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A new study appears to have concluded that the universal staple of Latin America, beans and rice, are a mixed bag, health-wise. The beans, they concluded, are excellent for human health. The rice? Not so much. Harvard researchers, studying a population in Costa Rica, found that by reducing the rice and increasing the beans, the likelihood of diabetes can by reduced by 35 percent. The problem with rice, they found, is that it's "pure starch" and therefore "easily converted into sugar by the body," the lead scientist told Reuters. Here's what's really going on. The beans and rice widely consumed in Latin America usually involve whole beans and white rice. Beans are a largely natural food, while white rice is industrially processed. Here's what industrial food is . A better solution to reducing white rice and increasing beans is to eliminate white rice and replace it with whole-grain brown rice. In addition, both the beans and the rice should be fermen...

In our last post , we defined industrial food in detail, and told you how it has created the health crisis. Industrial food is obviously unsustainable. Following current trends, the United States will be bankrupt by healthcare costs, and will be unable to find enough young people fit enough to join the military in just a few decades. So what comes next? The solution to industrial food is not, and cannot be, to turn back the clock to a pastoral, agrarian past. Technology and science got us into this mess, and technology and science will get us out. The old industrial food system would have us buying most of our food at the supermarket, a majority of which would be packaged, canned or pre-prepared foods. We would go to restaurants, which would involve incredibly processed industrial ingredients made compulsively appealing to our basest cravings with massive amounts of low-quality fat, sugar and salt. The foundational enabler of this system is a pact of ignorance -- We won't demand to...

How did our food get so bad? Ironically, the catastrophic decline in food quality began more than 200 years ago with breathtaking improvement. The Industrial Revolution, which would transform the lives of billions, was really a series of smaller, mutually reinforcing revolutions: The industrial energy revolution, the industrial transportation revolution, the industrial chemicals revolution, and so on. One of these was the industrial food revolution. From around 1800 to about 1950, all of the major food problems that had plagued mankind for centuries were largely solved by industrialization, at least for people in the minority of countries that industrialized during this period. Famine, food-borne illness, lack of food variety, basic nutritional deficiencies among the poor and other problems were largely eliminated for millions. Agriculture machinery, chemicals, railroads and trucks, factory assembly lines, refrigeration, pasteurization, sterilization and other industrial-revolution inn...

Tart cherries have a unique combination of powerful antioxidants that may help reduce inflammation http://bit.ly/hJOYvv Strange but true: the brain is shaped by bacteria in the digestive tract http://bit.ly/hj1FWY Type 2 diabetes may be an autoimmune disease http://lat.ms/hbmfMW YMCA survey: 74% of US kids don't get minimum exercise; 74% of parents choose TV for family time. Coincidence? http://bit.ly/fRJ4J7 How to reduce BPA exposure from food http://bit.ly/hpRlln Losing weight improves your memory! http://usat.ly/eJ37bI Nationwide study finds US beef and poultry is widely contaminated http://bit.ly/fM8moH Nearly three-quarters of samples tested of top-selling imported olive oil failed extra virgin standards. http://lat.ms/fJe4gO Why tea is better than coffee, green tea better than black, and white better than green. http://lifehac.kr/idOkLQ The science is clear: Sugar can also make us fat and unhealthy http://bit.ly/hMAvDs How the military is being hammered by obesity and yo yo...

The makers of an upcoming documentary called Wine From Here have posted a trailer for the movie. The documentary is about the burgeoning natural wine movement in California, which is a post-industrial process for making wine without the long list of chemicals, additives and processes used by industrial wine makers. Most natural wine makers use grapes from vineyards that are unsprayed and sometimes even unirrigated. They add no sugar or yeast, make no changes for acidity and they add either very little or no sulphite (the stuff universally overused in industrial wine that can wreck the flavor). Natural wine is a global movement, but the documentary focuses on 14 winemakers in California. We're really glad this documentary has been made, because anyone who drinks wine needs to understand how conventional wine is made (it won't be pretty), and also why natural wine is so much better. Our own favorite natural wine maker, A Donkey and Goat , is featured in the documentary.

The standard villain in any discussion of the global health crisis is the so-call " Western diet ." The meaty, sugary, refined-grain and processed-food heavy diet is blamed for the unprecedented growth of obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and all the rest. "Western" is convenient shorthand. Unfortunately, it's also intellectually dishonest, lazy and inaccurate. The "West" refers generally to Europe and its former colonies. It's a legitimate cultural designation based on historical reality. Europe was a creation of the Roman Empire, which itself was largely modeled on classical Greece. The "West" is Ancient Greece and its cultural descendants. The traditions that began in Greece, which served as the foundation for our views about Democracy, science, architecture, philosophy and more also included a culture of food. And while key aspects of the Greek cultural tradition (Plato, Socrates, etc.) was lost, then rediscovered during the R...

Your mother told you that "germs are bad." The germ theory of disease says that we get sick when pathogenic microorganisms invade and infect our bodies. Your best bet is to wash your hands and avoid sick people -- at least that's what we were told. In recent years, we've learned a lot more about how the immune system works -- or doesn't work. It turns out that pathogenic microorganisms are invading our bodies every day. They're in the air we breathe and the food we eat. They're on the surface of just about everything we touch. Not getting sick is more about fighting germs than avoiding them. Our immune systems are engaged in a constant battle, and usually destroy these bugs before they can cause our bodies to generate noticeable symptoms. The most interesting update to the germ theory is that, yes, microorganisms can make us sick -- but when we don't get sick it's usually because other microorganisms protected us. Some 200 trillion tiny creatures -...

The huge range of harmless and beneficial microbes that live in our guts may be the key to health without antibiotics. http://bit.ly/fk2WOD Why the United States has the highest rates of cancer in the world (TEDtalk video) http://bit.ly/i1dOrr How optimal fitness has changed the life of one 46-year-old http://bit.ly/g8YQH9 Add anorexia to the growing list of diseases that used to affect only adults but now hit very young children: http://bit.ly/gXwZAo Vitamin D and sunshine key to pregnancy health http://bit.ly/ieAHpD The most common heart rhythm disturbance, called an atrial fibrillation, is largely preventable with healthy diet. http://bit.ly/fES0Tx Coffee after high-fat meal can raise blood sugar to harmful levels http://bit.ly/eiOuQx Get outside and get some sunshine, people! Vitamin D levels linked with health of blood vessels http://bit.ly/e9doAw Exercise gets more necessary with age, not less http://usat.ly/eceXHP Probiotic bacteria could help treat Crohn's disease http://b...

Good bread is one of the healthiest foods you can eat. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to find. Your town's fanciest bakery doesn't have it. Even your local hippy coop or yuppie grocery store probably doesn't offer truly good bread. (Don't worry: We're going to tell you were to get great bread at the end of this post.) The only kind of bread generally available is industrial-revolution sci-fi bread made with mutant grains and leavened without fermentation. By historical standards, it's not really bread. It's something strange and alien to the human diet. Because most bread is so unhealthy, many have concluded that grains in general, and bread in particular, are bad for you. People are giving up bread before they've ever even tried the real thing. Our abandonment of good bread in favor of bad bread is a very recent phenomenon. If you were to compress the whole history of bread into one hour, we humans have been eating quality bread for 59 minute...

Study finds most plastics overload you with female sex hormones: http://bit.ly/ihnicv PCBs, found in plastics, may impair fertility http://bit.ly/fYOFG8 Canadians have roughly half the toxic BPA in their systems as Americans. http://bit.ly/eVsl9F Chemical in plastic shown to degrade the mental development of newborn girls. http://bit.ly/ija2MD Five common chemicals in cosmetics, how they affect you and what you can do to avoid them: http://bit.ly/f2GDDx 40,000 scientists address the chemical crisis, call for better testing. http://bit.ly/eawwlS Pecans lower the risk of heart disease AND cancer, thanks to antioxidants. http://bit.ly/ij89pI Walnuts improve memory and brain function http://bit.ly/gikdQ4 Two Michigan State professors have developed maps that offer a visual perspective of urban food deserts. http://bit.ly/f1TfnR Wild mushrooms show antioxidant potential http://bit.ly/gsexS3 A diet rich in potassium can reduce your risk for a stroke by 21 percent and lower your risk of heart...

Politicians love to cite reports that demonstrate dramatic declines in the test scores of American children. A recent test, called the Program for International Student Assessment , which is administered internationally every three years, found American kids lagging behind peers in several foreign countries, most especially those in South Korea, Finland, Singapore and China. The knee-jerk explanation for the American shortfall gravitates to culture. American kids watch too much TV, play too many video games and are too obsessed with social networking and popular culture to focus on math and science. But what is the role of diet, tap water and toxins in declining American test scores? Recent studies and reports paint an alarming picture. In a nutshell, a variety of conditions pervasive in the United States have been found to measurably lower the IQ of children. Research at the University of Bristol found a strong correlation between process junk food and lower IQs , as well as healthy ...

Children are trained by their parents to prefer toxic junk food - study http://usat.ly/g64MU6 New gym charges you less if you work out more! http://bit.ly/g1J2gS Diabetes up 9% since 2008 http://lat.ms/f4e86z How broccoli fights cancer: http://bit.ly/hD165P How the microbes that live in your digestive tract protect you from infection: http://bit.ly/h9yV3s How bacteria keep us healthy http://bit.ly/gZDhG8 Report blames lower US lifespan on smoking and obesity. http://yhoo.it/dMgtrm Just updated our popular Spartan Muesli with Spartan Cashew Milk recipes: http://bit.ly/96GbRh http://bit.ly/c5KYmh Taco Bell's "meat mixture" contains less than 35 percent beef, according to new lawsuit. http://apne.ws/e8qW0V Eating factory-farmed meat can make you test positive for performance-enhancing drugs http://abcn.ws/hW53mA Baby formulas based on cows milk lead to more weight gain in infants http://n.pr/gjuMnn Bittman to write weekly food column for NYT's OP/ED page http://bit.ly/eQ...

How winter makes you fat http://bit.ly/gLKtOB How your mind affects your immune system http://bit.ly/g6okC9   Moderate wine drinking may improve the cognitive abilities of women http://bit.ly/i5xeQa   Freak GM rice with *human genes* will soon go into production http://bit.ly/hRYLSj How diet and toxins affect your genes to make you fat http://video.pbs.org/video/1525107473     Health benefits and nutritional value of cabbage http://dld.bz/pHDh Why we need fermented foods http://bit.ly/f7eHAc Ancient foods are becoming popular with people who want to be healthier http://bit.ly/fdnXSH Sunscreen blamed for severe Vitamin D deficiency http://bbc.in/ht9AG9 Britain slams Coco-Cola for advertising Vitaminwater as healthy http:/...

Millions of people go on diets every once in a while in order to lose weight. Unfortunately, going on and off weight-loss diets usually makes you gain a lot more weight in the long term. Dieting to lose weight is like treating a knife wound with morphine. Yes, getting stabbed in the arm hurts. But pain is a symptom of the core problem, which is the knife in your arm. The right course of action is to first remove the knife, then stop the bleeding, then protect the wound against infection. But simply taking a pain killer without the rest will only temporarily appear to solve what you think is the problem. Oh, and it’s important to not stick the knife back into your arm after the wound has healed. Yet this is precisely how yo-yo dieting works. Excess body fat is like pain from a knife wound. It’s not the cause of your troubles, but merely the one symptom you cannot ignore. Yo-yo dieting not only fails to address the root cause of excess wight, it adds to the problem by reprogramming the b...

Most people believe, and in fact many diet experts will actually say, that you gain weight by eating more calories than you burn, as if the spectacularly complex biochemistry of metabolism were comparable to filling up the car with gas. Healthy newborn babies enter the world with a complete set of self-regulating systems designed to keep everything in balance. Our bodies brilliantly maintain balance in body temperature, blood water levels, blood pH, blood pressure, blood salt levels, sleep and the elimination of wastes. The human body is magnificent at simultaneously maintaining balance of hundreds of sub-systems throughout life. Optimal weight is another thing the human body is great at balancing. Our taste and olfactory senses are programmed to enjoy foods that keep us healthy. The hunger-satiety cycle tells us when to eat and when to stop. If we gain weight, it doesn't mean we're not effectively counting calories. It means our body's system for maintaining healthy weight...