“Vitamin D supplementation resulted in a statistically significant reduction in the proportion of participants experiencing at least one acute respiratory tract infection.”

This was the conclusion of a meta-analysis conducted by Adrian R. Martineau, MD, PhD, from the Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom, and colleagues. According to the authors, acute respiratory infections are a substantial cause of illness and death, and in 2013, they accounted for one tenth of ambulatory and emergency department visits in the United States and approximately 2.65 million deaths worldwide.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

In testimony on February 16, 2017, before the House Committee on Agriculture, Angela Rachidi with the American Enterprise Institute made four main points before the House Committee on Agriculture. Here is her opening statement:

Chairman Conaway, Ranking Member Peterson, and other Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning on restrictions on purchases in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP.

My name is Angela Rachidi, and I am a research fellow in poverty studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Prior to joining AEI, I spent almost a decade at the New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) as the Deputy Commissioner for Policy and Evaluation. HRA is New York City’s main social service agency and administers SNAP. During my time at HRA, the city provided SNAP benefits to almost 2 million New Yorkers each month.

In my role, I studied all aspects of the program. Most relevant for today is my experience—under the direction of then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Commissioners for Health Thomas Friedan and Thomas Farley, and HRA Commissioner Robert Doar—drafting a proposal for a demonstration project in New York City to restrict the use of SNAP benefits to purchase sweetened beverages. We proposed a restriction as a way to support the overarching goal of the program, which is to improve nutrition. Regrettably, it was denied by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 2011.

In the years since I left HRA, the public health problems caused by sweetened beverages have not solved themselves. I am here today to urge the Committee to support demonstration projects that test whether a sweetened beverage restriction in SNAP can improve the health and well-being of SNAP recipients.

I will make four main points to support this recommendation:

1. Obesity and related health problems remain one of the most challenging public health issues of our time, affecting millions of poor and non-poor Americans, with sweetened beverages identified as one the main contributors.

2. The integrity of SNAP as a publicly-funded program rests on how well its implementation matches the stated goals of the program. Congress has stated that the purpose of SNAP is to support nutrition among low-income households, which is directly contradicted by allowing sweetened beverages to be purchased.

3. This public health problem is complex and requires a comprehensive approach that includes multiple strategies, including changes to SNAP.

4. A demonstration project to test a sweetened beverage restriction in SNAP is consistent with bipartisan efforts to support evidence-based policymaking. Through rigorous evaluation, a demonstration project could assess whether government efforts can achieve potential gains, such as better health, without adversely affecting other measures of well-being.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

A recent study found COPD patients who ate more of four foods – fish, grapefruits, bananas and cheese – seemed to have better lung function. Antioxidants might be the reason, although that’s far from proven.

COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is an umbrella term for emphysema and chronic bronchitis – two progressive lung conditions that increasingly limit patients’ ability to breathe. Coughing is a common symptom, but the key signs of COPD are shortness of breath and fatigue with activity and eventually even at rest. While it’s usually detected in middle-aged or older adults, the condition develops gradually. At least 80 percent of patients are current or former smokers, while others have a genetic form of COPD. Even though COPD is a lung disease, it also affects a patient’s ability to eat enough and can lead to unhealthy weight loss, extreme thinness and muscle wasting. According to the National Institutes of Health, COPD is the third leading cause of death in the United States.

“The hallmark of COPD is that you have a sort of obstruction in your airway – you’re having a hard time expelling carbon dioxide,” says Ilaria St. Florian, a registered dietitian. “We breathe in oxygen; we breathe out carbon dioxide. And because that becomes more difficult, breathing becomes more labored.” As a result, metabolism goes into overdrive, and patients burn more calories.

To keep up their strength, people with COPD have to significantly change their diets: the foods they eat and how they eat. For patients battling fatigue and loss of appetite, St. Florian offers these tips:

• Patients “really want to get the most bang for their buck when they’re eating,” she says. “So we recommend not to have big meals – it’s too much of a load at one time.” Smaller, more frequent meals work better.
• Make sure to get enough protein. “If patients are losing muscle, their dietary protein can synthesize new muscle,” St. Florian says. “That’s really important.”
• Healthy fats – as in monounsaturated fats from canola oil, avocados and nuts – are heart healthy and provide extra calories for patients who aren’t eating a lot.
• Dairy products may produce mucus, which can be uncomfortable for some patients, St. Florian says. So ice cream isn’t a good idea.
• To avoid filling your stomach, don’t drink fluids with meals. “Of course, it’s important to stay hydrated,” she says. “Just drink those fluids between meals.”
• To avoid aspirating food – having it go down into the lungs with the risk of pneumonia – St. Florian tells patients to eat very slowly. And if they use oxygen, to wear it while they’re eating.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

While the dollar skew in science is seemingly all pervasive, the recent declarations concerning the efficacy, or lack thereof, in vitamin and mineral supplements would appear to betray the corporate line. On the one hand, big-agri would like you to believe that nutrient rich foods can be produced from nutrient depleted soils. On the other hand, big-pharma wants you buying supplements. This, of course, makes it difficult for the politically motivated at the FDA and USDA to remain on step, and for our elected representatives to please their actual owners.

Nutrient gaps were rare on the family farm. Raw milk, for example, was never a problem for those consumers who were just a few steps and a few minutes from the cow. That cow was grass fed on a pasture that was not only expansive, it featured an appropriate bovine population density. The cow poop that hit the soil was totally digested in a matter of days on ground that benefitted from a high microbial biomass. Compare that to the pat that only disintegrates because it is dried by the sun, pounded by the rain, fissured by the freeze, and scattered by the wind.

The microbes that once populated the gut were close cousins to those living in the soil. There were no supplements designed to promote “regularity” because traditional farm dwellers didn’t need them. Likewise, the genetically modified organisms (GMOs), that are designed to resist pests and ripen on the truck, won’t be necessary once the chemical industry has completed its program of sterilizing the soil while also short circuiting the physiological drop or accelerating the pick.

The GMO problem is rooted in agenda science which is, in itself, a betrayal of true science. The personal values of one who engineers a food crop for big money, without regard to paltry nutritional worth, clearly don’t align with the high purpose of the scientific discipline. Then again, there is very little science being done without funding.

The integrity of science depends ultimately upon consumer sovereignty. If buyers refuse to buy from packagers or grocery stores that don’t provide GMO labeling, it doesn’t matter who owns the politicians. If we express a preference for foods produced on biodynamic farms, the mammon service will be forced to cannibalize its own corporatocracy. If we push back from the antibiotics, the hormones, the pink slime, and the high fructose corn syrup of the damn pusher man, we can again become arbiters of our own destiny.

Solar is not alternative energy and nutrition is not alternative medicine. Without the sun there would be no fossil fuels or petroleum based fertilizers. Without good nutrition, there would be no health. The alternative paradigm is at the heart of the deception and it all maps back to Genesis.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

A sugar that naturally occurs in animals but not humans could be the reason why people are at higher risk for cancer when they consume red meat, researchers at the UC San Diego School of Medicine reported Monday.

The scientists found that feeding the sugar Neu5Gc to mice engineered to be deficient in it — like humans — significantly promoted spontaneous cancers. Their study did not involve exposure to carcinogens or artificially inducing cancers, further implicating Neu5Gc as a key link between red meat consumption and cancer, according to UCSD.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

A team of scientists has forecast the direction of nutrition research. The panel identified the following ten areas of research which they believe will be the focus of nutritional scientists in the next six years:

(1) Global Food Security: The scientists predict that global food security, food safety, and sustainability will occupy the spotlight by 2020 as all are influenced by global climate change and access to clean water. Additional issues to be looked at will include the increasing development of genetically modified (GM) food crops.

(2) Microbiome/Microflora: By the end of the decade, scientists will determine how regulating the microorganisms in the body can advance disease prevention, with a focus on the effects of nutrition, dietary supplements, and physical activity on specific microflora populations and/or the interrelationships among populations.

(3) Gene Expression: Research will examine how nutritional programming of gene expression, both in the human genome and in our associated microflora microbiome impacts disease expression and progression. By 2020, the panel predicts that scientists will better understand how many diseases have their roots during the gestation of the fetus (in utero) and in early childhood development, and how nutrition might change the manifestation of these diseases.

(4) Energy Metabolism: Viewing energy balance as a multidimensional system, rather than as isolated parts that somehow work together, will lead to new insights and solutions to address the obesity problem, in both developed and developing countries. One strategic use of nutrition to enhance bioenergetics will be a focus on cellular energy and mitochondrial function. Dietary manipulations and use of certain food components or supplements may be a means to enhance mitochondrial function and thus affect energy metabolism and energy fluxes in the body.

(5) Cancer: By 2020, genomic and metabolomic profiles and large dataset analysis will offer new opportunities to identify relevant indices and biomarkers and conduct timely, cost-efficient clinical interventions on nutrition and cancer. Medical professionals will expand their thinking about the role of natural products to consider how they might complement conventional care, such as increasing the effectiveness of chemotherapy or radiation.

(6) Inflammation: Future nutrition research will likely focus on the role of diet and nutraceuticals to help moderate inflammation and possibly reduce the risk of cancer and other inflammatory mediated diseases and conditions. Nutrition scientists must identify foods, beverages, and dietary patterns that are both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory.

(7) Aging: The increasing number of aging persons will beg the question of “Who wants to live a long and unhealthy life, where quality of life deteriorates slowly and for a long time?” Nutrition research will address that issue along with cancer and vascular disorders, obesity, metabolic syndrome, locomotive syndrome, cognitive impairment, and problems related to taste, mastication, and swallowing.

(8) Bioengineering: Advances in bioengineering will continue to bring new approaches to clinical nutrition and to nutrition education. This will lead to research espousing the development and use of new monitoring technologies and tools that individuals might use to better follow their nutritional and health status.

(9) Nutrition Education: Food choices are very personal, and modification of food intake is a complex issue that requires much new research. Although educators can provide people with multiple types of useful information, food choices usually are based on four factors: flavor, economics, availability, and convenience. Research is needed to identify which messages and vehicles will effectively reach which audiences to effect behavior change and improve overall health.

(10) Interdisciplinary and Cross-discipline Collaborations: Emphasis on translational research will be more common, requiring collaborations among those in basic and clinical research, nutritional epidemiology and biostatistics, food science, exercise science, nutrition communications, public policy, and scientific ethics. Teams of researchers rather than individual scientists will produce answers to the most critical health issues, working across disciplines to bring a holistic and more representative approach to successful and sustainable solutions.

Taken together, these 10 elements will usher in the next decade where the emphasis will be on personalized nutrition based, in part, on a better understanding of the role that one’s genetic background has, along with a better appreciation of the interplay between diet and the microbiome.

Consider the Source

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

“Petri dish milk will mirror the formula of the real thing — the yeast cultures will be churning out real milk proteins — it will retain the taste and nutritional benefits of cow milk,” says Perumal Gandhi, a co-founder of the synthetic dairy start-up Muufri (pronounced Moo-free) in San Francisco, California. “That will distinguish it from soy – and almond-based alternatives.”

Gandhi and Muufri co-founder Ryan Pandya are both vegans who view the livestock industry’s practices as inhumane. “Dairy production is responsible for roughly 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions each year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, mostly because cows belch methane. And although dairy is already a more efficient way than meat of converting plant feed into animal protein, bioengineers can do even better than nature,” Gandhi says.

Muufri will contain only those essential proteins, fats, minerals, and sugars. Pandya and Gandhi’s plan is to insert DNA sequences from cattle into yeast cells, grow the cultures at a controlled temperature and the right concentrations, and harvest milk proteins after a few days. The process is extremely safe, says Gandhi: It’s the same one used to manufacture insulin and other medicines.

Although the proteins in Muufri milk come from yeast, the fats come from vegetables and are tweaked at the molecular level to mirror the structure and flavor of milk fats. Minerals, like calcium and potassium, and sugars are purchased separately and added to the mix. Once the composition is fine-tuned, the ingredients emulse naturally into milk.

By controlling the ingredients, however, Pandya and Gandhi hope to make milk more healthful. The team is experimenting, for instance, with sugars other than lactose, which 65 percent of adults have trouble digesting. And it has engineered a more healthful, unsaturated fat that retains the distinct flavor of dairy. Reproducing that flavor is a prime goal for Gandhi and Pandya, who were not always vegan—and who say they miss the taste of cheese, butter, and ice cream.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

A small study using brain scans suggests the addictive power of unhealthy, high-calorie food can be reduced and the brain retrained to prefer healthy, lower calorie foods. Participants who followed a 6-month behavioral weight-loss program showed significant changes in the way the reward centers in their brains responded to the two types of food.

The study team, including researchers from Harvard Medical School and Tufts University, both in Boston, MA, reports the findings in the journal Nutrition & Diabetes.

There is strong evidence to suggest individuals can retrain the brain to focus on healthy eating with early rewards. The scan results showed that compared to the controls, the group that followed the weight-loss program showed increased reward center activity in response to seeing images of low-calorie foods at the end of the program, and decreased activity in response to high-calorie foods.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

Parque de la Papa farmers began to stir in their seats, waiting for an opportunity to share their stories. Others came from as far as Bhutan and China. They discovered that their cultures were more similar than they had expected, and that one concern had been troubling all of them: Climate change was making it harder to grow food on the mountains that had sustained them for centuries. They were meeting to do something about it.

During a series of talks held between April 26 and May 2, 2014, the farmers forged a unique partnership that now includes the exchange of indigenous crop varieties and farming methods. They hope these initiatives will help protect agricultural biodiversity in the face of climate change. The exchange will begin with potatoes—a sturdy crop that thrives in the mountains of China, Bhutan, and Peru. Such collaboration will give the farmers an opportunity to experiment together from a distance, as they search for the hardiest, most resilient varieties.

Andean farmer Lino Mamani curates the traditional seeds collection at Parque de la Papa, where six Quechua communities live and grow about 600 varieties of potato. “We can learn more from others with similar problems about technology that might be useful.”

Working with scientists has been an emotional, challenging process, Mamani said. “Scientists would just take seeds from us, not recognizing our knowledge.” But the tides are turning as climate change edges on, pushing science and tradition closer together to resolve common goals and slow the process of agricultural degradation. He went on to say “It’s time traditional knowledge and science work together.”

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

“Citizens not only reject unregulated and hazardous GMOs, but are willing to defy the indentured politicians who pass laws that take away county rights to ban GMOs and obliterate a 100-year tradition of home rule and balance of powers between counties and the state.” So said Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and the Organic Consumers Fund.

Jackson County Oregon is a hotspot for supplying seed to the rest of the world. But with Syngenta growing GMO sugar beet crops in small plots peppered all over the narrow valley, contamination was inevitable according to Elise Higley, Jackson County family farmer and director of OurFamilyFarmsCoalition.org.

The GMO ban enacted by Josephine County Oregon is expected to face a legal challenge by way of S.B. 863, a controversial law passed by the Oregon legislature last October. The state law strips counties of the right to pass GMO bans. The Jackson County ban enjoys more protection, since that initiative was introduced before the state law went into effect.

It is important for farmers to grow crops, let them go to seed, and then save that seed to grow the next year. This allows farmers to grow varieties that work well for a particular region. But using purchased seed to sell or plant next year’s crops is illegal with patented GMO seeds, and a farmer could be sued out of existence even if GMO seed accidentally winds up in a neighboring farmer’s field, contaminating the crop.

The decisive county GMO ban victories come just months before the entire state of Oregon will vote on Ballot Initiative #44, which, if passed in November, would require mandatory labeling of GMO foods and foods containing GMO ingredients. “These victories make it clear to agribusiness giants like Monsanto and Dow that the day has come when they can no longer buy and lie their way to victory,” Cummins says. “By using the tools of democracy, such as ballot initiatives, citizens can overcome corporate and government corruption through honest campaigns, built on a foundation of truth, science and fair play.”

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!