Original Article Here: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/07/bpa-cash-register-receipts/1

Laboratory tests found high levels of the estrogen-like chemicalbisphenol A on 40% of cash register receipts from major U.S. businesses, the Environmental Working Group today reports.

BPA levels higher than those in canned foods, baby bottles and infant formula were detected on at least one of several receipts from Chevron, McDonalds, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, Safeway, the U.S. Postal Service, Walmart and the U.S. House of Representatives cafeteria, according to the private Washington-based research group.

In contrast, receipts from Target, Starbucks, Bank of America ATMs and the U.S. Senate cafeteria were BPA-free or contained only trace amounts.

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BPA, a plastic hardener linked to breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other health problems, reacts with dye to form black print on receipts handled by millions of Americans every day.

“A typical employee at any large retailer who runs the register could handle hundreds of the contaminated receipts in a single day at work,” said Jane Houlihan, the group’s senior vice president for research.

The Environmental Working Group collected 36 receipts from retailers in seven states and the District of Columbia and had them tested by the University of Missouri Division of Biological Sciences laboratory.

It says the lab’s wipe tests, which easily removed BPA, indicate the chemical could rub off on someone’s hands but adds that scientists have yet to determine how much is absorbed into the body.

Appleton Papers Inc. of Appleton, Wisc., the nation’s largest thermal paper maker, recently removed BPA from its products, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has begun evaluating BPA alternatives in thermal paper.

Increasingly, states are moving to ban BPA from food and drink containers, primarily those meant for infants and toddlers, because of health concerns.

Bans are “not necessary,” Steve Hentges, a BPA specialist at the American Chemistry Council, which opposes them, has toldGreen House. He says research shows BPA is safe.

In January, the Food and Drug Administration, which previously called BPA safe, announced it has “some concerns” about the chemical’s potential effects on brain development of fetuses, infants and children. It did not say BPA is unsafe.

The Environmental Working Group recommends these tips for reducing BPA exposure from receipts:

• Minimize receipt collection by declining receipts at gas pumps, ATMs and other machines when possible.
• Store receipts separately in an envelope in a wallet or purse.
• Never give a child a receipt to hold or play with.
• After handling a receipt, wash hands before preparing and eating food (a universally recommended practice even for those who have not handled receipts).
• Do not use alcohol-based hand cleaners after handling receipts. A recent study showed that these products can increase the skin’s BPA absorption.
• Take advantage of store services that email or archive paperless purchase records.
• Do not recycle receipts and other thermal paper. BPA residues from receipts will contaminate recycled paper.
• If you are unsure, check whether paper is thermally treated by rubbing it with a coin. Thermal paper discolors with the friction; conventional paper does not.

New studies prove red meat and animal fat are the ideal artery cleaners!

For 20 years, mainstream medicine has waged an all-out war on man’s favorite food – red meat.

Even many low carb gurus warn you to watch your beef consumption. They tell you it clogs up your arteries, raises cholesterol… but wait a minute! If it is so darned awful…

How come meat was man’s main meal for a million years?

Oh yes, it was. Bear in mind that farming is a fairly recent invention. Before then, all of us humans had to live on what we could hunt or gather. Sure, we snacked on nuts and berries, but anthropologists now agree…

Up to 85% of the calories consumed by Stone Age societies CAME FROM RED MEAT.

And this isn’t a wild guess. We know it from studying the eating habits of the world’s remaining hunter-gatherer societies. Australian Aborigines… Alaskan Nanamuits…the Kung of Africa.. .they all consume plenty of (fat-drenched!) meat.

Your doctor would probably be horrified if you told him to eat this ancient diet. However, guess what? When scientists recently analyzed how healthy these meat-eating cultures are, they were shocked to find …They hardly ever get heart disease or high cholesterol!

How can this be? It turns out that nutritionists made an enormous blunder back in the 1980s;  They analyzed the domestic, grain-fed beef we were raising in modern feedlots, And  assumed that all red meat is pretty much the same. But were they ever wrong! The eye-opening truth is…

You are what your meat eats,

When you measure the nutrient content of meat from factory-farmed, grain-fed animals, you’ll find that its very low in heart-healthy, Omega-3 fatty acids. These are the miracle nutrients that have been shown to protect your body from heart disease, cancer and even Alzheimer’s. Nature did not design cattle to eat grain, and when they’re forced to do it, their meat becomes unhealthy for us.

But its a totally different story for red meat from wild game_ This is what cavemen ate… its what native cultures live on. .and it turns out to be amazingly high in the good stuff. In fact, meat from nearly any grass-fed animal is so incredibly high in healthy Omega-3, even wild salmon pales in comparison.

So go ahead and enjoy wild venison, elk, bear, boar, pheasant, duck, quail and all the other dark meat men naturally crave. It’s great for you! And please, for your heart’s sake, pile your plate with STEAKS, RIBS AND BURGERS TOO—THE FATTER THE BETTER…

Just insist that the beef (or chicken, etc.) is grass-fed and that your fish is wild-caught.

Source: Dr. William Campbell Douglass

FACT: AT LEAST 90% OF THOSE SUFFERING FROM “ACID INDIGESTION” AND/OR “ACID REFLUX” ARE IN REALITY SUFFERING FROM TOO LITTLE STOMACH ACID.

“How can this be?” you ask. It feels like too much acid, and the TV commercials tell me it’s too much acid.”

Here’s how it works: When you eat a meal, the stomach is designed to produce strong acid to begin the digestive process, especially of proteins. When there is too little stomach acid, the food sits too long in the stomach undigested, and begins to ferment and rot.

It is the acids of the fermenting and rotting food that cause the feeling of acid indigestion (and can eventually cause ulcers).

Sufficient stomach acid is also the signal to the small intestine to open up, receive the stomach contents, and begin the next phase of digestion. When this signal is too weak, the stomach contents may try to escape in the other direction, causing the symptoms of acid reflux.

What happens when antacids are taken for this condition? It makes the symptoms stop and the problem worse. It would be like putting a piece of duct tape over the oil light in your car when it comes on, thinking -you’ve solved the problem.

Antacids stop the digestive process, and the partially-digested, rotting food is forced through the rest of the digestive tract. Not a pretty picture. (This is also true of the acid stoppers like Zantac, Pepsid AC, and especially Prilosec and Prevacid.)

Minerals in particular cannot be digested without a strong acid medium in the stomach. Antacids and acid stoppers create an alkaline condition in the stomach. It therefore becomes impossible to digest calcium and most other minerals. (So much for Tums!)

As this condition continues, the digestive tract becomes weaker and weaker, as well as increasingly toxic. You are also not digesting and absorbing the nutrients from food.

Loss of the ability to produce sufficient stomach acid, and all the consequences of this, is the first step in developing all kinds of degenerative diseases. However, the connection that this is an underlying cause of disease is seldom made.

The real solution is simple. There are natural and very effective supplements to assist digestion and help your body to repair its own digestive ability. Ask  about the appropriate Standard Process supplements.

Source: Dr. Janet R. Lang, DC

SYNTHETIC means that a chemist attempted to reconstruct the exact structure of the crystalline molecule by chemically combining molecules from other sources. These sources are not living foods, but dead chemicals. For example, Vitamin B1 is made from a coal tar derivative, and d-alpha tocopherol (so-called Vitamin E) is a byproduct of materials used by the Eastman Kodak company to make film. However, it is not legally necessary to give the source from which the synthetic “vitamin” is derived. Synthetic “vitamins” should more accurately be called drugs.

DO SYNTHETIC VITAMINS FUNCTION AS WELL AS NATURAL WHOLE-FOOD VITAMINS?

No one would argue that high-performance, complex mechanisms like computers or space shuttles require very specific, high-quality materials in their makeup.

Living systems are even more complex and specific in their need for building materials. In addition, living systems are constantly breaking down cells, organs and tissues, and rebuilding and repairing them. For these processes the body must have a continual supply of high-quality material.

If you build a house with cheap, imitation construction materials, your house will quickly fall into disrepair. The same is true for the physical body. The body has a very precise design, which is so incredibly intricate and complex that even with all the scientific and medical research thus far, we have only scratched the surface of understanding it.

What arrogance it is to think that we can alter a design we do not even understand.

Many conventional and non-conventional healthcare practitioners think that there is no difference between natural and synthetic vitamins, or between natural cheated minerals and inorganic minerals. This, of course, is incorrect, and has led to enormous confusion in the nutritional field.

The following examples are a handful of hundreds that could be given to illustrate this point:

• Reported on April 14, 1994 in The New England Journal ofMedicine was a study in which 29,000 male smokers were given synthetic beta-carotene and synthetic Vitamin E to evaluate the cancer-protective effect of these “vitamins.” After 10 years, the men taking the synthetic beta-carotene had an 18% higher rate of lung cancer, more heart attacks, and an 8% higher overall death rate. Those taking synthetic Vitamin E had more strokes.

Food sources of these same nutrients, such as fruits and vegetables, consistently demonstrate protection against cancer, heart disease and stroke.

• On November 23, 1995, the following was reported in The New England Journal of Medicine: 22,748 pregnant women were given synthetic Vitamin A. After four years the study was halted because of a 240% increase in birth defects in babies of women taking 10,000 IU daily, and a 400% increase in birth defects in babies of women taking 20,000 IIJ a day.

Source: Lang Nutritional Seminars

MAGNESIUM

SOURCES OF MAGNESIUM

Nuts – almonds, brazil nuts, cashews

Vegetables – soybeans, parsnips

Grains – buckwheat, wheat bran, wheat germ, other grains Miscellaneous – chocolate, cocoa, molasses, brewer’s yeast, kelp

ROLES IN THE BODY

Sixty percent of tissue magnesium is located in the skeleton. The rest is within the cells, where it performs very essential functions.

• Regulation of Cell Membranes – permeability, muscular contraction, nerve impulse conduction and antagonism to calcium.
• Enzyme Activation within the cells – magnesium is essential for energy production and protein synthesis.

FUNCTIONS OF MAGNESIUM

Excretory – prevention of kidney stones Digestive – laxative

Nervous – maintains nerve conduction

Muscular – prevents tissue calcification, needed for muscle contraction

Skeletal – required for bone formation Read the rest of this entry »

SODIUM

SOURCES OF SODIUM

Seafood – tuna, clams, caviar, lobster, sardines, scallops, shrimp

Meats – brains, eggs, beef kidneys, beef liver

Vegetables – beet greens, celery, Swiss chard, olives, peas

Dairy – butter, buttermilk, cheeses

Miscellaneous – pickles, table salt, soy sauce, steak sauce, kelp, brewer’s yeast, drinking water from water softeners. Processed and fast foods are often high in salt content

ROLES IN THE BODY

Sodium is an extracellular element, involved in fluid balance, regulation of blood pressure and cell membrane permeability. Read the rest of this entry »

POTASSIUM

SOURCES OF POTASSIUM

Seafood – halibut, herring, lingcod, sardines Meats – goose

Nuts/seeds – pecans, sesame, sunflower, walnuts, almonds, brazil nuts, cashews, chestnuts, filberts, peanuts

Fruits – avocados, dates, figs, prunes, raisins

Vegetables – watercress, garlic, horseradish, lentils, parsley, potatoes, spinach, artichokes, lima beans, beet greens, swiss chard, collards

Grains – buckwheat, rye, wheat bran

Miscellaneous – chocolate, molasses, mushrooms, kelp, yeast, salt substitutes

ROLES IN THE BODY

Potassium has many roles, especially intracellular fluid balance and cell membrane effects such as muscle contraction, nerve impulse conduction, and cell permeability. Read the rest of this entry »

IRON

SOURCES OF IRON

Seafood – clams, oysters

Meats – liver and kidneys, beef, reindeer meat

Nuts/seeds – pistachio, pinon nuts, black walnuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds

Vegetables – Irish moss, chives, parsley, soybeans

Grains – wheat germ and bran, rice bran

Miscellaneous – red wine, black strap molasses, sorghum syrup, bone meal, yeast

ROLES IN THE BODY

• Oxygen Transport – iron is part of the hemoglobin molecule that carries oxygen in the blood
• Cellular Energy Production – iron is required in the final steps of the production of energy from food
• Removal of Harmful Free Radicals – catalase enzyme requires iron Read the rest of this entry »

MANGANESE

SOURCES OF MANGANESE

Meats – snails, egg yolk

Nuts/seeds – sunflower, coconuts, peanuts, pecans, walnuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, brazil nuts

Fruits – blueberries, olives, avocados

Vegetables – corn, corn germ, parsley, legumes

Grains – wheat, wheat germ and bran, rice, barley, oats, buckwheat, rye

Miscellaneous – kelp, cloves, tea

ROLES IN THE BODY Read the rest of this entry »

CHROMIUM

SOURCES OF CHROMIUM

Seafood – oysters

Meats – calves’ liver, egg yolk Nuts/seeds – peanuts

Fruit – grape juice

Dairy – American cheese

Grains – wheat and wheat germ

Miscellaneous – brewer’s yeast, black pepper, molasses

ROLES IN THE BODY

• Glucose tolerance factor – chromium is involved in maintaining blood sugar levels and energy levels.
• Cholesterol regulation
• Other possible roles involved in the synthesis of DNA Read the rest of this entry »