Today, I wanted to do something different and share different bits of news I found interesting in the last week. I will start off with a story I read on the Organic Consumers Association web-site.
School Lab Rats Freak Out on GE Food
“Before the Appleton Wisconsin high school replaced their cafeteria's processed foods with wholesome, nutritious food, the school was described as out-of-control. There were weapons violations, student disruptions, and a cop on duty full-time. After the change in school meals, the students were calm, focused, and orderly. There were no more weapons violations, and no suicides, expulsions, dropouts, or drug violations. The new diet and improved behavior has lasted for seven years, and now other schools are changing their meal programs with similar results.
Years ago, a science class at Appleton found support for their new diet by conducting a cruel and unusual experiment with three mice. They fed them the junk food that kids in other high schools eat everyday. The mice freaked out. Their behavior was totally different than the three mice in the neighboring cage. The neighboring mice had good karma; they were fed nutritious whole foods and behaved like mice. They slept during the day inside their cardboard tube, played with each other, and acted very mouse-like.
The junk food mice, on the other hand, destroyed their cardboard tube, were no longer nocturnal, stopped playing with each other, fought often, and two mice eventually killed the third and ate it. After the three month experiment, the students rehabilitated the two surviving junk food mice with a diet of whole foods. After about three weeks, the mice came around.
Sister Luigi Frigo repeats this experiment every year in her second grade class in Cudahy, Wisconsin, but mercifully, for only four days. Even on the first day of junk food, the mice's behavior "changes drastically." They become lazy, antisocial, and nervous. And it still takes the mice about two to three weeks on unprocessed foods to return to normal. One year, the second graders tried to do the experiment again a few months later with the same mice, but this time the animals refused to eat the junk food.
Across the ocean in Holland, a student fed one group of mice genetically modified (GM) corn and soy, and another group the non-GM variety. The GM mice stopped playing with each other and withdrew into their own parts of the cage. When the student tried to pick them up, unlike their well-behaved neighbors, the GM mice scampered around in apparent fear and tried to climb the walls. One mouse in the GM group was found dead at the end of the experiment.
It's interesting to note that the junk food fed to the mice in the Wisconsin experiments also contained genetically modified ingredients.”
Fire Retardant Chemical Found in Children at Three Times the Level of Their Parents
In this latest disturbing discovery, the Environmental Working Group reveals the discovery of fire retardant chemicals (PBDEs) in children's blood at three times the level of their parents. This was found to be true in 19 out of 20 families.
Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine have shown that Bisphenol A in plastics disrupts neurological function in primates even when consumed at doses currently labeled "safe" by the EPA. What kind of neurological problems does it cause? The ones children are being medicated for with dangerous psych drugs, of course.
The study is the latest in an accumulation of research that has raises concerns about bisphenol A, or BPA, a compound that gives a shatterproof quality to polycarbonate plastic and has been found to leach from plastic into food and water.
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Yale team exposed monkeys to levels of bisphenol A deemed safe for humans by the Environmental Protection Agency and found that the chemical interfered with brain cell connections vital to memory, learning and mood.
"Our goal was to more closely mimic the slow and continuous conditions under which humans would normally be exposed to BPA," said study author Csaba Leranth, a Yale professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences and of neurobiology.
BPA, in commercial use since the 1950s, is found in a wide variety of everyday items, including sports bottles, baby bottles, food containers and compact discs. One recent federal study estimated that the chemical is found in the urine of 93 percent of the population.
This new evidence directly contradicts the FDA's ridiculous stance on BPA, which claims the chemical is so safe that even babies and infants can drink it. The American Chemistry Council, a trade group, maintained yesterday that "there is no direct evidence that exposure to bisphenol A adversely affects human reproduction or development."
"Unfortunately the regulatory agency charged with protecting the public health continues to rely on industry-based research to arrive at its conclusions, rather than examining the totality of scientific evidence," Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement yesterday. His committee is investigating the FDA's handling of BPA.
"The FDA's assurances of BPA's safety are out of step with mounting scientific evidence to the contrary," Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said yesterday. "For the sake of the health of every man, woman and child in America, we should ban BPA in food and beverage containers, especially because there are alternatives already available."
And now on a happier note…
Laundry soap product grows on trees, replaces laundry detergent with eco-friendly solution
Commercial laundry detergents, fabric softeners and dryer sheets contain alarmingly high levels of toxic chemicals well known to cause cancer, liver disorders, neurological disturbances and hormone disruption. Even worse, all those toxic chemicals get flushed downstream where they contribute to the mass killing of fish and ocean ecosystems, including all the various life forms that depend on the fish (such as birds).
A tree called sapindus mukorrosi grows a small fruit surrounded by a firm outer shell, much like a lychee or rambutan. This tree, also called the Chinese Soapberry Tree, is unique in the fact that it synthesizes its own natural soap-like saponins that coat the shell of the fruit. When the fruits ripen and fall from the tree, local families harvest the windfall, then remove the inner fruit from the outer shell. The shell is then dried in the sun, using absolutely no chemical processing or manufacturing processes. In fact, the whole process uses no fossil fuels either, except in the transportation of the product to the western world (which is efficiently accomplished by ship).
It is this outer shell -- rich in natural saponins which act as water surfactants -- that the native families in India have used for centuries to wash their own clothes. They toss 2-3 shells into a small burlap bag and work it in with their laundry (which is usually washed by hand, by the way). The soap nuts, as they're now called (even though they have no relation to actual nuts), absorb water and release their saponins which circulate as a natural surfactant in the wash water, reducing the surface tension of the water and freeing dirt, grime and oils from the clothing.
When the clothes are rinsed, the soap nut saponins are washed downstream where they remain harmless to the environment. No synthetic chemicals, no fragrance chemicals, no foaming agents or other toxins. Just nut shells grown by nature.
"Soap Nuts!", natural laundry soap, is now offered through Better Life Goods.”
I have not tried the product myself yet, but the prospect of it sounds very exciting to me!
Until next time: Stay Healthy!!! Be Happy!!!
