Our bodies are heat-generating machines that depend on oxygen to carry out basic metabolic functions. One of the by-products of this use of oxygen, or “oxidation,” is oxygen molecules that have been transformed into what are known as “free radicals.” Free radicals are generated by the body’s own metabolic systems. In addition, the environment is teeming with them in the form of cigarette smoke, pollution, certain foods, and chemicals. Even your drinking water and the sun that warms your face on an April morning are creating free radicals.
These free radicals, which are constantly proliferating throughout our bodies, are missing an electron. This makes them highly unstable. Driven to restore the missing electron, they seek out replacement molecules from whatever neighboring cells they can attack. Sometimes their targets are DNA, sometimes enzymes, sometimes important proteins in neighboring cells, and sometimes they attack the cell membrane itself. It’s been estimated that each cell experiences ten thousand free-radical hits each day.
Clearly, no living being could survive for long without some powerful system of defense against free radicals. Antioxidants are the foot soldiers in the battle to disarm free radicals in our bodies. They neutralize free radicals, and, in effect, minimize their threat by giving up an electron in an effort to stabilize them. Stabilized, the free radicals are no longer a threat to cellular health.
Our bodies produce many antioxidants on their own, but the antioxidants in foods play a critical role in keeping free radicals in check.
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As if it’s not enough work to guard against genetically modified organisms invading your seed-stocks and fields. Now you have to defend against being sued by the source of the malevolent invaders.
Eighty-three family farmers, small and family owned seed businesses, and agricultural organizations challenging Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seed recently filed papers in federal court defending their right to seek legal protection from the threat of being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement should they ever become contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified seed. The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) represents the plaintiffs in the suit, titled Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association (OSGATA), et al. v. Monsanto and pending in the Southern District of New York.
“The money and political power of Wall Street has stolen America’s food system, bankrupted our farmers and ranchers, mined our soils, polluted our environment, wasted our precious water, and left us with expensive industrially produced food that makes us sick,” said Mike Callicrate who owns an independent cattle feedlot and a direct-to-consumer beef operation.
The Complaint sums up the organic farmer’s plight this way: As nontransgenic seed farmers and seed sellers, Plaintiffs already have to deal with the constant threat of transgenic seed contamination that could destroy their chosen livelihood. They should not also have to live with the threat of being sued for patent infringement should that travesty come to pass.
Aevia — Consider the Source

As the contents of the colon move at a better rate, there is thought to be less toxic exposure to the interior of the colon thereby reducing risk of developing colon cancer.
British and Dutch researchers analyzed 25 studies that included a total of nearly 2 million people. Compared with the lowest levels of fiber consumption, each 10 gram per day increase in intake of total dietary fiber and cereal fiber was associated with a 10 percent reduced risk of colorectal cancer.
Consuming 90 grams more a day (three servings, or three and one-quarter ounces) of whole grains was associated with about a 20 percent lower risk.
Aevia — Consider the Source

Where the eye is upon superfluities, either of quantity or quality, rather than bare necessities, there self-maintenance passes over toward self-gratification, and vanity-wants and pleasure-wants supersede hunger-wants.  —W. G. Sumner and A. G. Keller (1927)

After the Revolution, Americans looked at the maple tree in a new light. To the eminent Philadelphia patriot and physician Benjamin Rush, maple sugar seemed perfectly tailored to the new republic. Here was a commodity that could compete in a global market, bolstering the independence of yeoman farmers, and demonstrating the superiority of free labor. It tapped an abundant resource, required only a small amount of labor, and used supplies most farmers already owned. Best of all, it would destroy the market for Caribbean sugar cane, produced by slaves laboring in horrifying conditions. Rush set down his reflections in the form of a letter to his friend Thomas Jefferson, which he presented publicly in 1791, concluding:
I cannot help contemplating a sugar maple tree with a species of affection and even veneration, for I have persuaded myself, to behold in it the happy means of rendering the commerce and slavery of our African brethren, in the sugar islands as unnecessary, as it has always been inhuman and unjust.
Aevia — Consider the Source

You Have Two Cows

 
Capitalism
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull -and build a herd of cows.
AMERICAN-STYLE ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You don’t have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don’t have any cows to put up as collateral. The price of milk goes up, and when you can no longer afford milk, you steal a bottle so your children won’t starve. You are arrested, charged with theft, disorderly conduct, interfering with government sophistries, and reckless endangerment of children. You are tried, convicted and sentenced to Life Without Parole at the new Borden’s Federal Penitentiary.
HONG KONG CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly -listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother -in -law at the bank, then execute a debt / equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows’ milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the fung shiu is bad.
Communism
COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most “ability” and who has the most “need”. Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows die of starvation.
SOVIET REPUBLIC COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government seizes both and promises to provide you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. By the time you can see the store, there is no milk left, which doesn’t matter much, because what was there cost three times your monthly social credit, and was sour.
RUSSIAN FEDERATION COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.
CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
Corporationism
AMERICAN CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows using bioengineered hormones. You lobby an ignorant Congress so as to make sure that you do not have to label your milk products -even if they cross state lines. You are surprised when one cow drops dead, but you work out a deal so that you can sell it to a renderer -and feed it back to your herd. Some of the older second-cycle cows cannot be impregnated -while others deliver twins that have to be killed and sold for pittance as vealers… You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses. Your stock goes up.
ENRONIC CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with the associated general offer so you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report states that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Nobody notices until after the election, when it becomes obvious that someone has to go. You take the CFO (Cow Finance Officer) out, drug it with a prescription somnambulant, and shoot it in the head with a pistol loaded with Rat Shot, from two feet away. The COWroner, who took six weeks to decide murdered children were drowned, takes less than 24 hours to declare the CFO a suicide. You celebrate by choking on a pretzel because you don’t have any milk to wash it down.
FRENCH CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch and drink wine instead of milk. Life is good.
JAPANESE CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at cow school, and the suicide rate, although four times that of other countries, is low enough that the profits are still remarkable, even though you are embarrassed by the occasional public Hara-Cowri.
GERMAN CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
ITALIAN CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows but you don’t know where they are. While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman. You break for lunch. Life is good.
RUSSIAN CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You count them and find you have five cows. You have some more vodka. You count them again and find you now have 42 cows. You count them again and when there turn out to be twelve cows, you stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka. You produce your 10th 5-year plan in the last 3 months. The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.
FLORIDA CORPORATIONISM: You have a black cow and a brown cow. Everyone votes for the best looking one. Some of the people who like the brown one best, vote for the black one. Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can’t figure out how to vote at all. Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which is the best-looking one.
NEW YORK CORPORATIONISM: You have fifteen million cows. You have to choose which one will be the leader of the herd, so you pick some fat cow from Arkansas.
Environmentalism
ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
Fascism
FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
Feudalism
FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
Socialism
SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you a glass of milk.
BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. The cows are cared for by former chicken farmers. You are assigned to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government says you will get as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should need, but the bureaucrats take it and sell it on the black
market. The government denies the black market exists.
Surrealism
SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
DEMOCRATIC SURREALISM: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office that put a tax on your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then take the tax money, buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel righteous. Barbara Streisand sings for you.
LIBERTARIAN SURREALISM: You have two cows. One has actually read the constitution, believes in it, and has some really good ideas about government. The cow runs for office, and while most people agree that the cow is the best candidate, nobody except the other cow votes for her because they think it would be “throwing their vote away.”
REPUBLICAN SURREALISM: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So?
Totalitarianism
TOTALITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
Aevia — Consider the Source

Researchers genotyped 27,243 people from two separate studies to see if they had a certain gene variant. The 9p21 gene has been shown in previous studies to be linked with a higher risk of heart attack and cardiovascular disease.
The participants in this study represented a number of ethnicities: South Asian, Latin American, Arab, Chinese and European. They were asked about their dietary habits, including how many raw fruits and vegetables they ate, and how often.
Among all the study subjects, those who had the high-risk genotype and ate a diet low in raw vegetables and fruits had a higher risk of heart attack or cardiovascular disease. However, eating a diet high in vegetables and fruits seemed to have a protective effect — that group had a heart attack risk that was comparable to people with a low-risk genotype.
Aevia — Consider the Source