Pharmaceuticals Anonymous

Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Ending sugar addiction....an approach that works from a doctor who has had the courage to speak publicly about what is really happening to our food. Fascinating!


Robert H. Lustig, MD

Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, in the Division of Endocrinology Director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Program at UCSF

Dr. Lustig is a nationally-recognized authority in the field of neuroendocrinology, with a specific emphasis on the regulation of energy balance by the central nervous system. He is currently investigating the contribution of biochemical, neural, hormonal, and genetic influences in the expression of the current obesity epidemic both in children and adults. He has defined a syndrome of vagally-mediated beta-cell hyperactivity which leads to insulin hypersecretion and obesity, and which is treatable by insulin suppression. This phenomenon may occur in up to 20% of the obese population. He is interested in the hypothalamic signal transduction of insulin and leptin, and how these two systems interact. He is studying the cardiovascular morbidity associated with hyperinsulinemia, and developing methods to evaluate and prevent this phenomenon in children. He is also analyzing the contribution of the autonomic nervous system to insulin secretion and insulin resistance in obese children, and the utility of assessing insulin dynamics in targeting obesity therapy.

Dr. Lustig graduated from MIT, and received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College. He performed his pediatric residency at St. Louis Children's Hospital, and his clinical fellowship at UCSF. From there, he spent six years as a post-doctoral fellow in neuroendocrinology at The Rockefeller University in New York.

Dr. Lustig has authored over 70 research articles and 35 chapters. He is the Chairman of the Obesity Task Force of the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society, a member of the Obesity Task force of The Endocrine Society, and on the Steering Committee of the International Endocrine Alliance to Combat Obesity.



Saturday, June 20, 2009

Taking Down the Corporate Food System Is Simple



Taking Down the Corporate Food System Is Simple
By Joel Salatin, Public Affairs Books
Posted on June 20, 2009,
http://www.alternet.org/story/140477/

Excerpted by permission from "Declare Your Independence" by Joel Salatin, part of the book Food, Inc., available now from PublicAffairs. Copyright 2009.

Perhaps the most empowering concept in any paradigm-challenging movement is simply opting out. The opt-out strategy can humble the mightiest forces because it declares to one and all, "You do not control me."

The time has come for people who are ready to challenge the paradigm of factory-produced food and to return to a more natural, wholesome and sustainable way of eating (and living) to make that declaration to the powers that be, in business and government, that established the existing system and continue to prop it up. It's time to opt out and simply start eating better -- right here, right now.

Impractical? Idealistic? Utopian? Not really. As I'll explain, it's actually the most realistic and effective approach to transforming a system that is slowly but surely killing us.

What happened to food?
... snip...
The unprecedented variety of bar-coded packages in today's supermarket really does not mean that our generation enjoys better food options than our predecessors. These packages, by and large, having passed through the food-inspection fraternity, the industrial food fraternity and the lethargic cheap-food-purchasing consumer fraternity, represent an incredibly narrow choice.
Link

Author Joel Salatin at his farm

Monday, February 2, 2009

Who Owns Nature? Pharma, Of Course!

Monsantoland Pictures, Images and Photos

Further extracts from ETC Group's recently released report, "Who Owns Nature?" These are from the section about the pesticde industry. For the full report:
http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=707

According to the report, the world's six largest agrochemical manufacturers, who control nearly 75% of the global pesticide market, are also seed industry giants.

It's worth breaking this down by company.

Bayer: the world's biggest agrochemical company is also the world's seventh biggest seed company.

Syngenta: the world's second largest agrochemical company is also the world's third largest seed company.

Monsanto: the world's biggest seed company is the world's fifth largest agrochemical company.

And DuPont: the world's second biggest seed company is also the world's sixth largest agrochemical company.

All these companies are gene giants.

Weed killers (herbicides) account for about one-third of the global pesticide market, and around 80% of GM seeds involve herbicide-resistance.

The worldwide market for agrochemicals grew last year by nearly 10%.
------
Who Owns Nature?
Report from ETC Group

[Extracts only]

Agrochemical Industry

World's Top 10 Pesticide Firms

Company - Agrochemical Sales 2007 (US$ millions) - % Market Share

1.Bayer (Germany) - $7,458m - 19%
2.Syngenta (Switzerland) - $7,285m - 19%
3.BASF (Germany) - $4,297m - 11%
4.Dow AgroSciences (USA) - $3,779m - 10%
5.Monsanto (USA) - $3,599m - 9%
6.DuPont (USA) - $2,369m - 6%
7.Makhteshim Agan (Israel) - $1,895m - 5%
8.Nufarm (Australia) - $1,470m - 4%
9.Sumitomo Chemical (Japan) - $1,209m - 3%
10.Arysta Lifescience (Japan) - $1,035m - 3%
Total $34,396m - 89%
Source: Agrow World Crop Protection News, August 2008

The top 10 companies control 89% of the global agrochemical market.

The worldwide market for agrochemicals was US$38.6 billion in 2007 - up 8.4% over the previous year. The top 6 companies accounted for $28.8 billion, or 75% of the total market.


Link

Canada - take action on genetic modification here

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Dr. Sears: Does your child have N.D.D.?

hansdel gretel batchelor
Want some candy? - Hansel and Gretel image by Batchelor, from the golden age of children's book illustration.
Dr. Sears tells us your child may have not A.D.D. but Nutritional Deficiency Disorder.
Get the MIND Guide to Mood and Food here
Read about Chef Jamie Oliver's school lunches project here