Taxes can do a lot of good. They pay for schools, parks, police and the military. But that’s not all they can do. High taxes on cigarettes have saved many lives – not only the lives of people who are discouraged from smoking as much as they would if cigarettes were cheap, but also the lives of others who spend less time passively inhaling smoke.

No reasonable person would want to abolish the tax on cigarettes. Unless, perhaps, they were proposing banning cigarettes altogether – as New York City is doing with transfats served by restaurants.

A tax on sodas containing sugar has also been under consideration, by Governor Paterson among others. In view of our obesity epidemic, and the extra burden it places on our health care system – not to mention the problems it causes on a crowded New York subway when your neighbor can’t fit into a single seat – it’s a reasonable proposal.

But in all these moves against tobacco, transfats and sodas, we’ve been ignoring the cow in the room.

That’s right, cow. We don’t eat elephants. But the reasons for a tax on beef and other meats are stronger than those for discouraging consumption of cigarettes, transfats or sugary drinks. 

First, eating red meat is likely to kill you. Large studies have shown that the daily consumption of red meat increases the risk that you will die prematurely of heart disease or bowel cancer. This is now beyond serious scientific dispute. When the beef industry tries to deny the evidence, it is just repeating what the tobacco industry did 30 years ago.

Second, we have laws that ban cruelty to animals. Unfortunately in the states in which most animals are raised for meat, the agribusiness lobby is so powerful that it has carved out exemptions to the usual laws against cruelty.

The exemptions allow producers to crowd chickens, pigs and calves in stinking sheds, never letting them go outside in fresh air and sunlight, often confining them so closely that they can’t even stretch their limbs or turn around. Debeaking – cutting through the sensitive beak of a young chick with a hot blade – is standard in the egg industry.

Undercover investigations repeatedly turn up new scandals – downed cows being dragged to slaughter, workers hitting pigs with steel pipes or playing football with live chickens. We may not be able to improve the laws in those farming states, but taxes on meat would discourage people from supporting these cruel practices.

Third, industrial meat production wastes food – we feed the animals vast quantities of grains and soybeans, and they burn up most of the nutritional value of these crops just living and breathing and developing bones and other unpalatable body parts. We get back only a fraction of the food value we put into them.

That puts unnecessary pressure on our croplands and causes food prices to rise all over the world. Converting corn to biofuel has been criticized because it raises food prices for the world’s poor, but seven times as much grain gets fed to animals as is made into biofuel.

Fourth, agricultural runoff — much of it from livestock production, or from the fertilizers used to grow the grain fed to the livestock — is the biggest single source of pollution of the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the EPA. A meat tax would be an important step towards cleaner rivers. By reducing the amount of nitrogen that runs off fields in the Midwest into the Mississippi, it would also stop the vast ?dead zone? that forms in the Gulf of Mexico each year.

The clincher is that taxing meat would be a highly effective way of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and avoiding catastrophic climate change.

Here’s just how bad eating meat is for global warming.

Many people think that buying locally produced food is a good way to reduce their carbon footprint. But the average American would do more for the planet by going vegetarian just one day per week than by switching to a totally local diet.

In 2006 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization surprised many people when it produced a report showing that livestock are responsible for more emissions than all forms of transportation combined. It’s now clear that that report seriously underestimated the contribution that livestock — especially ruminant animals like cattle and sheep – are making to global warming.

As a more recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has shown, over the critical next 20 years, the methane these animals produce will be almost three times as potent in warming the planet as the FAO report assumed.

Meat-eaters impose costs on others, and the more meat they eat, the greater the costs.

They push up our health insurance premiums, increase Medicare and Medicaid costs for taxpayers, pollute our rivers, threaten the survival of fishing communities in the Gulf of Mexico, push up food prices for the world’s poor, and accelerate climate change.

Red meat is the worst for global warming, but a tax on red meat alone would merely push meat-eaters to chicken, and British animal welfare expert Professor John Webster has described the intensive chicken industry as “the single most severe, systematic example of man’s inhumanity to another sentient animal.?

So let’s start with a 50% tax on the retail value of all meat, and see what difference that makes to present consumption habits. If it is not enough to bring about the change we need, then, like cigarette taxes, it will need to go higher.

Singer is professor of bioethics at Princeton University, the author of “Animal Liberation” and the author, with Jim Masion, of “The Ethics of What We Eat.”

ATHENS, GA—Air quality in homes, offices, and other indoor spaces is becoming a major health concern, particularly in developed countries where people often spend more than 90% of their time indoors. Surprisingly, indoor air has been reported to be as much as 12 times more polluted than outdoor air in some areas. Indoor air pollutants emanate from paints, varnishes, adhesives, furnishings, clothing, solvents, building materials, and even tap water. A long list of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs [including benzene, xylene, hexane, heptane, octane, decane, trichloroethylene (TCE), and methylene chloride], have been shown to cause illnesses in people who are exposed to the compounds in indoor spaces. Acute illnesses like asthma and nausea and chronic diseases including cancer, neurologic, reproductive, developmental, and respiratory disorders are all linked to exposure to VOCs. Harmful indoor pollutants represent a serious health problem that is responsible for more than 1.6 million deaths each year, according to a 2002 World Health Organization report. 

Stanley J. Kays, Department of Horticulture, University of Georgia, was the lead researcher of a study published in HortScience that tested ornamental indoor plants for their ability to remove harmful VOCs from indoor air. According to Kays, some indoor plants have the ability to effectively remove harmful VOCs from the air, and not only have the ability to improve our physical health, but also have been shown to enhance our psychological health. Adding these plants to indoor spaces can reduce stress, increase task performance, and reduce symptoms of ill health. 

The ability of plants to remove VOCs is called “phytoremediation”. To better understand the phytoremediation capacity of ornamental plants, the research team tested 28 common indoor ornamentals for their ability to remove five volatile indoor pollutants. “The VOCs tested in this study can adversely affect indoor air quality and have a potential to seriously compromise the health of exposed individuals,” Kays explained. “Benzene and toluene are known to originate from petroleum-based indoor coatings, cleaning solutions, plastics, environmental tobacco smoke, and exterior exhaust fumes emanating into the building; octane from paint, adhesives, and building materials; TCE from tap water, cleaning agents, insecticides, and plastic products; and alpha-pinene from synthetic paints and odorants.” 

During the research study, plants were grown in a shade house for eight weeks followed be acclimatization for twelve weeks under indoor conditions before being placed in gas-tight glass jars. The plants were exposed to benzene, TCE, toluene, octane, and alpha-pinene, and air samples were analyzed. The plants were then classified as superior, intermediate, and poor, according to their ability to remove VOCs. 

Of the 28 species tested, Hemigraphis alternata (purple waffle plant), Hedera helix (English ivy), Hoya carnosa (variegated wax plant), and Asparagus densiflorus (Asparagus fern) had the highest removal rates for all of the VOCs introduced. Tradescantia pallida (Purple heart plant) was rated superior for its ability to remove four of the VOCs. 

The study concluded that simply introducing common ornamental plants into indoor spaces has the potential to significantly improve the quality of indoor air. In addition to the obvious health benefits for consumers, the increased use of indoor plants in both ”green” and traditional buildings could have a tremendous positive impact on the ornamental plant industry by increasing customer demand and sales. 

### 

The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS HortScience electronic journal web site: http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/44/5/1377

Founded in 1903, the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) is the largest organization dedicated to advancing all facets of horticultural research, education, and application. More information at ashs.org

Horror stories about the food industry have long been with us – ever since 1906, when Upton Sinclair’s landmark novel The Jungle told some ugly truths about how America produces its meat. In the century that followed, things got much better, and in some ways much worse. The U.S. agricultural industry can now produce unlimited quantities of meat and grains at remarkably cheap prices. But it does so at a high cost to the environment, animals and humans. Those hidden prices are the creeping erosion of our fertile farmland, cages for egg-laying chickens so packed that the birds can’t even raise their wings and the scary rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria among farm animals. Add to the price tag the acceleration of global warming – our energy-intensive food system uses 19% of U.S. fossil fuels, more than any other sector of the economy.

And perhaps worst of all, our food is increasingly bad for us, even dangerous. A series of recalls involving contaminated foods this year – including an outbreak of salmonella from tainted peanuts that killed at least eight people and sickened 600 – has consumers rightly worried about the safety of their meals. A food system – from seed to 7‑Eleven – that generates cheap, filling food at the literal expense of healthier produce is also a principal cause of America’s obesity epidemic. At a time when the nation is close to a civil war over health-care reform, obesity adds $147 billion a year to our doctor bills. “The way we farm now is destructive of the soil, the environment and us,” says Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). (See pictures of what the world eats.)

Some Americans are heeding such warnings and working to transform the way the country eats – ranchers and farmers who are raising sustainable food in ways that don’t bankrupt the earth. Documentaries like the scathing Food Inc. and the work of investigative journalists like Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan are reprising Sinclair’s work, awakening a sleeping public to the uncomfortable realities of how we eat. Change is also coming from the very top. First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House garden has so far yielded more than 225 lb. of organic produce – and tons of powerful symbolism. But hers is still a losing battle. Despite increasing public awareness, sustainable agriculture, while the fastest-growing sector of the food industry, remains a tiny enterprise: according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), less than 1% of American cropland is farmed organically. Sustainable food is also pricier than conventional food and harder to find. And while large companies like General Mills have opened organic divisions, purists worry that the very definition of sustainability will be co-opted as a result. (See pictures of urban farming around the world.)

But we don’t have the luxury of philosophizing about food. With the exhaustion of the soil, the impact of global warming and the inevitably rising price of oil – which will affect everything from fertilizer to supermarket electricity bills – our industrial style of food production will end sooner or later. As the developing world grows richer, hundreds of millions of people will want to shift to the same calorie-heavy, protein-rich diet that has made Americans so unhealthy – demand for meat and poultry worldwide is set to rise 25% by 2015 – but the earth can no longer deliver. Unless Americans radically rethink the way they grow and consume food, they face a future of eroded farmland, hollowed-out countryside, scarier germs, higher health costs – and bland taste. Sustainable food has an élitist reputation, but each of us depends on the soil, animals and plants – and as every farmer knows, if you don’t take care of your land, it can’t take care of you.

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The Downside of Cheap
For all the grumbling you do about your weekly grocery bill, the fact is you’ve never had it so good, at least in terms of what you pay for every calorie you eat. According to the USDA, Americans spend less than 10% of their incomes on food, down from 18% in 1966. Those savings begin with the remarkable success of one crop: corn. Corn is king on the American farm, with production passing 12 billion bu. annually, up from 4 billion bu. as recently as 1970. When we eat a cheeseburger, a Chicken McNugget, or drink soda, we’re eating the corn that grows on vast, monocrop fields in Midwestern states like Iowa.

But cheap food is not free food, and corn comes with hidden costs. The crop is heavily fertilized – both with chemicals like nitrogen and with subsidies from Washington. Over the past decade, the Federal Government has poured more than $50 billion into the corn industry, keeping prices for the crop – at least until corn ethanol skewed the market – artificially low. That’s why McDonald’s can sell you a Big Mac, fries and a Coke for around $5 – a bargain, given that the meal contains nearly 1,200 calories, more than half the daily recommended requirement for adults. “Taxpayer subsidies basically underwrite cheap grain, and that’s what the factory-farming system for meat is entirely dependent on,” says Gurian-Sherman. (See the 10 worst fast food meals.)

So what’s wrong with cheap food and cheap meat – especially in a world in which more than 1 billion people go hungry? A lot. For one thing, not all food is equally inexpensive; fruits and vegetables don’t receive the same price supports as grains. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of potato chips or 875 calories of soda but just 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit. With the backing of the government, farmers are producing more calories – some 500 more per person per day since the 1970s – but too many are unhealthy calories. Given that, it’s no surprise we’re so fat; it simply costs too much to be thin.

Our expanding girth is just one consequence of mainstream farming. Another is chemicals. No one doubts the power of chemical fertilizer to pull more crop from a field. American farmers now produce an astounding 153 bu. of corn per acre, up from 118 as recently as 1990. But the quantity of that fertilizer is flat-out scary: more than 10 million tons for corn alone – and nearly 23 million for all crops. When runoff from the fields of the Midwest reaches the Gulf of Mexico, it contributes to what’s known as a dead zone, a seasonal, approximately 6,000-sq.-mi. area that has almost no oxygen and therefore almost no sea life. Because of the dead zone, the $2.8 billion Gulf of Mexico fishing industry loses 212,000 metric tons of seafood a year, and around the world, there are nearly 400 similar dead zones. Even as we produce more high-fat, high-calorie foods, we destroy one of our leanest and healthiest sources of protein. (See nine kid foods to avoid.)

The food industry’s degradation of animal life, of course, isn’t limited to fish. Though we might still like to imagine our food being raised by Old MacDonald, chances are your burger or your sausage came from what are called concentrated-animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which are every bit as industrial as they sound. In CAFOs, large numbers of animals – 1,000 or more in the case of cattle and tens of thousands for chicken and pigs – are kept in close, concentrated conditions and fattened up for slaughter as fast as possible, contributing to efficiencies of scale and thus lower prices. But animals aren’t widgets with legs. They’re living creatures, and there are consequences to packing them in prison-like conditions. For instance: Where does all that manure go?

Pound for pound, a pig produces approximately four times the amount of waste a human does, and what factory farms do with that mess gets comparatively little oversight. Most hog waste is disposed of in open-air lagoons, which can overflow in heavy rain and contaminate nearby streams and rivers. “This creek that we used to wade in, that creek that our parents could drink out of, our kids can’t even play in anymore,” says Jayne Clampitt, a farmer in Independence, Iowa, who lives near a number of hog farms.

To stay alive and grow in such conditions, farm animals need pharmaceutical help, which can have further damaging consequences for humans. Overuse of antibiotics on farm animals leads, inevitably, to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and the same bugs that infect animals can infect us too. The UCS estimates that about 70% of antimicrobial drugs used in America are given not to people but to animals, which means we’re breeding more of those deadly organisms every day. The Institute of Medicine estimated in 1998 that antibiotic resistance cost the public-health system $4 billion to $5 billion a year – a figure that’s almost certainly higher now. “I don’t think CAFOs would be able to function as they do now without the widespread use of antibiotics,” says Robert Martin, who was the executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production.

See more pictures of what the world eats.

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The livestock industry argues that estimates of antibiotics in food production are significantly overblown. Resistance “is the result of human use and not related to veterinary use,” according to Kristina Butts, the manager of legislative affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. But with wonder drugs losing their effectiveness, it makes sense to preserve them for as long as we can, and that means limiting them to human use as much as possible. “These antibiotics are not given to sick animals,” says Representative Louise Slaughter, who is sponsoring a bill to limit antibiotic use on farms. “It’s a preventive measure because they are kept in pretty unspeakable conditions.”

Such a measure would get at a symptom of the problem but not at the source. Just as the burning of fossil fuels that is causing global warming requires more than a tweaking of mileage standards, the manifold problems of our food system require a comprehensive solution. “There should be a recognition that what we are doing is unsustainable,” says Martin. And yet, still we must eat. So what can we do? (See pictures of an apartment outfitted for goat-milking.)

Getting It Right
If a factory farm is hell for an animal, then Bill Niman’s seaside ranch in Bolinas, Calif., an hour north of San Francisco, must be heaven. The property’s cliffside view over the Pacific Ocean is worth millions, but the black Angus cattle that Niman and his wife Nicolette Hahn Niman raise keep their eyes on the ground, chewing contentedly on the pasture. Grass – and a trail of hay that Niman spreads from his truck periodically – is all the animals will eat during the nearly three years they’ll spend on the ranch. That all-natural, noncorn diet – along with the intensive, individual care that the Nimans provide their animals – produces beef that many connoisseurs consider to be among the best in the world. But for Niman, there is more at stake than just a good steak. He believes that his way of raising farm animals – in the open air, with no chemicals or drugs and with maximum care – is the only truly sustainable method and could be a model for a better food system. “What we need in this country is a completely different way of raising animals for food,” says Hahn Niman, a former attorney for the environmental group Earthjustice. “This needs to be done in the right way.”

The Nimans like to call what they do “beyond organic,” and there are some signs that consumers are beginning to catch up. This November, California voters approved a ballot proposition that guarantees farm animals enough space to lie down, stand up and turn around. Worldwide, organic food – a sometimes slippery term but on the whole a practice more sustainable than conventional food – is worth more than $46 billion. That’s still a small slice of the overall food pie, but it’s growing, even in a global recession. “There is more pent-up demand for organic than there is production,” says Bill Wolf, a co-founder of the organic-food consultancy Wolf DiMatteo and Associates. (Watch TIME’s video “The New Frugality: The Organic Gardener.”)

So what will it take for sustainable food production to spread? It’s clear that scaling up must begin with a sort of scaling down – a distributed system of many local or regional food producers as opposed to just a few massive ones. Since 1935, consolidation and industrialization have seen the number of U.S. farms decline from 6.8 million to fewer than 2 million – with the average farmer now feeding 129 Americans, compared with 19 people in 1940.

It’s that very efficiency that’s led to the problems and is in turn spurring a backlash, reflected not just in the growth of farmers’ markets or the growing involvement of big corporations in organics but also in the local-food movement, in which restaurants and large catering services buy from suppliers in their areas, thereby improving freshness, supporting small-scale agriculture and reducing the so-called food miles between field and plate. That in turn slashes transportation costs and reduces the industry’s carbon footprint.

A transition to more sustainable, smaller-scale production methods could even be possible without a loss in overall yield, as one survey from the University of Michigan suggested, but it would require far more farmworkers than we have today. With unemployment approaching double digits – and things especially grim in impoverished rural areas that have seen populations collapse over the past several decades – that’s hardly a bad thing. Work in a CAFO is monotonous and soul-killing, while too many ordinary farmers struggle to make ends meet even as the rest of us pay less for food. Farmers aren’t the enemy – and they deserve real help. We’ve transformed the essential human profession – growing food – into an industry like any other. “We’re hurting for job creation, and industrial food has pushed people off the farm,” says Hahn Niman. “We need to make farming real employment, because if you do it right, it’s enjoyable work.”

See pictures of the global food crisis.

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One model for how the new paradigm could work is Niman Ranch, a larger operation that Bill Niman founded in the 1990s, before he left in 2007. (By his own admission, he’s a better farmer than he is a businessman.) The company has knitted together hundreds of small-scale farmers into a network that sells all-natural pork, beef and lamb to retailers and restaurants. In doing so, it leverages economies of scale while letting the farmers take proper care of their land and animals. “We like to think of ourselves as a force for a local-farming community, not as a large corporation,” says Jeff Swain, Niman Ranch’s CEO.

Other examples include the Mexican-fast-food chain Chipotle, which now sources its pork from Niman Ranch and gets its other meats and much of its beans from natural and organic sources. It’s part of a commitment that Chipotle founder Steve Ells made years ago, not just because sustainable ingredients were better for the planet but because they tasted better too – a philosophy he calls Food with Integrity. It’s not cheap for Chipotle – food makes up more than 32% of its costs, the highest in the fast-food industry. But to Ells, the taste more than compensates, and Chipotle’s higher prices haven’t stopped the company’s rapid growth, from 16 stores in 1998 to over 900 today. “We put a lot of energy into finding farmers who are committed to raising better food,” says Ells. (See pictures of the effects of global warming.)

Bon Appétit Management Company, a caterer based in Palo Alto, Calif., takes that commitment even further. The company sources as much of its produce as possible from within 150 miles of its kitchens and gets its meat from farmers who eschew antibiotics. Bon Appétit also tries to influence its customers’ habits by nudging them toward greener choices. That includes campaigns to reduce food waste, in part by encouraging servers at its kitchens to offer smaller, more manageable portions. (The USDA estimates that Americans throw out 14% of the food we buy, which means that much of our record-breaking harvests ends up in the garbage.) And Bon Appétit supports a low-carbon diet, one that uses less meat and dairy, since both have a greater carbon footprint than fruit, vegetables and grain. The success of the overall operation demonstrates that sustainable food can work at an institutional scale bigger than an élite restaurant, a small market or a gourmet’s kitchen – provided customers support it. “Ultimately it’s going to be consumer demand that will cause change, not Washington,” says Fedele Bauccio, Bon Appétit’s co-founder. (See pictures of two farms in Nebraska.)

How willing are consumers to rethink the way they shop for – and eat – food? For most people, price will remain the biggest obstacle. Organic food continues to cost on average several times more than its conventional counterparts, and no one goes to farmers’ markets for bargains. But not all costs can be measured by a price tag. Once you factor in crop subsidies, ecological damage and what we pay in health-care bills after our fatty, sugary diet makes us sick, conventionally produced food looks a lot pricier.

What we really need to do is something Americans have never done well, and that’s to quit thinking big. We already eat four times as much meat and dairy as the rest of the world, and there’s not a nutritionist on the planet who would argue that 24‑oz. steaks and mounds of buttery mashed potatoes are what any person needs to stay alive. “The idea is that healthy and good-tasting food should be available to everyone,” says Hahn Niman. “The food system should be geared toward that.”

Whether that happens will ultimately come down to all of us, since we have the chance to choose better food three times a day (or more often, if we’re particularly hungry). It’s true that most of us would prefer not to think too much about where our food comes from or what it’s doing to the planet – after all, as Chipotle’s Ells points out, eating is not exactly a “heady intellectual event.” But if there’s one difference between industrial agriculture and the emerging alternative, it’s that very thing: consciousness. Niman takes care with each of his cattle, just as an organic farmer takes care of his produce and smart shoppers take care with what they put in their shopping cart and on the family dinner table. The industrial food system fills us up but leaves us empty – it’s based on selective forgetting. But what we eat – how it’s raised and how it gets to us – has consequences that can’t be ignored any longer.

- With reporting by Rebecca Kaplan / New York

The original version of this article mistakenly referred to the Bon Appétit Management Company as the Bon Appétit Food Management Company

See the top 10 green ideas of 2008.

See TIME’s Pictures of the Week.

The Tale of Two Cattle
How did your hamburger get to your plate – and what did it eat along the way? The journey of beef illustrates the great American food chain

ORGANIC (1% of all cattle)
This is the way all beef used to be raised – and how some people still imagine it is. Bill Niman tends a small herd with one of the lightest hands in the business and produces what Bay Area chefs swear is unparalleled beef

Diet: Grass
Niman’s cows eat only grass, along with a smattering of hay. That’s the normal diet for cattle. Their rumen, a digestive organ, can break down grasses we’d find inedible

Supplements: None
Niman gives no supplements whatsoever to his cattle – no drugs, no hormones, no additives. That’s not ironclad for organic beef – some companies might use antimicrobials – but generally the animals are supplement-free

Environmental Impact: Living with the Land
To prevent his ranch from becoming overgrazed, Niman shifts his cattle around the land, ensuring that the grass has time to recover between feedings. The result is a surprisingly low-impact hamburger, since grass doesn’t need chemical fertilizer to grow and its presence helps prevent soil erosion. There’s no need to clean up manure – with Niman’s low cattle density, the waste just fertilizes the land

Human Impact: The Omega Effect
Beef has a bad rep among nutritionists, but that might be partly unfair for grass-fed steaks. According to research from the University of California, grass-fed beef is higher in beta-carotene, vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids than conventional beef

CONVENTIONAL (99% of all cattle)
The vast majority of all American cattle start off on open ranges, but that’s where the similarity to their organic cousins ends. They’re shifted after a few months to the tight quarters of an industrial feedlot, to be fattened up as fast as possible

Diet: Grass and corn
Conventional cattle feed off grass pasture for the first several months, but at the feedlot, they’re switched to a heavily corn-based diet, which makes them gain weight faster but also makes them get sick more easily

Supplements: Chemicals
In part to help them survive the crowded conditions of feedlots, where infections can spread fast, conventional cattle are given antibiotics in their feed, and sometimes growth hormones, bloods and fats

Environmental Impact: Waste
A 1,000-head feedlot produces up to 280 tons of manure a week, and the smell can be powerful. All that feed corn requires millions of tons of fertilizer and, ultimately, a lot of petroleum

Human Impact: Fat Attack
Feeding corn to cattle for the last several months of their lives doesn’t just get them fatter faster; it also changes the quality of the beef. Corn helps produce that marbled taste many of us love, but it can result in beef that is higher in fat – helping to fuel the obesity epidemic

Reprinted from TIME.

“Our tests strongly indicate that the purity of bottled water cannot be trusted,” the study authors write. “Given the industry’s refusal to make available data to support their claims of superiority, consumer confidence in the purity of bottled water is simply not justified.”

Researchers conducted comprehensive tests at the renowned University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory on 10 leading bottled water brands, purchased from retailers in nine states and the District of Columbia (D.C.). A total of 38 toxic pollutants were detected altogether, with each brand containing an average of eight. Chemicals detected included fluoride, byproducts of chlorine-based disinfection, caffeine, pharmaceutical drugs, fertilizer residue, plasticizers, solvents, fuel propellants, arsenic, other minerals and heavy metals, and radioactive isotopes. Four brands also contained bacteria.

More than a third of the chemicals detected are not regulated by the bottled water industry. Voluntary industry standards regulate the following two-thirds, but water purchased in five states and in D.C. contained levels of some carcinogens in excess of even the industry’s standards.

“In other words, this bottled water was chemically indistinguishable from tap water,” the authors write. “But with promotional campaigns saturated with images of mountain springs, and prices 1,900 times the price of tap water, consumers are clearly led to believe that they are buying a product that has been purified to a level beyond the water that comes out of the garden hose.”

Further analysis at the University of Missouri found that when applied to breast cancer cells, one brand of water led to a 78 percent increase in proliferation rate compared with untreated cells. The addition of estrogen-blocking chemicals noticeably reduced this effect.

“Though this result is considered a modest effect relative to the potency of some other industrial chemicals … the sheer volume of bottled water people consume elevates the health significance of the finding,” the researchers write.

The researchers were unable to determine if estrogen-mimics in the water came from the water itself or had leached out of the plastic bottle.

In accordance with standard scientific practice, the report does not name the brands tested. Exceptions were made for the brands Sam’s Choice (Wal-Mart) and Acadia (Giant), however, which contained toxin levels high enough to violate California law.

Samples of both brands tested positive for trihalomethanes, which have been linked to reproductive disorders and cancer. The chemicals form when water disinfectants react with pollution. The water also contained bromodichloromethane, a carcinogen regulated under California law. In response, EWG is preparing a lawsuit against Wal-Mart to require that Sam’s Choice water contain the legally required notice: “WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer.”

Acadia-brand water is not sold in California.

Bottled water purchased from these brands also exceeded the bottled water industry’s voluntary standards.

“The bottled water industry boasts that its internal regulations are stricter than the FDA bottled water regulations,” the researchers write, “but voluntary standards that companies are failing to meet are of little use.”

Reprinted from NaturalNews.

T. Colin Campbell,Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr.

As scientific researchers who have spent our careers establishing the link between diet and disease, we find President Obama’s directive on “restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making” very welcome news.

We hope this will lead to health care policy that is informed by America’s most ignored scientific fact on health: That a whole-foods plant-based diet can prevent and in many cases reverse heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other chronic diseases.

Today’s health care debate has very little to do with what makes us sick. It is centered almost entirely on who gets covered and who pays. Extending coverage to more people is a good thing. But Americans who already are covered are suffering rising rates of chronic disease. Lack of coverage is not causing their disease, and expanding coverage won’t cure these diseases in others. We have to do more than increase coverage.

The No. 1 cause and cure of America’s health care crisis is right under your nose – it’s what you put in your mouth.

Unfortunately, the scientific findings on diet and disease are marginalized by the political power of huge, mutually reinforcing commercial interests – meat, dairy, sugar, drugs and surgery.

These industries are desperate to sell a solution that obscures their part in the problem. If they can convince people that the cause of our health crisis has nothing to do with eating unhealthy food, and everything to do with increasing access to drugs and surgery, Americans will spend trillions more on health care without improving their health. That’s what happens when you leave science out of public policy.

If President Obama wants Americans to get the full benefit of scientific research on health, then he should add three measures to his health reforms.

One: Change the way government develops its dietary guidelines. Right now, the U.S. government’s most widely publicized dietary recommendations are deadly. The Food and Nutrition Board’s 2002 report says that to reduce degenerative diseases like heart disease and cancer, we can consume up to 35 percent of our calories as fat, up to 35 percent of our calories as protein and up to 25 percent of calories as added sugars.

Here is a daily diet that meets those nutrition guidelines: Breakfast: 1 cup Fruit Loops; 1 cup skim milk; 1 package M&M milk chocolate candies; fiber and vitamin supplements. Lunch: Grilled cheddar cheeseburger. Dinner: 3 slices pepperoni pizza, with a 16-ounce soda and 1 serving Archway sugar cookies.

This helps explain why 12-year-old schoolchildren develop thickening of their carotid arteries to the brain, and 80 percent of 20-year-old soldiers, dying in combat, are found to have coronary artery heart disease.

How could the government distribute this information and call it science? Members of the committee had financial ties to industries that benefit from higher protein and sugar allowances, and the panel was partly funded by corporate money.

The Obama administration should establish a rule: No scientist with financial ties to the food and drug industries should chair – or choose the members of – panels that set dietary guidelines.

Two: President Obama should establish a new institute at the National Institutes of Health dedicated exclusively to exploring the link between diet, health and disease. Today, there are 27 institutes and centers at the National Institutes of Health, but none devoted to nutrition, despite the great public interest in the subject. For the sake of the people who pay the bills, it’s time for NIH to dedicate an institute to studying the effect of nutrition on health.

Three: Congress should require that medical schools – as a condition of receiving federal grants – offer residency programs on dietary approaches to preventing and treating disease. Americans don’t understand the disease-fighting power of a good diet because their doctors don’t. Medical schools teach a drug-centered curriculum. They do not learn about the many population-based studies that show the connection between diet and disease. They do not review the biochemical studies on disease formation that support the population-based studies. And they do not study the results found in treating disease with diet in clinical settings. Drugs and surgery can offer miraculous benefits in certain cases. But it’s unconscionable for doctors not to know about – or tell their patients about – the preventive and healing power of food.

These three proposals won’t cost much, and they will pay back our investment a million-fold by making people healthier and reducing health care costs. Moreover, they reflect a commitment – expressed by the White House last week – to finally let the public enjoy the health benefits of scientific research.

T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University. He is co-author of “The China Study.” Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., M.D., former president of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons, is a preventive medicine consultant at the Cleveland Clinic. He is the author of “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.”

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/17/ED3K16FAI8.DTL

This article appeared on page A – 15 of the San Francisco Chronicle

(NaturalNews) There is no more denying it. Meat contains highly toxic substances that are responsible for many deaths and diseases. Heavy meat consumption increases your risk of dying from all causes, including heart disease and cancer, according to a federal study conducted by the National Cancer Institute and featured in Archives of Internal Medicine on Monday.

The study looked at the records of more than half a million men and women aged 50 to 71, following their diet and other health habits for 10 years. Between 1995 and 2005, 47,976 men and 23,276 women died.

The researchers divided the volunteers into 5 groups or “quintiles.” All other major factors were accounted for — eating fresh fruits and vegetables, smoking, exercise, obesity, etc. People eating the most meat consumed about 160g of red or processed meat per day – approximately a 6oz steak.

Women who ate large amounts of red meat had a 20 percent higher risk of dying of cancer and a 50 percent higher risk of dying of heart disease than women who ate less. Men had a 22 percent higher risk of dying of cancer and a 27 percent higher risk of dying of heart disease. That`s compared to those who ate the least red meat, just 5 ounces per week, or 25g per day — approximately a small rasher of bacon.

The study also included data on white meat and found that a higher intake was associated with a slightly reduced risk of death over the same period. However, high white meat consumption still posed a major risk of dying.

“For overall mortality, 11 percent of deaths in men and 16 percent of deaths in women could be prevented if people decreased their red meat consumption to the level of intake in the first quintile,” Sinha`s team wrote.

Sinha`s team noted that meat contains several cancer-causing chemicals, as well as the unhealthiest forms of fat.

The good news is that the U.S. government now recommends a “plant-based diet” with the emphasis on fruits, vegetables and whole grains. The bad news is that it also hands out massive farm subsidies that keep meat prices very low and encourage meat-based diets. The government`s food-price policies contribute to such risk-filled eating habits as meat consumption.

Another drawback is that the National Cancer Institute study only looked at the increased mortality risk resulting from meat consumption. It should be noted, that if eating meat can kill a large number of people, it can make an even larger number of people seriously ill.

Food that kills or makes people sick should not be considered food at all. However, the meat industry thinks otherwise. It believes that the study is flawed. American Meat Institute executive president, James Hodges, said: “Meat products are part of a healthy, balanced diet and studies show they actually provide a sense of satisfaction and fullness that can help with weight control. Proper body weight contributes to good health overall.”

The question is whether it is worth risking one`s life over having a little sense of satisfaction and fullness, which could easily be experienced by eating a healthful diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds.

The new findings support a previous study published earlier this year in the Annals of Internal Medicine, which showed that eating meat boosts risk of prostate cancer by 40 Percent. And just last month, parents learned that their children had a 60% increased risk of developing leukemia if they consumed meat products, such as ham, sausages and hamburgers.

Vegetarians Live Longer and Healthier Lives

More recently, medical research has found that a properly balanced vegetarian diet may, in fact, be the healthiest diet. This was demonstrated by the over 11,000 volunteers who participated in the Oxford Vegetarian Study. For a period of 15 years, researchers analyzed the effects a vegetarian diet had on longevity, heart disease, cancer and various other diseases.

The results of the study stunned the vegetarian community as much as it did the meat-producing industry: “Meat eaters are twice as likely to die from heart disease, have a 60 percent greater risk of dying from cancer and a 30 percent higher risk of death from other causes.”

In addition, the incidence of obesity, which is a major risk factor for many diseases, including gallbladder disease, hypertension and adult onset diabetes, is much lower in those following a vegetarian diet. According to a Johns Hopkins University research report on 20 different published studies and national surveys about weight and eating behavior, Americans across all age groups, genders and races are getting fatter. If the trend continues, 75 percent of U.S. adults will be overweight by the year 2015.

It is now almost considered the norm to be overweight or obese. Already more than 80 percent of African-American women over the age of 40 are overweight, with 50 percent falling into the obese category. This puts them at great risk for heart disease, diabetes and various cancers. A balanced vegetarian diet may be the answer to the current obesity pandemic in the United States and many other countries.

Those who include less meat in their diet also have fewer problems with cholesterol. The American National Institute of Health, in a study of 50,000 vegetarians, found that the vegetarians live longer and also have an impressively lower incidence of heart disease and a significantly lower rate of cancer than meat-eating Americans. And in 1961, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that a vegetarian diet could prevent 90-97% of heart diseases.

What we eat is very important for our health. According to the American Cancer Society, up to 35 percent of the 900,000 new cases of cancer each year in the United States could be prevented by following proper dietary recommendation. Researcher Rollo Russell writes in his Notes on the Causation of Cancer: “I have found of twenty-five nations eating flesh largely, nineteen had a high cancer rate and only one had a low rate, and that of thirty-five nations eating little or no flesh, none of these had a high rate.”

Could cancer lose its grip on modern societies if they turned to a balanced vegetarian diet? The answer is “yes,” according to two major reports, one by the World Cancer Research Fund and the other by the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy in the United Kingdom. The reports conclude that a diet rich in plant foods and the maintenance of a healthy body weight could annually prevent four million cases of cancer worldwide. Both reports stress the need for increasing the daily intake of plant fiber, fruits and vegetables and reducing red and processed meat consumption to less than 80-90g.

If you are currently eating meat on a regular basis and wish to change over to a vegetarian diet, unless you suffer from a major cardiovascular illness, do not give up all flesh foods at once! The digestive system cannot adjust to a substantially different diet from one day to the next. Start by reducing the number of meals that include meats such as beef, pork, veal and lamb and substituting poultry and fish during these meals. In time, you will find that you are able to consume less poultry and fish also, without creating strain on the physiology due to too rapid an adjustment.

Note: Although the uric acid content of fish, turkey and chicken is less than in red meat and, therefore, not quite as taxing to the kidneys and tissues of the body, the degree of injury that is sustained to the blood vessels and intestinal tract from eating these coagulated proteins is no less than it is with the consumption of meat.

Death in the Meat

Research has shown that all meat eaters have worms and a high incidence of parasites in their intestines. This is hardly surprising given the fact that dead flesh (cadaver) is a favorite target for microorganisms of all sorts. A 1996 study by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed that nearly 80 percent of ground beef is contaminated with disease-causing microbes. The primary source of these bugs is feces. A study conducted by the University of Arizona found there are more fecal bacteria in the average kitchen sink than in the average toilet bowl. This would make eating your food on the toilet seat safer than eating it in the kitchen. The source of this biohazard at home is the meat you buy at the typical grocery store.

The germs and parasites found in meat weaken the immune system and are the source of many diseases. In fact, most food poisonings today are related to meat-eating. During a mass outbreak near Glasgow, 16 out of over 200 infected people died from the consequences of eating E. coli contaminated meat. Frequent outbreaks are reported in Scotland and many other parts of the world. More than half a million Americans, most of them children, have been sickened by mutant fecal bacteria (E. coli) in meat. These germs are the leading cause of kidney failure among children in the United States. This fact alone should prompt every responsible parent to prevent their children from eating flesh foods.

Not all parasites act so swiftly as E. coli though. Most of them have long-term effects that are noticed only after many years of eating meat. The government and the food industry are trying to divert attention from the escalating problem of meat contamination by telling the consumer it is his own fault that these incidents happen. It is very obvious that they want to avoid hefty lawsuits, and bad-mouthing of the meat industry. They insist that dangerous bacterial outbreaks occur because the consumer does not cook the family`s meat long enough. It is now considered a crime to serve a rare hamburger. Even if you have not committed this “crime,” any infection will be attributed to not washing your hands every time you touch a raw chicken or to letting the chicken touch your kitchen counter or any other food. The meat itself, they claim, is totally safe and meets the standard safety requirements imposed by the government; of course, this holds true only as long as you keep disinfecting your hands and your kitchen countertop. It evades all good reasoning to propose such a “solution” to the 76 million cases of meat-borne illnesses a year, except to safeguard the vested interests of the government and the meat industry. If a particular imported food produced in China is found to be contaminated, even if it hasn`t actually killed anyone, it is immediately taken off the shelves of grocery stores. Yet, with all the research proving that meat-consumption harms and kills millions of people each year, meat continues to be sold in all grocery stores.

The new mutant bugs found in today`s meat are extremely deadly. For you to come down with Salmonella poisoning, you have to consume at least a million of these germs. But to become infected with one of the new mutant bugs, you need to ingest a measly five of them. In other words, a tiny particle of uncooked hamburger, making it from a kitchen utensil to your plate, is enough to kill you. Scientists have now identified more than a dozen food-borne pathogens with such deadly effects. The Center for Disease Control admits that they don`t even know the bugs behind most food-related illnesses and deaths.

Much of the germ-infestation of meat is caused by feeding farm animals foods that are unnatural to them. Cattle are now fed corn, which they are unable to digest, but it makes them fat very quickly. Cattle feed also contains chicken feces. The millions of pounds of chicken litter (feces, feathers and all) scraped off the floors of chicken houses are recycled as cattle feed. The cattle industry considers this “good protein.” The other ingredients of cattle feed consist of ground-up parts of animals, such as deceased chickens, pigs and horses. According to the industry, giving the cattle natural, healthy feeds would be far too costly and so unnecessary. Who really cares what the meat is made of, as long as it looks like meat?

Combined with hefty doses of growth hormones, a diet of corn and special feeds shortens the duration of fattening up a steer for market from a normal time period of 4-5 years to a mere 16 months. Of course, the unnatural diet makes the cows sick. Like their human consumers, they suffer from heartburn, liver disease, ulcers, diarrhea, pneumonia and other infections. To keep the cattle alive until the deadline for slaughter at the “ripe old age” of 16 months, the cows need to be fed enormous doses of antibiotics. In the meantime, the microbes that respond to the massive biochemical assault of antibiotics, find ways to become immune to these drugs by mutating into resistant new strains.

Those unfortunate cows that don`t drop dead prematurely due to all the poisons fed to them during their short earthly existence, experience an undignified and gruesome end of life in the slaughterhouse or meat-packing plant. From there, the diseased, germ-infested meat ends up in your local grocery store, and a little later, on your dinner plate, if you so dare.

Sources:

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/169/6/543

http://health.yahoo.com/news/reuters/us_red_death.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7959128.stm

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20090324/D9745SJG0.html

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/70/3/525S.pdf (Oxford Vegetarian Study)

http://www.cleanse.net/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=26

http://www.wcrf-uk.org/

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp (American Cancer Society)

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?navtype=SU&navid=FOOD_NUTRITION (USDA)

Excerpts taken from “Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation”Reprinted from NaturalNews.

Hardly a month passes without a report of another study linking consumption of animal fat and meat with elevated risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and other killer diseases that cripple then kill over a million Americans annually. Estimated costs of associated medical care and lost productivity run as high as $300 billion.

We have witnessed alarming developments:

• Obesity is implicated in 300,000 US deaths and costs the nation $117 billion per year.
• American Heart Association has condemned popular high-protein diets.
• A diet rich in fruits and vegetables substantially reduces the risk of high blood pressure.
• Consumption of dairy products increases the risk of prostate cancer.
• Consumption of meat and dairy products increases the risk of type 2 diabetes by 60%.
• USDA is failing to test adequately for ‘Mad Cow’ disease.
• A hundred feed plants may be spreading the Mad Cow disease.
• Deadly Enterococci bacteria have been found in 3% of pork samples.
• Widespread use of antibiotics by the poultry industry threatens their efficacy for humans.

Meatout Can Help

These developments confer special meaning on the annual observance of the Great American Meatout, the world’s oldest and largest annual grassroots diet education campaign.

On and around March 20, caring folks in a 1,000 communities in all 50 states and a host of other countries are welcoming spring with educational events ranging from information tables (‘steakouts’) and exhibits to classroom presentations, receptions, public dinners, cooking demonstrations, homeless feedings, and elaborate ‘lifestivals.’ They ask their friends and neighbors to “kick the meat habit this spring and explore a wholesome, nonviolent plant-based diet.”

The explosive growth of the Great American Meatout has been due in large measure to the support of consumer advocates, educators, health authorities, and the mass media. Radio and TV networks have interviewed entertainers Casey Kasem, Mary Tyler Moore, James Cromwell, Bill Maher, and other members of the Meatout National Council.

Health editors have carried stories on national trends toward meatless eating, provided delicious, healthful meatless recipes, and covered local Meatout events.

To assist you in covering The Great American Meatout, we have provided links to websites dealing with health and nutrition, and a table of selected events.

Please, contact us at info@meatout.org or 1-800-MEATOUT for any additional questions or to arrange interviews with celebrities, authors, physicians, and activists.

Thank you for your interest in The Great American Meatout!

COLLEGE STATION – There’s an emerging star in the super-food world.

Plums are rolling down the food fashion runway sporting newly discovered high levels of healthy nutrients, say scientists at Texas AgriLife Research.

Plainly, “blueberries have some stiff competition,” said Dr. Luis Cisneros, AgriLife Research food scientist.”Stone fruits are super fruits with plums as emerging stars.”

Far from fruit snobbery, the plum is being ushered in after Cisneros and Dr. David Byrne, AgriLife Research plant breeder, judged more than 100 varieties of plums, peaches and nectarines and found them to match or exceed the much-touted blueberries in antioxidants and phytonutrients associated with disease prevention.

The duo acknowledge that blueberries remain a good nutritional choice. But Byrne said their findings are plum good news, especially in tight economic times, because one relatively inexpensive plum contains about the same amount of antioxidants as a handful of more expensive blueberries.

“People tend to eat just a few blueberries at a time – a few on the cereal or as an ingredient mixed with lots of sugar,” Cisneros said. “But people will eat a whole plum at once and get the full benefit.”

Discovery of the plum’s benefits – along with that of fellow stone fruits, the peach and the nectarine – came after the researchers measured at least five brands of blueberries on the market. Against those numbers, the team measured the content of more than 100 different types of plums, nectarines and peaches.

The first comparison was for antioxidants, molecules that sweep through a body looking for free radicals to knock out. Free radicals are atoms or molecules that lurk where diseases like cancer and heart disease are found.

“If the radicals aren’t taken care of,” Cisneros said, “they will cause the problems that lead to disease.”

But the scientists didn’t stop at knowing that plums and peaches were flexing their antioxidant muscles.

“Knowing that we had all these varieties with high levels of antioxidants, then the possibility of preventing these diseases would also be high with their consumption, so we went to the next step – how these compounds could actually inhibit chronic diseases,” Cisneros said.

The team examined the full content of plums and peaches, then tested the effect of the compounds they found on breast cancer cells and cholesterol in the lab.

“We screened the varieties again with the biological assays,” Cisneros said. “And that had never been done before, because it is expensive and a lot of work. But that investment is small in terms of the information we got, and how it can be used now for breeding efforts to produce even better fruit.”

Byrne noted, for example, that one benefit the team found was that the phytonutrients in plums inhibited in vitro breast cancer growth without adversely affecting normal cell growth.

He said this type of research needs further study but is an indication that breeders ultimately will be able to produce new crop varieties with the best ratio of various phytochemicals to have an impact on disease prevention and inhibition. And these fruits will be available as fresh produce as well as in extracts for dietary supplements.

“Future work with stone fruits will focus on cardiovascular and cancer using animal models and identification of specific compounds that exert the properties,” Cisneros added.

Bottom line from the researchers: “We suggest that consumers take seriously the recommendation to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables – or even more – every day and to make sure that plums are part of that,” Byrne said.

Funding comes from the Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center at Texas A&M University and the California Tree Fruit Agreement.

Reprinted from Texas A&M.

by Sheryl Walters, citizen journalist

(NaturalNews) Spicy foods add an incredible amount of flavour to food. As ethnic foods become abundant, chilli and spicy food is increasingly popular. The good news is that adding spice to our food has a range of benefits for our health and wellbeing.

Chillies have long been used in traditional medicine, probably first by the Aztecs. In Russia, a drink called Nastoyka (made from chillies soaked in vodka) has also been taken as a healing remedy.

Reduced Cancer Death Rate

Scientists have proven that capsaicin, which is responsible for the burning sensation when we eat chillies, can kill cancer cells, indicating that people could at least prevent the onset of cancer by eating spicy food. This is because it is a natural antioxidant, meaning that it defends against disease causing toxins.

According to the World Health Organization, countries where diets are traditionally high in capsaicin have significantly lower cancer death rates for men and women than in countries where little spicy food is consumed.

Dr Timothy Bates who made the discovery, says that “This is incredibly exciting and may explain why people living in countries like Mexico and India, who traditionally eat a diet which is very spicy, tend to have lower incidences of many cancers that are prevalent in the western world.”

According to Bates, capsaicin attacks the power house of the tumour, thus killing the cancerous tumour cells and reducing tumour growth without harming the surrounding healthy cells. Capsaicin has been found to inhibit the growth of cancer cells in laboratory studies.

Prevents Dangerous Blood Clots

As well as preventing cancer, researchers have also noticed that people who consume large amounts of chilli peppers experienced a lower incidence of thrombo-embolism, or potentially dangerous blood clots.

Scientists have studied the medical records of countries where spicy foods are regularly consumed, and found that people who eat a diet high in chillies experience a much lower incidence of blood clotting diseases. It has now been scientifically proven that capsicum is able to break down blood clots.

Other Benefits of Hot Super Foods Include:

- Chillies are anti inflammatory, so they prevent and relieve arthritis.

- Lower Blood Pressure Naturally- Going hot increases the circulatory system and maintains strong cell walls.

- Chillies are a fantastic remedy for Cluster Headaches and Migraines, and can be put on the temples to sooth the pain. Some researchers are even investigating the effects of snorting it up the nose!

- A mood lifter, depression fighter, and powerful stress reliever. Capsicum increases endorphins and other mood elevating, “feel good” substances.

- Chillies can help protect us from common winter conditions. It may reduce flu symptoms, sinusitis, and respiratory problems. It opens everything up, makes you sweat, and boosts the immune system.

- A powerful remedy for Herpes Simplex flare -ups. You can rub a hot chilli straight on the skin to watch it disappear! Now available in the form of a prescription drug, capsicum ointment is applied to the skin to aid in controlling the pain associated with herpes zoster, also known as shingles.

- A natural muscle relaxant and pain reliever. We all know that putting something hot and spicy on muscular pain offers relief. Again, a hot chilli pepper straight on the skin will do the trick. There are also a number of creams that have capsicum in them to sooth and heal painful muscles.

- Chillies have been shown to have a positive effect on an overactive bladder and on people who have incontinence. It can block contractions that cause unpredictable loss of urine.

- Spicy foods can heal psoriasis and other skin conditions. Topical capsaicin creams have been prescribed to dry up psoriasis patches.

- Studies have shown that ulcers respond well to chillies. Hot peppers inhibit the growth of H. Pylori, the bacteria that causes certain kinds of ulcers.

- Capsicum is good for the skin because it is anti inflammatory and improves circulation.
- Spicy foods improve libido and sex drive.

So if you can handle your food hot, turn up the notch and enjoy the amazing healing benefits and added taste of spicy foods.

Also see:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/62447…

Reprinted from NaturalNews.

(NaturalNews) What if there were a delicious, versatile, meatless, high protein food that could almost magically bring you good health, help prevent heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and keep your weight in check? You’d be willing to travel a way to get this food and pay a lot of money for it, wouldn’t you? Actually, you probably already have some of this hiding in the back of your pantry, and if not it’s available at the nearest grocery story at a very low price. This food is the mighty bean, an overlooked vegetable that is turning out to be a research superstar.

The bean is technically a legume, a class of foods that includes peas and lentils. One-quarter cup of any legume is equivalent in protein to an ounce of meat. A cup of legumes contains about 15 grams of protein with the exception of soybeans which contain a whopping 29 grams of protein in a cup. Beans are a cook’s dream. They easily pick up the flavor of seasonings used in almost any recipe and blend right into almost any raw or cooked creation.

Studies show the bean is good for what ails us

Beans are generating a lot of interest in the scientific community because they are showing to provide protection from so many of the fearsome diseases of modern times. University studies have documented that eating beans on a regular basis reduces risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and obesity. In fact, regular bean eaters weigh about 6.6 pounds less than non-bean eaters according to a recent Real Age article.

In a study reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, men and women who consumed legumes 4 times a week had a 22% lower risk for heart disease than did people consuming legumes only once per week. In a follow-up study, men who adhered to a prudent diet that included greater consumption of legumes had a 30% lower risk of heart disease. People following the typical Western diet with low consumption rates for beans had a higher risk of heart disease.

A newly released series of studies from Colorado State University, reported in the Journal of Nutrition, found that eating beans and potatoes regularly could help prevent breast cancer. The studies, which will progress into a clinical trial using breast cancer survivors, may produce preventative diet plans for women who want to avoid breast cancer or a recurrence. Researchers introduced a carcinogen into the mammary glands of rats that were then fed a daily diet of different varieties of beans or potatoes in each of the separate studies. The rat control group did not receive beans or potatoes. At the completion of the three studies, the researchers collected data on the occurrence of cancerous mammary tumors, tumor mass and multiplicity of tumors. Results indicated that the more beans or potatoes included in the diet, the less the frequency for malignant tumors. Though some bean or potato varieties proved more effective at prevention, all beans were better at preventing cancer than a no-bean diet.

During another study reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed data collected from 90,630 women who participated in the Nurses Health Study II, selecting women between the ages of 26 and 46 when the study began in 1991. After an eight-year follow-up, the researchers found that women who consumed beans or lentils at least twice a week were 24 percent less likely to develop breast cancer than women who consumed them less than once a month.

It has been known for several years that inositol hexaphosphate (IP6) found in beans, legumes and some other vegetables exhibits potent anti-cancer action. Scientists have recently discovered an additional anti-cancer compound in legumes, known as inositol pentakisphosphate. In a study reported in Cancer Research, the newly discovered compound was tested in mouse models and on cancer cells. Not only was it found to inhibit the growth of tumors in mice independently, the phosphate also enhanced the effect of cytotoxic drugs in ovarian and lung cancer cells. This finding suggests that inositol pentakisphosphate could be used to sensitize cancer cells to the action of commonly used anti-cancer drugs.

The researchers concluded that the properties of inositol pentakisphosphate make it a promising therapeutic agent which is non-toxic, unlike conventional chemotherapy agents. And it was found to be non-toxic even at higher concentrations. The study director underscored the importance of a diet rich in foods such as beans, nuts and cereals that would help prevent cancer.

Beans have also been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer due to the presence of flavonols, phytonutrients which are found in many plant-based foods including beans. Another finding based on data review from the Nurse’s Study II is women who ate lentils or beans just twice a week reduced their risk of developing breast cancer by 24% compared to women who ate beans and lentils once a month or less.

In a study of nearly 35,000 women, those who ate four of more servings of legumes each week reduced their risk of developing colorectal cancer by approximately one-third. In a related study, people who had previously developed colon cancer were found able to reduce the risk of recurrence up to 45% by increasing their consumption of beans.

Several animal studies have concluded that incorporating beans into the diet can reduce the risk of developing colon cancer. In one study, rats were fed either pinto beans or milk protein as their main source of dietary protein. The bean fed rats had fewer tumors than the milk protein fed rats.

Other recent research conducted at the National Cancer Institute found that people who eat more dried legumes, such as pinto or navy beans, lentils, and bean soups have significantly less risk of developing colon cancer. Data culled from the Polyp Prevention Trial revealed that adding a significant amount of dry beans to one’s existing diet has a strong protective effect against recurrence of precancerous polyps. Those participants who added the most dried beans to their diets had the most significantly reduced risk for recurrence of advanced polyps. On average, these people increase their dry bean consumption by four fold.

Beans offer a wealth of nutrition and a very low cost

Beans have significant antioxidant properties which make them a terrific anti-aging food. In a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, three varieties of beans ranked in the top four foods studied for antioxidant benefits. Red beans such as those used to make red beans and rice, red kidney beans, and pinto beans beat many other fruits and vegetables in antioxidant benefits.

Another study at the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences concluded that color is the key when choosing beans. Bean coats get their color and antioxidant capabilities from phenol and anthocyanins, and there is a link between the darker seed coats and higher phenol levels. This study also found red beans to have the highest antioxidant level, with black beans coming in second place.

Beans are a good source of soluble dietary fiber, containing about 4 grams per cup of cooked beans. Soluble fiber has been shown to reduce blood cholesterol in epidemiologic, clinical, and animal studies. Data from several human intervention trials indicate that consumption of canned and dry beans reduces both total and LDL cholesterol. Significant increases in HDL cholesterol and/or reduction in tryglycerides were also seen in many of the studies.

In addition to cholesterol, recent attention has been focuses on high levels of plasma homocysteine as a risk factor for vascular disease. High levels of homocysteine are correlated with greater risk of cardiovascular disease. Beans provide a significant amount of folate, one of the B vitamins found to reduce homocysteine levels.

Eating beans can help in maintaining desired weight levels. They can help reduce blood glucose, insulin, cholesterol concentrations, and reduce the incidence and consequences of diabetes.

Beans also contain energy sustaining complex carbohydrates, essential vitamins and minerals, and are very low in fat and sodium. A pound of almost every variety of organic dried beans can be bought for under one dollar, making beans a central player for anyone watching his or her budget.

Beans are a user friendly food

Some of the studies about the cancer-fighting benefits of beans have indicated that incorporating 3 cups of cooked beans a week into the diet can have significant health benefits. This may sound like a lot of beans, but it is easy to do. Beans make great main dishes, salad, soups, side dishes, and can be mashed or pureed for burritos and dips. They combine easily with other nutritious fare like vegetables, herbs and spices.

The only factor that seems to stand in the way of people eating beans is the intestinal gas they tend to produce. There are two easy ways around this problem. One is by soaking the beans for 12 to 15 hours before they are cooked. Pour off the water used for soaking, rinse and add fresh water for cooking. This soaking process replicates what nature had in mind for the bean.

Beans contain high levels of phytic acid or phytate, nature’s way of preserving the bean as it lies on the ground waiting for the spring rains before it can germinate. When the rain comes, the bean soaks in the ground until this natural preservative is exhausted, and at that point the new plant is ready to grow and the nutrients it will need are released from the bean. After you have soaked beans for 12 to 15 hours, the phytate has been reduced and the nutrients in the bean have been made available. It is the preservative quality of phytate that make unsoaked beans so difficult to digest and so apt to produce gas when eaten.

The second way to reduce gas production is by using herbs and spices while cooking beans. Herbs and spices that go particularly well with beans include cumin, garlic, anise, fennel seeds, rosemary, caraway seeds, turmeric, lemongrass and coriander. And if you are really on flatulence patrol, get a bottle of digestive enzymes to make absolutely sure you are safe whether you have chosen to soak the beans or not. One that works particularly well with beans is V Gest from Enzymedica.

Additional Sources:

“Beans Investigated for Cancer-Fighting, Anti-diabetic Benefits”, Colorado State University.

Elizabeth A Rondini and Maurice R. Bennink, “Beans and Cardiovascular Health”, Michigan State University.

“Cancer and Nutrition”, Asbestos.com website for The Mesothelioma Cancer Center.

Reprinted from NaturalNews.

Since President Richard Nixon signed the Conquest of Cancer Act in 1971, the “war on cancer” in the United States has become a series of losing battles. Through taxes, donations, and private funding, Americans have spent almost $200 billion on cancer research since 1971. However, more than 500,000 Americans die of cancer every year, a 73 percent increase in the death rate since the “war” began.(1)

Prevention Is Possible

Dr. John R. Seffrin, president of the International Union Against Cancer, said, “Cancer is potentially the most preventable and most curable of the major life-threatening diseases facing humankind.”(2) Both the International Union Against Cancer and the World Health Organization estimate that at least 2 million lives could be saved by 2020-and 6.5 million lives by 2040-if “immediate action” is taken to prevent and treat cancer.(3)

Clinical studies have proved that smoking and consuming food that’s high in fat or animal protein are leading causes of cancer. The number one recommendation in the American Cancer Society’s “Guidelines on Nutrition and Physical Activity for Cancer Prevention” is to eat a diet “with an emphasis on plant sources.”(4) Researchers have found that vegetarians are between 25 and 50 percent less likely to suffer from cancer, even after taking smoking and other factors into account.(5)

Of Mice and Men

Millions of mice (referred to as “preclinical models”) have suffered and lost their lives to futile cancer research. According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology biology professor Robert Weinberg, “[I]t’s been well known for more than a decade, maybe two decades, that many of these preclinical human cancer models have very little predictive power in terms of how actual human beings-actual human tumors inside patients-will respond. . . . [H]undreds of millions of dollars are being wasted every year by drug companies using these models.”(6) The New York Times reported that following preclinical tests on animals, only “one in 20 prospective cancer cures used in human tests reaches the market, the worst record of any medical category.”(7) Dr. Richard Klausner, former director of the National Cancer Institute (which has an annual budget of more than $6 billion for cancer research), was quoted as saying, “The history of cancer research has been the history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn’t work in human beings.”(8,9)

Critical Differences

Those who profit from animal experimentation claim that animals are physiologically similar to humans-similar enough to persuade us to believe that what happens in a rat, mouse, dog, cat, or nonhuman primate will occur in humans.

Although most animal cancers arise in the bone, connective tissue, or muscle (sarcomas), most human cancers arise in living membranes (carcinomas). Furthermore, animals who are confined to small laboratory cages, repeatedly manipulated, and otherwise subjected to pain and stress make very poor “models” of human cancer patients. These animals may be given highly concentrated doses of substances that a human being would never be exposed to or heavily irradiated to form cancerous tumors, or they may have human tumors grafted to their bodies.

Animal experimenters want a disposable “research subject” who can be manipulated as desired and killed when convenient, but their artificially created “animal models” can never fully reflect the human condition.

Technologies and Treatments

Much of the research conducted in the name of curing cancer misses the mark: What kills human cancer victims 90 percent of the time is metastasis-when aggressive cells spread to other areas of the body. According to Fortune magazine’s investigation of the National Cancer Institute’s grants since 1972, only an alarming 0.5 percent of study proposals were dedicated to research on metastasis.(10)

Alternatives to animal testing include replacing animal tests with non-animal methods, such as 3-D in vitro models in which scientists grow actual human tumors surrounded by actual human tissue, allowing for controlled laboratory testing in an exact replica of in vivo human cancer. Comparative studies of human populations allow doctors and scientists to discover the root causes of human diseases and disorders so that preventive action can be taken. Epidemiological studies led to the discoveries of the relationship between smoking and cancer and to the identification of heart disease risk factors.(11) Microdosing is another promising alternative: Human subjects are given a drug dose that is one-hundredth of what would be expected to have an actual effect on the body, but sensitive measuring equipment is able to monitor the metabolism of the drug and allow scientists to predict the dangers or benefits of a full dose.(12)

Of the three basic treatment methods available to people who are diagnosed with cancer today-surgical removal, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy-not one is guaranteed to be effective. If a cancer does go into remission following one of these treatments, there is no assurance that it will not reappear. Because radiation and chemotherapy treatments irradiate or poison normal tissues as well as cancerous ones, both can cause additional cancers and unbearable side effects. Animal testing has not helped these patients; if anything, it has held back progress in treatments.

What You Can Do

Take responsibility for your health and avoid carcinogens. Stay away from animal-based foods (meat, eggs, and dairy products), tobacco, excessive radiation, artificial food additives and colorings, and pesticides in order to lower your risk of getting cancer.

Encourage medical charities and research agencies to develop and use clinical, epidemiological, and other non-animal research methods. If you donate to medical charities, write, “Not to be used for animal studies,” on your check because some organizations–including the March of Dimes, the American Cancer Society, the Canadian Cancer Society, and countless others-use donations to fund experiments on animals. Compassionate, modern charities, such as the National Children’s Cancer Society, Cancer Care, and the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, know that non-animal methods are the best way to fight cancer. Visit HumaneSeal.org to find out which charities do and which do not fund research on animals.

References
1) Clifton Leaf, “The War on Cancer: Why We’re Losing the War on Cancer-and How to Win It,” Fortune 9 Mar. 2004.
2) International Union Against Cancer, “Concerted Global Action Is the Only Answer to Rising Cancer Deaths,” 3 Jun. 2003.
3) World Health Organization and International Union Against Cancer, Global Action Against Cancer 2005.
4) American Cancer Society, “Cancer Prevention and Early Detection: Facts and Figures, 2004,” 2004.
5) J. Chang-Claude et al., “Mortality Pattern of German Vegetarians After 11 Years of Follow-Up,” Epidemiology 3 (1992): 389-91.
6) Leaf.
7) Gardiner Harris, “New Drug Points Up Problems in Developing Cancer Cures,” The New York Times 21 Dec. 2005.
Andrew C. von Eschenbach, “The Nation’s Investment in Cancer Research: A Plan and Budget Proposal for FY 2006,” National Cancer Institute, Oct. 2004: 54.
9) Jerome Burne, “Danger Mouse,” The Times [U.K.] 30 Jul. 2002.
10) Leaf.
11) Christopher Anderegg et al., “A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation,” Medical Research Modernization Committee, 2002.
12) Kerri Smith, “The Human Guinea Pigs,” The Times [U.K.] 17 Dec. 2005.

PCRM recently found out that you really can “have it your way” at Burger King. The Miami-based company settled a lawsuit by agreeing to warn customers that its grilled chicken entrées contain PhIP, a cancer-causing compound. As part of its agreement with PCRM, Burger King has posted warning signs in its California restaurants.

PCRM filed suit against Burger King, along with McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Applebee’s, Outback Steakhouse, Chili’s Grill and Bar Restaurant, and T.G.I. Friday’s in January 2008 for knowingly exposing their customers to PhIP without warning them of its risks. The case was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court under Proposition 65, which was designed to protect the health and safety of California residents.

“Health-conscious Americans have long steered away from fried chicken, but they have no idea that grilled chicken may be as bad or worse,” said PCRM president Neal Barnard, M.D. “Burger King is doing the right thing by warning customers that its grilled chicken dishes contain dangerous carcinogens, and is a good example for the other restaurant chains to follow.”

PhIP is one of a group of carcinogenic compounds called heterocyclic amines that are produced when meats are cooked at high temperatures, as in grilling or barbecuing. Chicken products are by far the leading contributor of this chemical in the American diet, yet most consumers are unaware of its presence.

Studies show that PhIP exposure is linked to many cancers, including breast, colon, bladder, and prostate cancers. In 2005, the federal government officially added PhIP to its list of anticipated human carcinogens, and PhIP has been on the state of California’s list of chemicals known to cause cancer for more than a decade. Scientists have not found any level of PhIP consumption that is safe, meaning that any amount is believed to potentially increase cancer risk.

PCRM filed the suit after commissioning an independent laboratory in Washington state, Columbia Analytical Services, to test 100 grilled chicken samples purchased from chain locations throughout California. Every sample from every restaurant was found to contain PhIP.

The lab tested Burger King’s Tendergrill Chicken Sandwich. The company’s broiled chicken sandwich, the BK Broiler, had not yet been introduced.

Studies show that broiled chicken can also contain PhIP. But PhIP is not present in the BK Veggie Burger or the Veggie Whopper, Burger King’s meatless sandwiches, because PhIP forms only in animal protein.

Read more about PCRM’s PhIP study of grilled chicken entrées.

Walmart Sam’s Choice Brand Exceeds Legal Limits in California

WASHINGTON – Ten popular U.S. bottled water brands contain mixtures of 38 different pollutants, including bacteria, fertilizer, Tylenol and industrial chemicals, some at levels no better than tap water, according to laboratory tests recently conducted by Environmental Working Group (EWG).

Walmart‘s Sam’s Choice at several locations contained contaminants exceeding California’s bottled water quality standards and safety levels for carcinogens under the state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act. Giant Food’s Acadia brand consistently retained the high levels of cancer-causing chlorination byproducts found in the suburban Washington DC tap water from which it is made.

Overall, the test results strongly indicate that the purity of bottled water cannot be trusted.

“It’s buyer beware with bottle water,” said Jane Houlihan, Vice President for Research at EWG. “The bottled water industry promotes its products as pure and healthy, but our tests show that pollutants in some popular brands match the levels found in some of the nation’s most polluted big city tap water systems. Consumers can’t trust that what’s in the bottle is anything more than processed, pricey tap water.”

“For years the bottled water industry has marketed their product with the message that it is somehow safer or purer than tap water,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of the non-profit consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch. “This new report provides even more evidence that the purity of bottled water is nothing more than a myth propagated to trick consumers into paying thousands times more for a product than what it is actually worth.”

Laboratory tests conducted for EWG at one of the country’s leading water
quality laboratories found 38 contaminants in ten brands of bottled water purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in nine states and the District of Columbia. The pollutants identified include common urban wastewater pollutants like caffeine and pharmaceuticals, an array of cancer-causing byproducts from municipal tap water chlorination, heavy metals and minerals including arsenic and radioactive isotopes, fertilizer residue and a broad range of industrial chemicals. Four brands were also contaminated with bacteria.

Unlike tap water, where consumers are provided with test results every year, the bottled water industry does not disclose the results of any contaminant testing that it conducts. Instead, the industry hides behind the claim that bottled water is held to the same safety standards as tap water. But with promotional campaigns saturated with images of mountain springs, and prices 1,000 times the price of tap water, consumers are clearly led to believe that they are buying a product that has been purified to a level beyond the water that comes out of the garden hose.

Americans paid $12 billion to drink 9 billion gallons of bottled water last year alone. Yet, as EWG tests show, several bottled waters bore the chemical signature of standard municipal water treatment — a cocktail of fluoride, chlorine and other disinfectants whose proportions vary only slightly from plant to plant. In other words, some bottled water was chemically almost indistinguishable from tap water. The only striking difference: the price tag. The typical cost of a gallon of bottled water is $3.79 – 1,900 times the cost of a gallon of public tap water.

Unlike public water utilities, bottled water companies are not required to notify their customers of the presence of contaminants in the water, or, in most states, to tell their customers where the water comes from, how it is purified, and if it is spring water or merely bottled tap water. Given the industry’s refusal to make available data to support their claims of superiority, consumer confidence in the purity of bottled water is simply not justified.

The bottle water industry has also contributed to one of the biggest environmental problems facing the world today. Only one-fifth of the bottles produced by the industry are recycled. The remaining four-fifths pile up at landfills, litter our neighborhoods and foul our oceans. About halfway between Hawaii and California, an area twice the size of Texas is awash in millions of plastic water bottles and other indestructible garbage.

Read the Reports Executive Summary here.

Read entire report here.

Reprinted from the Environmental Working Group.