The Dispatch - Home

TV: Dumb and Deadly?

2010-03-08T23:41:00Z

By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

In case you missed the special report on MSNBC courageously admitting that watching TV—including MSNBC—is, well, bad for you, I want to reopen the case, as it touches on many of my prior pieces. As a consumer advocate I have long taken issue with the products pushed on TV, as well as what the so-called Entertainment Industry (“The Industry” to insiders) has always referred to as a “product” as well, namely their programs. We literally “consume” what TV has to offer, and, if the sponsors have their way, which history shows to have been very much the case, we consume all the crap they are selling, both internally and externally, as well.

But now research into this insidious beast has uncovered whole new levels of peril. Starting with the least harmful first, people who watch TV tend not to talk to each other. Families sit in silence munching their Papa John’s and staring blankly at the screen. There is no interchange, no conversation (God forbid you should interrupt that cool Quiznos ad!), no wisdom is being shared, in short, no interaction or communication between the Watchers. And you know what that makes those who do such things on a daily, hourly basis? As my stepdaughter would say, “Borrrriiiinng.”

We are becoming a really bored, boring, predictable society. And according to Child Development Magazine, parents who watch TV don't communicate with their kids. And how do we raise and teach them if not by way of communication? We don't. Which leaves the TV in role of parent, and too often, teacher.

Next comes basic structure. If not in our lives, how about the body itself? According to the Journal of Pediatrics, watching TV weakens your bones. Literally, it makes you more and more spineless. It turns out that children store up extra bone for old age by normal exercise and activity while growing up. Unless, of course, they watch a lot of TV and are already couch potatoes. Osteoporosis is preventable at an early age, and also predictable. In a study of 214 children starting at age 3 covering 4 years (to age seven) it was discovered that no matter how much exercise they got outdoors or at school, the more TV they watched, the lower their bone density.

We who are parents have always suspected, possibly based on our own behavior growing up, that too much TV can promote promiscuity among teens. No kidding. Now it turns out it can literally get your girlfriend, or daughter, or somebody, pregnant. It's not just the sexy content of the shows—well, actually, yes it is. Again, according to Pediatrics Magazine, the more TV girls watch the more likely they are to get pregnant. In fact teenage girls who watch a lot of TV are twice as likely to get pregnant as those who don't. Which should settle once and for all the question as to whether watching TV actually influences our behavior. After all, corporate sponsors have been successfully betting on this outcome since TV was invented. And what the heck, there's probably an ad on there somewhere for a home pregnancy kit, just in case. Not for family planning or pregnancy prevention though.

Right alongside unwanted pregnancy, another no-brainer, comes the amazing discovery that getting drunk, especially for girls, can lead to such outcomes as unwanted pregnancies (not to mention date rape). Now the researchers for the journal of Alcohol and Alcoholism are discovering that TV literally gets you drunk. Especially for men, the more TV you watch the more likely you are to reach for another beer. Anybody who's ever watched a Super Bowl is probably a prime candidate for the evidence pool on this issue. Half the ads are for alcohol, and the other half for other stuff that can probably kill you as well, such as junk food and fast cars to drive home in after the game. But anyway, this should be of no surprise to anyone. TV pushes beer like crazy, especially for sports events.

And finally, the ultimate obvious conclusion and realization summing all of it up in one deadly discovery: according to the Journal of the American Heart Association, which has been studying this issue for decades, watching TV can literally kill you. A research study in Australia of 8,800 men and women over a period of six years found that every hour of TV watched per day increased your chances of dying by 11% from any cause, and compared to those who watched less than two hours a day, chronic TV viewers had a 46% greater likelihood of premature death from any cause, and an 80% greater chance of dying from cardiovascular disease. And what was scariest of all was that this fact stood up and held true even with people who were otherwise thin, exercised a lot, didn't smoke, didn't have high cholesterol, or high blood pressure, and ate healthy diets. But hey, that was in Australia, where everything is the opposite of us, right? So relax. And pass me the remote, would you? Oh, and another beer. Thanks for listening.

Sources:

Linda Carroll

MSNBC.com

Child Development Magazine

Journal of Pediatrics

Journal of the American Heart Association

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His newest book is “Inside the New China: an Ethnographic Memoir.” He can also be found at: www.geneayres.org.

It's All on the Label (Or is it?)

2010-03-02T00:06:00Z

By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

This week I feel the need to pass on a report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest about truth in advertising, or lack thereof. I previously wrote about the so-called “Smart Choice” food labels the big corporate processors are putting out, all in the name of further enhancing their bottom line (and probably your waistline). It gets worse.

What CSPI has done is to isolate a list of flat out lies now commonplace in corporate processed food labeling. I guess with so many friends in high places, they do this because they can, and that leaves it up to you and me to sort out the truth from the fiction.

For starters, there is the not-so-small matter of sugar content. We are a nation of sugar addicts, and small wonder, given the power those pushers have, from the lowliest congressman to the highest Supreme Court justice on their side, to help get sugar into everything from ketchup to cheese.

You all probably know by now the basic rule of thumb in food ingredients labeling: they are supposed to be listed in order of quantity, i.e. the most prevalent ingredient first, and on down the line. So what better way to deceive a diet-conscious consumer about how much sugar is actually in a product than to break basically the same chemical down into all it's various forms and components, and relabel them separately. Hence, your favorite “juice-flavored beverage” might contain all of the following: sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, fructose, and something called “white grape juice concentrate.” All of which are nothing but sugar. Then way down there, somewhere, maybe, if you're lucky, there might be a listing like “contains 5% real juice” (which, by the way, in its natural form is mostly sugar anyway), and here's my favorite: “not more than 1.5% natural flavoring.”

Which brings up deceptive labeling item #2: “Made with Real Fruit.” Yeah, right. Made with real fruit usually means simply that it contains fructose, which in itself is the absolutely most damaging and destructive version of sugar available, health-wise. And if there is any of that “natural flavoring,” it is usually mixed with, in high proportion, the much more commonly used chemical additive known as “artificial flavoring” (usually a petroleum byproduct, like food coloring).

Here's another common and popular fib: “Made with whole grains.” Sounds like health food, right? Sounds extra nutritious, and surely more wholesome than that dreaded bleached white flour we usually get for school lunches, packaged baked goods, and so on. Usually the main ingredient with this label will be unbleached white flour, or maybe “wheat” flour. Certainly unbleached is better than bleached. Eating bleach has never been proven to be a good idea, and the whole idea of bleaching flour just to look extra shiny white, like your doctor's coat or an office worker's shirt, is creepy. But as to the whole grains thing, “made with” means almost nothing. They might as well say “made with love” or “made with the best of good intentions,” or more truthfully, “made with maximum profitability as our bottom line.” If there is any real whole wheat flour (meaning the entire grain is ground up, which is actually the only healthy version, provided it's organic, and therefore not cheap) it is not very conducive to baking, and will therefore be a very small amount, in proportion to the more powdery white stuff. Note they will be listed separately, and the more whole, the less is in there.

Another thing they won't mention in regards to “whole grains” is that because whole wheat is so clunky to cook with, what with all that fiber and all ground up with it, they will most likely feel the need to add something called potassium bromate, a so-called “dough conditioner.” This stuff is lethal to the healthy function of minor body parts, such as the thyroid gland, already under assault from what's in our water supply.

Then there's the little item called “Serving Size.” Now that most Americans are supersized already, serving sizes are being redefined all over the place. Here's how it works with your typical 20-ounce bottle of soda. Note it will say it contains 2.5 servings, figuring 8 ounces per serving. Yeah, find me a soda drinker who only drinks 8 ounces. Be that as it may, when it claims to have 100 calories per serving, you're talking 250 per bottle, and in all likelihood, that's what's going to get consumed in one sitting.

Now, for today's miracle health supplement, Omega 3 fatty acids. This is the new health additive we all can't live without, because it's supposed to be actually good for our hearts. But the FDA allows a product to boast this ingredient on a label even if the product only contains 2 out of 3 of these acids, and is mixed with other ingredients like saturated fats and sugars that are more harmful than that itty bitty bit of Omega 2-out-of 3 in there can possibly hope to make up for. It's like ordering a chocolate sundae for your healthy lunch along with a carrot stick.

In the same sense, boasting “0 trans-fats” when you've got 23 grams of sugar and plenty of other kinds of fat is equally misleading, because no way is this stuff good for you.

Free range eggs (or chicken), this is a doozey. According to the beneficent FDA, “free range” simply means that a chicken gets five minutes of exercise outside their pen each day. Assuming they can crawl that far. It's like being in the penitentiary and being called a “free man” because you get to go to the gym an hour a week.

I could go on. But you're probably already depressed enough for one week. The sad truth is that healthy food is harder and harder, and more and more expensive to come by. And you're probably going to need your reading glasses, and a lot of time to absorb just what it is you're about to buy. And even then, you may get fooled again.

Good luck shopping. You'll need it.

Sources:

The Daily Green, 2/1/2010

Center for Science in the Public Interest

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His newest book is “Inside the New China: an Ethnographic Memoir.” He can also be found at: www.geneayres.org.

The Sweet Scent of Aluminum

2010-02-25T19:37:00Z

By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Let's face it. Nobody wants a body stinkin' up the place. My pre-pubescent daughter still thinks she'll smell like a flower forever just by being cute. No need for, say, showers, or clean socks. This will change, and soon. Meanwhile, we grownups who know better fall all over ourselves stocking up on deodorants, antiperspirants, foot powders, body powders, body washes, scented this, and perfumed that, all in an effort to defeat the forces of nature that my daughter hasn't yet wised up to.

Of course, all we really need is a little soap now and then, with the fewer other ingredients (such as scents and deodorants) the better, both cost-wise and health-wise.

So it should be of little surprise, you readers of my curmudgeonly dispatches, that there is yet another dangerous and toxic ingredient out there to avoid, if possible. It may be a natural element, and a common and very useful metal (in airplanes and cars) but really, really not good for your body. In fact, it has no place or positive purpose whatsoever in the human body, according to Joseph Mercola, M.D. It's called aluminum. Perhaps you've heard of it. It tends to be in the same places another toxic metal tends to turn up: mercury. And it's almost as dangerous.

Aluminum, unfortunately, is one of the most, if not the most common ingredient found in chemical antiperspirants, also known as “alum,” for short. This harmless-sounding ingredient, more properly “potassium aluminum sulfate,” is really, really bad for you. And it's the prime ingredient in those so-called natural crystal deodorant stones and sprays. In fact, it can make up to 25% of the content of some of those products. And for one thing, numerous studies are now linking this chemical to Alzheimer’s. So if you happen to be a Baby Boomer like me, you may well want to start worrying about that problem.

Back in 1988, a truck driver in the UK somehow managed to “accidentally” dump 20 tons of this stuff into a town's drinking water in Cornwall. Now, 22 years later, that town of Camelford has an inordinately high rate of a rare form of dementia, called “Early Onset Alzheimer’s,” which means you don't have to be a senior citizen to want to worry.

But that's not all.

Studies are now starting to link aluminum to several forms of cancer. A study in 2006 found that aluminum salts can mimic estrogen, which when artificially absorbed into the body can increase breast cancer risk. Animal studies have also found that aluminum can cause cancer. And given that antiperspirants tend to be used on your armpits, which happen to be rather close to the breast tissue, the risk of absorption and breast cancer becomes even higher. Even worse, underarm shaving, which often damages skin, allows for even more chemical absorption. A 2007 study in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry found aluminum deposits in the breast tissues of 17 women who'd undergone mastectomies. And this concentration was much higher in the tissue adjacent to the underarm area.

It should be noted that antiperspirants, in which alum is most commonly used, are different from plain old deodorants, which don't have this ingredient. And they work just fine. Enough said.

Sources:

Bubble and Bee, January 21, 1010

Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry

Mercola.com

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His newest book is “Inside the New China: an Ethnographic Memoir.” He can also be found at: www.geneayres.org.

Red Light, Green Light

2010-02-16T00:02:00Z

By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

As we listen to politicians and pundits knock ideas around (usually with a sledgehammer) about how to save money and cut costs—so long as rich people don't have to pay, earmarks are protected, the military industrial complex continues with profits as usual and nobody is inconvenienced—here are a few suggestions, courtesy of people who are actually working to find solutions to our increasingly daunting problems.

First off, energy consumption. God forbid anyone should have to surrender their Escalade in favor of a disgusting hybrid, let alone give up their giant off roading truck with fat tires, just because somebody thinks they should save energy. Screw that. We may as well try to figure out how many politicians it takes to screw in a light bulb (answers welcome). But speaking of screwing in light bulbs, did you know that up to 5% of energy consumption in many countries, and even more in most American cities is being expended on street lighting? It's those big mercury vapor lights that are sucking up electricity like an SUV sucks up, oh never mind. But the solution couldn't be more simple, and it's what many, if not most of us are already doing at home: using low energy (LED) light bulbs. This would reduce energy costs necessary for lighting by 60% or more, according to the EU. These lights last up to ten years and use a fraction of the energy: usually 50-60 watts for a streetlight. As a case in point, one small city alone, Ann Arbor, Michigan, has saved $100,000 per year just by switching to LED street lamps.

But it gets better. How about cleaning up your city streets and providing light at the same time? Sounds like a no-brainer, but as usual, nobody's thought of it until now. Enter New York designer Haneum Lee, who has invented a very trendy-looking (of course) combined trash can, generator, and street lamp which takes deposited garbage, composts it, turns it into electricity, which then lights up the street lamp. It's called the Gaon Street Light. Cool, or what? Now somebody has to figure out how to sort out the compostable organics from the plastic water bottles and McDonald’s throwaways. Good luck.

Speaking of plastic and energy costs, almost 5% of the petroleum we use goes into plastics production, according to the Petroleum Institute of America. But now comes another innovation that could not only reduce the need for oil, but also produce less toxic plastics. It’s a product developed by researcher Takuzo Aida in Japan called hydrogel, or “Smart Mud.” Great name. This stuff can be used for any product that requires molding, just like plastic, and contains no toxic materials or petroleum products. Exxon is gonna love that.

Or how about this: it sounds like Sci-fi, but how about jet fuel made from salt water? Way better then the perchlorates that they've been using for the last fifty years, which has poisoned most of the ground water in California, among other places. Plus, how cheap is salt water? Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory have now found ways to convert seawater into hydrocarbons that can be used to make kerosene-like jet fuel, at a fraction of the fiscal and environmental cost of current processes. Almost sounds too good to be true. No doubt whoever's profits are threatened by this (big oil?) will be quick to write some checks to Congress to put a stop to this one.

So how about growing crops without pesticides? That's what organic produce is all about, of course, but the big agribusinesses like Monsanto have no time for that. Still, now there are new methods that may prove cost effective for solving this problem as well. An Israeli scientist named Avi Klayman, son of a holocaust victim, has developed a type of fiber that produces nets so fine that can catch the pests themselves, and keep them away from crops. These nets were used to save the Israeli tomato crop from the white fly infestation of the 1980s, and amazingly, haven't caught on since. But newer fibers are now available to screen out even smaller pests, like thrips, using photosensitive technology.

The world already has, or is quickly developing solutions to all our problems, if we'll only just be willing to change some of our habits and apply them. But between inertia and certain people's addiction to the profitable status quo, sometimes change is hard to come by.

Sources:

Globalchange.com

Greeopolis.com

Newscientist.com

Natural News magazine

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His newest book is “Inside the New China: an Ethnographic Memoir.” He can also be found at: www.geneayres.org.

Valentine Daze

2010-02-09T00:13:00Z

Valentine Daze

By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

In case you somehow didn't notice, the next commercial holiday, better yet official Hallmark Holiday (there is actually an official list of Hallmark Holidays), is upon us. This means lots of new business opportunities for your local Rite Aid, Walmart, Albertsons, Dollar Tree, and of course Macy's, Nordstrom's, etc., in case they didn't manage to empty your bank accounts last official holiday, i.e. Christmas/Hanukah, Kwanza, New Year’s (let's see, that would be what, about a month ago?).

Nicely timed at approximately four months from that October sugar fest, Halloween, you can now go all out once more to shower your loved one with future cavities, obesity, diabetes, and yet more $3 meaningless cards. And for your convenience, those once-coveted Cadbury chocolates will now be brought to you by the people who make fake cheese.

My daughter, still new to the game (she's in sixth grade), brought home a list last week with all the names of her classmates she is now required to dearly love, so that she can go out and buy (or stay home and spend hours and use numerous art supplies making) thirty cards, one for each, because of course discrimination is no longer allowed, lest someone's feelings are hurt. I know, I know, back when you and I were in school, our feelings were hurt approximately every nine point five seconds either by a cutting comment from the teacher or the kid next to you's clenched fist. But never mind, these are more enlightened times.

Meaning that now our children are required to give Valentines to everyone, or else, and also come home with a basketful of unwanted instant fire starters and cavity makers from school, in lieu of, say, homework.

Not to be outdone by all those TV ads pushing yet more lingerie, perfumes, greeting cards, new cars, and chocolate (of course), my clever daughter has written up a Valentine's gift list of her own: items she has deemed appropriate for her Mom and I to provide as evidence of our annual love (for her, please note, not each other): new clothes, a dog, the latest vampire DVDs and books, the least of it. At least she didn't mention jewelry.

And here I always thought Valentine's day was something private between lovers, demonstrations of romance, perhaps in the candle-lit corner of a quiet restaurant, involving fine wine, good food, and sensual rewards to be rendered later. Not any more. Now it's almost as commercial as, well, Christmas, and you are expected to spend, spend, spend, to prove your love, and not only just to your loved ones, but all of your friends, acquaintances, classmates, erstwhile rivals, tormentors, service technicians, local businesses and shop clerks.

Historically (according to Wikipedia at least), there have been a bunch of St. Valentines over the centuries, with but one thing in common: all of them were martyred in unpleasant ways. The two for whom the holiday was originally named were Christian priests who were executed by the Romans around the 3rd century AD. Others came later to share the limelight, none of whom had anything whatsoever to do with love or romance, oddly enough.

The first connection between St. Valentine's Day and romance was attributed to Chaucer, but even that is in debate. In any case, the modern holiday with all the cards and candy was invented in 19th Century Victorian England, later emulated by an enterprising card maker in Massachusetts in 1847 named Esther Howland. Thanks, Esther.

Anyway, Sweet dreams.

And don’t forget to brush your teeth.

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His newest book is “Inside the New China: an Ethnographic Memoir.” He can also be found at: www.geneayres.org.

Coliform in your Coke?

2010-02-01T20:24:00Z

By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

We've all read and I have previously written some of the horror stories about what's happening to the rain forests being converted to beef ranches in our zeal to get yet more and bigger Big Macs packed onto our ever expanding waistlines and corporate bottom lines.

I've also written about a dozen good reasons not to drink soda, not that switching to bottled water is any any better (I've written about that as well). But here are about a billion more reasons not to drink soda—at least not at your favorite fast food emporium, especially if you can't resist all those unlimited refills and supersized cups they give you.

A recent study by scientists at Hollins University and published by the International Journal of Food Microbiology now reveals that 48% of the beverages dispensed contained fecal bacteria, including Coliform and E. coli (11%).

Better yet, these particular forms of bacteria are now antibiotic-resistant, again thanks to those big cattle ranches.

How, you might well be wondering, enroute to the nearest regurgitory repository, having just guzzled a gallon of this stuff, did all this crap, literally speaking, turn up in your soda?

Well, maybe it has something to do with all those sullen teens being forced to work for minimum wages in order to pay for that astronomical auto insurance. Not to mention those borderline homeless working in the sculleries of all those fast food emporiums, brimming with resentment as they give a rudimentary and resentfully minimum swipe on the floor with their filthy rags and mops in all those public restrooms they've been hired to “clean.”

Here's a question for the readers out there: how many of you actually wash your hands with soap and hot water after using a public restroom? And more to the point, how many of those sullen teens and resentful minimum wage workers have you seen scrubbing their hands with soap and hot water after using those facilities before hurrying back to the kitchen to fill your latest order of fries or clean the counters?

These are the same workers who are responsible for cleaning those soda machines, for connecting the hoses to the kegs, and other sanitation-challenged tasks. And they aren't doing such a great job, perhaps in part because they are not exactly highly motivated to do so, for $6 an hour, or whatever minimum wage they are getting, with no health insurance for when they themselves inevitably get sick.

The good news is that this stuff (which, by the way, is also in our drinking water, in legally limited quantities) rarely makes anybody very sick. Well, maybe a little. Do you feel queasy now? And maybe you did last time you had fast food. No one is really keeping track, unless people start to die in large numbers. Even then, the corporate lawyers will no doubt insist it's an un-provable coincidence.

Here's an idea: don't eat or drink any of this stuff. Ever. It will save your waistline, your intestinal linings, and bottom line. It might even help save the planet.

Sources:

International Journal of Food Microbiology

Tom Laskawy, of Grist.com

Treehugger.com

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His newest book is “Inside the New China: an Ethnographic Memoir.” He can also be found at: www.geneayres.org.

It's Enough to Turn a Vegan Green

2010-01-25T21:12:00Z

By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

I recently met a woman who was working on preparing a food show for so-called vegans. I used to think vegans were sci-fi characters—aliens from Planet Vega. Maybe I wasn't that far off, not to offend anyone. But like perhaps PETA people, vegans do tend, it seems, towards being ideologues. And to me, ideology and food are not a good mix. I hate being preached to when I'm trying to enjoy a good meal. Especially about the rights and wrongs as to whether or not hogs have feelings, or corn has a soul (I have checked, and it does not!). It gives me indigestion. No doubt hogs do have feelings (and I do not take a position on this issue, by the way), but so do starving children in Haiti, and you have to eat something, and God did make us omnivores, whatever you may think or believe. Or if God didn't do it, Mother Nature did, because biologically speaking, omnivores we are.

Anyway, getting back to the food show, I think she had a good idea, to a point. Why not offer cooking tips for vegetarians (the other, perhaps less ideological name for vegans)? After all, as she kept pointing out, there are lots of vegans, and apparently there are no such shows at present, even on the Food Channel. But here's the problem: Julia Child did not get a million viewers and avid fans by lecturing them about the evils of this ingredient or that, let alone its users. People watch cooking shows because they love food, all kinds of food, and don't want to be preached at. Vegetarians are usually such for a reason: they believe it is wrong to eat meat. So this ideal must at least be implied in having a show for vegans only. Not surprisingly, the woman I spoke to was not interested just in giving cooking tips to people who happened to be vegetarians, for whatever reason (and some are certainly idealists, but others have medical reasons). What she wanted to do was convert meat eaters. When I asked her how she planned to convince meat eaters that they should give up something they loved in favor of a more limited menu notorious for it's tastelessness without lecturing them on the evils (rightly or wrongly) of eating meat, she insisted she had no such agenda.

No doubt just like corporations have no agenda in buying and selling seats in Congress.

Again, I have no wish to inject myself into the pros and cons of vegans vs. carnivores, being a devout omnivore, except to say that I think it would be a grave mistake to assume that just because a food is a vegetable, it is in any way as a result better for either the environment, or for your health. And depending on your preferences, it may not even be any cheaper, or more economical.

Here's why:

About five years ago I was hired by WorldWatch Institute to research and write an article for their global environmental magazine WorldWatch, about the alarming increase in the contamination of common salad greens, including organically grown lettuce, with a single chemical, now almost unavoidable in ground water nationwide. This chemical comes from fifty years of dumping rocket fuel into the soil by defense contractors and military installations. The chemical is called perchlorate; it is as common as ditch water, and deadly. Unfortunately, the Defense Department was ratcheting up big time for it's growing war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had absolutely no interest in being criticized, let alone having its hands tied, by whining greenies like yours truly, or WorldWatch Institute. As a result, pretty much nothing was done about it. DOD actually got exempted from most, if not all environmental regulation during the Bush era, and nothing much has changed since that time.

Your salad, in all likelihood, still contains perchlorates. Which, among other things, can destroy the thyroid gland as well as damage the DNA in fetuses, and cause numerous kinds of cancer.

Which brings me to coal ash. You all may recall the huge disaster in Tennessee a couple of years back, when a giant holding pond of sludge from coal burning and mining burst its damn and flooded about half the state? Turns out this coal ash wasn't just coal ash. It also contained tons of mercury, arsenic, lead, and cadmium, among other toxic metals.

Needless to say, the government had a huge job on its hands: what to do with all that coal sludge that had spilled everywhere. Then some enterprising corporate contractors, with EPA collusion, came up with a brilliant idea: turn it into a synthetic form of gypsum, and sell it to farmers as a soil softener (think “stool softener,” and you're closer to the mark). This new so-called gypsum, or FDG (flu gas desulphurization gypsum) is supposed to be beneficial to farming. Well, maybe so. But all that mercury and lead, etc., it also contains (which the EPA insists is “insignificant,” without telling us just how much of this stuff would count as “significant” in our blood streams) may not be all that good for us consumers of all the produce these farms are producing (which, in fairness, also includes meat products).

Right now the government, along with the EPA, is trying to do a selling job on the public to embrace this new innovation in farm technology. Maybe next, they'll be having us eat dust? There won't be much else to offer, vegan or otherwise, if these trends are allowed to continue.

Sources:

King Jr., Neil and Rebecca Smith, “White House, EPA at Odds Over Coal-Waste Rules,” Wall Street Journal, 1/9/2010.

Mercola.com

“U.S. wants farmers to use coal waste on fields,” Associated Press, Washington Post, 12/23/2009.

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His newest book is “Inside the New China: an Ethnographic Memoir.” He can also be found at: www.geneayres.org.

Homeo What?

2010-01-19T23:03:00Z

By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

This being Martin Luther King Day, might be a good day to take a look back at history. From a consumer perspective, we have never been worse off than we are now, due to inequality and inequity in the marketplace, starting of course on Wall Street, following the course set by Madison Avenue, and ending uptown with the Big Banks. I'm not sure if Dr. King ever went to New York, but maybe he should have.

What he would have seen then, as now, was a mantra of greed overwhelming all other issues and attributes, human and otherwise. It was greed, of course, that led to slavery, and maintained it for four centuries. Who needs to work for a living if they can live the high life on somebody else's back? And religion should have put a stop to it, but that too fell to greed long before there were any colonies, including poor Haiti.

It is greed that dominates Congress today, and has handcuffed virtually every effort to bring justice, equity, and equality to the marketplace. It is greed that has prevented healthcare from becoming a service instead of an industry, ever since Teddy Roosevelt tried to clean it up. And of course, nobody has demonstrated more greed (arguably apart from the Big Banks) than Big Pharma.

So today I want to take a quick look back through history to see how it was that Big Pharma got so powerful, who their allies were to facilitate this takeover of health care from the humble visiting family doctor, who might stay the night in return for a meal to see you through your fever, to a huge corporation that demands exorbitant pay up front, or you can just die outside, thank you very much, and please, don't puke in the parking lot, or bleed on the carpet, or we'll send you a bill for that too.

Back in the early 1800s in Germany, a young physician named Samuel Hahnemann made a remarkable discovery that minute doses of a potential poison or pathogen could actually provide a cure. This, of course, became the basis for the work of Jonas Salk a century later, and the whole idea of immunization. But Hahnemann's discovery was much more basic and unlike vaccines, could actually cure a disease. The principal Hahnemann discovered became known as the Law of Similars, and led to a form of medicine that has stirred up nothing but rancor and rage ever since, because it basically puts apothecaries and their manufacturer mentors, i.e. today's Big Pharmaceuticals, out of business.

The principle of curing disease through the Law of Similars, i.e. introducing tiny, minute doses of what ails you (the “dog that bit you”) became known as “homeopathy,” and it was to stop homeopathy in it's tracks in the USA that led to the formation of the American Medical Association. Because even back in the early 1800s doctors recognized that medicines that were virtually cost-free, that a competent physician could make him or herself, and provide for almost no cost, was a huge threat to a burgeoning and hugely profitable industry, and had to be stopped in its tracks. Which, essentially it was.

Hahnemann was practically run out of Germany. And his successors were minimalized as cracks, and their products dismissed as snake oil, when sadly, exactly the opposite was true.

Ironically, even Big Pharma has been forced to apply this principle of the Law of Similars in their bestselling drug making and marketing, because they have been forced to acknowledge that it works (not publicly, of course, but in the back corporate boardrooms and laboratories). Why else would a drug that actually causes hyperactivity (Ritalin) serve to reduce it (not cure it, of course, which would be bad for business, and would require micro doses, i.e. homeopathic doses, that cost practically nothing)?

Thus, what the pharmaceutical and AMA backed medical industry has created, and promoted, instead of allowing what are called ultra diluted doses that can actually cure a disease (see the work of recent Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier for one example), the drug companies are simply marketing drugs that suppress symptoms. Always temporarily, thus forcing the patient to take more (hence more profits) with the ultimate and unfortunate side effect of creating new, even worse conditions. Which is why repeated application of cortisone cream to eczema can lead to asthma, and the suppression of arthritis pain can lead to heart disease, and why teenagers who take acne drugs sometimes develop suicidal depression. But hey, so what? Profits are up, and while some folks celebrate a man who gave his life for freedom, others, in Washington D.C., are celebrating their latest balance sheets, and writing checks to keep the Senate in their control.

Sources
Amy L. Lansky PhD
Impossiblecure.com
National Center for Homeopathy
Mercola.com

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.

Bionic Babies

2010-01-11T23:53:00Z

By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Here's a cuddly story for you recent and future child-bearers: your kid may be a crawling chemo lab. The Environmental Working Group, with whom I've worked in the past (on my 2003 story for Worldwatch about perchlorates in most of our salads), has now come up with a new study about where all these chemical products and byproducts have ended up over the past few decades:

Us.

And now, our kids. Starting as fetuses, as I alluded to last week.

Nine out of ten randomly selected infants in a California hospital tested for chemical pathogens were found to have BPA in their systems, courtesy of their plastic baby bottles and food containers. BPA is an endocrine disruptor that imitates or duplicates the body‘s natural hormones with sometimes very damaging results.

Out of 115 published animal studies, 81 percent showed there were significant effects from even low-level exposure to BPA. This extremely pervasive and common chemical first caught the attention of researchers after normal mice began to develop more and more genetic abnormalities. The chemical was getting into the water from water bottles that had been cleaned with a harsh detergent, causing BPA to leach out of the plastic. Further studies proved that even an extremely small dose of 20 parts per billion daily, for just five to seven days, was enough to produce negative effects.

Doctors are especially concerned about early-life exposure to BPA that can lead to chromosome defects in the developing fetus. This can cause spontaneous miscarriages and genetic damage to the infant before birth. Exposure to only 0.23 parts per billion of BPA is enough to disrupt the effect of estrogen in a baby's developing brain and spinal cord. But older children and adults are vulnerable as well. A study last year found this chemical can lead to heart disease, diabetes and liver problems in adults, and previous research has linked BPA to:

• Structural damage to the brain;
• Hyperactivity, increased aggressiveness, and impaired learning;
• Increased fat formation and risk of obesity;
• Altered immune function;
• Early puberty, stimulation of mammary gland development, disrupted reproductive cycles, and ovarian dysfunction;
• Changes in gender-specific behavior, and abnormal sexual behavior;
• Stimulation of prostate cancer cells;
• Increased prostate size, and decreased sperm production;
• Diabetes;
• Heart disease;
• Liver damage.

As it stands, BPA is one of the world's highest production-volume chemicals and is widely used in the production of:

• Plastic water bottles;
• Plastic gallon milk bottles;
• Plastic microwavable plates, ovenware, and utensils;
• Tooth sealants;
• Canned foods and soda cans (most have plastic lining in the cans);
• Baby toys, bottles, pacifiers, and sippy cups.

Since there are about 75,000 chemicals regularly manufactured and imported by U.S. industries, rather than compile an endless list of what you should avoid, it’s far easier to focus on what you should do to lead a healthy lifestyle with as minimal a chemical exposure as possible:

As much as possible, buy and eat organic produce and free-range, organic foods to reduce your exposure to pesticides and fertilizers.
Rather than eating conventional or farm-raised fish, which are often heavily contaminated with PCBs and mercury, supplement with a high-quality purified krill oil, or eat fish that is wild-caught and lab tested for purity.
Eat mostly raw, fresh foods, steering clear of processed, prepackaged foods of all kinds. This way you automatically avoid artificial food additives of all kinds, including dangerous artificial sweeteners, food coloring and MSG.
Store your food and beverages in glass rather than plastic, and avoid using plastic wrap and canned foods (which are often lined with BPA-containing liners).
Have your tap water tested and if contaminants are found, install an appropriate water filter on all your faucets (even those in your shower or bath).
Only use natural cleaning products in your home.
Switch over to natural brands of toiletries such as shampoo, toothpaste, antiperspirants and cosmetics. The Environmental Working Group has a great safety guide to help you find personal care products that are free of phthalates and other potentially dangerous chemicals.
Avoid using artificial air fresheners, dryer sheets, fabric softeners or other synthetic fragrances.
Replace your Teflon pots and pans with ceramic or glass cookware.
When redoing your home, look for “green,” toxin-free alternatives in lieu of regular paint and vinyl floor coverings.
Replace your vinyl shower curtain with a fabric curtain.

A prior study by EWG found that blood samples from newborns contained an average of 287 toxins, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides, and Teflon chemicals. Of the 287 chemicals EWG detected in umbilical cord blood, it’s known that:

• 180 cause cancer in humans or animals;
• 217 are toxic to your brain and nervous system;
• 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests.

Sources:
Environmental Working Group
Mercola.com

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.

Warming Up for the New Year

2010-01-08T22:25:00Z

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Last year I posted a dispatch that included a note that warming up your car in winter is not a good idea. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but it really makes a lot of sense. And since this misunderstood and overused practice has not abated in the interim (in fact it should not be done at all), the onset of winter once more warrants a reprisal.

The other day I was out with my wife enjoying our mild Seattle winter weather (the sun was actually shining and it was in the high 40s) when I noticed a neighbor—a young woman, as it happened—come out of her unit, walk to her car in the parking lot, start it up, and go back inside. I suppose her thinking was that she'd have a nice warm and cozy car to blow hot air up her skirt when she was good and ready to drive off to work or go shopping, or whatever. This is just the sort of thoughtlessness that has gotten the whole world in a heap of trouble the last century or so, especially the last decade or so of our “me first” and the heck with the rest of the world mindset.

For starters, there is the simple fact of pollution. To put it simply, car engines that are warming produce double the exhaust pollution of cars already on the road. According to one recent study from the UK, more than 2,150 tons of C02 are generated from cars warming up daily in that country alone. You multiply that by five for the population difference and that's more than 10,000 tons per day in the USA of unnecessary C02 added to our atmosphere.

And how much gas is wasted in this process? Well, for starters, you're talking about zero miles per gallon, compared to your usual rate. And that costs you personally, literally, every time you leave your engine running while going nowhere, not to mention putting an added burden on our already limited global supply of fossil (or any other kind of) fuel.

Here are some idling myths courtesy of the Consumer Energy Center:

Idling Myths

Myth #1: The engine should be warmed up several minutes before driving.
Reality: Idling is not an effective way to warm up your vehicle. The best way is to simply drive, while avoiding rapid acceleration and high speeds for 3-5 miles. Today’s engines need to idle only 30 seconds prior to driving—even in winter.

Myth #2: Idling is good for your engine.
Reality: Excessive idling can actually damage your engine components, including cylinders, spark plugs and exhaust systems. Fuel is only partially combusted when idling because the engine does not operate at peak temperature. This leads to the buildup of fuel residues on cylinder walls that can damage engine components and lower mileage.

Myth #3: Shutting down and restarting your car is hard on the engine, and uses more gas than if you leave it running.
Reality: Frequent restarting has little impact on your battery and the starter motor. Component wear caused by restarting the engine is estimated to add $10 per year to the cost of driving, money that will be recovered several times over in fuel savings from reduced idling. The bottom line: more than ten seconds of idling uses more fuel than restarting the engine.

More Idle Facts

Ten seconds of idling can use more fuel than turning off the engine and restarting it. If you are stopped for more than 10 seconds—except in traffic—turn off your engine.

Every 10 minutes of idling costs you at least 2/10 (0.2) of a gallon of gas, and up to about 7/10 (0.7) of a gallon for an 8-cylinder engine. Keep in mind that every gallon of gas you use produces about 19 pounds of carbon dioxide.

Excessive idling occurs at drive through windows, drive through bank deposits, and train crossings; while waiting for your kids to get out of school, running into the convenience store, and when picking up your friends for a night out on the town.

As to my neighbor, here's another sobering fact: were she (being of child-bearing age) pregnant, by leaving her car running and generating additional unnecessary pollution she is actually putting her fetus at additional risk before it is even born. A recent study from the Plosone Foundation found that air pollution can actually reprogram DNA in a developing fetus to make it much more susceptible to developing asthma later in life.

So please. Go out and turn off your engine until you're ready to go. You'll also increase the life of your transmission and differential, because a warm engine overloading a cold differential can be fatal to the car.

Put that in your coffee and stir it.

Sources: http://ecochildsplay.com/2009/01/12/lower-your-carbon-footprint-by-not-warming-up-your-car-this-winter/

http://www.sustainablehastings.org/uploads/Idlingbackmyths.pdf

http://www.plosone.org/home.action

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.

Home is Where the Heart Burns

2010-01-01T23:58:00Z

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

We all do it: overdo it. And if you haven't yet overdone it this year, you're overdue to do it. And if you haven't overdone it for Thanksgiving and Christmas, now's your last chance, what with New Years looming and all. Not that you need any prodding. The only notion more compelling than bidding a fond farewell a la “don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out” to the current year, is the eternal hope that maybe, just maybe, given yet another chance to get it right, we might finally do so. Hence all that optimism and all those silly pledges that so many of us make, those so-called “New Year's Vows” that are about as legitimate and valid as most people's, well, marriage vows.

Too late for World Peace this time around. Or even the end to the war(s), or the Great Recession. Peace on Earth? Dream on. Peace on Mars, maybe. And yet we still hope. And strive. And meanwhile, to get through the night, or at least New Year’s Eve, we overdo it. Too much of a good thing, we tell ourselves. So what? Moderation in all things should include moderation, right? Hell, that's my own credo. So we can and will look forward to one more year-end bender; one more extra slab of ham, or pie, or both; one more bottle of Merlot; one more argument with our conservative (or liberal) brethren; one more double dip of guacamole followed by chocolate chip; one more toast with somebody else's liqueur to celebrate whatever straw we're grasping for.

All of which will be followed, inevitably, by, you guessed it, the granddaddy of all heartburn, hangover, and headaches. Not to mention, as likely as not, heartache.

All of which leads me to my ever-so-rare, ever so parsimoniously dispensed recommendation for an actually good product. Actually, this one is so good, and so effective, and so versatile, and amazingly, so cheap, it gets my nod for Product of the Year. If not decade. If not millennium.

Ladies and gentlereaders, may I present the newest (no wait, it's 150 years old) um, bestest remedy to what ails you since, well, moonshine. It's called baking soda. AKA bicarbonate of soda, and it was first developed and marketed by a company that actually still exists, called Arm & Hammer, with a logo that looks suspiciously communistic, yet there you have it: Arm & Hammer Baking Soda. Possibly the best consumer product ever made.

Here's what you already know: it helps bake many of those delicious cakes you have been, or are about to overindulge in, this final holiday weekend to come. Just like you did last weekend. And Thanksgiving the month before. But what can be more redeeming than a product that, after giving you such enjoyment, helps you to recover from the inevitable consequences of your own misbehavior? Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was such a remedy for your (or my) economic miscues, fiscal abuses, and downright stupidity in terms of our investments in recent years? Well, actually there was one, if you were a banker or CEO. But the rest of us had to swallow our own medicine, it was bitter, and didn't even help us recover, only survive.

Unlike Arm & Hammer Baking Soda.

Which in addition to baking delicious cakes and curing (yes curing) your indigestion, will also clean your drain, flush your plumbing, and then flush and clean your kitchen and bathroom drain and plumbing as well. It also cures sunburn, for those of you who are bowl-bound, or beach-bound.

But wait! There's more. Now there's new evidence, or rather rediscovered old evidence, that it is a preventive and curative treatment for flu as well. And not just your common garden variety flu (well, actually, it helps with those too). According to a study by a prominent doctor named Volney S. Cheney, during the devastating post WWI flu epidemic ( later published by, well, the Arm & Hammer Company back in 1923), if doses of baking soda were taken prior to or shortly after exposure to a flu virus, you would either not catch it at all or recover quickly. Which means this stuff is also a miracle drug. According to Dr. Cheney, “Back in 1918 and 1919 while fighting the ‘Flu’ with the U. S. Public Health Service it was brought to my attention that rarely any one who had been thoroughly alkalinized with bicarbonate of soda contracted the disease, and those who did contract it, if alkalinized early, would invariably have mild attacks.” Cheney went on to note later on that it also worked to prevent or cure colds and common flu as well.

Here's the formula, according to its dosages for colds and influenza back in 1925, as prescribed by the Arm & Hammer Company:

Day 1: Take six doses of ½ teaspoon of baking soda in glass of cool water, at about two hour intervals. Then

Day 2: Take four doses of ½ teaspoon of baking soda in glass of cool water, at the same intervals Then on

Day 3: Take two doses of ½ teaspoon of baking soda in glass of cool water morning and evening, and thereafter ½ teaspoon in glass of cool water each morning until cold symptoms are gone

All of which will cost you about a nickel, at today's prices. And now, according to Joseph Mercola, MD, another prominent physician with openly holistic tendencies, this stuff works equally well to prevent, or mitigate the H1N1 virus, as well. Just don't tell Big Pharma. They are already plotting a takeover, and this stuff is way too cheap to cover those bonuses of theirs. So beware! And be well.

Sources:

Volney S. Cheney, MD (courtesy of Arm & Hammer archives ca. 1923) Dr. David B. Winter, DO Walter Bastedo, Materia Medica, Boston Medical Library Tullio Simonici, MD Mark Sircus, Ac OMD Joseph Mercola, MD, www.Mercola.com

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.

A Message from Your Christmas Curmudgeon

2009-12-21T16:14:00Z

By Gene Ayres

One of my longtime favorite movies is practically a cliche to even mention these days, but I still love it, if only because it's so quaint: It's a Wonderful Life. I don't know if any George Baileys actually exist anymore, if they ever did, but I am definitely familiar with the Mr. Potter archetype, because he seems to be manifested in our national psyche now as a role model. Case in point, the national Chambers of Commerce, most of the seats in the United States Congress (or at least in their handlers and bosses), and what passes these days for representative government.

Welcome to Pottersville. It's where we live now. (Oh, and Merry Holiday of Your Choice, secular or otherwise, according to your beliefs and local regulations). And when you do go out on the town, just leave your name at the door please, for future harassment, spam, mailbox flyers, telemarketers, warrants, and solicitations on your way out.

Now that the annual Holiday shopping frenzy is at its peak, have you spent all of your remaining discretionary income yet on stuff you never needed and were perfectly well off never having even heard of until bombarded for twelve minutes out of every half hour on what has to serve as your favorite TV show or radio program? If not, what's wrong with you? Never mind that chances are you, like me, are only watching this crap due to the fact that the TV shows or radio programs you really loved have ceased to exist for, I dunno, as long as George Bailey.

I used to watch cable TV during my workouts at my condo gym, until we had to cancel our service as a cost-cutting measure. I have to say that staring blankly into space and having to listen to my own thoughts for a change comes as a welcome relief. It was amazing the stuff they would sell, between sit-ups. Kitchen gizmos were always my favorite. I still can't believe I don't have closets stuffed with olive pit removers and pasta flatteners and quesadilla grillers. I mean, what kind of a consumer am I, not to order all of that stuff on the spot?

My wife, who is Chinese, has noted not without irony, that virtually everything you see out there in the way of useless consumer products you never needed and never will but feel compelled to buy anyway, is made in China. But it isn't the Chinese's fault we are buying all this crap. Nobody sent the Red Guard over to force you to order three SpongeBob Soakies for the price of one to wash your car in the middle of January for only $19.95, plus shipping and handling (I always loved that “handling” part. You have to actually pay somebody for “handling” your stuff before you buy it? Sort of like at the airport, I guess. They charge extra for that abuse too, these days). No, we buy all that useless crap with what's left of our money because we, um, are told to by Bob Uker types on local TV, and unlike the Chinese, it seems, we have become a nation of obedient slaves to rampant consumerism at any and all costs.

In China, people actually save their hard-earned Renminbin. How much have you managed to save in the past year or two, as opposed to investing it in, say, Popcorn poppers, or, God help us, Twitter tweeters or Barbie accessories? And who knows, maybe Blu-ray really is slightly better than DVD, but do you really need this just now when your mortgage is through the roof, your income through the floor, and your healthcare premium (if you're lucky enough to have one) just doubled, as mine did, and your job prospects are circling the drain?

Here's a radical idea: turn off your cable and cancel all those extra channels you pay $50 a month for and don't watch. Boycott Walmart. And Walgreens for that matter (do you really need all those extra prescriptions Congress can't wait to force you to buy, let alone over the counter sniffle suppressors that don't really work and never did? I didn't think so). Watch the Hallmark Channel if you must, then send an e-card to your friends instead and save a tree or two. I love those animated ones, and they're free (try Care2, and maybe even support a cause or two you actually care about). OK, I know, I know, even internet use burns a lot of carbon, but maybe less than a trip to your local mall. Especially if you're still driving a SUV. (I'm still looking for where in the Bible Jesus said we're supposed to do all this useless spending just to celebrate His alleged birthday.)

Then, were you actually relieved of the pressure to buy, buy, buy, and spend like there's no tomorrow (which given the outcome of Copenhagen15, may well be the case), maybe you can actually stay home, relax, heave a sigh of relief, put up your feet, knock back a hard-earned cup of eggnog (you can probably still afford at least most of those ingredients), and enjoy your Holiday without guilt. Plus, that way you can be sure to heat your home come January.

Cheers!

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.

Cellular Disorder

2009-12-14T23:30:00Z

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

I've mentioned before in previous dispatches that a lot of disturbing research is surfacing around the globe, indicating that cell phones may not be all that good for you. Or me. I know, I know, this comes under the category, particularly in this gift-seeking season, of sounding like, well, a curmudgeon. After all, cell phones are the greatest invention since, well, white bread. Or at least, since the PC, and we all love them to pieces.

For what that's worth, when Sir Walter Raleigh first showed up in the Queen's court from a sojourn to the Colonies with a boatload of New World produce, people at the time felt the same way about tobacco. Sometimes, the more we learn about something, the less appealing it might be. We're going through this painful transition as we speak with carbon-based energy and transportation vehicles. It's proving really hard (against huge deliberately placed obstacles legal and political worldwide) to make this change away from oil dependency to something that won't fry the planet, and we are resisting it with what might very well turn out to be every fiber of all our beings.

Cell phones are a bit more complicated. They are more like pesticides, in the sense that at first they seem really great for improving our lives and world, and only when we start slowly dieing of strange diseases and getting weird cancers and birth defects, do we start to give a second look to what we've been dumping into the air and water the past few generations. Or injecting into our food.

Cell phones are just so—cool. And they have all those cool widgets and apps, and the kids love 'em, and even Grandma loves 'em, or is starting to, because you can keep in constant touch, not to mention all that texting and tweeting and surfing and no one can drive to the end of their driveway any more without making at least two calls and a Tweet and putting another on hold. How did we ever live without them, up to a decade or so ago, when they so literally exploded onto the global scene?

Answer: a lot more peacefully, and less stressfully, in a lot of ways. Plus, with maybe a lot fewer traffic accidents as well.

The problem with cell phones—the biggest of many we just, literally don't want to hear about—isn't what they are doing to the bees, although that's certainly a worry as well. It's coming from the same source, though: what's called an Electromagnetic Field (EMF). This kind of field occurs naturally, of course, just like x-rays, and there's a very large EMF at this moment surrounding our planet. But our biology and evolution have taken this into account. Not so with cell phones and wireless technology. These energy fields have another name: microwaves. As in, those nifty little ovens we zap our junk food with. Would you stick one of those in your ear and turn it on? Maybe not if you thought about it. But that's exactly what you're doing every time you talk on a cell phone. Granted, these are smaller, lower in frequency, and don't produce a thermal effect, so we assume if they aren't cooking us on the spot they are safe. Not so. Now scientists and doctors alike are discovering these energy fields are related to numerous ailments, diseases, and disorders ranging from cancers, to immune system problems, cardiovascular diseases, sleep disorders, autism, learning disorders, metabolic problems, and fertility failures. In other words, these EMFs, which power all our burgeoning wireless technologies—in particular cell phones—are behaving in very similar ways to pesticides, which means their impact is not about chemistry or physics. It's about biology. Namely, our own.

Not surprisingly, despite what is now a body of evidence from literally thousands of medical studies turning up worldwide, industry “experts” and their government minions, as was the case with tobacco, oil, toxic chemicals, and the mining and coal industries, is a blatant campaign of misrepresentation to the effect that these products are safe and harmless. The top 20 cellular telephone companies have spent $2.3 billion in the last ten years just on lobbying in Congress and elsewhere, not even counting advertising expenditures.

In a word: they are not as safe as we are being told. And the truth that emerges in decades to come may be much worse than anything we can imagine at the moment. Medical experts are now predicting a worldwide epidemic of brain cancers and DNA damage yet to come to future generations. True, critics note that, as with other environmental issues, some people appear to be much more sensitive to EMFs than others. Just as with mercury fillings, allergens, MSG in food, and so on. You may chat ten hours a day on your wireless for the next thirty years and never be bothered at all. But the odds are now becoming measurably ominous that you might also stand an increasingly high chance of coming down with one of the above-mentioned afflictions. Are you really comfortable with taking that chance?

There are ways to mitigate these dangers, even now. Make fewer calls, for starters. It might even save you some money. Using a landline now and then, or a wired earphone is another way to reduce the impact. Maybe it's not cool. But then, neither are birth defects.

Happy Shopping.

Sources: Thomas M. Rau, MD, Medical Director, Paracelsus Clinic, Switzerland.

Dietrich Klinghardt, MD, PhD, Director, Klinghardt Academy of Neurobiology, Expert in the health consequences of electromagnetic fields and leading educator of physicians.

Henry Lai, PhD, Research Professor, Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington.

David Carpenter, MD, Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, Director, Institute for Health and the Environment, School of Public Health, University of Albany, SUNY Co-Editor, The BioInitiative Report (www.BioInitiative.org).

B. Blake Levitt, Award-winning science journalist and Author, Electromagnetic Fields: A Consumer’s Guide To The Issues And How To Protect Ourselves, Member of the Bioelectromagnetics Society.

Magda Havas, PhD, Associate Professor, Environment & Resource Studies, Trent University, Canada, Expert in radiofrequency radiation, electromagnetic fields, dirty electricity and ground current.

Robert A. F. Thurman, PhD, Jey Tsong Kappa Professor, Indo-Tibetan Studies Department of Religion, Columbia University President, Tibet House Author of Why The Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet and the World, and many others.

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.

More Good Reasons to Drink Red Wine! (Should you need any)

2009-12-08T00:25:00Z

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

The Holiday Season is upon us. And a lot of us use this as yet another good excuse to indulge, or perhaps overindulge, or, to apply my favorite maxim: moderation in all things. Including moderation.

For health reasons alone (and I feel so very righteous writing this!) I have one glass of wine every evening for dinner (OK, OK, sometimes two on weekends and, well, Holidays). The French have been doing this since they were, well, French, and they are way healthier than we are, even with all that horrible national health insurance they're stuck with.

The French eat the fattiest foods south of Nome, and are no worse for the wear. Their average cholesterol levels are about half ours, likewise heart disease, not to mention their average body fat. The reason why, as many of us (and all of them) have known for some time, is red wine. Researchers pondered this miracle for decades, this so called “French Paradox,” and finally isolated the cause of all this rampant good health: a naturally occurring (at least in red wine) chemical compound called “resveratrol” (I keep wanting to call it “reservatrol”). This substance is “a phytoalexin produced naturally by several plants when under attack by pathogens such as bacteria or fungi. Resveratrol has also been produced by chemical synthesis and is sold as a nutritional supplement derived primarily from Japanese knotweed. (Also) Resveratrol is found in the skin of red grapes and is a constituent of red wine, but apparently not in sufficient amounts to explain the French paradox. Experiments have shown that resveratrol treatment extended the life of fruit flies, nematode worms and short-lived fish but it did not increase the life span of mice.”

So says Wikipedia. But as usual, the French beg to differ, perhaps not being mice, and also as usual, seem to be enjoying themselves immensely in doing so.

Which brings me to this week's actual consumer-related subject, and latest justification for drinking red wine (or, in a pinch, white wine and taking a resveratrol capsule). I've been blogging about new ways to recycle consumer-generated waste recently, and just came across the best one yet: recycling winery waste, into hydrogen fuel, no less! According to MSNBC, a winery in Napa Valley (Oakville, CA) called, appropriately enough I suppose, the Napa Wine Company (makers of such boutique labels as Oakville, Napa, Blackbird, and Crocker and Starr), has found a way to recycle waste water from their grape processing plants through a refrigeration unit that actually feeds the waste matter to a colony of lurking microbes—those little devils—who chow down, chaw it up, and spit out hydrogen. At this stage it's just at the experimental level, but the winery expects, before long, to produce enough of their own hydrogen fuel to power the winery, as well as vineyard farming machinery. At the moment it's kind of a wash: the winery is mainly using the energy thus far produced to complete the wastewater treatment itself. But then this water, too, is recycled into the vineyards, thus eliminating the middleman (per that old beer joke, those of you old enough to remember it).

So, Happy Holidays. And relax a little, over a nice glass of Napa. It's good for your health, not to mention enjoyment. Before long it will also be good for the environment.

Cheers!

Sources:

Wikipedia.com

Winery waste makes fuel: Electricity, bacteria break organics in wastewater into hydrogen gas, Charles Q. Choi, msnbc.com, 11/3/09.

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.

Time to try the Store Brand

2009-11-24T22:43:00Z

By Colleen Rothe

One of my kids’ favorite breakfasts is frozen toaster waffles. They are particularly fond of the Kellogg’s brand. I make them eat the healthier variety of the product, although I still balk at its ingredients, but our little town’s grocery store hasn’t had the healthier choice. The teenager at the checkout just shrugged and said they didn’t get any in. I wasn’t too concerned about it; I found another brand, which was less expensive and I thought had a better taste. But my Eggo-eating brood was too curious to let the questions remain unanswered. Today, we found out why the store was lacking.

Kellogg Company posted on their website that there will be a nationwide shortage of its popular Eggo frozen waffles until the end of next summer. The company’s Atlanta plant was shut down due to a September storm that dumped historic amounts of rain in the area. Additionally, production lines at the company’s Tennessee plant are also closed for repairs.

“Oh No!” My daughter exclaimed. “No Waffles until summer?”

Whereas my more economically minded son said, “Man, we should have bought more last trip; we could sell it on eBay!”

More information from the Kellogg’s website said that the existing stock of Eggos will be distributed nationally based on stores’ sales histories of the waffles.

Apparently our local market isn’t high on that priority shipment list.

But I could have sworn in my afternoon trip to Costco before the stop at the local market, that I saw boxes and boxes of waffles – all Eggos. And there was no rush to purchase them at all, unlike when rumors of a rice shortage sparked not too long ago. I’m guessing their plants in San Jose, Calf. and Blue Anchor, N.J. are workin’ overtime and Costco is higher on the priority list.

Fans of Eggos lamented their scarcity on the waffle’s Facebook page, which has – get this – 400 members.

If you haven’t tried Van’s Waffles, or an alternate store brand, perhaps, you can go ahead and “Leggo your Eggo,” and probably save half the cost and get your taste buds back.