Vegan? Watch Your Protein Levels.

If you are a vegan or vegetarian with a secret stash of candy, jelly beans or dark chocolate, join the club. A constant craving for carbs with occasional headaches, muscle or joint pain may be due to a slight deficiency of protein.

The symptoms of a severe protein deficiency include:

  • Edema (swelling)
  • Thinning brittle hair and/or hair loss
  • Ridges in finger and toe nails
  • Skin rashes; dry skin
  • Weakness
  • Constant Fatigue
  • Muscle soreness and cramps
  • Slow healing
  • Skin ulcers
  • Sleep issues
  • Frequent headache
  • Nausea
  • Fainting
  • Depression/anxiety

Sooo, what can we do to reverse this condition? Carnivores and omnivores simply chow down on anything that moves. Vegans and vegetarians have a slightly more complicated problem, but one that’s nonetheless manageable. Here’s a list of protein sources found in Kingdom Plantae:

  • Seeds, sprouted
  • Nuts
  • Beans
  • Lentils
  • Whole grains (in order from highest to lowest protein content): Wheat, amaranth, oats, rye, triticale, teff, spelt, wild rice, barley, buckwheat, quinoa, millet, sorghum, corn, rice.
  • Soy
  • Peas
  • Peanuts
  • Spinach
  • Potato
  • Sweet potato
  • Algae
  • Seaweed

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Know Your Food Containers

Understanding different types of plastics is crucial when making decisions on items for your family and home. Recycling numbers, ranging 1 through 7, are used to specify what type of plastic is contained in an item and in turn how that item may be recycled. They are found inside an M.C. Escher style triangle of arrows turned in on themselves on the bottom of most plastic containers. Of the seven different types of plastic available on the American market, all are based on a different resin. Each of these seven varies in both its effect on environmental safety and ease of recycling. What follows is a general outline of most types of plastics along with their most common uses.

PLASTIC #1: POLYETHYLENE TEREPHTHALATE (PET OR PETE)
Common uses: 2 liter soda bottles, single use water bottle containers, cooking oil bottles, peanut butter jars.
This is the most widely recycled plastic. Commonly recycled, PET is semi-rigid and very lightweight. It’s best suited for single-use containers as it can break down when exposed to light and heat, causing it to leach. PET can also be recycled into fabric, similar in strength and appearance to virgin nylon.

PLASTIC #2: HIGH DENSITY POLYETHYLENE (HDPE)
Common uses: detergent bottles, milk jugs.
HDPE is a sturdy and reliable non-leaching translucent plastic. HDPE resists UV penetration, which can damage and discolor the plastic. Dishwasher-safe and able to withstand temperatures from -148 to 176° F (-100 to 80° C), it’s ideal for food and beverage storage.

PLASTIC #3: POLYVINYL CHLORIDE (PVC)
Common uses: plastic pipes, outdoor furniture, shrink wrap, water bottles, salad dressing and liquid detergent containers.
Most PVC vinyl products contain phthalates, which mimic human hormones and also affect various life forms including fish and invertebrates adversely. For this reason, we do not recommend products made from PVC for food storage.

PLASTIC #4: LOW DENSITY POLYETHYLENE (LDPE)
Common uses: dry cleaning bags, produce bags, trash can liners, food storage containers.
LDPE are safe, non-leaching plastics. Flexible, impact-resistant and microwave-proof, it’s dishwasher-safe and able to withstand temperatures from -148 to 176° F (-100 to 80° C). Safe for use with food and beverages.

PLASTIC #5: POLYPROPYLENE (PP)
Common uses: bottle caps, food containers, drinking straws.
BPA-free, polypropylene is commonly used for injection molding. It’s resistance to high heat generally makes it microwave and dishwasher safe, as well as a good option for food and beverage storage.

PLASTIC #6: POLYSTYRENE (PS)
Common uses: packaging pellets or “Styrofoam peanuts,” cups, plastic tableware, meat trays, to-go “clam shell” containers.
Polystyrene foam is a major component of plastic debris in the ocean, where it becomes toxic to marine life. Currently, the majority of polystyrene products are not recycled. This material should be avoided.

PLASTIC #7: OTHER
Common uses: LEXAN, certain kinds of food containers and Tupperware.
This plastic category includes any plastic other than the above named types. These containers can be any of the several different types of plastic polymers.
Polycarbonate is the most commonly-known #7 plastic. Proven to leach BPA, it is not recommended for food storage. Not all “other” plastic is polycarbonate, however. Plastics labeled #7 can also be a combination of several safe plastics. You should engage in due-diligence when making decisions about #7 plastics.

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Representative of What?

Want to know why GMO foods are not labeled as such? The following “Representatives” have voted against legislation that would require truth in labeling. Well, we each have a vote too.

Alexander (R-TN), Ayotte (R-NH), Baldwin (D-WI), Barrasso (R-WY), Baucus (D-MT), Blunt (R-MO), Boozman (R-AR), Brown (D-OH), Burr (R-NC), Carper (D-DE), Casey (D-PA), Chambliss (R-GA), Coats (R-IN), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Collins (R-ME), Coons (D-DE), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Cowan (D-MA) ,Crapo (R-ID) ,Cruz (R-TX) ,Donnelly (D-IN), Durbin (D-IL) ,Enzi (R-WY) ,Fischer (R-NE) ,Franken (D-MN), Gillibrand (D-NY), Graham (R-SC), Grassley (R-IA), Hagan (D-NC), Harkin (D-IA), Hatch (R-UT), Heitkamp (D-ND), Heller (R-NV), Hoeven (R-ND), Inhofe (R-OK), Isakson (R-GA), Johanns (R-NE), Johnson (D-SD), Johnson (R-WI), Kaine (D-VA), Kirk (R-IL), Klobuchar (D-MN), Landrieu (D-LA), Lee (R-UT), Levin (D-MI), McCain (R-AZ), McCaskill (D-MO), McConnell (R-KY), Menendez (D-NJ), Moran (R-KS), Nelson (D-FL), Paul (R-KY), Portman (R-OH), Pryor (D-AR), Risch (R-ID), Roberts (R-KS), Rubio (R-FL), Scott (R-SC), Sessions (R-AL), Shaheen (D-NH), Shelby (R-AL), Stabenow (D-MI), Thune (R-SD), Toomey (R-PA), Udall (D-CO), Vitter (R-LA), Warner (D-VA), Warren (D-MA), Wicker (R-MS)

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The McNugget Diet

Stacey Irvine looks surprisingly well for a 17-year-old who’s eaten only chicken nuggets since she was 2. She claims never to have tasted fruits or vegetables, but admits to sometimes eating fries and toast. “McDonald’s chicken nuggets are my favorite,” said Stacey. “I share 20 with my boyfriend.” She also enjoys nuggets from KFC and the supermarket.

Stacey recently went to the hospital after passing out from struggling to breathe, doctors told her that she absolutely had to eat more healthily. She’s been told in no uncertain terms that she will die if she carries on like this, but Stacey says she can’t eat anything else.

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Google Brings Nutrition Information to Search

The latest expansion of Google’s Knowledge Graph will make nutrition information more accessible. The new nutrition service is rolling out to those in the U.S. over the next 10 days, Google said. It will be available on desktop and mobile search, but only in English at this point. Google promised to add additional foods, and make this feature available in other languages in the future.
The Web giant announced plans to add nutritional information for more than 1,000 fruits, vegetables, meats, and meals directly into search. This means that when you Google something like “how much protein is in a banana?” or “how many calories are in an avocado?” you’ll get the answers right away, without having to click through to any of the actual search results.
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9 Year Old Lectures McDonalds CEO

“Mr. Thompson, don’t you want kids to be healthy so they can live a long and healthy life?” This is how CEO Don Thompson was seriously grilled by a 9-year-old girl at Thursday’s annual shareholder’s meeting in Oak Brook, Ill. Hannah Robertson stood and lectured the CEO of one of the world’s biggest brands. “I don’t think it’s fair when big companies try to trick kids into eating food. It isn’t fair that so many kids my age are getting sick,” she said – blaming McDonald’s for unfairly targeting kids with advertisements for food that isn’t good for them.
We certainly hope Mr. Thompson learned a little something, McDonald’s needs kids more than kids need McDonald’s.
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Food Synthesis – From Soy or Soylent Green?

NASA just threw a $125,000, six-month grant at a project by Anjan Contractor, a mechanical engineer at Systems and Materials Research Corporation in Austin to develop a working prototype of his proposed universal food synthesizer.

The feedstocks for this device, including all the carbs, proteins, macro, and micro nutrients are in powder form. Does placing 3D food printers in households allow a world population, that’s on its way to an estimated nine billion people by 2040, to synthesize healthy meals from powder-filled cartridges? Such dehydrated food stocks would have long shelf lives.

In light of all this it would seem the Star Trek food replicators are really not all that far off. The fictional devices featured in that series were capable of fiddling with reality at the subatomic level to reproduce pretty much anything edible. Also not far off is the Mission to Mars. 78,000 people recently applied for Mars One. The ETA for the first colonists on that mission is just ten years from now in 2023. How would you pack for that little trek?

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Growing Soybeans and a Supreme Court Case

When a farmer grows Monsanto’s genetically modified soybean seeds, has he simply “used” the seed to create a crop to sell, or has he “made” untold replicas of Monsanto’s invention that remain subject to the company’s restrictions? The question is now headed to the United States Supreme Court.

“The current intellectual property environment of transgenic crops has spurred the privatization and concentration of the world’s seed supply,” said a brief filed by the Center for Food Safety and Save Our Seeds, groups that have been highly critical of Monsanto and genetically modified crops. “Market concentration has resulted in 10 multinational corporations holding approximately two-thirds (65%) of commercial seed for major crops, reducing choice and innovation, and increasing prices for the American farmer.”

The brief asks the court to end the practice of allowing corporations to place conditions on the sale of its seed and to reject an “end-run around patent exhaustion” for regeneration. “Farming is using seeds, not constructing or manufacturing seeds,” the brief states.

Monsanto, alarmed at the possibilities of what the Supreme Court might do, has circled the wagons.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization warns that advancements in agricultural, medical and environmental research “depend critically on a strong, stable and nationally uniform system of patent rights and protections.”

Universities, economists, intellectual property experts and seed companies have weighed in on Monsanto’s behalf.

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Can We Eat to Starve Cancer?




The Essentials of Good Nutrition

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, preceded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

Molecular biology speaks volumes that are beyond anything conceivably produced by either magic matter or magic man. It reflects the wisdom manifest in all of creation. It is a foretaste of life’s logos. Logos spermatikos (the generative principle of the Universe), logos prophorikos (the uttered word), and logos endiathetos (the word remaining within) are all represented in the genomic “Book of Life”.

Nucleic structures reveal the combinatorial nature of protein synthesis. There are two types of polymers found in all living cells. Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) is found primarily in the nucleus of the cell. Ribonucleic Acid (RNA), while synthesized in the nucleus, is found external to the nuclear membrane of the cell (in the cytoplasm). DNA contains the genetic codes to make RNA. The RNA, in turn, then contains the codes for the primary sequence of amino acids to form polymer chains called polypeptides.

These polypeptides are folded to make globular or fibrous biochemical compounds that facilitate a biological function. Such biochemical compounds are called proteins. Proteins participate in virtually every process occurring within cells. Because each protein fulfills a specific function, there must be a good fit. This is achieved, primarily, through the proper sequencing of amino acids, to support the precise rubrics of polypeptide formation.

The determining factor for this “good fit” often hinges upon our choices of what to ingest from within the range of animal, vegetable, and mineral sources. The right combination will not only inhibit disease but will also promote mental and physical health. Animals (including humans) cannot synthesize all the amino acids they need for good sequencing and must obtain essential amino acids from food. Through the process of digestion, we break down ingested protein into free amino acids that are then used in metabolism. Animal protein must be fit for purpose, synthesized in a species specific way.  When we obtain too much of it directly from other animal sources, thus bypassing the soil/plant medium, it may not contain all the chemical components required by our complex human machinery. Some of our biological macromolecules can only be obtained through vegetable or mineral sources.

Of course these vegetable sources require their own resources. Healthy, nutrient rich plants can only stem from healthy, nutrient rich soil. Such soil will contain a high microbial biomass. Foods gathered in the wild, if the land has not been influenced by humans will naturally be in balance.  Biodynamic farming and integrated pest management (guided by pest control mesa az) can also produce rich, healthy foods. In this scenario the ideal ratio of pests to beneficials occurs naturally. This is in contrast to the whack-a-mole approach characteristic of chemical applications and artificial genetic modifications that are often unintelligent, unconditioned and uncontrolled. The never ending game of targeting specific proteins is, in the long run, an exercise in futility. With pest control nashville one can be assured to get rid of all the pests that are a menace.

Active soils, that are in balance, provide superior protection when compared to the sterile soils that may result from the breakdown of genetically modified plants or repeated applications of pesticides and herbicides. Without the protection provided by nature’s balance, devastating infestations are usually just one mutation away from returning with a vengeance.

Living plants vary in both color and chemistry. The process of photosynthesis is unique to over three hundred thousand members of Kingdom Plantae. The crytoxanthins that give oranges their appealing color, the lycopene of red tomatoes, and the beta-carotene of yellow squash are collectively known as carotenoids, a subset of the group of chemicals known as antioxidants.

Because we do not perform photosynthesis, we cannot produce antioxidants. Certain plants with their appealing colors are designed to attract us so that we may partake of their healthful benefits. Many of us can easily obtain these valuable antioxidants from the beautiful array of fruits and vegetables now available in the marketplace. From them we gain the ability to defend against free radicals and the damage they may cause by destabilizing certain protein complexes and other essentials of biochemistry.

Free radicals are chemically reactive atoms, molecules, or ions with unpaired electrons. Some free radicals are necessary for life. They play an important role in a number of biological processes, including normal polymerization reactions necessary for protein synthesis. Also, the intracellular killing of harmful bacteria often involves free radicals.

One negative reaction involves polymer chains that are attacked by free radicals when the body is deprived of certain chemical compositions that help insure the health of our bodies. Free radicals can also participate in certain other unwanted reactions resulting in cell damage or cell death. These factors may contribute to the onset of cancer, strokes, coronaries, diabetes, autoimmune problems and other diseases. Even the symptoms of aging such as atherosclerosis can now be attributed to the free-radical induced oxidation of many chemicals essential to life.

Animal protein, for example, can create an acidic environment which suppreses the ability of the body to convert the vitimin D stored in the liver to the “supercharged” form (1,25 D ) used by the kidneys. Production of this essential metabolite is often impaired due to the decreased ability of an important parathyroid hormone to create and regulate kidney enzyme activity. Several cancers, autoimmune diseases, and a variety of other maladies thrive in the environment devoid of supercharged D.

Another example of protein misfits involves Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF-1) as a predictor of cancer. We make more IGF-1 when we consume animal foods like meat and dairy. When men also have low blood levels of a protein that binds and inactivates IGF-1 they will have 9.5 times the risk of advanced-stage prostate cancer. Animal protein causes the body to produce more IGF-1 which causes cell growth and removal to occur in an uncoordinated way, thus stimulating cancer development.

Food from animal sources is also responsible for a high cholesterol condition that favors the production of the beta-amyloid which accumulates as a plaque in critical areas of the brain. This condition has been linked to Alzheimer’s. A high cholesterol condition is also responsible for the build-up of a greasy layer of plaque composed of proteins, fats, and immune system cells on the inner walls of coronary arteries thus causing various forms of heart disease.

A high concentration of calcium and oxalate in the kidneys is used in the production of kidney stones. This concentration also occurs subsequent to the ingestion of animal protein. Kidney stones can abrade the tissues down stream from the kidneys. These streams contain the toxins removed by the kidneys for expulsion from the body. Such toxins that may be encapsulated or otherwise retained within lesions are another risk factor to consider.

So what’s a body to do? Start with good, unbiased information! The most comprehensive and scientifically sound nutrition study to date is The China Study. The prelude to this research involved a dying head of state and a collection of rats.

The first case occurred in the early 1970’s when the Premier of China, Chou EnLai, was dying of cancer. He mobilized 650,000 workers to survey 2400 Chinese counties (880 million citizens) and tabulate death rates for twelve different kinds of cancer. The survey was unique in that 87% of the Chinese population is comprised of the same (Han) ethnic group. The survey revealed massive variations in disease rates. The counties with the highest rates of some cancers were more than one hundred times greater than those with the lowest rates.

The second case focused on a high incidence of liver cancer in the Philippines. Laboratory experiments revealed a one hundred percent fatality rate from liver cancer for rats that were feeding on a twenty percent protein diet. All of the rats that were fed a five percent protein diet were cancer free over the course of the same study.

The survey in China showed a clear correlation to the more affluent areas and the population’s adoption of diets “rich” in animal protein. The Philippines study seemed to suggest that protein, in excess of what the body requires, feeds cancer. As all good scientists do, those conducting the laboratory experiment began to consider other reasons for the extreme correlation. They took notice of the fact that the protein ingested by the rats was casein, a substance that represents about eighty-five percent of the protein found in cow’s milk.

The time was then ripe for The China Study. Sixty-five hundred Chinese people across sixty-five counties participated in research conducted by Cambridge and Oxford Universities together with researchers from China. The Book by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell II, MD describes the prelude, the methodologies, and the correlations in detail.

We live in an era where out of control health care costs, combined with low system performance, have serious repercussions. These exert stresses on every sector of society worldwide. It is clear that we must restore that lost art of medicine that depended as much on the patient’s nature of life as it did on symptoms. Knowing the chemistry and energy of the foods we consume should be priority one for personal health, healthcare practitioners and world leaders who would address the large scale problems.

Macronutrients are consumed in large amounts because the body needs these carbohydrates, fats, and proteins to meet its energy requirements. To maintain certain checks and balances, and to keep the body’s systems running smoothly, we also need a full complement of micronutrients. These Minerals, Vitamins, and Phytochemicals could be thought of as the MVPs ― the Most Valuable Players ― in keeping the body running well. For it is, when well maintained, a miraculous self-healing machine.

The Father of Modern Medicine, Hippocrates (460-357 B.C.), knew what all responsible individuals should now know. For he said, “He who does not know food, how can he understand the diseases of man?” The authors of The China Study said it best: “Food Controls Health . . . Give your body the right food and it will do the right thing.”

© 2013 Robert H. Kalk

All Rights Reserved

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