Natural Cures Not Medicine: 09/26/13

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How to Make Your Own GMO-Free Baby Food


Image: ashleysgreenlife.blogspot.com
Let’s face it, even the best organic baby food on the market is still not as good as buying local, or growing your own. It should come as no surprise that homegrown and home prepared trumps the factory processing and synthetic fortifying of the store bought baby foods. Not to mention the sheer waste and chemical footprint left behind by the packaging of baby foods. In America alone, the baby food industry pulls in about $1.25 billion a year, while simultaneously filling landfills with 2 billion empty baby food jars and packages. Take the fact that the lids of baby food jars, along with the other clever packaging, leach BPA into the food and you should now be ready to get on board the DIY baby food train.
Related: Protect our food supply, March Against Monsanto! Global event list for October 12th here: http://bit.ly/14RN9EV
Making your own baby food is a fun and rewarding experience. With the proper knowledge you can streamline the process and make baby food like a professional.

First things first, nutrition. Remember you are making your own baby food because you want your baby to have the healthiest and most vitamin packed food possible. This starts with buying or growing wholesome organic, or beyond organic foods. Buying or growing the best foods is crucial, but keeping the nutrients in is also key. Removing all of the nutrients in the food by overcooking is to be avoided at all costs.

Important rule: only cook at a temperature that will soften the food, not boil the nutrients out; slowly bring the temperature up and then let it level out while softening the food. There are a myriad of online resources and recipes for making your own baby food. So what we’ll cover here are some basics.


1. The nutrients will cook out into the water no matter what, so to add them back to the baby food, pour some of the liquid into the food processor as you go. This will also tend to soften up the food a bit; pureed sweat potatoes with no water could be a bit too tough for young baby to swallow.

2. If you are going to use apples or pears, remember that many of the minerals and vitamins are contained in, or lie just below the skin, so it is best to cook these with the skin on. A $25 food mill is a great investment to separate the cooked apples or pears from their unpalatable and difficult to chew parts later, while still allowing the fruit to cook in its own nutrient dense liquid. Apples-ready 3. Purchasing about a dozen ice cube trays will allow you to cook a large amount at a time. There are stainless and silicone versions of ice cube trays available to avoid any potential BPA exposure.

4. A good food processor goes a long way. Make sure you have one that can handle the heat of the freshly cooked food and will puree it all without leaving behind chunks for baby to gag on.

5. The speed filler. This part is fun, it will make you feel like a 1 person factory. Allow the food to cool and then pour the pureed food into a storage bag and cut the corner off on one side to allow for a decent flow of food. Pinch the hole shut until you are ready to start and get ready. See attached video for an example. After they are all filled, lightly drop the ice try up and down to smooth out the cube, and remove the air bubbles. ice-trays Freeze quickly and immediately remove from ice cube trays to avoid freezer burn. Your newly made baby food will keep in a freezer bag for up to six months. With the proper planning and timing you can make all the food your baby will need in just a few fun packed family nights in the kitchen. As an added bonus the cost of making your own baby food is much less than purchasing it, especially if you can grow it! freezer-bag

Source: Matt Agorist, realfarmacy.com


Study: GMO Food Linked to Higher Leukemia Risk

By: Sayer Ji

A groundbreaking new study published in the current issue of the Journal of Hematology & Thromboembolic Diseases reveals the potential “leukemogenic” properties of the Bt toxin biopesticides engineered into the vast majority of GMO food crops already within the US food supply.
Image: http://www.realfarmacy.com

Last September, the causal link between cancer and genetically modified food was confirmed in a French study, the first independent long-term animal feeding study not commissioned by the biotech corporations themselves. The disturbing details can be found here: New Study Finds GM Corn and Roundup Causes Cancer In Rats

Now, a new study published in the Journal of Hematology & Thromboembolic Diseases indicates that the biopesticides engineered into GM crops known as Bacillus Thuringensis (Bt) or Cry-toxins, may also contribute to blood abnormalities from anemia to hematological malignancies (blood cancers) such as leukemia.[i]
Related: Join the March Against Monsanto Oct 12th: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/blog-page.html
A group of scientists from the Department of Genetics and Morphology, Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Brasilia, Brasilia/DF, Brazil set out to test the purported human and environmental biosafety of GM crops, looking particularly at the role that the Bt toxin found within virtually all GM food crops plays on non-target or non-insect animal species.

The research was spurred by the Brazilian Collegiate Board of Directors of the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), who advocated in 2005 for evaluations of toxicity and pathogenicity of microbiological control agents such as Bt toxins, given that little is known about their toxicological potential in non-target organisms, including humans.

While Bacillus Thurigensis spore-crystals have been used since the late 1960′s in agriculture as a foliar insecticide, it was only after the advent of recombinant DNA biotechnology that these toxin-producing genes (known as delta endotoxins) were first inserted into the plants themselves and released into commercial production in the mid-90′s, making their presence in the US food supply and the bodies of exposed populations ubiquitous.

What the new study revealed is that various binary combinations and doses of Bt toxins are capable of targeting mammalian cells, particularly the erythroid (red blood cell) lineage, resulting in red blood cell changes indicative of significant damage, such as anemia. In addition, the study found that Bt toxins suppressed bone marrow proliferation creating abnormal lymphocyte patterns consistent with some types of leukemia.

The researchers also found that one of the prevailing myths about the selective toxicity of Bt to insects, the target species, no longer holds true:

It has been reported that Cry toxins exert their toxicity when activated at alkaline pH of the digestive tract of susceptible larvae, and, because the physiology of the mammalian digestive system does not allow their activation, and no known specific receptors in mammalian  intestinal cells have been reported, the toxicity these MCAs to mammals  would negligible [8,22,23]. However, our study demonstrated that Bt spore-crystals genetically modified to express individually Cry1Aa, Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac or Cry2A induced hematotoxicity, particularly to the erythroid lineage. This finding corroborates literature that demonstrated that alkali-solubilized  Bt spore-crystals caused in vitro hemolysis in cell lines of rat, mouse, sheep, horse, and human erythrocytes and suggested that the plasma membrane of susceptible cells (erythrocytes, in this case) may be the primary target for these toxins [33]

THE STUDY ALSO FOUND:

1) That Cry toxins are capable of exerting their adverse effects when suspended in distilled water, not requiring alkalinization via insect physiology to become activated as formerly believed.

2) That a dose of Cry1Ab as low as 27 mg/kg, their lowest tested dose, was capable of inducing hypochromic anemia in mice – the very toxin has been detected in blood of non-pregnant women, pregnant women and their fetuses in Canada, supposedly exposed through diet.

3) Whereas past reports have found that Bt toxins are generally nontoxic and do not bioaccumulate in fatty tissue or persist in the environment, the new study demonstrated that all Cry toxins tested had a more pronounced effect from 72 hours of exposure onwards, indicating the opposite is true.

4) That high-dose Cry toxin doses caused blood changes indicative of bone marrow damage (damage to “hematopoietic stem cell or bone marrow stroma”).

The authors noted their results “demonstrate leukemogenic activity for other spore-crystals not yet reported in the literature.”

Sources: realfarmacy.com & greenmedinfo.com

What Most Doctors Won’t Tell You About Colds and Flus

by Dr. Ben Kim

The next time you experience a cold or the flu, remember this: rather than take conventional drugs to suppress uncomfortable symptoms, it’s better for your health to allow the cold or flu to run its course while you get plenty of physical and emotional rest.

Image: https://www.kinsahealth.com/
Conventional medicine and the pharmaceutical industry would have you believe that there is no “cure” for the common cold, that you should protect yourself against the flu with a vaccine that is laden with toxic chemicals, and that during the midst of a cold or flu, it is favorable to ease your discomfort with a variety of medications that can suppress your symptoms.

Unfortunately, all three of these positions indicate a lack of understanding of what colds and flus really are, and what they do for your body.

Colds and flus are caused by viruses. So to understand what colds and flus do at a cellular level, you have to understand what viruses do at a cellular level.

Do you remember learning about cellular division in grade seven science class? Each of your cells are called parent cells, and through processes of genetic duplication (mitosis) and cellular division (cytokinesis), each of your parent cells divides into two daughter cells. Each daughter cell is then considered a parent cell that will divide into two more daughter cells, and so on.

Viruses are different from your cells in that they cannot duplicate themselves through mitosis and cytokinesis. Viruses are nothing but microscopic particles of genetic material, each coated by a thin layer of protein.

Due to their design, viruses are not able to reproduce on their own. The only way that viruses can flourish in your body is by using the machinery and metabolism of your cells to produce multiple copies of themselves.

Once a virus has gained access into one of your cells, depending on the type of virus involved, one of two things can happen:
The virus uses your cell’s resources to replicate itself many times over and then breaks open (lyses) the cell so that the newly replicated viruses can leave in search of new cells to infect. Lysis effectively kills your cell.

The virus incorporates itself into the DNA of your cell, which allows the virus to be passed on to each daughter cell that stems from this cell. Later on, the virus in each daughter cell can begin replicating itself as described above. Once multiple copies of the virus have been produced, the cell is lysed.

Both possibilities lead to the same result: eventually, the infected cell can die due to lysis.

Here is the key to understanding why colds and flus, when allowed to run their course while you rest, can be good for you:

By and large, the viruses that cause the common cold and the flu infect mainly your weakest cells; cells that are already burdened with excessive waste products and toxins are most likely to allow viruses to infect them. These are cells that you want to get rid of anyway, to be replaced by new, healthy cells.

So in the big scheme of things, a cold or flu is a natural event that can allow your body to purge itself of old and damaged cells that, in the absence of viral infection, would normally take much longer to identify, destroy, and eliminate.

Have you ever been amazed by how much “stuff” you could blow out of your nose while you had a cold or the flu? Embedded within all of that mucous are countless dead cells that your body is saying good bye to, largely due to the lytic effect of viruses.

So you see, there never needs to be a cure for the common cold, since the common cold is nature’s way of keeping you healthy over the long term. And so long as you get plenty of rest and strive to stay hydrated and properly nourished during a cold or flu, there is no need to get vaccinated or to take medications that suppress congested sinuses, a fever, or coughing. All of these uncomfortable symptoms are actually ways in which your body works to eliminate waste products and/or help your body get through a cold or flu. It’s fine to use over-the-counter pain medication like acetaminophen if your discomfort becomes intolerable or if such meds can help you get a good night’s rest. But it’s best to avoid medications that aim to suppress helpful processes such as fever, coughing, and a runny nose.

It’s important to note that just because colds and flus can be helpful to your body doesn’t mean that you need to experience them to be at your best. If you take good care of your health and immune system by getting plenty of rest and consistently making health-promoting dietary and lifestyle choices, your cells may stay strong enough to avoid getting infected by viruses that come knocking on their membranes. In this scenario, you won’t have enough weak and extraneous cells to require a cold or the flu to work its way through your body to identify and lyse them.

Curious about how to differentiate the common cold and the flu? Here is an excellent summary of the differences from cbc.ca:
A cold usually comes on gradually — over the course of a day or two. Generally, it leaves you feeling tired, sneezing, coughing and plagued by a running nose. You often don’t have a fever, but when you do, it’s only slightly higher than normal. Colds usually last three to four days, but can hang around for 10 days to two weeks.

Flu, on the other hand, comes on suddenly and hits hard. You will feel weak and tired and you could run a fever as high as 40 C. Your muscles and joints will probably ache, you will feel chilled and could have a severe headache and sore throat. Getting off the couch or out of bed will be a chore. The fever may last three to five days, but you could feel weak and tired for two to three weeks.

One final note on this topic: because the common cold and the flu are both caused by viruses, antibiotics are not necessary. People who take antibiotics while suffering with a cold or flu often feel slightly better because antibiotics have a mild anti-inflammatory effect. But this benefit is far outweighed by the negative impact that antibiotics have on friendly bacteria that live throughout your digestive tract. In this light, if you really need help with pain management during a cold or flu, it is usually better to take a small dose of acetaminophen than it is to take antibiotics.

Sources: drbenkim.com & realfarmacy.com

John Stewart vs. Monsanto: Hilarious Takedown





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