I am certainly with you on subsidizing organic and other ethical farmers over the agri-biz crowd, but you know what they say…..follow the money and you’ll find the guy who scratches your financial back.

On eating until full, I have read that high fructose corn syrup somehow scrambles the message from the stomach to the brain that says, “I’m full now, stop eating.” (I believe I read that on Dr Joe Mercola’s website.) HFCS is in just about Everything!!! I have yet to find a processed food that does not contain it, and I’m pretty sure that one of the reasons is to keep people eating so they will eat more and buy more and eat more and buy more and so on. It sort of backfired when it was realized that people aren’t getting the exercise to release all those extra calories. Now, we are a nation of overweight people, and darn it, it’s our fault! Stop Eating!

Americans eat way more than necessary; if that were not true, we would not have an obesity problem in this country – though I do believe the problem is far more complicated than just eating too much.

Basically, humans eat for three reasons: Energy, nutrients, and pleasure. Since the food these days is so low in nutrient value, I believe that is one of the reasons people do eat too much – the body is craving nutrients it isn’t getting, and the only way we can get that message is through the “I’m hungry, feed me” feeling, so we eat. Many of the calories we take in are empty, so we crash after a few hours and need to eat again, too, but What do we eat? That is where we need to put our attention.

If we can get the crap out of our diet – the HFCS, the MSG, the other chemicals that trick or lure us into eating so much – like, eat local or organic as much as possible, avoid chemical additives like rBST in the dairy products, and stop eating out of boxes and bags – I’ll bet most of us would be well satisfied with much less to eat, and be much healthier for it.

Seriously, this has worked so well for me, I encourage others to try it, too! See if it works for you, too. You’ll feel a lot better and not spend any more than you already do.

If the foods are expensive, like the cranberries you mentioned, eat only when in season – that’s how Nature made us anyway; Nature provides what we need when we need it. We are ultimately a part of the cycle of life, and that includes eating foods in season.

Here are two of my posts that you may find interesting and useful in this regard: Season, Geography and Diet:
http://bewellwithmichelle.blogspot.com/2006/10/season-geography-and-diet.html

The Seasonal Diet. This came from a book by a famous French herbalist:
http://bewellwithmichelle.blogspot.com/2006/10/seasonal-diet.html
Michelle´s last blog ..Type D Personality and How To Overcome theHealth Risks of Chronic Anxiety, Negativity, and Stress with Affirmations, Meditation, and Qigong

Organic food is higher in nutrients so you don’t need to eat as much. Depending on the type of food, the nutrient levels are anywhere between 50% and 80% higher in organic vegetables than in non-organic.

I have found that overall, the price of eating organic is about the same as eating non-organic since I buy and eat less food, and am healthier, too.
Michelle´s last blog ..Type D Personality and How To Overcome theHealth Risks of Chronic Anxiety, Negativity, and Stress with Affirmations, Meditation, and Qigong

The lack of labels bothers me as well. The standards for “organic” and “natural” are being lowered daily, it seems. The push to remove information like “rBst free” from the labels bothers me even more…the little information we do get is being fought by Monsanto and others because they don’t want us (consumers) to know which products are chemical- or hormone-free because we will choose the hormone-free, chemical-free, product over theirs.

(Did you know that animals provided with GM foods often refused to eat them if there was a non-GM alternative available? Animals aren’t so dumb, eh?!)

I don’t trust the studies “proving” the safety of the products because they are often paid for by the manufacturer, not an unbiased party.

If these things were so safe, why would they be against labeling them? They should want the labels so that people could buy the great, GM products…..right?

The new one that gets me is the Senomyx additive that changes how your taste buds taste food. For example, their “artifical flavoring” makes the taste buds send the message to your brain that says “this is sweet (or salty)” when there is actually very little sweetener or salt in the product. Because it’s a “flavoring,” Senomyx was able to completely bypass the FDA testing and approval process, and even now this stuff is in the food supply. I’ve linked to my article about it….(did I mention this one before…I forget)…..click my name to read it.

(I sent an email request to them just before posting the article asking to see the safety studies on their product. I haven’t received any info from them, but they did Google me, looking to see who I was! The interesting thing about that was that the IP was Senomyx.gov which sure looks a little (or a lot!) fishy to me…..a dot-gov on a flavoring company???? Gives me the creeps wondering what they’re really cooking up and why and for whom.)

However, more and more, these additives are getting approval without proper testing because the amounts used are so small “they can’t possibly cause any harm,” and when they do prove to be harmful, does the FDA take them off the shelf? Nope, they say “don’t eat as much and you should be fine”…..however, if the products aren’t labeled, we don’t know how much we are getting! What a vicious circle, eh?

I believe you are right….I think Everything should be labeled with specific information on all ingredients no matter how minute the amount is. It’s the only fair, and safe thing to do.

It is this lack of labeling that really bothers me. It does not matter if it is GM food, irradiated meat, hormone treated beef, or anything else. I believe we have the right to know what is in our food, bath and beauty products, etc. There is a real push now to “show” things are safe with studies like you mention. Then because they are shown to be “safe” by those studies, the argument is made that labeling is not required.