Raw Rag™

Think about this: Review of "The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle over Food Rights"

From "Criminalizing Nature’s Most Perfect Food: FDA's war on private food contracts" (thepeoplesvoice.org):

In his latest book, The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle over Food Rights, David Gumpert details several cases of malicious prosecution against the natural dairy industry, reporting the myths, exaggerations and deceptions by authorities charged with protecting the food supply.

What you won’t get from the book is a whitewash of the raw milk movement. Even advocates were caught exaggerating claims or ignoring evidence. Gumpert also includes tender, heart-wrenching stories in the words of mothers whose children became critically ill from drinking contaminated raw milk, or so they believe. Though the link was never scientifically made in those cases, it was in others, including a raw milk herd share. Gumpert bridges compassion for those mothers with compassion for dairy owners who are financially wiped out by the government’s strategic war on private food arrangements.

From the cases explored in the book, and from recent government actions and statements, it becomes clear that food safety authorities are using their power to destroy competition of drugged, genetically engineered, factory processed foods.

For years, writers and researchers have shown how regulatory agencies have been captured by industry. President Obama exemplifies this in his Food Policy picks, recruiting directly from biotech firms like Monsanto and lobbying groups like CropLife America. His Supreme Court pick, Elena Kagan, in her capacity as Solicitor General, intervened on behalf of Monsanto in the first case to reach the US Supreme Court regarding genetically engineered food.

In the potent Foreword to the book, farmer Joel Salatin admits:

“People like me don’t trust Monsanto. We don’t trust the Food and Drug Administration. We don’t trust the Department of Agriculture. We don’t trust Tyson. And we don’t think it’s safe to be dependent on food that sits for a month in the belly of a Chinese merchant marine vessel.”

And the outcome?

“When the public no longer trusts its public servants, people begin taking charge of their own health and welfare. And that is exactly what is drving the local heritage food movement.”

Click to read the rest of the article. Click to read Gumpert's blog.

Eating Berries May Activate the Brain's Natural Housekeeper for Healthy Aging

 
News release (Newswise):

Scientists today reported the first evidence that eating blueberries, strawberries, and acai berries may help the aging brain stay healthy in a crucial but previously unrecognized way. Their study, presented at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), concluded that berries, and possibly walnuts, activate the brain’s natural “housekeeper” mechanism, which cleans up and recycles toxic proteins linked to age-related memory loss and other mental decline.

Shibu Poulose, Ph.D., who presented the report, said previous research suggested that one factor involved in aging is a steady decline in the body’s ability to protect itself against inflammation and oxidative damage. This leaves people vulnerable to degenerative brain diseases, heart disease, cancer, and other age-related disorders.

“The good news is that natural compounds called polyphenolics found in fruits, vegetables and nuts have an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect that may protect against age-associated decline,” said Poulose, who is with the U. S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging in Boston. Poulose did the research with James Joseph, Ph.D., who died June 1. Joseph, who headed the laboratory, pioneered research on the role of antioxidants in fruits and nuts in preventing age-related cognitive decline.

Their past studies, for instance, showed that old laboratory rats fed for two months on diets containing 2 percent high-antioxidant strawberry, blueberry, or blackberry extract showed a reversal of age-related deficits in nerve function and behavior that involves learning and remembering.

In the new research, Poulose and Joseph focused on another reason why

Videos of the winners of the Hot Raw Chef contest (and my recent whereabouts near the Pacific Ocean)

Click to watch all the Hot Raw Chef winners making their raw food recipes. Especially the delicious-looking Chocolate Jalapeno Poppers!

I have not been blogging as much due to a trip to University of California at Santa Barbara for the Learning and the Brain Institute. Being out of town in a conference setting can be quite a raw-food challenge; more about that soon. In the meanwhile, here are some video clips from Santa Barbara. See the clips that begin at the bottom of the first page of this YouTube playlist.

Kinda the opposite of raw food cuisine: Are you going to eat this or forge raw-food pathways in your brain?

Sometimes I run into a dish that is the extreme antithesis of the way I am now eating. This burger may take the cake (pun intended). From "Fat and calorie bombs: Every state has worst-for-you foods" (USA Today):

In Georgia, you can get what's called a Luther Burger, supposedly named after singer Luther Vandross. It's a ground beef patty topped with bacon and cheese, sandwiched between two Krispy Kreme doughnuts instead of a bun.

Let me read that again. With each reading, it gets worse.

A confession: In the last 23 days since I have been on this lifestyle, there have been times when I could have eaten a Luther Burger, even yearned for one. But those cravings are becoming few and far between.

Why? As I modify my eating habits, I am also changing my brain. I will explain the neuroscience of change in the next day or two.  Watch here at Raw Rag™ for the details of how you can remold your brain on purpose (think of your brain as Play-Doh), and thus create new habits. In the meanwhile, here is a short interview of me about brain changing: Golden Moments of Choice: Staying in old ruts or forging new pathways.

Image credit: USA Today.

Note (added June 30, 2010): Click to see photos of "The 50 Fattiest Foods in the States" (Health.com).