated and with it a person can experience elevated cortisol.  Cortisol is a hormone produced by your adrenal gland and is responsible for raising blood sugar.   It also affects the flow of parotin (a salivary gland hormone) and, in so doing, can lead to cavities.  Cortisol also counteracts insulin which regulates carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body, and it slows down bone formation.

The inability to metabolize fats, in turn, can keep you from benefiting from the healthy foods that can help you to repair your teeth.

So, you see, it is a little like the children’s song “The foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone.  And the ankle bone’s connected the leg bone.”  The bottom line: what we do – or don’t do – can have unseen and unwanted effects when it comes to our diet and teeth.

Maintaining healthy hormones is very important to your dental health as well as to your general health.  The relationship between demineralization and remineralization is balanced when hormones are healthy.  When unbalanced, calcium and phosphorus can be pulled out of the blood and create deficiencies in our bones as well as the teeth.  It can also create a condition wherein your body becomes excessively acidic. An acid environment is more receptive to the growth of bacteria and fungi.   If there is one take-home message that you take out of this article it should be that real food – namely unprocessed food, as nature intended that it be consumed – will not only support your general health, but will also support your teeth.

What foods, then, are good for your teeth?

  1.  Proteins:  Eat proteins in order to regulate blood sugar.  As mentioned above, blood sugar fluctuations are one of the key reasons that we lose minerals.  High quality proteins such as grass fed, or wild game are best.  While I realize that this may pose a problem for vegetarians, it doesn’t alter the fact that the most productive stores of minerals, protein, and fats are derived from meats.  Vegetarians must rely on eggs and cheese for their protein.
  2. Foods with phosphorus:  Possibly more important than calcium for your teeth, phosphorus can be obtained from milk and cheese.  Raw, unpasteurized milk is best.   Unless, strictly vegan, vegetarians should have no trouble getting their phosphorus from these sources.  Other good sources of phosphorus include organ meats of both land animals and those from the sea.  Muscle meats (most common meats consumed, i.e., not from organs such as liver or kidney, for example) are also a good source, as are beans and nuts.  Organ meats have more phosphorus than muscle meats.  Although present in some grains, the quantities can be insufficient or difficult to absorb, and this may not be the best choice for your teeth.
  3. Trace minerals are important:  In addition to phosphorus, the following deficiencies can also lead to problems with tooth decay – iron, copper, magnesium and manganese.  Foods with iron include shellfish and organ meats.  Copper is found in liver and mollusks.  Smaller amounts exist in mushrooms.  Magnesium can be found in fish, nuts, and spinach.  Manganese, also important in the regulation of blood sugar, occurs in liver, kidneys (organ meats), mussels, nuts, and pineapple, to name a few sources.  Other trace minerals may also play a role, but are too numerous to mention here.
  4. Healthy fats: These are a great source of energy, but are also important to help maintain hormonal function and balance.  Among the healthy fats are olive oil, butter, beef, chicken, pork and duck fat.  Avocado and coconut oil are also healthy fats, especially if from organic sources.  Vegetable fats do not generally contain the vitamins that help to re-build our teeth.
  5. Fat soluble vitamins D and A: Simply put, without adequate stores of these two vitamins, we can’t get the calcium and phosphorus into our bones or teeth.  People with tooth decay are typically lacking these two vitamins.  Seafood is an excellent source of Vitamin D.  If you don’t have easy access to seafood, or if you don’t like it, lard, or pork fat, will help. Suet, or beef fat appears to be more effective, however.  Another excellent (and relatively simple) way to get Vitamin D is with daily exposure to sunlight.  Consuming fermented cod liver oil is still another easy way to get Vitamin D into your diet.

Eating healthy is the single-most effective action you can take to protect your teeth – and your overall health.  It is also one thing that you can control.  Take the time to learn which foods can provide you with proteins, phosphorus, healthy fats, vitamins D and A, as well as trace minerals, and you will be well on your way to healthier teeth and gums!

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Known as the Doctor of Dental Wellness, Dr. Richard Walicki is a graduate of the Temple University School of Dentistry. Dr. Walicki is a general dentist with a focus on wellness and has maintained an active private practice in Philadelphia for over twenty years.  His mission is to help people attain practical solutions for their dental health problems through education, prevention and nutrition. Dr. Walicki is a contributor to the LiberationWellnessBlog and a supporter of real food. Additional articles of related interest can be located on his website.  A free newsletter and bonus report are also available.

Posted in blood sugar, Cheese, coconut oil, cod liver oil, Dr. Richard Walicki, farm fresh, grass fed beef, gums, health, lard, Nutrition, oral health, pasteurization, ProBiotics, processed food, raw milk, real food, sugar, Vitamin D | Tagged: | 1 Comment »

Foods That Are Bad For Your Teeth

Posted by Dr. Richard Walicki on December 28, 2011

This is the first of a two-part series that discusses the effect of foods on our teeth.  Part One will review those foods considered harmful to the teeth, and Part Two will discuss foods that can actually help to rebuild them.

Generally, more attention is given to the former than the latter.  From a viewpoint of prevention, this has its value.  Nevertheless, a good understanding of which foods are beneficial to dental health is, in my opinion, of no lesser importance.  In actual fact, this understanding may hold the key to not only improving an individual’s dental health, but very possibly their general health as well.

While there are usually several components to any program that leads to improved dental health, of these, it is my opinion that diet is paramount.

Dentists generally spend the bulk of their time discussing the importance of hygiene.  I, too, have addressed this topic in several articles.  Nevertheless, over time, I have come to see the value of spending a great deal more time with patients reviewing and modifying their diets.  Truthfully, this is more challenging – and meets with greater resistance.  But it is vitally important.

I don’t think it is important to the exclusion of hygiene, however.  Yet, I have come across some opinions that promote diet only.  So let’s take another look at this area more broadly, just to put it into perspective.

Hygiene involves care of the entire body.  Naturally, that includes the mouth.  While good personal hygiene is generally something one should practice for themselves – it is also important to insist others maintain it as well.  Consider the following example:

Let’s say you have adopted a diet of fresh organic food and you are now on your way to your local butcher to purchase some fresh meat.  You arrive and are greeted by someone who smells as though he hasn’t bathed in a week.  His hair is greasy.  His hands are dirty and after he unceremoniously coughs into them, he wipes one hand on a dirty shirt.   Then he reaches over for your fresh cut of meat and holds it up for inspection.

You would have a right to refuse it.  Not because there is anything wrong with grass-fed, hormone free meat.  Rather, it would be because the person clearly practices poor hygiene and may infect you – and whoever else they come into contact with.  You wouldn’t be wrong to say something about it.

Similarly, good oral hygiene is simply a reflection of the total care of one’s body.  This also means getting sufficient rest and exercising regularly.

That having been said, let’s take a quick look at what types of food cause people dental problems.

These can be simplified into three broad categories.  As you will see, however, they comprise a very wide array of commonly consumed foods.

  1. Sugar and Sweeteners.  The first category I will mention is the one nearly everyone focuses upon and possibly falls into the category of “common knowledge.”  Despite this fact, you might be surprised by the quantities of sugars and sweeteners that are regularly consumed in a typical diet.  When the quantity of sugar in the blood rises it upsets the balance of calcium to phosphorus in the blood as well.  This has the effect of pulling calcium out of our teeth and bones.  Low phosphorus levels likewise affect the mineral content of dentin, which is the layer of tooth structure supporting tooth enamel.
  2. Low Fat Foods. This includes such items as skimmed or low-fat milk, which many individuals assume helps their teeth if they consume it in sufficient quantities.  Unfortunately, this is a fallacy that gets many people in trouble. Milk that is homogenized and pasteurized has been stripped of its nutritive value.  Pasteurization kills off the probiotic (good bacteria) quality of raw natural milk.  Paradoxically, this can allow pathogenic (bad) bacteria to grow more easily in pasteurized milk.  Also, the absence of healthy fat can affect hormonal function which, in turn, may affect mineral levels adversely.
  3. Bleached (White) Flour.  Products that contain white flour can also be damaging to teeth – especially when combined with sugars and in the absence of healthy animal fats.  If one stops to consider how many foods are made with white flour, this can create quite a dietary challenge.  Furthermore, if not removed after meals, these foods will create a thin sticky layer of what is basically a form of sugar.  Because this, in turn, can stick to the teeth for hours – and becomes acidic – it can accelerate that demineralization process that breaks down the outer layer of your teeth, resulting in tooth decay.  Also, the bleaching process typically adds chlorine dioxide or benzoyl peroxide to make the flour appear bright white.   You don’t need these in your diet.

In the next article, we will cover what foods are good for your teeth.  The positive side to this story is that there is good news and you can do something to remineralize or rebuild your teeth; however, knowing how foods come into the picture and which ones are detrimental to your teeth and gums is a critical element for taking control of your dental health.

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Known as the Doctor of Dental Wellness, Dr. Richard Walicki is a graduate of the Temple University School of Dentistry. Dr. Walicki is a general dentist with a focus on wellness and has maintained an active private practice in Philadelphia for over twenty years.  His mission is to help people attain practical solutions for their dental health problems through education, prevention and nutrition. Dr. Walicki is a contributor to the LiberationWellnessBlog and a supporter of real food. Additional articles of related interest can be located on his website.  A free newsletter and bonus report are also available.

Posted in blood sugar, Dr. Richard Walicki, gums, health, low fat dairy, Nutrition, oral health, Uncategorized | Tagged: | 3 Comments »

iVegetarian2: The Eating Disorders of Steve Jobs

Posted by Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN on December 27, 2011

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Steve Jobs died October 5, and the animal rights organization PETA  stepped right up to honor him as a vegetarian who was deeply committed to animal welfare and the environment.  PETA, of course,  has yet to acknowledge the role that Jobs’s near vegan diet may have played in his death, and continues to maintain that their particular brand of “right eating” will virtually guarantee freedom from cancer and other major health problems.

When I blogged about this topic in October,  I promised I would follow up once I learned more about Jobs’s dietary habits from Walter Isaacson’s biography Steve Jobs (Simon & Schuster, 2011).   This column delivers on that promise.

The bullet points below include every reference to diet in the entire book, followed by page numbers.  My brief comments are found at the very end.

  • Jobs came to appreciate organic fruits and vegetables as a teenager when a neighbor taught him how to be a good organic gardener and to compost. (14)
  • Between his sophomore and junior hear of high school, he began smoking marijuana regularly and by his senior year was dabbling in LSD as well as exploring the mind bending effect of sleep deprivation. (18-19)
  • Toward the end of his senior year in high school, he began his “lifelong experiments with compulsive diets, eating only fruits and vegetables so he was as lean and tight as a whippet.”  (31)
  • He attended the love festivals at the local Hare Krishna temple, and went to the Zen center for free vegetarian meals. (35)
  • During his freshman year at college he went to the Zen center for free vegetarian meals and was greatly influenced by the book Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe.   At that point, he swore off meat for good and began embracing extreme diets, which included purges, fasts or eating only one or two foods , such as carrots or apples for weeks on end.  (36)
  • For awhile at college, Jobs lived on Roman Meal cereal.   He would buy a box, which would last a week, then flats of dates, almonds and a lot of carrots.   He made carrot juice with a Champion juicer, and at one point turned “a sunset-like orange hue.”  (36)
  • His dietary habits became more obsessive when he read the Mucusless Diet Healing System by Arnold Ehret.     Jobs then favored eating nothing but fruits and starchless vegetables, which he said prevented the body from forming harmful mucus, and determined to regularly cleanse his body through prolonged fasts.   That meant the end of his consumption of Roman Meal cereal — or any bread, grains, or milk.     At one point, he spent an entire week eating only apples, and then began to try even purer fasts.  He started with two-day fasts and eventually stretched them out to a week or more, breaking them with large amounts of water and leafy vegetables.    “After a week, you start to feel fantastic,” he said.  “You get a ton of vitality from not having to digest all this food.  I was in great shape  I felt I could get up and walk to San Francisco anytime I wanted.”   (36)
  • As a $5 an hour technician at Atari, he was known as “a hippie with b.o.” and “impossible to deal with.”   He clung to the belief that his fruit-heavy vegetarian diet would prevent not just mucus but also body odor.   As Isaacson writes “It was a flawed theory.” (43)
  • “He was doing a lot of soul-searching about being adopted .  . .  (with) the primal scream and the mucusless diets, he was trying to cleanse himself and get deeper into his frustration about his birth.”  (51)
  • He was a fan of the Whole Earth Catalog and particularly taken by the final issue, which came out in 1971 when he was still in high school.   On the back cover it said “Stay Hungry.  Stay Foolish.” (59)
  • The name Apple Computers came to him when he was on one of his fruitarian diets.  “I had just come back from the apple farm.  It sounded fun, spirited and not intimidating.   Apple took the edge off the word ‘computer.’”  (63)
  • His mother Clara Jobs didn’t mind losing most of her house to piles of computer parts and house guests, but she was frustrated by her son’s increasingly quirky diets.  She would roll her eyes at his latest eating obsessions.  She just wanted him to be healthy, and he would be making weird pronouncements like, “I’m a fruitarian and I will only eat leaves picked by virgins in the moonlight.”  (68)
  • He was still convinced against all evidence that his vegan diet meant that he didn’t need to use a deodorant or take regular showers.   .  .  .   At meetings people had to look at his dirty feet. Sometimes to relieve stress, he would soak his feet in the toilet.  (82)
  • A colleague who recommended he bathe more often was told that “in exchange” he  would have to read fruitarian diet books.  “Steve was adamant that he bathed once a week, and that was adequate as long as he was eating a fruitarian diet.” (82-83)
  • In 1979 or so he “put aside drugs, eased away from being a strict vegan, and cut back the time he spent on Zen retreats.”   (91)
  • He decreed that the sodas in the office refrigerator be replaced by Odwalla organic orange and carrot juices.”   (118)
  • The kitchen was stocked daily with Odwalla juices (142)
  • At the launch of the Lisa computer in 1983, he ate a special vegan meal at the Four Seasons restaurant.  (152)
  • He had edged away from his strict vegan diet for the time being and ate vegetarian omelets. (155)
  • In 1984 in Italy, Jobs demanded a vegan meal and became extremely angry when the waiter very elaborately proceeded to dish out a sauce filled with sour cream.  (185)
  • The menu for his 30th birthday day celebration included goat cheese and salmon mousse. (189)
  • He had a lot of mannerisms.  He bit his nails.   His hands were “slightly and inexplicably yellow” and in constant motion. (223)
  • At a meal with Mitch Kapor,  the chairman of Lotus software, Jobs was horrified to see Kapor slathering butter on his bread,” and asked, “Have you ever heard of serum cholesterol?”   Kapor responded, “I’ll make you a deal. You stay away from commenting on my dietary habits, and I will stay away from the subject of your personality.”  (224)
  • At a 1988 NeXT product launch, the lunch menu included  mineral water, croissants, cream cheese, bean sprouts. (233)
  • Jobs was a vegetarian and so was Chrisann, the mother of his daughter Lisa.  Lisa was not vegetarian, but Jobs was fine with that.   “Eating chicken became her little indulgence as she shuttled between two parents who were vegetarians with a spiritual regard for natural foods.”  Jobs’s “dietary fixations came in fanatic waves,” and he was “fastidious”  about what he ate.  Lisa watched him “spit out a mouthful of soup one day after learning that it contained butter.” (259-260)
  • “Even at a young age Lisa began to realize his diet obsessions reflected a life philosophy, one in which asceticism and minimalism could heighten subsequent sensations.  “He believed that great harvests came from arid sources, pleasure from restraint.  He knew the equations that most people didn’t know:  Things led to their opposites.”   (259-260)
  • Once he took Lisa on a business trip to Tokyo and they stayed at the Okura Hotel.   At the elegant downstairs sushi bar, Jobs ordered large trays of unagi sushi, a dish he loved so much that he allowed the warm cooked eel to pass muster as vegetarian.    Lisa later wrote, “It was the first time, I’d felt with him, so relaxed and content, over those trays of meat; the excess, the permission and warmth after the cold salads, meant a once inaccessible space had opened.  He was less rigid with himself, even human under the great ceilings with the little chairs with the meat and me.”  (260-261)
  • Jobs had hired a hip young couple who had once worked at Chez Panisse as housekeepers and vegetarian cooks (264)
  • At his wedding to Laurene Powell, the cake was in the shape of Yosemite’s Half Dome.  It was strictly vegan and more than a few of the guest found it inedible.  (274)
  • “Since his early teens, he had indulged his weird obsession with extremely restrictive diets and fasts.  Even after he married and had children, he retained his dubious eating habits.   He would spend weeks eating the same thing — carrot salad with lemon, or just apples — and then suddenly spurn that food and declare that he had stopped eating it.  He would go on fasts, just as he did as a teenager and he became sanctimonious as he lectured others at the table on the virtues of whatever eating regimen he was following.”  (477)
  • Jobs’s wife ,Laurene Powell, had been a vegan when they first married, but after her husband’s first cancer operation, the partial Whipple procedure, she began to diversify the family meals with fish and other proteins.  Their son, Reed, who had been a vegetarian, became a “hearty omnivore.”  They knew it was important for Steve to get diverse sources of protein. (477)
  • In early 2008, Jobs’s eating disorders got worse.   On some nights he would stare at the floor and ignore all of the dishes set out on the long kitchen table.  He lost 40 pounds during the spring of 2008.
  • Dr James Eason “would even stop at the convenience store to get the energy drinks Jobs liked.” (485)
  • He remained a finicky eater, which was more of a problem than ever.  He would eat only fruit smoothies and he would demand that seven or eight of them be lined up so he could find an option that might satisfy him.  He would touch the spoon to his mouth for a tiny taste and pronounce  ‘That’s no good.  That one’s no good either.’”   His doctor  lectured him: “You know this isn’t a matter of taste.  Stop thinking of this as food.  Start thinking of it as medicine.” (486)
  • Early in 2010, Jobs went to dinner and ordered a mango smoothie and plain vegan pasta.  (505)
  • At the launch of the  iPad2, Isaacson reported “For a change he was eating, though still with some pickiness.  He ordered fresh squeezed juice, which he sent back three times, declaring that each new offering was from a bottle, and a pasta primavera which he shoved away as inedible after one taste.   But then he ate half of my crab Louise salad and ordered a full one for himself followed by a bowl of ice cream.”  (527)
  • Jobs’s eating problems were exacerbated over the years by his psychological attitude toward food.  When he was young, he learned that he could induce euphoria and ecstasy by fasting.   So even though he knew that he should eat — his doctors were begging him to consume high-quality protein — lingering in the back of his subconscious, he admitted was his instinct for fasting and for diets like Arnold Ehret’s fruit regimen that he had embraced as a teenager.  Powell kept telling him it was crazy. ‘I wanted him to force himself to eat,’ she said ‘and it was incredibly tense at home.’”  (548-549)
  • Bryar Brown, their part-time cook would produce an array of healthy dishes, but Jobs would touch his tongue to one or two and then dismiss them all as inedible.  One evening he announced, “I could probably eat a little pumpkin pie,” and the even-tempered Brown created a beautiful pie from scratch in an hour.  Jobs ate only one bite, but Brown was thrilled.”  (549)
  • During the final years of his life, Powell talked to eating disorder specialists and psychiatrists to try to get help, but her husband shunned them.   (549)

That’s it.    Not a lot to work with, but more than enough to show a longstanding pattern of eating disorders.

On the plus side, Jobs’s diet seems to  have been consistently organic and high quality.    He employed chefs who’d worked at Chef Panisse, and his wife Laurene Powell founded Terravera, a company that produces ready-to-eat organic meals for stores in northern California.    Jobs does not appear to have ever been a junk-food vegan who indulged in all-American junk foods such as soda, chocolate, cookies and crackers.

Soy is not mentioned at all in Isaacson’s biography.   Although the Apple culture was soy friendly with soy milk readily available in vending machines and at coffee stations, Jobs himself may well have rejected it.   Jobs had a longstanding fascination with the book The Mucusless Diet Healing System by Arnold Ehret (1866-1922), who claimed the human body is an “air-gas engine” that runs well only on fruits, starchless vegetables and edible green leaves.   Soy and other legumes, according to Ehret’s way of thinking, were to be disdained as mucus-producing forbidden foods.   Ehret not only condemned protein and fat as “unnatural” but said they could not be used by the body.   Inspired by such theories, Jobs appears to have eaten a diet low in both fat and protein for most of his life.  And what did he eat instead?  Carbs high in fructose.

Whether or not Jobs was in one of his fanatic fruitarian phases, he favored a lot of fruit and fruit juice.   These are not only high on the glycemic index, but loaded with fructose.   Fruits and fruit juices greatly stress the liver and pancreas, contribute to diabetes and many other blood sugar disorders, and have been linked to pancreatic cancer.   Jobs suffered from a type of pancreatic cancer known as islet cell carcinoma, which originates in the insulin-secreting beta cells.

Research published in the November 2007 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded there was “evidence for a greater pancreatic cancer risk with a high intake of fruit and juices but not with a high intake of sodas.”   More recently, in the August 2010 issue of Cancer Research, Dr. Anthony Healy of UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center proposed that aberrant fructose metabolism — and not just aberrant glucose metabolism — might be involved in the pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer.   Seems fructose provides the raw material cancer cells prefer to use to make the DNA they need to divide and proliferate.    Although the UCLA findings are preliminary and more research needs to be done, the Reuters headline “Cancer Cells Slurp Up Fructose” is fair warning to all of us addicted to fruit and fruit juices.

Clearly Jobs broke away  from strict veganism from time to time and indulged in a few eggs, salmon and unagi sushi.   The words of his daughter Lisa (quoted above) provide a moving testimony to how well Jobs’s body and mind responded to eating eel, a fish rich in protein and fat.   That said, vegans who would like to think Jobs became sick because he failed to be “perfect vegan” now have evidence to support that belief.

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is The Naughty Nutritionist™ because of her ability to outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths. A popular guest on radio and television, she has appeared on The Dr Oz Show, ABC’s View from the Bay, NPR’s People’s Pharmacy and numerous other shows. Dr Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food, a popular speaker at Wise Traditions and other conferences,  Vice President  of the Weston A. Price Foundation and recipient of its 2005 Integrity in Science Award. Her website is www.naughtynutritionist.com and she can be reached at Kaayla@DrKaaylaDaniel.com.

Posted in Dr Kaayla Daniel, Kaayla T. Daniel, Naughty Nutritionist, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Raw Milk Bill

Posted by Kevin Brown on December 27, 2011

A743/S2702 NJ Raw Milk Bill

Thank you to everyone helping this bill along its way.

NEXT HEARING:  THURS, JAN 5

We understand the next hearing is Thursday, January 5, although we are not 100% certain.  Please keep the day open, and watch for the next action alert a few days before the hearing to confirm.

Please come back again and bring even more supporters.

If you can come early and stay after the meeting too, it should be a good time to speak with senators in the hallways.  Garden State Raw Milk will have a one-page fact sheet available as a handout for Senators, and to help clarify information in conversations.

VOTE ON BILL:  THURS, JAN 5

We believe there will be a vote on the bill Thursday, Jan 5.  This vote comes at a critical time to get the bill out of committee to the whole NJ State Senate.  If the bill isn’t voted out of committee on Thursday, January 5, then it may be pushed off to the next legislative session.

COME TO TRENTON:  THURS, JAN 5

Please clear your calendar so you can come to Trenton on Thursday, Jan 5.  Stay tuned for the next action alert as soon as we learn the meeting time (probably in the morning).  If you’ve come to hearings before, please come again.  If you haven’t been there yet, your presence makes a huge difference — this will be the most important day of this legislative session to stand up and be counted.

HEARING PROCEDURE:

- Please submit any written testimony (multiple copies if possible) to the committee aide before the meeting starts.

- Please fill out a witness slip to indicate your support for the bill, and use the checkboxes to indicate if you wish to speak.

NEXT IMPORTANT DATE:  MON, JAN 9

If the bill is successfully voted out of committee on Jan 5, then we hope it can be posted to the full Senate for a vote on Jan 9, so please keep this day available also — it may be important to show support on Jan 9 too.

More information:

www.njleg.state.nj.us

www.foodshedalliance.org

www.gardenstaterawmilk.org

Garden State Raw Milk on Facebook

Sign up for alerts:

www.westonaprice.org

www.foodshedalliance.org

To check the meeting schedule for the NJ State Senate Economic Growth Committee:

- Go to www.njleg.state.nj.us

- Under COMMITTEES, choose Senate Committees

- Find Economic Growth, then click View Schedule

- Click the meeting date, check for A743 & S2702 on the list of bills

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Posted in Big Agriculture, Family Wellness, Food freedom, heart disease, liberation diet, liberation wellness, Nutrition, weston price | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The LLVLC Show (Episode 524): Kevin Brown Makes The Case That The ‘Paleo Diet’ Doesn’t Exist

Posted by Jimmy Moore on December 23, 2011

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In Episode 524 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore,” I’ve got a doozy for you with what is arguably one of the most controversial podcast interviews ever as evidenced by the kind of feedback I have received about it since it aired earlier this week. It’s returning podcast guest Kevin Brown (listen to my previous interview with him in Episode 369), author of The Liberation Diet, who maintains the bold position that there’s really no such thing as the “Paleo diet” based on his understanding of the Bible. Earlier this year I wrote a blog post entitled “Can A Christian Follow A Paleo Low-Carb Diet?” and Kevin responded to my question by denying the existence of an evolutionary perspective. I knew when I recorded this episode that it was gonna fire people up–boy did it ever! When you receive both praise and hate mail from people about the same interview, you must be doing something right.

One of the people who e-mailed me after hearing this podcast, which he described as “bad,” exclaimed matter-of-factly that “evolution is a fact…the Bible is a fairy tale.” Because I shared in a follow-up e-mail with him that I’m a Christian who does not believe in the Darwinian theory of evolution and that the Bible has great meaning in my life, he actually cancelled his reservations for The Low-Carb Cruise coming up in May 2012. Oh well, it’s his loss and seems rather immature to do over a simple disagreement about something a podcast interview guest shared. Very strange.

Another more reasonable response was an e-mail that stated “as I listened I wondered why you weren’t hitting him with the science, but what emerged for me was an amazing demonstration of just how easy it is for humans to fall into believing all kinds of things and how important it is for all of us to seek the truth and question things.” Finally, another voice of wisdom in the comments section of my podcast web site noted that “the free exchange of ideas is central if we are going to make any progress. Granted, this openness to expression can give some views, which may seem ostensibly idiotic to some, a platform to be heard, but that is the price we pay for progress.”

Wanna hear what all the fuss is about in today’s podcast? Then you gotta listen to my half-hour interview with what is sure to be my most interesting, thought-provoking guest of 2011…maybe ever! ENJOY!

Listen to Kevin Brown explain his strict anti-Paleo stance:

  • Why he believes there is no such thing as a Paleo diet
  • How evolution denies the Biblical principles of God
  • The Paleo diet concept makes the evolution theory true
  • Whether Paleo diet followers are wrong or misled
  • Why the health aspects of Paleo are “rather good”
  • How the existence of the Paleo diet “denies God”
  • Whether Adam and Eve were hunter-gatherers
  • Why Adam and Eve were vegetarians
  • How God “changed the diet” after the fall of man
  • When man started eating animals for the first time
  • What changed between the days of Adam & Eve to Noah
  • How we know there was fire in the Garden of Eden
  • The ideas and commands about food have evolved
  • Diet reflects the specific timeline in history
  • Eating cooked food is more Biblically-based than raw food
  • If God commands eating cooked meat, then it must be right
  • The “fantasy stories” about cavemen promoted by Paleo
  • The Paleo diet existence “makes God a liar”
  • Whether we can mesh the message of Paleo with the Bible
  • Why he says eating a low-carb diet is Biblical
  • Why saturated fat is essential in God’s perfect nutrition
  • The inclusion of “a little bit of honey” is a good thing
  • What about people who don’t believe in God or the Bible?
  • Why he says Paleo is “superior” for non-believers
  • Why Paleo should be called the “evolutionary theory diet”
  • “Spiritual Side Of Healthy Eating”

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    There are four ways you can listen to Episode 524:

    1. Listen at the iTunes page for the podcast:

    2. Listen and comment about the show at the official web site for the podcast:

    3. Download the MP3 file of Episode 524 [30:37m]:

    4. Listen on the Stitcher app–NO DOWNLOADING!

    THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR FINANCIALLY SUPPORTING THIS PODCAST! If these twice-weekly podcast interviews from the most provocative and thought-provoking diet, fitness, and health experts have helped you in any way over the past few months and years, then help us keep it going by clicking on the DONATE button on the official podcast web site. We love making these exclusive interviews available to you at no charge so that the positive low-carb message can get out there to the people who need to hear it the most. We are so grateful for your generous donations of any amount so we can keep this going all throughout the rest of 2011 and well into 2012. Brand new interview expert guests are being lined up for your listening enjoyment and I can’t wait for you to hear them share about what a healthy lifestyle change looks like! Go to PayPal.com and you can give your gift of any amount to the e-mail address livinlowcarbman@charter.net. Your continued financial support and listenership is essential to keeping this podcast alive and well and we THANK YOU so very much for your support!

    What did you think about Kevin Brown’s Biblical argument against the idea of a Paleo diet? Share your thoughts (good, bad or ugly!) in the show notes section of Episode 524. Check out more from Kevin Brown at “Liberation Wellness,” listen to my June 2010 interview with Kevin, and read his column about today’s featured topic called “Spiritual Side Of Healthy Eating.”

    This was the final podcast of 2011 and I’m grateful for another fantastic year of exponential growth in this show thanks to the amazing word of mouth so many of you have given us. THANK YOU! We’ll be taking some time off during the holidays but will return with BRAND NEW INTERVIEWS from your favorite guests of 2011 during “Encore Week” 2012. You’re gonna hear again from Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt, Paul Jaminet, Jenny Ruhl, Dr. William Davis and Dr. Jack Kruse. I’m recording these interviews over the next week and will air them January 2-6, 2012! I CAN’T WAIT! Then starting on January 9, 2012 we’ll begin airing THREE new podcast interviews weekly on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Onward and upward in 2012!

    If you have something to share about what you heard on “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show,” then drop us an e-mail at our dedicated podcast e-mail address–LLVLCShow@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you about what you think about the show, interview guest suggestions, show topics, and anything else you want to share! I LOVE hearing from my listeners, so share what’s on your mind.

    If you love this podcast, then we personally invite you to become a member of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show Fan Club!” Get special behind-the-scenes access to your favorite low-carb health podcast, including the highly-coveted transcripts of past interviews, audio snippets of upcoming podcasts, see who I have scheduled for interviews and the ability to have me ask them YOUR questions, and so much more! It’s exclusive material for you uber-fans of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show” and I appreciate your support of my work. SIGN UP TODAY!

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    Jimmy Moore is the popular blogger, podcaster and author of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb who lost 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004 and quickly established himself as a highly influential layperson in the field of health and nutrition. His wildly successful Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Blog has been educating, encouraging and inspiring readers since 2005 and his accompanying iTunes podcast The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore is one of the most listened to health broadcasts online today featuring hundreds of enchanting interviews with the leading voices in the world of diet and healthy living! Jimmy’s latest book compiling all the knowledge he has learned along his journey is called 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: How The Health Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He lives in Spartanburg, SC with his beautiful wife Christine and their three cats!

    • Posted in god, jimmy moore, kevin brown, liberation diet, livin lavida lo-carb, Paleo | Leave a Comment »

    A Little Wine – and Don’t Drink Water!

    Posted by Kevin Brown on December 20, 2011

    A Little Wine is now on the Liberation Diet

    Based on overwhelming scientific evidence, and the Bible’s clear statement, Wine becomes the first official update in many years to the Liberation Diet

    God first, then science confirms, don’t drink water, but drink a little wine-
    1Timothy 5:23   Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.

    I couldn’t agree more, as I have been telling my clients for years not to drink water, as it is not healthy, but I missed out on the great health alternative WINE.
    Wine is also helpful for Weight-Loss

    Here are some of the health benefits as listed in Health Magazine
    The list of wine’s benefits is long—and getting more surprising all the time. Already well-known as heart healthy, wine in moderation might help you lose weight, reduce forgetfulness, boost your immunity, and help prevent bone loss.
    With America likely to edge out France and Italy in total wine consumption in the near future, according to one analyst, and with women buying more than 6 out of every 10 bottles sold in this country, we’re happy to report that wine may do all of the following:

    1. Feed your head
    Wine could preserve your memory. When researchers gave memory quizzes to women in their 70s, those who drank one drink or more every day scored much better than those who drank less or not at all. Wine helps prevent clots and reduce blood vessel inflammation, both of which have been linked to cognitive decline and heart disease, explains Tedd Goldfinger, DO, of the University of Arizona School of Medicine. Alcohol also seems to raise HDL, the so-called good cholesterol, which helps unclog your arteries.

    2. Keep the scale in your corner
    Studies find that people who drink wine daily have lower body mass than those who indulge occasionally; moderate wine drinkers have narrower waists and less abdominal fat than people who drink liquor. Alcohol may encourage your body to burn extra calories for as long as 90 minutes after you down a glass. Beer seems to have a similar effect.

    3. Boost your body’s defenses
    In one British study, those who drank roughly a glass of wine a day reduced by 11% their risk of infection by Helicobacter pylori bacteria, a major cause of gastritis, ulcers, and stomach cancers. As little as half a glass may also guard against food poisoning caused by germs like salmonella when people are exposed to contaminated food, according to a Spanish study.

    4. Guard against ovarian woes
    When Australian researchers recently compared women with ovarian cancer to cancer-free women, they found that roughly one glass of wine a day seemed to reduce the risk of the disease by as much as 50 percent. Earlier research at the University of Hawaii produced similar findings. Experts suspect this may be due to antioxidants or phytoestrogens, which have high anticancer properties and are prevalent in wine. And in a recent University of Michigan study, a red wine compound helped kill ovarian cancer cells in a test tube.

    5. Build better bones
    On average, women who drink moderately seem to have higher bone mass than abstainers. Alcohol appears to boost estrogen levels; the hormone seems to slow the body’s destruction of old bone more than it slows the production of new bone.

    6. Prevent blood-sugar trouble
    Premenopausal women who drink one or two glasses of wine a day are 40 percent less likely than women who don’t drink to develop type 2 diabetes, according to a 10-year study by Harvard Medical School. While the reasons aren’t clear, wine seems to reduce insulin resistance in diabetic patients.

    Kevin Brown is president of Visionary Trainers, an In-Home Personal Fitness Company, and Co-Author of the Liberation Diet, a Real-Food traditional diet program that is helping many attain excellent health and normal weight. Kevin serves as a fellow on the National Board of Fitness Examiners, and is the principle force behind the online fitness website LiberationFitness.com Kevin and his wife Tracy are Chapter leaders for the Weston A Price foundation, a non-profit organization that is helping restore real food to its rightful place in the American diet.

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    Posted in Big Agriculture, Family Wellness, Food freedom, heart disease, liberation diet, liberation wellness, Nutrition, raw milk, weston price | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

    Under Fire

    Posted by Kevin Brown on December 19, 2011

    Internal Documents Reveal USDA Dietary Guidelines Panel

    Dominated by a Profession Under Fire

    Washington, DC–December 15, 2011–Under pressure from the Healthy Nation Coalition, the USDA recently revealed the identities of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines “Independent Scientific Review Panel,” which is credited with peer-reviewing the Guidelines to ensure they are based on the preponderance of the scientific evidence available. Seven out of the eight panel members are Registered Dietitians (RDs), chosen according to the USDA, “for their knowledge in nutrition communication and dietary guidance.”

    At the same time, RDs across America are reeling from the news that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will not reimburse them to provide intensive behavioral counseling for obesity. While the Federal government appears to be relying on RDs as experts in the midst of America’s obesity crisis, it doesn’t want to pay them to help people lose weight.  This news comes as the American Dietetic Association (ADA)—the professional organization for RDs—is under scrutiny for its ties to food and pharmaceutical industries.

    “An ongoing investigation by Congress recently revealed that the ADA receives over $1 million a year in payments from pharmaceutical companies and an undisclosed amount from companies such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Hershey. In addition to receiving payments from industries with obvious conflicts of interest, earlier this year the Alliance for Natural Health-USA revealed that ADA’s continuing education courses for RDs are being taught by the Coca-Cola Company’s Beverage Institute,”  stated Darrell Rogers from Alliance for Natural Health-USA. RDs have voiced their dissatisfaction with the ADA’s corporate ties, with members indicating that the ADA’s relationship with corporate sponsors has a negative impact on the public image of RDs and undermines the credibility of the profession.

    Credibility has been further undermined by the lack of evidence that the methods RDs use to treat obesity are effective.  The ADA’s own Evidence Analysis Library contains few studies that demonstrate that dietitian-led dietary interventions result in meaningful weight loss.

    As a result, many insurance companies, and now CMS, do not reimburse RDs for its treatment.  Tennessee’s state insurance doesn’t cover seeing a dietitian for weight loss. Why? “There’s really no evidence to support the fact that providing those services would result in a decrease in medical cost, certainly not immediately, and even in the longer term,” according to Dr. Wendy Long, chief medical officer of TennCare.

    This lack of evidence may be due in part to the limited scope of dietetic education and practice. The ADA relies on the USDA as a scientific authority and follows its lead in most matters of nutrition, limiting the training of RDs to USDA-approved diet recommendations.

    Valerie Berkowitz, RD, Director of Nutrition at the Center for Balanced Health and author of the award-winning nutrition guide “The Stubborn Fat Fix” states:  “Registered Dietitians lack education and practice in manipulating macronutrients [protein, fat, and carbohydrate] to switch fuel sources from carbohydrate to fat burning. It is unfortunate that educators do not acknowledge the therapeutic value of lower carbohydrate consumption at least as an additional tool to increase the success of medical nutrition therapy for obesity prevention and treatment.”

    The ADA not only limits the training of RDs, it is sponsoring legislation in New York and multiple other states that would essentially restrict the practice of nutrition to RDs, and outlaw highly-qualified non-RD nutrition professionals from practicing. If successful, this would restrict consumer choice of nutrition professionals to those trained to follow USDA recommendations.

    Given the ADA’s close ties with the food and drug industry and the lack of effectiveness for USDA-approved dietitian-led interventions for obesity, the public should be concerned about the dominant role that RDs and other ADA members played in the creation of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines. In addition to the Independent Scientific Review Panel being comprised primarily of RDs, ADA members were also one-third of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, the group of experts that creates the Report that guides the writing of the Dietary Guidelines. The majority of the USDA and HHS staff members who worked with the Committee or on the Dietary Guidelines are also RDs.

    According to Adele Hite, Director of the Healthy Nation Coalition and lead author of a 2010 peer-reviewed article examining the limitations of the Dietary Guideline process, “The ADA is an industry-friendly organization. The USDA appears to rely on the dietetics focus of ADA-trained Registered Dietitians to confirm their own industry-friendly guidelines. The self-supporting relationship between the ADA and the USDA does not benefit either the credibility of RDs or the health of Americans.”

    The Healthy Nation Coalition is an organization dedicated to improving the health of Americans through reforming national food and nutrition policy and does not solicit or accept contributions from the food or pharmaceutical industry.

    Media Contact: Kimberly Hartke, Publicist

    Hartke Communications

    703-860-2711, 703-675-5557

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    Posted in Big Agriculture, Family Wellness, Food freedom, heart disease, liberation diet, liberation wellness, Nutrition, raw milk, weston price | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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