Addiction Commonality

Alcohol, Opiates, Fat and Sugar are all Addictive Substances: this blog is about that "addiction sameness".

Butter Pig Family

* A butter sculpture of a sow and her piglets

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

BPA levels jump after eating canned soup - Health - CBC News

BPA levels jump after eating canned soup - Health - CBC News: "Adults who ate canned soup daily showed a jump in levels of the plasticizer BPA in their urine, according to a small study.

The study of 75 people in Tuesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association is one of the first to quantify BPA levels in humans after eating canned foods compared with eating freshly prepared ingredients.

Bisphenol A is an industrial chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic for water bottles and food containers as well as the protective lining in metal cans.

Previously, Health Canada focused on removing BPA from baby bottles to reduce exposure in newborns and infants. In August, Statistics Canada reported that more than 90 per cent of Canadians aged six to 79 had detectable levels of BPA in their urine.

The health risks of BPA in humans are unclear. Animal studies suggest that once ingested, BPA may imitate estrogen and other hormones..."


In the study, volunteers ate either canned soup or fresh soup daily for a week and then switched to the other type.


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Monday, November 21, 2011

The Insane thing about Alcohol Addiction

 A friend of mine wrote this note to me:
I think once you reach 45-50 or so, alcoholism is almost incurable, IMO, but I’m probably wrong. My thinking is that the alcohol addiction groove in the brain is perhaps ploughed too deep by then.
 -P


My answer:

Alcoholism only exists when the person (idiot) is dumb enough to keep trying to drink. You are completely right about the "groove" in the brain. Alcohol changes your brain and it can be seen on an MRI just like MS can be seen. It is tragic to ignore this science. Accept the science and realize you can't win. No matter how strong your will might be, if you drink you go into "one more" mode and you are back to wanting to be drunk. Prove it to yourself by stopping for months, if you have been an alcohol abuser, and have a few shots of vodka. It is scarey to feel your metabolism or whatever it is asking for more. Somewhat like what happens to massively obese people, the fat of there body actually starts producing hormones that encourage the continuation of morbid obesity.

Alien of invasion your endocrine system!!!!


Thursday, November 17, 2011

Life Questions


Who are we?

Where do we come from?

Where are we going?






The Eternal Now



Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.

- Mother Teresa



Good for You, Good for Our Earth

Eating Green to reduce your Food Footprint 

To reduce the amount of CO2 we produce we need to change the foods we eat because accounting for all the emissions from seed, to plate, to landfill, the food we eat accounts for as much as 31% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions.  

Food choices to change are:

1. Eat less red meat and dairy
Research shows that a diet high in red meat increases the risk of colorectal cancer. The raising of livestock for human consumption is also responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. On average, red meat is around 150% more greenhouse-gas intensive than chicken or fish.

2. Reduce your intake of processed and packaged foods

The majority of processed foods are filled with additives, high in sugar, fat, salt, and stripped of nutrients. Processed meats have a high level of sodium nitrate (salt), considered by many to be carcinogenic (causes cancer). 

Processed food is extremely resource intense. Snack foods, most juices, even veggie burgers (prepared, boxed, frozen and transported) often consume much more energy through processing and packaging than non-packaged foods.

3. Pass on the air miles

‘Eating Local’ one helpful thing we can do for the environment.  80 per cent of the energy used to get food from the farm to the table occurs during food production. Transportation accounts for 10% -15 %. 
 
4. Say NO to supersize
When a person takes more then he or she can eat, what is left on the plate causes our landfills to also grow in size. As this wasted food rots in landfills, it generates methane gas that contributes to global warming. Worldwide, 1/2 of the food produced is wasted.  Wasted food is wasted energy.




Labels include the following: Fertilizer use: fertilizer manufacture and transport, fertilizer use generating nitrous oxides. Transport: Road transport in and outside the UK, air freight and consumers driving to the shops Food and Packaging Manufacturing: food and drink manufacturing and processing, manufacture and packaging, CO2 from farm operations. Other: operation of retail stores Source: Chris Goodall, How to Live a low carbon life, p233






Source: Good for You, Good for Our Earth - Healthy Living by Lori:

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Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Vegetarians are sexy and smart.

Sustainability 
We need to reduce our dependence on animal proteins. Animal protein is not a sustainable part of our diet while the population bomb of exponential growth of humans continues.  Shortages of resources can only grow worse with the the strains already showing -Peak Everything is just around the corner for potable water, oil, agricultural land and so on.

Maler der Grabkammer des Sennudem 001.jpg

Economic vegetarians believe that nutrition can be acquired more efficiently and at a lower price through vegetables, grains, etc., rather than from meat. They argue that a vegetarian diet is rich in vitamins, dietary fiber, and complex carbohydrates, and carries with it fewer risks (such as heart disease, obesity, and bacterial infection) than animal flesh. Consequently, they consider the production of meat economically unsound.

"Environmental vegetarianism is the practice of vegetarianism or veganism based on the indications that animal production, particularly by intensive agriculture, is environmentally unsustainable.  

The primary environmental concerns with animal products are pollution and the use of resources such as fossil fuels, water, and land."

"The world must create five billion vegans in the next several decades, or triple its total farm output without using more land."
- Dennis Avery, Director of the Centre for Global Food Issues

This is a frightening equation considering the amount of skepticism and resistance to change demonstrated by human beings throughout the recent Global Warming debate.  It habits die hard and there are powerful forces on the side of Fossil Fuels, as mentionbed in the Paul Kruigman article in the NYT's declaring that Solar Energy has reached the tipping point and needs to be encouraged.

Environmental vegetarianism can be compared with economic vegetarianism.
An economic vegetarian is someone who practices vegetarianism either out of necessity or because of a conscious simple living strategy: 
a philosophical viewpoint, such as the belief that the consumption of meat is economically unsound or that vegetarianism will help improve public health and curb starvation. 

Economic vegetarians believe that nutrition can be acquired more efficiently and at a lower price through vegetables, grains, etc., rather than from meat. They argue that a vegetarian diet is rich in vitamins, dietary fiber, and complex carbohydrates, and carries with it fewer risks (such as heart disease, obesity, and bacterial infection) than animal flesh. Consequently, they consider the production of meat economically unsound.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, "massive reductions in meat consumption in industrial nations will ease the health care burden while improving public health; declining livestock herds will take pressure off rangelands and grainlands, allowing the agricultural resource base to rejuvenate. 

As populations grow, lowering meat consumption worldwide will allow more efficient use of declining per capita land and water resources, while at the same time making grain more affordable to the world's chronically hungry."
To produce 1 pound of feedlot beef requires about 2,400 gallons of water and 7 pounds of grain . Considering that the average American consumes 97 pounds of beef (and 273 pounds of meat in all) each year, even modest reductions in meat consumption in such a culture would substantially reduce the burden on our natural resources."






Physicians John A. McDougall, Caldwell Esselstyn, Neal D. Barnard, Dean Ornish, Michael Greger and nutritional biochemist T. Colin Campbell, argue that high animal fat and protein diets, such as the standard American diet, are detrimental to health, and that a low-fat vegan diet can both prevent and reverse degenerative diseases such ascoronary artery disease and diabetes.  A 2006 study by Barnard found that in people with type 2 diabetes, a low-fat vegan diet reduced weight, total cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol, and did so to a greater extent than the diet prescribed by the American Diabetes Association.

Dean Ornish is one of a number of physicians who recommend a low-fat vegan diet to prevent and reverse certain degenerative diseases.  Ornish is also an author of several very good books promoting his heart healthy diet principles.  Having read his books, I am prejudiced on this side of the argument.  The Vegetarian diet can be seen as a useful tool in staying healthy on an individual level, a societal level and it allows individuals to do something positive for the Planet's ecosystem.  Individuals can stay healthy and live sustainable lifestyles and empower themselves to help save the Planet.




Vegan: We need to reduce our dependence on animal proteins.