Articles of Health: My Hope and Prayer This Thanksgiving and Holiday S...: This Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday we now find ourselves as a nation and as a planet, in quite a bit of political, economic, health and...

Ventura County Reporter - You've been hacked!

57 Health Benefits of Going Vegan

A great article supporting vegan eating, and on a nurses site, no less!

To your health!

This time of year, I truly miss living in New England. There's nothing like an autumn spent walking among scattered color, and seeing natures handiwork painted as a backdrop to changing skies. Ahhh... "Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." - Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/08/01/is-bottled-water-really-pure.aspx

Is Bottled Water A Scam?

According to the article above, written by Dr. Mercola, bottled water is a marketing-driven bamboozle that has tricked the American public to believing that this so-called purified water is nothing more than tap water in a bottle.  Mercola says, "In many cases indistinguishable from regular tap water.  In fact, about 40 percent of bottled water IS regular tap water, which may or may not have received any additional treatment."  OUCH!

Have we been duped?  Read on:

Bottled water may be one of the most effective swindles out there. Marketing, of course, has played a major role. For example, in 2006, Pepsi (owner of Aquafina) spent $20 million suggesting that Americans should “drink more water.”
It worked. The following year Americans drank nearly 7 percent more bottled water than they did in 2006, according to Beverage Marketing Corporation.
Last year, U.S. bottled water consumption reached nearly 9 billion gallons, raking in revenues of more than $11 billion. Not bad for a product people can get almost for free from their own kitchen tap.
The belief driving sales of bottled water is that it must be cleaner, and therefore healthier. But that’s where we’ve all been fooled.

The Amazing Bottled Water Scam

There are many problems with bottled water, but the most obvious is the fact that you’re paying a premium for something that is in many cases indistinguishable from regular tap water. In fact, about 40 percent of bottled water IS regular tap water, which may or may not have received any additional treatment.
Most municipal tap water must actually adhere to stricter purity standards than the bottled water industry.
Case in point: In one test performed by the Environmental Working Group, 38 low-level contaminants were found in bottled water, with each of the 10 tested brands containing an average of eight chemicals.
Disinfection byproducts (DBPs), caffeine, Tylenol, nitrate, industrial chemicals, arsenic, and bacteria were all detected.
Fluoride (a highly toxic bone poison that should be avoided at all costs) is usually present in both tap water and filtered bottled water. And the toxic metal antimony (a silvery white metal of medium hardness) has also been found in many commercially bottled water brands.
Part of the problem is that while the EPA requires large public water supplies to test for contaminants as often as several times a day, the FDA requires private bottlers to test for contaminants only once a week, once a year, or once every four years, depending on the contaminant.
In addition, the General Accountability Office (GAO) report states that “the FDA does not have the specific statutory authority to require bottlers to use certified laboratories for water quality tests or to report test results, even if violations of the standards are found.”

Toxic Water, in a Bottle

Probably the worst of the toxins found in both tap and some bottled water are the disinfection byproducts (DBPs), such as trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs). DBPs are formed when chlorine reacts with natural organic matter like decaying vegetation in the source water during water treatment.
Adding chlorine to the water kills or inactivates harmful microorganisms that cause diseases such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and giardiasis. Its use has virtually eradicated these diseases.
However, this water treatment technique clearly has serious drawbacks. Scientists are now starting to discover just how toxic these disinfection byproducts really are.
DBPs are about 10,000 more toxic than chlorine and trihalomethanes (THMs) are classified as Cancer Group B carcinogens, meaning they’ve been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
They’ve also been linked to reproductive problems in both animals and humans, and human studies suggest that lifetime consumption of chlorine-treated water can more than double the risk of bladder and rectal cancers in certain individuals.

• One such study found that smoking men who drank chlorinated tap water for more than 40 years faced double the risk of bladder cancer compared with smoking men who drank non-chlorinated water.
• A second study found that rates for rectal cancers for both sexes escalated dramatically with duration of consumption of chlorinated water. Individuals on low-fiber diets who also drank chlorinated water for over 40 years more than doubled their risk for rectal cancer, compared with lifetime drinkers of non-chlorinated water.

To put it another way: Disinfectant byproducts are so toxic that simply swimming in a chlorinated pool presents “an unacceptable cancer risk,” according to one recent study. THMs formed in chlorinated swimming pools have also been linked to spontaneous abortion, stillbirths and congenital malformations, even at lower levels.
So why on earth would you pay up to 1,900 times more for the same amount of health risk as you encounter drinking tap water?
And when you take into account the health hazards imparted by the chemicals leaching out of the plastic bottle itself, then bottled water really doesn’t make sense anymore.

Plastic, Plastic Everywhere. Clean Water, Not So Much

When you consider the massive amounts of non-biodegradable plastic required for all these billions of gallons of bottled water being consumed each year, it’s no wonder we have a plastic “stew” twice the size of Texas swirling through the Pacific Ocean.
Another fact to chew on is this: A bottle that holds 1 liter of water requires 5 liters of water in its manufacturing process.
So not only is the consumption of bottled water polluting our fragile world, it’s also profoundly wasteful of our natural resources.

Your Healthiest Water Options

Your best source of water is having an artesian well in your back yard as that is some of the finest water in the world. Very few people are fortunate enough to have this, however, so after many years of careful research I have concluded that filtered tap water, using a reverse osmosis filter is currently your next best option.
I know some people have great comments on ionized alkaline water but I am very skeptical, especially in light of new research that I have recently learned that will be published later this year. I am concerned that these may cause some significant long term problems and are probably best avoided. .
Remember that you cannot tell if your water is safe or not by the way it looks, tastes, or smells. Some contaminants in water are so harmful they’re measured in “parts per million,” or as in the case of DBPs, “parts per billion.”
This means that just a drop of these poisons added to several gallons of water can be harmful to your health.
Additionally, since your skin easily absorbs chemicals in water -- as illustrated in the study on swimming pool contamination and cancer risk mentioned above – purifying your drinking water alone may not be enough. For optimal protection, you’ll want to install a system that filters all the water in your home.
For a more thorough look at what your options are, please review my previous article, Tap Water Toxins: Discover Your 3 Best Solutions, Straight from the Expert...

 Thinking Out Loud

You can see that I am not keeping up with this blog as regularly as I would like to.  Certainly, it's related to my day/night job. The truth be known...I spend far too many hours in front of this screen. So why the need for another blog?  I have yet to figure out the answer to that.  Perhaps it is that I enjoy "watching" me speak... lol doubtful, but it's an answer of sorts.

Today I want to discuss optimism.  I think it should be an infectious disease that spreads among us all, especially during difficult times like today with our crazy economy.  One of my favorite quotes by Lewis Carroll is, "Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."   There is something very empowering about believing in the impossible.  Don Quixote's big quest to dream...to follow that star... Quixote is the hero of Don Quixote, the early 17th century novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Quixote is a dreamer and a kindhearted buffoon, an aging gentleman who sets out from his village of La Mancha to perform acts of chivalry in the name of his grand love Dulcinea. He rides a decrepit horse, Rocinante (which is quite comical), and is accompanied by his "squire," the peasant Sancho Panza. Quixote's imagination often gets the better of him (hmmm... perhaps he should have been a writer); in once famous incident he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants (perhaps the aftermath of late night pizza...I'm just sayin'). Throughout his many adventures Quixote often seems ridiculous, yet he maintains his staunchly hopeful attitude and belief in chivalry. (The term quixotic now describes anyone who takes on an idealistic or foolish quest against great odds.) The book Don Quixote inspired the 1959 play Man of La Mancha, in which Quixote's quest is summed up in the song "The Impossible Dream."

As I was saying...

I realize that Don Quixote's character is a bit overdone, and certainly he would be considered rather odd in today's society.  Especially since he was ever-so committed to winning the love of Dulcinea by performing wild acts of chivalry (it's all so very dramatic). Chivalry in some respects is a beautiful notion, and a code of behavior that medieval knights followed. Chivalry was a feature of the High and later Middle Ages in Western Europe. While its roots stretch back to the 9th and 10th centuries, the system of chivalry flourished most vigorously in the 12th and 13th centuries before deteriorating at the end of the Middle Ages. However, the ideals of chivalry continued to influence models of behavior for gentlemen and the nobility during the Renaissance in the 16th century.  During the crusades, Christianity also influenced chivalry, but I really did not want this to become a history lesson... or did I?  lol


A couple of informative websites to check out about chivalry are:
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall/chivalry.html
http://www.chronique.com/Library/Chivalry/code.htm

Back to the subject at hand...Optimism...

It is a medically proven fact, that optimism has profound affects on health.  Your mental outlook controls your emotions, which in turn affect your body.

I prefer to hope against hope, to dream large, to look at the glass half full instead of half empty.  Do you remember the childhood book, Pollyanna authored by Eleanor Hodgman Porter (1868-1920)?  Disney later turned the book into a feature film. The New Hampshire author created this childhood classic in 1913, and Pollyanna has been a symbol for inspiration ever since.

Here is a TRUE CONFESSION.  I actually watch Pollyanna whenever I feel slighted, overwhelmed with a circumstance that life is dishing out, or I simply have the temptation to get negative.  The message behind this story is powerful.  This young girl was able to turn the mindsets of an entire town around because she chose to be optimistic and glad about whatever life handed her in the moment.  She looked for the good in every circumstance.

"Although the personality and popularity of Pollyanna eclipses the author even today, the message of the book was never intended to be "blind optimism". About the storybook, "Pollyanna did not pretend that everything was sugar-coated goodness," her creator Mrs. Porter insisted, "instead Pollyanna was positively determined to find the good in every situation."

For further reference see:   http://www.golittleton.com/eleanor_porter.php

...and those are my thoughts today...back to dreaming the "POSSIBLE" dream...

2 AM OVER-STIMULATION

Saturday, August 21, 2010

It's 2 am, and I really should be in bed.  My eyes were blurring about 4 hours ago, so why am I still here?  That seems to be the question of the hour.  I think I am over-stimulated, but it's not from coffee... I really don't drink much coffee.  I think it's from having too much on my mind.  I'm working on too many projects right now.  Truthfully, it seems about all I do is sit in front of this computer and write.  Oh yeah... here is the latest load-down...

I am currently working as a freelance reporter for a newspaper in Southern California.  While I do love "telling the story," writing feature stories require a lot of research.  I suppose I can't complain about that either, because I am a research hound.  The truth is... I LOVE IT!  However, it is time consuming.  Along with news journalism, I have my own writing/editorial business, and I stay busy with press releases, resume building, website content, editing, copywriting, and various other writing-related jobs.  In addition, I am ghostwriting a book for a health coach, which is also very time consuming, and trying to keep up with the 6 original screenplays that I am writing -- 2 have recently been optioned.  I am about to sign a contract to ghostwrite another book on finance, and I may be writing for an up-coming TV show that the Discovery Channel is negotiating.  The head writer has asked me to come on board, and if this goes into production, we will knock out 6 episodes.  Once those are completed, if the show moves into a 2-year contract, then I will be relocating to Nashville, where the show is going to be filmed.

I used to write a poem a day... Now it is a rare moment when I have time.  I really miss poetry.

I really need to visit the sandman...

Good night.

A Mini Thought

Writing, writing and more writing... and so my journey continues... I have come to the conclusion that to write well, one must utterly abandon themselves to it. You cannot keep secrets or hold anything back. You must spill your heart out on paper.