Author: drross

No comments

Food for thought

  By ,
Barbara Kingsolver has pretty much nailed it:
Woe is us, we overfed, undernourished U.S. citizens – we are eating poorly for so many reasons.  A profit-driven, mechanized food industry has narrowed down our variety and overproduced corn and soybeans.  But we let other vegetables drop from the menu without putting up much of a fight.  In our modern Café Dysfunctional, “eat your vegetables” has become a battle cry of mothers against presumed unwilling subjects.  In my observed experience, boys in high school cafeterias treat salad exactly as if it were a feminine hygiene product, and almost nobody touches the green beans.  Broccoli was famously condemned in the 1990s from the highest office in the land.  What’s a mother to do?  Apparently, she’s to shrug and hand the kids a gigantic cup of carbonated corn syrup.  Corn is a vegetable, right?  Good, because on average we’re consuming 54.8 gallons of soft drinks, per person, per year.

 

Mom is losing, no doubt, because our vegetables have come to lack two features of interest: nutrition and flavor.  Storage and transport take predictable tolls on the volatile plant compounds that subtly add up to taste and food value.  Breeding to increase shelf life has also tended to decrease palatability.  Bizarre as it seems, we’ve accepted a tradeoff that amounts to: “Give me every vegetable in every season, even if it tastes like a cardboard picture of its former self.”  You’d think we cared more about the idea of what we’re eating than about what we’re eating.  But then, if you examine the history of women’s footwear, you’d think we cared more about the idea of showing off our feet than about, oh, for example, walking.  Humans can be fairly ridiculous animals.

 

-Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

 

If you want to read a passionate and beautifully written ode to food, it doesn’t get much better than this book.  

The Disney Measles Outbreak: A Mousetrap of Ignorance | GreenMedInfo

  By ,

The other side of the argument…

And, interestingly, if you read the comments to this article, a health care provider notes that measles outbreaks are common in hospitals and urgent care facilities in vaccinated populations, though conveniently diagnosed as ‘viral exanthems.’ Reading the medscape quotation below, one can see that the diagnosis of measles would not be given, by definition, if one has been immunized. In other words, immunization status is used to rule it out and specifically prohibits the diagnosis. Controlling the definitions and stacking the deck in one’s favor…

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/734882
“An exanthem is any eruptive skin rash that may be associated with fever or other systemic symptoms. Causes include infectious pathogens, medication reaction and, occasionally, a combination of both. Over 100 years ago, a group of characteristic childhood eruptions were described and numbered from one to six:[1,2]measles, scarlet fever, rubella, erythema infectiosum and roseola infantum. The origin of the fourth classic childhood eruption, formerly referred to as Dukes’ disease, is controversial. It may represent misdiagnosed cases of rubella or scarlet fever, rather than a distinct illness.
Viral exanthems are common in childhood. The words ‘exanthema’ and ‘anthos’ mean ‘breaking out’ and ‘flower’ in Greek, respectively. Similarly, a child breaking out with a viral exanthem may be likened to a flower bursting into bloom. In children, exanthems are most often related to infection[3] and, of these, viral infections are the most common. Determining the cause of an exanthem is based on the characteristic morphology, distribution and time course of the eruption, as well as a careful assessment of infectious contacts, immunization status and aspects of the physical examination.”

The Disney Measles Outbreak: A Mousetrap of Ignorance | GreenMedInfo.

Forbes: “Study Suggests Wi-Fi Exposure More Dangerous To Kids Than Previously Thought”

  By ,

An important problem that doesn’t get enough attention.  I published an article on the topic of Chinese medical diagnosis of EMF radiation toxicity back in 2009 with Dr. Leon Hammer.  The implications are widespread and significant. http://www.acupunctureandherbalmedicine.com/document/The%20Pulse,%20Leather,%20Electronic%20Age%20and%20Radiation.pdf

Forbes: “Study Suggests Wi-Fi Exposure More Dangerous To Kids Than Previously Thought”.