Caffeine Makes For Busy Bees, Not Productive Ones

Caffeine Makes For Busy Bees, Not Productive Ones

"A caffeinated bee is a busier bee. It’ll work harder to find food, and to communicate the location of said food to other bees. It will, however, misjudge the quality of the food it finds, and so make its colony less productive. The irony of writing about this as I sip an unwisely strong espresso at 10 pm is not lost on me." (Image: Anand Varma)





 http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/15/how-plants-manipulate-bees-with-caffeine/

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto Summary

 
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto Summary

 by Michael Pollan

Synopsis

document PDF


Following close on the heels of the very successful publishing of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and the release of the movie Food Inc., Michael Pollan’s latest book,In Defense of Food, is one that attempts to address, in an even simpler way, the question of what we “should” eat. He examines that question in depth, trying to navigate through the supermarket, the diet industry, the health food industry, and every other place where we find and choose food.

The book is not a guide to certain foods that will make you healthy but much more of an examination of both the philosophy and the science of what food has become in the United States. Pollan takes the stance that our amazingly complex approach to food and food products is very likely getting us into more trouble than it is saving us from.

The book grew out of a 2007 article titled “Unhappy Meals,” which was published in the New York Times Magazine. Like in his other works, Pollan’s description of the issues is thorough and couched in a great deal of anecdotal and well-researched evidence that help to move along the discussion. He examines in detail the way that we have constructed an approach to food that he labels “nutritionism,” an approach that focuses on eating “nutrients” rather than simply food.

Pollan follows the rise of this outlook from its inception to its current state and describes many of the effects. He describes the low-fat craze (now apparently being debunked) to the craze for fiber. He also examines the basic idea that we look at food as a compilation of nutrients rather than as something edible. His basic premise is that we would likely be better off ignoring most (if not all) of food science and, as he counsels us, simply to “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.”

Pollan writes that he has given away the entire story in the first line, but again, as he did in Omnivore’s Dilemma, he continues in great detail and with an intriguing style into what that means and how it goes from a simple to a very complex question.

The second and third portions of the book are a further examination of how our eating culture became what it is. Pollan then provides a very straight-forward examination of the ways to escape from the negative aspects of what he calls “The Western Diet.”

The book has already seen relatively wide commercial and critical success. Published in 2008, it rose to the top of the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction and stayed at the top for six weeks.

Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food starts with a broad sketch of a key social change: how control over what families ate shifted from cultural factors, such as mothers and traditions, to marketing and the food industry. The result is that more health claims are made for food than ever before—but people are less healthy. The goal of In Defense of Food is to analyze the reasons for this seeming paradox. As Pollan does so, he makes other arguments as well, such as the idea that people should spend less time worrying about health and food and that the current Western diet makes people sick.

The body of the book is divided into three related sections. Part I, "The Age of Nutritionism," analyzes the scientific ideology called nutritionism. Part II, "The Western Diet and the Diseases of Civilization," applies the information presented in the first part to widespread issues of public health. In Part III, "Getting Over Nutritionism," Pollan focuses on the personal level, and he gives specific advice for what people should and shouldn't eat.

Part I: The Age of Nutritionism

"The Age of Nutritionism" argues that "food" in the purest or most traditional sense has disappeared from groceries in recent years and is replaced by "nutrients." The roots of this transformation are traced to nineteenth-century scientists William Prout (who identified protein, carbohydrates, and fat as the core components of food) and Justus von Liebig (the German chemist who discovered the role of minerals, or micronutrients). This led to the invention of vitamins and to increasing prestige for nutrition science.

Throughout the twentieth century, scientific understanding of nutrition and health developed new theories, such as the lipid hypothesis, which argued that increased consumption of fat and cholesterol were contributing to heart disease. In 1977, nutrition science received a major push from the American government when a Senate committee tasked with addressing health concerns developed its first dietary guidelines. These recommended eating less meat and dairy, but under pressure from lobbyists, the government weakened this recommendation. In part to avoid angering powerful lobbies and in part due to scientific trends, these guidelines began to speak about nutrients rather than food.

The term nutritionism was created by Gyorgy Scrinis in 2002. It refers to the fact that contemporary understanding of nutrition is more like an ideology than a science. Its core belief is that the individual nutrients are the essence of food. Because no one can see nutrients, this belief positions scientists as essential guides for the daily activity of eating. Like other ideologies, nutritionism divides its world along black-and-white lines: good nutrients and bad nutrients. However, there is ongoing debate about which nutrients go in which categories. Nutritionism is very useful for food manufacturers because they can now hype food as improved and healthier because they have added specific nutrients to it. It also allowed food manufacturers to finally dispel a labeling law from 1938, which had required any artificial food to be labeled as "imitation." After all, if nutrients are the essential elements of...



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In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto Summary

 
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto Summary

 by Michael Pollan

Synopsis

document PDF


Following close on the heels of the very successful publishing of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and the release of the movie Food Inc., Michael Pollan’s latest book,In Defense of Food, is one that attempts to address, in an even simpler way, the question of what we “should” eat. He examines that question in depth, trying to navigate through the supermarket, the diet industry, the health food industry, and every other place where we find and choose food.

The book is not a guide to certain foods that will make you healthy but much more of an examination of both the philosophy and the science of what food has become in the United States. Pollan takes the stance that our amazingly complex approach to food and food products is very likely getting us into more trouble than it is saving us from.

The book grew out of a 2007 article titled “Unhappy Meals,” which was published in the New York Times Magazine. Like in his other works, Pollan’s description of the issues is thorough and couched in a great deal of anecdotal and well-researched evidence that help to move along the discussion. He examines in detail the way that we have constructed an approach to food that he labels “nutritionism,” an approach that focuses on eating “nutrients” rather than simply food.

Pollan follows the rise of this outlook from its inception to its current state and describes many of the effects. He describes the low-fat craze (now apparently being debunked) to the craze for fiber. He also examines the basic idea that we look at food as a compilation of nutrients rather than as something edible. His basic premise is that we would likely be better off ignoring most (if not all) of food science and, as he counsels us, simply to “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.”

Pollan writes that he has given away the entire story in the first line, but again, as he did in Omnivore’s Dilemma, he continues in great detail and with an intriguing style into what that means and how it goes from a simple to a very complex question.

The second and third portions of the book are a further examination of how our eating culture became what it is. Pollan then provides a very straight-forward examination of the ways to escape from the negative aspects of what he calls “The Western Diet.”

The book has already seen relatively wide commercial and critical success. Published in 2008, it rose to the top of the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction and stayed at the top for six weeks.

Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food starts with a broad sketch of a key social change: how control over what families ate shifted from cultural factors, such as mothers and traditions, to marketing and the food industry. The result is that more health claims are made for food than ever before—but people are less healthy. The goal of In Defense of Food is to analyze the reasons for this seeming paradox. As Pollan does so, he makes other arguments as well, such as the idea that people should spend less time worrying about health and food and that the current Western diet makes people sick.

The body of the book is divided into three related sections. Part I, "The Age of Nutritionism," analyzes the scientific ideology called nutritionism. Part II, "The Western Diet and the Diseases of Civilization," applies the information presented in the first part to widespread issues of public health. In Part III, "Getting Over Nutritionism," Pollan focuses on the personal level, and he gives specific advice for what people should and shouldn't eat.

Part I: The Age of Nutritionism

"The Age of Nutritionism" argues that "food" in the purest or most traditional sense has disappeared from groceries in recent years and is replaced by "nutrients." The roots of this transformation are traced to nineteenth-century scientists William Prout (who identified protein, carbohydrates, and fat as the core components of food) and Justus von Liebig (the German chemist who discovered the role of minerals, or micronutrients). This led to the invention of vitamins and to increasing prestige for nutrition science.

Throughout the twentieth century, scientific understanding of nutrition and health developed new theories, such as the lipid hypothesis, which argued that increased consumption of fat and cholesterol were contributing to heart disease. In 1977, nutrition science received a major push from the American government when a Senate committee tasked with addressing health concerns developed its first dietary guidelines. These recommended eating less meat and dairy, but under pressure from lobbyists, the government weakened this recommendation. In part to avoid angering powerful lobbies and in part due to scientific trends, these guidelines began to speak about nutrients rather than food.

The term nutritionism was created by Gyorgy Scrinis in 2002. It refers to the fact that contemporary understanding of nutrition is more like an ideology than a science. Its core belief is that the individual nutrients are the essence of food. Because no one can see nutrients, this belief positions scientists as essential guides for the daily activity of eating. Like other ideologies, nutritionism divides its world along black-and-white lines: good nutrients and bad nutrients. However, there is ongoing debate about which nutrients go in which categories. Nutritionism is very useful for food manufacturers because they can now hype food as improved and healthier because they have added specific nutrients to it. It also allowed food manufacturers to finally dispel a labeling law from 1938, which had required any artificial food to be labeled as "imitation." After all, if nutrients are the essential elements of...



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In Defense of Food with Michael Pollan

"Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

 These words to live by from the award-winning author Michael Pollan resonate at the heart of his newest work, "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto."



He considers what science does and does not know about diet and health, proposing a new way of thinking about food that is informed by ecology and tradition.



Pollan is Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley. Series: Voices [5/2008] [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 14209]

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Link: https://youtu.be/sBr_i1mH_08

California drought.

The Allegheny Front @AlleghenyFront

The lineup: 7 "shady characters" that often get blamed for the California drought. @NPRFood http://n.pr/1FMWnBD

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2015/04/12/398757250/beyond-almonds-a-rogues-gallery-of-guzzlers-in-californias-drought

Smoking Marijuana for 50 Years, and Turning Out Just Fine

Catherine Hiller, author of "Just Say Yes: A Marijuana Memoir," at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, where she believes she first smoked marijuana in the 1960s. Credit David Gonzalez/The New York Times


N.Y. / REGION
Smoking Marijuana for 50 Years, and Turning Out Just Fine
APRIL 12, 2015
Side Street

By DAVID GONZALEZ

As much as Catherine Hiller refuses to admit it, marijuana is a gateway drug. Seriously, after smoking more or less every day for the past 50 years, there had to be some consequences. Yet, she did not go to jail after a random police stop. She did not end up strung out on heroin, sprawled in an alley. She didn’t even binge-munch herself into obesity.

Her daily puffs led her to write a book, “Just Say Yes: A Marijuana Memoir.”

Just in case people approached her story waiting for the Lifetime movie moment of regret and picking up the pieces of a broken life, she started her book in the present day, flashing back, if you will, to the rest of her life. As a writer — she has published novels and short stories — the approach was an entertaining challenge. As a wife, daughter of an activist and proud mother of three young men, she wanted to show that her life turned out nicely.

“I wanted to show people that smoking marijuana did not make me hit rock bottom,” Ms. Hiller, 68, said. “My story is the story of so many people who use each day. And so what? What’s the issue? What will it lead to?”

Well, in the case of minority youths, it could lead to jail time and a criminal record, something Ms. Hiller feels is unjust. Recently, a young man smoking a joint in a Bronx building was mortally injured when he fell off a roof while running from police officers who entered the lobby after reports that marijuana was being used in public view. On the other hand, she and other marijuana advocates wonder about the criminal charges attached to using when banks, like HSBC, laundered drug money but got off with a fineand no criminal indictments.

She has experienced the disparities of race and class when it comes to how law enforcement looks at smokers. In her book, she recounts how after she and her first husband lit up in their car, a policeman flashed a spotlight on them, told them to put out the joint and then waved them off. After an essay adapted from her book was published in The New York Times, someone accused her of living in a cocoon of white privilege.

“Maybe I won’t get stopped,” she said. “But I wrote this not because of my privilege, but because I think it’s absurd that anyone would get stopped for this. Whatever I can do to legalize it, I will.”

She had taken a dim view of marijuana when she was a teenager living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, in 1963 and learned that a girlfriend got high at a party. Like someone who took her cue from the propaganda film “Reefer Madness,” she thought her friend would descend into a dissolute life of jazz and juke joints.

But somehow, Ms. Hiller changed her mind not too long afterward. In fact, she practiced by smoking cigarettes, waiting for her chance to get high. That came when she befriended Myles, a young man who showered her with attention. He offered her her first joint, which they shared — she thinks — in Prospect Park in Brooklyn (followed by a trip to a bar).

“I had the world’s best hamburger,” Ms. Hiller said. “Inside, I thought, ‘This is for me.’ Perhaps euphoria is too strong a word, but things just seemed great.”

Since the mid-1960s, her habit — and yes, she admits a dependency, just as she says someone might have a dependency on coffee — has continued for a half century, though she took breaks for pregnancy and for nursing her babies as well as a three-year hiatus soon after meeting Mark, her current husband. She is emphatic that she did not smoke around her boys, but did offer them a joint once they turned 18 (and were already smoking).

People might think she is some sort of party girl, but to hear her tell it, she is somewhat sedate. Ms. Hiller has had the same dealer for 35 years, watching as his regulars have gotten older and grayer. And there are many things she will not do while high, including driving and attending gatherings where she does not know many people.

Ms. Hiller is looking forward to her book tour, which will take her to at least one dispensary on the West Coast. Not that she justifies her use by claiming medical need.

“I don’t need it to relieve cramps,” she said. “I just like the feeling.”

Some of her neighbors in the New York suburb where she now lives do, too, she said. It amuses her to discover “secret smokers,” even if the whole idea of secrecy is, to her, a holdover from an alarmist and judgmental era. She hopes her book and campaign — where she invites readers to share their stories on her website,marijuanamemoir.com — will lead to a change of opinion and laws.

“It’s hard for people to change their mind-set after so many years,” Ms. Hiller admitted. “But look at marriage equality and how that happened so fast. That was unheard-of five years ago. So maybe smoking pot will be completely normal, and no one will raise an eyebrow when they find out somebody smokes.”







A version of this article appears in print on April 13, 2015, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Smoking Marijuana for 50 Years, and Turning Out Just Fine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/nyregion/after-50-years-of-smoking-marijuana-her-life-turned-out-nicely.html?
action=click&contentCollection=Sports&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

Dr Peter Gøtzsche exposes big pharma as organized crime

Published on Apr 1, 2015

For more informative videos and free information visit http:drmcdougall.com

Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD is a Danish medical researcher, and leader of the Nordic Cochrane Center at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has written numerous reviews within the Cochrane collaboration.
Dr.Gøtzsche has been critical of screening for breast cancer using mammography, arguing that it cannot be justified; His critique stems from a meta-analysis he did on mammography screening studies and published as Is screening for breast cancer with mammography justifiable? in The Lancet in 2000. In it he discarded 6 out of 8 studies arguing their randomization was inadequate.

In 2006 a paper by Gøtzsche on mammography screening was electronically published in the European Journal of Cancer ahead of print. The journal later removed the paper completely from the journal website without any formal retraction. The paper was later published in Danish Medical Bulletin with a short note from the editor, and Gøtzsche and his coauthors commented on the unilateral retraction that the authors were not involved in.

In 2012 his book Mammography Screening: Truth, Lies and Controversy was published. In 2013 his book Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime: How Big Pharma has Corrupted Healthcare was published.http://www.cochrane.org/

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Peter Gøtzsche - Overdiagnosed & Overmedicated

Published on May 12, 2015

In his talk, Peter will discuss the various ways in which psychiatry may be harming rather than helping its patients, citing evidence from his latest book "Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How big pharma has corrupted healthcare".

More information at https://mentalaz.wordpress.com/home/

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Big Pharmaceutical Executive Turns Whistleblower

Published on Jun 18, 2013

Big Pharmaceutical Executive Turns Whistle blower.

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Link: https://youtu.be/g8bt8eUB1CU