The subject of artificial ingredients comes up so frequently, that I thought it would be a good idea to give you some idea of how incestuous is the relationship between the industrial/commercial food business, drug companies and government. Aspartame, the artificial sweetener, is dangerous and toxic, yet the government allows it to exist in foods, including diet sodas.

I use the term “foods” lightly here, because a diet soda, or even a regular one, has little in common with a real food like an orange or a carrot. But it is precisely because aspartame is a dangerous chemical, and not a food, that our government should have banned it thirty years ago, at least.

Aspartame is a ubiquitous poison

Aspartame is an additive found in diet soft drinks and more than 5,000 foods, drugs and medicine. It was approved in 1983 for use in carbonated beverages.

Donald Rumsfeld pushes one past the American people

You remember Donald Rumsfeld? The man of the hour of the Bush administration who lied on national television, telling us that our bombs in Iraq are so precise that they only hit intended targets? We need to ignore that 90% of all casualties in Iraq were civilian, not combatants. Rumsfeld also told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but that was another lie that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. It’s the same Donald Rumsfeld who, working for a major drug company, put aspartame on the map.

What does aspartame do?

Robbie Genet, in his exposé on the topic, wrote: “The FDA’s own toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross told Congress that without a shadow of a doubt, aspartame can cause brain tumors and brain cancer and that it violated the Delaney Amendment, which forbids putting anything in food that is known to cause cancer. According to the top doctors and researchers on this issue, aspartame causes headache, memory loss, seizures, vision loss, coma and cancer. It worsens or mimics the symptoms of such diseases and conditions as fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, ADD, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, chronic fatigue and depression. Further dangers highlighted is that aspartame liberates free methyl alcohol. The resulting chronic methanol poisoning affects the dopamine system of the brain causing addiction. Methanol, or wood alcohol, constitutes one third of the aspartame molecule and is classified as a severe metabolic poison and narcotic.”1

NewsWithViews staff writers reported: “The effects of aspartame are documented by the FDA’s own data. In 1995 the agency was forced, under the Freedom of Information Act, to release a list of ninety-two aspartame symptoms reported by thousands of victims. It appears this is only the tip of the iceberg. H. J. Roberts, MD, published the medical text “Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic” — 1,000 pages of symptoms and diseases triggered by this neurotoxin including the sordid history of its approval.“2

Rumsfeld’s history with aspartame

Donald Rumsfeld was the CEO of Searle, the company that applied to the FDA to get aspartame on the market. When Ronald Reagan became president, Rumsfeld found a crooked way to push aspartame through. Reagan’s appointed FDA commissioner, Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., made it one of his first orders of business to approve aspartame as an additive. Though there was originally an opposition to allowing aspartame to be in foods, Rumsfeld said he was going to call in his markers and use his political leverage with Reagan. The president’s appointee, Hayes, stacked the deck in favor of Searle. Rumsfeld kept hidden from the public just how poisonous and dangerous aspartame really is.

When Searle was taken over by Monsanto in 1985, Donald Rumsfeld  received a $12 million bonus. Profits for poison.

They’re all in bed together, including Monsanto

NewsWithViews reported: When Donald Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle, that conglomerate manufactured aspartame. For 16 years the FDA refused to approve it, not only because its not safe but because they wanted the company indicted for fraud. Both U.S. Prosecutors hired on with the defense team and the statute of limitations expired. They were Sam Skinner and William Conlon. Skinner went on to become Secretary of Transportation squelching the cries of the pilots who were now having seizures on this seizure triggering drug, aspartame, and then Chief of Staff under President Bush’s father. Some of these people reach high places. Even Supreme Justice Clarence Thomas is a former Monsanto attorney. (Monsanto bought Searle in 1985, and sold it a few years ago). When Ashcroft became Attorney General, Thompson from King and Spalding Attorneys (another former Monsanto attorney) became deputy under Ashcroft. (Attorneys for NutraSweet and Coke).2

1. Donald Rumsfeld and the Strange History of Aspartame.

2. NewsWithViews: Donald Rumsfeld and Aspartame

Creative Commons License photo credit: AZRainman

by Vic Shayne, PhD
Nutrition Research Center

Right off the bat, let’s make something clear. Vitamins should come from real, whole, pure foods. Vitamins in fancy foo-foo water, as isolated supplement pills, and those used to enrich foods are not natural at all. Why? Because vitamins are found in nature’s foods along with many other “helper” ingredients within a “complex.”

Once you remove the vitamin from this complex, what you are left with is a chemical. Or worse, scientists can merely create a vitamin in a laboratory. They say it’s the same thing, but don’t you think your body would know the difference?

VitaminWater doesn’t measure up, despite Coca Cola’s claims

The Coca-Cola Company makes something they call VitaminWater. Apparently, they are the only ones who believe the health claims, scientifically speaking.

The huge conglomerate was served notice of a class action lawsuit filed over what the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) said are deceptive and unsubstantiated claims on its VitaminWater line of beverages.

Coke markets VitaminWater as a healthful alternative to soda by labeling its several flavors with such health buzz words as “defense,” “rescue,” “energy,” and “endurance.” The company makes a wide range of dramatic claims, including that its drinks variously reduce the risk of chronic disease, reduce the risk of eye disease, promote healthy joints, and support optimal immune function.

Promoting health problems instead of curing them

The drink, VitaminWater, is touted as a healthful drink. But, according to CSPI nutritionists, the 33 grams of sugar in each bottle of VitaminWater do more to promote obesity, diabetes, and other health problems than the vitamins in the drinks do to perform the advertised benefits listed on the bottles.

VitaminWater contains between zero and one percent juice despite product names such as “endurance peach mango” and “focus kiwi strawberry.”

Typical consumer thinking

“When I bought VitaminWater, frankly I thought I was doing myself a favor health-wise,” said the plaintiff, San Francisco, California, resident James Koh, who used to purchase and drink VitaminWater after working out at the gym. “I was attracted by the prospect of getting extra vitamins. But I had no idea that I was actually getting almost a Coke’s worth of sugar and calories. There’s no way I would have spent money on that, had I known.”

VitaminWater’s website, marketing copy, and labels were claiming that VitaminWater is healthful, claiming, for example, that “balance cran-grapefruit” has “bioactive components” that promote “healthy, pain-free functioning of joints, structural integrity of joints and bones” and that the nutrients in “power-c dragonfruit” “enable the body to exert physical power by contributing to the structural integrity of the musculoskeletal system.”

Crossing the line into fraudulent advertising

While it is true that vitamins do play various roles in the human body, the statements on VitaminWater labels go far beyond even the loose, so-called “structure/function claims” allowed by the Food and Drug Administration and cross the line into outright fraud, according to CSPI.

itaminWater contains between zero and one percent juice, despite the full names of the drinks, which include “endurance peach mango” and “focus kiwi strawberry,” and “xxx blueberry pomegranate acai,” among others. A press release for the “xxx” drink claims its antioxidants makes the drinker “last longer” in some unspecified way; in any event, it has no blueberry, pomegranate, or acai juice, nor do the others have any cranberry, grapefruit, dragon fruit, peach, mango, kiwi, or strawberry juice.

The need to fool the public

The people at Coke, like those at Monsanto, KFC, MacDonalds and the rest of their ilk know that their products cause health problems. Too many studies have been done on the effects of sugar and junk foods to ignore the deleterious effects. So Coke thought they’d use the idea of vitamins to lure the more health conscious into using their products. What does this prove? That the company just doesn’t really care. Their goal is to sell drinks and fool the public if that’s what it takes.

According to documents filed in 2007 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Coke acknowledged that “obesity and other health concerns may reduce demand for some of [its] products,” and that “increasing public awareness” about health experts’ concerns over sugar-sweetened beverage could affect the company’s profitability. That year, Coke acquired VitaminWater’s parent company, Glaceau. Also in 2007, CSPI sued Coke and its partner Nestlé over an artificially sweetened green-tea-based drink called Enviga. The companies claim Enviga burns more calories than it consumes, resulting in weight loss—a claim that CSPI says is not supported by the small number of studies on the drink’s ingredients.

“Coke fears, probably correctly, that they’ll sell less soda as Americans become increasingly concerned with obesity, diabetes, and other conditions linked to diets too high in sugar,” said CSPI litigation director Steve Gardner. “VitaminWater is Coke’s attempt to dress up soda in a physician’s white coat. Underneath, it’s still sugar water, albeit sugar water that costs about ten bucks a gallon.” VitaminWater typically retails for about $1.49 for a 20-ounce bottle.

“My advice to consumers is to get your vitamins from real food,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. “If you have reason to believe you have a shortcoming of one vitamin or another, perhaps take an inexpensive supplement. But don’t seek out your vitamins in sugary soft drinks like Coke’s VitaminWater.”

Center for Science in the Public Interest to the Rescue

Since 2005, CSPI’s litigation project has, on its own or in cooperation with private law firms, negotiated settlements or voluntary changes to marketing practices with Anheuser-Busch, Airborne, Kellogg, Frito-Lay, Quaker Oats, Pinnacle Foods and others. Whatley, Drake & Kallas, LLC is a 35-lawyer firm with offices in Birmingham, New York City, and Boston which concentrates on complex class action and derivative litigation, including consumer, healthcare, insurance, employee benefits, antitrust, securities, and mass tort litigation. Reese Richman LLP handles commercial litigation with a focus on consumer, antitrust, and securities class actions.

Creative Commons License photo credit: mikebaird

by Vic Shayne, PhD

At long last a film is coming out that embodies our philosophy, as well as the philosophies of many of the nutritional pioneers who have been talking about natural health care for more than a century, but are now gone.

The philosophy? Food heals, food cures and food prevents disease. Artificial ingredients, toxic substances and processed “foods,” on the other hand, destroy health and cause diseases and symptoms.

The message is too simple for most people to understand

For the last fifty years or so we’ve been deluged by advertising and marketing campaigns that have been shaping the collective worldview of the modern, Western world. General Mills, Monsanto, Coca Cola, McDonald’s and others have been showing us that food doesn’t look like broccoli, berries or granola. Instead, they’ve told us it looks like colorful breakfast cereal coated with “frosting” (a misleading term for refined sugar). They have also showed us that it’s fun and convenient to eat a burger or processed mashed potatoes that are far from the real food. They’ve educated us on a food pyramid that favors corporations and not human beings. And they’ve inundated our schools with so-called “educational” materials that include advertising pitches for their processed foods.

We’ve all heard of Twinkies, Big Macs, Coco-Puffs, Pringles, and Cracker Jacks, but few of us in this present generation know what it’s like to eat organic (toxin-free) green vegetables on their dinner plates every evening.

We’ve learned from the world’s largest corporations that toxic chemicals like food dyes, MSG and aspartame are perfectly acceptable because the government lets them pass into foodstuffs. What we haven’t noticed is that our government agencies have been influenced and hijacked by corporations will billions of dollars to spend lobbying for drugs and junk food. And don’t get me started about genetically engineered foods that you’re already eating without being told it’s in your food!!

Cancer grows and grows

Cancer and other disease have continued to soar despite claims of superior medical care and advances in food technology. Why is this? For the most part it has to do with toxic chemicals that most westerners consume with every meal. These chemicals accumulate and interact with one another to create disease.

Our bodies are not meant to ingest such a continuous stream of fake foods, bad oils, artificial ingredients, dyes, refined sugar, refined salt, heavy metals, emulsifiers and taste enhancers.

Watch this film clip

Watch this film clip and you’ll get a glimpse of a way to be healthy without drugs, surgery or medical intervention. The answer is in your pantry, not in your medicine cabinet…

The result of a fake foods and processed foods diet

Diets devoid of real, whole nutrient-dense foods result in cancer, diabetes, hypertension, clogged arteries, skin eruptions, obesity and a whole lot more.

Thus far, the PR wars have been led and won by huge corporations who do not care about your health. They aren’t there for you when a family member gets cancer and they aren’t there to help offset your medical bills when you need treatment for diseases that they’ve caused by feeding you junk.

Everybody profits but you

In the scheme of things, the foul-nutrition business is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry for the drug companies, giant food processors, medical system and insurance industry. The only one not profiting is YOU. Not only do you and your family and friends not profit, you actually suffer.

Cancer used to be a rare disease — less than 75 years ago. Now it strikes one in two. Everybody knows somebody who either has, has had, or has died from, cancer.

The guide is free and provided by Environmental Working Group. Just go to their website and upload it for your computer or iPod. CLICK HERE.

Why Should You Care About Pesticides?

The growing consensus among scientists is that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can cause lasting damage to human health, especially during fetal development and early childhood. Scientists now know enough about the long-term consequences of ingesting these powerful chemicals to advise that we minimize our consumption of pesticides.

What’s the Difference?

EWG (Environmental Working Group) research has found that people who eat five fruits and vegetables a day from the Dirty Dozen™ list consume an average of 10 pesticides a day. Those who eat from the 15 least contaminated conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables ingest fewer than 2 pesticides daily. The Guide helps consumers make informed choices to lower their dietary pesticide load.

Will Washing and Peeling Help?

The data used to create these lists is based on produce tested as it is typically eaten (meaning washed, rinsed or peeled, depending on the type of produce). Rinsing reduces but does not eliminate pesticides. Peeling helps, but valuable nutrients often go down the drain with the skin. The best approach: eat a varied diet, rinse all produce and buy organic when possible.

How Was This Guide Developed?

EWG analysts have developed the Guide based on data from nearly 89,000 tests for pesticide residues in produce conducted between 2000 and 2008 and collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. You can find a detailed description of the criteria EWG used to develop these rankings and the complete list of fruits and vegetables tested at our dedicated website,www.foodnews.org.

Which are the five worst foods, pesticides-wise?

In order:

1. Celery
2. Peaches
3. Strawberries
4. Apples
5. Blueberries

GET THE WHOLE LIST, including foods that are relatively safer to eat, if not organic by going to the EWG.org website.

This, writes Shannon, is because what really matters to Monsanto, as the book’s author, Marie-Monique Robin, documents, “is control of the world seed market and the genetic engineering of those seeds to be resistant to, and therefore dependent on, Roundup, Monsanto’s herbicide with the real miracle; gigantic profits.”

Very disturbing, yet essential to understand

The World According to Monsanto is the winner of the Rachel Carson Prize, and is an explosive expose of the disturbing practices of one of the world’s most influential multinational agricultural corporations. The result of a remarkable three-year-long investigation that took award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin across four continents,

The World According to Monsanto tells the little-known yet shocking story of this agribusiness giant—the world’s leading producer of GMOs (genetically modified organisms)— its new and dubious “green” face and its problematic PCB– and Agent Orange–soaked past. Life Sciences image is a sham Robin reports that, following its long history of manufacturing hazardous chemicals and lethal herbicides, Monsanto is now marketing itself as a “life sciences” company, seemingly convinced about the virtues of sustainable development.

However, Monsanto now controls the majority of the yield of the world’s genetically modified corn and soy—ingredients found in a high percentage of households—and its legal and political tactics to maintain this monopoly are the subject of worldwide concern. Released to great acclaim and controversy in France, throughout Europe, and in Latin America, alongside the documentary film of the same name, The World According to Monsanto is sure to change the way we think about food safety and our food supply.

Is Monsanto destroying our lives for profits?

Monsanto’s long list of critics, from environmentalist scientists to organic food proponents, label the corporation the most evil that ever existed. Writer Phil Shannon states, “Monsanto’s criminal tale began in the 1930s with PCBs which are heat-resistant industrial coolants and lubricants. PCBs polluted the planet for four decades until they were banned in 1977, leaving a continuing trail of cancers and other diseases.”

Shannon writes, “PCBs are resistant to natural biological decay and are accumulative in fatty tissue through the food chain to maximum levels in top predator species like us. Internal Monsanto memos that documented the toxic effects of PCBs reiterated the company’s obsessive concern to not ‘damage our sales position in the synthetic hydraulic fluid field,’ arguing that “we can’t afford to lose one dollar of business.”

One last note about safe food shopping and putting genetically engineered products in your basket

Whole Foods & Trader Joe’s have non-GMO policies for their store-brand products, but not for the rest of the FOOD they sell, says the Organic Consumers Association. As of this writing, Whole Foods Market claims to support mandatory GMO labels, but admits selling unlabeled foods made with genetically modified organisms.

Creative Commons License photo credit: mark sebastian

Americans may like their drinks “sickeningly sweet,” but a new labeling initiative may discourage us from gulping unnecessary calories, said Jessica Bartfield, MD, medical weight-loss specialist at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital.

As of February 2011, the front labels of packaged beverages now include the total number of calories in containers of 20 ounces or less. The beverage industry began this initiative in support of First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign to fight childhood obesity.

“Liquid caloric consumption can be quite a significant contribution to weight gain, so this is a tremendous effort to educate the public,” said Dr. Bartfield, who is part of the Loyola University Health System’s physician-led team of exercise physiologists, nutritionists and psychologists who work together to change the behaviors of those who are significantly overweight.

“Beverage containers traditionally ‘hid’ the nutritional content at the back in a small square with small print and cleverly listed just the calorie content per serving,” Bartfield said.

“Unbeknownst to those who are happily guzzling their favorite cola or fruit drink, most packaged beverages contain multiple servings, and most Americans fail to do the math on the total calorie count,” she said.

Dr. Bartfield’s top 3 “sickeningly sweet” statistics include:

1 – Just A Spoonful of Sugar – “The average American consumes 22.5 teaspoons of added sugar daily, half of which comes from regular soda and fruit drinks, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,” conducted from 1999 to 2004, she said.

2 – Sugar On Top – “About 10 percent of overweight adults consume 450 calories of sugar-sweetened beverages per day, which is three times that of an average American. Cutting 450 calories per day would lead to about a 1 pound per week weight loss, close to 50 pounds in one year.”

3 – Babies and Beverages – “A study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that reduction in sugar-sweetened beverages (regular soda, fruit drinks and fruit punch) had a significant effect on weight change at 6 months and 18 months, even more of an impact than solid-calorie reduction.”

What’s missing from this equation?

Unfortunately scientists love to concentrate on calories rather than real health issues. While consuming more calories than you can burn can lead to health problems like overweight conditions, we can’t ignore worse threats like artificial ingredients, toxic chemicals and, of course, sugar.

Sugar is a poison that leads to more health problems than most medical professionals care to admit. The tremendously powerful sugar-growers lobby sees to the suppression of sugar’s dangers. So, while people are shocked at high calories in sweet drinks, they should really be even more concerned about the down sides of eating sugar, from cancer to diabetes. Read on.

Message in a Bottle

Chicagoan Aaron Villarreal, 35, regularly drank about 12 cans of cola every day before joining the Gottlieb Medical Weight Loss Program when his weight topped out at 350 pounds.

“I was stunned when the nutritionist poured white sugar in a measuring cup to show me how much sugar I was drinking in just one day,” he said. Villarreal cut cola from his diet and lost 5 pounds in one week.

“Seeing that one small change make such a dramatic difference encouraged me to improve my diet in other ways and to add exercise,” Villareal said.

Looking past the calories

The best advice would be to consider not only high calories, but to read about the health threat from refined sugar.

Dr. Nancy Appleton, who hates sugar as much as the president hates fighting the lies about his nationality of origin, gives us a shocking list of 141 terrible consequences of consuming the white substance. Click here to see.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Muffet

Have you ever heard somebody say, “I like eating all sorts of poisonous chemicals, including artificial ingredients, pesticides and growth hormones.” Not if that person was right in the head.

So why do people eat chemical-laden foods?

This is not a question to be taken lightly. There seems to be a gap between what people know and how they act upon their knowledge. Or IF they act upon that knowledge.

Why eat chemicals when you have a choice?
We can all agree that substances such as antibiotics from meat, artificial sweeteners and cancer-causing pesticides have enough science behind them to show that they cause diseases in human beings. But what we can’t agree on is why people eat these substances willingly when there is a choice not to.

What’s the missing link?
The missing link seems to be motivation more than knowledge.

Many complain about higher prices for organics. But then they will spend even more of their money on gasoline, car payments, entertainment, cable television and other non-essential goods and services.

So money is not usually the issue.
The issue is one of consciousness. It has to do with whether you are consciously thinking about the food in front of you as nutritious or poisonous.

For someone to think this way takes a little work. You have to make a deliberate connection between the capabilities of foods to either hurt or heal, to help or injure. And the connection has to be made so often that it seeps into your subconscious so that when you’re staring at the produce in the grocery store, you think in these terms.

It comes in many descriptions: natural, pure, synthetic, ascorbic acid, ester C and so forth.

But makes no mistake: Almost all Vitamin C in pill form comes from one not so sweet source:

CORN SUGAR.

Let’s take a look at what vitamin C does for your body and which sources of vitamin C are healthier options.

What Vitamin C does for You

We all know that vitamin C is good for us. In the 1700s, it was discovered that it prevents scurvy.

It also supports and is used in the manufacture of collagen, protects the lung tissues, supports arterial endogenous and exogenous linings, feeds the heart, nourishes the adrenal glands and keeps the skin from falling apart. And there’s much more.

Whole Foods beat Isolates

Your body processes vitamins better when they come in a whole food form. This is because they are accompanied by all the cofactors that help break down the vitamin and use its nutrients.

When a vitamin is extracted from its food complex form, it loses a great deal of its efficacy and can even cause side effects.

When you buy Vitamin C ascorbic acid (the most common form of vitamin C sold in stores) you should know it is not even made from fruits, as most people are misled to believe with photos of bright oranges on bottle labels.

Getting better Vitamin C from Foods (and loads more of it!)

Like any other nutrient, the best vitamin C is and will always be contained inside of a natural food.

Examples of foods containing vitamin C are lemons, limes, grapefruit and apples.

And one of the highest sources is acerola cherry which we use in a few of our supplements (Flavo-C, Whole Food Complex, ImmuneSupport).

Acerola Berry: a Great Source of C

In acerola: in addition to vitamin C, you get the other nutritional benefits that you will NOT find in vitamin C isolates, no matter how potent.

Acerola also contains magnesium, pantothenic acid and potassium. It has vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin and niacin. Plus there’s calcium, protein, iron, limonen and phosphorus.

Again, These Vitamin C whole foods contain not only the vitamin, but also all of the cofactors that make it viable to human biochemistry.

Click here to learn more about Flavo-C.

vitamin photo © 2007 SOCIALisBETTER

fruit photo © 2010 Lori Greig

It seems to be the magical hour when people want to close their eyes and drool on their desks for a while.

Instead of taking an upper in the form of a prescription or over-the-counter drug, or even some chemicalized vitamin supplement, consider this: Proper nutrition may be your answer to brighter eyes and perkiness.

What’s making you tired during the day?

There are a number of factors that can make you tired:

• lack of proper sleep
• stress (who doesn’t suffer from this??)
• overworking
• overexercising
• overeating
• drugs like antihistamines
• anemia
• the flu
• illness
• eye strain

Foods That Can Put You to Sleep

Borings guests at dinner can put you to sleep. But it can also be the food.

There are a number of foods that can rob you of your energy even all the way into the next day.

These include:

• sugars
• desserts
• junk foods
• foods heavy on the carbohydrate side (pasta, white rice and bread)
• foods that play with your blood sugar metabolism (all sweets, from ice cream to chocolate bars to chai).

So what’s the solution?!

TRY DINNER FOR LUNCH and LUNCH for DINNER

In several cultures, dinner isn’t the huge meal it is here in America.

Lunch is the biggie. Following lunch is a nap, then it’s time to get back to work. You should try it.

Make lunch the main meal of your day and make your dinner more streamlined with a big salad filled with a variety of veggies.
Give you body more time to process a heavier lunch during your waking hours and let the low-carb, low-sugar meal you ate for dinner provide you with a burst of energy into the next day.

And no dessert or soft drinks.

Food Supplements that Give You Energy

There’s no such thing as a magic pill. However, there are two excellent energy-boosting supplements you can try.

More and more athletes and students (the ones who actually study) are using these in tandem: BFood Complex and CellPower.

Both offer energy foods that are 100% natural without any artificial ingredients or even fake vitamins.

The whole foods in these products contain vitamin B, minerals and phytonutrients that our cells use as sources for fuel.

You can take BFood and Cell Power at two o’clock in the afternoon to get you through your slump, naturally.

Click here to buy Bfood.

Click here to buy CellPower.

photo © 2007 Kim Mc

photo: jumping © 2008 lululemon athletica

Ahh, the holidays! Friends, family, food, lavish desserts, candy dishes, chocolate covered everything and white sugar pouring like sands through the hourglass.

Have you ever stopped to think about what the cumulative effect is of eating all those sweets?

Blood Sugar Blues

There’s no doubt that people overeat during holidays. It’s almost as much of a tradition as the holiday itself. But overindulgence in sweets has its price.

Whether you notice it (at first) or not, sweets in pies, cake, table sugar and even high carbohydrate foods (stuffing, pasta and white rice, for example) take their toll. Your body has to handle and process the sugars. This causes stress.

Your body starts to sing the blues.

Sugary Symptoms

The most notable signs of eating too many sweets are lack of energy, shakiness, dizziness, a feeling that your world is blacking out when you suddenly stand up, slight headache, drowsiness, and a cold sweat. You don’t have to feel all of these at once to be affected.

When you eat sweets, your body goes to work. Your pancreas injects a hormone called insulin into your blood stream to remove the sugars. When this happens quickly, your blood sugar drops and you start experiencing the symptoms.

Simple sugars — the kinds in sweets — create the most problems. They make your pancreas work extra hard. If the problem is chronic — you eat too many sweets and your pancreas is overworked — the result can be diabetes.

Millions of people are riding the edge of creating diabetes because they eat a constant diet of refined sugars.

Alternative Eating Pleasure

Watch yourself.

As crazy as it may sound to a sugar-holic, once you wean yourself off sugary treats, you don’t really care if you eat them ever again.

This is because sugar is addictive and by removing the chemical you remove the urge to eat more and more.

In the least though, you can eat consciously. This means that instead of eating everything in front of you, you can pace yourself so that by the end of the night you aren’t regretting what you’ve done.

Be aware of what you eat and don’t eat too much. Instead of taking a slice of two pies and two cakes, try a sampling of each. Don’t add sweetener to your coffee.

Keep these Two Supplements on Hand for the Holidays

Let’s say you’ve eaten too many sugars. What can you do to at least help minimize the damage? There are two main food supplements that can help: GTF Complex and Green Nutrients.

GTF Complex provides chromium foods that help take the stress off your pancreas and remove sugars from your blood stream.

Green Nutrients contains mineral foods which help bolster the body’s ability to cope with blood sugar fluctuations.

Learn More about GTF Complex – Click Here.
Learn More about Green Nutrients – Click Here.

photo: © 2008 Helga Weber