Category: Interesting Information

Information I want to share in a non-essay form

Interesting Information: “What a year with a single tree reveals about climate change – The Boston Globe”

Interesting Information:  June 3, 2017

Plants and Climate Change

SIL Maryann Enright brought me the article below on her last visit.

I do hope you read it–especially as this week Trump announced he is withdrawing the USA from the Paris Accords and is presently refusing to clarify whether or not he still believes climate change is a “hoax.”

Plants hold the keys to some really important information about how Earth functions–or should function if we would stop destroying that which we do not yet understand.

I started reading about the incredible sophistication of plants with herbalist Stephen Buhner’s books.  I was blown away by what I was reading–how smart plants are, how they use chemicals to communicate, how they manage their environments, and so on.  There is an entry from 2013 here on the blog about Stephen Buhner’s information/books.  You can use the search button on the right sidebar to get to it if the link below does not work.  This work is scientific, of the Nobel Prize winning kind.

Meanwhile, take a look at Lynda V. Mapes article from The Boston Globe Magazine (April 30, 2017).   She recounts an interesting study, made among other ongoing interesting studies.

 

Source: What a year with a single tree reveals about climate change – The Boston Globe

https://louisaenright.com/?s=Stephen+Buhner

Interesting Information: Belief Systems and “You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you – The Oatmeal”

Interesting Information:  June 3, 2018

Belief Systems and

“You’re Not Going To Believe What I’m About To Tell You”

A friend sent me this little comic book exploration of belief systems and how we physically react when our own belief systems are challenged.

It’s fascinating.  And, well done I think.  Well worth a view and some afterthought.  Especially since our belief systems operate in incredibly powerful ways in our lives–and not always for the better.

Enjoy!

Source: You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you – The Oatmeal

Interesting Information: Salt Wars

Interesting Information:  March 23, 2017

Salt Wars

What to believe about salt?

I wrote at least one essay (see Mainely Tipping Points essays) on the salt wars.

We actually eat LESS salt now than people in the generations before canning and freezing.  And, most of us are less healthy today.

There are some people who have genuine salt intolerances, but my understanding is that they are somewhat rare.

Anyway, the potassium and salt ratio is important.  I eat a lot of salt, so if I get leg cramps, I take a potassium pill.  Salt washes potassium out of one’s system.

Salt is crucial for health in all kinds of ways–see the essay I wrote

And, here is a very recent piece you might want to read from Dr. Mercola:

Source: Why the War on Salt Is Dangerous

Interesting Information: What are Chemtrails and How Are They Harming Our Food and Water?

Interesting Information:  February 14, 2017

What Are Chemtrails and How Are They Harming Our Food and Water?

I keep reading about “chemtrails.”

This article documents what is in them and shows patents supposedly for them, but it does not document WHO has authorized this practice–beyond the conspiracy theory of “global government.”  And it does not document fully who exactly is using chemtrails and when.  Did a whole line of US presidents approve this practice with nary an objection?  Did all those pilots never mention this program, this duty?  Seems hard to believe.

According to this article, here’s what’s in them, in part:

Chemtrails are geo-engineered aerosols that are loaded with toxic chemicals, including but not limited to: barium, strontium 90, aluminum, cadmium, zinc, viruses and “chaff.” Chaff looks like snow but it’s actually Mylar fibers (like in fiberglass) coated with aluminum, desiccated blood cells, plastic, and paper. Polymer chemist Dr. R. Michael Castle has studied atmospheric polymers for years, and he has identified microscopic polymers comprised of genetically-engineered fungal forms mutated with viruses, which are now part of the air we breathe.

Monsanto is said to be making the chemical mixture.

In the late 1960s Monsanto supported the secret Muad’ Dib Geoengineering Lab to develop “chemtrail” technology; their crown jewel program to protect earth from global warming via weather control. Sounds so humanitarian, right? Wrong!

 I don’t know…

Industry can be pretty powerful, especially when aligned with “national security.”  But this powerful for this long time?

I’m keeping an open mind, but I want better proof than I am finding here.

What do you think?

Source: What are Chemtrails and How Are They Harming Our Food and Water? | The Truth About Cancer

Interesting Information: The High-Cost, High-Risk World of Modern Pet Care

Interesting Information:  February 4, 2017

The High-Cost, High-Risk World of Modern Pet Care

 

This article is fascinating, whether or not if you own pets.  It’s all about consolidation in the veterinary business–and yes it is very much a business.

I would also point out that consolidation is also going on in mainstream medicine.  Businesses are buying up hospitals and private practices, so medicine is, often, now about making money, not about either people or science.

What results is a “one size fits all” practice that is not good for either humans or pets.

Here’s a quote from the article:

An annual postcard reminding you that your dog or cat is due for its shots—“it’s time for the tough love”—is the main way veterinarians get pets in the door each year. That’s why many animal doctors, at every kind of practice, have chosen to ignore guidelines from the AAHA, which since 2003 has recommended dogs not be given what are called the core vaccines—for distemper, parvovirus, and adenovirus—more often than every three years. Indeed, the guidelines say a single series of these shots is probably enough to provide a lifetime of immunity.

Dog vaccines are NOT scaled to a pet’s weight.

Here’s another quote:

A pet may receive dozens of shots in a lifetime, at a cost of hundreds of dollars, but surprisingly little research has been done to find out how safe they are, and there is wide disagreement among experts. A 2005 study by Purdue University using Banfield data from more than 1 million medical records found 38 adverse reactions for every 10,000 shots, a rate of about 0.4 percent. Schultz and a research partner, Jean Dodds, argue the numbers are much higher, more like 3 percent or 4 percent, with about 1 in 200 dogs experiencing life-threatening reactions such as anaphylactic shock. “Vaccines can kill,” Schultz says. “If you don’t need to vaccinate annually and you do, you’re taking unnecessary risks.”

One size does not fit all.  Not for pets, and not for people.

This article, however, is much more about consolidation.  Treatments, like pushing vaccines, are just examples of how industry is trying to get more money from each person or pet that walks through the door.

 

Source: The High-Cost, High-Risk World of Modern Pet Care – Bloomberg

Interesting Information: Honey and Cancer: Sustainable Inverse Relationship Particularly for Developing Nations

Interesting Information:  January 30, 2017

Honey and Cancer:  Sustainable Inverse Relationship

DIL Tami Kelly Enright is the director of The Bee Cause, which seeks to sustain bees via educating people about bees.  By placing hives in public places (schools, stores, parks, etc.), people can learn about bees and bees can have a protected place to live.  Whole Foods has been a big supporter.  And the whole project was initially started and funded by The Savannah Bee Company in Savannah, Georgia.  Tami has won a number of major funding grants along the way.

Anyway, Tami sent me this study, which shows an inverse relationship between honey and cancer prevention.

Source: Honey and Cancer: Sustainable Inverse Relationship Particularly for Developing Nations—A Review

Interesting Information: “Which Milk Is Most Nutritious: Soy, Cashew, Almond or Coconut?”

Interesting Information:  January 9, 2017

“Which Milk Is Most Nutritious:  Soy, Cashew, Almond or Coconut?”

This article comes from the “Well” section of The New York Times.

The general consensus is that “in terms of nutrients, nut milks pale in comparison to cow’s milk.”

I would add that raw cows milk is a much better choice than commercial cooked milk with added nutrients.  There is a lot of information on raw milk in the Mainely Tipping Points essays on this blog.

One factor considered in the article is the amount of protein available.

Another factor considered is the amount of nutrients that have been added back to a product that has destroyed the original nutrients.  I would also argue that these grocery-store milks are basically fake foods and that if you need to or want to make substitutions for cows milk, learn to make your own alternative milks using real ingredients that you will minimally process.  There are plenty of recipes on-line.  I’ve made coconut milk.  It’s easy.  You buy an organic dried coconut and, basically, pour boiling water over it and let it steep before straining out the coconut bits.

The article points out that the “good” of any of these milks also depends upon the particular manufacturer.  READ LABELS.

I would also NOT touch soy milk.  There is plenty of information on the dangers of improperly processed soy products on this blog.

Source: Which Milk Is Most Nutritious: Soy, Cashew, Almond or Coconut? – The New York Times

Iinteresting Information: European Union’s Major Institutions Agree to Ban Amalgam Fillings

Interesting Information:  December 27, 2016

Mercury Fillings Banned in the EU

I have had all my amalgam/mercury fillings taken out and replaced with “white” fillings.

A healthy amount of these fillings are…mercury.  Approximately 50% by weight, a quick check on google shows.

Mercury fillings off-gas mercury into the body, which can and does make it sick.

Some American dentists are actively suggesting replacing these mercury fillings.  Some are replacing if asked to do so.  Some are still using them.

It’s all another case of where American health organizations have backed themselves into a corner that could go legal on them if they admit they were…wrong.

Here’s the story, which starts with the quote below:

“Starting July 1, 2018, amalgam use will be banned for children and for pregnant or nursing women across the vast European Union.”

Source: European Union’s Major Institutions Agree to Ban Amalgam Fillings

Interesting Information and Book Review: The Big Fat Surprise: Nina Teicholz

Interesting Information and Book Review:  August 28, 2016

THE BIG FAT SURPRISE

Nina Teicholz

The USDA food guide finally scraped the notion that dietary cholesterol made too much cholesterol in the body.

It’s about time as that science has been out there for decades and decades.  Or, the lack thereof…

It was too much to hope that in the same year the USDA would also scrap the false notion that healthy fat is bad for you.  But that will fall next.

Really, the food guide and food advice needs to be removed from the USDA–there is a huge conflict of interest involved.  What is healthy for humans to eat is not necessarily the food crops that the USDA’s main clients raise.  Corn, soybeans, and wheat would be good examples.  (I have essays in the Mainely Tipping Point Essays about the early development of the USDA food guide and the corruption involved.)

Healthy fats are NOT the highly processed and already rancid vegetable fats–with the exception of MINIMALLY processed olive and coconut oils.  Healthy fats come from healthy animals eating what they were meant to eat.  We are talking small farms that grass-feed, pasture chickens, let pigs be pigs and goats be goats and sheep be sheep, and so on.

Teicholz explores the science of fat and explains “Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.”

Here’s Teicholz’s web site:

Source: The Big Fat Surprise: Nina Teicholz

The Wall Street Journal has a good review.

And here’s a response to Teicholz’s predictable critics:

Source: Response to Critics |

Note that there are MANY well-credentialed folks out there saying the same thing Teicholz is saying and showing science and history that proves it.  In the Mainely Tipping Point Essays there are essays on work done by Mary Enig, Gary Taubes, and The Weston A. Price Foundation.  The latter does not have a “dog in this hunt” so to speak as they are not selling anything.

 

The Healing Power of Germs? | GreenMedInfo | Blog Entry

Interesting Information:  August 20, 2016

The Healing Power of Germs

Today the news is filled with hysteria about the Zika virus spreading in the United States–a virus that has been around for quite some time.  The hysteria is not taking into consideration other factors/correlations that may produce maimed infants.  Instead, without adequate research into those other factors (agricultural and insecticide poisons, GMO mosquitoes, and mandating mothers have a DTAP vaccine without one shred of safety testing on either the mother or the fetus), our so-called health organizations are pushing for yet another vaccine while cities are drenching their populations with insecticides that will kill EVERYTHING.

When I was growing up, my mother, like most of her generation, had an absolute horror about germs.

We traveled with bottles of Lysol, the emerging television programs were mostly funded by ads for cleaning or insect-eradicating products, and health scares like the polio “epidemic” went hand-in-hand with Russian nuclear terror.

Back in those days, the 1950s, travel for a family was mostly by car.  We used to drive on two-lane roads for two or three days to get “home” to Reynolds, Georgia.  Mother packed food for us to eat.  We often stopped to pee in the woods for they were far cleaner than the roadside gas stations of that era.  And when we did have to stop at one of these dives, mother went in with the Lysol bottle first while issuing warnings about not sitting on the toilet seat as you could get heinous, horrible diseases.  (It was a relief when my doctor uncle finally said that for us to get a dreaded sexual disease we would have to be misbehaving with an infected someone of the opposite sex on the toilet seat.  And could someone please, please tell the women of today to sit down as they do not need to be peeing all over the seat and the surrounding floor in public bathrooms.)

Looking back, it’s easy to see now just how surrounded all of us were by market strategies that were going to “protect” us, but that involved products to sell to us.

Well…

Science moves on.  And one of the most startling discoveries is that our bodies NEED stimulation from various illnesses to strengthen our immune systems.  AND, that we are FILLED with “germs” which are part and parcel of who we are.  I am loving and welcoming the discovery of the microbiome.

Sayer Ji of GreenMedInfo has written an interesting and thoughtful piece about where these discoveries about germs should lead us.  SHOULD, I say, knowing the odds as we are still immersed in so many drug ads on our televisions and in medical “knowledge” that is selling us drug-based interventions that are said will make us healthy and safe.  (Did you know that only one other country allows drug ads on television?  New Zealand.  And who would risk taking any of those drugs once listening to the side effects?)

Healthy and Safe?  Really?

Here’s a quote:

What makes this situation all the more surreal is the relatively recent discovery of the microbiome, namely, the 100 trillion viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, which outnumber our own cells 10-1, and which proves that we are more “germ” than “human,” and in many respects, would not be alive without them: e.g. about 8% of our genome is retroviral in origin, 90% of our immune system depends on bacteria in our gut. How, then, can these microorganisms be as deadly as we are told, while at the same time be responsible for making possible our life itself?

Germs are not “other.”  They are “us.”  Eradicating them without understanding their full function in our bodies, in the world, is…foolish…and is producing a host of unintended consequences that are NOT good for us.

Take a minute and take a look at Sayer Ji’s article.  And take more minutes and think about what he is saying about your health and mine.

 

Source: The Healing Power of Germs? | GreenMedInfo | Blog Entry

Sayer Ji, December 9, 2016.