About to hit week 9 of P90X

So today is the last day of week 8 for me.  This week has been light as it is a recovery week.  Doesn't mean I get to sit on my ass, it means the work outs are a little lighter.
I've lost 4 pounds so far and probably would've lost more if I had eaten right.  But I'm pleased that I'm losing any weight at all.  I'm over the halfway mark and I'm glad I'm getting strong enough to finish the workouts from beginning to end.
We will see what the next 40 days or so brings.

P90X yoga again

Well, today it's 90 minutes of hard yoga.
I struggled with it last time, even though, I'm pretty good at yoga, or so I thought.
Let's see how much better I do today.
Wish me luck.

Exercise Updates

So yesterday it was Yoga, which I thought would be easy.
I was sooooo wrong.
Not easy at all, but in the end it was relaxing at least and gave my sore muscles a bit of a massage.
Today it was legs and back.
More agony, but I'm sticking with it.
Just wanted to update you all.

I didn't even want to throw up today

Made it through plyometrics (jumping exercises) today and didn't feel sick at any time.
But I am really sore from yesterday and tired from today.
Count day #2 down!

My weight loss journey through P90X

Ok, so I've gained about 60 pounds in the last 5 years since I got married.
I ballooned from 136 to 193.
I'm terribly out of shape, but I'm going to fix that.
I lost 35 pounds before I got married in a year, I can do that and then some again.
The first plan was to buy an elliptical while I was away from home for 3/4 of the year, so I didn't have
to go out into the frozen wastelands to the gym.  That's impossible for me, since I've discovered that good ellipticals are 1000's of dollars.  Plus they weigh a ton on their own and I live on the second story of a very weak house.

So I needed something else, something cheaper, but intense enough for me to lose the weight.
I decided on the P90X system that I've seen advertised on tv for years.

I've done Tae Bo, Denise Austin, worked out at the gym, did spinning classes, yoga classes, an extra hard yoga/martial arts hybrid class called Kataflex, done a mini 6 week boot camp at the gym as well.
I'm pretty familiar with fitness knowledge and what I'm supposed to do.

I've also never been so out of shape in my entire life, this is the heaviest I've ever been and I hate it.

So today I started working out with P90X.  You need all types of weights, a chin up bar or cables to do pull ups and chin ups, and a lot of determination.

The first day on the classic plan is chest and back, plus the ab ripper.
1 hour and 16 minutes of hard, intense exercise with a little intense warm up and cool down thrown in for keeping yourself from getting injured.

During the warm up I was tired.   30 minutes into chest and back I was ready to vomit.  Very tired by the end of the first segment.  Then it was abs time.  VERY hard, since my abs are some of the weakest parts of my body.  I couldn't even do all the moves they did, but I kept trying and kept moving.  I did my best so I have nothing to be ashamed of, but it does show me how very out of shape I am.

They do recommend being in better shape then I am at the beginning of this program, but I'm in it now, and I'm not giving up until my first 90 days are done.  By then, I'll be back home and I'll go back to the gym for awhile to give myself a break.

Even if I did want to repeat my 90 days they have two variations other than the one I'm doing now, so I won't get bored.  They also recommend one week off where you don't do anything to let your body heal from the stuff you've been doing for the past 3 months before you go for another round.

I'll keep you updated with my progress as we go along.

Today I weighed myself in at 189.8 lbs. this morning.  By the afternoon I weigh about 192-193.
My waist is at least 41 inches and that's way too much for my height.
Wish me luck.

Brain Scans of Hoarders

Brain Scans of 'Hoarders' Show Unique Abnormalities

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter | HealthDay

 People with "hoarding disorder" show abnormalities in brain scans that distinguish them from those who have other types of obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD), new research shows.

"We wanted to see whether the brain activity of people who hoard is different from that of people with OCD, and whether it is different from that of healthy people," explained study author David Tolin, director of the Anxiety Disorders Center and Center for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy within the Institute of Living in Hartford, Conn. "We also wanted to understand whether people who hoard show an abnormal brain response to decisions about whether to keep things or throw them away," he noted.

"These findings further suggest that hoarding should be considered separate from OCD, and that it deserves recognition as a unique psychiatric disorder," Tolin said. "It also shows us that people who hoard have a hard time processing information normally, and that when they have to make a decision their brain goes into overdrive -- specifically, those parts that are involved with identifying the relative importance or significance of things."

Tolin and his colleagues report their findings in the August issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

To explore brain activity as it related to hoarding disorder behavior, the researchers focused on a pool of 107 adults: 33 healthy men and women; 31 patients diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder; and 43 patients diagnosed with hoarding disorder.

Study participants were first asked to bring to the lab some of their own paper objects (such as junk mail and newspapers) from home. Each was also given similar paper objects that they did not own.

Then, each person was asked to decide whether or not to keep each individual item, knowing that all discarded items would subsequently be shredded. Throughout the decision-making process, functional MRIs scanned for brain activity.

The results: the hoarding group ultimately dispensed with far fewer pieces of paper than either the obsessive-compulsive disorder group or the healthy participants.

What's more, abnormal brain activity observed among those in the hoarding group was found to be distinct from that noted among either of the other two groups.

Specifically, when looking at brain imaging of the hoarders, the researchers focused on two regions: the anterior cingulate cortex and the insula.

In both regions, activity was particularly low among hoarders when they faced the dilemma of whether or not to keep or discard paper items that were not theirs. When faced with the question of what to do with items they did own, regional activity was particularly high.

And when comparing behavior against brain scans, the team found that neural activity in the two identified regions did correlate strongly with the severity of hoarding and self-expressed feelings of indecisiveness and discomfort.

Tolin said that his team will next turn to the question of whether or not behavioral therapy specifically designed to tackle the problem of hoarding helps patients.
Dr. Joseph Coyle, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School in Boston, lauded the fresh insights in the new study.

"What they demonstrate quite nicely is that hoarding does show a pattern of abnormal brain activity that is distinguished from simply being OCD. It clearly has its own distinct pathologic brain activity," he noted.

"And this illumination is important because although it is fairly uncommon and probably affects less than 1 percent of the population, we're talking about a serious problem," stressed Coyle. "This is not about keeping a few extra newspapers in the house. This is about filling your house up with things to the point when you can no longer even live in it. And this study goes a long way towards helping us better understand how and why this happens."

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I'm always trying to figure out what makes these people act the way they do.
I thought this article was interesting so I decided to repost it in case you're interested.

Chocolate - that's all I need to say

5 Things You Didn't Know About Chocolate

By The Editors of WOMEN'S HEALTH

If you're like most women, you're totally smitten with chocolate. People have been obsessing over this comfort food for thousands of years (the Mayans considered cocao a cure-all and the Aztecs used it as money). And all that obsessing has yielded some pretty surprising studies--and findings. Here, five things you need to know about your favorite indulgence.

1. It Can Boost Your Workout
Skip the expensive sports drinks and protein shakes. Research shows chocolate milk is just as effective a recovery aid.

A study published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism compared the effects of a recovery drink and chocolate milk on endurance athletes' ability to recover after a series of bike sprints followed by an endurance ride the next day. They found that chocolate milk was just as effective at relieving muscle soreness after the sprints, and preparing the athletes to perform in the endurance test the next day. Better yet, everyone preferred the taste of chocolate milk.


2. Your Period Doesn't Make You Crave It
Half of American women experience chocolate cravings. Of those of who do, about half crave it right around "that" time of the month.

And while it's nice to have your menstrual cycle to blame when you find yourself noshing on half a package of chocolate chip cookies, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that menstrual hormones aren't the culprit. They compared the cravings of pre- and post-menopausal women and didn't find any change. They did, however, find a higher prevalence of cravings among women who suffer from PMS.

Why? Annmarie Kostyk, a chocolate expert who studied at the Professional School of Chocolate Arts, Ecole Chocolat, in Canada, says this has a lot to do with the psychology behind comfort foods. "Chocolate is sociologically considered a comfort food, and people crave comfort foods when they feel terrible," she says. 


3. It Won't Wake You Up
It's a common misconception that chocolate is packed with caffeine, says Kostyk. In reality, the amount of caffeine in chocolate is miniscule compared to what's in your other daily pick-me-ups.

An ounce of dark chocolate contains about 20 milligrams of caffeine, while an ounce of milk chocolate contains about 5 milligrams--the same as an 8-ounce cup of decaf coffee. In comparison, a cup of coffee contains about 100 milligrams and a cup of tea contains about 50 milligrams of caffeine.


4. It Contains Flavonoids
Flavowhats? Flavonoids are a type of phytochemical, or plant chemical, that are found naturally in chocolate. Due to their unique chemical structures, flavonoids can exert antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and cell-protective effects, says Giana Angelo, Ph.D., a research associate who specializes in micronutrient research at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University. Consuming foods rich in flavonoids has also been associated with a reduced risk of heart disease.

To reap the benefits, stick to dark chocolate. The average commercial dark chocolate contains about 60 percent cocao and has been found to contain 536 milligrams of flavonoids per 1.4-ounce serving. Research has shown that as few as 80 milligrams of flavonoids a day can lower blood pressure.


5. It's Not All Bad for Your Teeth
How could a food that's long been touted as a cavity-causer actually have teeth-protecting properties? It turns out that theobromine, an organic molecule that occurs naturally in cocoa, can help strengthen tooth enamel, according to research from Tulane University.

In fact, it takes 142 times less cocao extract to have about twice the protective benefits of fluoride, according to the American Dental Association. Unfortunately, theobromine isn't too beneficial in chocolate bars, where the sugar and milk counteract the dental benefits. Enter Theodent, a fluoride-free mint toothpaste that packs a punch of theobromine ($10, theodent.com)

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I have some arguments with this article I spotted today.

First off, I don't think that cravings are all in our heads.  I think the body really tells us what it needs sometimes.  I'm not saying a craving for pizza is healthy or what we should put in our bodies, but I think maybe elements of the pizza is what the body is asking for - like calcium from the cheese, or minerals from the tomatoes/vegetables on the pizza.  I have really bad cravings around that time of the month for chocolate, and I don't think it's just because I want to feel better.  I think my body really wants calcium and I'm not going to feel guilty indulging in a little dark chocolate since it's good for my heart in small doses.

When I've had medical tests in the past that are dependent on me not having caffeine 24 hours before the test the nurses are sure to include chocolate on the list of no-no's.  I think there's enough caffeine to cause some sort of problems for tests, but not certainly enough to wake you up like coffee or soda would in the morning.

Plus I'd like to add that it seems on Yahoo! Shine articles, just about anyone can write them and get posted.  I've seen some dangerous articles churned out by them about how exercise makes you gain weight because you get more hungry and eat more.  Those kinds of articles are damaging and dangerous for people looking for any excuse not to work out and take care of themselves.

And of course, the internet alone is not the best place to get medical advice.  You always need to work with your doctors and nutritionists to get the best advice for your own body.

Diet soda risks

Is Diet Soda Addictive?

by Lisa Collier Cool

Darren Jones wants to check himself into rehab for an unusual “addiction.” He says he’s so hooked on Diet Coke that he downs 18 cans a day and can’t leave home without it. Judging by his photos in The Daily Mail, all that diet soda hasn’t helped him control his weight, which was edging toward 500 pounds when the pictures were taken.

He’s not alone. Former president Bill Clinton, Victoria Beckham, Elton John and movie moguls Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Katzenberg have all admitted to a Diet Coke habit, according to the New York Times.

And then there’s Elisa Zied, a high profile registered dietician with no discernible weight problem and three books and numerous TV appearances to her credit. Last year she confessed to a Diet Coke addiction on Twitter, a deliberate strategy - she said she hoped that “putting it out there would make me accountable”.

Replace soda with these healthy smoothie recipes.

The Addiction Question

Surveys show that people who drink these beverages rarely stop with just one. In fact, the typical consumer of diet sodas downs an average of more than 26 ounces per day, and 3 percent of diet-soda drinkers have at least four per day. But are hardcore diet soda fiends actually hooked?

If there’s anything in diet colas that could be addicting, the most likely suspect is caffeine (although many diet soda guzzlers prefer caffeine-free colas). Besides, comparisons with coffee show that cola can’t deliver the caffeine kick equal to a cup of java. An 8-ounce Diet Coke gives you a measly 47 milligrams of caffeine, compared to 133 in a cup of ordinary coffee and 320 in a Starbucks’ grande.

Learn about the most addictive prescription drugs on the market.

Insights from Brain Science

Another plausible explanation is habit: diet soda becomes part of daily rituals - a break from work, lunch, watching the news, you name it.  And sipping a zero-calorie beverage may not seem to have downside to curb the urge to overindulge.

More persuasive, perhaps, is the notion that artificial sweeteners trigger the brain’s reward system. In a study of women who drank water sweetened with sugar or Splenda, the women couldn’t taste the difference between the two, but functional MRIs showed that the brain’s reward system responded more strongly to sugar.

Study author Martin P. Paulus, MD, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego suggests that diet soda might be addicting because “artificial sweeteners have positive reinforcing effects - meaning humans will work for it, like for other foods, alcohol and even drugs of abuse.”

Is diet soda making you fat? 

Is Diet Soda Harmful?

Beyond the addiction issue, diet soda has been linked to increased rates of heart attack and stroke, kidney problems, preterm deliveries, and, yes, weight gain. While not yet carved in scientific stone, the emerging evidence is a bit disturbing. Here’s a rundown:

• Heart Attack and Stroke: Drinking diet sodas daily may increase the risks for heart attack and stroke and other vascular events by 43 percent, but no such threat exists with regular soft drinks or with less frequent consumption of diet soda. These results come from a study including more than 2,500 adults published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine on January 30, 2012. So far, no one knows what it is about diet sodas that could explain the added risk. 

• Kidney Trouble: In 2009, researchers at Harvard found that drinking two or more diet sodas daily could lead to a 30 percent drop in a measure of kidney function in women. No accelerated decline was seen in women who drank less than two diet sodas daily. The drop held true even after the researchers accounted for age, high blood pressure, diabetes and physical activity.

Read more facts about diet soda.

• Preterm Delivery: A Danish study including more than 59,000 women found a link between drinking one or more diet sodas daily and a 38 percent increase in the risk of giving birth to preterm babies; the risk was 78 percent higher among pregnant women who drank four or more diet sodas daily. No such risk was seen with regular soda.

• Weight Gain: Wouldn’t it be ironic if instead of helping you lose weight, diet sodas had the opposite effect? A study at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio found that compared to those who drank no diet sodas, study participants who did had a 70 percent greater increase in waist circumference; worse, drinking two or more diet sodas daily led to ballooning waist circumference that was 500 percent greater than those who drank none. This doesn’t prove that diet soda is to blame since the study was observational - it could be that participants began gaining weight and then started drinking diet sodas.

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I've been telling people for years to just stop drinking this stuff altogether.  Diet is bad, cola is bad, caffeine is bad, but I think the worst is the carbonation part.  It weakens the bones of the skeletal system.

I was addicted to Pepsi when I was younger.  All I drank, all the time until I was about 12.  For some reason I can't remember, I gave it up for a little while.  I did suffer headaches from lack of caffeine at first, but when I tried to go back to it, the taste was too syrupy.  I then switched over to clear sodas like Sprite or 7-Up.  When I was in high school, I gave up soda of all kinds and began drinking water only.  I lost 6 pounds in the first week and I haven't returned to soda since.
Now I enjoy the taste of water, fruit juice, wine, and even a soda here and there, but it's always a clear soda with no caffeine and no high fructose corn syrup if I can find it, and certainly not the diet stuff.

Chilblains - what are they you ask?

So yeah, when I moved to a cold climate my toes started to hurt.

Not just hurt, they felt like little swollen blisters had formed in some uncomfortable spots on my toes.
At first, I thought they were just blisters and would go away, but when they didn't, I started to research.

Chilblains are a very very mild form of frostbite.  In a situation where it's cold, but you're not outside in very cold winter weather, your skin will still tell you, it's too cold for it.  My house gets down to 64 before the heat kicks in, so I run around in sweats all the time.

Defined by the Mayo Clinic's website they are:
Chilblains are the painful inflammation of small blood vessels in your skin that occur in response to sudden warming from cold temperatures. Also known as pernio, chilblains can cause itching, red patches, swelling and blistering on extremities, such as on your toes, fingers, ears and nose.


Thankfully I have not got these anywhere else, but as weird as it is, it clears up in warm weather completely.  In fact, almost within a week.  There's really nothing I can do about it though.  I wear thick socks and try to keep my feet up, but they're always there every winter.

I just thought I'd share, since I'm frustrated and in pain and realize new things happen to my body all the time as I get older.....it kinda' sucks.

Have you noticed your Big Mac tastes different?

McDonald’s confirms that it’s no longer using ‘pink slime’ chemical in hamburgers

 

By Eric Pfeiffer

Ammonium hydroxide, image from KSDK TV

McDonald's announced last week that, as of last August, is has stopped using ammonium hydroxide in the production of its hamburgers. MSNBC reports that the chemical, used in fertilizers, household cleaners and even homemade explosives, was also used to prepare McDonalds' hamburger meat.
And while the announcement is making headlines, you may (or may not) want to know about some other unusual chemicals being used in the production of some of our most-popular foods:
The International Business Times lists some other questionable chemicals showing up in our foods:

Propylene glycol: This chemical is very similar to ethylene glycol, a dangerous anti-freeze. This less-toxic cousin  prevents products from becoming too solid. Some ice creams have this  ingredient; otherwise you'd be eating ice.

Carmine: Commonly found in red food coloring, this chemical comes from crushed cochineal, small red beetles that burrow into cacti. Husks of the beetle are ground up and forms the basis for red coloring found in foods ranging from cranberry juice to M&Ms.

Shellac: Yes, this chemical used to finish wood products also gives some candies their sheen. It comes from the female Lac beetle.

L-cycsteine: This common dough enhancer comes from hair, feathers, hooves and bristles.

Lanolin (gum base): Next time you chew on gum, remember this. The goopiness of gum comes from lanolin, oils from sheep's wool that is also used  for vitamin D3 supplements.

Silicon dioxide: Nothing weird about eating sand, right? This anti-caking agent is found in many foods including shredded cheese and fast food chili.

So, what moved McDonald's to make the change in their hamburger production? In a statement posted on its website, McDonald's senior director of quality systems Todd Bacon wrote:

"At the beginning of 2011, we made a decision to discontinue the use of ammonia-treated beef in our hamburgers.  This product has been out of our supply chain since August of last year. This decision was a result of our efforts to align our global standards for how we source beef around the world."

The U.S. Agriculture Department classifies the chemical as "generally recognized as safe." McDonald's says they stopped using the chemical months ago and deny the move came after a public campaign against ammonium hydroxide by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.


The food industry uses ammonium hydroxide as an anti-microbial agent in meats, which allows McDonald's to use otherwise "inedible meat."

On his show, Oliver said of the meat treatment: "Basically we're taking a product that would be sold in the cheapest form for dogs and making it 'fit' for humans."

Even more disturbing, St. Louis-based dietician Sarah Prochaska told NBC affiliate KSDK that because ammonium hydroxide is considered part of the "component in a production procedure" by the USDA, consumers may not know when the chemical is in their food.

"It's a process, from what I understand, called 'mechanically separated meat' or 'meat product,'" Prochaska said.  "The only way to avoid it would be to choose fresher products, cook your meat at home, cook more meals at home."
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This is yet another great reason to stop eating at fast food places.  I know better than anyone, they are very convenient and cheap, but the chemicals we are putting into our bodies just aren't meant to be consumed by living breathing entities.
I saw this article on Yahoo and just had to share it.  Doesn't that pink worm look delicious?

Chicken McNuggets - A Horror Story - follow-up to my past post

This article has been condensed for this post.
I just wanted to say wow!  How can someone only eat chicken McNuggets for 15 years straight?!
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Chicken Nuggets: How Bad Are They?

By Lisa Collier Cool

This week 17-year-old British factory worker Stacey Irvine was rushed to the hospital when she collapsed, struggling to breathe. During the exam, doctors were stunned to learn that Ms. Irvine had never in her life eaten fruit or vegetables; instead she had eaten almost nothing but fast-food chicken nuggets since she was two years old.
Her mother, Evonne Irvine, told reporters she had gone to great lengths to try to feed her daughter more nutritious food, at one point even trying to starve the girl, but it hadn’t worked. Stacey responded that, once she started eating nuggets, she “loved them so much they were all I would eat.”

What’s so bad about nuggets?

They would be bad enough if they were merely chunks of chicken that had been breaded and deep-fried in oil. One documentary describes McDonald's nuggets as chickens “stripped down to the bone, and then 'ground up’ into a chicken mash, then combined with a variety of stabilizers and preservatives, pressed into familiar shapes, breaded and deep fried, freeze dried, and then shipped to a McDonald’s near you.”
Aside from chicken and oil, those “stabilizers and preservatives” are said to include dimethylpolysiloxane, a form of silicone also used in cosmetics. Another additive is tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a form of butane. According to one report, chicken is only about 50 percent of a McNugget; the remainder is a mixture of corn-derived ingredients, sugars and synthetic substances.
If a four-piece serving of Chicken McNuggets carried a nutrition label, at first glance it wouldn’t seem too scary: 190 calories, 12 grams of carbs and 12 grams of fat. But consider that more than half of those calories (56 percent) are from fat—and protein accounts for a mere four percent. Add a whopping 360 mg sodium, and its image as “the more nutritious fast-food snack” fades.

What’s the worst that can happen?

Aside from collapsing and gasping for air, as Stacey Irvine did? Doctors also discovered that the veins in Ms. Irvine’s tongue were swollen and she was diagnosed with anemia. Further, such a high salt intake can increase a person’s blood pressure (which ultimately can put them at risk for a stroke or heart attack).
McNuggets are low in nutrients everyone needs, such as calcium, fiber, vitamins, antioxidants and healthy fats, so a steady diet of nuggets means missing out on the health benefits of those ingredients.

Had to repost this one, though you shouldn't read it if you like chicken nuggets

So, I actually saw this article on weather.com's website and had to repost it here.  I have always loved chicken nuggets.  I don't care if they are from McDonald's, Wendy's, or Burger King.  Whether they are called nuggets, McNuggets, fingers, or chicken fries, I've been all over that for decades now.  I saw Jamie Oliver cook up what most fast food joints do with all the left over chicken pieces that should be thrown away, but instead go into our nuggets and sold to kids (and the rest of us).  And I still eat them occasionally.  BUT I will say, I'm trying to avoid this stuff all together.  Of course you don't want to believe that what you see in front of you is what they are talking about here but it's true.  The stuff they serve in a lot of fast food restaurants is not good for you and should not be consumed at all.  I admit it, it does taste good, but it truly is terrible for your body and mind in so many ways. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What's in Fast Food Chicken?  (Hint: It's NOT Chicken)

By Shilo Urban Frying chicken is fairly simple, if a little messy. You dip pieces of chicken into a mix of egg and milk, roll them around in flour and spices, then cook the chicken in sizzling hot oil until the pieces are brown, crispy and delicious. But wait! Don’t forget to add a dash of dimethylpolysiloxane, an anti-foaming agent made of silicone that is also used in Silly Putty and cosmetics.  Now add a heaping spoonful of tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), which is a chemical preservative and a form of butane (AKA lighter fluid). One gram of TBHQ can cause “nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse," according to A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives. Five grams of TBHQ can kill you. Sprinkle on thirteen other corn-derived ingredients, and you're only about twenty shy as many ingredients as a single chicken nugget from McDonald’s. And you were using pulverized chicken skin and mechanically reclaimed meat for your chicken, right? No one in his or her right mind would cook chicken like this. Yet every day, hoards of Americans consume these ingredients in Chicken McNuggets, which McDonalds claims are “made with white meat, wrapped up in a crisp tempura batter.” However chicken only accounts for about 50% of a Chicken McNugget. The other 50% includes a large percentage of corn derivatives, sugars, leavening agents and other completely synthetic ingredients, meaning that parts of the nugget do not come from a field or farm at all. They come from a petroleum plant. Hungry? Scariest perhaps is the fact that this recipe is a new and improved, “healthier” Chicken McNugget launched in 2003 after a federal judge called the deep-fried poultry bites “a McFrankenstein creation of various elements not utilized by the home cook.” Also terrifying is the fact that these McFrankenuggets are overwhelmingly marketed to children who love their fun shapes and kid-friendly size. While McDonald’s is of course the poster child for fast food ire, if you look at the nutritional information for chicken at any fast food restaurant, the ingredient list will be dozens of items longer than the egg, flour, chicken and oil recipe you might use at home. Eating fast food is a habit, but it is one that you can break? No doubt you rarely plan to have a delicious meal at Arby’s for dinner, a lingering lunch at Carl’s Jr. or a special breakfast at the Burger King in the airport. It just happens. You are late, tired, hungry, broke, or all of the above. You have no time, and you must find something to eat before you crash. All of a sudden a bright, friendly sign beckons from the side of the road: Drive-through! In five minutes you are happily chowing down on an inexpensive, filling meal. But don’t be fooled – the true cost of fast food does not come out of your wallet, but out of your body, your health, and your years on this earth. You can break the unhealthy fast food habit: educate yourself about the true ingredients of fast food items, plan ahead for your meals, carry healthy snacks like nuts to ward off hunger and cook healthy chicken recipes at home. Convince yourself that fast food is the most disgusting stuff on the planet and is harmful to you and to those you love. After reading this, that shouldn’t be too hard. Full ingredient list for a Chicken McNugget (from McDonald’s website): White boneless chicken, water, food starch-modified, salt, seasoning (autolyzed yeast extract, salt, wheat starch, natural flavoring (botanical source), safflower oil, dextrose, citric acid, rosemary), sodium phosphates, seasoning (canola oil, mono- and diglycerides, extractives of rosemary). Battered and breaded with: water, enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, food starch-modified, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, whey, corn starch. Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent. Full ingredient list for my mother’s fried chicken: Bone-in chicken pieces, egg, milk, flour, canola oil, salt & pepper. Photo credit: Chargrillkiller Sources: CNN A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives McDonald’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan Time

Sierra Mist Natural Lemon-Lime Soda

So, if you've read my blog recently you know I was supposed to give up soda for one of my resolutions.  I knew that it might be difficult to keep that in New Orleans given that I wouldn't have a kitchen at my disposal all of the time, so I did break it already by having a few soda's, but since I did.....I might as well review a new one.
Sierra Mist has always been a poor man's Sprite to me.  But I'm proud of them, they have come out with a soda that is made with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.  HFCS is a chemical sugar that tricks your body into just wanting more sugar, and it never makes your stomach feel full through chemical manipulation of your brain, that's why it's so bad for you, plus the fact that it's a chemical substitute for something that you can find naturally in plants, so what's the point?  If you want sugar, have REAL sugar not HFCS, which might also do horrible things to your liver and cause some cancers (I think personally, but I'm no doctor).  So, anyway,
the soda is good.  It tastes a lot like the original Sierra Mist, but I'm more satisfied that it has real sugar in it over the fake stuff, so no, it doesn't taste exactly the same, but, close enough for me to buy it again (in 2013) when my resolution is over.
Calories are still the same about 140 per 12 oz can.  The ingredient list is:
Carbonated water, sugar, citric acid, natural flavor, and potassium citrate.
I think it's worth a try if you like stuff like Sprite or 7 Up.

Coffee anyone?

Strange thing with me and coffee....I don't like the way it tastes, but I love its aroma.

Regardless of how I feel about it, recent studies are showing that 1 (and only 1, don't overdo it) cup of coffee a day is really beneficial to your health.  It even has more antioxidants than green tea!  If you have a heart issue (like I do) and can't have caffeine, you can still drink decaffeinated coffee, although the health benefit is reduced a little bit.

And don't forget these health benefits are strongest with plain black coffee.  If you start adding cream and sugar you cancel all the good stuff out.

I wished I liked the flavor of coffee just for the health benefits, but alas, I don't.  But still no reason not to pass along the info to you!

Sign of the times?

Obesity rise prompts Wash. ferries capacity change

By DOUG ESSER

SEATTLE (AP) — The Washington state ferry service isn't going to start turning away hefty passengers, but it has had to reduce the capacity of the nation's largest ferry system because people have been packing on the pounds.

Coast Guard vessel stability rules that took effect nationwide Dec. 1 raised the estimated weight of the average adult passenger to 185 pounds from the previous 160 pounds, based on population information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States and about one-third of American adults are now considered obese, the CDC says on its website.

The state ferry system has complied with the new stability rules by simply reducing the listed capacity of its vessels, Coast Guard Lt. Eric Young said Wednesday.

"That has effectively reduced the amount of passengers by about 250 passengers or so depending on the particular ferry," said Young, who is based in Seattle. "They generally carry about 2,000, so it's down to 1,750 now."

With that many passengers, the ferry wouldn't tip over even if everyone ran to the side at the same time to look at a pod of killer whales, he said.
The state operates 23 white and green vessels on 10 routes across Puget Sound and through the San Juan Islands to British Columbia. Carrying more than 22 million passengers a year, it's the biggest ferry system in the United States and one of the four largest in the world, Coursey said.

The ferries themselves could be contributing to passenger girth. The galleys cater to customers looking for fast food they can eat while looking out the windows at the scenery and seagulls. Calorie counters typically aren't buying the hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken strips.

"We do serve light beer," said Peggy Wilkes who has worked 20 years for the food concessionaire, Olympic Cascade Services, which serves food and drinks on 12 of the state ferries.
News reports of overloaded ferries sinking in other parts of the world are sometimes a topic of discussion, she said.

"I think it's cool the Coast Guard is keeping up on that," she said. "Not that we overload them. A couple of times, like for a Seahawks game, we've had to cut off passengers and had to leave them at the dock."

Carol Johnston, who has been riding the state ferries since 1972, said she found the rule change perplexing.

"The ferries are not listing, they are not sinking," said Johnston, who was onboard a Seattle-bound ferry from Bainbridge Island Wednesday afternoon. "How are you going to establish how much weight there is on the ferry?"

Johnston worried about the potential loss in revenue, which could cause ferry fares to increase further. And she joked she may alter her eating habits.

"That means I will not have popcorn with my wine," Johnston said.

The reduced passenger capacity is unlikely to have much practical effect on the spacious ferries, system spokeswoman Marta Coursey said. The ferries often fill up with vehicles, but the number of passengers, especially walk-ons is seldom a problem, she said.

The new stability rules may have a bigger impact on the smaller charter fishing boats, such as those that take anglers fishing out of the Pacific Ocean ports of Westport and Ilwaco, Young said. Any vessel that carries more than six paying customers has to be inspected and certified by the Coast Guard as a passenger vessel.

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This article, while trying to be funny at times, breaks my heart.  It's very very sad to see that statistic - 1/3 of all Americans are now considered obese.  I've also heard that 60% of Americans are at least considered overweight, but not necessarily obese. 
Being overweight is not a disease, yet I hear a lot of complaints from overweight people about how things are so much harder for them to do because no one considers their needs.  Things like chairs at restaurants or movie theater seats.  Seats in airplanes are too small or they are required to buy two seats.  What bothers me about this is that the overweight use "complaints" like these as an excuse that it's ok to be overweight.  It's not.  That somehow people should treat them as if they have an incurable disease like cancer or AIDS.  That somehow people should feel bad for them and make special concessions.  That it's not the overweight person's fault that they are overweight, like it's out of their control just like getting cancer. 

It's extremely unhealthy to be so overweight, and dangerous to organs like the heart, liver, brain, and various other body parts - things like joints.  The reason that engineers and designers who create things like standards for seats in theaters or planes don't make them big enough for big people, is because that has not been the standard size of a human adult since the beginning of humanity, nor should it be accepted now as standard.  The human body is not meant to carry an extra 200 pounds and up on our tiny skeleton frames.  The standards should continue to be what they are and the weight limits of elevators, escalators should continue to be what they have been in the past.  Theater and airplane seats should not get bigger because all it will do for the overweight is enable them further to continue to eat way more than they should and not be physically active.  It's another example of why I feel ashamed of being American.  Look at some third world countries where children are dying from starvation.  There simply isn't enough food to go around there and then look at us.  We have so much food that we have a term like morbidly obese where someone is 500 pounds or more overweight and cannot, simply is not physically able to get out of their own bed, cannot bathe themselves, can't use a normal sized toilet, can't walk at all.....It's just so embarrassing.  And the morbidly obese is not so isolated an event anymore.  It is getting more and more frequent and it's just so sad and shameful. 

As someone who has had weight issues myself (I'm about 35 pounds overweight currently), I can understand that getting to the gym is not always convenient.  It's not easy to get started, but I've lost 35 pounds just by eating less and healthier, plus going to the gym 5-6 days every week of every month of every year.  It becomes routine.  You feel better about yourself when you can fit into clothes you never thought you could.  You have to give your old bigger clothes away.  People compliment you all the time.  You feel sexier, healthier, more confident.  You sleep better, you reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer, diabetes, improve your immune system, and you think, man, I should've felt like this a long time ago.  Why'd I wait so long to get started?  It's awesome and nothing else feels as good as that.

Headaches - try almonds!

I've been suffering from a headache and I just wanted to share a natural cure for those.
A handful (about 12) of plain almonds sometimes is all you need to cure a headache.  Almonds are the only nuts that contain salicin which just happens to be the active ingredient in aspirin.  Almonds will most likely not help with migraines, but they should be able to kick a small headache.

This was way too important not to repost.

Arsenic in your juice

How much is too much? Federal limits don’t exist.

Consumer Reports Magazine: January 2012

Arsenic has long been recognized as a poison and a contaminant in drinking water, but now concerns are growing about arsenic in foods, especially in fruit juices that are a mainstay for children.

Controversy over arsenic in apple juice made headlines as the school year began when Mehmet Oz, M.D., host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” told viewers that tests he’d commissioned found 10 of three dozen apple-juice samples with total arsenic levels exceeding 10 parts per billion (ppb). There’s no federal arsenic threshold for juice or most foods, though the limit for bottled and public water is 10 ppb. The Food and Drug Administration, trying to reassure consumers about the safety of apple juice, claimed that most arsenic in juices and other foods is of the organic type that is “essentially harmless.”

But an investigation by Consumer Reports shows otherwise. Our study, including tests of apple and grape juice (download a PDF of our complete test results), a scientific analysis of federal health data, a consumer poll, and interviews with doctors and other experts, finds the following: 

• Roughly 10 percent of our juice samples, from five brands, had total arsenic levels that exceeded federal drinking-water standards. Most of that arsenic was inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen.
• One in four samples had lead levels higher than the FDA’s bottled-water limit of 5 ppb. As with arsenic, no federal limit exists for lead in juice.
• Apple and grape juice constitute a significant source of dietary exposure to arsenic, according to our analysis of federal health data from 2003 through 2008.
• Children drink a lot of juice. Thirty-five percent of children 5 and younger drink juice in quantities exceeding pediatricians’ recommendations, our poll of parents shows.
• Mounting scientific evidence suggests that chronic exposure to arsenic and lead even at levels below water standards can result in serious health problems.
• Inorganic arsenic has been detected at disturbing levels in other foods, too, which suggests that more must be done to reduce overall dietary exposure.

Our findings have prompted Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, to urge the FDA to set arsenic and lead standards for apple and grape juice. Our scientists believe that juice should at least meet the 5 ppb lead limit for bottled water. They recommend an even lower arsenic limit for juice: 3 ppb.

“People sometimes say, ‘If arsenic exposure is so bad, why don’t you see more people sick or dying from it?’ But the many diseases likely to be increased by exposure even at relatively low levels are so common already that its effects are overlooked simply because no one has looked carefully for the connection,” says Joshua Hamilton, Ph.D., a toxicologist specializing in arsenic research and the chief academic and scientific officer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

As our investigation found, when scientists and doctors do look, the connections they’ve found underscore the need to protect public health by reducing Americans’ exposure to this potent toxin.

Many sources of exposure

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element that can contaminate groundwater used for drinking and irrigation in areas where it’s abundant, such as parts of New England, the Midwest, and the Southwest. See the map from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) showing test results of arsenic levels in groundwater throughout the United States.

But the public’s exposure to arsenic extends beyond those areas because since 1910, the United States has used roughly 1.6 million tons of it for agricultural and other industrial uses. About half of that cumulative total has been used since only the mid-1960s. Lead-arsenate insecticides were widely used in cotton fields, orchards, and vineyards until their use was banned in the 1980s. But residues in the soil can still contaminate crops.

For decades, arsenic was also used in a preservative for pressure-treated lumber commonly used for decks and playground equipment. In 2003 that use was banned, (as was most residential use) but the wood can contribute to arsenic in groundwater when it’s recycled as mulch.

Other sources of exposure include coal-fired power plants and smelters that heat arsenic-containing ores to process copper or lead. Today the quantity of arsenic released into the environment in the United States by human activities is three times more than that released from natural sources, says the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

The form of arsenic in the examples above is inorganic arsenic. It’s a carcinogen known to cause bladder, lung, and skin cancer in people and to increase risks of cardiovascular disease, immunodeficiencies, and type 2 diabetes.

The other form that arsenic takes is organic arsenic, created when arsenic binds to molecules containing carbon. Fish can contain an organic form of arsenic called arsenobetaine, generally considered nontoxic to humans. But questions have been raised about the human health effects of other types of organic arsenic in foods, including juice.

Use of organic arsenic in agricultural products has also caused concern. For instance, the EPA in 2006 took steps to stop the use of herbicides containing organic arsenic because of their potential to turn into inorganic arsenic in soil and contaminate drinking water. And in 2011, working with the FDA, drug company Alpharma agreed to suspend the sale of Roxarsone, a poultry-feed additive, because it contained an organic form of arsenic that could convert into inorganic arsenic inside the bird, potentially contaminating the meat. Or it could contaminate soil when chicken droppings are used as fertilizer. Other arsenic feed additives are still being used.

What our tests found

Juice samples
We tested juice from bottles, cans, and juice boxes that we bought in three states.

We went shopping in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York in August and September, buying 28 apple juices and three grape juices. Our samples came from ready-to-drink bottles, juice boxes, and cans of concentrate. For most juices, we bought three different lot numbers to assess variability. (For some juices, we couldn’t find three lots, so we tested one or two.) In all, we tested 88 samples.

Five samples of apple juice and four of grape juice had total arsenic levels exceeding the 10 ppb federal limit for bottled and drinking water. Levels in the apple juices ranged from 1.1 to 13.9 ppb, and grape-juice levels were even higher, 5.9 to 24.7 ppb. Most of the total arsenic in our samples was inorganic, our tests showed.

As for lead, about one fourth of all juice samples had levels at or above the 5-ppb limit for bottled water. The top lead level for apple juice was 13.6 ppb; for grape juice, 15.9 ppb.

The following brands had at least one sample of apple juice that exceeded 10 ppb: Apple & Eve, Great Value (Walmart), and Mott’s. For grape juice, at least one sample from Walgreens and Welch’s exceeded that threshold. And these brands had one or more samples of apple juice that exceeded 5 ppb of lead: America’s Choice (A&P), Gerber, Gold Emblem (CVS), Great Value, Joe’s Kids (Trader Joe’s), Minute Maid, Seneca, and Walgreens. At least one sample of grape juice exceeding 5 ppb of lead came from Gold Emblem, Walgreens, and Welch’s. Our findings provide a spot check of a number of local juice aisles, but they can’t be used to draw general conclusions about arsenic or lead levels in any particular brand. Even within a single tested brand, levels of arsenic and lead sometimes varied widely. To see our complete test results for all 88 samples, download this PDF.

Arsenic-tainted soil in U.S. orchards is a likely source of contamination for apples, and finding lead with arsenic in juices that we tested is not surprising. Even with a ban on lead-arsenate insecticides, “we are finding problems with some Washington state apples, not because of irresponsible farming practices now but because lead-arsenate pesticides that were used here decades ago remain in the soil,” says Denise Wilson, Ph.D., an associate professor at the University of Washington who has tested apple juices and discovered elevated arsenic levels even in brands labeled organic.

Over the years, a shift has occurred in how juice sold in America is produced. To make apple juice, manufacturers often blend water with apple-juice concentrate from multiple sources. For the past decade, most concentrate has come from China (PDF). Concerns have been raised about the possible continuing use of arsenical pesticides there, and several Chinese provinces that are primary apple-growing regions are known to have high arsenic concentrations in groundwater.

A much bigger test than ours would be needed to establish any correlation between elevated arsenic or lead levels and the juice concentrate’s country of origin. Samples we tested included some made from concentrate from multiple countries including Argentina, China, New Zealand, South Africa, and Turkey; others came from a single country. A few samples solely from the United States had elevated levels of lead or arsenic, and others did not. The same was true for samples containing only Chinese concentrate.

The FDA has been collecting its own data to see whether it should set guidelines to continue to ensure the safety of apple juice, a spokeswoman told us.

The Juice Products Association said, “We are committed to providing nutritious and safe fruit juices to consumers and will comply with limits established by the agency.”

Answering a crucial question

We also wanted to know whether people who drink juice end up being exposed to more arsenic than those who don’t.

So we commissioned an analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), conducted annually by the National Center for Health Statistics. Information is collected on the health and nutrition of a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population, based on interviews and physical exams that may include a blood or urine test. Officials and researchers often use the data to determine risk factors for major diseases and develop public health policy. In fact, data on lead in the blood of NHANES participants were instrumental in developing policies that have successfully resulted in lead being removed from gasoline.

Our analysis was led by Richard Stahlhut, M.D., M.P.H., an environmental health researcher at the University of Rochester with expertise in NHANES data, working with Consumer Reports statisticians. Ana Navas-Acien, M.D., Ph.D., a physician—epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, also provided guidance. She was the lead author of a 2008 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (PDF) that first linked low-level arsenic exposure with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the United States.

Stahlhut reviewed NHANES data from 2003 through 2008 from participants tested for total urinary arsenic who reported their food and drink consumption for 24 hours the day before their NHANES visit. Because most ingested arsenic is excreted in urine, the best measure of recent exposure is a urine test.

Following Navas-Acien’s advice, we excluded from our NHANES analysis anyone with results showing detectable levels of arsenobetaine, the organic arsenic in seafood. That made the results we analyzed more likely to represent inorganic arsenic, of greatest concern in terms of potential health risks.

The resulting analysis of almost 3,000 study participants found that those reporting apple-juice consumption had on average 19 percent greater levels of total urinary arsenic than those subjects who did not, and those who reported drinking grape juice had 20 percent higher levels. The results might understate the correlation between juice consumption and urinary arsenic levels because NHANES urinary data exclude children younger than 6, who tend to be big juice drinkers.

“The current analysis suggests that these juices may be an important contributor to dietary arsenic exposure,” says Keeve Nachman, Ph.D., a risk scientist at the Center for a Livable Future and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, both at Johns Hopkins University. “It would be prudent to pursue measures to understand and limit young children’s exposures to arsenic in juice.”

Robert Wright, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of pediatrics and environmental health at Harvard University who specializes in research on the effect of heavy-metals exposure in children, says that findings from our juice tests and database analysis concern him: “Because of their small size, a child drinking a box of juice would consume a larger per-body-weight dose of arsenic than an adult drinking the exact same box of juice. Those brands with elevated arsenic should investigate the source and eliminate it.”

A chronic problem

Arsenic has been notoriously used as a poison since ancient times. A fatal poisoning would require a single dose of inorganic arsenic about the weight of a postage stamp. But chronic toxicity can result from long-term exposure to much lower levels in food, and even to water that meets the 10-ppb drinking-water limit.

A 2004 study of children in Bangladesh (PDF) suggested diminished intelligence based on test scores in children exposed to arsenic in drinking water at levels above 5 ppb, says study author Joseph Graziano, Ph.D., a professor of environmental health sciences and pharmacology at Columbia University. He’s now conducting similar research with children living in New Hampshire and Maine, where arsenic levels of 10 to 100 ppb are commonly found in well water, to determine whether better nutrition in the United States affects the results.

People with private wells may face greater risks than those on public systems because they’re responsible for testing and treating their own water. In Maine, where almost half the population relies on private wells, the USGS found arsenic levels in well water as high as 3,100 ppb.

And a study published in 2011 (PDF) in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health examined the long-term effects of low-level exposure on more than 300 rural Texans whose groundwater was estimated to have arsenic at median levels below the federal drinking-water standard. It found that exposure was related to poor scores in language, memory, and other brain functions.

“I suspect there is an awful lot of chronic, low-level arsenic poisoning going on that’s never properly diagnosed.”—Michael Harbut, M.D.

Symptoms of chronic exposure

Chronic arsenic exposure can initially cause gastrointestinal problems and skin discoloration or lesions. Exposure over time, which the World Health Organization says could be five to 20 years, could increase the risk of various cancers and high blood pressure, diabetes, and reproductive problems.

Signs of chronic low-level arsenic exposure can be mistaken for other ailments such as chronic fatigue syndrome. Usually the connection to arsenic exposure is not made immediately, as Sharyn Duffy of Geneseo, N.Y., discovered. She visited a doctor in 2007 about pain and skin changes on the sole of her left foot. She was referred to a podiatrist and eventually received a diagnosis of hyperkeratosis, in which lesions develop or thick skin forms on the palms or soles of the feet. It can be among the earliest symptoms of chronic arsenic poisoning. But she says it was roughly two years before she was finally referred to a neurologist, who suggested testing for arsenic. She had double the typical levels.

“Testing for arsenic isn’t part of a routine checkup,” says Duffy, a retiree. “When you come in with symptoms like I had, ordering that kind of test probably wouldn’t even occur to most doctors.”

Michael Harbut, M.D., chief of the environmental cancer program at Karmanos Institute in Detroit, says, “Given what we know about the wide range of arsenic exposure sources we have in this country, I suspect there is an awful lot of chronic, low-level arsenic poisoning going on that’s never properly diagnosed.”

Emerging research suggests that when arsenic exposure occurs in the womb or in early childhood, it not only increases cancer risks later in life but also can cause lasting harm to children’s developing brains and endocrine and immune systems, leading to other diseases, too.

Case in point: From 1958 through 1970, residents of Antofagasta, Chile, were exposed to naturally occurring arsenic in drinking water (PDF) that peaked at almost 1,000 ppb before an arsenic removal plant was installed. Studies led by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley found that people born during that period who had probable exposure in the womb and during early childhood had a lung-cancer death rate six times higher than those in their age group elsewhere in Chile. Their rate of death in their 30s and 40s from another form of lung disease was almost 50 times higher than for people without that arsenic exposure.

“Recent studies have shown that early-childhood exposure to arsenic carries the most serious long-term risk,” says Joshua Hamilton of the Marine Biological Laboratory. “So even though reducing arsenic exposure is important for everyone, we need to pay special attention to protecting pregnant moms, babies, and young kids.”

Other dietary exposures

In addition to juice, foods including chicken, rice, and even baby food have been found to contain arsenic—sometimes at higher levels than the amounts found in juice. Brian Jackson, Ph.D., an analytical chemist and research associate professor at Dartmouth College, presented his findings at a June 2011 scientific conference in Aberdeen, Scotland. He reported finding up to 23 ppb of arsenic in lab tests of name-brand jars of baby food, with inorganic arsenic representing 70 to 90 percent of those total amounts.

Similar results turned up in a 2004 study conducted by FDA scientists in Cincinnati, who found arsenic levels of up to 24 ppb in baby food, with sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, and peaches containing only the inorganic form. A United Kingdom study published in 2008 (PDF) found that the levels of inorganic arsenic in 20-ounce packets of dried infant rice cereals ranged from 60 to 160 ppb. Rice-based infant cereals are often the first solid food that babies eat.

Rice frequently contains high levels of inorganic arsenic because it is among plants that are unusually efficient at taking up arsenic from the soil and incorporating it in the grains people eat. Moreover, much of the rice produced in the U.S. is grown in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas, on land formerly used to grow cotton, where arsenical pesticides were used for decades.

“Initially, in some regions rice planted there produced little grain due to these arsenical pesticides, but farmers then bred a type of rice specifically designed to produce high yields on the contaminated soil,” says Andrew Meharg, professor of biogeochemistry at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland. Meharg studies human exposures to arsenic in the environment. His research over the past six years has shown that U.S. rice has among the highest average inorganic arsenic levels in the world—almost three times higher than levels in Basmati rice imported from low-arsenic areas of Nepal, India, and Pakistan. Rice from Egypt has the lowest levels of all.

Infant rice cereal for the U.S. market is generally made from U.S. rice, Meharg says, but labeling usually doesn’t specify country of origin. He says exposure to arsenic through infant rice cereals could be reduced greatly if cereal makers used techniques that don’t require growing rice in water-flooded paddies or if they obtained rice from low-arsenic areas. His 2007 study (PDF) found that median arsenic levels in California rice were 41 percent lower than levels in rice from the south-central U.S.

Setting federal standards

Evidence of arsenic's ability to cause cancer and other life-threatening illnesses has surged because some of the diseases linked to it have latency periods of several decades. Only recently have scientists been able to more fully measure the effects in populations that were exposed to elevated levels of arsenic in drinking water many years ago.

The Environmental Protection Agency periodically revises its assessment of the toxicity of various chemicals to offer guidance on drinking-water standards. Based on such a review, the agency changed the water standard for arsenic to 10 ppb, effective in 2006, from the 50-ppb limit it set in 1975. The EPA had proposed a 5-ppb limit in 2000, so the current limit is a compromise that came only after years of haggling over the costs of removing arsenic. Since 2006, New Jersey has had a 5-ppb threshold, advising residents that water with arsenic levels above that shouldn't be used for drinking or cooking.

For known human carcinogens such as inorganic arsenic, the EPA assumes there's actually no "safe" level of exposure, so it normally sets exposure limits that include a margin of safety to ideally allow for only one additional case of cancer in a million people, or at worst, no more than one in 10,000. For water with 10 ppb of arsenic, the excess cancer risk is one in 500.

Debate over that standard is likely to begin anew. The agency's latest draft report, from February 2010, proposes that the number used to calculate the cancer risk posed by ingesting inorganic arsenic be increased 17-fold to reflect arsenic's role in causing bladder and lung cancer. The proposal "suggests that arsenic's carcinogenic properties have been underestimated for a long time and that the federal drinking-water standard is underprotective based on current science," says Keeve Nachman, the Johns Hopkins scientist.

Each year the FDA tests a variety of foods and beverages for arsenic and other contaminants. It also started a program in 2005 to test for specific toxins such as arsenic and lead in domestic and imported products. As of late November, that program had published results for 160 samples of apple juice and concentrate. And the agency can alert inspectors at U.S. ports to conduct increased surveillance for products suspected to pose risks. Currently there's an alert for increased surveillance of apple concentrate from China and six other countries "where we have a suspicion there may be high levels of arsenic in their products," says FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Yao. But in fiscal 2010, the agency conducted physical inspections of only 2 percent of imported food shipments. For more about the FDA's tests, read our update and download a PDF of our complete test results.

Consumers Union urges federal officials to set a standard for total arsenic in apple and grape juice. Our research suggests that the standard should be 3 ppb. Concerning lead, juice should at least meet the bottled-water standard of 5 ppb. Such standards would better protect children, who are most vulnerable to the effects of arsenic and lead. And they're achievable levels: 41 percent of the samples we tested met both thresholds.

Moreover, the EPA should impose stricter drinking-water standards for arsenic, Consumers Union believes. (The drinking-water threshold for lead is 15 ppb, which acknowledges that many older homes have water pipes or solder with lead.) Officials should also ban arsenic in pesticides, animal-feed additives, and fertilizers.

As our tests show, sources of lead haven't been eliminated, but dramatic progress has been made: Since the 1970s, average blood lead levels in children younger than 6 have dropped by about 90 percent, thanks to a federal ban on lead in house paint and gas. The U.S. should be equally aggressive with arsenic, suggests Joseph Graziano at Columbia University. "We tackled every source, from gasoline to paint to solder in food cans," he says, "and we should be just as vigilant in preventing arsenic from entering our food and water because the consequences of exposure are enormous for adults as well as children."

How much juice do children drink?

Too many children drink too much juice, according to our poll of parents. One in four toddlers 2 and younger and 45 percent of children ages 3 to 5 drink 7 or more ounces of juice a day. The American Academy of Pediatrics cautions that to help prevent obesity and tooth decay, children younger than 6 should drink no more than 6 ounces a day, about the size of a juice box. (Infants younger than 6 months shouldn't drink any.) The possible presence of arsenic or lead in juices is all the more reason to stick with those nutrition-based limits.

Our findings are from 555 telephone interviews in October with parents, who were asked about children's juice consumption the previous day. Totals don't equal 100 percent because some said they didn't know how much juice their kids drank.

Amount of juice consumed	Children 2 and under	Children 3 to 5	Total children 5 or younger
None	40%	22%	31%
1 to 6 oz.	28	26	27
7 to 12 oz.	18	29	23
16 oz. or more	8	16	12

Find out how much arsenic is in your groundwater

Arsenic can contaminate groundwater used for drinking and irrigation in areas where it is geologically abundant and in other areas where chemical conditions are likely to cause it to dissolve into water. Levels can vary widely throughout the United States, as illustrated in the map at right showing arsenic measurements for groundwater samples from about 31,000 wells and springs in 49 states compiled by the USGS. Click on the word "Interactive" on the map to learn about arsenic levels where you live. (To view the map, your computer or other device requires Flash.)

Orange or red symbols on the map indicate areas where samples contained arsenic at levels exceeding the federal limit of 10 micrograms per liter, or 10 parts per billion (ppb) for public drinking water.

Public-water-supply systems are required to treat water that tests high in arsenic so that it meets federal limits before delivering it to consumers. And in New Jersey, public water systems must meet an even stricter limit of 5 ppb. But if you have a private well rather than a public system, you are responsible for testing and treating it.

To learn more about why it's so important to reduce your exposure to even relatively low levels of arsenic in your drinking water, check out this helpful video produced by the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program. And for tips on how to get your water tested and how to select a home treatment system, read "Ways to Reduce Your Family's Risk."

The 31,000 groundwater samples represented in this map were collected for studies on potable groundwater resources by the USGS, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the Texas Water Development Commission, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the six New England states. Estimation of the arsenic concentration in groundwater in any specific area must consider the following limitations and sources of variability:

• The data include a variety of well types, including private wells, public-supply wells, and monitoring wells not used for water supply.

• These groundwater samples do not represent drinking water served by public-water-supply systems because these utilities may treat or mix groundwater with high arsenic concentrations from individual wells with water containing lower arsenic levels in order to meet drinking water standards before delivering it to consumers.

• The appearance of the arsenic distribution is influenced by the order in which wells are plotted. In this map, wells with higher concentrations are drawn on top of those with more moderate concentrations. This overplotting may exaggerate the frequency of high values in areas where wells are close together. But given the risks posed by arsenic exposure, we opted in favor of making areas with elevated arsenic visible whenever possible to encourage private well owners in those areas to test and treat their water to reduce exposure risks.

• Arsenic concentration may vary with depth within the same aquifer, or between aquifers that are stacked vertically—for example, a shallow sand and gravel aquifer can overlie a deeper bedrock aquifer. The map does not show the vertical distribution of arsenic.

• Many of the wells were sampled more than once, but evaluation of the data indicates that there is no relation between arsenic concentration and time tested for most of the wells.

With these qualifications in mind, the data above provides an estimate of arsenic occurrence in the groundwater resource in general. Visit the USGS for additional information on the studies behind the map, along with more detailed maps for various portions of the country.

Ways to reduce your family’s risk

Test your water. If your home or a home you’re considering buying isn’t on a public water system, have the home’s water tested for arsenic and lead. To find a certified lab, contact your local health department or call the federal Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 800-426-4791. You can get information for your public-water system from the EPA.

Limit children’s juice consumption. Nutrition guidelines set by the American Academy of Pediatrics can help. The academy recommends that infants younger than 6 months shouldn’t drink juice; children up to 6 years old should consume no more than four to six ounces a day and older children, no more than 8 to 12 ounces a day. Diluting juice with distilled or purified water can help meet those goals.

Consider your food. Buying certified organic chicken makes sense because organic standards don’t allow the use of chicken feed containing arsenic. But for juice and other foods, it’s not so certain. Organic standards prohibit the use of synthetic fertilizers and most pesticides, but organic juices still may contain arsenic if they’re made from fruit grown in soil where arsenical insecticides were used.

Need a home-treatment system? Contact NSF International (800-673-8010) for info on systems certified to lower arsenic levels to no more than 10 ppb. The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension discusses treatment technologies; click on “Removal of Arsenic from Household Water.”

If you’re concerned, get tested. Ask your doctor for a urine test for you or your child to determine arsenic levels. Don’t eat seafood for 48 to 72 hours before being tested to avoid misleadingly high levels from “fish arsenic.” For a medical toxicologist in your area who can interpret results, call the American Association of Poison Control Centers at 800-222-1222.
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As someone who has a strong family history of early heart attack I really want to do what's best for my heart.  Drinking Welch's purple grape juice is supposed to be really good for me with the levels of anti-oxidants and things that can help my heart that can only be found in grape (purple alone) juice.

Reading this article makes me want to drink red wine instead, as long as that doesn't have high levels of lead or arsenic too.  And why hasn't the FDA made regulations for all kinds of food and drink for levels of lead and arsenic?!  Not a priority?  Geez, I won't want to eat anything but what comes out of my back yard garden soon.