Quoted Text

Cornell Cooperative awarded grant for health program
By John Purcell As of Thursday, February 21, 2013 -2:37 p.m.

#SCHENECTADY COUNTY — The Cornell Cooperative Extension Association of Schenectady County was awarded an $189,500 grant Wednesday, Feb. 13, to support its “Health Shares: Doctors Prescribing Healthy Local Produce to At-Risk, Low Income Families” initiative.

#The Health Shares program focuses helping impoverished adults reduce complications of cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases through increasing vegetable consumption and nutrition education. Through this project, Ellis Health Center physicians will issue vouchers to chronic disease patients that can be used bi-weekly to acquire five meals worth of vegetables.

#Cornell Cooperative Extension Executive Director Chris Logue thanked the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation’s Connections for Cardiovascular Health program for supporting its community initiative.

#“Its purpose is to improve the lives of county residents who are at risk for chronic disease through improving nutritional awareness and increasing access to fresh vegetables,” Logue said in a statement. “In the future, this project could be a model for local farmers to partner with the health care community to increase access and availability of local fresh produce.”

#Cornell Cooperative’s goal is to reach 400 people and provide produce for 4,000 meals each month. Youth from the Roots and Wisdom agriculture and community service program and individuals with developmental disabilities from Schenectady ARC will grow, harvest and package vegetables at a Schenectady greenhouse and 1-acre garden.

#Ellis patients can redeem vouchers at an urban farm stand where nutritionists from Cornell Cooperative will teach recipes incorporating vegetables into daily meal plans.

#“Cardiovascular disease continues to be the nation’s number one killer, which is why we must work to decrease the risks of this devastating disease," Dr. James Blasetto, chairman of the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation, said in a statement. "The AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation is proud to provide funding to innovative, grassroots programs like the Cornell Cooperative’s Health Shares program, which work to help prevent and control the effects of cardiovascular disease in their community."

#The Connections for Cardiovascular Health program awards grants of $150,000 and up to US-based non-profit organizations doing innovative work relating to cardiovascular health. This year, its awarded more than $4.4 million in grants to 22 organizations, with $11 million awarded nationwide since starting the program.

Quoted Text

GMO Giant Monsanto Joins Big Business Coalition for UN Agenda 21
Written by  Alex Newman


font size     Print E-mail

Corporate giant Monsanto, known for its controversial business model, lobbying, and its widely criticized genetically modified organisms (GMOs), has officially joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a group of powerful interests including major banks and Big Oil backing the United Nations “Agenda 21” scheme for so-called “sustainable development.” Critics, however, expressed alarm over the announcement, saying the global “sustainability” push is really a transparent plot to centralize power in the UN and enrich special interests at the expense of private property rights, national sovereignty, and individual liberty.  

Despite the widespread suspicion and criticism plaguing both Monsanto and the global Big Business alliance pushing the UN’s Agenda 21, the company and the coalition celebrated the move in a recent press release. According to the announcement late last month, the biotech behemoth will be rolling out a “sustainability” course for its employees all over the world. Chairman and CEO Hugh Grant will represent the GMO company as a “Council Member” in the global “sustainable development” coalition.

Even though Monsanto has become probably one of the most controversial companies in the world, it is extraordinarily well connected in the halls of power, and the global business alliance for “sustainable development” celebrated the firm’s decision to sign up. “In joining the WBCSD, Monsanto is taking an important step along a continuum towards developing a more sustainable agriculture system — one that improves our daily lives, respects our global environment and recognizes the importance of the world’s small-holder farmers,” claimed council President Peter Bakker in a statement posted on the group’s website.

Farming and global agriculture must change, the WBCSD continued. “We must find new ways to protect soils, enhance ecosystems and optimize land use in ways that are environmentally sound,” Bakker added in the press release. “And we must move towards a future vision for agriculture where absolutes become as out of place as a one-size-fits-all approach to farming.”

Indeed, the WBCSD’s website is rather candid about its aims and its “One World vision,” explicitly touting the UN Agenda 21 and its radical plan for transforming human civilization. “The One World vision is the ultimate stage of a conceptual evolution that started decades ago,” the council notes on its site. “This evolution produced several paradigm shifts that combine how we comprehend our world, and, as a result, how we try to deal with it.”

Meanwhile, even as opposition to the UN’s vision of so-called “sustainable development” continues to surge worldwide, the controversial biotech giant also publicly celebrated its decision to join forces with Big Business “sustainability” proponents. The press release publicly announcing the move claimed that a growing population would put a strain on natural resources and that “new agriculture systems” would be needed for “sustainability” purposes.  

“At Monsanto, our company vision for sustainable agriculture strives to contribute to meeting the needs of the growing population, to protect and preserve natural resources, and to help improve lives,” said Jerry Steiner, the biotech firm’s executive vice president for sustainability and corporate affairs. “We are excited to join the WBCSD and connect with a global coalition of more than 200 companies that advocate for progress on sustainable development.”

Monsanto, of course, has come under heavy criticism recently — particularly last year when a French university study found that its genetically engineered “frankenfood” products were associated with serious health concerns such as cancer. In the wake of the explosive research findings, which the company itself criticized as flawed, the Russian government actually banned the import or sale of Monsanto’s NK603 genetically engineered corn. European authorities considered similar measures as well.

Also widely criticized is the corporate giant’s business model itself — patenting genetically engineered DNA and using the force of government to protect what it calls its “intellectual property,” even when that DNA ends up contaminating an unwitting farmer’s crops. The U.S. government, in particular, is filled with former high-ranking Monsanto figures, and it plays a key role in pushing the firm’s dubious products worldwide. When governments or scientists express concerns about the health or economic impacts of GMOs, official documents have revealed, American authorities stand ready to exert overwhelming pressure to crush any resistance.

Aside from the numerous controversies surrounding genetically engineered food and Monsanto in particular, the whole concept of “sustainability” has also attracted a firestorm of criticism and outrage. Still, key members of the so-called global “establishment” — the UN, Big Business, taxpayer-funded “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs), the Obama administration, the mega-wealthy, among other powerful forces — have been promoting what they misleadingly tout as “sustainable development” for decades.

The ultimate UN plan, known as “Agenda 21,” was outlined and agreed to by national governments and dictatorships worldwide at a 1992 UN summit in Rio de Janeiro. “Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts (sic) on the environment,” the UN admits on its website, sparking suspicions from analysts who point out that virtually every aspect of human existence has some “impact” on the “environment.”

In essence, under the guise of environmentalism and, more recently, alleviating poverty, the global scheme calls for reducing consumption, further empowering the UN and national governments, more central planning in the economy, a gradual erosion of private property rights, and much more. The global entity’s own documents, as The New American has documented extensively, reveal the scope of the plan. Indeed, in recent years, the UN has become increasingly candid in discussing its goals, saying last year that even human thought would be targeted under the radical agenda.  

While the U.S. Senate never ratified the UN scheme, both Democrat and Republican administrations, working with state and local officials, have been busy implementing it across the United States for decades. Using grants and federal pressure, presidents from George H.W. Bush, who originally signed on to Agenda 21, to Obama most recently, have been busy pushing and implementing the controversial UN plan within America.

However, as public awareness of the plan has grown in recent years, opposition to the whole scheme has been steadily increasing as well. Numerous states and local governments, for example, have adopted bi-partisan resolutions condemning UN Agenda 21 as a “socialist” and “communist” plot completely at odds with the U.S. Constitution, American traditions of self-government, and even fundamental liberties. That trend of resistance is accelerating.  

As The New American reported in June of 2012, Alabama became the first state to officially and completely ban the dangerous UN plan in an effort to protect private property and due process, with the bill passing unanimously in both chambers of the legislature before being signed into law by Gov. Robert Bentley. Other states are also working on similar laws as opposition to the controversial global agenda surges nationwide — especially at the grassroots level.  

The Republican National Committee (RNC) and numerous state Republican parties, meanwhile, have also urged GOP officials at all levels of government to battle the UN scheme. More than a few Democrats have also urged opposition to the global plan. And across America, local government meetings have been increasingly swamped by concerned citizens demanding an end to their elected officials’ cooperation with the agenda and its myriad tentacles — especially ICLEI, a Germany-based, UN-backed organization working to implement the plan formerly known as the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives.    

Monsanto joins a wide range of other international mega-corporations as part of the global “sustainability” alliance for businesses that includes Big Banks, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and more. Some prominent examples include Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Chevron, Petrobras, Shell, Novartis, and Coca Cola. Hundreds of other major corporate players are members as well.

As The New American reported last year from the most recent UN Conference on Sustainable Development, known as “Rio+20,” the global alliance pushing Agenda 21 is wide-ranging. Ruthless dictatorships — a top Chinese Communist Party official chaired the whole UN summit, for instance — have joined forces with Big Business, NGO front groups for the establishment, and powerful interests worldwide in the quest for global government. “Sustainability” is simply the buzzword used to conceal the increasingly transparent real agenda.

Quoted Text

You are overweight. I’m sorry to be blunt, but it’s probably true: most adults living in Western countries are overweight. A large portion is obese.

Half of you are taking at least one prescription medication. Half of seniors are taking at least three. You may not be on anything, but you know someone who is.

Does that sound normal? I mean, are perpetual chronic illness and obesity the normal state of existence for us? Is our wiring so inherently faulty that we can’t keep ourselves alive without pills and doctors?

No. Absolutely not. It wasn’t always like this, you know.

The first big turn happened with the Agricultural Revolution. Right around 10,000 years ago, when former hunter-gatherers began growing grain seeds in neat, organized rows, something happened. Population exploded, because we now had a steady source of calories. Villages and cities sprang up, because we no longer had to follow our food. We could simply grow it where we lived.

Those sound like pretty good things, at first. More food and shelter sounds good, right?

Well, something else happened, too. Those early farmers were shorter than the hunter-gatherers they replaced. They didn’t live as long, and they had smaller brains. They got a lot more infectious diseases and more cavities. In short, they were not as healthy as the hunter-gatherers. Same genes, same homo sapiens, different environment, worse health.

But wait – whole grains are supposed to be healthy. Every government institution recommends making whole grains a big part of our diet. How could grain agriculture have caused all those health problems in our ancestors?

The thing about grains is that they don’t care about you. Think about it: a grain of wheat is a baby plant. A wheat egg, if you will. In order for that wheat to pass on its genes, its grain must make it into the ground, sprout, and grow up to repeat the process. Just as a hen keeps its egg warm and well-protected until it hatches, the grain needs ways to stay protected through this process and to keep other animals from eating it.

Unfortunately for the grain, it has no legs, teeth, wings, or claws. It can’t fight. It can’t run from predators. It looks downright defenseless, just sitting there on a puny stalk of wheat.

The grain is anything but defenseless, though. It has an array of chemical defenses, including various lectins, gluten, and phytic acid, that disrupt your digestion, cause inflammation, and prevent you from absorbing vital nutrients and minerals.

All grains contain some or all of these anti-nutrients, to varying degrees, so when our ancestors began making regular meals of them, their health suffered accordingly.

Okay – so we’ve got the fossil records to prove that grain agriculture brought illness and poorer health to human populations, but we don’t know if those early farmers were obese. They probably weren’t. Even if you look at photos of Americans from the 1930s through the 60s, just about everyone is thin. How’s that?

Let’s keep going.

That brings me to the second shift: the late 1970s. Up until then, the obesity rate in America had stayed fairly constant at around 12% of the adult population. Not great, but not too bad for an affluent society with easy access to food.

Starting in the early 80s, things changed. Obesity rates began a steady, constant climb until today, where almost 30% of the adult population is obese and 70% is overweight and/or obese. 1 in 3 American adults is obese. More than 2 in 3 are overweight. Does this seem right?

What the heck changed?

The low-fat diet craze kicked off. People were told that fat and cholesterol were killing them (based on terrible science, which I’ll get into in a future lesson) and making them fat.

So, to avoid all that fat, they started eating more grains, carbs, and other processed low-fat foods.

The other thing about grains (and carbs in general) is that they raise your body’s insulin levels. Insulin is required to shuttle nutrients, like carbs and protein, into various cells of the body. You eat carbs and insulin deals with them. But if you eat too many carbs – like, say, a person who was just told never to eat fat and to eat all the low-fat, high-sugar processed grain products they wanted might do – without exercising at an insane level, your body pumps too much insulin and you get insulin resistant.

When you’re insulin resistant, any amount of carbohydrate will not be tolerated. It will turn to body fat, and the more body fat you have, the more insulin resistant you get. The more insulin resistant you are, the less nutrients are being shuttled into your cells, meaning you stay hungry even though you’re eating, so you eat even more carbs that you can’t tolerate. It’s a vicious cycle, you see, and it’s led to the mess we’re in.

To make things even worse, many of the carbs we’re now eating come in the form of sugar, or its cheaper, more widespread alternative, high-fructose corn syrup. Both forms of sugar are high in fructose, which the liver turns into liver glycogen, a type of carb-based energy, until its glycogen stores are full. Those glycogen stores fill up fast, and since most people aren’t using any glycogen (kinda hard to do that when you have to work an office job and sit in traffic all day), that fructose turns to liver fat.

Together, a diet high in sugar and refined grains, and low in fat, has begotten the obese, diseased populace we see today. That’s the bad news. The good news is that solving the problem – at least on an individual level – is easy.

All you have to do is follow Primal Blueprint Law #9: “Avoid poisonous things.” Those food toxins that grains use to defend themselves? Those are poisonous things that you should stop eating.

So ditch the grains. Here’s how. Give up the bread. Reduce your overall carb intake. (See the Primal Blueprint Carbohydrate Curve.) Even if you aren’t overweight, I guarantee you’ll feel better without that poison in your life.

Stay tuned for Lesson 3 tomorrow.



P.S.
You now know what you shouldn’t eat and why. But what should you eat? I’ve got you covered. Check out the Primal Blueprint Shopping List here, hundreds of Primal recipes here, and grab a copy of The Primal Blueprint Cookbook or The Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals and start eating what your body is meant to eat today.

Quoted Text

Reprogram Your Genes for Effortless Weight Loss, Vibrant Health, and Boundless Energy by Mark Sisson

Ten laws for improving health and happiness

Our human DNA is the same as that of our hunter/gatherer ancestors who enjoyed good health and vitality before the agricultural revolution occurred 10,000 years ago. However, though agriculture has allowed us to dominate the globe, our brains and bodies have gotten smaller and we have seen a decline in health. The industrial revolution, with its fast food and fast life full of excesses, has all but pushed us over the edge.

A great many of us suffer from obesity and chronic diseases that affect our quality of life. This book provides ten diet and lifestyle laws that will help reverse these diseases so that we can enjoy a vital life into our later years. The laws include what we should eat, what we shouldn’t eat, advice on exercise and movement and the importance of sunbathing, sleep and play.

The low-carb, paleolithic diet includes meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds, and it avoids grains, legumes, processed foods and unhealthy fats. Sisson’s “primal” diet departs from the other paleolithic authors by embracing saturated fats, dietary cholesterol, and dairy. And while the diet is low-carb (owing primarily to the avoidance of grains), Sisson encourages consumption of vegetables and fruits, which supply much-needed nutrition.

Sisson encourages us to rethink our priorities and writes: “Let me reiterate my distaste for a perfectionist mentality toward diet, physical appearance, lifestyle change, and even school, career, and competitive athletics. Respecting the broad definition of health and the legacy of a simple lifestyle that our ancestors lived, we need to reject the measuring and judging forces of society and pursue fun and peace of mind in conjunction with health and fitness goals.”

Those of us who have lived in the competitive fast lane and found it wanting will nod our heads in agreement with many of Sisson’s sentiments.

This is not a short-term, weight-loss diet book but a book for those wanting to make life-long, healthy dietary changes, lose weight, reverse chronic disease, and develop a fun but productive exercise regimen.

Quoted from TakingItBack

This could be accomplished easily by structuring the Food Stamps like WIC where there are restrictions on what can be bought.  Currently you can buy just about anything with food stamps regardless of the healthiness of the item.