Foods you should eat everyday

You can eliminate several health problems by simply knowing the power of nutrition. In order to look and feel your best, start incorporating some of these “super” foods into your diet.
These are simple tips that are easy to live by!

http://www.hometown-pages.com/main.asp?SectionID=14&SubSectionID=59&ArticleID=41915

Ladies - The Air May Impact Your Mind:

Older women exposed to high levels of “particulate matter” [air pollution] over the long term experienced a greater decline in their cognitive functioning, which is how your brain process information. The reduction in cognitive functioning occurred over a four-year period, reported researchers from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Preventive medicine 101: Hospitals incorporate farmers markets into facilities:

Hospitals in Texas are offering fruits and vegetables to poorer patrons at a subsidized price to encourage healthy habits.

The poor and middle class, for whom often times unhealthy food is cheaper and more plentiful than healthy food, suffer disproportionately from high rates of obesity and related diseases. A doctor’s advice to “eat better” is essentially useless given these circumstances.

The Harris County Hospital District has partnered with a Houston-based nonprofit organization called Veggie Pals to offer fresh vegetables and fruits at a subsidized price, to compete with the cheaper food options in these patients’ neighborhoods. The easy availability — it’s just down the hallway from the doctor’s office — is coupled with advice about the benefits of these foods and how to prepare them.

The program is called Healthy Harvest and it makes great sense!

http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/stories/preventive-medicine-101-hospitals-incorporate-farmers-markets-into-facil

The Future of Nutrition Labels: Making It Easier to Be Portion-Savvy

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 required nutrition information to be on packaged foods only. So, why do some items not need a label? What are the laws set by the FDA and USDA?

The government is finally establishing more label laws. A mandatory meat nutrition label, due to go in effect Jan. 1, 2012, was pushed back until March 1, 2012 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. This rule will concern 40 of the most popular cuts of all “single-ingredient muscle cuts and ground meat and poultry products.” The label will include calories, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, protein, iron and total carb content.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carrie-wiatt-ms/nutrition-labels_b_1282243.html

Climate change and human health
Human-induced climate change – now deemed by international climate
science to be real, demonstrably underway, and apparently accelerating –
reflects the mounting pressures of human numbers and intensified economic
activity. The existence, and long-term prospect, of risks to human health
provides an important signal as to the profound nature of this extraordinary
phenomenon. This important “signal”, adequately documented and clarified
by health researchers, will reinforce the motivation of governments and their
constituencies to take rapid and radical mitigation actions.
The health risks arise variously from direct stresses (e.g. weather disasters
and heatwaves), altered ecological processes (e.g. changes in infectious
disease patterns, impaired food yields), resource conflict over depleted
resources (water, fertile land, fisheries, etc.) and population displacement.
Low-income and geographically vulnerable populations are at greatest risk.
The risks to health jeopardise the achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals. Those risks will increase over time, and afflict future
generations.
While nations strive to reduce emissions, health-protecting adaptive
strategies are needed, both for current risks and as part of longer-term
planning. Health sector adaptation initiatives should be part of a coordinated
multi-sectoral response that recognizes that protecting human health must
be a central goal of, and reason for, climate stabilization and sustainability.
Indeed, in the agenda-setting 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change, damage to “health and wellbeing” is one of the three categories of
adverse effects that the Convention is intended to address, along with
damage to the natural environment and economic development.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Z5gtjhWJ-3M

Harvard Thinks Green.

Dramatic changes to sea algae could herald devastation for human life:

Huge changes in the make-up of North Sea and North Atlantic Ocean algae in the space of five years could have harmful knock-on effects for human health and the rest of the food chain, research from Welsh scientists has revealed.

The changes seen in algal blooms – shifting from dinoflagellate to diatom algaes – could mean a build-up of toxins on feeder organisms.

Professor Graeme Hays, from Swansea’s Department of Biosciences in the College of Science, and an author in the study, said: “Imagine looking at your garden one morning and finding that the grass had suddenly been replaced by bushes. This may sound far-fetched, but we have found changes of this magnitude in the biology of the North Atlantic, with a dramatic switch in the prevalence of dinoflagellates to diatoms – two groups which include many of the microscopic planktonic plants forming the base of the ocean’s food chain.”

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2012/02/13/dramatic-changes-to-sea-algae-could-herald-devastation-for-human-life-welsh-academics-91466-30317996/

Panel Urges Study of Nanomaterial Risks
These materials are engineered into many products

Nanoparticles are really tiny manufactured objects, no bigger than a clump of atoms. They are being engineered into materials with unique electrical, chemical and optical properties. They are used in a wide array of products from cosmetics and food additives to solar cells and medical devices.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/science-technology/Panel-Urges-Study-of-Nanomaterial-Risks-138212949.html

But concerns are growing that almost nothing is known about the risks these materials might pose to human health or the environment. Now, a federal science panel is calling for a systematic review of the safety of nanotechnology.

The nano market is booming. In 2009 developers generated $1 billion from the sale of nanomaterials. The global market for products that rely on these materials is expected to grow to $3 trillion by 2015.

Children near DuPont plant exposed to more PFOA than moms.

The study was undertaken by scientists who have spent seven years trying to determine whether the DuPont chemical is making people sick in the Mid-Ohio Valley.

The discovery about moms and their children comes as scientists elsewhere linked the chemical, known as PFOA, and related chemicals to reduced effectiveness of childhood vaccinations. The compounds are used to manufacture Teflon cookware, food packaging and other products

MIT researcher: U.S. taking leadership on mercury in the environment

Americans have long known the dangers of mercury in our environment, with doctors repeatedly warning pregnant women to remove fish from their daily diets. But despite this solid knowledge of the health impacts, the United States has never regulated mercury emissions from powerplants — our nation’s number one source of mercury — until now.

Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. The standards require coal-fired powerplants to install scrubbing technology that will cut 90 percent of their mercury emissions by 2015.