Dr. Paul Staments pioneered using mushrooms to cleanse contaminated soils and absorb high nitrogen runoff from animal waste. thats why you should never eat mushrooms from lawns treated w/ herbicide or from along asphalt roads as they’re likely to absorb any chemicals that are collected from the huge mycelium mat and concentrated in the sporulating body which is the mushroom.
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Fertilizer sold in California and many other states is highly regulated. Both the “Guaranteed Analysis” and the MSDS must be supplied by an independent laboratory. Spectrometers are used for the latter – and are very accurate. Only the foolish falsify the documentation – it’s not worth the fine and/or jail time.
Good topic. Anytime large quantities of a food are consumed it’s a good idea to know what the negatives are. We’ve heard it many time and it is true: “Moderation is best for health.”
Some pawpaw varieties contain more annonacin then others so for someone that consumes large amounts of pawpaw that would be worth knowing.
Cinnamon contains coumarin which can cause liver toxicity. Some types contain much more than others. Since I consume cinnamon almost daily I use Frontier Organic Ceylon cinnamon that has the lowest levels of coumarin I could find.
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And therefore has the lowest levels of statin properties etc. hyped by the supplement industry. For example, to get close to a significant daily dosage using the high essential oil Vietnamese Cinnamon you’d need 5 ground tablespoons of it a day – which due to fiber and other content at that dosage is diarrhetic. You can double that dosage for the Ceylon. Further, if you read the label on the “concentrated” tablets sold at GMC you’ll find it’s the same as fresh ground cinnamon. 
I must say I feel it’s way overblown, not eating is not an option, and it’s a good day to die… If I like it, I’m eating it. I’m not going to worry about trace toxins, life is too short to waste my time or energy worrying about somebodies opinion on what is good and what is not.
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I could not agree more.
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“Hundred of paw paw” has me worried. That seems like something within the realm of possibility once my trees grow up.
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Yeah, but this is coming from the guy who barely escaped decapitation while mowing his lawn:wink:.
I’ve spent my life trying to augment my health by doing healthy things. I consider the most important thing is to inherit the right genes- glad I was reasonably successful at that front. . Second thing is exercise and possibly reducing the time you spend sitting (that’s still being hashed out in the research).
Diet is important, but unclear on what is optimum. Many American’s embrace the importance of an all organic diet, but I can’t find any epidemiological evidence to support this, although before I started growing fruit in the humid region I fully embraced the “religion” (perhaps the worlds fastest growing one). I am still under the influence of its dogma and legitimate points and avoid the use of poisons to grow food as long as it is reasonably efficient.
On diet, I pretty much agree with Michael Pollan- make sure the vast majority of what you eat doesn’t come out of a factory and take it easy with sugar that’s been removed from the plant. Also, don’t make meat the center of the plate and have a majority plant based diet. However, there are indigenous people with an almost entirely animal based diet that have very good health until industrial food enters their lives. .
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Alan-From what I’ve read, the kind of meat indigenous people eat and the kind of meat we eat are very different.
Game animals who spend their lives foraging for food in the wild have a much better nutrient profile than an animal that has spent its life in an industrial feed lot. More vitamins, less fat, and the fat that is there tends to be “better” fats-more omega 3s vs the omega 6s (corn fed) animals from feed lots.
Also, the native peoples tended to eat ALL of the animal-liver, heart, kidneys, etc that provide some unique nutrients. Most of us don’t eat those cuts of meat today.
So I guess that being the case, it’s somewhat understandable native tribes were healthy eating mostly meat, but it’s not really healthy for us unless we hunt for most of our food.
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I have started too. I’m all for it. My comment can be summed up easily. Choose your battles wisely.
That’s really good advice. I just heard this endocrinologist talk about serotonin and dopamine, and the difference between happiness and pleasure. Sugar was mentioned a lot, a great interview.
Most of it was about eating, and he echoed what Pallan said. We seek pleasure thinking it will make us happy when in most cases it suppresses it. Very interesting. Sugar suppresse serotonin which gives us a sense of well being. You want to try and increase it. I need to listen again and more closely.
We hardly ever eat out as I like to know what I’m eating. I try to use at least one item from the garden daily.
Pollan suggests that corn-lot fed beef creates fat our bodies are not accustomed to and that free range cattle may be more healthy, but the science on the danger of a high meat diet- even agribus meat, is always in flux. My main issue with meat is that it is a terribly inefficient and environmentally expensive way to create protein that it turns out we don’t need so much of and can easily obtain from a plant based diet. I still eat a certain amount of meat because I crave it and that is good enough incentive for me. My body may know something science does not yet, but the pleasure aspect is is enough anyway.
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Drew, the PBS interview of the man completely blew me away. It is BIG IDEA (life changing) of at least the month, in my book. Here is a podcast of an interview with the writer. I’m going to post it on the lounge also.
thishttp://www.wnyc.org/story/how-corporations-changed-our-brains/ erase the word this after putting it up because I don’t know how to make a link work for this thing. Maybe someone can help me out.
If someone can create a better link to the site I will post it on the lounge.
alan,this may work.I may be able to put it in the lounge,if wanted. Brady
It didn’t work,hmm. Brady
Yeah, I know. You’d think they would make the link easily accessible.
Two major hormones that control longevity are insulin and mTOR. For both high is bad. One is activated (pulsed) by carbohydrates, and the other by proteins. mTOR effectively prevents replacement and repair, and the major reason for the good longevity of vegans is the low proteins. Not a generalization by any means, as vegans are lacking a number of nutrients. I keep my meat intake low, 1/3 lbs a day or so, all grass fed, but a good 50% of it is offal to max. the nutrients (incidentally, grass fed offal is ridiculously cheap). of course when you are younger and growing it is better to eat more meat than that.
Insulin you all know about, activated by sugar/starch in high concentrations, with high fructose aggravating the problem. One problem is that ancestral sources of good carbohydrates have nearly disappeared from the menu, things like acorns and chestnuts in the temperate latitudes, or breadfruit and quinoa in tropical areas. These are, unlike grains, high in K and Mg, and low in P, plus more fermentable fiber, or betaine for quinoa, and all these nutrients better support both metabolism and liver when intaking a lot of carbs. I eat a lot of beans for that, some quinoa and should diversify more into yams/sweet potatoes. large population studies over 4 countries show a correlation between longevity and legume intake, and no correlation for all other food groups (meat, grains, vegetables, fruits, seafood, etc.)
That was my argument to a vegan nephew recently- he immediately proved me wrong with a few thumb presses on his Iphone. Recent research contradicts a high need for meat protein for growing children and the former conclusion was based on experiments with rats whose young must mature much quicker than babies and need a diet containing a great deal of complete protein. This revision has been the scientific consensus for some time, apparently. Even my former food guru, Francis Lapi, publicly conceded years ago that her premise for the book “Diet for a Small Planet” was mistaken and that it is very, very difficult to consume a diet with inadequate protein in a modern country- even if you are a vegan. Fruitarians I’m not so sure about.
Higher meat in the diet seems to encourage cancer but some suggest a high meat diet is actually helpful for senior citizens who are less threatened by this cumulative effect. Don’t know the science on that.
Yes this guy was on local radio today.
And yeah the link won’t stick, PBS must have some anti-linking software that kills the link. They are a huge corporation protecting assets. I used to be on the board of directors of a non profit, and we could make all kinds of profits, the non profit status is just a gimmick. One way to limit profits is just pay yourself more if in a non-profit.
20% proteins as opposed to 10% still qualifies as moderate. I totally agree that vegans are not protein deficient, but they are often deficient in B12, K2, omega 3, choline, biotin, vit. D, iron, copper, zinc, selenium, iodine, carnitine, and may, depending on genetics, be deficient in chondroitin, glucosamine, glycin, and other non-essentials. I have poor conversion of beta carotene into retinol, for me it is liver or dim eyes.
We should switch this conversation to private or the lounge, but I’d like to see supportive data on that. My sense is that the word “often” is not the accurate modifier. I was concerned about my nephew’s diet and did a search without coming up with such a dire description of the typical vegan diet with those deficiencies fairly easy to overcome.