Food for thought

Iodine is essential to a proper functioning thyroid and preventing hypothyroidism. But as we grow older, our thyroid starts slowing down. It just can’t metabolize the iodine it needs as efficiently, and that means the hormone produced (also known as thyroid) goes down as well. Iodine is a mineral, but one that’s not abundant in the food we eat. Primarily found in very small quantities in seawater, soils are naturally deficient in iodine, especially the further away you get from the ocean. Iodine is also fairly easily displaced from your body by toxins called toxic halides… fluoride, bromine and chloride. Fluoride is by far the worst culprit. Found in toothpaste and in your water supply, every time you take a shower, brush your teeth or drink from the tap, your body gets a little exposure to fluoride, leeching out good iodine. And contrary to popular belief, fluoridated water is actually rather poor at preventing tooth decay. Why is it in our water supply? Poor science combined with c...

From Guest Blogger Peter from Australia The risk of death from sudden cardiac arrest in women can be lowered by 92 percent through lifestyle maintenance alone. Here is a short podcast/article that directly relates what this blog is all about. You can ignore the advice of eating a plant based, starch based diet and continue down the road to disease, pain, and a shortened, prescription pills filled life, or you can heed the advice offered by so many doctors in the know. Is the unhealthy food and drink you ascribe to worth shortening your life? The choice is yours. http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=womens-study-exercise-good-diet-and-11-07-05 I am willing to bet that the same above guidelines apply to both men and women.

I am a school assembly performer. I travel across the U.S. performing programs on healthy lifestyle. Years ago somewhere in Kansas, it appeared to me as on a drive-in movie theatre screen: A cow's milk is for its calf, not a person. A cow's milk is intended for its baby, not a human. No wonder dairy products promote diseases in humans- cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes II, autoimmune diseases ie Crohn's Disease, obesity, high cholesterol, arthritis, osteoporosis, and more. Please see this very informative video to hear it straight from John McDougall, MD: After you've arrived at the link, scroll all the way down the page 4/5 of the way to see: FREE 4. Marketing Milk and Disease http://www.drmcdougall.com/store_electures.html A mother cow's milk is calve's food. A mother cow's milk is intended to provide its baby cow with the nutrients it needs. A calf's nutrient requirements are different than a human's nutrient requirements. They...

From guest blogger Peter There are many misconceptions about a meatless diet. One of them is you need protein from animals for a rigorous athletic training regimen. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304314404576414124184873028.html

Quote from John Robbins, founder of Earthsave Here is his thought provoking video: http://www.vegsource.com/news/2011/07/john-robbins-why-meals-for-health-is-important-video.html Scroll down for the video.

Picture is taken from Diamond Head, Hawaii From Guest Blogger Peter On "Vitamins/Supplements", "Everything in moderation", "The Protein myth", "The Calcium Myth", "Omega 3s", "Grilling foods", etc. (From the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii) If only EVERYBODY would watch this video. There would be much less disease and suffering. From the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INbMToQCFHg

By Greg Kaler I congratulate the 33 New York legislators who passed the Gay Marriage bill (against 29 nay-sayers), making it now 6 states who have legalized gay marriage! 6 down, a lot to go. New York, the nation's third most populous state, will join Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C., in allowing same-sex couples to wed. One happy gay person said: "I am spellbound. I'm so exhausted and so proud that the New York state Senate finally stood on the right side of history". My response: I am so happy for you and the millions who are like you! Yayyyyyyy! One unhappy person: Amid Friday's celebration, New York Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan and bishops around the state released a statement condemning the passage of the law by the Legislature, saying they were "deeply disappointed and troubled." My response: I am deeply disappointed in you and your dinosaur, bigoted view. I am troubled that there are so many peop...

The picture above is a one inch long, recently discovered pygmy seahorse. Click on the pic to enlarge. State Of The Ocean: 'Shocking' Report Warns Of Mass Extinction From Current Rate Of Marine Distress By Travis Donovan, Huffington Post If the current actions contributing to a multifaceted degradation of the world's oceans aren't curbed, a mass extinction unlike anything human history has ever seen is coming, an expert panel of scientists warns in an alarming new report. The preliminary report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) is the result of the first-ever interdisciplinary international workshop examining the combined impact of all of the stressors currently affecting the oceans, including pollution, warming, acidification, overfishing and hypoxia. “The findings are shocking," Dr. Alex Rogers, IPSO's scientific director, said in a statement released by the group. "This is a very serious situation demanding unequivocal ac...

By Greg Kaler While still making the foundation of our diet plant foods, my wife and I have gone back to occasionally eating free range ground turkey and wild caught fish. Doctor Joel Fuhrman's stance on 2-3 small servings of animal foods a week did affect our decision: http://greg-foodforthought.blogspot.com/2011/05/to-live-in-most-health-pro-opting-way.html , however I have myself to blame first- my weak mind going back to unhealthy, addictive habits that I've had most of my life. Ideally, for the best health I should not be eating any food from animals. That said... Before going back to turkey and fish I had been a vegan for two years- no animal foods whatsoever. Besides no meat, I was used to no junk foods at all, very low processed sugar, very low added salt. My tastes buds were and are very healthy, very sensitive to the sweetness and wonderful flavors of plant foods. Fruits and vegetables of course are very colorful. When we now cook ground turkey patties, we put only a ...

http://www.vegsource.com/news/2011/06/study-vegetarian-diets-healthier-in-every-way-than-diets-with-meat.html

Click on this picture to enlarge. Rioters burn police cars after the Vancouver Canucks were defeated by the Boston Bruins in the NHL's Stanley Cup Final in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Wednesday June 15, 2011. Angry, drunken revelers ran wild Wednesday night after the Vancouver Canucks' 4-0 loss to Boston in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals, setting cars and garbage cans ablaze, smashing windows, showering giant TV screens with beer bottles and dancing atop overturned vehicles. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said. "It's absolutely disgraceful and shameful and by no means represents the city of Vancouver.... What's happened tonight is despicable."

(Click on each picture to enlarge.) From Joshua Wold, artist, vegan From Julieanna Hever, RD/www.PlantBasedDietician.com: From Neal Bernard, MD/Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: From Joel Fuhrman, MD/drfuhrman.com:

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the government agency responsible for the health of Americans, has recently enacted two national nutrition policies that limit the consumption of starchy grains and starchy vegetables, two traditional food groups that have provided the bulk of human diets for all of recordable history. The first policy will radically change the diets of school children. In the January 2011 report School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children, the USDA Committee on Nutrition Standards for National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs recommended a reduction in starchy vegetables, such as white potatoes and corn, to one cup (total) per school week. Children, however, are encouraged to eat turkey sausages, egg patties, cheese omelets, chicken quesadillas, beef eggrolls, hot dogs, hamburgers, pepperoni pizza, roast beef, deli ham, chocolate milk, and margarine. The second policy prevents needy families from getting financial assistance to buy potatoes...

I was fortunate to view this movie today. It is only available to view for free through June 20, 2011. If you are not able to view it, buy the DVD. It is UNBELIEVABLE what our corrupt Food and Drug Administration has done/is doing! Should medicine be all about MONEY, or HELPING PEOPLE!!! Scroll down for the video. http://www.vegsource.com/news/2011/06/unbelievable-story-of-fda-corruption---full-documentary-online-thru-monday.html

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

(This is EXCELLENT!! Greg) By Walter Jacobson, MD June 8, 2011 A few months ago I read the book, “Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program For Conquering Disease” by Joel Fuhrman, M.D., which led to my decision to engage in a 7-day water only fast. If I were to pick one passage in the book which inspired me to do a fast it would be this one: “The innate wisdom of the body is such that, while fasting, it will consume for its sustenance superfluous tissues, carefully conserving vital tissues and organs. The body’s wondrous ability to autolyze (or self-digest) and destroy needless tissue such as fat, tumors, blood vessel plaque, and other nonessential and diseased tissues, while conserving essential tissues, gives the fast the ability to restore physiologic youth to the system.” That was my motivation. Take a break from food and put my body into a fasting mode whereby it would spare protein and, instead, gobble up fat cells, cancer cells, diseased cells and atheroscleroti...

What I like about the new "Plate": The first thing my eyes were drawn to when I saw the new "Food Pyramid", or "Plate" from the USDA was the LARGE " Vegetables " portion in bright green - which really makes it stand out! This instantly made me very happy!, plus the Fruits , so at least half the "Plate" is filled with what it's suppose to be filled with. I also like the fact that there's no word "meat"! And I like the fact that there's only a SMALL icon for dairy and that it is OFF THE PLATE- giving the impression that it is only AN OPTION. That's the way I take it anyway. I like the fact that the word "protein" at least can infer a protein source be other than animal food, like beans (legumes)/soy, etc. What I don't like about the new "Plate": 1) The size of the protein icon IS TOO LARGE! There is a myth we need all this protein. Excess protein, especially animal protein taxes your kidn...

The following is taken directly from the Conclusions chapter of Joel Fuhrman, MD's book Eat For Health, found on pages 167-170. (This is a questions and answers part of the chapter, as a reader writes:) Question: Through the four phases of this book, you have been reducing the intake of animal products until they are only consumed two or three times a week. Would a total vegetarian (vegan) diet be better for one's long term health than one that includes these few animal servings per week? Dr. Fuhrman: "There is no clear scientific data that indicates a total vegetarian or vegan diet would be more life span promoting than one with two or three servings of animal products per week. The available research on the issue shows there is no clear answer, but a large amount of evidence supports the idea that there is not a large difference among diets that get zero to 15% of their calories from animal products, as long as the diet is otherwise micronutrient rich. (Plant foods have ...

This entry is for those who are overweight and sincere about wanting to achieve their ideal body weight. Here’s your chance for the healthiest and most natural method to lose weight. Why listen to me? Well, you're really not listening "to me". I'm just the messenger- a reporter. The following information comes directly from the best nutrition experts in the world- medical doctors basing their findings on science. The books that this information comes from are listed at the end of this entry. Let's get serious. If you are overweight , you are playing with fire with your life. You are forcing your heart to work harder. Your extra weight is hard on your bones, muscles, and organs. Any extra weight you carry on your body, the more chance to develop disease- cancer, heart disease, diabetes II, and others. With your unhealthy lifestyle you may be shortening your life. If you’re not already, you may need to someday take expensive medication. Keep in mind taking medicati...

... is part of an exact quote from Dr. John McDougall in this 9 minute video on how dairy and animal foods cause auto immune diseases like diabetes I, colitis, leaky gut, and others. Dr. McDougall says: "As many as three million Americans may have type 1 diabetes, and each year more than 15,000 children and 15,000 adults are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. But there's a pretty straightforward way to avoid it altogether: Don't consume dairy products or consume animal proteins -- but especially milk, cheese and other milk products. The same is true for myriad other autoimmune diseases, such as arthritis, colitis, lupus and many more." http://www.vegsource.com/news/2011/05/dr-mcdougall-type-1-diabetes-caused-by-milk-video.html Scroll down for the video.

I have received many different comments about Food For Thought over the past several months, both positive and negative. From "I agree with everything", to "I agree with almost everything", to "You don't have the right to write about health issues because you are not a doctor". Of course it's easy to hear the positive comments. It's challenging to hear the negative. The negative comments especially inspire me to never give up, to always have hope that someday people will be turned on to a healthier lifestyle. Yes, I am not a certified medical doctor. I am a messenger, a reporter. I report what the best nutrition doctors in the world believe- ideology based on scientific facts and logic. There will always be naysayers. That's a part of life. Some day these people may discover that the information presented in this blog was correct, and regret not following the advice. Those who follow the advice have a better chance for a longer, healthier,...

Every time you turn on a light, you are shortening the life of the bulb. Every time you turn off a light you are conserving the life of the bulb. Think of yourself as a 100 watt light bulb. Think of each watt signifying 1 year of your life. Think of trying to live to be 100 years old: 100 watts = 100 years. Every time you do something healthy for yourself the light stays off- you are extending your life. Every time you do something unhealthy to yourself the light is turned on- you are shortening your life. In actuality, a person consuming unhealthy substances is "shortening the life of their bulb". Many people today are hopelessly addicted to unhealthy food and drink, may possibly become sick from their unhealthy habits, and possibly die a premature death because of them. Sadly, this can be prevented. If you truly want to achieve good health, you need to first educate yourself as to what is healthy and what is not. That is one of the main purposes of this blog: Making the fou...

This entry is reissued and revised. One of our local "illustrious" and uninformed legislators- Steve Gottwald, (Paynesville, Minnesota) has sadly proposed a constitutional amendment in the Minnesota legislature to ban gay marriages. I truly believe Mr. Gottwald will find out someday that he made a terrible mistake. He will feel ashamed and embarrassed to find out he contributed to unnecessary hatred and prejudice in our world- that he contributed to human rights taking a step BACKWARD! It is quite interesting and depressing to find out that ALL Minnesota republicans (only one democrat) voted for this bill. What does this tell us about republicans! -that the great majority of republicans today are old fashioned? -that the majority of republicans today have their heads in the sand regarding this issue?! Mr. Lincoln, our first republican, is turning over in his grave. "...dedicated to the proposition that all men (and women) are created equal ." -----------------------...

http://www.vegsource.com/news/2011/05/dr-mcdougall-nutrition-bill-passed-in-senate-committee-video.html Scroll down to watch the opening statements of Dr. McDougall and Dr. Forrester.

By Guest Blogger Peter Often people don’t know what they would eat if they adopted a plant based diet. Basically it’s only because they are not familiar with the huge range of plant foods available. What Australians call pumpkin Americans call winter squash. Winter squash is a summer-growing annual vegetable which includes several species within the genus Cucurbita. There is a wide range of winter squashes however in Australia two of the most popular varieties are Japanese (a.k.a. Jap) or Kent squash and butternut squash. Both when ripe have deep dense orange flesh and give a lovely colour and flavour to most recipes. Winter squash can be baked, steamed, mashed, pureed, boiled and even microwaved. It’s an incredibly versatile vegetable used in soups, stews, pies, etc. Winter squash is ideal when a soup or stew requires thickening. It can be used in sweet or savoury dishes. Furthermore winter squashes are low calorie foods with about 40 calories per 100g. Squashes store well in the p...

I was having a productive talk about my blog with my dad the other day, when he said, "You're not going to talk me into being a vegetarian". And it hit me- that's not my intention. I can see how people reading the blog would get that impression- that I'm trying to convince people to become vegetarian or vegan, but that's not necessarily the case. That got me thinking... My intention is 1) to get people to think about their health by presenting information about what is healthy and what is not. 2) to get people to think about eating more plant foods, and at the least- eating less food from animals. 3) to get meat eaters to think about eating only animals that have been respectfully raised- wild or free range animals, or wild caught fish, as compared to animals that have been raised in misery- factory farmed. 4) to get people thinking about limiting or eliminating harmful junk foods from their diet, such as white processed sugar, oils, and salt. 4) to prevent ...

Yesterday I found out that an old neighbor friend of mine that I used to play basketball with had a heart attack and died. We were the same age- 56. He'd never had a heart attack before. I know he had an unhealthy diet. It makes me think. Is what we eat and drink worth the risk of an early death? I have done a lot of reading lately on heart disease and cancer. Think of cholesterol as little sticky bubbles. Whenever one consumes animal fat the cholesterol sticks to arteries. Over time it builds up, providing less and less room for blood flow, constricting the arteries, possibly leading to a heart attack. Taking doctor prescribed medication does help somewhat in an artificial way to decrease cholesterol build up, but what about the side affects and expense of the pills? A healthier, natural way is to transition to more of a plant-based diet. Why not prevent heart disease in the first place? If you don't eat foods that have cholesterol you shouldn't have a cholesterol problem...

Here's a lifestyle changing 5 minute video. Ollie no longer has to take blood pressure medication. Scroll down for the video. http://www.earthsave.org/ollie.htm

My wife Beverly and I enjoy going for country drives whenever we can. We are bird watchers. Last week we were on a bridge high above the Mississippi River about 20 miles north of where we live, when we spotted several ducks swimming in the distance near the riverbank. We pulled off to the side, shut the car off and got our binoculars out. There were 7 of them. We were surprised to see the males' large white head patch and the females have an interesting light brownish hairdo. As we were driving away, we got the bird book out and found out they were Hooded Mergansers, and that they are one of the most sought after ducks. So we decided to go back, and were glad we did! The book says: "Extremely attractive and exceptionally shy, it's one of the most sought after ducks by birders. Most of the time the male's crest is held flat, but in moments of arousal or agitation he quickly unfolds his brilliant crest to attract a mate or signal danger. The drake displays his full rang...