Eat. Drink. Better.

Finding sustainable sources of seafood is becoming increasingly difficult.  Should you buy farmed or wild caught?  And what are the most sustainable choices?  I’ve talked about sustainable seafood before, and since shrimp is the most commonly consumed seafood in the United States, you might want to have a bit more information about that shrimp cocktail you’re about to eat.

Did you know Americans ate 1.2 Billion pounds of shrimp in 2007, an average of 4.1 pounds of shrimp per person (figures here)?  This figure is actually a decline from the previous year, in 2006, when the average American ate 4.4 pounds of shrimp.  Now if you consider that 85% of shrimp consumed in the US is imported, and since wild caught shrimp are rarer than ever as fisheries are depleted, there’s a good chance that the shrimp you just ate were farmed and imported to the US.

Read the rest of this entry »

Nearly 20 years ago, my doctor told me that I had IBS.  Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  I was getting my annual physical exam and lamented about consistently painful bowel movements and related flaming hemorrhoids.

One of his recommendations was a daily dose of high-fiber laxative and a high-fiber diet.  The diet made me an instant convert to bran cereals and pitted prunes.  All I needed now was an AARP membership card and a subscription to Reader’s Digest.  I felt much older than my 32 years.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gluten free baking is not for the faint of heart or the timid of soul.  The tried and true baking results that come from the familiar use of wheat flour are substantially difficult to reproduce without our old friends, wheat, rye, and barley.  With some experimentation and a little tenacity, you can find a good gluten free flour mix, and still have some of the same baked treats you once enjoyed before you relinquished all gluten related items.

In my three years of learning to cook and bake gluten free, I’ve tried numerous combinations of flours and prepackaged mixes.  Some were pretty good, but most spanned the spectrum between OK and outright terrible. I looked for gluten free flours in recipe books, in online searches, and throughout the blogosphere, and finally found the best all purpose flour mix in a cookbook - Gluten Free Baking Classics by Annalise Roberts.

Read the rest of this entry »

According to a UK documentary, “Sweet Misery,” the National Cancer Institute identified a significant and impressive increase in brain cancer starting in about 1984. Why did brain cancer shoot up? It looks like it is because of articial sweeteners such as those found in diet drinks and food!

Read the rest of this entry »

The French Agency for Food Safety (AFSSA) released a study last week that outlines a number of health benefits to eating organic food.

This comes on the heels of a UK study that said just the opposite. According to the AFSSA study, organic foods are not only more nutritious, but they’re safer. Here are the study’s main findings:
Read the rest of this entry »

The Sigg Company recently admitted that its aluminum bottles, long touted as an alternative to chemical leaching plastics, actually contain bisphenol-A (BPA) in their liner. The announcement has left customers around the world outraged.  Especially damning is evidence that the company knew as far back as 2006 that the bottle liners contained BPA, yet failed to disclose this fact to consumers.

Though the scientific jury is still out on the effects of BPA, states such as Minnesota and Connecticut have already banned their use in kiddie drinking cups and other bottles.  Conscientious consumers have also been leery of BPA, and many have tried to do their best to avoid it.  Unfortunately for many people, the alternative to other BPA leeching plastic bottles were the aluminum Sigg bottles they thought were safe.

Read the rest of this entry »

We know you eat better than stopping at every fast food joint on the road. Good thing, too. Because an FDA official claims that over half of fast food employees don’t follow the “Wash your hands before returning to work” rule.

That could make a whole lot of people sick with more than just obesity.

The FDA official, William Burkhardt, authored a study that was also sponsored by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,

There’s a disconnect between what we want to see and what is actually implemented.

This report follows a rare Hepatitis A outbreak in the Quad City, Illinois area, according to the Quad City Times.

Read the rest of this entry »

Whole Foods Market made a big step in food retail this month. The corporate giant that dominates the healthfood market is leading their customers away from GMOs. The company joined the Non-GMO Project’s Product Verification Program this month. The Non-GMO Project is a consortium of people, businesses, and organizations who are committed to cutting GMO’s out of our food stream. This non-profit organization has now established the first scientifically-based, third-party system in North America for identifying if a product is GMO-free — the Product Verification Program.

The fairly new Product Verification Program is what Whole Foods has been searching since GMOs came to the US, the company says.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a Whole Foods shopper who occasionally peruses the market’s free pamphlets and brochures, you might know a thing or two about the dangers of irradiated food–at least, that’s where I learned about it. We hear a lot of talk about harmful ingredients: dyes, preservatives, trans fats, and HFCS, for instance, but little is mentioned about this equally harmful process that can alter the molecular composition of the food you eat, damaging valuable vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, all in the name of making said food safer.

During irradiation, food is exposed to ionizing radiation in an effort to destroy microorganisms, viruses, bacteria, or insects that could be dangerous if consumed by people. In addition to sanitizing our food, irradiation can also be used to prevent sprouting, delay ripening, or increase juice yield–in other words, messing with a fruit or vegetable’s natural life process or progression. How exactly does irradiation achieve all these things? By damaging the DNA of the food in question, basically stunting any growth.

Considering how much time and effort is spent attempting to halt or reverse DNA damage to our own cells, then, it’s ironic that more attention isn’t paid to the process of food irradiation. We’re constantly told to eat more fruits and vegetables because they contain antioxidants, the things that fight free radicals (which are responsible for oxidation and thus, cell damage!) However, the vast majority of produce in this country is irradiated, therefore containing the very stuff we try so desperately to avoid!

Pretty strange, huh? Behind the jump, there’s a bunch more reasons why you should avoid irradiated food. Read the rest of this entry »

Have seasonal allergies? Just warm up some genetically modified rice for relief!

Researchers at Japan’s National Institute for Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukubahope that you think this solution sounds simply delicious. They’ve developed a rice that could help alleviate the itchiness and watery eyes associated with hayfever. And after safety tests on macaques (monkeys), researchers are excited to take the next step: humans trials.

I’d like to try this GM rice in people in the near future.

Researchers point out that the 26-week long trial on the monkeys was for safety, not efficacy. So how would this mutant rice work?

Read the rest of this entry »