How Do Soft Drinks Affect Us?

How Do Soft Drinks Affect Us?

More and more, many of us exchange drinking regular water with soft drinks. But soft drinks are not a healthy alternative, as we well know. But how unhealthy is it really? What potential adverse effects can drinking a certain amount of soft drinks lead to? This infographic was prepared and summarized to get these important points across.

Antibiotics and the Meat We Eat

By DAVID A. KESSLER

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/opinion/antibiotics-and-the-meat-we-eat.html?_r=2&

Published: March 27, 2013 

SCIENTISTS at the Food and Drug Administration systematically monitor the meat and poultry sold in supermarkets around the country for the presence of disease-causing bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. These food products are bellwethers that tell us how bad the crisis of antibiotic resistance is getting. And they’re telling us it’s getting worse.

But this is only part of the story. While the F.D.A. can see what kinds of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are coming out of livestock facilities, the agency doesn’t know enough about the antibiotics that are being fed to these animals. This is a major public health problem, because giving healthy livestock these drugs breeds superbugs that can infect people. We need to know more about the use of antibiotics in the production of our meat and poultry. The results could be a matter of life and death.

In 2011, drugmakers sold nearly 30 million pounds of antibiotics for livestock — the largest amount yet recorded and about 80 percent of all reported antibiotic sales that year. The rest was for human health care. We don’t know much more except that, rather than healing sick animals, these drugs are often fed to animals at low levels to make them grow faster and to suppress diseases that arise because they live in dangerously close quarters on top of one another’s waste.

It may sound counterintuitive, but feeding antibiotics to livestock at low levels may do the most harm. When he accepted the Nobel Prize in 1945 for his discovery of penicillin, Alexander Fleming warned that “there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to nonlethal quantities of the drug make them resistant.” He probably could not have imagined that, one day, we would be doing this to billions of animals in factorylike facilities.

The F.D.A. started testing retail meat and poultry for antibiotic-resistant bacteria in 1996, shortly before my term as commissioner ended. The agency’s most recent report on superbugs in our meat, released in February and covering retail purchases in 2011, was 82 pages long and broke down its results by four different kinds of meat and poultry products and dozens of species and strains of bacteria.

It was not until 2008, however, that Congress required companies to tell the F.D.A. the quantity of antibiotics they sold for use in agriculture. The agency’s latest report, on 2011 sales and also released in February, was just four pages long — including the cover and two pages of boilerplate. There was no information on how these drugs were administered or to which animals and why.

We have more than enough scientific evidence to justify curbing the rampant use of antibiotics for livestock, yet the food and drug industries are not only fighting proposed legislation to reduce these practices, they also oppose collecting the data. Unfortunately, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, as well as the F.D.A., is aiding and abetting them.

The Senate committee recently approved the Animal Drug User Fee Act, a bill that would authorize the F.D.A. to collect fees from veterinary-drug makers to finance the agency’s review of their products. Public health experts had urged the committee to require drug companies to provide more detailed antibiotic sales data to the agency. Yet the F.D.A. stood by silently as the committee declined to act, rejecting a modest proposal from Senators Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California, both Democrats, that required the agency to report data it already collects but does not disclose.

In the House, Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California and Louise M. Slaughter of New York, also Democrats, have introduced a more comprehensive measure. It would not only authorize the F.D.A. to collect more detailed data from drug companies, but would also require food producers to disclose how often they fed antibiotics to animals at low levels to make them grow faster and to offset poor conditions.

This information would be particularly valuable to the F.D.A., which asked drugmakers last April to voluntarily stop selling antibiotics for these purposes. The agency has said it would mandate such action if those practices persisted, but it has no data to determine whether the voluntary policy is working. The House bill would remedy this situation, though there are no Republican sponsors.

Combating resistance requires monitoring both the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in our food, as well as the use of antibiotics on livestock. In human medicine, hospitals increasingly track resistance rates and antibiotic prescription rates to understand how the use of these drugs affects resistance. We need to cover both sides of this equation in agriculture, too.

I appreciate that not every lawmaker is as convinced as I am that feeding low-dose antibiotics to animals is a recipe for disaster. But most, if not all of them, recognize that we are facing an antibiotic resistance crisis, as evidenced by last year’s bipartisan passage of a measure aimed at fighting superbugs by stimulating the development of new antibiotics that treat serious infections. Why are lawmakers so reluctant to find out how 80 percent of our antibiotics are used?

We cannot avoid tough questions because we’re afraid of the answers. Lawmakers must let the public know how the drugs they need to stay well are being used to produce cheaper meat.

David A. Kessler was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from 1990 to 1997. 

Homemade Moisturizing Body Scrub

Homemade Moisturizing Body Scrub, that I am going to share with you today, is probably my absolute favorite! It leaves your skin feeling SOFT and SMOOTH like you’ve never experienced before! (At least like I had never experienced before! ) It is meant to be used in the shower, and you honestly don’t even need to use any moisturizer when you get out. You will absolutely be glowing!

To get started on making the body scrub, you will only need four simple ingredients. If you don’t have some of these ingredients on hand, a great place to purchase them from is Mountain Rose Herbs. I highly recommend their products, and I know that Stacy does too. (And yes, all of these ingredients are edible, although I don’t think I have ever actually eaten shea butter!)

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup Shea Butter
• 3 TBSP Olive Oil
• 3 TBSP Coconut Oil (melted, but not hot)
• 1/2 cup Brown Sugar

METHOD:

Begin by filling a 1/2 C measuring cup with shea butter, making sure to pack it down tightly. Transfer the shea butter to a small pan, and gently heat, using the double boiler method, until the butter is nice and soft. You don’t want to melt the butter, but just soften it to make it easier to work with.

Next, transfer the shea butter to a stand mixer, and beat on high speed until it has a whipped consistency and doesn’t feel grainy when rubbed between your fingers. This will take around 3-4 minutes. It should look like firm whipped cream when it is done. (If you think your tempted to eat it now, just wait till later!)

Combine the olive oil and melted coconut oil together in a small container with a spout. SLOWLY pour the oil into the bowl of shea butter, while beating on high speed. You may need to stop and scrape down the sides as you go.

Once all of the oil is incorporated into the shea butter, continue mixing on high speed for 1-2 minutes until it is nice and fluffy and looks like a soft, delicious whipped cream. If desired, you could also add some essential oils now. I usually don’t, because I like the smell of just the coconut oil and brown sugar, but you could experiment with adding some if you would like.

At this point, you really could just stop, and use this as an after-shower moisturizer. I have done this before, but my favorite way to use this is as an in-shower moisturizing body scrub. It is just so nice, and makes your skin feel AMAZING! (Have I already said that? Please excuse me if I’m repeating myself!)

To turn this into a body scrub, you just need to add something that will exfoliate. This step is very flexible, and there are many things that could be added here. My favorite thing to use is brown sugar. It gives it a wonderful smell, and it does a great job at exfoliating. Some other things that you could consider using instead of sugar would be salt, coffee grounds, ground up oats, etc. Anything that will provide you with a gentle scrub can be used in place of the sugar. You could even do a combination of exfoliators if you would like.

So add the brown sugar (or whatever you decide to use) to your whipped butter and gently mix it in. (If you use brown sugar, make sure that there are no clumps of sugar before you add it to your bowl. It will be a lot easier to mix in this way, and you will not end up with any big sugar clumps in your exfoliator.)

That is all there is to it! And although, you could eat this, I think it would serve it’s purpose better on your skin! To use, simply rub the body scrub all over yourself while you’re in the shower, rinse off, and dry. You don’t need to use a lot – a little bit will go a long way. When you get out of the shower, your skin will feel like silk, and you will be glowing!

This recipe makes around two cups of moisturizing body scrub. I like to store mine in glass ball jars. For a simple gift idea, fill up a 1 cup ball jar with your homemade body scrub, sprinkle a little brown sugar over the top (just for fun!), seal it with a lid, and decorate the jar with a cute ribbon and/or a homemade gift tag. Everyone loves receiving handmade gifts! I made some recently as a special treat for my friend who just had a baby, and she loved it! But make sure to save some for yourself, so you can have beautiful, glowing, soft, smooth, radiant skin too! Enjoy!

http://adelightfulhome.com/homemade-moisturizing-body-scrub/

'Don't blame obese people for being fat', the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence warms 

DOCTORS have been warned not to blame obese patients for being fat, under new health guidelines in the UK.

The Telegraph reports that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) wants doctors to refer obese patients to "lifestyle weight management" programs like WeightWatchers, but only if the schemes can change their behaviour for good rather than provide a "quick fix".
These people should be "respectful and non-blaming" in order to "minimise harm", it said.
They should also explain to patients "how much motivation and commitment" is needed to complete weight management schemes and that enrolling on one will not be a "magic bullet".
About a quarter of adults in England are classes as obese, and a further 41 per cent of men and 33 per cent of women are overweight.
Obesity is estimated to cost the the UK's NHS about 5.1 billion pounds each year.
Nice has previously asked doctors to avoid using the word "obese" because it can be a derogatory term.
"I think [the issue] is the wording. Doctors have not got to be patronising, but they have got to form their words very carefully in order to not alienate patients," Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum told the Telegraph. "Doctors are terrible at bringing up the subject of weight because it is such a sensitive issue with patients...but once the doctor has got the confidence of a patient, then their duty is to start to toughen it up and explain what the consequences are."

 http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/dont-blame-obese-for-being-fat-the-national-institute-for-health-and-care-excellence-warms/story-fneuzlbd-1226741350871

 

Brief History of India