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Commentary on food, farming and health.

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6 of the Most Dangerous Ways to Try and Lose Weight

LabDoor lists diet trends it says carry real harm: unverified weight-loss pills tied to stroke and liver injury, the grapefruit diet's drug interactions, the cotton ball diet's obstruction risk, caffeine-based plans, and the Master Cleanse.

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5 Ways to Make Diet Resolutions Doable Any Time of Year

HealthyWage co-founder Jimmy Fleming lists five elements of a successful weight-loss push, starting with mapping out specific goals and dates: spend ten minutes planning, write it down or email it to someone, and set a realistic first target about a month out.

Feb 16, 2016

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This will be a disaster for consumers

A fundraising appeal from an organic advocacy group, citing defeats in the California, Washington and Oregon GMO labeling initiatives and a coming Senate push on H.R. 1599, and asking readers to help raise about $15,000 before midnight.

Sep 30, 2015

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Shocking Facts About the Meat Industry

Mercola argues the industrial feedlot model itself makes CAFO beef inferior, tracing antibiotic-resistant disease, mad cow and chronic wasting disease to industrial farming. He cites one estimate that up to 13% of Alzheimer's cases may be mad cow infection from contaminated meat.

Nov 25, 2014

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Join the boodle boycott

A press release from rice company Amira citing a Journal of Nutrition study in which women eating instant noodles twice a week were 70 percent more likely to have heart, weight and cholesterol problems, and pitching basmati rice as the healthier alternative.

Aug 21, 2014

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Will Drinking Diet Soda Help You Lose Weight?

An industry-funded study claims diet soda drinkers lose weight faster than people who drink no soda at all. Mercola counters with 30 years of research suggesting artificial sweeteners stimulate appetite and carb cravings, and studies linking diet drinks to stroke and cancer risk.

Aug 15, 2014

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Label Review Reveals Another Reason FDA Guidance Won’t Stop Misuse of Antibiotics in Livestock

A Food & Water Watch review of the 400-plus products covered by FDA guidance GFI #213 found 89 percent of the antibiotics it discourages for growth promotion can still be given to healthy animals for disease prevention or control, leaving only 23 drugs with no nontherapeutic use.

Mar 11, 2014

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Allergy Alert Issued On Undeclared Peanut Allergen In Dairy Rich Chocolate Ice Cream

Ice Cream Specialties of Merrillville, Indiana is recalling 56-ounce cartons of Dairy Rich Chocolate Ice Cream, UPC 0-71580-08103-1, best used by June 14, 2015, after peanut butter ice cream was mistakenly packaged in them. No illnesses have been reported.

Feb 17, 2014

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Are You Eating These Unsavory Ingredients? Part Two

Part two weighs high fructose corn syrup against artificial sweeteners, citing a Miami study linking a daily diet soda to 61 percent higher heart attack or stroke odds and a Harvard study tying one sugary drink a day to 20 percent more heart disease. It then turns to “meat glue.”

Feb 17, 2014

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Are You Eating These Unsavory Ingredients? Part One

Two years after pink slime drove public revulsion, this piece flags azodicarbonamide, a dough conditioner also used in yoga mats and shoe soles. It is banned in Europe and Australia, and CSPI warns it yields the carcinogen urethane when baked into bread.

Feb 17, 2014

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Are You Eating These Cruel Products? Part 2

This second installment describes selective breeding and growth chemicals that leave factory-farmed turkeys unable to walk or reproduce, chickens prone to sudden "flip over" death, and pigs on ractopamine too muscle-bound to stand back up.

Jan 6, 2014

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Are You Eating These Cruel Products? Part One

Martha Rosenberg describes factory farming practices, focusing on calves taken from their mothers at birth as a byproduct of dairy. Veterinarian Dean Wyatt testified that bob veal calves reach slaughterhouses weak and injured, wait 12 to 18 more hours without food, and some die of dehydration.

Jan 6, 2014

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How Do We Deal With Our Cravings?

Psychiatrist Omar Manejwala tells Martha Rosenberg that cravings for food, exercise or sex arise in brain regions similar to those behind drug and alcohol cravings and can wreck lives just as thoroughly, and that neither yields to willpower alone but to a new way of living.

May 4, 2013

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Protecting Children’s Health: American Academy of Pediatrics Misses the Big Picture in Their Flawed ‘Organics’ Analysis

Charlotte Vallaeys argues the American Academy of Pediatrics' first statement on organic foods for children is flawed: it acknowledges many pesticides are neurotoxins and that residues have been correlated with ADHD, yet holds out for experimental proof of causation before recommending organic food.

Oct 31, 2012

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Don’t Blame Peanut Butter for Salmonella Outbreak: It’s the Meat!

With 30 people in 19 states infected and Sunland's peanut butter blamed, the piece argues salmonella are intestinal bacteria that reach food through traces of animal feces, so a farm is the original source, and links heavy antibiotic use in livestock to resistant outbreaks.

Oct 9, 2012

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Salmonella Prompts Peanut Butter Recall, What Is Your Risk?

After a run of peanut butter recalls over possible salmonella, the writer argues the risk to healthy people is modest: fever, cramps and diarrhea usually start 12 to 72 hours after eating tainted food and clear in 4 to 7 days. People with weakened immunity face the real danger.

Oct 1, 2012

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Watch Your Butts, Hot Dog Fans

PCRM erected a 'Hot Dogs Cause Butt Cancer' billboard outside Marlins Park after a survey found 39 percent of Americans did not know the colon is the large intestine. More than 140,000 Americans are diagnosed with colorectal cancer each year and more than 50,000 die of it.

Apr 4, 2012

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Husbands--Don't Commit These Valentine's Day Insults!

A humor piece cataloguing Valentine's Day gift mistakes husbands repeat: clothing bought in the wrong size, vague compliments about a new haircut or outfit, flattery delivered by a single candle, and dinners at restaurants with counter service and vibrating order beepers.

Feb 13, 2012

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