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Kathy Freston

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The Real Skinny On Nutrition

Posted: 08/23/11 09:47 AM ET

CNN is about to air a fantastic documentary called "The Last Heart Attack," featuring Drs. Ornish and Esselstyn talking about successfully preventing, stopping and even reversing our number one killer -- heart disease -- with a plant-based diet.

Though billed as the latest cutting-edge treatment, Dean Ornish M.D. and Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. M.D. have both been publishing on reversing the heart disease epidemic through diet and lifestyle changes for more than 20 years. The food-disease correlation is only recently becoming more widely understood because multibillion dollar industries have made it their business to keep the emphasis on the latest cholesterol-lowering drugs and surgeries, leaving the average lay person to find out for themselves about the latest advances in nutrition. I meet so many people these days who want to get healthy, but just don't know where to find easy-to-understand information that will help them make decisions on how or what to eat.

This was the impetus behind NutritionFacts.org, the brainchild of Dr. Michael Greger, M.D. When he's not out trying to save the world from bird flu or foodborne illness, he scours the world's scholarly literature on nutrition for the most interesting, groundbreaking and practical new research.
Check out some of this fascinating information:

Adding vinegar to meals can help you lose weight.

Drinking kombucha tea may be harmful.

• There's a way to get goji berries cheaper than raisins.

Peanut butter may significantly decrease heart disease risk in women.

• Vegans have been found to be "significantly less polluted" than omnivores.

• Even distilled fish oil is contaminated with pollutants.

• Second only to fish, eggs are the most contaminated source of industrial pollutants in the food supply.

• A quarter of fast-food burgers are contaminated with parasites.

• The estrogen in cow's milk may be contributing to premature sexual maturation in girls.

• The meat most likely to be contaminated with fecal matter is ground turkey.

• There's a 1 to 7 scale used by doctors to classify bowel movements.

• Even people who don't experience pain or weakness on cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may be suffering muscle damage.

• There's a poultry virus that may be contributing to our obesity epidemic.

Cold-steeped green tea is healthier than hot-brewed.

Breast cancer survivors may reduce their risk of recurrence by eating soy foods.

• Researchers have raised concerns about "mad fish disease" in farmed fish.

• The U.S. Inspector General finds the USDA is failing to safeguard the meat supply from drug residues.

• Women may be getting urinary tract infections from eating chicken.

Cooking vegetables can boost the absorption of certain nutrients.

Raw alfalfa sprouts present a significant food safety risk.

• In meat-eating households more fecal bacteria can be found in the kitchen sink than the toilet.

• Diet can affect body odor.

• The best superfood bargain (most antioxidants per dollar) is red cabbage.

White tea is healthier than green tea, but only if you add lemon.

• Sharing your home with a cat or dog may decrease one's risk of cancer.

Coconut oil may be as harmful as butter.

• There are two classes of vegetables particularly adept at stopping cancer cell growth.

• There's a toxin in certain fish that can be sexually transmitted.

• Eating tuna is the equivalent mercury exposure to living with dozens of amalgam tooth fillings.

Mushrooms should be eaten cooked -- not raw.

• The #1 source of arsenic in the diet is chicken.

• The #1 source of aluminum in the diet is chicken.

• There are more hormones in skim milk than in whole milk.

NutritionFacts.org features hundreds of short captivating clips on the latest nutrition research and Greger is promising to upload a new video every day, seven days a week, for the first year. The first of his 365 new videos was posted today with the official launch of the site.

Non-commercial (not funded by interested parties who have products to sell) science-based sources of good nutrition information are hard to find. Check out NutritionFacts.org today and every day for the next year. I think you'll find it hugely interesting and educational.

 
 
 
CNN is about to air a fantastic documentary called "The Last Heart Attack," featuring Drs. Ornish and Esselstyn talking abou...
CNN is about to air a fantastic documentary called "The Last Heart Attack," featuring Drs. Ornish and Esselstyn talking abou...
 
 
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06:12 PM on 10/14/2011
I think there's something to the claim that the amount of estrogen in cows' milk might be affecting our children and cancer rates. The Harvard Gazatte published an article that reviewed a number of studies that looked at this. (http://new­s.harvard.­edu/gazett­e/2006/12.­07/11-dair­y.html)

Basically, American dairy farmers milk pregnant cows which leads to increased amounts of hormones in their milk. A way to avoid this would be to milk non-pregna­nt cows, but this won't work for Dairy industry because keeping cows pregnant is how they maintain the milk supply.
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Hollye Harrington Jacobs
www.TheSilverPen.com
12:43 PM on 09/11/2011
Thank you for your efforts and commitment toward healthy and clean living! It would be great to have scientific validity to reinforce the claims.
06:13 AM on 09/04/2011
Kathy, I respect your interest in the subject of nutrition, but just because you've been a vegan for all of five minutes, it doesn't make it right to propound one-sided arguments. Have you read any other points of view on so-called saturated fat or traditional whole food diets? This vegetarian suggests you read Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions."
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HUFFPOST BLOGGER
Kelley Harrell
Neoshaman; author of 'Gift of the Dreamtime'
08:42 AM on 08/30/2011
One of the best ways to get "real" information on your nutritional needs is to find a naturopath. There is no One Diet or Singular Healthy Lifestyle. Learn the one that works for you.
04:53 PM on 08/29/2011
these are the nutrition facts...until next week when they cease to be the facts.
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elcerritan
My bio is not micro
12:56 PM on 08/27/2011
Another waste of space article by Freston.

And true to form for her, too, since it's just a bunch of snippets gathered from other sources (many of them questionable, to put it mildly), just like her book, which is more or less a "cut and paste" job aggregating so-called "information" from other sources.
11:07 AM on 08/27/2011
I think I'll eat nothing so I'll be healthy.

All these "facts" are nothing but claims. Eat a variety of real food and be happy, ok!
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Nana610
Tikkun Olam תיקון עולם
08:29 AM on 08/27/2011
So...be a vegan and stop enjoying life?
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iRock
and that's all that needs to be said...
03:13 PM on 08/30/2011
I'm not a vegan, but I know you can enjoy life on a plant based diet.

matter of mindset.
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henriette and hube
my goal is to live each day
09:40 PM on 10/11/2011
Absolutely true.
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westcoastsc
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhe
02:02 AM on 08/26/2011
I'm quite overwhelmed and I love this kind of stuff. Wow.
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elcerritan
My bio is not micro
12:57 PM on 08/27/2011
You need to get out more.
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Ranveig Elvebakk
Innovator, author and lecturer on weight and nutri
06:13 PM on 08/25/2011
The real skinny on nutrition is that no one needs to be vegetarian to be healthy. There is no scientific evidence for that, since we were omnivores from the start, and peoples in cultures that eat a sensible omnivorous diet are healthy. This culture seems to have a need to be draconian and punitive to be healthy. The latest is a 600 kcal diet to lose weight or to reverse early diabetes. (Diabetes, June2011). This type of regimen often leads to complications. Chronic illnesses are inflammatory in nature, and the key to their reversal is reversal of inflammation, which is done with an easy going balanced diet like The Food Tree, and diabetes is reversible at any stage.
Finally, a number of vegetarian regimens leave people overweight and deficient. I see those too in my practice. Ranveig Elvebakk, MD Author of "The Food Tree" and "A New Disease Model"
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rawfoodsphd
Rx for Body, Mind & Spirit
05:47 PM on 08/25/2011
While there are some interesting points made here, most of these "facts" are questionable. Being a great fan of kombucha tea, I went right to that link and it doesn't even seem that they have done serious research to make the harmful claim. Peanut butter has so many adverse effects - would be much better to switch to almond butter, to avoid the aflatoxin mold, which is present even in organic PB. There's so much information to sift through - undoubtedly more and more people are seeking ways to eat a healthier diet, but it's hard to figure out what to believe. www.rawfusionliving.com
05:04 PM on 08/24/2011
Exercise Physiology Expert Ben Greenfield has some good information on "diet" foods and how they can lower your fitness: http://naturalvitalitysports.com/2011/03/healthy-eating-fitness-do-diet-foods-lower-your-fitness/
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Annette Hammond
Don't like it--Lump it!
04:24 PM on 08/24/2011
I believe there are SO many things the government knows that we do not.As i once heard someone say "Population control"
04:16 PM on 08/24/2011
This is enlightening and terrifying!
Thanks for posting!