There are many reports on how red wine is supposed to be good for you.  But before you polish off a bottle a night.  Let's weigh the pros and cons.

There's no free lunch when it comes to wine. It's not really the sugar in wine that packs the calories, it's the alcohol. Furthermore, on a gram-for-gram basis, alcohol has more calories than sugar does. An eight-ounce glass of wine will always have about 120 calories — sorry! If you keep it to one glass a night and count the calories into your total daily caloric intake, yes, it can be good for you. Studies in the medical literature about women and alcohol show the correlation between women who consume the equivalent of one glass of wine per day and a lower rate of heart disease. However, women who consume more than this have an increased chance of developing high blood pressure, stroke, and breast cancer. While men can have two alcoholic drinks a day, two drinks for women starts to create harm.

One of the problems with drinking one glass of wine is that it lowers most people's willpower — leading to that second glass, along with an increased appetite — resulting in extra calories. While it is true that one glass of wine a day is associated with improved heart disease risk in women, there are other lifestyle behaviors that are also associated with improved health, such as eating lots of fruits and vegetables, exercise, and not smoking.

So, I don't recommend starting to drink wine just because it is supposed to be good for you Another factor to consider is that drinking wine can impair your intellectual ability, judgment, and reaction time. It can also affect your sleep in a detrimental way. I would not just drink wine every evening for a supposed health benefit that might not actually be there: What I mean by this is that the findings in the medical literature are associations. It has never been proven that a glass of wine per day actually prevents heart disease.

A more moderate way to introduce wine into your life is to allow yourself to sip a glass of red wine during a special dinner at a restaurant or at a party.  Or if you're going to have wine, then you have to offset those calories by burning them or decreasing your intake in other ways.  More importantly, I would recommend that you eat well and start an exercise program (if you aren't active).

Dean Shallberg

deanshallberg.com

With everything that has been revealed in recent years about the alarming effects of soft drinks on your body, many health care providers, myself included, consider soft drinks to ne the four-letter word of beverages.

Yet so many people are still gulping down soft drinks as if they're water, some even instead of water!

According to a study conducted by the University of California-San Francisco, soft drinks have led to 6,000 more deaths, 14,000 more cases of heart disease and 130,000 new cases of diabetes in the past 10 years...helloooo?  Every time you buy that six pack of Dr. Pepper it's like purchasing your one-way ticket to Diabetes-ville!

In other words, drinking soda is a sure-fire way to make your body feel worse, break down and age faster.

Why?  For starters, soft drinks contain a HUGE amount of sugar, calories and harmful additives, and offer absolutely ZERO nutritional value to balance the equasion.

Recent studies have linked soft drinks to stroke, osteoporosis, obesity, tooth decay, cancer, heart disease and a laundry list of other ailments.  Despite the data, though, soda still accounts for more than one quarter of all drinks consumed in the United States- and people still wonder why they can’t lose weight and why they have persistent health problems!

Here’s a general, abbreviated list of what’s in most soft drinks:

Artificial Sweeteners- Aspartame/Neotame (in diet sodas):

The effects of Aspartame and it’s derivative Neotame, have been a hot topic in the news recently.  As it turns out, these artificial, chemical sweeteners, which have now been found to be neurotoxic, are commonly used as a sugar substitutes in diet sodas and almost all “sugar-free” products.  They're promoted as healthier alternatives to sugar, meanwhile, they set you up for over 92 different health problems.  These include headaches, memory problems, anxiety, brain fog, depression, skin irritations, menstrual problems, fibromyalgia, joint pain, brain tumors, birth defects, diabetes, emotional disorders, epilepsy/seizures, stroke…need I go on?

...For the FULL STORY on artificial sweeteners and the specific effects of DIET SODAS on your health, check out my recent article, Why Diet Sodas Are Not Necessarily Healthier Than Regular....

Phosphoric/Citric Acid:

These preservatives interfere with the pH balance of your blood.  The phosphate content of soft drinks is very high, and they contain virtually no calcium.  When phosphate levels in the blood are high and calcium levels are low, your body has no choice but to leach calcium out of your bones in order to restore the balance.  This leads to osteoporosis and weak tooth enamel/bones in general. Interestingly, the fastest growing group of people with osteoporosis in this country is now teenagers because of the huge amount of sodas they're drinking.

Sugar/High Fructose Corn Syrup:

It is a fact that high doses of sugar leads to a massive increases insulin levels, which can eventually screw up your body's ability to regulate blood sugar levels leading to diabetes and causing other problems like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, weight gain, premature aging and a laundry list of other negative side effects and diseases.

Sugar is also particularly destructive because in large amounts, like in a can of soda, it contributes to chronic inflammation and lowers your immune function by reducing the ability of white blood cells to ingest and destroy bacteria.

High Fructose Corn Syrup, now used in most sodas, is associated with poor development of collagen.  Since all fructose must be metabolized by the liver, high-fructose diets can lead to liver problems similar to those of alcoholics.

Caffeine:

Caffeine over-stimulates the adrenal gland without providing nourishment. In large amounts, caffeine can lead to adrenal exhaustion, especially in children, and cause jitters, insomnia, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, elevated blood cholesterol levels, breast lumps, birth defects, and perhaps some forms of cancer.  It is also a major dehydrator and leads to large scale depletion of vitamins and minerals in your body.

Artificial Colors/Flavors:

These may contain traces of MSG, a neurotoxin.  Also, they tend to drive cravings for more sweet and hyper-flavored foods ("more soda, please!") and reduce your ability to properly taste and appreciate the more subtle flavors of natural, healthy foods, perverting your palate and dissuading you from making other healthy changes to your diet because “nothing natural tastes as good!” Folks, that’s basically the same as a drug addiction.

In short, our health problems do not just begin on their own for no reason. We encourage the degradation of our body into illness and disease, little-by-little, by choosing unhealthy lifestyle and dietary choices and by NOT choosing preventative health care measures and a nourishing diet and lifestyle.

Kicking the soft drink habit is a critical step for achieving lasting health and weight loss.  Your choice to change this habit can literally transform your health and cause you to lose weight, reverse symptoms of diabetes, enhance bone density, support healthy brain function and even protect your body’s nervous system.

For information on how Acupuncture can help you lose weight naturally, assist you in overcoming your addictions to soft drinks, drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, your invited to visit my website www.turningpointacupuncture.net and contact me today.

Melanie Miller, L.Ac., MAOM

Turning Point Wellness

Scottsdale, Az.

Here is the full blog! Thank you to the over 1000 of you who watched and shared our Dr. Oz video yesterday! We feel it is our responsibility to warn the millions of people around the world who are using Dr. Oz's 99 Diet Food Shopping List as a guide for healthy diet foods, that there are some potentially harmful and dangerous ingredients in some of his choices. If you haven't already, please watch our short video and share it with someone you love. It has already made a big impact and we have already gotten a strong response of support and thanks. As you watch the video and read the attached blog remember, this IS NOT an attack on Dr. Oz or the Jennie-O brand. It is our attempt to expose potentially harmful and dangerous ingredients in the foods Dr. Oz himself put on his Dr. Oz approved 99 Diet Food Shopping List. We hope you enjoy our video and the attached blog - we would love to hear your comments. 

The Caltons pull back the curtain on the Great and Powerful OZ!

            Over 1 million people have already signed up for Dr. Oz’s Transformation Nation. It’s everywhere, he’s talking about it on The Dr. Oz Show, it was featured on the Today Show, Weight Watchers is involved and even the internet shoe giant, Zappos, is helping out by offering a measuring tape to aid in tracking your soon to be shrinking waistline. His goals to improve the health and reduce the weight of millions of people in this country are truly commendable. When we hear him talking about choosing foods based on their micronutrient content we couldn’t be more excited.  In fact, sometimes it even seems like Dr. Oz is taking excerpts right out of our book ;)            

However, after viewing the shopping list of the 99 diet foods Dr. Oz wants in your shopping cart we were less than enthusiastic. It left us asking, what is Dr. Oz trying to transform the nation into? His list, filled with processed foods with some less than desirable ingredients, left us completely baffled! It has been the over consumption of micronutrient-depleted, over-processed, chemical-filled foods that has contributed to the massive health crisis and obesity epidemic Americans are facing in the first place, and here we have a shopping list from a medical doctor that promotes these foods. Perhaps Dr. Oz was just trying to make it easy on busy people by offering them simple, fast solutions at mealtimes. But simple and fast doesn’t have to mean endangering our health? While not all the fast food options on Dr. Oz’s shopping list were poor food choices, in our opinion, there are too many that contained hidden ingredients that could be dangerous. Indicating to America that these are our best diet food choices is simply not healthy advice.

            So instead of just going back and forth between ourselves with “I can’t believe Dr. Oz would recommend this,” or “If people only knew what was in that,” we here at Calton Nutrition, we have decided to take part in Dr. Oz’s Transformation Nation and do a little transforming of our own. We have decided to do an assessment of Dr. Oz’s 99 Diet Foods Shopping List replacing poor food choices with foods that fits into our RICH FOOD, POOR FOOD philosophy. As discussed in our book Naked Calories, our RICH FOOD, POOR FOOD philosophy focuses less on the calorie, fat, or sodium content of a food and more on its micronutrient value (micronutrients are the essential vitamins, minerals and fatty acids like omega 3 that we all need to get enough of to prevent health conditions and disease). It is our contention that achieving micronutrient sufficiency by eating micronutrient rich foods and avoiding harmful chemicals and food additives is the first step towards achieving optimal health. We know that there is many definitions to the word DIET, including low carbohydrate, paleo, Mediterranean, vegetarian, low fat, vegan – the list goes on and on. So, our list is full of healthy, natural, micronutrient rich foods that will help you achieve micronutrient sufficiency no matter what dietary philosophy you are following. While we would prefer, of course, to see fewer packaged foods and more fresh, whole, real foods in the cart altogether, we will be offering up an apples-to-apples comparison to keep the shopping cart transformation fair. For instance, if Dr. Oz offers a frozen food option, we will also offer a frozen food option. Our goal in doing this is to show you what potentially hazardous and micronutrient depleting ingredients are lurking in the foods in Dr. Oz’s cart. We will first examining one of Dr. Oz’s 99 Diet Food recommendations and then we will replace it with one of our suggestions. We will continue to do this until all of the potentially hazardous and micronutrient-depleting ingredients have been exposed. As you will see, some of the ingredients in his foods are not so healthy. So, sit back and enjoy the Calton Nutrition’s version of “Transformation Nation” as we replace the Oz-approved poor food suggestions, with our Calton-approved, rich food options.

Introducing #5 on Dr. Oz’s 99 Diet Foods Shopping List: Jennie-O Breakfast Sausage Links.

            This is first food on Dr. Oz’s list that jumped out at us. We chose it for two reasons, first we sometimes eat a similar food for breakfast – we’ll get our rich food picks later; second, and more important, Dr. Oz recently alerted the public about the possible danger associated with one of this foods ingredients. In our opinion, Dr. Oz really blew it with this breakfast food. So we will make this the first food on Dr. Oz’s 99 diet foods shopping list we don’t want to see in your shopping cart. Now we want to be clear, we are not trying to pick up a fight with Dr. Oz or Jennie-O, Dr. Oz is the one that put their name down on his list, not us. Our obligation is to you, our readers, your welfare is our first priority and you deserve to know that there are ingredients in Dr. Oz’s food choices that can negatively affect your health. It is not Jennie-O or Dr. Oz that we appose, it is the ingredients in this Oz-approved diet food choice with which we find fault.

Here are the ingredients as they are listed on the label:

Turkey, Contains 2% or Less Turkey Fat, Seasoning (Salt, Dextrose, Spice, Spice Extractives, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein, Bha, Bht and Citric Acid), Natural Flavoring, Calcium Lactate, Made With Calcium Alginate Casing.

Let’s start by examining the ingredients list. 

Poor ingredients Numbers 1 and 2: BHA and BHT

            We will begin with two seemingly innocent ingredients BHA and BHT. Butylated hydroxyanisole(BHA) and Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT) are waxy solids that are used as food additives and come with European coding numbers E320 (BHA) and E321 (BHT). Manufactured from petroleum, they act aspreservatives to edible fats and fat-containing foods to prevent the food from becoming rancid and developing objectionable odors. The US National Institute of Health reports that BHA is reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen based on evidence of carcinogenicity in rats. Additionally, the state of California lists this ingredient as a carcinogen.

In England these substances are banned as research found that they can form a carcinogenic substance when combined with other foods. Japan has also banned them after studies found they cause cancerous tumors in rat’s stomachs and have been linked to liver and kidney damage as well as breast and lymph node damage. Do these sound like ingredients you want in your breakfast sausage? Do they sound like ingredients that will transform your health in any positive way? We think NOT.

Poor ingredient Number 3: Hydrolyzed Corn Protein 

            So, what is hydrolyzed corn protein after all? It doesn’t sound so scary. Well, this ingredient is better known by another name – monosodium glutamate, or MSG. This poor food ingredient can cause extreme changes in blood pressure, joint pain, body aches, chest pains, loss of balance, slurred speech, diarrhea, stomach cramps, sneezing, nausea, vomiting, skin rashes, blurred vision, irregular heartbeat, depression, dizziness, anxiety or panic attacks, migraines, mental confusion, stiffness, muscular swelling, lethargy, difficulty concentrating, and seizures. But the real problem, as if that list isn’t bad enough, is that MSG is an excitotoxin, a substance known to overexcites cells to the point of damage or death.

            Tests preformed in the 1950s showed that when rats were given a single dose of MSG, it destroyed the neurons in the inner layer of their retinas. The hypothalamus of the brain was also severely damaged in the process. Here is the kicker, studies show that humans are up to six times more sensitive to the effects of MSG than rats!

            Even if you are going to overlook the possible brain damage and the host of other side effects listed above, we still have another reason to avoid MSG. It turns out, if you are trying to lose weight, which by the way is the main goal of Dr. Oz’s Transformation Nation, than you’ll most certainly want to steer clear of this ingredient. In a study of more than 10,000 individuals, researchers found that participants with the highest MSG intake (median of 5g/day) were about 30% more likely to be overweight at the end of the study, compared to those with the least intake (less than 0.5g/day). This is because individuals who consumed MSG had higher than normal leptin secretion levels (the hormone that normally tells you when you are full.) Normal leptin secretion typically signals the brain that a person is full. But the MSG eater’s leptin levels in the study were so out of whack that their bodies could no longer recognize the leptin’s messages. The over secretion had the opposite effect and made it so that they never felt full. Is this an ingredient you want in your food? Will this ingredient help you on your weight loss journey? Again Dr. Oz… No.

Poor ingredient Number 4: Dextrose 

            Do we really need to add sugar to the sausage? Dextrose is just another name for sugar. Aside from sugar being an Everyday Micronutrient Depleter (EMD) – see Naked Calories pages 104 & 122 - thispoor food ingredient spikes insulin – a fat storage hormone - and has been unnecessarily added to the sausage to simply appeal to the American taste bud. Additionally, sugar is addictive. Studies out of the University of Bordeaux, France, found refined sugar to be far more addictive than cocaine! So the more we add it to our foods, the more we will crave it. To add insult to injury, dextrose rates a 100 on the glycemic index (the highest possible rating). This means that it enters our system extremely fast and thus stimulates a high insulin response very quickly. Remember, insulin is a fat storage hormone so suggesting a sugar-laden sausage as a diet food is completely bizarre unless your goal is to transform our nation into overweight, sugar-addicted diabetics.

            Poor ingredient Number 5: Non-organic, non-pastured turkey 

            If there is any ingredient on this list where we can give a little wiggle room to, it might be this one. We know that the richest food option would be organic, pasture raised turkey meat. Turkeys, like chickens, are far more micronutrient rich when they have been pasture raised, allowing them to absorb sunlight (vitamin D), and allowed to peck around in the dirt and grass for their insects (omega 3). So, for that reason choosing a sausage that is made from organic pastured turkey would be the healthiest.  But, we are realists and know that pasture raised ingredients are hard to find and can be costly. Until we as consumers demand pasture-raised ingredients, the supply will stay low, and the cost high.

            However, we do want to at least stress the organic portion of this health recipe. Why should the turkey be organic? Well, the answer is based on a topic that is near and dear to Dr. Oz’s heart – one we just heard him talking about on “Today” this past week. It’s all about the arsenic.

            There he was on “Today” remarking on how brown rice syrup has been shown to have unsafe arsenic levels. Dr. Oz cautioned against giving it to our children in baby food formulas.  Well, we’re sorry to be the ones to break the news, but turkeys (and chickens) commonly contain arsenic too. So, while Dr. Oz cautions us on television no to consume it, he recommends foods known to have it on his shopping list. Huh?

            According to the FDA, poultry farmers feed arsenic, a recognized carcinogen to the birds, for "growth promotion, feed efficiency and improved pigmentation." The arsenic affects the blood vessels in the chicken and turkey, causing them to appear pinker and therefore fresher. Doesn’t that just sound delicious?

            Now, we are NOT saying that we have tested Jennie-O Breakfast Sausage Links for arsenic. We haven’t!  However, when conventional poultry was tested by a Minnesota-based advocacy group, The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, it found the poison (arsenic) in 55% of chicken parts (breast, thighs and livers) tested, with the highest amount, 21.2 parts per million, occurring in generic brands. If you want to know how safe that is, you should know that the EPA considers 10 parts per billion (with a B) in drinking water to be high enough to pose a cancer risk. The chickens tested had more than 2,000 times the cancer causing arsenic levels!

            So, you can see how important choosing an organic turkey would be in avoiding this known carcinogen.  The European Union has outlawed this feed since 1999. If we can’t get it outlawed here in the US, shouldn’t it at least be our obligation to warn against it, or at the very least to NOT suggest products that contain turkey that may have been fed the arsenic?

Five Strikes… The Jennie-O Breakfast Sausage Link is OUT!

            Well, we have been very thorough in pointing out what ingredients we don’t want to be in your foods. Based on the above-mentioned ingredients we don’t want the Jennie-O Breakfast Sausage Links in our shopping cart. But, how difficult is it to find a better product?  It’s not!  In fact, we found three products in our fridge/freezer just now that we feel are better choices.

            The first is Jones, All Natural Pork Sausage Patties. We dub this a rich food breakfast option because of its simple ingredient list. Pork, water, salt and spices. Now, we don’t have to translate any of those for you do we? While this product is not organic, it is a great, easy-to-find, inexpensive option to transforming your health. Especially if you’re following a low carbohydrate, paleo, or Mediterranean style diet.

            Next, we also like The Original Brat Hans Organic Sweet Italian chicken sausage.  These links tick off all the boxes – no MSG, no sugar, and no nasty carcinogenic preservatives. They even add veggies for an extra bonus in the morning. They may be a little harder to find, maybe that is why the Dr Oz people didn’t find them, but they are so good, and so much better for you! This organic breakfast sausage delivers the micronutrients you need with none of the potentially harmful ingredients you don’t want.

            Finally, our third choice is by Applegate Organics Fire Roasted Red Pepper chicken and turkey sausage. This is a rich food option for certain. There is nothing about this food that’s not to love. Remember, because these are organic, the birds will not have been fed the arsenic. These tasty organic links will transform your morning by supplying you with a satisfying, delicious, and healthy meal.

            Well, our job is done here…for today. But don’t fret. We will continue to transform the Transformation Nation’s shopping cart, item by item, into one that is filled with Calton-approved rich foodsthat are safe and healthy for you and your family. Remember, you are what you eat. As Dr. Oz says, yourgrocery store is your pharmacy. We agree, and believe following our guidelines and choosing our rich foods, with the safest ingredients will be the right prescription for you to achieve micronutrient sufficiency and eventually optimal health.

If you haven’t yet make sure you watch and share the attached video – we need to get the message out, before millions of people unknowingly ingest these potentially harmful ingredients. Thank you for doing your part!

~Mira and Jayson Calton

In the last 2 years, Sweden has been taken over by new wellness phenomena:  Spike Mat.

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