(NaturalNews) Dr Oz was recently found to have a precancerous colon polyp which was surgically removed. Following this experience, he appears to be surprised and confused about the origin of the condition, and he credits colonoscopy screening with saving his life.

Dr Oz even seems to think he has a perfect health record, saying, “I have done everything right. I don’t have any family history, and yet I’m high risk now.” His personal physician, meanwhile, is implying that even though Dr Oz’s “healthy” diet was perfect, it wasn’t enough to prevent colon polyps, and therefore you might get them too. (And therefore everybody should get screened…)

Dr Jonathan Lapook, went on to say “…no matter what you do, you can’t totally eliminate your risk of developing this disease, which is expected to strike 143,000 Americans and kill over 51,000 in 2010.” (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_…)

Colon polyps, in other words, appear without any cause! Mainstream medicine, you see, believes in the theory of “spontaneous disease” that “strikes” people at random.

Sort of like disease voodoo.

No matter what you do, they say, you can’t be totally sure that you’re disease free. Therefore, you need all their disease screening protocols, mammograms, and CT scans (which irradiate your body and can actually cause cancer, by the way).

What a bunch of nonsense. As any real scientist knows, everything that happens in our universe has a cause. It’s a cause-effect universe, and unless you’re God or can magically change the laws of the universe, you can’t alter the laws of cause and effect.

So if you develop colon polyps, there is a cause for it, and that cause is without question related to the foods you’re consuming, because that’s what is in contact with your small intestine, large intestine and colon. (It’s not the only factor, but it’s the primary factor.)

And the more you eat meats, cooked foods, cheese, dairy products, fried foods and dead foods, the more likely you are to develop colon polyps.

The things that prevent colon polyps are raw foods, plant foods, superfoods, aloe vera and even water.

“Healthy” is relative
Now, Dr Oz says he eats a “healthy” diet, but he’s from the world of mainstream medicine. Even though Dr Oz has undoubtedly given a lot of really positive dietary advice to a lot of people, and even though his diet is no doubt far healthier than what most people eat, from the point of view of us who focus on superfoods nutrition, Dr. Oz is not really that deep into cutting-edge healthy eating.

He’s not an advocate of raw foods or veganism, for example, and while he smartly teaches people to avoid high-fructose corn syrup and sugar, he’s places very little emphasis on avoiding other harmful ingredients like MSG, aspartame and artificial colors.

He doesn’t strongly advocate organic foods, either, and eating pesticides from conventionally-grown produce is certainly one way to aggravate your colon. Nor does Dr Oz talk much about avoiding genetically modified foods (GMOs), which we now know may actually result in pesticides being manufactured and released directly in your gut. (He did, however, interview Jeffrey Smith on his Oprah radio show, to his credit.)

You see, Dr Oz is only considered really healthy by mainstream people who are ridiculously unhealthy by comparison. Sure, compared to what most people eat — or even what most doctors eat — Dr Oz has a fairly clean diet. But I don’t know anyone in the world of natural health who is really that impressed with Dr Oz’s dietary advice — most of which seems “watered down” to make it more acceptable to a mainstream television audience. People like Dr Mercola no doubt follow far healthier diets than Dr Oz, and raw food gurus like Dr Gabriel Cousens will probably never be diagnosed with colon polyps.

See, there’s “mainstream healthy” and then there’s “cutting edge healthy,” and while Dr Oz is definitely healthy compared to mainstream consumers, he’s really not that far into what I would call “cutting edge healthy eating.” Don’t get me wrong: His advice, directed at a mainstream audience, is extremely valuable to that audience. He’s reaching an audience of diabetic, obese junk food eaters who, let’s face it, watch daytime television!

Just speaking on the facts, most of these daytime TV viewers know virtually nothing about health or nutrition. At least Dr Oz is teaching them some of the basics, and that’s good a good thing. For that reason, he deserves credit for being one of the few mainstream physicians out there who at least has one foot in the realm of nutrition. One foot is a start. Both feet are even better.

But don’t confuse Dr Oz with someone who has attained a state of perfect human health. Whatever polyps appear in Dr Oz’s colon are being predominantly caused by Dr Oz’s food choices. That’s because the body of Dr Oz follows the laws of physics, just like yours and mine. There is no law of the universe by which Dr Oz could follow a diet of perfect health and yet somehow a colon polyps would spontaneously appear in his body without cause.

If you believe that, you believe in magic. Or voodoo. Or luck. Heck, if you believe that disease is spontaneous and appears without cause, then you might as well just eat whatever you want and pray to the spontaneous disease gods that they don’t strike you down with some random affliction like diabetes. Don’t laugh: There are literally some people who believe you can drink soda all day long and you’ll never get diabetes as long as you “bless” your soda first.

Sure, maybe if you’re Moses or some other supernatural figure endowed with magical powers. If you can turn water into wine, then maybe you really can turn soda into a healthful beverage. But for the rest of us non-supernatural beings, we need to follow the laws of biochemistry, and that means eating in alignment with the foods that will cause our bodies to express a state of health and balance. The health results you get are determined by what you feed your body, how you treat your body and what you expose your body to (as in chemicals).

Stress is also a factor, of course, in determining your health outcome. But luck plays absolutely no role whatsoever.

And that’s important to understand because Dr Oz’s physician is essentially saying that Dr Oz was struck with “a case of bad luck.”

As any real scientist would tell you, there’s actually no such thing. There’s bad planning, bad diets, bad choices… but there’s no such thing as bad luck that cause spontaneous colon polyps.

Maybe Dr Oz needs to discover the amazing healing power of fresh, raw aloe vera gel and talk about that on his show. Or maybe he needs to shift his diet into a new chapter of health based on more raw foods, more organics, no GMOs and more microalgae superfoods. There are many areas where Dr Oz could improve his diet by investigating superfoods and various raw plants — especially raw aloe vera gel which I have been advocating for years. (Fresh aloe vera prevents colon polyps like nothing else…)

I have no doubt Dr Oz will easily recover from this colon polyp incident, because he is, after all, in a relative state of good health compared to the mainstream population. But unless he takes his diet to a whole new level of health, he will likely soon have another colon polyp. Because these things, after all, do not spontaneously appear without cause as has been suggested by his physician.

Also, while Dr Oz has offered a lot of good health advice to a lot of people, he still promotes influenza vaccines even though they don’t work on 99% of those who receive them (http://www.naturalnews.com/029641_v…).

Dr Oz, in other words, might be most accurately described as a pro-vaccine, pro-pharmaceutical, pro-screening mainstream doctor who has begun to explore some of the benefits of healthy eating but still has a long ways to go. Overall, he’s a positive influence on mainstream America, so I’m glad he’s out there, and I hope he continues to move in the right direction on superfoods, organics and cutting-edge nutritional remedies.

But don’t confuse Dr Oz with someone who espouses a “perfect” diet. Based on what I know, he’s far from it (but a lot closer than most other doctors, for sure). And he hasn’t done “everything right.”

None of us have, actually. We all veer from dietary perfection from time to time. Today I ate a sandwich at a vegan restaurant, but the bread was white bread! Is that white bread going to increase my own risk of colon polyps? Absolutely, by some tiny amount. That’s why I’m chasing it later tonight with an 8 oz. glass of fresh organic vegetable juice made in my countertop Hurom “Slow Juicer.” And tomorrow morning I’ll drink a breakfast smoothie blended with raw aloe vera juice.

The healing effects of the raw juices and aloe vera gel will more than make up for eating one vegan sandwich made with white bread.

I’m not perfect with my diet, you know. Sure, I eat a lot of superfoods and some really cutting-edge nutrients like astaxanthin, but I slip up from time to time and ingest something that’s less than perfect. Fortunately, I’ve discovered that my body knows how to heal itself, and as long as I’m ingesting superfood nutrients and sunshine while getting plenty of exercise, the body can handle a slice of bread from time to time.

(NaturalNews) High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is hard to avoid if you eat processed foods — it’s used to sweeten soft drinks, candy bars, bread, salad dressings, fruit drinks and thousands of other items. But it’s worth the effort to read labels and avoid the stuff. The reason? Research has mounted over the past couple of years that HFCS may be just plain dangerous to health.

For example, researchers from Loyola University Health System have found women who drink at least two cans of HFCS-sweetened soda pop daily are twice as likely to show signs of kidney disease as those who don’t drink that many sodas (http://www.naturalnews.com/025582_s…). And although HFCS has been linked previously to the widespread rise in obesity, a new study has produced evidence showing exactly why fructose could be making people fatter than ever, starting in childhood.

It turns out that when the sugary stuff is present as children’s fat cells mature, fructose turns more of these cells into belly fat. Defined by a large waistline often dubbed a “spare tire”, abdominal obesity ups the risk of both heart disease and type 2 diabetes. What’s more, cells in both belly fat (visceral fat) and subcutaneous fat located below the skin were found to be less able to respond to insulin if they had been exposed to fructose. That means fructose could up the risk for metabolic syndrome, a precursor of type 2 diabetes, while spurring weight gain.

This research was just presented by lead author Georgina Coade, a PhD student at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, at the Endocrine Society’s 92nd Annual Meeting held in San Diego. “Our results suggest that high levels of fructose, which may result from eating a diet high in fructose, throughout childhood may lead to an increase in visceral (abdominal) obesity, which is associated with increased cardiometabolic risk,” Coade said in a statement to the media.

Coade and her research team studied biopsy specimens of both subcutaneous and visceral fat from 32 healthy-weight children who had not gone through puberty yet. Then they took preadipocytes (precursors to fat cells that have the potential to differentiate, or mature, into fat-containing cells called adipocytes) from the specimens and allowed these precursor cells to mature for 14 days in culture media containing normal glucose (the main sugar found in the bloodstream), high glucose or high fructose.

Next the investigators measured the activity of an enzyme dubbed GPDH and the abundance of the adipocyte fatty acid binding protein — both of which are found only in mature fat cells. The results showed that fructose caused fat cells to form more mature, visceral fat cells. In addition, the cells that matured in the fructose solution all showed a decrease in insulin sensitivity (the ability to successfully take up glucose from the bloodstream into fat and muscles) — and decreased insulin sensitivity is a characteristic of type 2 diabetes.

“Fructose alters the behavior of human fat cells if it is present as the fat cells mature,” Coade concluded. “We can maybe compare this (timing) to periods in children when they are making their fat.”

As if you need another reason to avoid fructose, consider this: NaturalNews revealed last year that research published in the journal Environmental Health showed HFCS is contaminated with the toxic heavy metal mercury. (http://www.naturalnews.com/025442_H…).

For more information:
http://www.naturalnews.com/fructose…

(NaturalNews) Shortly after Australia banned flu vaccines in children due to an alarming increase in vomiting, fevers and seizures caused by the vaccines (http://www.naturalnews.com/029586_A…), Finland has now suspended H1N1 vaccines due to increased reports of narcolepsy in children and teens. Narcolepsy is a nervous system disorder characterized by extreme fatigue and daytime sleepiness. It indicates a serious malfunction of the brain and nervous system.

Finland is now reporting that narcolepsy is appearing in children immediately following vaccination with H1N1 vaccines. So far, six children are confirmed of suffering the neurological side effect and nine more are in the process of being confirmed, reports The Epoch Times (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/con…).

The Finland National Institute for Health (THL) said in a press release that the cause of the narcolepsy may be the vaccine, and they are investigating further.

Sweden’s Medical Products Agency, meanwhile, launched a similar investigation on August 19 to try to determine the cause of post-vaccination narcolepsy also found in children there. The vaccines appear to be causing a pattern of neurological disorders affecting children and teens across the planet.

The harm caused by flu vaccines
H1N1 swine flu vaccines and seasonal flu vaccines have been linked to seizures and other neurological disorders, and they have resulted in some children and teens being paralyzed or even killed. At the same time, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that seasonal flu vaccines are even safe or effective — they’ve never been subjected to double-blind, placebo-controlled studies, which are considered the “gold standard” of scientific investigation.

There’s no real evidence that seasonal flu vaccines work at all, in fact. Most of the people who get sick every winter, it turns out, are the very people who got vaccinated. That’s because vaccines actually weaken the immune system and cause increased risk of future infections. A study published in the journal PLoS revealed that seasonal flu vaccination actually increases the risk of H1N1 swine flu infections (”Does Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Increase the Risk of Illness with the 2009 A/H1N1 Pandemic Virus?” Viboud C, Simonsen L (2010) PLoS Med 7(4): e1000259).

Also see: http://www.naturalnews.com/028538_s…

Rather than protecting the public, seasonal flu vaccines and H1N1 swine flu vaccines actually leave them more vulnerable to future infections. That simple fact, combined with the increasing reports of neurological side effects being linked to vaccines, should raise serious questions about the reasoning behind any mass-vaccination program.

When it comes to vaccines, children seem to suffer more than adults. It is the children who are winding up in hospitals, convulsing with seizures or suffering narcolepsy. The saddest part of this is that these children could be very effectively protected from seasonal flu with vitamin D, but the medical industry isn’t recommending vitamin D for children.

Vaccines remain the prescription for everyone; even as children around the world are suffering the consequences.

Additional sources for this story include:
The Epoch Times:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/con…

PrisonPlanet.com:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/finland…

Poisoning Our Children with Food Dyes

One of the most frightening things going on here is that so many of the foods children consume on a daily basis are loaded with these deadly dyes. These are the foods that are being heavily promoted on the children’s television stations, in their magazines, in the stores, and everywhere you can think of. The highly persuasive and misleading ads cause our children to beg for these foods. From chips and fruit snacks to breakfast cereals and lunch meats, these dyes are found everywhere and our children are consuming them more and more everyday.

In fact the same report by CSPI reveals that our consumption of food dyes has increased five times over the last fifteen years alone.

It takes a minute to let this soak in for most people. The realization that these common food dyes are directly linked to cancers, and more alarmingly–childhood cancers. It’s hard to believe. In fact we really don’t want to believe it.

But if you (and I know you do), want to protect your children (and yourself) from the deadly diseases that result from these hazardous toxins, take heed!

Getting the Real Facts on Food Dyes
According to the CSPI report, “Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risk,” the most frequently used dyes that are found to be carcinogenic are the following:

■Red 40
■Yellow 5
■Yellow 6
Sadly these three dyes are also the food dyes most used and found in all varieties of foods. From candy M & Ms to salad dressings, these three carcinogenic dyes abound in our foods.

Take a look in your own cabinets. Read the labels. What do you see? Chances are if you’re like most common households in the West there are a few things in your pantry with at least one of the food dyes listed above.

Who Will Protect Our Children?

As I first read this report I was shocked to find out just how dangerous food dyes are. I was alarmed actually. My thoughts immediately went to the government’s own FDA (Food and Drug Administration) thinking that once they know, they’ll ban these food dyes and protect us. But as I read on, I realized I was wrong.

According to CSPI in 1985 the then acting commissioner of the FDA urged the American government to ban the use of Red dye 3 that was clearly shown to cause cancer.

This urgency was pushed aside as John Block, then the current Secretary of Agriculture, fought to keep Red 3 in foods. It stayed and despite its direct link to cancer, the United States uses 200,000 pounds of dangerous Red 3 in our food annually.

The United States government simply isn’t taking action, but you can.

Shopping by Senses: Colors Sell
So why is our government keeping dangerous dyes in our foods? There is no benefit of these dyes except for increasing the appeal of these nutrient devoid foods. The colors fool the consumer into thinking they may just be a healthy food choice. The consumer couldn’t be more wrong.

Think about it. When you are browsing the shelves at the local grocery store what appeals to you? Whether you are aware of it or not, colors draw on the emotions of the consumer. Would you buy a box of fruit chews or a bottle of salad dressing that was a sickly, brownish green color? Probably not. But with the dyes added that same product suddenly becomes a deep red or bright yellow and we are fooled into thinking it’s healthy, or at least it appeals to us.

We all shop with our senses. Advertisers bank on it and are winning big. Smell, sight, touch, and more tell us what to buy. We listen, and so do the food manufacturers. They keep pouring more dyes into our foods and we keep buying them with no idea about what we are really putting into our bodies.

Is the Government Protecting Your Health or Selling You Out?

If you’re like me you may be a bit baffled as to why our own government isn’t telling us about these health dangers in our own foods. You may wonder why these dangerous dyes haven’t been yanked off the market immediately.

We could theorize on the reasons why the United States has allowed these dangerous dyes to stay in our foods or we can look at the facts and take action on our own.

It’s refreshing to realize that not all governments are sitting by idly. In fact, the Australian government is currently considering banning food dyes from a number of their foods, particularly breakfast cereals and confectionary items. Both of these foods are heavily consumed by many children.

Europe is reacting to this too.

The European Union has passed into law that any food product containing food dyes must come with a visible warning label. This label must be on all foods by this past July 2010 according to the CSPI. And in Britain, the government asked food manufacturers to phase out food dyes by December 2010.

The food manufacturers have responded in countries where the government reacted. But here in America, most consumers continue on, oblivious to the dangers of food dyes, eating more and more each day.

In Britain you’ll find a strawberry sundae at McDonald’s that looks delicious and is colored with good ole’ strawberries. That same sundae in the United States is colored with Red dye 40.

Another example is with the British version of Fanta soda. The British version is bright orange with extracts from pumpkin and carrots. In America? That same soda is colored orange with Red dye 40 and Yellow dye 6. A colored cocktail of sickness.

The changes that need to be made are simple but until that happens it’s up to you and me to take action in our daily lives.

Empower Yourself Today
You may be outraged that you didn’t know about all this before, or that the government hasn’t banned these dangerous dyes. And while we are all justified to feel this way there are better ways to direct your energy.

It’s up to each individual to make the decisions for him or herself and their families about what they will put into their bodies. We can’t rely on the government nor can we blame them once we know the facts about foods dyes.

Now that you know, you’ve become empowered and it’s time to make a change. It’s not complicated. It’s actually quite basic. Eating foods that are real foods, not fake foods, are the best way to avoid eating dangerous dyes.

If you choose fresh, whole foods that come from nature and go through no or very little processing then you won’t have to worry about dyes in your foods.

All of the foods that contain these carcinogenic food dyes are fake foods. They’re the foods you’ll find in boxes, bags, jars, and bottles lining the grocery store shelves. They’re the fruit chews that tell the consumer they’ll be getting a serving of fruit in each bag; the highly processed and refined chips that would probably be an ugly green color if it weren’t for the Yellow 6 dye they added.

When you shop for produce locally, you’ll eat what’s in season as God intended you to eat it. You won’t be fooled by ‘fake’ colors on your fruits and veggies. If it’s old and unhealthy, its natural colors and smell will reveal that to you, and you won’t buy it.

When a piece of fruit or a vegetable is too old and not completely healthy for us it begins to rot, stink, feels mushy, and turns brown. Our senses tell us not to eat it. These same senses that the food manufacturers count on tricking by adding dye to very unhealthy foods – and coincidently make them even unhealthier.

Now that you understand more about what’s going on with the foods that line the grocery store shelves, take action to protect you and your loved ones from succumbing to lifestyle diseases from what we’re eating.

Sources
Medical News Today (2010)

Center for Science in the Public Interest (2010)

(NaturalNews) Acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol and other common painkillers, is under fire after a new study revealed that the drug can significantly increase young people’s risk of developing asthma and eczema. According to the report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, adolescents who take acetaminophen just once a month have a doubled risk of developing asthma compared to children who do not take the drug.

“This study has identified that the reported use of acetaminophen in 13- and 14-year old adolescent children was associated with an exposure-dependent increased risk of asthma symptoms,” explained Richard Beasley, M.D., professor of medicine at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand and author of the study.

Even children who only take acetaminophen once a year have a 50 percent increased risk of developing asthma, illustrating that even very minute doses of the drug taken infrequently can cause severe respiratory problems.

For the study, researchers evaluated 300,000 13- and 14-year old children from around the world and found that those who took acetaminophen at least once during the previous year had a 43 percent increased risk of developing asthma, a 38 percent increased risk of developing rhinoconjunctivitis, also known as allergic nasal congestion, and a 31 percent increased risk of developing eczema, compared to non-users.

“High” users who took the drug at least once in the month prior to the study had a 251 percent increased risk of developing asthma, a 239 percent increased risk of developing rhinoconjunctivitis, and a nearly 100 percent increased risk of developing eczema, compared to non-users.

Medical errors cost the U.S. economy an estimated $19.5 billion in 2008, according to a study commissioned by the Society of Actuaries.

Seattle-based consulting firm Milliman Inc. compiled medical claims data to provide a measurement of costs for avoidable medical injuries.

The study [1]’s researchers found that of the approximately $80 billion in costs from medical injuries, around 25 percent resulted from avoidable errors.

The study only looked at the “measurable costs” of medical errors, including “increased medical costs, costs related to increased mortality rates and costs related to lost productivity of an error.”

“We used a conservative methodology and still found 1.5 million measurable medical errors occurred in 2008,” said Milliman [2] consultant Jonathan Shreve, who co-wrote the report, said in a prepared statement.

The study found that lost productivity due to related short-term disability claims contributed to $1.1 billion of the total, which translates to more than 10 million excess days missed from work due to short-term disability. Measurable medical errors also resulted in more than 2,500 avoidable deaths; $1.4 billion was lost from increased death rates among the victims of those mistakes.

The study found that there were 6.3 million measurable medical injuries in the U.S. in 2008. SOA and Milliman estimates associate 1.5 million of those injuries with errors. The average total cost per error was about $13,000.

Shreve said that the total economic impact of medical errors is likely greater than the numbers indicate, because the report only includes errors that Milliman could identify through claims data.

The study found that approximately 55 percent of the total error costs were the result of five common errors:

•Pressure ulcers
•Postoperative infections
•Mechanical complications from devices, implants, or grafts
•Postlaminectomy syndrome
•Hemorrhages complicating a procedure
Medical errors, and the malpractice lawsuits that often follow, are among the hotly debated issues related to healthcare reform. Newly tapped, and somewhat controversial, CMS head Donald Berwick [3] founded the not-for-profit Institute for Healthcare Improvement [4] in part to help reduce medical errors.

Getty Images Healthy people taking a daily dose of aspirin to prevent heart attacks may be doing themselves more harm than good, according to a new study by British scientists.

Researchers found that the risks of bleeding from taking aspirin were such that its routine use in healthy people “cannot be supported” — although they said the drug can reduce the risk of blood clots in patients who have already suffered a heart attack or are at risk of one.

The results of the Aspirin for Asymptomatic Atherosclerosis (AAA) study add to a long-running debate about whether the potential dangers of taking aspirin could outweigh the benefits from reducing the risk of clots.

“We know that patients with symptoms of artery disease, such as angina, heart attack or stroke, can reduce their risk of further problems by taking a small dose of aspirin each day,” said Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation which helped fund the research.

“The findings of this study agree with our current advice that people who do not have symptomatic or diagnosed artery or heart disease should not take aspirin, because the risks of bleeding may outweigh the benefits.”

The study was led by Professor Gerry Fowkes from the Wolfson Unit for Prevention of Peripheral Vascular Diseases in Edinburgh, Scotland, and presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Barcelona Sunday.

It involved 3,350 men and women aged 50 to 75 years who tests revealed may have a condition where the arteries in their legs were furred up — but who had no symptoms of heart disease or history of heart attack.

They were given either a daily 100 mg dose of aspirin or a placebo (a dummy pill) and monitored over eight years. While there was no difference in the number of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events suffered, major bleeding occurred in two percent of the aspirin group compared to just 1.2 percent of the placebo group.

Ana Jimenez-Salgado had her breasts surgically removed at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center after two outside pathologists determined the cells obtained from an August 2007 biopsy were cancerous.

She later underwent reconstructive surgery. The hospital’s pathologists examined tissue obtained during that procedure and concluded she did not have breast cancer.

Instead, she was suffering from “a benign condition with features that are very similar to cancerous cells,” according to county documents.

Jimenez-Salgado filed a medical malpractice lawsuit, alleging the hospital was negligent in relying on the interpretation of the outside pathologists. She also claimed the breast reconstruction surgery was negligently performed.

The county acknowledged it failed to review the biopsy specimens, resulting in the unnecessary mastectomy.

The hospital has revised its policies to ensure that in-house pathologists review biopsy specimens obtained from outside facilities. It has also stopped sending patients to outside facilities for MRI directed biopsies.

In approving the settlement, the county supervisors also agreed to pay $24,756 of Jimenez-Salgado’s medical bills not covered by Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the federal Medicaid program.

An after-hours call seeking comment from Jimenez-Salgado’s attorney wasn’t immediately returned.

Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

(NaturalNews) Do you ever wonder things like “Who is actually gullible enough to think that Vitaminwater is healthy?” Although that question may seem demeaning or even arrogant, it turns out that the Coca-Cola company (which owns the Vitaminwater brand) is essentially asking that exact question.

How so? In response to a recent lawsuit against Coca-Cola filed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Coke’s attorneys replied in court briefings that, “…no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”

Except, of course, millions of consumers were misled into believing precisely that. This illusion was helped in no small part by Coca-Cola’s advertising of Vitaminwater, which blatantly positions it as a health-enhancing beverage. Even the name itself implies that the product is made solely out of vitamins and water.

But of course it isn’t.

“Sugarwater” might be a better name

If Vitaminwater were accurately named, it would actually be called Sugarwater. Its first two ingredients are, not surprisingly, sugar and water (the sugar coming in the form of crystalline fructose, a processed sweetener that has been linked to health problems) (http://www.naturalnews.com/029371_f…).

In addition to the sugar and water, Vitaminwater contains a smattering of synthetic vitamin chemicals that any informed health consumer probably wouldn’t want to ingest. So in reality, Vitaminwater is really sugar water with the addition of synthetic chemicals that happen to be called “vitamins” (but which are not the natural, plant-based nutrients your body would greatly prefer).

So what we have now with Vitaminwater is a beverage that’s positioned and marketed as a health-enhancing beverage, yet its own corporate lawyers dismiss any notion that the beverage is “healthy.” How, then, can Coca-Cola get away with advertising Vitaminwater as a healthy beverage?

Simple: Because corporations use advertisements to lie to consumers. And virtually no one in the history of corporate advertising has mastered the art of deception better than Coca-Cola — a company whose products have contributed to untold numbers of diabetes victims while being positioned as cool, hip drinks that make you feel energized or inspired.

Coca-Cola isn’t really in the business of selling beverages, you see. It’s in the business of selling the illusion of happiness in a bottle or a can. Buy their products, say the advertisements, and you too can feel happiness (or freedom, or sexiness or whatever). But what Coca-Cola delivers isn’t really happiness at all: Many of Coke’s products deliver the liquid sugars, artificial chemical sweeteners and bone-dissolving acids (like phosphoric acid) that promote disease and suffering. And no reasonable person would equate degenerative disease with happiness.

Misleading name, misleading labels

Speaking of disease, how much sugar is actually in Vitaminwater? A lot more than you might think: While the label claims only 13 grams of sugar per serving, one bottle of vitamin water is actually 2.5 servings, meaning that you’re chugging down 32 grams of liquid sugars with every bottle.

That’s just one of the many “deceptive and unsubstantiated claims” pointed out by CSPI in its lawsuit against Coca-Cola. It is this lawsuit that resulted in Coke’s lawyers making the incredible statement that no reasonable person could possibly conclude Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.

Lawyers, by the way, can argue absolutely anything — even if it makes no sense. And they can do it with a straight face, too. If you’re looking for a professional liar, hire a lawyer. Coca-Cola seems to already have its share working at their headquarters in Atlanta.

Using its lawyers, Coca-Cola tried to argue its way out of this CSPI lawsuit, but that effort was rejected by the courts. “A federal judge has denied Coca-Cola’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit over what the CSPI says are deceptive and unsubstantiated claims on the company’s “vitaminwater” line of soft drinks,” touts an article on the CSPI website (http://www.cspinet.org/new/20100723…)

That same announcement goes on to quote Judge John Gleeson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, who says “The names of the drinks, along with other statements on the label have the potential to reinforce a consumer’s mistaken belief that the product is comprised of only vitamins and water.”

CSPI’s litigation director Steve Gardner adds, “For too long, Coca-Cola has been exploiting Americans’ desire to eat and drink more healthfully by deceiving them into thinking that vitaminwater can actually prevent disease. In fact, vitaminwater is no more than non-carbonated soda, providing unnecessary added sugar and contributing to weight gain, obesity, diabetes, and other diseases. We look forward to representing all Americans whom Coke has deceived.”

Who really drinks Vitaminwater?

Reading all this, you might wonder who drinks Vitaminwater in the first place. I’ve never even tried the beverage myself because I read ingredients labels and I don’t drink liquid sugars.

But most consumers don’t read labels. Even if they attempted to, most consumers are simply unable to decode what food labels really mean. People simply believe whatever is most prominently displayed on the front of the package, which in this case are the two words “vitamin” and “water.”

On top of that, mainstream consumers are disturbingly gullible. If a product is positioned as being healthy, that’s what people believe it’s for, even if it makes no sense whatsoever. After all, why do so many people believe Slim-Fast will make them lose weight even though it’s made mostly from processed refined sugar?

Slim-Fast, by the way, never technically claims it’s a weight loss product. It dances around that claim with all sorts of other gray-area language that implies it is a weight loss product without making any direct claims. If pushed in the courts, its manufacturer would no doubt pull the same thing Coca-Cola just did and proclaim that no reasonable person could conclude that Slim-Fast is a weight loss product.

You see, big food companies are masters at making implied claims about their products that, upon closer inspection, are blatantly false. There are all sorts of false claims found on the labels of popular food products: A chocolate milk product made with sugar claims it “builds strong bones!” A liquid meal substitute sold in cans and made mostly with sugars and milk proteins claims to provide “balanced nutrition!” A product for diabetics claims to be “sugar free” but neglects to mention it’s sweetened with a chemical that may actually promote diabetes.

The list of examples like these is endless. And thanks to these food corporation deceptions, consumers are faced with a food product minefield when attempting to intelligently shop for foods.

That’s why several years ago I developed the Honest Food Guide (http://honestfoodguide.org), a free downloadable guide that explains which foods are truly good for your health (and which are not).

Download it now and check it out for yourself.

In the mean time, don’t buy Vitaminwater. Unless, of course, you think you could use 32 grams of liquid sugars and some synthetic vitamin chemicals in your diet. And if you somehow think that Vitaminwater is healthy, the Coca-Cola corporation thinks you are a fool.

Sources for this story include:
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/vi…

http://cspinet.org/new/pdf/order_on…

http://www.cspinet.org/new/20100723…{SubscribeHealthRangerBlock}

You’ve bought new school clothes, notebooks, pencils, even a new backpack (check www.backpacksafe.com for tips on preventing long-term injury to the spine from backpacks). But have you thought about what your children will be eating for lunch?

I wrote an article on school lunches recently. The statistics are really shocking.

Did you know that most schools use nutritional guidelines that haven’t been updated since the 1970s? And that ketchup and salsa count as vegetable requirements in schools?

Some other information:

• 75% of the drinks in school vending machines are made with artificial juice, high fructose corn syrup and sugar.
• 75% of high schools and 65% of middle schools have exclusive soft drink contracts.
• As of 2007, less than 20% of our nation’s schools met dietary guidelines.
• Most granola bars have 15 grams of added sugar.
• “Natural” Capri Sun Pacific Coolers have 100 calories and 26 grams of sugar.

This is why I highly recommend kids pack their lunch and bring it to school. Most of the food served in school cafeterias is fake food–it’s not real food!

Here are 25 great ideas for packing a healthy school lunch:

1. Turkey burger on Ezekiel bread with lettuce, tomato & mustard

2. Organic, nitrate-free lunch meat on Ezekiel bread

3. Almond butter and banana sandwich on brown rice bread

4. Chicken salad on a bed of greens

5. Egg salad wrapped in a sprouted grain tortilla

6. Ants on a log (celery with almond or cashew butter and raisins)

7. Antioxidant trail mix

8. Larabar or other fruit and nut bar

9. Hummus with carrot sticks, broccoli and cauliflower

10. Apples, bananas, oranges, peaches, grapes

11. Guacamole with bell pepper slices

12. Leftover quinoa from last night’s dinner

13. Beans & brown rice with seasonings

14. Buffalo chili in a thermos

15. Spinach salad with nuts, cranberries and pear slices

16. Fresh berries (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc.)

17. Homemade lemonade (lemon juice, water & stevia)

18. Hardboiled eggs or Deviled eggs

19. Goat’s milk yogurt

20. Gluten-free crackers like Mary’s Gone Crackers & goat’s cheese

21. Raw zucchini noodles with Marinara or Alfredo sauce

22. Organic or homemade applesauce

23. Walnut tacos in lettuce wraps

24. Black bean brownies

25. A slice of raw cheesecake for dessert

Sometimes it can be hard for kids (and adults!) to get all the nutrients they need. That’s why I drink a Berry Greens powder almost every morning. It’s full of important antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. Plus, my Axe Naturals formula has probiotics to restore a healthy balance of bacteria in your system, aloe vera to help reduce inflammation, and cinnamon to help regulate blood sugar levels.

What are your ideas and tips for packing a lunch for your kids?