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Have we figured out what is causing honeybee colony collapse disorder?

Wednesday, Oct 13, 2010 | By: nutrition

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The New York Times recently reported on a new discovery in understanding the devastating phenomenon of bee colony collapse disorder (CCD). Apparently a cocktail of a rare fungus and a virus have been teaming up to decimate bee populations. From the article: A unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved…

Why the SOLE Food Movement is Failing

Tuesday, Oct 12, 2010 | By: nutrition

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friend of mine sent me an article from a publication called Zocalo that reviews American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields by Rowan Jacobsen. A good book but it only makes things harder I’m not going to review this title (you can read the one from the Zocalo here) nor am I going to…

Vitamin B3 Niacin (Niaspan) beats Zetia as Heart Medication

Monday, Oct 11, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Niacin, Vitamin B3 I know this information is already about a year out of date but I thought it might be worth republishing (as I just ran into this article and study this last weekend.) At the 2009 meeting of the American Heart Association, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed…

Obesity Rates in America Continue to Rise, Adenovirus May Play Role

Tuesday, Sep 21, 2010 | By: nutrition

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The latest examination of obesity rates by the CDC comes to some sobering conclusions about the state of public health in America. Their findings show a block of states, mostly concentrated in the South, now have obesity rates over 30%. Back in 1990, no states were over 20%, making the run-up in the last 20 years…

Neurophotonics Coming to a Human Being Near You

Monday, Sep 20, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Neurophotonics, up close Researchers at SMU are working with DARPA (the US hyper-advanced military research group that initially developed the internet) to create an artificial fiber optic signaling system that will directly interface with your body’s central nervous system. This technology, called neurophotonics, would allow bidirectional communication to and from the brain, giving amputees with prosthetic arms…

Food Safety Legislation S.510 Stalled by One Senator

Friday, Sep 17, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Ezra Klein’s excellent blog on the Washington Post website highlights a Politico story today about the status of the long awaited food safety legislation (s.510). It is currently being held up by one senator, Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma. Here is the latest: Coburn’s office confirmed to POLITICO on Tuesday that the Republican is objecting to moving forward…

Winds of Change: Antibiotics in Livestock

Thursday, Sep 16, 2010 | By: nutrition

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The New York Times has a really good piece on the coming rules regarding the amount of antibiotics that can be given to confinement livestock. Now, after decades of debate, the Food and Drug Administration appears poised to issue its strongest guidelines on animal antibiotics yet, intended to reduce what it calls a clear risk to…

Entering the Genetic Age: Enviropig and GMO animals

Wednesday, Sep 15, 2010 | By: nutrition

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The October 2010 edition of Popular Science landed in my mailbox today with a brief overview of the genetically modified Enviropig. I would give you a direct link but, for some reason, Popular Science does not publish its magazine articles online. It’s not that big of a deal because the article isn’t even good enough to carry…

Corn Sugar: HFCS by a different name?

Tuesday, Sep 14, 2010 | By: nutrition

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There was an article in the Cleveland daily today about The Corn Refiners Association, the lobbying arm of corn agribusiness, petitioning the FDA to rename high fructose corn syrup, ‘Corn Sugar’. From the article (emphasis mine): The bid to rename the sweetener by the Corn Refiners Association comes as Americans’ concerns about health and obesity have…

Nutrition Wonderland moving towards v2.0

Thursday, Sep 2, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Over the next couple months, I will be rolling out a new version of Nutrition Wonderland. This update is substantial and will significantly effect this site – for the better I hope. I have taken into account everyone’s suggestions on how to improve what I started here and think I have come up with an even…

Having trouble cutting down your salt intake? May be your genes.

Sunday, Jun 27, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Recently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services issued their new preliminary guidelines for improving the nation’s diet. The major recommendations haven’t changed since the last ones issued five years ago, and include limiting sugar, saturated fats, and salt. Many people find it somewhat easy to cut back on sugar and saturated…

Organic Food Isn’t For The Birds

Thursday, Jun 3, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Organic food sales have increased exponentially over the past decade, largely due to consumer perceptions of improved nutritional quality and taste. However, as I’ve explained before, there is scant scientific evidence that growing food organically improves its quality on either front. Since people have a wide array of intellectual biases, some scientists have decided to ask…

Understanding Our Bodies – Fiber!

Monday, May 24, 2010 | By: nutrition

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ost of us already know that we should be eating fiber – according to the Institute of Medicine, adults should be eating 20-35 grams of it per day. But why? What’s so important about fiber anyway? What does it do for us physiologically? And does it matter what kind of fiber we eat? I can hear…

Understanding Our Bodies: Insulin

Thursday, May 13, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Almost everyone has heard of Insulin. You probably know that people with type 1 diabetes need to inject themselves with insulin to survive, and must constantly monitor the amount of sugar they eat. But what do you really know about insulin? What is its purpose in the body, and why do we need it? How does…

When Cutting Calories Doesn’t Cut It

Wednesday, Apr 28, 2010 | By: nutrition

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The most common advice as to how to lose weight given my doctors to people that are overweight or obese is to cut calories. Reduced caloric intake has been lined to all kinds of health benefits, from extended life span to reduced risk of heart disease. But the primary goal of people who slice their…

Why Don’t We Just Eat Better?

Wednesday, Apr 21, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Why Don’t We Just Eat Better? It’s estimated that ninety-eight percent of attempts to lose weight fail. Ninety-eight percent. That’s a sobering statistic, especially in a country where sixty-seven percent of adults and almost twenty percent of children are overweight. It’s even more shocking to think that the secret to losing weight and getting healthier isn’t a secret…

Looking Deeper: Can Exercising 10 Minutes A Day Be Better Than 10 Hours?

Friday, Apr 2, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Once you start to understand the science behind a lot of diet, nutrition and health science publications, you realize that it’s rare for the recaps of science in the newspaper to accurately depict a scientist’s results or a study’s real-world implications. I’m not trying to take a shot at all health journalists – just a…

Book Review: The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson

Wednesday, Mar 24, 2010 | By: nutrition

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“Pain in the abdomen. Splitting Headache. Nausea and vomiting. Choking and couldn’t get their breath. Coughing up blood.” Phone calls like these broke the dawn of a fall day in the mill town of Donora, Pennsylvania back in October, 1948. Already two had died and another 18 were soon to follow. The death toll would…

The Protein Problem: Eating Healthy While Making The Least Ecological Impact

Wednesday, Mar 10, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Environmentally speaking, eating meat is an awful thing to do. Whether is beef, pork, chicken or fish, meat is costly to our natural world to produce. Forests must be plowed into fields for grazing, even more food must be grown to feed the beasts, which produce more agricultural waste and, by and large, it’s a…

Fructose in Disease – Great Video

Tuesday, Mar 2, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Who Owns Organic? The Organic Corporate Brand List v1.4

Friday, Feb 19, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Ever wonder who owns organic brands you see on the shelves in the grocery store? Better still – which of all these new organic brands belongs to whom? Well, it turns out you have come to the right place. This chart lays out the parent companies of each major organic label you are likely to…

GMOs: Does Regulation Ensure Safety?

Wednesday, Feb 17, 2010 | By: nutrition

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The public’s biggest concern when it comes to GMOs is their safety. There are a lot of misconceptions about genetic engineering. When pressed on science of GMOs, I have often heard people fear that the genetically modified material in the foods they are eating will somehow mutate their DNA too. While logically it sounds like…

Where are Africa’s Farming Superheroes? A Look at African Child Malnutrition

Monday, Feb 15, 2010 | By: nutrition

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My first article on Nutrition Wonderland focused on the food crisis in East and Sub Saharan Africa and how the use of better agro technology and programming could enhance regional food production, through programs like the Backpack Farm Initiative I’m involved with. As this series expands, I want to shift your perceptions of a food crisis away from…

Nutrition Wonderland Launches Mobile Site for iPhone, Pre and Droid

Friday, Feb 12, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Nutrition Wonderland fans – great news for those of you on the go and want to read our information. We have recently launched a completely new mobile site, optimized for touch-enabled devices like the iPhone, Palm Pre, Motorola Droid and Google Nexus One. The site’s new URL is….drum roll please: http://nutritionwonderland.com The mobile site works like…

GMOs: Frankenfood or Evolutionary Advance?

Wednesday, Feb 10, 2010 | By: nutrition

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While many GMOs are used for other purposes, the most talked about ones are those that end up on our plates. These are the Frankenfoods, the plants and animals being modified for human consumption. Why are crops and animals being modified? What GMOs are currently on the market? What new GMOs are being created? Good…

Genetically Modified Organisms: The Back Story

Tuesday, Feb 2, 2010 | By: nutrition

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The Publishing Journal Recently, a reinterpretation of an original Monsanto GMO study was published in the International Journal of Biological Studies which appeared to demonstrate that some aspect of Monsanto’s GMO corn – potentially just additional pesticides – was causing kidney problems in their reexamination of the data. This study was widely proclaimed to be the first…

Genetically Modified Foods – Jeffrey Smith

Tuesday, Feb 2, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Is Child Obesity the Parent’s Fault?

Thursday, Jan 14, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Childhood obesity is becoming a hot topic in health circles, even to the point of being called an epidemic. Experts estimate that 20% of children between the ages of 6 and 17 are overweight, predisposing them to terrible diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Why have the world’s children ballooned over the past hundred years? Ice…

Alzheimer’s Disease as Type 3 Diabetes – The Glucose Connection

Monday, Jan 11, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Glucose is the main energy source in all living cells, regardless if those cells are idly growing in a petri dish in a lab, in the leaf of your household plant, or one of the billions networked within the human body. In animals, cell get energy by directly eating foods with sugar, or by digesting…

California First State To Ban Trans Fats

Wednesday, Jan 6, 2010 | By: nutrition

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Effective January 1st, 2010, California became the first state to ban restaurants from using trans fats in restaurants. While similar bans have been enacted in New York City and a few other cities in the US, this is the first time that trans fats are being banned from an entire state. Schwarzenegger Acts... The legislation…

The Truth About Organic Farming

Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009 | By: nutrition

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When I reviewed FoodSmart, I made a quip about how organic food might not be as good for you as you might think. I promised I’d explain myself, so I am doing so. Just what does organic really mean? In the past year or two, certified organic sales have jumped around 30% to about $52 billion…

Deja Vu? FTC Sizes Up Food Marketing and Childhood Obesity

Friday, Dec 18, 2009 | By: nutrition

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The breath of the obesity epidemic being witnessed in the United States is troubling. Some states now show that over 30% of their respective populations are obese, with many of these metrics still growing. Worse, the epidemic’s fastest acceleration has been in its youngest demographic: children (although that may finally be slowing). FTC Sizing Up Conference…

Book Review: FoodSmart: Understanding Nutrition in the 21st Century

Monday, Dec 7, 2009 | By: nutrition

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FoodSmart Quickfacts FoodSmart: Understanding Nutrition in the 21st Century is a brand new book from award-winning author Diana Hunter that is designed to help navigate the complex world of nutrition. It explains basics like terminology and types of food with ease and, yet, is still able to present the various sides of much more complex topics…

Seafood Watch Super Green List

Thursday, Nov 19, 2009 | By: nutrition

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Tuna, swimming - thanks to Flickr user Canales Seafood is such an important part of a nutritionally sound diet that it cannot be overstated. Countless studies and articles on this site attest to that fact, almost daily. There is, however, grave concerns over mercury bioaccumulation pollution in big fish in tuna and shark, PCB contamination…

Making the Connection Between Sustainable Seafood and Nutrition

Wednesday, Nov 18, 2009 | By: nutrition

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You have a lot of choices as a consumer. Those choices alter the marketplace. You influence what kind of movies Hollywood produces when you stand in line to buy tickets, debating between an action thriller and a romantic comedy. You alter what ends up in department stores when you decide to buy a blue dress instead of…

Understanding Our Bodies: The Role of Antioxidants

Monday, Oct 26, 2009 | By: nutrition

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It seems like every day there’s a new super-food that is chock full of antioxidants and ready to cure everything from the flu to cancer. Antioxidants are touted as a nutritional panacea, but I would bet that few people really understand what antioxidants are, how they function in the body, and how including them in…

Food System 2.0: Can New Approaches Make Local Food Happen?

Friday, Oct 9, 2009 | By: nutrition

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What is the price of food? $3.99 for a gallon of milk? $0.99 for an energy bar? Complex market and policy forces make those prices. Its a process that starts far from the point of sale. Centralizing our food into fast food chains and supermarkets causes the farms that feed the system to scale up…

Does Sugar Make You Violent?

Tuesday, Oct 6, 2009 | By: nutrition

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If you read the nutrition science headlines, you might have seen these: “Giving in to pester power can make your child a thug” or “Daily sweets ‘linked to violence’“. They refer to a new paper that just came out which claims that eating sugary snacks every day as a child has an impact on your…

Nutrition Wonderland Travels to the Intermountain West

Monday, Oct 5, 2009 | By: nutrition

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Nutrition Wonderland marches eastward towards Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado after an incredibly interesting time in California learning about development + agriculture in Oxnard, food safety in Monterey, sustainable farming in Watsonville, and a few other stories we are still putting together. As we enter the intermountain west of Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, our topics shift a bit.…

Book Review: The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

Wednesday, Sep 30, 2009 | By: nutrition

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Book Review: The Botany Of Desire Quick Facts on The Botany of Desire When looking for books about nutrition and eating, it’s hard not to stumble up Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. But this is not a review of those books. While both interesting and worth the a read by anyone nutrition-conscious, it is…

Can Biodiversity and Agriculture Coexist? How Super Metrics Made Wildlife Enemy #1 on the Farm (Day 4)

Tuesday, Sep 29, 2009 | By: nutrition

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Think back to a time before agriculture existed. Hawks pounced on squirrels, coyotes chased field mice and bison roamed the Great Plains. Thousands of insects randomly pollinated umpteen numbers of plants, all scattered around having developed specific adaptations to their little hobbits. It wasn’t always a happy place – plenty of ruthless natural selection was…

Food Safety as a Marketing Tool: USDA Monterey Hearings on NLGMA (Day 3)

Friday, Sep 25, 2009 | By: nutrition

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Nutrition Wonderland is now up in Monterey, CA as part of our Tour of America and today we are attending the first of the USDA’s hearings on nationally adopting the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA). This new proposal, dubbed the NLGMA, would extend the existing agreement that covers California and Arizona across the entire nation – even extending into Canadian…

David vs. Goliath: A Maasai Warrior, Regional Food Crisis & Agricultural Innovation (The Backpack Farm Program)

Wednesday, Sep 23, 2009 | By: nutrition

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Welcome Rachel Zedeck of the Medea Group who explains to a Western Audience some of the problems going on in Eastern Africa, specifically how an inadequate agricultural system fails its own people. She puts forward a new solution – the Backpack Farm Program – and explains how it could help the people. Rachel will be regularly contributing her advice…

Farming on the Edge

Tuesday, Sep 22, 2009 | By: nutrition

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Is the Strawberry the Future of American Agriculture? (Day 1)

Tuesday, Sep 22, 2009 | By: nutrition

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Nutrition Wonderland’s first stop of the journey is an exceptionally beautiful place called Oxnard, California. It anchors a rapidly growing area but more importantly, it is the principal city in the Oxnard Plain – one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. Known as the Strawberry Capital of the World, Oxnard also grows…

Nutrition Wonderland’s Tour of America Begins in California

Monday, Sep 21, 2009 | By: nutrition

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Nutrition Wonderland’s 2009 Tour of America has begun! We are now in California, visiting with a host of organizations that are changing how agriculture and medicine are practiced. If you want to know more about our tour, check out an overview of our mission on this tour. See our stops in the interactive map below:…

When You Should Eat

Thursday, Sep 17, 2009 | By: nutrition

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More often than not, dieters focus exclusively on what’s going into their bodies. They cut out food groups, add food groups, count calories and create meal plans. But research has found out that while what you eat does matter, when you eat has a big impact, too. According to new research from Northwestern University published in the…

Plastic Troubles: Brominated Flame Retardants (PBDEs)

Thursday, Sep 3, 2009 | By: nutrition

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In general, we think of plastics as non-flammable. Sure, the pyromaniacs among us have put a lighter to picnic cutlery to see what happens, but for the most part we know they melt, not burn, and are not exactly the best source of tinder or firewood. But that’s not actually true. Almost all pure plastics are…

Plastic Troubles: Phthalates and Plasticizers

Monday, Aug 31, 2009 | By: nutrition

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Plastic is a buzzword lately but mostly for the wrong reasons. Medical studies have lined up against the ubiquitous substance and the seas have filled with the jetsam and flotsam of our plastic society. Yet, if there was one compound responsible for this situation more than any other, phthalates might just wear the crown. Chemistry…

Book Review: Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink

Wednesday, Aug 26, 2009 | By: nutrition

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pon searching for research for my last article about the social aspects of eating, I stumbled upon a book with a very intriguing title. It’s called “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think“, and is written by a nutritional scientist by the name of Brian Wansink. He studies the psychology of eating, and has…