Environment: Printing Green

In the most recent issue of my newsletter, herbalYODA Says!, I mentioned that I have changed to Century Gothic font because it uses less ink when you print.  I also mentioned the use of GreenPrint, a service that helps save ink and paper.
Now it seems this idea is taking up steam with an article in the CBS MoneyWatch newsletter today.

Five Ways to Cut Costs in 2011

And in this article about saving on printing costs then mention that WWF has started promoting a way to not print at all using pdf files.

Why not make this one of the first savings changes you make in 2011...

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Posted in: environment,GreenPrint,pdf,WWF

Another Reason Fast Food Makes You Sick & Fat

Fluoride in fast food wrappers - Exploring Indirect Sources of Human Exposure to Perfluoroalkyl Carboxylates (PFCAs): Evaluating Uptake, Elimination and Biotransformation of Polyfluoroalkyl Phosphate Esters (PAPs) in the Rat"

FAST-FOOD WRAPPERS ARE A SOURCE OF TOXIC CHEMICALS"
It now appears that dangerous chemicals line the wrappers of fast food.
PAPs (polyfluoroalkyl phosphate esters) are used as non-stick agents on the inside of fast-food wrappers, which are now found to make their way into the food contents. Once consumed they are metabolized into PFCAs (perfluorinated carboxylic acids) - dangerous chemicals which can cause cancer.
Scientists at Toronto Uni, Ontario, say the wrappers could be a major, and totally unexpected, source of these chemicals. They've found high concentrations of PFCAs in a number of popular fast foods.
The chemicals are used to make paper resistant to grease and include some burger and fries wrappers.
Until now scientists had assumed that the high concentrations of PFCAs found in most people's bodies came from such things as the fluoride used in non-stick cookware and stain-repellent furnishings etc.

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Posted in: cancer,environment,fast food,fluoride,obesity,PFCA

Environmental Effects and Your Health

It has been decades that I've been promoting what just recently so many report as anti-cancer Superfoods.  The same goes for all the education I have done since the late 90s on EMF and cell phone-cordless phone-wifi impact.
As far as food goes, I encourage berries as a top food; the reason being the presence of proanthocyanidins (cyanide compounds from seeds).  Garlic of course is exceptional as we now know brassicas and fiber to be.

We now have a new high ORAC value berry compound in capsules or liquid

from Aronia (chokecherry), about 3 times more beneficial than blueberries.

The first and most important point is that most cancer is not born but made. By that I mean, that only one in ten cases of cancer comes about because you have inherited a defective gene by your mother or father.  Nine out of ten cases of breast cancer, colon cancer and even more for brain cancer arise because of something that happens to you after you’re born. Source

1) Tomatoes - Lycopene in tomatoes protects against cervical, ovarian and prostate cancers. Tomato products like sauce, paste and ketchup are even better sources due to their concentrations.
2) Berries - The vivid colors of blueberries, raspberries and blackberries come from antioxidants called anthocyanins, which fight a variety of cancers. Frozen berries are available year round-try them in smoothies or in cereal.
3) Spinach - One of the most nutritious leafy greens, the lutein and vitamin E in spinach fight liver, ovarian, colon, and prostate cancers.
5) Garlic - Italians and want-to-be Italians, rejoice! Garlic fights stomach, esophageal, and breast cancers. To get the most benefits, chop just before cooking.
6) Apples - This affordable, delicious, year-round fruit has plenty of antioxidants and vitamins, but it also boasts quercetin, a plant chemical, which may lower lung cancer risk and slow the growth of prostate cancer cells.
7) Pumpkin, butternut squash, carrots, sweet potatoes - As long as it's orange, take your pick! These sweet, fiber-rich vegetables are excellent sources of beta carotene, which may protect the DNA in your cells.
8) Beans - fiber source   Expanded list

Another Anti-Cancer Food

following article sourced from SciAM

Alpha-carotene from veggies linked to longer life

By Katherine Harmon  | Thursday, December 30, 2010

Need another reason to eat your greens (and yellows and oranges) as part of a healthful diet in the New Year? A large U.S. study has found that adults with higher concentrations of serum alpha-carotene in their blood were likely to live longer than those who had lower levels.

Research around carotenoids (phytochemicals that also include beta-carotene, lycopene and others) has yielded mixed results. Cheering of beta-carotene's purported disease-fighting abilities quieted down after years of studies failed to show that supplements reduced risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease or type-2 diabetes (all diseases linked to free-radical damage, which antioxidants, such as carotenoids, are thought to help neutralize).

Nevertheless, increased consumption of fruits and vegetables (which are often high in carotenoids) continue to be linked to a longer, healthier life, often regardless of other lifestyle factors. So researchers are now busy chasing down other components of these foods.

The recent alpha-carotene research is one such study. It assessed the blood levels of serum alpha-carotene in 15,318 U.S. adults and followed up over an average of 13.9 years to see which of the participants had died as of December 31, 2006.

After controlling for demographic, health and lifestyle factors, the researchers "found that serum alpha-carotene concentration was inversely associated with adjusted risk of death," according to their study, led by Chaoyang Li, of the Office of Surveillance, Epidemiology and Laboratory Services at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Women tended to have slightly higher concentrations of the nutrient than men (5.31 microgram per deciliter versus 4.22).

The team found an especially strong correlation between higher alpha-carotene levels and lower risk of death from diabetes, upper respiratory tract and upper digestive tract cancers, as well as lower respiratory disease.

The findings are slated to be published next year in the March 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine and are now available online. A handful of previous, smaller studies of alpha-carotene had mixed results, and the researchers cautioned that the levels of alpha-carotene, rather than having a direct affect on disease prevention themselves might instead "act as an indicator of multiple interactive forces."

Unlike beta-carotene, alpha-carotene is not often found in multivitamins or other common dietary supplements, which suggests that most of the quantities found in people's blood comes from food (primarily yellow-orange and dark green veggies, including broccoli, carrots, collards, green beans, lettuce, peas, pumpkin, spinach, sweet potatoes and winter squash). And a previous case-control study found that eating more of these sorts of alpha-carotene-rich veggies led to a decreased risk of lung cancer.

"These findings support increasing fruit and vegetable consumption as a means of preventing premature death," the researchers noted. So go ahead and raise those carrots high.

Carrot recipes from Jaime Oliver

CARROTS BOILED WITH ORANGE, GARLIC AND HERBS
Boil the carrots in salted boiling water with a tablespoon of sugar, a knob of butter and a little handful of fragrant fresh herbs, tied up. Parsley, rosemary, thyme, bay – use just one or a mixture. Cut an orange into eighths and add them to the water, along with a few whole garlic cloves in their skins. If you really want to be a little tiger, add a pinch of cumin as well (seeds or ground) – it subtly cuts through with the most wonderful flavor. As soon as the carrots are cooked, drain them, discard the herbs and all but one of the orange pieces, squeeze the garlic out of its skin, chop the remaining orange piece finely and toss with the carrots, some seasoning and a little more butter. The flavor will be incredible. Another idea is to fry the chopped-up orange in a good tablespoon of sugar, so it almost jammifies, and serve this on top of the carrots. These two flavours together are one of the coolest things.

ROASTED CARROTS WITH ORANGE, GARLIC AND THYME
Or – just as easy – as soon as you drain the carrots you can throw them into a baking pan with the chopped-up orange and the garlic cloves and roast them at 400°F for 10 minutes – this will give you a slightly meatier flavor.

MASHED CARROTS
Or simply mash the carrots up with the orange and garlic, so you have some coarse and some smooth. Lovely.

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Posted in: cancer,Devra Davis,environment,foods for preventing cancer

Safer Cleaning in FLU Season

With the flu season in North America ramping up the FDA wants you to know they are protecting your health by registering 500+ products for antimicrobial cleaning.  The majority are toxic, concocted with such health promoting ingredients as butyl cellusolve.

Antimicrobial Products Registered for Use Against the H1N1 Flu and Other Influenza A Viruses on Hard Surfaces

http://www.epa.gov/oppad001/influenza-disinfectants.html

There are certainly better and safer ways to clean and kill viruses.  My old standby is a combination of eucalyptus and sweet orange essential oil made into a spray solution.

See another longtime environmental favorite here

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Posted in: cleaning,environment,FDA,flu,Green Living,leaflady.org,virus

Corn and Dead Zones in the Gulf

While you get a lot or reporting on the BP spill, how about lack of coverage on the impact of the corn based ethanol dead zone in the gulf?

And has anyone bothered to ask how all the GMO corn and soy beans will effect the biochemistry of the Gulf waters as well as marine life or land life?

This isn't too different than the cover-up you never hear about in Idaho's Silver Valley at the nation's largest Superfund site.

Excerpt from Dead Zone in Gulf Linked to Ethanol Production
by Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Corn is biggest culprit

The gulf dead zone is the second-largest in the world, after one in the Baltic Sea. Scientists say the biggest culprit is industrial-scale corn production. Corn growers are heavy users of both nitrogen and pesticides. Vast monocultures of corn and soybeans, both subsidized by the federal government, have displaced diversified farms and grasslands throughout the Mississippi Basin.

"The subsidies are driving farmers toward more corn," said Gene Turner, a zoologist at Louisiana State University. "More nitrate comes off corn fields than it does off of any other crop by far. And nitrogen is driving the formation of the dead zone."

The dead zone, he said, is "a symptom of the homogenization of the landscape. We just have a few crops on what used to have all kinds of different vegetation."

In 2007, Congress passed a renewable fuels standard that requires ethanol production to triple in the next 12 years. The Department of Agriculture has just rolled out a plan to meet that goal, including building ethanol refineries in every state. The Environmental Protection Agency will decide soon whether to increase the amount of ethanol in gasoline blends from 10 percent to 15 percent.

A 2008 National Research Council report warned of a "considerable" increase in damage to the gulf if ethanol production is increased.

Pet cause of Congress

Read complete article http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/06/MNF91E84SL.DTL

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Posted in: Carolyn Lochhead,Congress pet cause,Corn,dead zone,environment,ethanol,Gulf of Mexico,oil cleanup,oil spill,SF Chronicle,Silver Valley

Oil Spill and Your Health

Oil spill may endanger human health

Listen to today's episode of herbalYODA Says! LIVE on environmental effects and your health

See also: new at Natural Notes 

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Posted in: environment,environmental health,Healthy Options,herbalYODA Says LIVE,Natural Notes on Health,oil spill

Fertility and the Environment

D. Mail 19.4.10
"MOTHERS-TO-BE 'CAN HARM SON'S FERTILITY' "
A man's fertility can depend on his mother's lifestyle. A large-scale review of factors affecting sperm production found that how a woman looks after herself in pregnancy could have a major effect on her unborn baby's ability to father a child in adulthood. Smoking & exposure to pesticides & traffic pollution do more harm in the first weeks of life than in the adult body, according to Richard Sharpe, one of UKs leading reproductive biologists. This could be because exposure to toxins in the womb cuts the number of sertoli cells, highly specialised cells needed to 'nurse' young sperm through to maturity during a man's life. With as many as 1 in 5 men having a low sperm count & UK couples spending almost £2billion a year at IVF clinics, it underlines the importance of a woman doing the best for her baby during pregnancy. A study of the after-effects of a major chemical leak from an Italian factory found males who were in the womb at the time grew up to have lower than expected sperm counts. The professor's research concluded that chemicals in food, cosmetics & cleaning products are to blame for some of the birth defects in baby boys' genitals & raise the risk of testicular cancer in later life. Dr. Allan Pacey, a Sheffied Uni expert in male fertility said this highlights the importance of women not exposing their baby to harmful chemicals during pregnancy. He said that men can damage their sperm production & would-be-fathers should limit their exposure to things that damage sperm production, such as recreation & prescription drugs.

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Posted in: environment,fertility

Sustainable Textiles: Target and Bamboo

Econundrum: Bamboozled by Bamboo?

— By Kiera Butler

Mon November 9, 2009

When I needed new sheets last year, I didn't dream big: High thread counts are well outside my price range. So imagine my delight when I found bamboo sheets at my local Target. So soft! So cheap! And so sustainable: Bamboo is kind of an eco wonder crop, since it grows fast, absorbs more CO2 than most trees, and requires few pesticides. It’s also biodegradable and even naturally antimicrobial. I skedaddled out of Target in record time (phew), congratulated myself on this smart buy, and celebrated with a nap.

But last month, I had a rude awakening: I learned that my sheets are probably not as dreamy as Target claimed. Turns out most soft fabrics labeled bamboo are actually rayon, a synthetic fabric that can be made from the cellulose of any plant. In October, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that a company called, pricelessly, Bamboosa was not allowed to pass its bamboo-based rayon products off as "100 percent bamboo"—or claim they had bamboo's ecobenefits. The reason: Once you turn bamboo into rayon, it loses its biodegradable and antimicrobial properties. Bamboosa has changed its label to "viscose derived from bamboo." Cozy, huh?

My sheets aren't as bad as some of the cheapo synthetics out there. Since rayon is derived from plants, it's less carbon-intensive than fabrics made from petroleum (polyester, nylon, and acrylic, to name a few). But the chemical processes used to manufacture rayon can be awfully gnarly. Truly sustainable fabrics are hard to come by: Organic cotton is popular among ecodesigners, and while its water footprint is smaller than its conventional counterpart's, it's still not tiny. In general, determining a fabric's environmental impact requires a little homework. Organic Clothing blog has a great ecoclothing glossary.

The bottom line: Don't let fabric manufacturers pull the wool over your eyes: "Made from bamboo" often means rayon derived from bamboo, which isn't as sustainable as pure bamboo fibers.

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Posted in: bamboo,bamboo sheets,bed linens,environment,faulty advertising,Target

Cancer: A Nutritional and Environmental Dis-Ease

This last sentence from the following story tells it all.

"One theory is that the change in caloric intake beefs up cell repair mechanisms against destructive agents called free radicals."

Since 1962 we have been told that cancer is a nutritional disease. Now we have the added and cumulative effect of environment, including vaccines. Even veterinarians are relating cancer in companion animals to the vaccines.

The use of the term "free radicals" also tells you that there is a very real reason why sound nutrition and vitamins are helpful in the process of recovering from cancer.

Articles like this make me wonder if any of the so called researchers know what they are doing, or even what they are saying.

If I look at just one cancer drug, 5 FU, a fluoride based long used chemo drug, I find that it depletes these nutrients -

NB:Limited test tube research occasionally does support the idea that an antioxidant can interfere with oxidative damage to cancer cells. However, most scientific research does not support this supposition.

Antioxidants*

Multiple nutrients* (malabsorption)
Taurine* reduces the likelihood and/or severity of a potential side effect caused by the medication.
Beta-carotene* (mouth sores)
Chamomile* (mouth sores)
Eleuthero* (Eleuthero (Eleutherococcus senticosus)
Russian research has looked at using eleuthero with chemotherapy. One study of patients with melanoma found that chemotherapy was less toxic when eleuthero was given simultaneously. Similarly, women with inoperable breast cancer given eleuthero were reported to tolerate more chemotherapy.45 Eleuthero treatment was also associated with improved immune function in women with breast cancer treated with chemotherapy and radiation.)
Ginger* (nausea)
Glutamine* (mouth sores)(intestinal toxicity)
Melatonin
N-acetyl cysteine* (NAC)
Probiotics (Lactobacillus GG)
Spleen peptide extract* (see text)
Thymus peptides* (see text)
Vitamin B6
Vitamin E*, topical (mouth sores)(also prevents hair loss)
Milk thistle*
PSK* (Coriolus versicolor)- The mushroom Coriolus versicolor contains an immune-stimulating substance called polysaccharide krestin, or PSK. PSK has been shown in several studies to help cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. One study involved women with estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer. PSK combined with chemotherapy significantly prolonged survival time compared with chemotherapy alone. Another study followed women with breast cancer who were given chemotherapy with or without PSK. The PSK-plus-chemotherapy group had a 25% better chance of survival after ten years compared with those taking chemotherapy without PSK. Another study investigated people who had surgically removed colon cancer. They were given chemotherapy with or without PSK. Those given PSK had a longer disease-free period and longer survival time. Three grams of PSK were taken orally each day in these studies.)

New clue on why cancer spread is linked to diet Mar 11, 2009
PARIS (AFP) – Investigators on Wednesday said there could be a clue to explain why dietary restriction succeeds or fails in braking the growth of cancer.

Scientists spotted a century ago the link between calorie intake and the progression of certain kinds of tumour.

But how this works at the molecular level has been unclear. In addition, tumours may remain puzzlingly immune to fasting among some individuals but not among others, which is partly why the practice has not been incorporated into cancer treatment.

Nada Kalaany and David Sabatini of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) looked at the impact of food curbs on six types of human cancers that had been grafted onto mice which had been genetically modified to lack immune resistance.

The mice were then split into two groups, with one batch able to tuck into a standard rodent diet for two to three weeks. The others received daily meals that amounted to a 40 percent reduction in calories compared to their counterparts, which led to a fall of between 20 and 30 percent in body weight.

The researchers conclude that tumours' sensitivity to fasting depends on a key pathway -- activation of an enzyme called phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase, also called PI3K, which plays an important role in the proliferation of cancer cells.

If the PI3K pathway is closed, tumours respond to dietary restriction, and vice versa.

The study is important because it helps drug designers who are working hard on prototype treatments that mimic the effects of dietary curbs on cancer.

As several cancer types carry mutations that could cause the PI3K mechanism to open up, the paper suggests that the approach will not work in certain cases.

The paper is published by the British-based journal Nature.

Previous research on lab rodents suggests that a calorie decrease of 10 to 50 percent leads to a reduction in the incidence of certain cancers and brakes the speed at which they spread.

One theory is that the change in caloric intake beefs up cell repair mechanisms against destructive agents called free radicals.

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Posted in: 2009,American Cancer Society,environment,natural health news,nutrition

Green Living: Making Your Own Non-Toxic Cleaners

Back in 1991 I started teaching a series of classes under the broad heading of "Green Living". The classes came as the result of the naturally oriented column I was writing at that time and some local presentations in and around the Puget Sound region.

Probably one of my most popular classes from that time is one where I talk about all the ingredients in mass market cleaners and why they are not health promoting.

During this program I teach how to clean just about anything you can imagine with a select few ingredients, bought cheaply at the supermarket or in bulk if you know where to access these in your local area.

Of course now the big producers of mass market cleaners are flooding the market with their brands hoping you'll keep up their $10 billion market share. While these products aren't totally toxic, under the guise of green they still include some known irritants and toxins.

Generally most people aren't as interested as I am in reading the chemical index, a standard resource for the cleaning products and HABA crowd. You can find this in the library and you'd really be amazed and what you find. You can also look up things under MSDS (material safety data sheet) system.

The problem is that while single items may be "approved" the mixtures resulting from adding two or more ingredients together are not required to be tested for health or environmental risks.

Back at that time we prepared one of our Healthy Handouts© on the topic of making your own cleaning products. This might be something you'd like to purchase as it seems that you can save - on the average - over $400 a year doing some very simple things along these lines.

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Posted in: cleaners,environment,Green Living,health,health news,making safe cleaners,natural,natural health news,natural news,non-toxic,non-toxic cleaners,safe cleaners