Anti Adhesion Properties of Cranberry Juice on Escherichia Coli

Reduction of Escherichia coli adherence to uroepithelial bladder cells after consumption of cranberry juice: a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled cross-over trial.
World Journal of Urology. 2006 February;24(1):21-7
The aim of this study was to investigate the anti-adherence activity of urine from women after consumption of cranberry juice. This in vivo study involved 20 women who drank different quantities of cranberry juice, up to 750 ml daily. The first urine in the morning was collected and tested for anti-adherence activity of uropathogenic Escherichia coli strains. The consumption of cranberry juice had no influence on the pH of the urine (in the past it was often wrongly hypnotized that cranberry juice acted by lowering the pH of the urine). There was a dose dependant effect of cranberry juice consumption anti-adherence activity. The researchers concluded that cranberry juice consumption provides anti-adherence activity against the tested uropathogenic Escherichia coli strains.

Role of cranberry juice on molecular-scale surface characteristics and adhesion behavior of Escherichia coli.
Biotechnology and Bioengineering. 2006 February 5;93(2):297-305
Cranberry juice is traditionally used for the prevention and treatment of urinary tract infections. Bacteria use fimbriae to adhere to other cells. Escherichia coli uses the fimbriae to adhere to the epithelium of the bladder. In order to investigate the mechanism by which cranberry phytochemicals act the researchers investigated the influence of cranberry on the adhesion to a silicon nitride surface and two Escherichia coli strains: one with fimbriae (P-fimbriated) and without. With an atomic force microscopy, the researchers were able to observe the bacterial surface polymer and adhesion behavior, after exposure to cranberry juice. The adhesion forces decreased and the structure of surface macromolecules were changed on Escherichia coli strain with fimbriae. The change in adhesion was also observed when the highly acidic cranberry juice was neutralized. The study concluded that to neutralized cranberry juice changed the surface of P-fimbriated Escherichia coli.

Anti-Adhesion Properties of Cranberry

Bacterial Adhesion: Cranberries & Urinary Tract Infection [PDF]

Should You Store Food?

I came across this website by 'accident' - Why Store Food? .. but finding the site relates in some way to my last post .. Part of the reason I was doing my own 'self-sustaining' research on my preferred - Probiotic Cleaning Post - is because we depend so much on =PRODUCTS= and I was seriously thinking how can we change this? Especially when it comes to cleaning products and hygiene for the home. I was thinking what would I do if I had to rely on my own initiative?

If anyone has used Kefir grains, they will know that the Kefir grains grow faster than you can deal with them. In this way the probiotics taught me that in nature organic forms digest organic forms. Fungus digests decaying matter and obviously returns it to its molecular state, and probiotics keep fungus and mold in their place (they are life-defenders). Perhaps where there are no probiotics (the key micro-biological signature of healthy living matter) there is the signature for the breakdown of 'dead' physical matter and fungus grows.

With probiotics i don't have to scrub and scrape to clean - the little-biotics eat (digest) mold, bacteria, fungus and chalk .. which means that chalk grows from a bacteria or it is another form of 'fungus'. This means that stone, rock, crystal and minerals have formed from unseen micro-bacteria, yeasts, fungi and other micro building-blocks we don't yet have names for '-)

Should You Store food?
I am fortunate! I can live from cooked lentils (Dhal) and rice. I am vegetarian - no I don't eat fish - and many years ago I taught myself to live on a simple level. One can grow seeds and sprouts in containers [Living Food Lifestyle - Ann Wimgore], or sprouted grains can be pounded in a mortar and either eaten or dried and stored as breads. So, the real problem in an 'emergency' are HABITS .. restrictions on patterns of what we are used to.

For thousands of years our ancestors and forefathers stored food. The native Americans dried and stored food, especially for scouting, hunting and travel. I would camp in the Scottish Highlands, where villages and communities would have to store food, because in winter heavy snowfall and ice can completely cut off villages and farmers. Only recently do individual families and communities neglect to store dried food. Do the research .. storing food for potential hardship has been the backbone of human communities across time.

Did Neanderthal people store food? "Neanderthals used their Homes, Food, Clothing, and Tools and Weapons to survive in the wild Environment they lived in. These early men built permanent homes, to shelter from the long, harsh winter of the Ice Age. In the summer, they followed the herds, and lived in tents and caves... They also ate fish and seemed to have an ample supply of freshly caught game. There lives were not a constant struggle for survival because they were such good hunters. They learned to organize hunts and to cure and store food for the long winter."

Most probably human ingenuity is related to the ability to store food, store resources and preempt drought, hardship, disruption of food-gathering and hunting, avoidance of starvation when crops fail. Isn't this what the ancient Egyptian storehouses were all about? Therefore, this tendency is a natural human asset. It is also the ability to have an understanding of the 'basics' .. what you need rather than what you think you need (or want).

You and/or your community can grow and store your own food ..

Dark Serpent of Revenge Poisons Italy's Longest River

As the black oil-serpent poisons rivers and tributaries of Northern Italy, destroying habitat, poisoning the fish, killing many varieties of birds and wildlife .. the media and political-economic interests attempt to convince the world that Prosciutto, and Parmesan production as well as the rice farmers will not be effected. Of course the food chain along the rivers and tributaries will be effected. This is one of the worst ecological disasters to hit Italy - and it is not only the birds, wildlife and the fish who will suffer from the release of thousands of tons of fuel into one of the longest rivers of Europe .. humans will also be effected by this tragedy for many years to come.

The fuel released in Monza, North of Milan, poured into the river Lambro through the early hours of Tuesday morning after key valves in the refinery storage tanks were opened, in what has been called 'an act of sabotage'. The dark Italian serpent of 'vendetta', an act of revenge, has created an ecological disaster that will haunt Italy's natural habitat far into the future. The black serpent winding its way into one of Europe's most important rivers, is killing wildlife and poisoning tributaries with the pollution spreading through waterways from Milan to the Adriatic coast.

The released toxic poison is spreading through one of the most agricultural productive areas of Italy, poisoning not only the water and the groundwater; but seeping into the riverbanks as well as agricultural land in an area known worldwide for its 'produce'. This insane act of 'revenge' is a warning to all people inhabiting this beautiful planet.

Vendetta, [from L. vindicta "revenge"] is a sickness of the human heart that has plagued this planet historically over thousands of years .. but it is hard to understand that a former refinery used as an oil storage depot has no security, and nothing in place to detect open valves and the outpouring of thousands of tons of oil .. amazing !! Stupidity has also plagued mankind for thousands of years. It seems revenge, neglect and stupidity go hand and hand, until their combined disaster attracts attention of the rest of the tribe.

This is a truly horrible disaster.

The Po River valley covers over seventy thousand square kilometers, crossing the northern regions of Italy, providing over a third of Italy's agricultural produce. This oil spill is not only an ecological and environmental disaster, it is also a cultural and national disaster. The fuel will breathe out into the atmosphere as well as seeping into the earth and groundwater, polluting the soil. To try and cover up the reality of this terrible situation is as irresponsible as the casual storage situation that allowed this disaster to unfold.

Lombarda Petroli, owner of the oil depot is claimed to have managed to remove the depot from a list of 'at risk' industrial plants, which would have legally required the company to maintain safety standards and emergency contingency plans to deal with an oil spill.

Just look at us .. we are at war with each other .. we are at war with the animals, birds, plants, insects and fish inhabiting this planet. We are at war with the environment, at war with nature and the oceans .. and we are at war with the Earth itself.

Most of the planet is polluted and is a 'sewage dump' for man's war with himself. The Earth is the punch-bag for the petty human ego. That a small number of men fighting and struggling in one small troubled area can destroy wildlife, farmland and pollute the lives of tens of thousands of people across a region .. well, this is the harsh reality we now have to face. It is a failure of the heart, as well as an amplification of selfishness and a total lack of intelligence.

What a terrible tragedy ...

1918 flu pandemic originated in pigs

WASHINGTON (AP) - The 1918 influenza virus that killed more than 20 million people worldwide originated from American pigs and is unlike any other known flu bug, say researchers. They warn that it could strike again.

Using lung tissue taken at autopsy 79 years ago from an Army private killed by the flu, scientists at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology made a genetic analysis of the virus and concluded it is unique, though closely related to the ''swine'' flu.

"This is the first time that anyone has gotten a look at this virus which killed millions of people in one year, making it the worst infectious disease episode ever," said Dr. Jeffery K. Taubenberger, leader of the Armed Forces Institute team. "It does not match any virus that has been found since."

Although the disease that caused the worldwide epidemic was called "Spanish flu," the virus apparently is a mutation that evolved in American pigs and was spread around the globe by U.S. troops mobilized for World War I, said Taubenberger.

The Army private whose tissue was analyzed contracted the flu at Fort Jackson, S.C. For that reason, Taubenberger and his colleagues suggest in the journal Science that the virus be known as Influenza A/South Carolina.

Science is publishing the study today.

Army doctors in 1918 conducted autopsies on some of the 43,000 servicemen killed by the flu and preserved some specimens in formaldehyde and wax.

Taubenberger said his team sorted through 30 specimens before finding enough virus in the private's lung tissue to partially sequence the genes for hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, two key proteins in flu virus.

"The hemagglutinin gene matches closest to swine influenza viruses, showing that this virus came into humans from pigs," said Taubenberger.

The finding supports a widespread theory that flu viruses from swine are the most virulent for humans.

Most experts believe that flu viruses reside harmlessly in birds, where they are genetically stable. Occasionally, a virus from birds will infect pigs. The swine immune system attacks the virus, forcing it to change genetically to survive. The result is a new virus. When this new bug is spread to humans, it can be devastating, said Taubenberger.

Two other flu viruses spread all over the world since 1918 - Asian flu in 1957 and the Hong Kong flu in 1968 - and both mutated in pigs. ((Source))

What You Eat Becomes Part of You

As a young child I never liked eating red meat. As a little kid I would hide the meat under some potatoes to be able to throw it out, because I could not eat it. In some way I was fortunate that something inside me just did not like to consume meat and animal products, because what we eat becomes part of us.

The same applies to mould, ecoli bacteria, toxins and fungus. If our environment and our food sources are contaminated with parasites, fungus, salmonella or heavly metals they all become part of us. However, the substances that make up animal, bird and fish also become part of us when we consume the flesh of these creatures.

"You are what you eat", an archaeological investigation of diet
Diet & Archaeology

Many years ago I discovered a thin, frail wild peach tree growing on its own in the middle of a small park. At the time I discovered the peach tree there were small wild peaches ready to eat. I have never tasted peaches as rich and as beautiful as those growing on this wild tree. On the Island of Crete I found an ancient fig tree growing on rocks above the sea. The tree was growing wild and the figs were black and small. At the time I discovered the wild fig tree there were small ripe black figs ready to eat. I have never tasted figs as rich as those growing wild on the tree above the sea.

Humans on earth (today) consume and do not love the trees, the plants, the animals, the birds, the fish and the fruits of the earth. People no longer respect the spirit within life that surrounds us. "We are all from the earth, and when the earth, the water, the atmosphere is corrupted - then it will create its own reaction..." Indigenous Native American Prophecy

Throw Away Fishing

"Between 40 and 60 percent of all fish caught by trawlers in the North sea is discarded..."

We live in insane times where nourishment of the human species is shackled to generating EU profits, North American Profits... where people have to consume more than they need, because a growing commercial market demands it. People have become cooperative slaves to the ever increasing consumer demand/supply of global economics.

Firms have to keep growing, catches have to increase, food production has to be greater than the dramatic increase in world populations. Basic housing costs have to increase in order for the rich to get richer (to keep up with inflation). Society needs more... more fishing boats, more factories, more cities (generating more demand), and more children to create future demand. Society needs to generate more profit devouring more resources, and so we need more people to create more demand, so that more companies us can get rich.

Where does this more come from, and where does it lead us?

Throw Away Fishing Endangered Species

"A British trawler has sparked an international incident after being filmed taking a boatload of endangered fish caught in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea and then dumping the majority overboard in UK waters."

But the insanity does not stop there. People no longer care for this planet. All people care about is how much money they can earn and throw away... easy come easy go. At the same time the planet cannot sustain these levels of insanity.

The long term destruction of native cultural practices worldwide, in which the local people were the stewards and guardians of the resources of the earth, has resulted in a brainless mass of grey humanoids who no longer know where they came from, nor where they are going.

At the bottom of this stinking heap of factory farm waste is a small group of psychopaths called the "EU". Maybe they are aliens? Regardless of their agenda, it is a shame on mankind that the people on this planet destroy life with no regard, so that they can continue to follow their masters - for what?

Fortunately, for the earth, a big storm is coming. The survivors of that storm will be those who feel compassion for life on the Earth. The famous "Prophecy Rock" petroglyph is known as the Hopi Life Plan.

Sacred Vision Of An Apache Elder

China Dumps Industrial Waste Into Food

I wonder if people are realising how serious this is? Probably not!

Chinese have found a DEADLY, NEFARIOUS use for what was once industrial "waste."

As David Barboza has reported, what he has been describing has been a waste product created in melamine monomer production (not production of the melamine resin that is used in making plates and such). What this reference demonstrates is that a mixture of melamine monomer, cyanuric acid, ammelide, ammeline (and trace elements) is a known waste product of melamine monomer production where the waste water is crystallized before being released. These are exactly the same chemicals found in the crystals in contaminated ingredients and in the animals themselves per Guelph, et al.

They are dumping the industrial waste from melamine production into the protein concentrates and that explains why it is so cheap. It had no known use before this. Daily Kos

How Safe Are Our Vitamins?
Here's what stuck out to me, "Currently, most of the world's vitamins are manufactured in China. Unable to compete, the last U.S. plant making vitamin C closed a year ago. One of Europe's largest citric acid plants shut last winter, and only one vitamin C manufacturer operates in the West."

The rest of the article explains that there is no oversight of the food ingredients and vitamins coming into this country from China at the level where you'd detect poisons like lead, pesticides, and other toxic chemicals. We know that these are a huge issue with Chinese products destined for human consumption because there's a long history of Chinese people being poisoned by the products of the same manufacturers who are now selling their products to the rest of the world. Pet Poison Vitamins

Pesticide Contamination of Chinese Panax Ginseng

I tried really hard not to find this information... and I knew it already. With the polluted and contaminated food coming out of China it was obvious that the Ginseng would be contaminated with pesticides. Now I feel sick. I have to think how I am going to avoid buying products from China. Climate change is nothing compared to the toxins and filth exported around the world labled as 'food'. Europe just seems to open its doors and let it all in, and the American FDA are catching 1% of what is flooding into the U.S.

Now I have read something so horrible. I mean this is sick. How can I ever drink green tea again? The Chinese put the leaves of herbal tea plants on the floor and they drive trucks over them to dry them faster for export. Don't tell me this poisoning of the food is not deliberate when you read stuff like that, and worse. Is Organic safe? Reports say the food certificates are being faked. I have to rethink where I will get my tea!

In the past year, the FDA rejected more than twice as many food shipments from China as from all other countries combined. The rejected shipments make an unappetizing list. Inspectors commonly block Chinese food imports because they're "filthy." That's the official term. "They might smell decomposition. They might see gross contamination of the food. 'Filthy' is a broad term for a product that is not fit for human consumption," Hubbard says. npr.org

Sunrider (Guangzhon) Ltd.
Guangzhou , CN
PANAX GINSING FINE POWDER
16-APR-2007 PESTICIDES

Qinghai Xinkai Industry .Co.Ltd
Qinghai , CN
RED GINSENG TAILS
17-APR-2007 PESTICIDES

When Hubbard was at the FDA, he heard all kinds of stories about foreign food processors, like the one a staffer told him after visiting a Chinese factory that makes herbal tea.

"To speed up the drying process, they would lay the tea leaves out on a huge warehouse floor and drive trucks over them so that the exhaust would more rapidly dry the leaves out," Hubbard says. "And the problem there is that the Chinese use leaded gasoline, so they were essentially spewing the lead over all these leaves."

That lead-contaminated herbal tea would only be caught by FDA inspectors at the border if they knew to look for it, Hubbard says.

China has become the leading supplier of many food ingredients, such as apple juice, a primary sweetener in many foods; garlic and garlic powder, a major flavor agent; sausage casings and cocoa butter.

China now supplies 80 percent of the world's ascorbic acid — vitamin C. It's used as a preservative and nutritional enriching agent in thousands of foods. One-third of the world's vitamin A now comes from China, along with much of the supply of vitamin B-12 and many health-food supplements, such as the amino acid lysine.

European Drug Companies Gray Market
Drug makers are looking to ban repackaging of drugs by European middlemen, who buy medicines in low-cost countries, put them in new containers and resell the goods in high-price markets. The move would be the latest by Big Pharma to squelch so-called “parallel trade” in which arbitrageurs legally take advantage of price discrepancies in the Europe Union, the Financial Times reports. Middlemen in the EU take advantage of price differences throughout the continent, buying drugs where they're cheapest, repackaging them, and then selling them in countries where prices are higher. Healthblog

The poisoned food imports are just pouring out of China:
Tainted Products Continue to Flow out of China. Just as Canadian and U.S. health officials were scrambling to find out which brands of Chinese-made toothpaste had entered their countries, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced last Friday that it has intercepted a shipment of corn gluten from China contaminated with melamine and cyanuric acid. Epochtimes.com

This is a very good and lengthy report from 'the truth about trade', about the illegal trade routes used by China to bypass checks and controls:

Why Some China Exports Are Taking Illegal Detours
Brussels - When Cambodia suddenly started exporting hundreds of tons of garlic to the European Union a few years ago, Jürgen Marke, a computer analyst at Europe's Olaf antifraud office, smelled a problem.

Earlier this month, investigators wrapped up a lengthy probe based on his hunch. The garlic turned out to be Chinese, routed through Cambodia to hide its origin and avoid high EU tariffs and strict quotas.

Mr. Marke's data-crunching in his small office in Brussels puts him on the front line of a growing battle to stop so-called trans-shipment of Chinese goods to the rich markets of Europe and the U.S. At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars in lost customs duties, as well as jobs in domestic industries -- from shoes to food -- under threat from low-cost competition from Asia.

Rerouting goods to avoid tariffs isn't new or unique to Chinese exporters. But in recent years the U.S. and the EU have imposed increasing numbers of quotas and punitive tariffs to combat alleged Chinese "dumping" -- the export of goods below cost to secure market share -- as well as some bans for safety reasons. That appears to be fueling efforts to get around the rules; EU officials, for instance, say they have detected evidence of trans-shipment for 90% of the 91 products subject to the bloc's antidumping tariffs.

Customs agents in the U.S. and the EU have discovered trans-shipment rings selling everything from shoes to cigarette lighters to energy-saving light bulbs lately. Their newest worry is over one of the West's most protected and politically sensitive sectors: food. Last year, EU countries reported 84 instances of food trans-shipped from China, up from 50 the year before, including duck, chicken, beef and milk. Although only a small percentage of China's $969 billion in exports, food is a big growth area as Chinese agriculture modernizes.

The recent revelation that tainted wheat flour from China entered pet food in the U.S. has helped fuel these concerns. EU and U.S. customs agents worry that trans-shipped goods could allow unsafe or contaminated foods to leak into food chains. "You're increasing the risk if you're not sure where the food is coming from," Mr. Marke says. Truthabouttrade.org

I can no longer take my Ginseng capsules, because they are contaminated with pesticides, fungus and bacteria (Results indicated that 100% of the Siberian ginseng samples were contaminated with fungi and bacteria). I cannot neutralise the fungus with vitamin C because it comes from China and I have no idea what else is in there, and I cannot stay healthy with my green tea, because trucks have run over it before it was imported... I think there is a lot worse to come. I need to start growing my own food.

Chinese Killer Bananas

It never occured to me that bananas would come from a Chinese source. The killer bananas from Hainan, may seem like a joke... but why are the bananas sick? Common food hygene is that you do not eat food that is diseased. This is just common sense. Who wants to eat a diseased banana, even if it is safe to eat? I hope my bio-bananas are free of don't worry its safe disease.

Panama-disease-contracted Bananas Edible
The bananas which have contracted Panama disease are safe to eat, said the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. An official with the ministry said the banana is a major cash plant in south China and has won good reputation among consumers.

He said the country has grown 260,000 hectares of bananas and produces nearly 7 million tons every year, ranking third in the world. Ninety percent of the bananas are of find breed, said the official. The ministry has sent experts to major banana producing areas to investigate the epidemic situation and help farmers to prevent the disease, he said.

Panama disease, also called Banana Wilt, is a devastating disease caused by a soil-inhabiting fungus species. It is widespread in Asia, Africa, Australia, South America and many other regions. So far, the world has no effective cure for the disease.

What is Panama disease?
Panama disease is a serious disease of bananas caused by the Fusarium wilt fungus, which spreads with soil and water movement, and also with infected planting material.

How is it controlled?
Prompt detection is essential, and affected plants must be destroyed because the disease cannot be cured. There are strict quarantine regulations to prevent spread of infected material to clean areas through movement of soil, water or plant materials.

Panama disease, also known as Fusarium wilt, is a banana plant disease caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum. The fungus attacks the roots of the banana plant. The disease is resistant to fungicide and, so, cannot be controlled chemically.

Biological warfare?
Interest in Fusarium oxysporum as a pesticide was first raised after the discovery in the 1960s that it was the causative agent in the destruction of the Hawaiian coca population. The United States government was involved in a controversial program to use Fusarium oxysporum for the eradication of coca in Colombia and other Andean countries, but these plans were cancelled by president Bill Clinton who was concerned that the unilateral use of a biological agent would be perceived by the rest of the world as biological warfare. The Andean nation have since banned its use throughout the region. Use of biological agents to kill crops is potentially illegal under the Biological Weapons Convention.

If the disease cannot be killed with a fungicide - just think about it - then why should people eat the bananas? Not only that! If people don't want to eat bananas, then who is to tell them they have got to eat them? It may be that in the future most people will stop eating meat. Global trade is just going to have to adapt and live with it. If the bananas are infected with fungus spores? I sure would not eat them.

Does it pose a threat to human health?
Agent Green: Eradicating Drug Crops Using Fusarium Fusarium oxysporum is can cause life threatening infections in humans with a weakened immune system. Invasive Fusarium infections are an emerging disease with a mortality rates up to 70%. Fusarium is known to cause serious dermal and eye infections.

Mono-Culture & Banana Disease

It's the mono culture plantations and the heavy dependence on fungicide that lie at the root of disease free banana cultivation problems. The plantations are convenient for humans, but are wide open to the spreading of disease. There are no natural barriers to protect the plants as there would be in the wild (nature's way). Of course, the fungus can easily spread in a totally unnatural human created environment that benefits the spread of disease over the health of the plants. How do they answer that problem? Massive spraying of fungicides.

Yes, we'll have no bananas?
Wild Bananas, which are much smaller than the bananas we usually see in grocery stores, originated in SE Asia and have been domesticated for thousands of years (perhaps as far back as 8,000 BCE). The Portuguese established banana plantations in the Caribbean and imported the fruit back to Europe. Cultivated bananas are sterile, which means they have no viable seeds, so old plants must be spliced to create new ones. That means taking one plant and creating a clone of it by placing a shoot in the ground and allowing it to grow. This creates a monoculture of genetically-identical bananas. Today banana production occurs in most tropical countries and the banana is perhaps the world's largest monoculture crop. The lack of genetic variability makes them vulnerable to being wiped out abruptly; an entire crop is at risk of crashing when a pathogen is introduced. Greendecade.org

Plastic Bananas
"The root of the problem lies in the origins of the edible banana, about 10,000 years ago. The edible banana is a variation of the wild banana, which has lost the mass of black seeds that make the wild banana inedible. But this also means that the edible banana is sterile, and is only propagated through cuttings. Unlike other plants, scientists can not cross-breed different varieties of bananas in an attempt to find a disease resistant plant. Today's bananas only survive through the use of huge amounts of fungicides, as much as 40 sprayings a year. Of course, the fungal diseases mutate and become resistant. Plastic.com

The Banana Plague
Yes - in 10 years we may have no bananas
The Need For A Paradigm Shift

Apes Prefer Organic
Monkeys at Copenhagen Zoo are going ape over organic bananas and other fruits, rejecting traditional foods left in their cages, zookeepers said Monday."For one reason or another, the tapirs and chimpanzees are choosing organically grown bananas over theothers," keeper Niels Melchiorsen told the magazine Oekologisk Jordbrug (Ecological Agriculture).

"Maybe they are able to instinctively tell the difference, and their choice is not at all random," he suggested."The chimpanzees are able to tell the difference between the organic and the regular fruit," Melchiorsen reported: "If we give them organic and traditional bananas, they systematically choose the organic bananas, which they eat with the skin on."

"But they peel the traditional bananas before eating them," he added.

Wheat mixtures better than monocultures
09 May, 2007 - The United States Department of Agriculture recently published a summary of research showing that mixtures of two or three pure varieties of wheat consistently yield an average 3.2% more than monocultures, with no difference in grain quality. The advantage of using agricultural biodiversity in this way apparently stems from the differing response of the mixture components to stresses such as droughts and diseases. Bioversityinternational.org

FDA Stops Imports of Chinese Toothpaste

China calls for cooler heads over product safety
BEIJING (Reuters) - China called for cooler heads to prevail in a dispute over product safety on Wednesday, accusing critics of exploiting concerns about specific cases to erect barriers to its exports in general. In the latest incident, the Dominican Republic has banned the sale of two brands of Chinese toothpaste for allegedly containing a lethal chemical responsible for dozens of poisoning deaths in Panama last year.

A company under investigation for exporting the toothpaste, Danyang Household Chemical Company, defended its product.

"Toothpaste is not something you'd swallow, but spit out, and so it's totally different from something you would eat," one company manager, who declined to be identified, said by telephone from the eastern province of Jiangsu.

Toothpaste toxin `safe'
SHANGHAI, China — Wire reports - The maker of a Chinese toothpaste found to contain a potentially deadly chemical said today that he is under investigation but claimed his product was safe.

Chen Yaozu, general manager of Danyang Chengshi Household Chemical Co., said his firm had exported toothpaste to Panama containing diethylene glycol, blamed for the deaths of at least 51 people there after it was mixed into cough syrup.

Chen said the chemical, a thickening agent used as a low-cost substitute for glycerin, was permitted under Chinese rules and was safe in small amounts.

FDA Finds Melamine in Chinese Catfish
Tests conducted at a US Food & Drug Administration laboratory on behalf of the Arkansas Department of Health & Human Services have detected melamine in at least one sample of imported Chinese catfish. And while officials are downplaying the health hazard, this latest finding suggests that the human food supply is much more widely contaminated than previously acknowledged. Huffington Post

US Knew About Food Contamination

Don't worry America - the cancer causing Melamine tainted pet food that was shipped around to Canada and back into the United States as fish feed will not harm you. The fish, and the chickens and the pigs have eaten it, and they are dead. So, what is a little teeny weeny bit of Melamine contamination between friends?

The fact that the poison in the pet food that killed all those cats and dogs is back in the food chain? Well, it wont harm you. You don't know which fish it is in anyway. None of us know what kind of crap is contaminating our food - from pesticides, to fungus and bacteria.

China vows to prevent food contamination.

The fact that the people in China are unfortunately dying of Cancer at an unhealthy rate, does not mean that the pesticides in those imported products contain the same levels of pollution killing the people there. Filth and residue are the top reasons for rejection of China's food imports to the US. So what about Europe?

While Chuck Strahl wonders if we should regulate pet food, the FDA is coming under fire for their own inability to maintain food safety in the US, which means our food in Canada is also unsafe since we get so much from the states.

The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people, sickened hundreds, and forced one of the biggest product recalls in U.S. history, documents and interviews show. Politique Vert

Pet food poison in farm animals poses little risk
Beijing blames pollutants for rise in killer cancers
Ideologues won't accept food-safety regulation
Why should I care about pesticides?
Out-of-date food in UK supermarkets

Trading Global Parasites

You can see that I have a contamination bug obsession this month... That is because I care about my health. We are what we eat. I was wondering how inconvenient it might be for people all over the planet to be sharing their regional parasites through unregulated global trade. Maybe supermarket checkouts will soon be giving away herbal parasite capsules? An alternative to free disease protection condoms. I already ordered my colon cleanse anti-parasite herbs and my baby food style vegetarian instestinal cleanser. Next month I will add the toxin-out to detox the liver (I don't want to do it all at once). You may want to watch the Agri-food corp fun video about modern farming methods: The Meatrix

Food boom brings unpalatable truths
China's huge food export market could be making the world sick, write Ariana Eunjung Cha in Shanghai and Kelly Burke. Tainted ingredients that originated in China made their way into pet food that has sickened and killed animals around the world, with nearly 4000 deaths reported in the US. With China playing an ever-larger role in supplying food, medicine and animal feed to other countries, recognition of the hazards has not kept up.

By value, China is the world's No.1 exporter of fruits and vegetables, and a major exporter of other food products ranging from apple juice to garlic and sausage casings. Its agricultural exports to the US surged to $US2.26 billion last year - nearly 20 times the $US133 million of 1980. China's food exports to Australia were worth $450 million in 2006, up from $345 million the previous year, and dominated by prawns, cereal, fruit juice and vegetables.

China has been especially poor at meeting international standards. The US subjects only a small fraction of its food imports to close inspection, but each month rejects about 200 shipments from China, mostly due to concerns about pesticides, antibiotics and misleading labelling. In February, border inspectors for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) blocked peas tainted by pesticides, dried plums containing banned additives, pepper contaminated with salmonella and frozen crayfish that were filthy.

Since 2000, some countries have temporarily banned whole categories of Chinese imports. The European Union stopped prawn shipments because of banned antibiotics. Japan blocked tea and spinach, citing excessive antibiotic residue. And South Korea banned fermented cabbage after finding parasites.

As globalisation of the food supply progresses, "the food gets more anonymous and gradually you get into a situation where you don't know where exactly it came from and you get more vulnerable to poor quality", said Michiel Keyzer, director of the Centre for World Food Studies at Vrije University in Amsterdam. Sydney Morning Herald

Parasite Eggs Found Again in Kimchi From China
Health officials have again discovered parasite eggs in some Chinese-made kimchi products, escalating public concerns about the health risks of food imports. The Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) said Thursday that it has found parasite eggs in 15 samples of 82 Chinese kimchi products stored in warehouses. Kimchi is a spicy fermented cabbage and radish that is the main side dish of most Korean meals.

Quarantine officials have conducted inspections on a total of 82 Chinese kimchi products (227.6 tons) stored in warehouses after customs clearance since the food regulator found three species of parasite eggs in nine samples of the 18 Chinese kimchi products sold in Internet shopping malls last Friday. The KFDA already recalled all of the inventory of the 15 products.

Chinese farmers often use human excrement as fertilizers when growing cabbages for kimchi. There is a possibility that the parasites could invade the cabbages through that channel. The recent food scandals reveal the problems of Korea's public quarantine system as it came just a month after authorities banned the sale of some Chinese-made kimchi after they found a significantly high lead content in it.

In July, the KFDA also banned the sale of imported Chinese eels and other fish products after finding they were contaminated with malachite green, a cancer-causing substance. Following the scandals over the Chinese food imports, the Korean government plans to hold a high-level meeting with China to prevent tension caused by contaminated kimchi from damaging the two countries’ overall trade relations.

According to a November report by the Asian Development Bank, food-borne disease affects 300 million Chinese per year... On Feb. 5, the Chinese government released a list of 10 of last year's most egregious food-safety cases—everything from selling homemade beer in brand-name bottles to making edible gelatin from OLD LEATHER. The top spot went to a firm in Jiangsu province busted for adulterating its nationally sold nutritional supplement, supposedly made from silkworm chrysalis. The real ingredients? Dried pig's blood and chicken feathers.

On Feb. 6, Chinese health officials ordered six kinds of lipstick from two Shantou-based companies—including a strawberry-flavored variety—pulled from stores after they were found to contain SUDAN RED, an industrial dye known to cause cancer in lab animals. The dye, used to color petrol and floor polish, has also shown up in some Chinese chili powders and eggs.

Tests by environmental group Greenpeace recently detected residue from banned PESTICIDES such as DDT in 4 out of 5 mainland-grown tangerines, strawberries and green vegetables bought in Hong Kong produce markets. One tangerine tested positive for 13 different pesticides.

Illegal experimental GE rice from China: entering Europe's food chain

Food Contamination

The contamination of our food is going to become a big issue in the months and years ahead. The more deaths that occur, the more people are going to demand that action is taken. Or people will take action for themselves and buy local produce or grow local produce. Some of the substances polluting our food imports are pesticides, herbicides, molds, fungus, rodent feces, insect residue, toxins, heavy metals and chemicals.

Fears of killer chemical in toothpaste
13 May 2007 - Health authorities in Panama have ordered toothpaste to be removed from shelves over fears it contains a chemical that killed at least 51 people last year. The government warned against using Excel or Mr Cool, because they may contain diethylene glycol. Testing was under way to see if the products contained the chemical, which had previously been linked to deaths of 51 people who took a medication containing it. It is alleged that a Chinese factory made the diethylene glycol and passed it off as harmless glycerin to a Spanish company, which sold it to Panama. The Observer

You may say: "We are protected against all that, by our regulators and food standards commissions. No we are not, and for a very good reason. The European Union and the WTO consider food regulatory standards as intrusive blocks to the movement of free trade. They don't want rules that regulate how much rodent feces per milligram is allowed in our food, or how much pesticide per milligram is a safe limit. ANY SAFE LIMIT IS A LIMIT TO GLOBAL TRADE... and a limit to global trade hurts profits, restricting the free flow of goods into your home. Regulating food safety damages world trade, which damages profits, which damages the financial health of the global economy. Who is going to know if the imports poison a few people, or poison a few cats or dogs? Who is going to know? We have over population anyway... Better we become rich than die poor.

"Excuse me waiter! There's a rat in my soup!!"
I eat mostly vegan, and I like to take products like Ginseng. These products once came from reliable suppliers who had an interest in keeping their sources clean of contamination or it could destroy their business. Poisoning people is a risky road full of pitfalls. However, over the past couple of years things have changed. The sinking of local market trade has grown into a geneve-cally modified behaviour, that has morphed into a deadly globalisation bug, where food growers and suppliers are grey areas on the global map. To find who provided what to whom you have to trail through buyers of a buyer of a buyer. If a middleman lies about the source of his trade to hike the price or to hide the origins of the supplier, who is going to know? If the supplier dumps excess pesticide on the food, or sprays it with fungicide? Who is going to know? If rodent feces are ground into the food supplement, who is going to know?

I like Ginseng, but if it is contaminated with pesticide residue, fungicide, rodent feces and chemicals... then I am paying to be poisoned. I don't like that too much.

How about: local alternatives to the Global Economy?
Global Exchange - Earth Island - Go Local - Global Economics - Grow Your Own - Permaculture Institute - Ecological Institute - Masanobu Fukuoka - Food Contaminants - Urban Farmer - Garden Adventures - Wild Ginseng

Keywords: Food contamination, pesticides, food additives, allergies, mold, fungus, algae bloom, red tide, toxins, heavy metals, pollution, chemical food contaminants, rodent feces, bird feces, parasites, neuro toxins, common foodborne pathogens, Foodborne illness.