Food Babe

Many years back, at a rained-out fourth of July party, stuffed in a garage apartment with a bunch of people, I was talking to my friend Corey about an idea I had to investigate food additives and sources.

This must have been an idea for a newspaper column because the internet was (at the time) still in its infancy. Blogs hadn’t been invented yet, nor social media.

She thought about it for a moment and then foresaw how paralyzed a person would become, unable to make decisions about eating, unable to trust food and food sources, unable to relax and enjoy a meal.

Which got me thinking about the pressure on papers back then, needing advertising revenue to keep afloat, and needing to NOT offend the advertisers.

I didn’t pursue the idea.

Years later, I became aware of The Food Babe, Vani Hari, and was glad that someone had done this and was gaining a following.

This woman recently gained national attention when she spoke at a healthy foods round-table, which included Senator Ron Johnson and now-HHS secretary RFK, Jr., and other folks I’ve talked about on this blog, showing us the visible difference between the US formula for Froot Loops vs. the Canadian product.

Soon after, she led a group of protesters to the General Mills headquarters, where company officials refused to even come outside. She delivered a petition signed by thousands of people (including me), asking them to follow through on an old promise to remove dyes linked to ADHD and other behavioral issues.

Some General Mills employee even put a hand-written “Get Off My Lawn” sign in the window.

Her actions sparked change, and many people will benefit from it.

She is now part of the push to clean up infant formula. It’s so upsetting to find out that formulas often contain seed oils, corn syrup, and heavy metals. Are you kidding me?

I breastfed my kids, but I remember being admonished/warned by the pediatrician not to give my infant plain old water, or weak chamomile tea.

These were things that my mom and grandmother had given their babies (including me) in the heat of summer…. and we turned out fine!

Anyway, check out her website, sign up for her newsletter, or give her some likes or a follow on the socials.

It’s eye-opening!

https://foodbabe.com/

If you’ve got 4 hours of spring cleaning to do this weekend, listen to the entire round-table while you work:

Your Tax Dollars At Work

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/government-funded-social-network-attacking-pesticide-critics

I’m pretty bummed out after reading The Monsanto Papers and watching Into The Weeds. I found some links to dive even deeper into this sickening and upsetting content, because sometimes I just have to stare into the eye of Sauron, know what I mean?

So I found this interesting article from The Guardian, which more and more looks like the last source of true journalism left in the world…

Long Time, No Write

I’ve been traveling a bit, down to Florida, to see family and work on our old house. Along the way, I’ve been reading The Monsanto Papers by Carey Gilliam.

This is the story of the lawyers who took on Monsanto, the plaintiffs they represented, and many internal emails and documents from within Monsanto that were shared with the public in 2017.

There are parts of this book that made my mutated blood boil.

For example, this passage from page 243. This is text from the court testimony of Dewayne Johnson vs. Monsanto Company, showing internal an email from Dr. James Parry,  indicating not only that the company knew – in the 1990s – that glyphosate caused cancer, but that they knew to look for mutations of the lymphocytes.

They already knew which cell would be affected first.

Even though the plaintiff won his case, and even though more and more cases came to trial, and even though there was a flurry of publicity surrounding each one… glyphosate is still the most used herbicide on the planet.

It’s still used as a desiccant during harvests.

And it’s still in most foods you can buy in any American supermarket.

If you’d like to know more, there’s a film called Into The Weeds which shows scenes from the courtroom. You’ll get to know Dewayne Johnson and hear and see his heartbreaking story. The film can be streamed for $2.99 through Amazon.

Carey Gilliam has written a few other books on this topic, and there are some interesting interviews with her on YouTube.

https://www.intotheweedsimpact.com/

It will make you sick, literally and figuratively.

Budwig

Came across this recipe, which promises cancer-fighting properties. It was developed by Johanna Budwig, a German biochemist and pharmacist who developed a lacto-vegetarian cancer prevention diet in the 1950s.

Not gonna lie, flaxseed oil tastes pretty yucky. It literally tastes like you are eating oil paint. BUT it contains a lot of omega 3 fatty acids, which most of us are not getting enough of.

Mixing with cottage cheese somehow helps aid in the digestion of the flaxseed oil. It has a symbiotic effect.

She passed away in 2003, a few years before the discovery of resolvins and protectins:

Only recently has it been established that inflammation resolution is an active process with a distinct set of chemical mediators. Several clinical and epidemiological studies have identified beneficial effects of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) for a variety of inflammatory diseases, yet without mechanistic explanations for these beneficial effects. Resolvins and protectins are recently identified molecules that are generated from Omega-3 PUFA precursors and can orchestrate the timely resolution of inflammation in model systems.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2785519/

I do see this in relation to the seed oil info I posted earlier today. If modern man is living in an omega 3/ omega 6 imbalance, and we don’t know about it or understand the damage it is doing to us…. well, that’s a bad thing.

It’s interesting that Dr. Budwig’s daily regimen begins with sauerkraut juice…  the kombucha of 1800s Germany.

Then she blends together flax seed oil (very high in omega 3s) with a dairy product to help it be absorbed easily.

I think the science will catch up to her and what she was able to do… reportedly nurse cancer patients back to health with nutritional strategies.

The Dangers of Seed Oils

I have wanted to write about this for a while but I’m a bit out of my depth, and so I’ve put it off… but it is critically important and the little that I know has really changed my eating habits.

I recently came across this Instagram post by Dr. Mark Hyman, which sums it up nicely.

The Emperor of All Maladies

I’ve been reading this book for a few months now.

Since my job is somewhat reading-intensive, I usually opt out of reading on weeknights.

Since my job is also rather sedentary, I opt out of reading much on the weekends.

So, it’s taking a long time to get through it.

There are also some very heavy topics here, and sometimes I just have to rest.

The other day, I got a notice from the library saying that a book I had put on hold was now ready for me. It was this very book! I laughed a bit. Then I looked a little closer and saw that it was an audio book. Oh yeah! I forgot!

So this evening, I’m on my rebounder AND reading. 😊 📖

The Emperor of All Maladies is the history of our struggle against cancer… to recognize, categorize, and organize against it.

It’s the story of Sydney Farber and many doctors who came since, each with their own focus and theories.

It’s the story of men and women who attack the problem with enthusiasm and tenacity, who often meet with scorn and disapproval… until the evidence they find is too great to be ignored.

It’s the story of thinkers who become obsessed and push their research too far, are sometimes demoted or fired. But regardless, their research had a lasting impact.

It’s a story where trials have promising results, but turn out to be misleading due to bias, or fraud.

It’s a story of public communications, advertising, and fundraising.

It’s the story of those who experiment on themselves.

It’s a timeline of assumptions that are accepted for decades… and then proven false.

It’s a story where “anecdotal” evidence is laughed at, then studied, then blocked for decades from reaching the ears of the common man, who continues consuming the dangerous product.

It’s very long, and since it was published in 2010, it does not contain a lot of new research and therapies. But still, I highly recommend reading it.

Siddhartha Mukherjee, the doctor who wrote it, is very insightful and also a great writer.

I recommend Mukherjee’s book The Song of the Cell to anyone trying to get a handle on all the amazing activities carried out inside us. It is really fascinating stuff!

And also, I recommend this article (which comes with an audio option) on how sometimes the beginnings of cancer (oncogenesis) is caused by more than one factor: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/18/all-the-carcinogens-we-cannot-see

I’m 10 hours in, with 10 hours left to go! Yikes! 😳