Slashdot Mirror
Something in Your Food is Moving
Dekortage writes "The New York Times has a report on probiotic food: food that has live bacteria in it. From the article: "[for Dannon's] Activia, a line of yogurt with special live bacteria that are marketed as aiding regularity, sales in United States stores have soared well past the $100 million mark.... Probiotics in food are part of a larger trend toward 'functional foods,' which stress their ability to deliver benefits that have traditionally been the realm of medicine or dietary supplements.""
Activia, a line of yogurt with special live bacteria that are marketed as aiding regularity
Taco Bell should sue them for patent infringement.
Wheres the Gagh? [/wendys wheres the beef lady]
I've been eating Activia for breakfast every morning for probably 6 months, and haven't really noticed that it's doing any good in the gastro department. Maybe if I quit having vodka for dinner...
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Just goes to show that Klingons invented everything first! :-)
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
$100 million dollars? Poor people have had stuff moving in their food for years.
How is this new? I've seen stuff like this advertised on TV for a good ten years -- yoghurt with live lactic ferments, for one. The spots even bragged about you being able to feel them on your tongue at some point.
http://www.vivailfitness.it/fermenti.htm for a source, I don't want to link to an actual brand.
The street meat hotdog vendors have been selling food that has live bacteria in it for ages!
food that has live bacteria in it
I love that sensation of the probiotics crawling down my throat!
Now with FHG-4532 !
(what's that? My License plate)
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Is this tested at all by the FDA, or is it like a supplement, and not subject to testing? Are these common bacteria that we already consume, or are they introducing new bacteria into our system?
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
that would be kombucha tea.
Get back to me when my vindaloo can fetch some beer.
food that has live bacteria in it
What, like normal yogurt and cheese?
Although perhaps in the USA everything is sterilized? Seems a bit nuts to kill all the bateria (yogurt is essentially a culture of bateria) and then add them back in again.
In fact, I consume a good quantity of it on a regular basis. This is assuming that bottle-conditioned unfiltered beer counts.
Man, live yeast really gives you gas of doom, though.
There have been probiotic yogurts for sale in Europe (or at least in the UK) for quite some time now. I lived there 2005-2006 and ate this stuff daily (yogurt tastes better there on average anyway).
If you ask me, the US has a long way to go before reaching the standards in terms of taste and healthiness (is that a word?) that grocery food has set in the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, etc.
I like basketball!!1!
That Activia stuff seems to help with irritable bowel syndrome (which in turn was caused by a $300/month starbucks habit). My wife is a dietitian and recommended I try it out.
Now what we need is probiotic coffee so I can go back to a caffeine-fueled frenzy and finish this project I am working on.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
...if your food isn't packed in a vacuum and it's not too hot, it probably has some live bacteria in it already, though maybe not the kind you want. Safety tip: never leave warm food out in the open too long. Oh, and unless you're at a super-fancy-expensive restaurant where they make *everything* the moment you order it, don't eat the hollandaise sauce. Raw egg yolks lying around = bad stuff.
Maybe if the food industry didn't fuck so much with food to maximize profits in the first place, people wouldn't have so many troubled stomachs?
Folks, if you want to feel good and be regular, eat a well-balanced diet! Remove the refined foods and add the whole foods. Eat multi-grain pasta and multi-grain bread. Drink lots of water. If you aren't regular after a plate of multi-grain pasta and 2 slices of multi-grain bread and a half-gallon of fresh water (not cool-aid, for example), go see a doctor!
While from the article I can gather there is merit to probiotic food, let's hope it does not become another coöpted marketing fad whereby anything and everything is labelled probiotic just for the sake of riding the coattails of the success of producs where such bacteria do make health sense and is important.
I can forsee this parallelling the fat-free craze where they'd (food companies) label things which always were naturally fat free labelled as being-100% fat free (implying that competing products not labelled so did have fat.) I'm surprised no-one ever went so far as labelling water as fat-free.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/planettroy/48826253/i n/photostream/
WTF is this stuff doing on SlashDot?
Yogurt contains live cultures? No shit. Thanks for the fourth-grade science lesson.
Let's get a couple stories for the IQ > 60 set out here today, please.
Then don't eat it!
Reminded me of a poll jwz put up, pointing to the story: The Worm Within
I'm definitely with jwz on this one: Save that fucker, wash it off, and put it in a jar on your mantle labeled with your name, the date, and "Sample #0001"
better than a $5 hooker
Iz licken teh secs
TMI WARNING! If talk of bodily functions disturbs you, go to the next post... ...With that in mind, I've had measurable success with taking probiotics ( in pill form ). I suffer from IBS, and suppose I can be called "overly regular". Since taking probiotic pills, I've notice more "normal" feeling, um, functions. Even if I stuck to a good diet, things were different until I did the probiotics.
Theres been some research, and lots of controversy, suggesting that the overabundance of antibiotics in our food, as well as the overuse of them by doctors and such, is just ruining our GI tract. There's lots of people walking around these days who probably cant' even remember what a normal bm is anymore. But ya, probiotics do appear to help.
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
I'm surprised no-one ever went so far as labelling water as fat-free.
Haven't you seen fet-free cooking oil spray ? It's main ingredient is canola oil, but it's fat free because each 0.5 gram serving contains zero grams of fat (rounded down).
and thus not all are necessarily what we might consider "moving." The non-motile ones might move a little bit from pushing each other away as they reproduce, but it's silly to assume all bacteria move under their own power.
Five seconds on Google finds http://www.flickr.com/photos/planettroy/48826253/i n/photostream/.
"Mom!!, something is moving in my food."
"Shut up and Eat."
Eclipse PDE and Me
Brazilian people (and people from other countries) have been drinking Yakult since ever, and this kind of yogurt was (and I quote) "invented by Kyoto University pediatrics doctor Minoru Shirota in 1930". Here in Europe there is the Danone's Actimel, that is basically the same (I tasted both, I know) but with a new brand and a massive advertisement.
I'm mentioning that because IMHO this article is nothing but advertisement, passing something as a technological evolution but in fact, unless 30s technology counts as one, its nothing but another way slashdot got to sell your eyeballs.
Well, in Germany it's called Danone, in the USA Dannon, but the difference in quality isn't about prebiotic or whatever stuff.
Buy a vanilla yoghurt in Germany and an American one. The German one tastes nice (really, German vanilla yoghurt is SOOO good) and fresh, while the American one has Gelatin in it (feels very awkwardly slimy) and the flavor is just plain awful. Don't ask me why. I wrote them an email, but you know that doesn't do anything.
I've been to other countries, like Ireland, and always wondered why they can't just make good good without crappy additives. It tastes better, keeps fresh just as long (even without preservatives, my food doesn't catch mold in the fridge), and I have no idea why they put all that stuff (Gelatin, weird flavorings, artificial colors... do colorful jelly beans taste any better??) in there in the first place...
Too late, there has been an explosion in probiotic products in the UK. My favourite advert is for Danone Activia.
They say in the advert that they have it to a group of women and asked them how they felt afterwards. Of course most of them described some kind of improvement in their wellbeing. I'd bet money that they'd say the same thing if you gave them custard and described it as a breakthrough in healthcare.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
This is a general trend where you can get the consumer to cough up cash to make themselves feel better about how generally unhealthy they are.
- Eaten one too many big-macs this week? Why not take our an annual subscription to the gym! We don't actually care if you don't come, as long as you pay.
- Had another night on the bevies? Why not drink some of this foul muck? It will pacify your conscience!
- Hopelessly overweight? It's not your fault! You must be one of the minute percentage of people who have a genuine obesity disorder, rather than because you're a lazy slob. Why not have your stomach stapled/pay for some other expensive surgery?
Being healthy is not complicated and hardly ever involves eating gimmicky probiotics. Just eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables and exercise regularly. Unfortunately, you can't sell any book/diet/fad food item with this advice, because for some people it involves genuine effort, rather than just effort-free financial outlay.
Peter
New craze in tatoos. Huge numbers of men getting "probiotic" tatoos. Women being astute bargain shoppers are swallowing this excellent source of free protein say the ads for the tattoos.
I just got a Hormel Boneless chicken patty with Mashed potatoes and gravy meal with a chicken bone in it........is that close enough?
Organic potatoes, apples, milk... I thought these were organic products by definition, along with beef, chicken and orange juice. Maybe I'm wrong and they're made in a lab from nylon and plastic... I'm sure it is better for us that they're not covered in quite as many pesticides but quite a few dangerous chemicals are allowed to be used and the product called organic so it's all marketing ****shit. And the stuff is about twice the price...
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Saying that yogurt has live bacteria in it is like saying water has H_2 O molecules: of course it does! Here is a wiki link that describes pretty accurately, to the best of my knowledge, the bacteria species that makes yogurt out of fresh milk.
Dannon's products should be avoided. The worst brand-name yogurt in Bulgaria is theirs. It has the most artificial taste of all the surrogates that are sold as yogurt. If you have tasted the real thing, you will recognise their product as junk food (as long as you are not a junk-food addict :-) ).
Waiter! There's an Escherichia coli in my soup!
Er Galvão Abbott - IT Consultant and Developer
The primary "benefit" delivered by Activa is indeed that of the dietary supplements (and not a few medicines), which is to separate the victim from their available cash and deliver fuzzy science and placebo effect in return.
There is limited data that active culture supplementation can reduce diarrhea duration in acute gastroenteritis, although the studies are small. The effect in irritable bowel syndrome is contentious, but then virtually everything in irritable bowel syndrome is contentious, including the existence of the syndrome as such. In already-healthy people, Activa has no well-supported benefit of which I am aware.
For myself (and as a practicing physician), I don't have a problem with it - if you like your flavored spoiled milk with extra bacteria, by all means, partake. Nearly all food is nonsterile. Much of it has quite a lot of bacteria, and most of them (Taco Bell notwithstanding) are relatively harmless. Personally, I rather prefer Pop-Tarts.
Yogurt and cheese that aren't specifically meant for that purpose do not consistently contain large numbers of live bacteria
Cheese, perhaps (some kinds anyway) but yogurt? Have you ever made yogurt from scratch? It's nothing BUT live bacteria and cultures!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually, has anyone seen my organic ?
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Probiotic Food alters you! uh, wait...
... that is, with yeast in it and non-pasteurized.
I haven't seen a jogurt in the supermarket in recent memory that hasn't either got some preservative in it, or else is UHT'd beyond all recognition. Now, how on earth do they get a process to work on the "bad" bugs but not on the "good" ones???
I'm not sure that it's the same advert I'm thinking of, but it's certainly something similar. Either way, it narks me off. One of the testimonials is "it's like a dessert". Well great, that tells me a lot.
Do you have any better hostages?
In South Korea you can find a score of various probiotic drinkable yogurt selections in any convenience store. They have ones focused on helping your colon, your stomach, on and on.. And they come in a variety of pleasing flavors (various fruits, cereal, etc). When I first got here, being an American, I thought it was quite fun and novel, but now I've gotten to thinking that Americans should be more interested in health in such a pervasive way.
for my $0.02 worth, when I went to Europe, I liked the yogurt there by far more than any other kinds of yogurt I've tried (Tibetan yak yogurt included, because though it was tastey, it didn't outdo the European varieties)
I'd forgotten how fruit and vegetables were supposed to taste. The majority of the conventionally farmed stuff at the supermarkets here is decidedly mediocre, but organic food is worth it on taste alone - i eat so much more fruit now that it tastes like it's supposed to!
I'll take death, thank you.
Joe Mainusch http://www.weber-amps.com
Worst one I saw was 'high calcium water'. There was a craze for it a few years back.. I saw doting mothers literally walking out with shopping carts full of the stuff.
The 'secret' ingredient? Calcium carbonate. Exactly the same stuff that's in tapwater in cities (that turns your kettle mungy).
Except these numpties were paying £2 a bottle with about 100 bottles a week...
Nice of you to pimp the NY Times. This is infotainment. It is Advertising for Dannon in the mask of a new article. Maybe someone would have comparisons of culture quality and variety in different products. Name products, give specifics, piss off advertisers.
When NY Times gets is articles from a company website, it shows why they are going into the tank.
When I see organic milk I can't help thinking that the inorganic stuff would be a bit crunchy...
Thanks. Now I will be unable to think about anything but the phrase "yogurt pirates" for the rest of the day.
"Yar, matey. Yo ho ho, and a packet of acidophilus."
Perhaps you should shut your yapping and do some reading.
The Soil Association.
Organic standards are the rules and regulations that define how an organic product must be made. Organic standards are laid down in European Union (EU) law. Anything labelled 'organic' that is for human consumption must meet these standards as a minimum. The standards cover all aspects of food production, for example, animal welfare and wildlife conservation, and banning unnecessary and harmful food additives in organic processed foods.
Organic farming and processing are legally defined. Any product sold as organic must comply with strict rules set at UK, European and international levels. These rules ensure that consumers can be certain that they are buying a genuine organic product. Imported organic foods must have been produced and inspected to equivalent standards. There must also be full traceabiliy of organic ingredients back to the farmer.
There a number of different certification bodies in the UK, which carry out the inspections and paperwork to ensure that the standards are being met. Soil Association Certification Limited (SA Certification) is one of only a very few of these bodies that have chosen to set standards higher than the EU minimum in areas of animal welfare and nature conservation.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Here's a link to the AFFSA (the French FDA) report [PDF warning][French warning :-)] on the Lactobacillus Casei yoghurt. They found all of the manufacturer's claims "unverifiable" or "unsupported", except one, which they advised on changing to: "takes part in the process of reinforcing natural defenses".
You call it 'Old Faithful' and tourists come to watch.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Another common probiotic is cheese. Yup, cheese is made by adding bacteria to milk to sour it, then adding rennet to curdle the soured milk, then straining, pressing & aging the curds. An unpasteurised cheese will contain lots of lactobacilli (and if a blue cheese, penicillium), as well as the other strains responsible for the particular cheese's distinctive flavour.
And then there's keffir, a drink made by fermenting milk. You can buy it in the store these days, where it tastes something like runny yoghurt.
Still, the best use of microbes in food has got to be beer. As the wise man said, beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
certain bacterias are helpful lactobacteria (acidophilus? something like that) are good for your digestion, normally you get it as a baby from mother milf and a culter of bacteria lives in your colon most of your life, but anti-biotics kill it and cause iregularity
.. what??!!!
eating yogurt with lactobacteria can help restore it
i thought this article was going to be about the bacteria eating viruses that they are using to treat foods now.. thats right viruses in our food on purpose. and the only way they can breed enough of these viruses to use is by breeding them on the very harmful bacteria that they are supposed to treat! the fda admits a small number of the treated foods will have the more of the harmful bacteria on them than you would otherwise be exposed to without any of their tampering...
so we are being given viruses and bacteria for
Eh? It's not marketing bullshit at all. The Organic Foods certifications are strict and hard to get - if there's so much demand for organic, why do you think the scale of production hasn't reached saturation level yet? It's because it can take years for a farm or other producer to get organic certification after they stop using inorganic fertilisers, pesticides etc. It's punishingly hard and mostly it's the producers that have always been organic that are providing for now. Expect organic food to come down in price steadily, and please read more about the subject!
Did I say they weren't regulated? No. I know the rules and regulations and I know they're enforced. You know what? So is regular farming! You can't use DTT in the EU anymore for example, that's a farming regulation!
However, organic farming does allow chemicals and pesticides to be used, it's just a subset of what is used for other farming. Some of them are quite nasty but people assume an organic potato will have been dug by a friendly local farmer using no chemicals and picked by hand. It's a marketing fad, trust me. If you're that bothered, grow your own apples, I can't fault that.
Even the Farmer's Union agrees
In summary I'm not sayign that organic foods don't meet the standards, I'm saying the standards aren't very stringent in the first place. You've done nothing to change my mind that it's just a buzzword. To be honest I think we'd all be better off eating locally grown produce that isn't covered in chemicals but I don't think it's gonna happen any time soon.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
I don't know if Dannon paid the NYT, but it sure does feel like it. Anyway, the Activia line is great, but as many posters have pointed out above hardly anything new, and by far not my favorite probiotic product (Yakult, forever). But it's a shame that from looking at the US site, they're not commercializing the best Activia flavor currently marketed in Brazil, oatmeal. Who cares about strawberry, peach and other regular yogurt flavors? I can get better tasting strawberry yogurt from other brands...that's much harder when it comes to oatmeal yogurt.
These kinds of products have been in Finland since 1990. I'm a bit surprised this is something new in the US. But on the other hand, I believe Finland is one of the leading countries in dairy products... if you don't count cheese.
I demand the Cone of Silence!
Lots of traditional foods were fermented. Nourishing Traditions (best cookbook evar!) has a couple chapters on using lacto-bacteria to predigest and preserve foods - cultured dairy products, fermented fruits & vegetables (chutney, Sauerkraut, pickled vegetables, etc), lacto-fermented beverages (made some "grape cooler" last fall - Mmmm.... ), etc.
One insight that I think is particularly useful is how the book says that grains/nuts/beans/legumes should be soaked in water (depending on what's being soaked, with salt/whey/lemon juice) to de-activate enzyme-inhibitors. This makes said grains/nuts/beans/legumes easier to digest, which might be important for you Irritable Bowel Syndrome sufferers... If I'm making pancakes, I take my freshly ground whole wheat flour and mix in the raw milk and a little probiotics the night before. Leave it out on the counter overnight, and by morning all those nasty enzyme inhibitors have broken down.
Sample chapters at the page linked above. Check it out. More info if desired...
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Tooth decay?
I will disagree with that. The reason it wasn't a problem 100 years ago is the average lifespan was short enough that the person died before all of their teeth went bad. There is a distinct change around the 50s where flouride started getting put in water and the incidence of tooth decay dropped dramatically.
Go to a 3rd world country where they don't have dental care and you will see toothless masses.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
welcome our new Probiotic overlords!
In Soviet Russia, your food eats YOU!
Oh won't someone please think of the bacteria???
Imagine a beowulf cluster of probiotic bacteria!!!
You know, someone oughtta make a webpage chronicling all of these little slashdot-isms...
Insurance adds, and Loan assitance adds get to me, but what really annoy me are the adverts where they pretend that they are actually interviewing someone, when it is all just actors reading from a script. I know people fall for this stuff all the time, but it is so obvious and annoying. The one on UK tv I really hate is the people applying for home loans "really, i will save how much, that is amazing" - yeah, thanks for that.
2. Contract samonella poisoning
3. Sue restaurant
4. ?????
5. Profit!
*pSig = NULL;
Frankly, I'm surprised European cheese producers have never launched a WTO grievance over our bizarre pasteurization laws, which mostly just keep European cheeses out of our markets. Research has shown that pasteurizing cheese increases the chances of a pathogenic strain of bacteria taking hold, since there will be no competing bacteria to inhibit the pathogen's development should one take hold.
I'd comment on the cigars too, but I'm not American so it wouldn't really mean anything. At the job I do to pay for school, I sell several cuban cigarillos a day (and usually at least one pack of American cigars). Ironically the cubans that we have are of very low quality, so the Americans sell rather better -- entire packs at a time rather than singles. Funny how these things work out.
I think the 'bifidus digestivus' and 'bifidus regularus' bacteria are a bunch of marketing bullshit. As noted by previous posters, they basically took some Bulgarian bacteria, renamed and trademarked it, and marketed it.
I do believe in the benefits of probiotics, although I think they are pretty low unless your body is under specific conditions that might kill all or most of the flora in your intestine. Like if you took antibiotics. Intestinal bacteria are very important, and you gotta replace it somehow if it dies off. In fact, some doctors are seriously suggesting that shit is an organ, just like your lungs and heart and whatnot. They think it is necessary for human life and if your intestinal flora is damaged, in some cases they are seriously suggesting poop transplants. Seriously, some doctors are cramming other peopless shit into their patient's colons.
So I did some poking around and i found that the Stonyfield Organic Yogurt is the best. It has 1-3 grams of fiber (depending on the flavor) in the form of inulin, which helps your body ingest the calcium. It also has 6 live cultures, which is the most of any yogurt I've seen. Combine that with the fact that it is organic, so won't be filled with hormones and (ironically) antibiotics, and a great taste (particularly the chocolate) and its a damn healthy snack.
indierock / punkrock band photos and more... http://www.digitaldefection.net
The dangerous bacteria are ones that live in people (or other mammals) already. when you get exposed to these bacteria, they have the upper hand because they're already adapted to living in the mammalian colon, but your immune system hasn't adapted to keep that bacteria under control. And the bacteria may not be perfectly adapted to your system, so it may over-produce itself or its byproducts, making you sick -- something that your own native flora usually don't do.
I think you're mixing up correlation and causation there. Yes, chronic disease has taken off- because the *acute* diseases that used to kill us don't anymore. I think we forget just how bad life used to be for most people.
Cancer and heart disease used to kill people too- the people who weren't killed by smallpox, TB, random bacterial infections and a host of other lethal diseases that we don't get anymore, not to mention the tons of people who didn't even make it out of childbirth, mother and child alike. It wasn't even that long ago- my grandmother-in-law grew up on a farm, had no prenatal care at all and managed only two grown children out of four- the other two died within days of birth. The average human lifespan in 1900 in the US was well under 50- most 40 year olds don't die of cancer/heart attacks today, and most didn't then either.
And I have to call you on tooth decay. That's *always* existed- ask George Washington (if you could) about that. He probably would have decked you- it made him miserable for his entire life. Most people without modern medical care have utterly horrible teeth by age 40. Meanwhile, I have to haul my 41-year-old butt into the dentist for a crown on a cracked tooth tomorrow- it should last the rest of my life.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
What about worm cheese? Movement supplied courtesy of the Piophila casei larva!
Amen brother!
Fixed my gastro problems(Acid reflux, pre-ulcer conditions) faster than anything. Try making your tea with oolong! superior results!
Think Gnole-ish, not prole-ish
.. in thinking that Activia tastes like medicine?
The above BBC programme, on last week, had a small scale trial of probiotic yoghurt v probiotic foods(onions, leeks, garlic and globe artichokes). The yoghurt increased the good bacteria in the subjects guts slightly, the foods by a lot more. Save your money, eat more bacteria friendly foods.
Using the words of a government minister with a degree in Economics & Politicals and the NFU isn't going to cut much ice with me I'm afraid.
My home grown apples are rather tasty.
As is the veg I buy from my local growers co-operative.
Organic food outside of supermarkets is not as expensive is you claim.
You can even have it delivered.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Especially if it is Odori!!
Mmmmmmm, fresh!
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Our food is full of truthiness! God bless the USA.
If you ever need to repopulate your colon's bacteria content, you should reach for Bio-K+ before you reach for most yogurts. It's a live probiotic product w/ at least 50 billion cells of friendly bacteria per container. This stuff works wonders after using antibiotics or while fighting off a Candida infection.
All yogourts contain bacterias. That's how they become yogourts. Otherwise they stay milky splashy things. Danone has been selling all kind of mixtures of various "active" ingredients (usually called bacterias...) in their yogourts. As the FA points out, it's been around in Europe for decades. They're even coming up with a yogourt that "refreshes" your skin (pink wrapping 'cause it's a girly thing to want to have a fresh skin apparently).
What's in the FA is OLD news. Oh..and there's a drawback to it: you need to eat them regularly for months, otherwise they're just plain yogourts with no specific effect.
farmers will all suffer.
/.ers as an aid in formulating clever GWB sux posts.
/.er male childs remote controlled vibrating atomic submarines will result in...
/.ers can handle the apocalyptic ramifications of the above scenario
The traditional underground hippie approach has been to swap cash to crack whores for their 25kg WIC sacks of powdered milk, make yogurt in discarded chemical drums parked over steam vents for 24 hours, pack it into empty school lunch program milk containers with Mr. Natural keep on fucking labels, and swap it to health food co-ops for iboga and yoqona root which is sold via the internet to 'inner truth' seeking euro-trash
Commercialization of the product and trademarking the 'crap aid' street name in order to push more milk product on obese suburban housewives who will employ time saved worshipping the porcelein ass pig in pursuit of stimulation via their ADD ridden four eyed bedwetting future
well you
Weston A. Price, DDS, was a dentist in the early 20th century. He was alarmed at the increase in the number of cavities he saw in his patients, so one day he closed up shop and started traveling the world.
If I may be so bold as to summarize his findings in a couple sentances, Dr. Price found near-perfect teeth wherever a group of people were eating their traditional diets, whatever that diet might have been composed of. Modern food (refined flour, refined sugar, canned food, etc) was strongly correlated with tooth decay, poor bone structure (narrow faces, compressed dental arches, etc), and general poor health.
Every recipe page in this 'cookbook' has quotes such as this. (Each of the sections in the book is set up as in the sample chapters on the previously linked website.)
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
All was good until you evoke Ol' Faithful and I think of Tubgirl. Burn in hell!
No sig for you!!
I think you're generalizing the European slum experience across all of humanity, and I Don't think that's accurate or fair. Weston A. Price traveled the world at the start of the modern age, and found that people who lived a traditional lifestyle had marvelous health, and people who ate "modern" foods were sickly and had lots of cavities. I don't care to speculate as to why George Washington lost his teeth.
I also refer you to my reply to the other post on tooth decay. My grandfather's teeth are currently rotting out, and if you stick to the conventional route I expect this'll happen to you too. Dr. Judd (link in that post) mentions that 42% of americans over 65 have NO natural teeth (#16).
All I'm offering is some better information - the choice to keep your teeth is up to you.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
In a meeting, I felt that, well, pre-diarrhea feeling. I got up to make a quick exit.
As I moved towards the doorway, one of the managers, lets call him GEORGE, took hold
of my arm. Now GEORGE was the type of guy who liked to grab you by the arm while
he was talking to someone else, so you wouldn't leave (since you were next in line to be
asked some innane question).
However, in this case, GEORGE had made a crucial mistake. You see ahead of the large
mass of foaming, putrid, fecal shrapnel that was pressing down on my final valve was
a very large gas bubble. As much as the muscles of my colon were able to hold back
the floodgates, my will was no match for the gas bubble. GEORGE made the unfortunate
mistake of inhaling just as my rear end released its toxic rattle. His grip released
immediately as I left the room barely containing my laughter.
Insanity was the likely diagnosis of my fellow bathroom inhabitants as moments later
I relieved myself while howling with laughter.
There's something weird in the fridge today
I don't know what it is
Food I can't recognize
My roommate won't throw a thing away
I guess it's probably his
It looks like it's alive...
And livin' in the fridge... livin' in the fridge
Livin' in the fridge... livin' in the fridge
--- Livin' In The Fridge, by Weird Al Yankovic
(sorry, couldn't resist...)
Probiotic spinach and scallions! They're fat free too!!
I can't eat this, it is still paddling...
There is a major problem with probiotics. The primary concentration of bacteria and fungi in the gut is in the large intestine, the colon. The small intestine is relatively alkaline, and the stomach is famous for its acidity. Neither area is a hospitable environment for most bacteria, particularly those known for a symbiotic or commensal relationship with humans in the gut. Therefore, administering probiotics orally is unreliable unless they are properly encapsulated to survive passage through the stomach and small intestine. I imagine that those found in e.g. yogurt are not so encapsulated, meaning that the majority are destroyed upon reaching the stomach.
As with other substances such as the vitamin B complex, is possible to administer enough to ensure that some percentage survives the passage through the upper gut to the large intestine, but I don't see how commercial food additives are likely to provide enough mass action for this to occur.
In summary, if you really want to actively change your gut flora and fauna, the best method is through enemas.
You are right that most yogurt packaged in a small cup with fruit flavors are diluted. However, supermarkets also carry "plain" yogurt in a pint sized container. It's mostly solid, have strong odor, and is very sour.
I once had a signature.
I'm a big fan of raw (goat usually) milk in particular, tons of probiotics, enzymes, nutrients, etc... From a clean, well-regulated, preferebly low-density dairy, this stuff probably beats Activa 20 times over and is likely that much cheaper. Also for the paranoid folks worried about infection, etc.. some of the success stories describe state-regulated raw milk samples as being lower in pathogenic count than pasteurized samples. (too lazy to dig up reference, see link below for more info)
Check out http://www.realmilk.com/ for a rundown on raw unpasteurized milk for yourself. Cheers!
Yeah, but the distribution was extremely different -- infant and child mortality was extremely high (compared to today), but if you made it past childhood, you had a pretty good chance of living to a ripe old age. For those who made it past age 5 or 6, the average lifespan was more like 70+.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
It's not that "you are what you eat". It's that "you are what you don't shit".
-Wavy Gravy
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
People are "healthy." Food is "healthful."
Interestingly, that distinction doesn't hold in British English, where both people and foods can be 'healthy', and 'healthful' is never used.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
step 1) Buy "real" yogurt and milk at supermarket.
step 2) Go home, dump yogurt into milk, place in fridge.
step 3) Wait a few weeks.
It really doesn't take that long, and once you have your first supply, you can make more just by adding milk.
---k--
</stupid>
A good majority of yogurts sold in regular grocery stores (e.g. Safeway, Publix, Kroger, etc.) are "real" with active culture in them. Perhaps the Yoplait brand is not, but in my experience, most of the other major brands are *real* yogurts. Now, they may not contain as fresh ingredients or have their milk sourced from organic grass-eating cows as you might find in smaller specialty shops, but that doesn't mean they aren't real.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Don't forget the other problems. Currently living hunter-gatherer tribes do not generally have long life expectancies, good diet or no. High infant (and maternal) mortality and early deaths due to disease or accident are common. Those folks that do make it to an advanced age are generally far more decrepid than a Westerner, provided the westerner took care of their health. And of course, a "traditional" diet isn't going to support 7 billion people- hunter-gathers need large amounts of space since it's basically a requirement to live in small groups and constantly migrate away from the bad sanitation and parasites that otherwise would kill you. (To be fair, it's not clear if modern methods can keep up 7 billion people either.)
All I'm offering is some better information - the choice to keep your teeth is up to you. :)
I think a little more research might indicate that the "White man's diet" has affected teeth since the dawn of agriculture. Yes, carbohydrates (sugars) affect teeth- that's well known. But it's been that way since the beginning of civilization, otherwise we wouldn't be finding 9000 year old dentist drills, or million-year-old skulls with dental decay. It's not just white men either- you can trace the rise in dental problems for New World natives on the increased use of maize.
Looking back to my (and my wife's) ancestors over the past 200 years, I'm doing just fine even if I need some dental work. I have lost 8 teeth, but that was by design since my jaw was too small for them all. I didn't die in childbirth like some of them, I didn't die at age 25 from the flu, smallpox or other malady (or for that matter, from stupid doctors like one distant relative), I still have all my digits unlike say, my grandpa who lost some in an accident. I've survived an infection that probably would have cost me my leg 100 years ago and might well have killed me.
I'll take the tradeoff
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
This Activia reminds me of The Stuff.
A recent BBC program showed that eating prebiotic veg was better than having probiotic yoghurt stuff.
h ealthy/prebiotics.shtml - main program details
See
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/humanbody/truthaboutfood/
http://www.food.rdg.ac.uk/news#104 - titbit about the PhD researcher used
I think this is because the stomach environment kills the probiotic bacteria and so generating a better environment for your endemic gut bacteria is better - prebiotic vegetables will do this for you.
Well your average supermarket milk is about 88% inorganic compounds, and it isn't usually too crunchy. 100% inorganic milk might be a little tasteless (though some of it is a little salty) but it could be just as soft and drinkable.
Of course this is in Germany; according to my own experience, you'll have a hard time finding good coffee in the US.
You can get Acidophilus in pill form at any health foods store. In fact, you can probably get it in any grocery store.
The pills have way more bacteria in them, are stable at room temperature (read: more convenient than yogurt), and are a lot cheaper than yogurt, if you're only eating yogurt for the bacteria.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Again, I'm sure he's a top notch surgeon, but nutrition is a bit outside of his area of medicine.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
"you'll have a hard time finding good coffee in the US."
There's a German lady on eBay - Uta - that sells home roasted fair trade organic coffee that is utterly to die for.
Need Mercedes parts ?
I've learnt a few things from watching these adverts on UK telly.
1) Insurance companies will give you a great quote, even if the only information you provide to them is "It's a hatchback"
2) People who are in debt just want a loan to buy bloody crazy things. There's one with a guy who's broke and trying to mow his garden with a manual mower. He gets a loan, buys a conservatory and a ride-on mower. Based on this spending, I'd say his next purchase was a chocolate teapot full of vodka for him to drink as debt collectors come to take his house away a month later.
3) If I have any kind of accident, someone must give me money!
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Heh heh, I know that advert. I know that's the line that always swings it for me.
"Afternoon, I'm a medical doctor and I'm wondering if there's any evidence that this product actually contains appreciable levels of beneficial bacteria?"
"It's just like a desert!"
Unfortunately that would be evidence enough for the MHRA (the medicines regulator in the UK who now consider homeopathy to be medicine).
-- Using the preview button since 2005