Sunday, June 28, 2009 // by sara // // 0 التعليقات
Part II
Ben: Well, I remember the original food pyramid didn't specifically say "eat less candy," it just had candy, sugars, and sweets on the lower end of the spectrum, as the products you should eat the least of, but it still gave "permission" to eat them. So when and why did the USDA make this leap from, "Eat lots of food, because that's what our culture needs right now," to, "Eat lots of food because our industry needs lot of money?"
Mike: This happens essentially because of the cross pollination of the USDA and the industry it is required to regulate. There's an old saying in terms of being an observer of the way governments work. Any organization that regulates an industry, if it exists for long enough, eventually becomes an extension of the exact industry that it was supposed to regulate. The USDA today is really just a marketing arm of the industries that it's supposed to regulate. It's the marketing arm of the farmers of America, the cattle ranchers and the dairy industry. In fact, this isn't even debatable. It is part of the mission statement of the USDA to promote the interests of agriculture and these various industries in the Untied States. That's in its charter, so we shouldn't be surprised when this group -- this government group -- tells us that we should eat more of all these foods and ingredients.
The mistake, historically speaking, is allowing the USDA to have any say whatsoever in terms of dietary guidelines or nutrition, because nutrition is not compatible with the idea that everybody should eat more of everything. That is not nutritionally sound. What the USDA says, and what many companies say -- especially junk food manufacturers, soft drink manufacturers and so on -- is that any food can be part of a healthy diet. That's their statement. That's their common defense. If you became overweight drinking soft drinks and eating Big Macs at McDonald's, and you try to sue McDonald's, the restaurant's defense will be, in part, based on the idea that McDonald's food can be part of a healthy diet. Now, I disagree with this because if you look around, every company is saying this. You have 400 food manufactures lined up, and they're all saying, "Our foods, soft drinks, donuts, candy bars, sugary breakfast cereals and margarine with hydrogenated oils can be part of a healthy diet." By the time you have listened to everybody, you have a system of food that can kill you. Every one of them has said, "It can be part of a healthy diet."
Ben: Very few of them talk about how it can ever be part of a healthy diet.
Mike: Well, the only way it can be is if you have a perfect diet, you're perfectly healthy, you exercise and you get outstanding nutrition. You avoid all the dangerous ingredients, but once a week you drink a soft drink or once a week you have a Big Mac or something like that. Yes, that's not going to kill you, you see what I mean? But nobody does that.
Ben: Right. That's not what people consider a diet
Mike: No, not at all. So the idea that any food can be part of a healthy diet is really absurd. It's just a defense. The USDA food guide is essentially promoting this idea that any food can be part of a healthy diet. There's an interesting book called "Food Politics" by Marion Nestle. Marian used to work at the USDA, and she was part of the process of creating the original food guide pyramid. She has fascinating accounts of how this was done. For example, they would get information from doctors and nutritionists, and they would decide, within their own group, that they were going to have a statement that said, "People should consume no red meat." That's a nutritionally sound position.
Ben: Right.
Mike: But then, as soon as industry got word of that, lobbyists came in, and there was a lot of political pressure applied. Senators, congressmen and congresswomen were suddenly getting calls from their constituents, which included cattle ranching companies and meat packers, and they were putting pressure on this group at the USDA, so this original statement that said, "People should eat no red meat" went though this really interesting evolution. They decided to tone it down, and they changed it to say, "People should eat less red meat." Then they decided to change it even further to say, "People should eat more lean meat." So the science supports the idea that people should eat no red meat or very little red meat if any, but the ultimate statement that came out of the USDA was, "People should eat more red meat, as long as it's lean meat."
Ben: Then it's "safe."
Mike: Right. So this is how the scientific truths of health, nutrition and dietary choice get distorted and twisted by the political process -- the corruption of the collusion between the USDA and the very companies that it's supposed to be regulating -- and end up becoming a statement that is a great disservice to the health of the American people. This is how the entire food guide pyramid was created, and this is why it needs an honest alternative. The Honest Food Guide that I've created here is the honest alternative. Again, it's HonestFoodGuide.org, and you can download it free of charge. This is the only guide that gives you an unbiased view, with no under the table corruption, of what you should eat and what you should avoid.
Ben: What does the Honest Food Guide have that the current, or even the previous, USDA pyramid didn't have, other than honesty?
Mike: Yes, honesty is one thing. It was not created by any industry, and I personally have no financial gain whatsoever from anybody for creating this guide. It's not just that I'm not getting money from these food companies. I'm not getting money from anybody. This is a non-revenue item. It's created entirely for the purpose of public education, which is one of my core missions. So, again, I have no financial benefit from it. But that's not what makes it useful. It's useful because it has the courage to stand up and say what you should eat less of. Again, this is what the USDA refuses to say. This is actually an inverted pyramid, and on the left hand side is the disease side, and on the right side, it's all health. You can look at the list of foods that are in this food guide, and you can decide really what kind of health outcomes you want as an individual, and then you can choose to eat those kinds of foods.
So, if you want to be diseased, for example, you go to the left side and say, "Okay, let's read the list. Let's eat a lot of red meat, carbonated soft drinks, donuts, high-salt canned soups, snack chips, candy bars, crackers, sugary breakfast cereals, processed foods, milk and dairy products and so on." It's easy to get diseased if you eat all that. You can give yourself cancer in no time if you really go down that path. On the right hand side, you have all the foods and ingredients that create health. Again, this is a recipe for health, so we list all the foods -- raw fruits, vegetables, berries, healthy oils, nuts and seeds, fish, certain sea vegetables and molasses, for example -- and we even mention things that aren't food, like sunlight and water, because they are essential nutrition. Basically, this is a recipe. We even show pictures here of an unhealthy person on the left eating all the disease foods, versus the healthy food on the right. Now, what's interesting about all of this, in contrast to the USDA's food guide pyramid, is that many of the food items that we put on the disease side are foods the USDA promotes.
Ben: I notice that milk is on the diseased side. For decades, we've been told that milk is healthy and that it promotes strong bones and is, essentially, good for you.
Mike: Absolutely. The dairy marketing industry has been very successful in getting across this highly distorted and completely unfounded message that human beings should be consuming a liquid produced by the mammary glands of a furry creature with four legs, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. No nutritional sense. It's completely nonsensical that we have any need whatsoever for this juice that comes from an animal. You don't see people going out there and milking horses.
Ben: Or dogs.
Mike: Right. Would you drink hamster juice?
Ben: No.
Struggle it is important information in this section .. What do you think?
Sunday, June 28, 2009 // by sara // // 0 التعليقات
The Honest Food Guide empowers consumers with independent information about foods and health
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Mike: Hello everyone, this is Mike Adams, the Health Ranger. I'm here with Ben Kage, and we're going to have a discussion and Q&A session about the Honest Food Guide. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it is available for free downloading at HonestFoodGuide.org. You can download it, and take a look at and learn quite a bit about nutrition and food recommendations from various sources. So thanks for joining me today, Ben.
Ben: Thanks for joining me too.
Mike: This is the first time you've seen the guide yourself, and I understand that you have some questions?
Ben: Yes. This is the first time I've seen the guide. I didn't necessarily follow the original food pyramid when it was out there, but I always had a basic idea of what it was. I've noticed that lately the USDA has come out with its own new food pyramid. So, with this new food pyramid out, why would anyone need to follow the Honest Food Guide or even look at it?
Mike: Excellent question. The first part of that answer is that this is a replacement chart for the USDA's official food guide pyramid, and as most people know, in the spring of 2005, the USDA came out with a new food guide to replace the old food groups/food guide pyramid that had been around for decades. But what most people don't know is that the USDA paid $2.5 million to a PR/marketing group to help design this new food guide pyramid, and that group is best know for doing work for the dairy industry. By some amazing coincidence, taxpayer dollars have gone to create a guide that basically says everybody should drink a lot more milk. It's all about milk. In fact, historically, the food guide pyramids that the USDA has created have always been about eating more food, drinking more milk and basically consuming larger and larger quantities of everything that the American food industry has produced.
Now, if you study the history of the USDA and where it came from, it's quite fascinating. In the post World War II era, say the 1950s for example, this message from the USDA was quite useful to the population. Most of the diseases in those days were based on malnutrition. People didn't have enough calories; they didn't have enough fat. People were physically smaller than they are today, even though they have virtually the same gene pool that we have. They were smaller, and people suffered diseases of malnutrition -- things like rickets, lack of Vitamin D and so on. So the message from the USDA at that time was very much aligned with the message of all the food producers. The grain farmers were happy because the USDA said, "Eat more corn and wheat and rice." The beef industry was happy because it said, "Eat more beef." And, of course, the milk industry was happy because everybody said, "Eat more butter, drink more milk." The message basically was, open your mouth and stuff as much as you can down that throat. That was the government position.
Ben: Which was fine for it's time.
Mike: Absolutely. It served a purpose. Now, fast forward to the 1980s, and especially into the 1990s, and now you have a population that is not suffering from malnutrition.
Ben: On the contrary.
Mike: We have plenty of food and plenty of calories, but what we have are empty calories. We have a lack of nutrition even while we are suffering from over-consumption. We have too much food and too little nutrition. We see a lot of chronic disease in this environment -- diabetes, cancer, heart disease, you name it. Unfortunately, these diseases are very often associated with the over-consumption of nutritionally depleted foods. If you take corn or wheat out of the field and refine it, you strip away all the good nutrition. You're left with this empty carbohydrate, and it still fits the food guide pyramid to say, "Eat more grains."
Ben: What makes a company do this? What is the motivation to strip away those healthy nutrients?
Mike: There are a couple of reasons.
Ben: Does it taste better?
Mike: Oh, it does taste better. When the fiber, essential oils, proteins and so on are stripped away, it does taste better because it has a higher glycemic index, so that carbohydrate turns into sugar very quickly -- beginning in your mouth. Your saliva starts to digest this, and you start feeling the effects of it right away. So it is taste, but more than that it is shelf life. Food companies want ingredients that will sit on the shelf for six months or a year without going bad. The only way to do that is you have to take the essential oils out of the grains. You see, when something comes out of nature, it's healthy. You mess with it, you refine it, you process it, and suddenly it's a disease-promoting ingredient.
But getting back to the USDA, its message today is really founded in the past. Its message continues to be, "Eat more of everything." It does not have the courage to stand up and say, "Eat less of a few things." It won't even say, "Eat less sugar." Why? It's because of the corrupt influence of the big sugar industry. It won't say, "Eat less red meat or eat less saturated animal fat." It's utterly ridiculous that it won't take that position because we know -- it's not even debated -- that high, frequent consumption of saturate animal fats is strongly correlated with heart disease and nervous system deterioration, accelerated aging and even obesity and weight gain. It's well established, but the USDA won't say, "Eat less meat."
Essentially what has happened is that the USDA has become a government-approved industry lackey. The agency has no courage. It has no political will to actually tell anybody the truth about nutrition anymore. It can only say, "Eat more of everything." It can never say, "Eat less of some things."
I hope you have benefited from some important information in the first part
Sunday, June 28, 2009 // by sara // // 0 التعليقات
How to Lose Weight on a Low-Fat Diet
The low-fat diet plan has become a popular choice among dieters in recent years. We present you with two different low-fat diet plans to help you decide what is best for you.Choose To Lose Diet: The Premise
Choose To Lose Diet: The Premise
Nancy and Ronald Goor have been writing and rewriting their Choose to Lose series for the past 15 years. Billed as a "food lover's guide to permanent weight loss," this 500+ page volume tells you everything you need to know, and more, about eating healthy and losing weight. Taking the opposite tact of many diet books, Choose to Lose encourages carbohydrate consumption, as long as most of it comes from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. The focus of the diet is fat: finding it, counting it, and budgeting it. It explains how to plan your own personal fat budget, read food labels, ferret out the fat in the foods you eat, fat-proof your home, eat out healthfully, and switch to healthy fats.
They encourage dieters to keep a food diary, at least in the beginning, to learn about their own food habits and to reveal their weaknesses. One of the reasons the book is so long is that it provides a comprehensive food table with the nutrient content of each food, plus discussions of everything, literally, from soup to nuts. The information tells dieters what's good (low-fat, high-fiber, and most nutritious), what's bad (high-fat, low-fiber, empty calories) and how you can plan your new diet to keep some of your favorite foods on your weight-loss menus.
The Rationale
While some diets focus on limiting carbohydrate intake, the Goors' plan focuses on limiting fat intake, especially saturated fat, since fat is the most concentrated source of calories in the diet and saturated fat is linked to heart disease. The diet plan has no gimmicks or hooks; it's a no-nonsense approach to good nutrition that has withstood the test of time. Fat intake is limited but not excessively restricted, and the diet even allows for an occasional high-fat splurge.
The goal, say the Goors, is not to think of Choose to Lose as a diet but as an eating plan for life. Foods are clearly divided into groups according to how much of them you can eat. The diet also provides examples of "before" menus and then shows better "after" alternatives. Follow the guidelines of their plan, say the Goors, and over time you will adjust your taste buds to a lower-fat diet without having to greatly restrict your food choices.
What's for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner?
The Goors' diet provides more information about specific foods than most other diets, and it gives a week's worth of sample menus and recipes. More than 250 of the book's pages are devoted to food tables that give the calorie, fat, and saturated fat content of foods. You'll find brief, informative sections on such foods as bread, potatoes, cereals, chicken, seafood, popcorn, and pretzels, just to name a few. A typical day's menus might include oatmeal and whole-wheat toast with jelly, cottage cheese, strawberries, and skim milk for breakfast; chickpeas, whole-wheat pita, tangerine, carrot sticks, and orange juice for lunch; tortilla soup, chicken, green beans, rice, squash, cauliflower, nonfat yogurt, and blueberries for dinner; and nonfat yogurt and popcorn for snacks during the day. Total calories: 2,300. Guidelines are provided for cutting calories to 1,500 to 1,600 -- the minimum they recommend. Supplements are not recommended. Follow a balanced diet, they say, and supplements shouldn't be necessary.
Fact or Fiction: What the Experts Say
Information is power, and the Goors' plan provides dieters with power over their diets and, ultimately, their health. The diet plan goes hand-in-hand with what most experts currently recommend, and it meets the needs of seniors as well. It's a diet high in complex carbohydrate -- mostly from whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes -- with limited fat intake, most of it from healthy fats such as olive oil. Though it's not billed as such, the diet is in line with dietary recommendations for reducing the risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer.
Gains and Losses/What's the Damage?
If you follow the Goors' plan, using the recommended calorie adjustments, it should allow you to lose weight successfully. You get a lot of variety and choices on this diet, which also offers much-needed guidance for keeping the diet balanced and realistic. One chapter is devoted to exercise, which they sum up as "Eating Right + Exercise = Perfection."
Sunday, June 28, 2009 // by sara // // 0 التعليقات
You might have slowly accumulated fat over the past and could have received a rude shock when your mirror informed you on one night that you have been surrounded by ugly fat. Well, there are a few ways of pleasing your mirror again and losing that ugly fat fast. Check your diet. One of the most important factors contributing to excess fat is a wrong diet. You could have slowly replaced healthy foods with packaged and processed foods. You will have to compile a list of what you currently consume and then compare it with the food pyramid guide. If possible, take the help of a nutritionist to guide you. Eat, drink but be wary. You should consume foods that contain high levels of protein and low levels of carbohydrates. This diet, based on the Atkins principle will shock your body into a state of ketosis where your body will start burning the accumulated fat in your body to fuel your exercise routine. Yes, a new exercise routine will have to be strictly enforced if you are serious about safely losing weight. Do the right exercises. Your exercise routine should include exercises and sports that can help you to burn fat quickly, preserve and build new muscles and increase your endurance. Exercises and sports such as cycling, walking, swimming, basketball, etc will help you to burn the fat off even as you increase your stamina. Avoid jogging or sprinting until your body weight comes down significantly or you might put too much stress on your knees and ankles. Stick to your new routine for life. Most people forget their diet and exercise routine completely once they slim down and end up with ugly fat within a short time again. This could lead to disillusionment and getting back on track will be even more difficult. Instead, stick to your diet and exercise routine for a long and healthy life.
Sunday, June 28, 2009 // by sara // // 0 التعليقات
There are a number of different diets out there and many of them are valid. However, what might work for one person may not work for another person. This is because different people have different genetics, lifestyles, likes and dislikes. That is why it is important to explore diets that are more akin to your needs since this will increase the odds of success.
Now, some may be saying that all diets are fundamentally the same. That is, a person must cut back on their calories in order to drop weight. While this is fundamentally true, there will be certain differences among these many different diets. These differences must be understood because selecting the wrong diet plan for a particular lifestyle can undermine the benefits the diet can deliver.
For example, there are a number of low fat diets that are comprised of high carb and high protein content. Now, the number of calories in these diets is low but the excess carbs have the potential to store fat if not burned. As such, it becomes necessary to increase one's activity levels so as to burn off these excess carbs. Now, some individuals may find this a little too difficult. Their lifestyle is most sedentary and it may not even be of their choosing. A person that works a desk job simply can not move around enough to burn the carbs they ingest. For these individuals, a high fat, high protein, low carb diet may prove to be valuable. Granted, such a diet will be low in nutritional value which means taking vitamin supplements may be necessary when on such a diet.
As you can see, different diets are exactly that - different! Far too often, we are sold on the notion that there is a "super diet" out there that will deliver the long desired results we crave. Really, the best diet is the one that works for you. That means you need to play the trial and error game when seeking a diet that works.
For example, you may try a specific diet strategy and, after 6 weeks, you do not notice any obvious results. If this is the case, it may be beneficial to switch to a new diet. What would not be beneficial would be to declare "dieting" a failure and assume you cannot lose weight. Taking such an attitude is often self-defeating. That is why it is best avoided. If a diet does not work for you, simply look for a new diet that will yield better results.
Also, it is critical to avoid diets that make outrageous claims. Such "fad" diets usually deliver short term results and the eventually return of the lost weight in the near future. That's why it is best to avoid diets that promise that you can "Lose ten pounds while eating chocolate cake!" If this was the case, you would see a lot of professional bodybuilders eating slice after slice of chocolate cake. Again, stick with legit diets and avoid the fad diets that clutter the picture. This will yield far greater gains in the long term.
Sunday, June 28, 2009 // by sara // // 0 التعليقات
Many people have the misnomer that they should eat less or starve themselves to lose weight. But that is not correct! By starving one's self one is doing more harm to the body and calling on illnesses which are caused by the fact that the body tends to eat itself to survive.
In the process of eating itself the body begins to lose its nutrients and vitamins and eventually falls ill. Losing weight is not about starving.
Balance your diet- Plan out your diet to include the necessary vitamins and minerals that it needs in a day. The quantities of such foods need not be large but sufficient to give your body what it needs.
Fruits, nuts, dried fruits, vegetables and greens are very important. Whole grained foods are preferable over white flour. Essentially a diet should be balanced and the quantity light.
Eat right- The earlier myth of eating three heavy meals has gone; today we are advised to eat about six meals which should be light and less in quantity. The so-called in between meals should include fruits and nuts or light snacks.
The servings too should be small and just sufficient to keep us satisfied. Fried foods and junk food should be totally omitted altogether.
Drink sufficient water- Water is known to be excellent filler. It is best to start the day with two to four glasses of water. Water should be had at regular intervals too during the day. This helps flush out the toxins built up in the body.
Water should be preferred over aerated drinks and fruit juices as well.
Exercise- In addition to a balanced diet and the right eating schedules a certain amount of exercise is always recommended. To better absorb all the nutrients and minerals the body needs to exercise.
Walking is one on the best and easiest forms of exercise. Climbing up and down the stairs is another way to give the body the exercise it needs to lose weight without starving.
Sunday, June 28, 2009 // by sara // // 0 التعليقات
An out of shape person is ready to do anything to get rid of the flab. It is sad that people simply don't bother to check if the path they have chosen is right for their body or not. The anxiety of losing weight fast makes most people go for wrong ways that can cost them their lives in the long run. One has to understand that no one can achieve the desired body shape in a fortnight. One has to work for it and at the same time needs to have a good amount of patience.
Here is what you should watch out for, or these 4 deadly mistakes can cost you dear.
Over the counter Drugs are a complete NO. It is exciting to buy pills and drugs that promise you to lose weight without having to do anything. I am sure most people fall in the trap of these over the counter pills who do nothing but harm the body. These pills may help you get rid of some pounds; however, at the same time they will leave you with some harmful side effects. Also there is no guarantee that these pills will certainly help you lose a few inches.
Not all diets can provide you with nutrients Liquid diets or only protein diets don't work well in the long run. You may lose weight but at the same time it may also make you pale and weak. The body needs to get its essential nutrients for the proper functioning of all organs. Depriving your body of the same will leave you exhausted and out of energy. Many a times it can also lead to anemia and other diseases.
Starving is not the way to lose fat. Starving will again do no good, as it will only keep you away from essential nutrients and minerals. You will drastically lose weight, as the body will start consuming healthy muscle tissue to fuel your day to day activity. However, eventually this will prove fatal and you may suffer from malnutrition and other ill effects related to the same.
Each food item has something essential for the body function. Every food item is good when eaten in the right portions. Every food item has something for the body. Even fats are required in small amounts for the reproductive functions. Thus planning your meal with an experienced dietitian or a doctor will help you choose the right foods.
The Real weight loss secret- Can you imagine yourself losing 9 lbs every 11 days from now? Yes you heard it right "9 lbs every 11days guaranteed". This is the single most effective way which helps you lose weight. It is truly an absolute breakthrough in the weight loss industry. If you don't know this than you are missing out on the best ever secret "Guaranteed" to help you lose weight right away. So are you ready to drop some pounds within the next 11 days? Read on to discover it right now- Click Here