Gillian Martlew, N.D.

FOOD IRRADIATION STUNNER
Have you been wondering what is happening in the world of food irradiation? Seems to have gone quiet doesn’t it. Well the ‘brains’ have been battling with the problem of how to slip irradiated foods past an educated and ‘determined not to have irradiated foods’ public without a huge outcry.

Finally they have it. Where manufacturers are obliged to state that the food is irradiated they now label it as ‘cold’ or ‘electronic pasteurization’.

Honestly, you have to hand it to them, they must stay up nights thinking of ways to fool us, and you must admit, this one ís clever. Most people searching for an ‘irradiated’ label would miss this completely.

The other ploy is to send all the irradiated stuff to restaurants and food processors (as they do with bovine growth hormone (BGH) dairy products)…because in those cases the food does not have to be labeled!

SUB & SODA DIET STUNNER
I was watching a news report, and was stunned by a feature on diet. Disgruntled with his appearance, Mr. Vogel determined that he would go on a diet. The only problem was that he didn’t like the foods offered by the diet programs he investigated. So, he decided to create his own.

Mr. Vogel estimates that he ingested about a thousand subs, and countless diet colas. And…he lost a total of 245 lbs.

Breakfast consisted of a large cup of coffee, and a six-inch turkey breast sub, lunch was a six-inch turkey sub and potato chips, and supper was a foot long vegetable sub with no mayo, just mustard. He washed all this down with diet colas and continued on this regime for eleven and a half months!

Go Mr. Vogel…and he’s making a fortune appearing in ads for the Sub Company. But I have just one teensy little question; what ghastly long-term damage has the poor chap done to himself?

INFLATION STUNNER
Can you think of any reason to support inflation? Here ís a stunner that may change your mind — if every one of us makes sure that our tires are always running at the correct inflation — we would save around 750 million gallons of gas in the US every year! That adds up to a lot less pollution, and less of a drain on the worlds natural resources. What a simple way to help mother earth.

BIG BROTHER CHIP STUNNER
Pets have been doing it for several years, now they expect us to — get a computer identification chip implanted under our skin, that is.

Would you want a computer chip implanted in your body? Would you wonder what “they” might program into it?

There, apparently, are some people who are excited about getting one; business executives who fear kidnapping are allegedly having computer chips embedded in their forearms so they can be tracked by satellite.

The Today show aired an obvious sales pitch for the small chip, showing an eager family getting ‘chipped’, and eulogizing about the advantages of their rice-grain sized implanted electronic medical records. The makers of the chip also foresee it being used to help emergency workers identify lost Alzheimer’s patients, or access an unconscious patient’s medical history.

Come near me with the thing and I will break the world sprinting record. I don’t know about you, but I am not excited about being a walking EZ-Pass.

DRUG ADVERTISING STUNNER
About four years ago the FDA began to allow pharmaceutical firms (whose bean-counters were wringing their hands and gnashing their gums due to falling drug sales) to advertise directly to consumers via television, radio, and print ads.

Now, in addition to the $900 spent per doctor, drug companies spend an average $2 billion a year on consumer advertising. Drug sales and profits are growing faster than most other sectors of the market thanks to just 25 of the most heavily promoted drugs.

Drug company executives are ecstatic about the profits, and are celebrating by passing the cost of advertising onto the consumer — via higher drug prices.

EGG ADVERTISEMENT STUNNER
I was watching TV one morning and was stunned by an advertisement for eggs. I know, not many people would be stunned by an egg advertisement! But here’s what amazed me…a company has come up with this incredible new technology for producing healthy, low cholesterol eggs. Wait for it…they feed their hens healthy food.

Now, excuuuse me, but what would happen if you also stopped confining hens to little boxes and giving them antibiotics? Oh, then that would bring us back to Mom and Pop’s farm in the 1920s and you just can’t make a booming commercial enterprise out of that can you…or can you?

MAY AS WELL KEEP USING CHEMICALS
It is really frightening when you think that our health, and the health of our children, is in the hands of a bunch of people who think with their wallets, not their brains. The following quote aptly illustrates the corporate thinking of the last few decades. Othal Brand, a member of a Texas pesticide review board on the chemical Chlordane, let this one slip…”Sure it’s going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway.”

BLOOD PRESSURE READINGS
The bar keeps getting lowered on blood pressure numbers. 140/90 and above is considered hypertension. And now there’s a new category; readings of 120/80 (once considered normal) to 139/89 are now labeled,‘pre-hypertension. According to the experts you want to keep your blood pressure around 115/75, that’s the level at which they say you’ll age the least.

HELP FOR MILD HEARTBURN
To help curb occasional mild heartburn: go for a walk
after eating (especially after a fatty meal), and chew gum. People in a study who chewed gum for an hour after a meal had less reflux. Avoid mint gum (or mint herbal tea) because mint can increase heartburn by relaxing the sphincter that prevents reflux.

ARTERIAL HEALTH
Which poses the greatest threat arterial health?
blood pressure of 160/90…LDL (bad) cholesterol level of 200 mg/dL…A large helping of fried zucchini sticks…Too much time spent on the couch?.Answer: Blood
pressure of 160/90 or greater is 3 x more likely to cause
artery problems. But you still need to exercise, eat
sensibly and keep your LDL in the healthy range.

TOP 5 LOW MERCURY FISH
Top 5 low-mercury fish are: wild salmon, herring,
sardines, trout and pollock. Top 4 high-mercury fish
are: king mackerel, shark, swordfish and tilefish.
Tuna is somewhere in the middle.

WHAT YOU CHOOSE MATTERS
Albacore can contain 3 x as much mercury as canned chunk-light from skipjack tuna.

STEER CLEAR OF HFCS
High fructose corn syrup HFCS is a cheap
alternative to cane sugar. HFCS is converted into
fat in the body more readily than other sugars and
is adding to the obesity epidemic in the US. HFCS
raises blood triglycerides, total cholesterol and LDLs. SEE MY ARCICLE ON HFCS UNDER ARTICLES AND NEWS.

THERE IS HOPE FOR FINDING TIME FOR EXERCISE
If you are struggling to fit exercise into your schedule, and have given up because you can’t get to the gym or go for a ‘real’ walk, here’s a way to get some exercise that counts towards good health: take a 10 minute walk around the block in the morning, and three more 10-minute walking breaks throughout the day. According to the experts it really counts towards maintaining a healthier heart.

FRIED FOODS AND ACRYLAMIDE
Do you eat fried or processed foods? If the answer is yes, you are ingesting acrylamide, a potentially cancer-causing chemical found in potato chips, french fries, bread, rice and cereals. FDA and other food agencies found significant levels of acrylamide in a wide range of baked and fried foods.

Copyright © 2008 Gillian Martlew, ND. May not be reproduced in any form whatsoever or copied or stored in an information retrieval system, or made available on a website without written permission of the author.