How did our food get so bad? Ironically, the catastrophic decline in food quality began more than 200 years ago with breathtaking improvement. The Industrial Revolution, which would transform the lives of billions, was really a series of smaller, mutually reinforcing revolutions: The industrial energy revolution, the industrial transportation revolution, the industrial chemicals revolution, and [...]
In our last post, we defined industrial food in detail, and told you how it has created the health crisis. Industrial food is obviously unsustainable. Following current trends, the United States will be bankrupt by healthcare costs, and will be unable to find enough young people fit enough to join the military in just a [...]
A new study appears to have concluded that the universal staple of Latin America, beans and rice, are a mixed bag, health-wise. The beans, they concluded, are excellent for human health. The rice? Not so much. Harvard researchers, studying a population in Costa Rica, found that by reducing the rice and increasing the beans, the [...]
Your mother told you that “germs are bad.” The germ theory of disease says that we get sick when pathogenic microorganisms invade and infect our bodies. Your best bet is to wash your hands and avoid sick people — at least that’s what we were told. In recent years, we’ve learned a lot more about [...]
The standard villain in any discussion of the global health crisis is the so-call “Western diet.” The meaty, sugary, refined-grain and processed-food heavy diet is blamed for the unprecedented growth of obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and all the rest. “Western” is convenient shorthand. Unfortunately, it’s also intellectually dishonest, lazy and inaccurate. The “West” refers generally [...]
The makers of an upcoming documentary called Wine From Here have posted a trailer for the movie. The documentary is about the burgeoning natural wine movement in California, which is a post-industrial process for making wine without the long list of chemicals, additives and processes used by industrial wine makers. Most natural wine makers use [...]
Tart cherries have a unique combination of powerful antioxidants that may help reduce inflammation http://bit.ly/hJOYvv Strange but true: the brain is shaped by bacteria in the digestive tract http://bit.ly/hj1FWY Type 2 diabetes may be an autoimmune disease http://lat.ms/hbmfMW YMCA survey: 74% of US kids don’t get minimum exercise; 74% of parents choose TV for family [...]
Good bread is one of the healthiest foods you can eat. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to find. Your town’s fanciest bakery doesn’t have it. Even your local hippy coop or yuppie grocery store probably doesn’t offer truly good bread. (Don’t worry: We’re going to tell you were to get great bread at the end of [...]
The huge range of harmless and beneficial microbes that live in our guts may be the key to health without antibiotics. http://bit.ly/fk2WOD Why the United States has the highest rates of cancer in the world (TEDtalk video) http://bit.ly/i1dOrr How optimal fitness has changed the life of one 46-year-old http://bit.ly/g8YQH9 Add anorexia to the growing list [...]
Study finds most plastics overload you with female sex hormones: http://bit.ly/ihnicv PCBs, found in plastics, may impair fertility http://bit.ly/fYOFG8 Canadians have roughly half the toxic BPA in their systems as Americans. http://bit.ly/eVsl9F Chemical in plastic shown to degrade the mental development of newborn girls. http://bit.ly/ija2MD Five common chemicals in cosmetics, how they affect you and [...]