fries you

It would be fair to assume that there are three ingredients in McDonald’s French fries:  potatoes, oil, and salt.  But if you assumed that you’d be far from correct

McDonald’s began a transparency campaign which was intended to market a more health conscious image of McDonald’s Corp. and utilize social media more effectively. However, instead of talking about their love for the brand, the hashtag became a forum for people to talk about how disgusting the food is.
(Make sure you don’t miss the video at the end of this article and share this with your friends and family who still eat this stuff to wake them up!)

McDonald’s recently released a McRib video attempting to convince consumers that it’s not as bad for you as it seems, but they failed to talk about the toxic ingredients discussed in this article.

Furthermore, it turns out that there are 17 ingredients in MickeyD’s French fries!  They contain:

-Potatoes: (So far so good…until you watch the eye-opening video below)

-Canola oil: Genetically Modified (GMO)

-Hydrogenated soybean oil: Again, GMO! Plus the hydrogenation process makes the oil even more unhealthy than it would be in its natural form.

-Safflower oil: The root cause of most diseases is inflammation. One of the quickest ways to become inflamed is by eating too much Omega-6 fatty acids and not enough Omega-3’s. Safflower oil contains a high level of Omega-6’s (10073 mg per tbsp) and absolutely no Omega-3’s! Learn more by following this link.

-”Natural flavor”: McDonald’s natural flavor is apparently obtained from a vegetable source, but the “natural” moniker means nothing since it can even potentially contain the nerve- and brain-toxin monosodium glutamate (MSG).

-Dextrose: a type of sugar.

-Sodium acid pyrophosphate: This ingredient is apparently used to maintain the color of the fries.  On the chemical industry’s own safety data sheets it is listed as hazardous for ingestion. It causes inflammation and over-consumption leads to elevated blood phosphorus levels, which may contribute to osteoporosis.

-Citric acid: Does that mean they’re using lemon juice? Perhaps in a perfect world, but it’s likely that they’re taking the more profitable road like their corporate brothers and using GMO black mold. Follow this link to learn more.

-Dimethylpolysiloxane: You’ll find this in almost any fried fast food menu item and also in silly putty, contact lenses, caulking, shampoo and conditioners, cosmetics, polishes, heat resistant tiles, and the list goes on… Learn more about Dimethylpolysiloxane by following this link.

-Vegetable oil for frying: which is a blend of 7 ingredients, including:  canola oil (GMO), corn oil (GMO), soybean oil (GMO), hydrogenated soybean oil with tert-butylhydroquinone (GMO), citric acid (GMO), and dimethylpolysiloxane.  We discussed most of these ingredients above.

-TBHQ: A petroleum-based preservative.  It has been linked to asthma, skin conditions, hormone disruption, and in long-term animal studies to cancer and damage to DNA. This additive can be found in 18 McDonald’s menu items. It’s potentially lethal, but don’t worry, the FDA says it’s generally regarded as safe (GRAS). Learn more about TBHQ here: The Petroleum Byproduct You Are Most Likely Eating.

Contrary to what McDonald’s may claim in its slogan, I’m NOT lovin’ it!

Read More: http://www.trueactivist.com/mcdonalds-transparency-campaign-backfires-prepare-to-be-shocked/

to TELLA OR NU TELLA...FOOD HAZARDOUS?

5 Reasons Nutella Should Be Banned From Your Breakfast Table

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By Meghan Telpner In Healthwashing

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Lately, I’ve been noticing a lot of love online for Nutella’s FB page. It’s called “The Nutella Breakfast Table.” As they state on their page, they don’t want anyone posting anything that they wouldn’t want said at their breakfast table. As I assume they’d be dining on Nutella, I’ll say it here instead.

Nutella is nutritionally void and shouldn’t be at the breakfast table.

And it’s a shame because Nutella does such great work helping fund school lunch programs and bringing awareness to the number of kids going to school without breakfast. But this can’t make up for the fact that they are giving kids Nutella for breakfast.

This “hazelnut spread” that looks suspiciously like thick chocolate sauce (or a spreadable candy bar) is healthwashed to pieces as a healthy breakfast option for kids.  It’s not breakfast, it’s a dessert and a questionable one at that. Call a dessert a dessert and move on, or be sued!

In the United States, Ferrero, maker of Nutella, was sued in a class action lawsuit for false advertising that led some to believe that Nutella carries nutritional and health benefits, being touted as ‘part of a nutritious breakfast’. They were sued forhealthwashing! In April 2012, they paid $3 million to customers who were part of the claim. The settlement also required Ferrero to make changes to Nutella’s labelling and marketing.

What exactly these changes were are unclear, as they are clearly still healthwashing the heck out of this product.

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Nutella Ingredients: sugar, modified palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skimmed milk powder, whey powder, lecithin, and vanillin

Nutritional Breakdown: Nutella contains 70% saturated fat and processed sugar by weight. A two-tablespoon (37 gram) serving of Nutella contains 200 calories, including 99 calories from 11 grams of fat (3.5g of which are saturated) and 80 calories from 21 grams of sugar. In addition, the spread contains 15mg of sodium and 2g of protein per serving.

You read that correctly. Two tablespoons of Nutella contains 21 grams of sugar.

There’s no reason breakfast can’t be both healthy and delicious, but serving up sugar, modified vegetable oils and processed chocolate in the morning just isn’t the way to go.

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Five reasons Nutella should be banned from your breakfast table:

1. The first ingredient is sugar.

Despite the lovely visual of hazelnuts tumbling across the screen in the television commercial, the first ingredient in Nutella is plain old, white, refined, most likely GMO sugar. Hazelnuts  make their appearance after sugar and palm oil. If we were to name this spread appropriately, we might call it “sugar palm oil spread”, but that doesn’t have the right ring to it. Unless you’re choosing to hop off your health train while on holidays in Paris, there’s no reason to choose Nutella for breakfast.

2. More sugar with your sugar?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you’re probably not spreading Nutella on celery sticks. It’s going on toast (probably the gluten-packed white kind) or crepes/pancakes (ditto). When the sugar from the refined carbohydrates meets the sugar from the chocolate spread, boom — there goes your energy and blood sugar balance for the day. Breakfasts such as these will in no way support the learning of children.

Nutella is a spreadable candy bar.

High sugar intake first thing in the morning will spike blood sugar levels, resulting in a plummet mid morning and contribute to poor concentration, hyper activity and aggression.

this bugs me

Article: Good Enough to Eat

Some scientists say we should use insects to help feed the world's growing population. Would you give bugs a try?

OCTOBER 26, 2012

By Suzanne Zimbler

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JERRY LAMPEN—REUTERS

Does a crunchy grasshopper taco sound yummy? If you were living in another part of the world—say, Mexico or Thailand or Kenya—the idea of biting into insects might not seem weird to you at all. For thousands of years, entomophagy, or insect-eating, has been common practice among many of the world's people. According to bug-eaters around the globe, insects are tasty. "When they are roasted, I find termites really delicious," Arnold van Huis of Wageningen University in the Netherlands told TFK.

Van Huis is an entomologist, or bug scientist. He is also an expert on bug-eating. He has traveled the world to learn how different groups of people gather insects and prepare them as food. It was in Kenya that Van Huis tried the termites. In Thailand, he had "nicely seasoned" locusts.

Bug fans say insects are not only tasty, they are also nutritious. Many are packed with protein, vitamins and minerals. Van Huis is working with other scientists to encourage insect-eating in areas where it is already common, as well as in Europe and North America, where people are more likely to squash a bug than swallow it.

Meat of the Future?

According to the United Nations, the planet's population is now almost 7 billion. It is expected to reach 9 billion before 2050. By that time, demand for meat is expected to double. Raising livestock requires large areas of farmland, and feeding the animals can be expensive. "We have to find alternatives to meat," Van Huis says. "One very good option is using insects."

Raising insects, which are able to live in crowded quarters, would require less land, says Van Huis. Bugs would also be cheaper to feed, since they could eat food scraps, such as potato peels. "We throw away one-third of our food," he says. "Insects could grow on that."

Not only could bugs eat our scraps, but they also would require much less food—and water—than livestock. According to Brian Fisher, an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences, insects are efficient creatures. "A cow wastes most of its energy just keeping warm," he says. But since insects are cold-blooded, they use more of what they eat to grow.

Crunch Time

For insect-eating to become mainstream in the U.S., Fisher says people must have a chance to sample tasty, ready-to-eat bugs. There are more than 1,700 types of bugs that are safe to eat. But do not even think of snacking on bugs from your backyard, since there is no way of knowing if they are dangerous! If you're in the mood for bugs, it is possible to order insect cuisine at a handful of U.S. restaurants. At Toloache, a Mexican restaurant in New York City, chef Julian Medina prepares tacos stuffed with chapulines, or little grasshoppers, which he imports from Mexico. "We can sell 10 or 15 orders a day," he says.

Van Huis is working with chefs in the Netherlands to develop scrumptious bug recipes. For one experiment, his team prepared two types of meatballs: some made with plain meat and others made with mealworms and meat combined. In a blind taste test, nine out of 10 people preferred the mealworm meatballs.

In the future, will eating insects be common practice for people in Europe and North America? "I'm absolutely sure it will," says Van Huis. Care for a Bug Mac, anyone?

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Keeping Schools Healthy

The White House sets new limits on advertisements for unhealthy snacks and drinks in schools

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

By Denver Nicks & David Winograd for TIME, with AP reporting

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MANDEL NGAN—AFP/GETTY IMAGES

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama makes an announcement about new school wellness standards.

On Tuesday, the White House and the U.S. Department of Agriculture laid out new limits for promoting junk food and sugary drinks in schools. The rules ban advertisements for unhealthy foods on school grounds during the school day. The ad ban includes sugary drinks that account for more than 90 percent of unhealthy ads in school. An ad for regular Coca-Cola, for example, would be banned from a scoreboard at a high school football game. But, ads for Diet Coke and Dasani water, owned by the same company, would be allowed.

The new rules are part of the first lady’s “Let’s Move” campaign to fight childhood obesity. Her goal is to get kids to eat healthier—like the new rules that require healthier cafeteria food. The marketing limits come after new USDA regulations that put a limit on the calorie, fat, sugar, and sodium in most school food items. The healthier food rules are criticized by people who think the government should not control what kids eat and by some students who don't like the healthier foods.

“The idea here is simple—our classrooms should be healthy places,” First Lady Michelle Obama said in a statement. “Because when parents are working hard to teach their kids healthy habits at home, their work shouldn’t be undone by unhealthy messages at school.”

A Healthy Message

According to the USDA, companies are spending $149 million a year on marketing to kids in schools. But, the big industry giants like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are supporting the new rules. Many have already started to advertise their own healthier products. For schools, junk food ads like a Coca-Cola scoreboard could be taken down over time—not replaced overnight. The next time the school needed to replace its scoreboard, it would have to get one with a healthier message.

“The new standards ensure that schools remain a safe place where kids can learn and where the school environment promotes healthy choices,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsak said in a statement.

The new USDA plans announced today also aim to help feed hungry kids in need. They would allow the highest-poverty schools to serve breakfast and lunch to all students for free. The White House says that will help feed about 9 million kids in 22,000 schools. The rules will help guide schools on ways to create standards for foods and physical activity. They would require parents and the community to be involved in those decisions.

Good News

Obesity rates among toddlers in the U.S. have dropped greatly over the last 10 years. According to a survey done by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there has been a 43 percent decrease. The obesity rate for American children in the two to five-year-old age group dropped from 14 percent in 2003-2004 to just above 8 percent in 2011-12.

“This confirms that at least for kids, we can turn the tide and begin to reverse the obesity epidemic,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden.

The exact reasons for the drop in obesity are unknown. But, the CDC mentions less sugary drinks and better nutrition and physical education programs at day care centers as possible causes.

First Lady Michelle Obama responded to the CDC report saying she was “thrilled at the progress we’ve made over the last few years in obesity rates among our youngest Americans.”

food environment animals ....sigh ...we are to blame

Goodbye, Bamboo

Endangered giant pandas are facing a new threat: the loss of their food source, bamboo.

JANUARY 11, 2013

By Kelli Plasket

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BURRAND-LUCAS/BARCROFT MEDIA/LANDOV

A giant panda feeds on bamboo in China's Qinling Mountains. The bears get water and nutrients from the plant.

In China's Qinling Mountains, giant pandas spend most of their day eating bamboo. The plant makes up 99% of the bears' diet, with some pandas eating about 40 pounds of it a day. But Qinling's pandas may soon have to find another food source. A new study published in the science journal Nature Climate Change reports that warming temperatures may cause the loss of most of the region's bamboo by the end of the century.

A team made up of researchers from Michigan State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences used climate models to project the effects of climate change on the region's three main bamboo species. They studied the impact of rising temperatures on the spread and growth of bamboo. Bamboo is sensitive to temperature changes. "Even with a 3.6° Fahrenheit increase in temperature, we found that 80% to 100% of bamboo would be gone by the end of the century," Jianguo Liu, one of the study's authors, told TFK.

Protecting Pandas

The Qinling Mountains, located in eastern China, are home to about 270 pandas. That is about 17% of the world's wild panda population. The bear is one of the world's most endangered species.

In recent years, China has stepped up efforts to protect pandas from deforestation and poaching. But Liu says the country has yet to consider the long-term effects of climate change in its conservation planning. Aside from increasing nature reserve areas where pandas are protected, Liu wants China to lower its use of fuels that release greenhouse gases—as should the rest of the world. "The future of pandas," he says, "is in our hands."

Flame retardant? Is that why coke cools us?

Coca-Cola is in the process of removing brominated vegetable oil from its entire line of beverages, including Powerade, Fanta Orange and Fresca, a representative for the company confirmed to Newsweek on Monday. The move comes one year after PepsiCo announced it would remove the controversial chemical, also patented as a flame retardant, from Gatorade.

The move follows an online Change.org petition from Mississippi teenager Sarah Kavanagh urging soda companies to remove the Brominated vegetable oil (BVO). Her Powerade petition gathered 59,000 online signatures, while her Gatorade petition had more than 200,000, according to the AP. Despite removing the chemical, Coca-Cola says it stands by the safety of its drinks, including those that contain BVO.

“All of our beverages, including those with BVO, are safe and always have been—and comply with all regulations in the countries where they are sold,” Coca-Cola said in a statement.

BVO is not approved for use in food the European Union or Japan. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its use in food products on aninterim basis, “pending additional study.” Mountain Dew, also made by PepsiCo, still contains BVO, along with Squirt and Sunkist Peach Soda, from the Dr Pepper Snapple Group, according to The New York Times.

the power of Art to sustain hope

http://vimeo.com/78199925

Shine Global is dedicated to ending the exploitation & abuse of children worldwide through the production of films and other media that raise awareness, promote action, and inspire change.

Since its founding in 2005 as a non-profit film production company, Shine Global has given voice to some of the world’s most at-risk children, shared their stories, inspired millions of viewers, and won more than 30 major film awards including an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Short, an Academy Award® nomination for Best Documentary, Best Director Documentary at Sundance, and two Emmy Awards®.
Shine Global’s upcoming films include the 3D documentary 1 Way Up about two teens who overcome poverty and discrimination to reach the world championships for BMX bike racing and Selling Our Daughters about the complex issue of child trafficking in Thailand.
Shine Global is a 501(c)(3) non-profit film production company. All contributions to Shine are used to produce films and are tax deductible. Net profits are returned to the children documented through local non-governmental agencies.

lies about food that we grew up with

TAKE NOTE!!

1. Eggs Are NOT Bad For Your Health

 

Eggs are so incredibly nutritious that they’re often called “nature’s multivitamin.”

2 Saturated Fat is NOT Unhealthy  

  

For many decades, people have believed that eating saturated fat can increase the risk of heart disease.However, studies published in the past few decades prove that saturated fat is completely harmless. There is literally no reason to fear butter, meat or coconut oil… these foods are perfectly healthy!


3 Wheat is the biggest source of gluten in the diet. Many studies are showing that wheat, including whole wheat, can contribute to various health problems.

4 It is true that coffee can mildly elevate blood pressure in the short term (49).
However, long term studies show that coffee may actually reduce your risk of some serious diseases.

5 The low-fat, high-carb diet recommended by the mainstream nutrition organizations is a miserable failure and has been repeatedly proven to be ineffective.


6  coconut oil and olive oil, which are low in Omega-6 and extremely healthy.

7 Low-carb diets are the easiest, healthiest and most effective way to lose weight and reverse metabolic disease.

DRUG - IS IT A FOOD OR A CHEMICAL?

take the example of heparin. It's a pharmaceutical product. You expect that the supply chain that gets it to the hospital, probably squeaky clean. The problem is that the active ingredient in there -- as I mentioned earlier -- comes from pigs. The main American manufacturer of that active ingredient decided a few years ago to relocate to China because it's the world's biggest supplier of pigs. And their factory in China -- which probably is pretty clean -- is getting all of the ingredients from backyard abattoirs, where families slaughter pigs and extract the ingredient. So a couple of years ago, we had a scandal which killed about 80 people around the world, because of contaminants that crept into the heparin supply chain. Worse, some of the suppliers realized that they could substitute a product which mimicked heparin in tests. This substitute cost nine dollars a pound, whereas real heparin, the real ingredient, cost 900 dollars a pound. A no-brainer. The problem was that it killed more people.

And so you're asking yourself, "How come the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed this to happen? How did the Chinese State Agency for Food and Drugs allow this to happen?" And the answer is quite simple: the Chinese define these facilities as chemical facilities, not pharmaceutical facilities, so they don't audit them. And the USFDA has a jurisdictional problem. This is offshore. They actually do conduct a few investigations overseas -- about a dozen a year -- maybe 20 in a good year. There are 500 of these facilities producing active ingredients in China alone. In fact, about 80 percent of the active ingredients in medicines now come from offshore, particularly China and India, and we don't have a governance system. We don't have a regulatory system able to ensure that that production is safe. We don't have a system to ensure that human rights, basic dignity, are ensured.