Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Sickness Industry. (Part 1)

This is one of the most important blog posts that I will ever write. It's a long one, but I beg you to read the whole lot. It could save your life one day, or that of your children.


I know I may lose followers over this, and may get all manner of criticism. I don't care. I know I'm doing the right thing. I can feel it in my gut.


Recently I wrote about an issue that had me so fired up, that I committed myself to taking it on as my mission. I am so angry about this, and by the time you're finished reading this post, I hope that you'll be just as angry...


I mentioned multi-national companies who were making outrageous profits, by making people unhealthy and keeping them sick, and you're about to find out how..


 This first post is going to focus on our food, water, and personal care products.


Junk Food. Literally. Most people have no idea what they're eating. There are hundreds of preservatives, artificial colours, flavours, and additives polluting our bodies, but here's a couple that deserve an especially dishonourable mention:


MSG: If you think that MSG is only found in Asian food. Think again. This nasty stuff is in just about every aisle of the supermarket. Not just the 2-minute noodle flavour satchets, but in all savoury flavoured chips and crackers. Anything "chicken-flavoured" or "cheese-flavoured" or "BBQ flavoured", you can be sure it's in them. Those ready-made pasta mixes where you just add milk and water. Packet soup, and some tinned soup. Yep, did you know that? Go and check in your pantry. You're looking for any numbers between 621 and 627, on the ingredients list.


MSG is what's called an excitotoxin, because it causes excessive stimulation in the brain, and can lead to serious diseases. It has been shown to either cause, contribute to, or exacerbate: Parkinson's Disease, Cancer, Seizures, Vertigo, AIDS, Dementia, Brain Tumours, MS, Infections, Birth Defects, Epilepsy, Fibromyalgia, Obesity, Lymphoma, Alzheimers Disease, Depression, Blindness, Epstein Barr Syndrome, Insomnia, PMS, Memory Loss, Diabetes, Asthma....just to name a few!!!


But it gets worse.


MSG is also in many other sources, so it doesn't show up on the ingredients list. For example, MSG is in yeast extract, Plant protein extracts( or hydrolyzed vegetable protein), often found in malt extract, bouillon broth,and the very ambiguous "seasoning", or "spices" or "natural flavouring". It's everywhere.


Aspartame. Found in "diet" drinks, chewing gum, "zero sugar" products, supplements, children's aspirin, and artificial sweeteners  "NutraSweet", "Equal" or "Spoonful". May also be referred to as Additive 951.


Aspartame is one of those evil excitotoxins like MSG, but perhaps even worse. Some researchers labelled it's use in our foods as "one of the greatest public health scandals of the 20th century".


Each molecule of aspartame consumed, releases one molecule of methanole into the bloodstream, which converts into formaldehyde. Methanole is a cumulative toxin in the body, which means we don't excrete all of it, some of it stays in our body and continues to poison the nervous system. The symptoms can be very similar to Multiple Sclerosis, lupus, Alzheimers Disease, brain tumour, and some people are actually misdiagnosed with these diseases, when in fact, they have chronic methanol toxicity, from drinking too much Diet Coke, or similar.


It's ironic, that this insidious stuff is found in so-called "diet" food, when it is well-known that the formaldehyde, ends up being stored in fat cells, making it almost impossible to lose weight.


And to top it all off, it's addictive! Many people find it difficult, if not impossible to quit it, because of withdrawal effects.

If you are still not convinced that excito-toxins like MSG and aspartame are deadly, then have a read of "Sweet Poison" by Janet Starr-Hull.


Soy and it's by-products: What the?!?! Bet you weren't expecting that! Isn't soy supposed to be the healthy alternative? Well, Monsanto (the largest, richest chemical company in the world, which controls vast amounts of the world seed stock, much of which is either genetically modified, or they are trying to get permission to genetically modify it), and it's well-oiled marketing machine (or should that be propaganda-machine) would like you to believe it...Because they have millions of acres of soy crops growing, in the US alone, and they have to sell it somehow, don't they?

They have succeeded in making everyone believe that it is healthy, off the back of it's use in Asian cultures for centuries. What they conveniently forget to tell you, is that the Asian cultures have only ever eaten small amounts of soy, and most of what they do eat, has been fermented to remove the toxins.

(It may surprise you to learn that Westerners consume more soy than Asians do, because soy by-products are found in almost all of our packaged or processed food, and bread.)


Here's just a few reasons why soy is not all it's cracked up to be: Soy contains high levels of phytic acid, which prevents your body from assimilating essential nutrients, calcium, magnesium, copper, zinc and iron.


-Contains high levels of aluminium.


- Contains phytoestrogens, which mimic the female eostrogen hormone.


Please do not give your baby soy formula. A day's supply of formula is the eostrogenic equivalent of giving your child 5 birth control pills. Soy has been linked to early puberty in girls (sometimes as young as 5 years old), and slower development in boys, and increased levels of ADHD because of the high levels of manganese (it contains 80 times more manganese than breast milk).


Do you want to know how they make soy milk? First the beans are ground at high temperature, then any remaining oil is extracted using solvents. The ground meal is then mixed with alkaline, and sugar to remove fibre. Then it's separated using an acid wash. Government regulators say it's safe because only small amounts of the chemicals remain in the milk....But small amounts turn into large amounts if you're drinking soy all the time!!!


And as if that's not bad enough. Soy Lecithin, which is a by-product of soy processing (extracted from the toxic sludge that is left over, after extracting the oil from the bean) is put into so much of our food, including so called health foods, because it is cheaper than disposing of it properly.


For a truly frightening article on Monsanto and their GM soy, have a read here, and again here (Make sure you read all the way down, to the part about conflicting interests...)


Still not convinced? You can read more here, and here, and here.


Why is all this stuff allowed in our food???


Your guess is as good as mine, but it might have something to do with gutless governments letting multi-billion dollar industries do whatever they like (maybe in exchange, for some good old-fasioned "donations" to their political campaigns...) at our expense.

It's no wonder that experts are predicting the current generation of children will be the first generation to be outlived by their parents.

There's a great little book called "The Chemical Maze" by Bill Statham that has a comprehensive list of food additives, and cosmetic ingredients, and whether they are safe or not.


The fluoride in our water. "Yes, but we need that to keep our teeth healthy" I hear you cry. Pffft!!!!! That's what the chemical companies want you to believe...

Why is it that many elderly people living in remote islands where they still live on fish and plants, have beautiful white teeth, yet they have never even used a toothbrush in their life, let alone fluoride toothpaste or flouridated water???


Here's the really shocking secret: Before they started dumping it into our water supplies, sodium fluoride was used as an insecticide, a rodenticide (rat poison), herbicide (weed killer), and fungicide, used in nerve gas, and used in frosting and etching glass because of it's scouring ability.


This stuff is a poison, and it should not be in our water! It is KNOWN to cause cancer, genetic damage, neurological impairment, osteoporosis, fatigue, headaches, chronic fatigue, hair loss, depression, SIDS, Down's Syndrome, Thyroid dysfunction, learning disabilities, violence, eczema, urinary tract infections, and the list goes on and on.


In some parts of the world, calcium fluoride occurs naturally in the water, and it causes teeth to be extremely strong. But what they put into the water in most Western countries is not calcium fluoride, but silicofluorides which are toxic.


Some researchers claim that these silicofluorides come from the pollution scrubbers (used to control pollution) of industries. Instead of disposing of it properly, which would cost too much money, they sell it to cities to put into their water supplies. Clever, huh? Always got their eye on the bottom line...

For more reading, have a look here. I wish I lived in this guys electorate, so I could vote for him.

And lets not forget the fluoride in our toothpaste. One adult-size tube of toothpaste, has enough fluoride to kill a 12.5 kilogram child. I tell you, this stuff is toxic. How dare they put it into our water, without our consent.


IS ANYONE ELSE GETTING ANGRY YET???


The Ugly Side of the Beauty Trade: Did you know, that 89% of ingredients in personal care products have NOT been properly tested for safety? And yet, these same ingredients can be found in 99% of the products we are using on our skin, and therefore absorbing into our bloodstreams and our lungs.

Take Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS), found in nearly all products that foam, including baby bath products and childrens shampoos, even though it is known to be a skin irritant, but even more disturbing - it is easily absorbed, and retained in the brain, heart, liver and eyes. It is otherwise used as an engine degreaser, garage floor cleaner, and in auto cleaning products, which just goes to show how harsh it is. It has no business being around our babies!!!

This degreasing action in shampoos, is what gives your hair that "squeaky-clean" feeling, because it strips away all the natural oils from your scalp and hair. Your scalp then works overtime to produce more oil, until you wash it again, and the whole process starts over.

This is the reason why, when many people try all-natural shampoos that do not contain chemicals and do not foam, they think that they're not working, because their hair still feels greasy. This is because your scalp has become used to over-producing oil because of the harsh chemicals found in most off-the-shelf shampoos. It can take up to 6 weeks for the scalp to adjust, and then you'll find the greasiness subsides.

But SLS is just one ingredient. There are more than 10,000 ingredients, and how do you know which is safe? For a list of common ingredients and their side-effects, see here. Or you can purchase the little book titled "The Chemical Maze" that I mentioned before.

I realise this is all a rude shock, if you are like me, and have always naturally assumed that government regulations would protect us from dangerous products, and ingredients that would harm us. Sad to say, this is not the case.

Labelling laws in Australia are so ineffective, that manufacturers are allowed to put "natural" on the label, because the ingredients started out as being natural. Never mind that they have been bleached, soaked, processed, preserved, so they are now toxic, and don't even remotely resemble anything natural at all.

And here's something for the ladies to think about. Those tampons and sanitary pads that look so white and pure. They look like that because they have been bleached in dioxin.

Dioxin is a carcinogenic (cancer-causing) chemical, and has been linked to endometriosis, and other reproductive disorders.

My advice: pay extra for organic cotton personal care products, or invest in cloth pads or a diva cup.

The rule for cosmetics and personal care products is: If it's not safe to eat, then it's not safe to use on your skin...How many of the products in your beauty cabinet pass the test???

Manufacturers get away with it, by claiming that the amounts of chemicals are so small that they are harmless. That may be so, BY THEMSELF, but what happens when you add together all the chemicals in all your food, and water, and make-up, and hair products, and tanning products, and anti-perspirants, and suddenly the amount is not small at all. Add to that, possible dangerous interactions between chemicals, and your poor body is working itself to death (literally) trying to deal with all the toxins and poisons that are bombarding it.

***

Basically we are living in a chemical soup.

Is it any wonder then, that:

- Breast cancer rates have jumped by 50% in the last 25 years.

- Worldwide, an estimated 12.7 million new cancer cases are recorded each year. By the year 2030, that figure is expected to have risen to a whopping 21.4 million cases of cancer. The lowest rates are in Asia and Africa (Hardly surprising, really)

- Excema has increased by 40% in just four years (Excema is a sure sign that the body is struggling with toxins, and the liver cannot handle them. The body tries to push the toxins out through the skin.)

- Obesity is at epidemic levels. (If you are struggling with a weight problem - you cannot seem to lose weight no matter how hard you try, you may be interested to learn that the body, if it cannot excrete toxins, will store them in fat cells. Your body will also retain fluid to try and dilute those toxins, which further adds to your weight woes.

It is important to add here, that because everyone is different, not everyone that is overloaded with toxins, will have a weight problem. It may affect others differently: someone else might have acne, another person might sweat excessively, and his neighbour might suffer from high blood pressure, and so on, as the body tries to protect itself from toxic overload.)

I wonder how much violence, how many mental health issues, how much pain, how much suffering and heartache could be avoided if our governments did what they were meant to do, and protected their citizens. People should come before profits!!

So what are we to do about all this? First, educate yourself. Don't just assume that if it's on the shelf, then it must be safe. Become an ingredient detective. Even better, shun processed food, as much as humanly possible. Grow your own veggies. Learn how to cook from scratch. Buy a rain-water tank. Make your own beauty products.

Yes, it's time-consuming and inconvenient. But not as inconvenient as being sick and tired all the time. Not as inconvenient as cancer. Not as inconvenient as being dead before you get to meet your grandchildren.


If you are a parent (and even if you're not), I strongly recommend you take a read of this article: The Top 20 Things That are More Dangerous to Children, Than Lead Paint.


Educate yourself. It is the best health insurance that you'll ever get.

Stay tuned while I work on Part 2, which is possibly even more disturbing.

UPDATE: Part 2 is now available here. Please do have a read.

And Part 3 is now available here.

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