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Chinese Companies Making Fake Plastic Rice

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

The Chinese food contamination freak show is back in full swing with new reports out of Singapore indicating that certain Chinese companies are now mass producing and selling fake rice to unwitting villagers. According to a report in the Korean-language Weekly Hong Kong, the manufacturers are blending potatoes, sweet potatoes, and plastic industrial resin to produce the imitation rice.

A report inVery Vietnam states that an official from the Chinese Restaurant Association has announced that eating three bowls of this fake rice is the equivalent of eating an entire plastic bag. Consuming such plastic material is obviously a serious health hazard, and officials are allegedly gearing up to conduct an investigation into the factories accused of producing the phony rice.

The scandal is not a surprise when considering China’s long legacy of food problems, including the 2008 melamine-tainted milk incident where roughly 300,000 people were injured and at least six infants died as a result of being poisoned by the toxic chemical. Other tainted food from China has included melamine-tainted pet foods, lead-tainted children’s cups, and even another fake rice case where a Chinese company added synthetic flavorings to ordinary rice to trick people into thinking it was the more expensive “Wuchang” variety.

Some media commentators have already begun to run wild with the fake rice story, comparing the imitation rice to what they say is the imitation reality in which the world lives.

“Fake stimulus, fake money printing, fake GDP growth, fake goods and services being produced, is … forcing us to consume fake food because we can’t afford real food, because we have no real growth, we have no real economy, we have no real industry, we only have fake stuff,” bemoaned talk show co-host Stacy Herbert from Russia Today. “So it makes sense that we’re only eating fake food.”

Source: NaturalNews.com

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Junk Food Lower IQs

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

Toddlers who have a diet high in processed foods may have a slightly lower IQ in later life, according to a British study described as the biggest research of its kind.

The conclusion, published on Monday, comes from a long-term investigation into 14,000 people born in western England in 1991 and 1992 whose health and well-being were monitored at the ages of three, four, seven and eight and a half.

Parents of the children were asked to fill out questionnaires that, among other things, detailed the kind of food and drink their children consumed.

Three dietary patterns emerged: one was high in processed fats and sugar; then there was a “traditional” diet high in meat and vegetables; and finally a “health-conscious” diet with lots of salad, fruit and vegetables, pasta and rice.

When the children were eight and a half, their IQ was measured using a standard tool called the Wechsler Intelligence Scale.

Of the 4,000 children for which there were complete data, there was a significant difference in IQ among those who had had the “processed” as opposed to the “health-conscious” diets in early childhood.

The 20 percent of children who ate the most processed food had an average IQ of 101 points, compared with 106 for the 20 percent of children who ate the most “health-conscious” food.

“It’s a very small difference, it’s not a vast difference,” said one of the authors, Pauline Emmett of the School of Social and Community Medicine at the University of Bristol.

“But it does make them less able to cope with education, less able to cope with some of the things in life.”

The association between IQ and nutrition is a strongly debated issue because it can be skewed by many factors, including economic and social background.

A middle-class family, for instance, may arguably be more keen (or more financially able) to put a healthier meal on the table, or be pushier about stimulating their child, compared to a poorer household.

Emmett said the team took special care to filter out such confounders.

“We have controlled for maternal education, for maternal social class, age, whether they live in council housing, life events, anything going wrong, the home environment, with books and use of television and things like that,” she said.

The size of the study, too, was unprecedented.

“It’s a huge sample, it’s much much bigger than anything anyone else has done,” she said in an interview with AFP.

Emmett said further work was needed to see whether this apparent impact on IQ persisted as the children got older.

Asked why junk food had such an effect, she suggested a diet that was preponderantly processed could lack vital vitamins and elements for cerebral development at a key stage in early childhood.

“A junk food diet is not conducive to good brain development,” she said.

The paper appears in the peer-reviewed Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, published by the British Medical Association (BMA).

Source: France 24

Posted in Dietary Industrial Complex, Health | 1 Response »

Whole Foods, Organic Valley and Stonyfield Surrender To Monsanto.

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation’s 25,000 organic farms and ranches, America’s organic consumers and producers are facing betrayal. A self-appointed cabal of the Organic Elite, spearheaded by Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, has decided it’s time to surrender to Monsanto. Top executives from these companies have publicly admitted that they no longer oppose the mass commercialization of GE crops, such as Monsanto’s controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa, and are prepared to sit down and cut a deal for “coexistence” with Monsanto and USDA biotech cheerleader Tom Vilsack.

In a cleverly worded, but profoundly misleading email sent to its customers last week, Whole Foods Market, while proclaiming their support for organics and “seed purity,” gave the green light to USDA bureaucrats to approve the “conditional deregulation” of Monsanto’s genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant alfalfa. Beyond the regulatory euphemism of “conditional deregulation,” this means that WFM and their colleagues are willing to go along with the massive planting of a chemical and energy-intensive GE perennial crop, alfalfa; guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers and destruction of the essential soil food web by the toxic herbicide, Roundup; and guaranteed to produce Roundup-resistant superweeds that will require even more deadly herbicides such as 2,4 D to be sprayed on millions of acres of alfalfa across the U.S.

In exchange for allowing Monsanto’s premeditated pollution of the alfalfa gene pool, WFM wants “compensation.” In exchange for a new assault on farmworkers and rural communities (a recent large-scale Swedish study found that spraying Roundup doubles farm workers’ and rural residents’ risk of getting cancer), WFM expects the pro-biotech USDA to begin to regulate rather than cheerlead for Monsanto. In payment for a new broad spectrum attack on the soil’s crucial ability to provide nutrition for food crops and to sequester dangerous greenhouse gases (recent studies show that Roundup devastates essential soil microorganisms that provide plant nutrition and sequester climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases), WFM wants the Biotech Bully of St. Louis to agree to pay “compensation” (i.e. hush money) to farmers “for any losses related to the contamination of his crop.”

In its email of Jan. 21, 2011 WFM calls for “public oversight by the USDA rather than reliance on the biotechnology industry,” even though WFM knows full well that federal regulations on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) do not require pre-market safety testing, nor labeling; and that even federal judges have repeatedly ruled that so-called government “oversight” of Frankencrops such as Monsanto’s sugar beets and alfalfa is basically a farce. At the end of its email, WFM admits that its surrender to Monsanto is permanent: “The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well True coexistence is a must.”

Why Is Organic Inc. Surrendering?

According to informed sources, the CEOs of WFM and Stonyfield are personal friends of former Iowa governor, now USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack, and in fact made financial contributions to Vilsack’s previous electoral campaigns. Vilsack was hailed as “Governor of the Year” in 2001 by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and traveled in a Monsanto corporate jet on the campaign trail. Perhaps even more fundamental to Organic Inc.’s abject surrender is the fact that the organic elite has become more and more isolated from the concerns and passions of organic consumers and locavores. The Organic Inc. CEOs are tired of activist pressure, boycotts, and petitions. Several of them have told me this to my face. They apparently believe that the battle against GMOs has been lost, and that it’s time to reach for the consolation prize. The consolation prize they seek is a so-called “coexistence” between the biotech Behemoth and the organic community that will lull the public to sleep and greenwash the unpleasant fact that Monsanto’s unlabeled and unregulated genetically engineered crops are now spreading their toxic genes on 1/3 of U.S. (and 1/10 of global) crop land.

WFM and most of the largest organic companies have deliberately separated themselves from anti-GMO efforts and cut off all funding to campaigns working to label or ban GMOs. The so-called Non-GMO Project, funded by Whole Foods and giant wholesaler United Natural Foods (UNFI) is basically a greenwashing effort (although the 100% organic companies involved in this project seem to be operating in good faith) to show that certified organic foods are basically free from GMOs (we already know this since GMOs are banned in organic production), while failing to focus on so-called “natural” foods, which constitute most of WFM and UNFI’s sales and are routinely contaminated with GMOs.

From their “business as usual” perspective, successful lawsuits against GMOs filed by public interest groups such as the Center for Food Safety; or noisy attacks on Monsanto by groups like the Organic Consumers Association, create bad publicity, rattle their big customers such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kroger, Costco, Supervalu, Publix and Safeway; and remind consumers that organic crops and foods such as corn, soybeans, and canola are slowly but surely becoming contaminated by Monsanto’s GMOs.

Whole Food’s Dirty Little Secret: Most of the So-Called “Natural” Processed Foods and Animal Products They Sell Are Contaminated with GMOs

The main reason, however, why Whole Foods is pleading for coexistence with Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and the rest of the biotech bullies, is that they desperately want the controversy surrounding genetically engineered foods and crops to go away. Why? Because they know, just as we do, that 2/3 of WFM’s $9 billion annual sales is derived from so-called “natural” processed foods and animal products that are contaminated with GMOs. We and our allies have tested their so-called “natural” products (no doubt WFM’s lab has too) containing non-organic corn and soy, and guess what: they’re all contaminated with GMOs, in contrast to their certified organic products, which are basically free of GMOs, or else contain barely detectable trace amounts.

Approximately 2/3 of the products sold by Whole Foods Market and their main distributor, United Natural Foods (UNFI) are not certified organic, but rather are conventional (chemical-intensive and GMO-tainted) foods and products disguised as “natural.”

Unprecedented wholesale and retail control of the organic marketplace by UNFI and Whole Foods, employing a business model of selling twice as much so-called “natural” food as certified organic food, coupled with the takeover of many organic companies by multinational food corporations such as Dean Foods, threatens the growth of the organic movement.

Covering Up GMO Contamination: Perpetrating “Natural” Fraud

Many well-meaning consumers are confused about the difference between conventional products marketed as “natural,” and those nutritionally/environmentally superior and climate-friendly products that are “certified organic.”

Retail stores like WFM and wholesale distributors like UNFI have failed to educate their customers about the qualitative difference between natural and certified organic, conveniently glossing over the fact that nearly all of the processed “natural” foods and products they sell contain GMOs, or else come from a “natural” supply chain where animals are force-fed GMO grains in factory farms or Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

A troubling trend in organics today is the calculated shift on the part of certain large formerly organic brands from certified organic ingredients and products to so-called “natural” ingredients. With the exception of the “grass-fed and grass-finished” meat sector, most “natural” meat, dairy, and eggs are coming from animals reared on GMO grains and drugs, and confined, entirely, or for a good portion of their lives, in CAFOs.

Whole Foods and UNFI are maximizing their profits by selling quasi-natural products at premium organic prices. Organic consumers are increasingly left without certified organic choices while genuine organic farmers and ranchers continue to lose market share to “natural” imposters. It’s no wonder that less than 1% of American farmland is certified organic, while well-intentioned but misled consumers have boosted organic and “natural” purchases to $80 billion annually-approximately 12% of all grocery store sales.

The Solution: Truth-in-Labeling Will Enable Consumers to Drive So-Called “Natural” GMO and CAFO-Tainted Foods Off the Market

There can be no such thing as “coexistence” with a reckless industry that undermines public health, destroys biodiversity, damages the environment, tortures and poisons animals, destabilizes the climate, and economically devastates the world’s 1.5 billion seed-saving small farmers. There is no such thing as coexistence between GMOs and organics in the European Union. Why? Because in the EU there are almost no GMO crops under cultivation, nor GM consumer food products on supermarket shelves. And why is this? Because under EU law, all foods containing GMOs or GMO ingredients must be labeled. Consumers have the freedom to choose or not to choose GMOs; while farmers, food processors, and retailers have (at least legally) the right to lace foods with GMOs, as long as they are safety-tested and labeled. Of course the EU food industry understands that consumers, for the most part, do not want to purchase or consume GE foods. European farmers and food companies, even junk food purveyors like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, understand quite well the concept expressed by a Monsanto executive when GMOs first came on the market: “If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.”

The biotech industry and Organic Inc. are supremely conscious of the fact that North American consumers, like their European counterparts, are wary and suspicious of GMO foods. Even without a PhD, consumers understand you don’t want your food safety or environmental sustainability decisions to be made by out-of-control chemical companies like Monsanto, Dow, or Dupont – the same people who brought you toxic pesticides, Agent Orange, PCBs, and now global warming. Industry leaders are acutely aware of the fact that every single industry or government poll over the last 16 years has shown that 85-95% of American consumers want mandatory labels on GMO foods. Why? So that we can avoid buying them. GMO foods have absolutely no benefits for consumers or the environment, only hazards. This is why Monsanto and their friends in the Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations have prevented consumer GMO truth-in-labeling laws from getting a public discussion in Congress.

Although Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio) recently introduced a bill in Congress calling for mandatory labeling and safety testing for GMOs, don’t hold your breath for Congress to take a stand for truth-in-labeling and consumers’ right to know what’s in their food. Especially since the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the so-called “Citizens United” case gave big corporations and billionaires the right to spend unlimited amounts of money (and remain anonymous, as they do so) to buy media coverage and elections, our chances of passing federal GMO labeling laws against the wishes of Monsanto and Food Inc. are all but non-existent. Perfectly dramatizing the “Revolving Door” between Monsanto and the Federal Government, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, formerly chief counsel for Monsanto, delivered one of the decisive votes in the Citizens United case, in effect giving Monsanto and other biotech bullies the right to buy the votes it needs in the U.S. Congress.

With big money controlling Congress and the media, we have little choice but to shift our focus and go local. We’ve got to concentrate our forces where our leverage and power lie, in the marketplace, at the retail level; pressuring retail food stores to voluntarily label their products; while on the legislative front we must organize a broad coalition to pass mandatory GMO (and CAFO) labeling laws, at the city, county, and state levels.

The Organic Consumers Association, joined by our consumer, farmer, environmental, and labor allies, has just launched a nationwide Truth-in-Labeling campaign to stop Monsanto and the Biotech Bullies from force-feeding unlabeled GMOs to animals and humans.

Utilizing scientific data, legal precedent, and consumer power the OCA and our local coalitions will educate and mobilize at the grassroots level to pressure giant supermarket chains (Wal-Mart, Kroger, Costco, Safeway, Supervalu, and Publix) and natural food retailers such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s to voluntarily implement “truth-in-labeling” practices for GMOs and CAFO products; while simultaneously organizing a critical mass to pass mandatory local and state truth-in-labeling ordinances – similar to labeling laws already in effect for country of origin, irradiated food, allergens, and carcinogens. If local and state government bodies refuse to take action, wherever possible we must attempt to gather sufficient petition signatures and place these truth-in-labeling initiatives directly on the ballot in 2011 or 2012. If you’re interesting in helping organize or coordinate a Millions Against Monsanto and Factory Farms Truth-in-Labeling campaign in your local community, sign up here: http://organicconsumers.org/oca-volunteer/

To pressure Whole Foods Market and the nation’s largest supermarket chains to voluntarily adopt truth-in-labeling practices sign here, and circulate this petition widely:http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22309.cfm

Source: Organic Consumers Association

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Food Makers Create Their Own Health Labeling Scheme

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

Starting in the next few months, the front of many food packages will prominently display important nutrition information, including calorie, fat and sugar content. The industrywide program was announced Monday by food makers and grocers.

The executives who made the announcement repeatedly invoked the campaign against obesity initiated byMichelle Obama, the first lady, saying they had developed the voluntary labeling plan after she challenged them to help consumers make more healthful food choices.

But in fact, the industry went its own way after months of talks with the White House and the Food and Drug Administration broke down.

The Obama administration wanted the package-front labels to emphasize nutrients that consumers might want to avoid, like sodium, calories and fat. But manufacturers insisted that they should also be able to use the labels to highlight beneficial nutrients, including vitamins, minerals and protein.

The administration concluded that “in the end, the label was going to be confusing, because those things would be included out of context, and it could make unhealthy foods appear like they had some redeeming quality,” said an official who was not authorized to discuss the talks and spoke on condition of anonymity. For example, the official said, “ice cream would be deemed healthy because it would have calcium in it.”

As a result, the industry’s plan received only tepid approval from Mrs. Obama — a stark contrast to her enthusiastic support last week of a healthful eating initiative from Wal-Mart, which pledged to reformulate its store-brand foods and devise an easy-to-understand label showing which foods were more healthful.

The industry move was widely seen as an attempt to influence the F.D.A.’s continuing effort to establish voluntary guidelines for front-of-package labeling. Once those guidelines are issued, perhaps this year, the industry could come under pressure to change its packaging again.

In a statement, the White House said the labeling initiative was “a significant first step” but added that it would “look forward to future improvement” in the system. It said the F.D.A. would closely monitor the effort “to evaluate whether the new label is meeting the needs of American consumers.”

Food industry executives said Monday that they had developed the plan in response to a speech by Mrs. Obama last March, in which she called for “clear, consistent” labels to help consumers make better decisions about food.

“Mrs. Obama challenged our industry to move farther and faster providing consumers with healthier product choices and more information,” said Pamela Bailey, the chief executive of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents food makers. “We would not be here today if she had not defined the common objective.”

Click to continue »

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The Truth About Kids’ Food Advertising

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

It was an Emperor’s New Clothes moment for the US food industry last week, when it was revealed that a major initiative touting its responsible advertising to kids actually allows promotion of many unhealthy foods. Is anyone really surprised?

As in the fairytale – in which everyone praises the emperor’s sumptuous new clothes without daring to point out that he is, in fact, naked – the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) has long been commended for its vocal stance on restricting direct advertising of unhealthy foods to children, but it seems no one has looked very hard at the substance of its claim.

The 17 companies that are CFBAI members have vowed “to shift the mix of advertising messaging directed at children to encourage healthier dietary choices and healthier lifestyles.” The initiative specifies that advertising should not be directed to children under 12 unless foods meet government standards defining the term “healthy” or the American Heart Association’s HeartCheck program criteria. Personally, I would like to see a ban on all advertising directed primarily to children, but the CFBAI program seemed like a good compromise.

So when a new study last week revealed that of 58 products made by companies that participate in the initiative, 49 did not meet these standards, industry should have been blushing.

Take a look at some of the products that qualify under the scheme as healthy enough to be advertised as healthy options for children under 12: there are cookies, desserts, sugary cereals, pizza, even Burger King hamburgers. What’s the point in having a self-regulatory system if its standards are this lax?

Now, I don’t doubt that CFBAI members, like other key players in the food industry, have made great strides to reformulate their products to contain less added sugar, less sodium and less saturated fat, and they should be commended for those efforts. A program such as the CFBAI has great potential to shift product formulation and have a positive effect on children’s diets, but its standards need to be strict – and strictly enforced.

The CFBAI assesses program compliance every year, and its latest report found that more than half (52 percent) of the cereals that participants advertised to children contained 10 grams of sugar or less, with some product levels down from 15 to 16 grams per serving before the initiative began. This is great news and industry should be applauded for taking so much sugar out of kids’ diets.

But that also means that nearly half (48 percent) of cereals from companies taking part in the program contain more than ten grams of sugar per serving. Remember, these are just the ones that the program allows to be advertised directly to young children.

In other areas, the initiative has greater success: Its compliance report claims that about a third of participants’ television advertising directed toward children advertised a product containing at least a half serving of vegetables or fruit; a third included milk or yogurt; and 27 percent of commercials were for meals that provided a half serving of whole grains.

The scheme needs to build on those numbers, and cut out advertising of foods clothed in only the flimsiest of claims. If it can really live up to its promise to shift food advertising toward healthier options, perhaps it can prevent more red faces.

Source: FoodNavigator-USA.com

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USDA Fires Organic Farming Specialist For Having An Opinion

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

The free exchange of ideas is so essential to a healthy democracy, it was particularly disturbing to learn that Mark D. Keating was terminated as an Agricultural Marketing Specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program (NOP) for expressing personal opinions in communications with the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).

In an interview, Mr. Keating said the official reasons given for his termination were a “complete fabrication.” He added, “I was the guy who knew too much.”

Mr. Keating brought 20 years of experience in various aspects of organic farming to his government service. He was once an organic farmer himself and played a key role in the development of the USDA’s organic standards and the establishment of the sustainable agriculture program at the University of Kentucky. “Abandoning traditional processes has brought new problems,” he said.

Mr. Keating is convinced that it was the “political hierarchy” at the USDA rather than knowledgeable civil servants who were responsible for his termination. When asked whether powerful corporate interests had sought his dismissal, he said he had no evidence to support such a claim. He did say that giant agribusiness believes it has provided the “most abundant and cheapest food supply in the world” and the criticism leveled at it by sustainable farming advocates has led to “hurt feelings” in the industry.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals, is urging the NOP to reverse its decision. PEER contends that Mr. Keating did not contradict official policy, but was aiding an advisory panel in formulating recommendations for official policy.

PEER argues that his termination:

• Violates Obama administration policies encouraging “free and open inquiry” by scientists and other technical specialists; and

• Is at odds with policies adopted by other agencies, such as the Department of Interior, promoting the “free exchange of ideas” while formulating policy.

Mr. Keating’s job description called for “wide latitude to exercise independent judgment” to “influence, motivate, and persuade the very diverse constituent population of the NOP.” Since he was hired just last April, Mr. Keating was still a probationary employee with limited rights to appeal his dismissal.

If, as Mr. Keating maintains, the official reasons given for his dismissal were fabricated, then why was he fired? He says the truth lies in the answer to, “Who in the political leadership would object to my work?”

Undue Corporate Influence at USDA?

Last September, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) published the results of a survey of USDA scientists and inspectors responsible for food safety. “Hundreds of scientists and inspectors responsible for food safety have personally experienced political interference in their work, and that’s bad for public health,” said Francesca Grifo, director of UCS’s Scientific Integrity Program at the time. “Both the administration and Congress need to act.”

More than 1,700 respondents took part in the survey, which was conducted for UCS by the Iowa State University Center for Survey Statistics. Most of the respondents had worked at their agency for more than ten years.

Disappointing Appointments at USDA

Back in 2008, Ronnie Cummins, executive director of Organic Consumers Association (OCA), told Democracy Now! about his opposition to the appointment of Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture:

“Vilsack has been an ardent promoter, not only of genetically engineered foods and crops, but also of the extremely controversial biopharmaceutical crops, which involves [inaudible] pharmaceutical drugs or industrial chemicals into food crops. Even, you know, quite a few people in the biotech industry are alarmed by these biopharmaceuticals, since you could get dangerous drugs throughout the food supply.”

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote, “Unfortunately, Mr. Obama on Wednesday chose Tom Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa who has longstanding ties to agribusiness interests, as agriculture secretary – his weakest selection so far.”

During the presidential campaign many sustainability advocates were encouraged by this statement from then candidate Obama, “”We’ll tell ConAgra that it’s not the Department of Agribusiness. It’s the Department of Agriculture. We’re going to put the people’s interests ahead of the special interests.”

Source: Alternet

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Dannon Fined $21 Million For Deceptive Health Claims

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

The federal government appears poised to take a far more aggressive watchdog role under the Obama administration over deceptive ad practices.
Dannon — part of the world’s biggest yogurt maker Danone— agreed to pay a $21 million fine and stop making exaggerated health claims for two popular Dannon products under a settlement with the federal government and attorneys general from 39 states on Wednesday.

It follows Monday’s $2.1 million FTC settlement with kids-vitamin maker NBTY over unsupported health claims and because the products didn’t have the amount of omega-3 claimed.

FROM THE FTC: Read the press release

“It’s a shot across the bow that food marketers are going to have to stop using unsubstantiated health claims as marketing tools,” says New York University nutritionist Marion Nestle. “The claims aren’t about health, they’re about marketing.”

Yogurt is a $4.2 billion-plus business in the USA, with sales up 8% over the past year, says researcher SymphonyIRI Group. The two Dannon products cited by the FTC both contain beneficial bacteria know as probiotics. But, Nestle says, “Yogurt is just food. It’s not a miracle. No food is a superfood.”

The government says Dannon will stop claiming that one daily serving of Activia yogurt relieves irregularity and that DanActive helps people avoid catching colds.

“These types of misleading claims are enough to give consumers indigestion,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz says. “Companies like Dannon shouldn’t exaggerate the strength of scientific support.”

REPORT: Probiotics may have some benefits for kids

In Dannon’s case, some say, it’s too little too late.

“Dannon’s had so much television exposure of these claims that people will still believe them,” says Katharine Paine, a corporate image expert. “They’ve already got the perception in the minds of consumers that this stuff is good for them.”

The FTC charged that Dannon’s ads were deceptive because it did not have substantiation. The FTC also charged that Dannon’s claims that Activia and DanActive were clinically proven were false.

In one ad for Activia, actress Jamie Lee Curtis reassures viewers that eating Activia can help people who suffer from irregularities.

“I am proud of my association with Dannon, and I am reminded daily by consumers of the help that Activia has brought them,” the actress said Wednesday via her publicist, Heidi Schaeffer. Curtis is still doing the ads and eats Activia regularly. Despite the settlement, Dannon was disputing some FTC claims on Wednesday. “We never made a claim that eating DanActive helps prevent colds or flu,” spokesman Michael Neuwirth says. “We respectfully disagree.”

Posted in Dietary Industrial Complex, Health | No Responses »

Cancer Cells Thrive On High Fructose Corn Syrup

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

* Study shows fructose used differently from glucose

* Findings challenge common wisdom about sugars

Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same.

Tumor cells fed both glucose and fructose used the two sugars in two different ways, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.

They said their finding, published in the journal Cancer Research, may help explain other studies that have linked fructose intake with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancer types.

“These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation,” Dr. Anthony Heaney of UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center and colleagues wrote.

“They have major significance for cancer patients given dietary refined fructose consumption, and indicate that efforts to reduce refined fructose intake or inhibit fructose-mediated actions may disrupt cancer growth.”

Americans take in large amounts of fructose, mainly in high fructose corn syrup, a mix of fructose and glucose that is used in soft drinks, bread and a range of other foods.

Politicians, regulators, health experts and the industry have debated whether high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients have been helping make Americans fatter and less healthy.

Too much sugar of any kind not only adds pounds, but is also a key culprit in diabetes, heart disease and stroke, according to the American Heart Association.

Several states, including New York and California, have weighed a tax on sweetened soft drinks to defray the cost of treating obesity-related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

The American Beverage Association, whose members include Coca-Cola (KO.N) and Kraft Foods (KFT.N) have strongly, and successfully, opposed efforts to tax soda. [ID:nN12233126]

The industry has also argued that sugar is sugar.

Heaney said his team found otherwise. They grew pancreatic cancer cells in lab dishes and fed them both glucose and fructose.

Tumor cells thrive on sugar but they used the fructose to proliferate. “Importantly, fructose and glucose metabolism are quite different,” Heaney’s team wrote.

“I think this paper has a lot of public health implications. Hopefully, at the federal level there will be some effort to step back on the amount of high fructose corn syrup in our diets,” Heaney said in a statement.

Now the team hopes to develop a drug that might stop tumor cells from making use of fructose.

U.S. consumption of high fructose corn syrup went up 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990, researchers reported in 2004 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Source: Reuters

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Junk Food Killing Pet Cats And Dogs

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

The junk food and poor eating habits affecting humans is also killing their four-legged pals, say veterinary surgeons and experts.

Allergies and obesity are reducing the life expectancy of Lassies and Mittens nourished worldwide on industrial foodstuffs, said Gerard Lippert, a Belgian acupuncturist for animals who has just completed a study on the diets of 600 dead dogs.

“Pets, like humans, are victims of junk food,” he told AFP.

Of the 600 furry corpses he examined “those fed on processed foods died three years earlier than those fed on food made in the home.”

Dogs, he added, “originally were omnivores who shared their food with humans.”

Rippert said he was increasingly called on to heal skin, motor and digestive problems as acupuncture was an all-embracing method enabling work on practically all organs.

“Dry dog food and cat food croquettes are over-heated, which destroys vitamins, trace elements and other basic nutritional elements,” he said.

“We don’t know the origin of the proteins in the foods,” he added. “And there’s an excessive amount of cereal, often genetically modified, and very little vegetables.”

“We’re turning our dogs and cats into ruminants,” he said.

Laurence Colliard, a veterinary surgeon and nutritionist located in the Paris suburbs, estimates that only five percent of French pet-owners cook food for their four-legged companions.

France is Europe’s top pet nation — with 7.8 million dogs and 10.7 million cats, according to a 2008 study by the Sofres/Facco polling institute.

“I’m seeing an increasing number of allergies, diarrhea, vomitting, skin dermatitis as well as cases of obesity, specially amid cats because of the excessively high energy content in industrially-produced cat foods,” said Colliard.

Pet owners tend to favour processed foods because of the difficulty of preparing nutritionally balanced meals, which in an ideal world should contain some 50 nutrients as well as meat, vegetables, rice and pasta. An animal’s age, weight and exercise routine also need to be taken into account.

The packs on offer on supermarket shelves also claim as a bonus to reduce nasty urine smells and modify the consistency of animal poop.

The pet food industry was born in England where James Spratt produced the world’s first dog biscuits in 1860.

Some 150 years later, many Internet sites are calling for a return to natural foods for pets.

BARF or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food is a type of pet diet that consists of raw meat, bones, and organs,” says www.barf.com. “It is the practice of feeding domestic pets their evolutionary diet as a way of maximizing their health and longevity.

“Dogs should not eat cooked or processed food,” it adds. “Instead, your pet should consume foods that are similar to a dogs wild ancestors. This includes bones, fat, meat, and vegetable materials.”

Likewise offers tips for natural home-made meals.

It’s only in the last 100 years we have we been led to believe that dogs cannot survive without packaged food. We are told it would be harmful if we were to give them the scraps from our own home cooked meals. This is pure poppycock!”Source: AP

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High Fructose Corn Syrup vs. Sugar – Study Suggests They Are Not The Same?

Sunday, March 28th, 2010

You may already be aware of a new published study led by Princeton University researchers suggesting that high fructose corn syrup may play a more important role in the obesity epidemic than table sugar.

Bart Hoebel, who specialize in the neuroscience of appetite, found that of rats that drank the same amount of sugar and high fructose corn syrup (or HFCS), those that consumed the HFCS gained significantly more body weight than those drinking table sugar.

Furthermore, they found that drinking a HFCS solution for a long term, (which is the case of rats is six months), the rats experienced some signs of metabolic syndrome, such as abnormal increases in body fat and circulating blood fats called triglycerides.

This is an animal study. The results may not apply to humans; animals do not have the critical thinking skills to help them monitor their intake of sweeteners.

The Center for Consumer Freedom, the non-profit organization that often attacks research findings that may potentially hurt the food industry or the food service industry, issued a statement on March 26 claiming that “Every day, more people are pointing out flaws in last month’s Princeton University study finding that rats fed high fructose corn syrup gained more weight than rats fed sucrose.”

The Corn Refiners Association maintains that high fructose corn syrup is the same as table sugar nutritionally, and it launched a national TV campaign to educate consumers and extol the sweetener’s virtues, fooducate.com reported last year.

Some major food companies like PepsiCo have already decided to stop using high fructose corn syrup in their foods and beverages, due to the demand from food consumers for alternative sweeteners.

In 2007, Rutgers University researchers reported that high fructose corn syrup contains astonishingly high levels of reactive carbonyls, which can lead to oxidative damage of retinal proteins, according to Pennathur S and colleagues who published a study in the June 17, 2005 issue of Journal of Biological Chemistry addressing the potentially damaging effect of reactive carbonyls and polyunsaturated fattyacids on retinal proteins.

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