How corporations corrupt science

http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/abuses_of_science/how-corporations-corrupt-science.html

Now We Know Decriminalization does cut drug use.

http://www.care2.com/causes/now-we-know-decriminalization-does-cut-drug-use.html

Argentina: surviving without money

G. Edward Griffin - A World Without Cancer - The Story Of Vitamin B17

Meat Eaters Downplay Animal Minds

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201202/meat-eaters-downplay-animal-minds

Is sugar the cause of the obesity epidemic?

According to the World Health Organization, we are facing a obesity epidemic, with a billion overweight people and a large increase in diseases like, diabetes, hypertension, stokes, heart disease and cancer. This is nothing new as obesity has been growing since the 1970s.

Experts tell us that the reason why we have obesity is because people eat too much fat and sugars and fat people have too little will power to resist these foods. As the result obese people are not only suffering bad health they are also told it is their own fault they are fat. But it also might be that the advice given to the public is completely wrong.

Although the food experts are willing to admit that sugars play a role in obesity, they emphasize the role of eating fat as being the main cause of being overweight. The problem is that they have also discovered that some fats are good for you and so they talk about good fats and bad fats, which only confuses the public. Another problem is that one of the most successful diets around, The Atkins Diet, is full of fat, and the wrong sort of fat as well, yet people successfully lose weight using this diet. So could it be that all the experts are wrong? This has to be true, because if people have been following the advice of the diet experts since the 1970s and the rates of obesity has been growing all the time, then it strongly suggests that the advice from these food experts is not correct. It is not fat people’s lack of will power that is the problem, but the foods they are encouraged to eat and the bad advice they get from the media.

I have to admit I have been having problems with weight most of my adult life, and have mostly tried to overcome it by exercise. This does work, but if at any time I stopped doing exercises then the weight quickly returned. Though, I have known for a long time that sugars puts on weight as I had proof of this back in the early 1980s. At the time I was having three teaspoons of sugar in my tea, and didn’t see that as a problem. Then some women I knew began to nag me about this, and told me that sugar was bad. I didn’t believe this, but to stop the nagging I began to slowly cut down on sugar until I was able to drink tea without it. Then to my surprise I lost a stone in weight, (14 pounds, 6 kilo). At the time I thought it a bit of a joke, but I began to take sugar more seriously, but even so, I still had the attitude that the odd chocolate bar, ice cream or cake wasn’t going to hurt me. This is also the attitude of most people I know, and as the result I still had problems keeping my weight down.

More recently I noticed some people I knew, who had dramatic weight loss, were people with diabetes and they had been put on a no-sugar diet by their doctor. So I did begin to wonder about the role of sugar in putting on weight. I then done some research on the internet and found a video called. “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” which was lecture by Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology This video is over an hour long, and is a bit scientific, which may put off some people watching it, but what he said, was a revelation.

One of the first things that caught my attention was Robert Lustig’s explanation of why the Atkin’s diet works. Atkin himself claimed that it was because it was high protein diet and other food experts agreed with him. But what Lustig pointed out was that the Atkin’s diet was also a non-sugar diet. He also made the point that it is only the diets without sugar that work. For instance, some diet experts, like Dr Atkins, claim that it is carbohydrates that are the problem, but Lustig points out that it is only simple carbohydrates like sugar, alcohol and white flour that cause weight gain. So a diet of complex carbohydrates, like fruit and vegetables is also very effective in losing weight. Some people will point out there is a lot of sugar in all fruits and vegetables. So their idea of a sugar free diet is to eliminate these things. What Lustig says about this, is that sugar is a poison and the fibre in plants is the antidote to this. So eating sugar in plants is all right, providing you also have fibre with it. Unfortunately the more food is processed the more the fibre is taken out of it, so processed food is mostly high in sugar and very low in fibre. Cooking or juicing can also cut down on the fibre in fruit and vegetables, so eating raw food is the quickest way to lose weight. Though it can still be done, more slowly, with cooked vegetables.

The fact that sugar is the main cause of obesity has been known for a long time. Lustig points out that back in the 1970s there was a big scientific debate whether it was the eating of sugar or fat that was the cause of obesity. At the time it seems that the fat camp won this debate and in the 1980s, food manufacturers were told to produce low-fat food. This only increase the case of obesity in the population, so why was this? When the food manufacturers tried to reduce fat in their food, they ended up with food tasting like cardboard, so to overcome this problem they simply increased the amount of sugar in the food, to give taste to it. As the result, nearly all low fat food is also high in sugar. To make matters worse, food manufacturers have ended up having a sugar war. What they have discovered is that if they make their products sweeter, than the products of their competitors, they will sell more of them. So to gain a bigger market share, food manufacturers need to keep their products the sweetest on the market. As the result, the amount of sugar in processed food has been increasing over the years.

So if sugar is the main cause of obesity why are the diet experts not saying this? Probably because, most of them are employed or sponsored by the food industry. What food manufacturers want for their food is a long shelf life. This is because, if the food spoils too quickly, then there is a lot of wastage if the food is not sold quickly enough. For this reason preservatives are put into food, and in spite of modern food technology, the two main preservatives are still sugar and salt. The reason being that both are good to taste, and therefore food manufacturers can put a lot into food. So sugar is the ideal product for food manufacturers, it is good to taste, it preservatives food and is cheap. For this reason they would resist any attempt to cut down or ban sugar in food. Salt could partly replace sugar but doctors have said that too much salt is bad for us, so the amount of salt in processed food is being reduced. Though it is questionable whether salt is worse for our health than sugar. (Table salt is dug out of the ground and has a lot of sand in it, some doctors are saying that it is the sand in table salt is the problem for our health and sea-salt is better for us because it hasn’t got sand in it.)

The problem is that media like TV, newspapers and magazines depend on advertisers for their revenue, and one of the main advertisers is the food industry. So the media is not going to upset their clients by promoting anyone who says that sugar is the main cause of obesity. For this reason the only way you can find out about this, would be to read scientific papers or to find it on the internet. As the mainstream media will only state, whatever their food manufacturer clients want them to say.

One of the shocking things about this, is childhood obesity. The reason for this, is that food manufacturers put high levels of sugar into baby food and milk. Legally they are not allowed to put sugar into formula milk for breast feeding babies, but they get around it by putting in other types of sugar like, lactose, fructose, glucose and maltodextrose in it. To make matters worse, according to Lustig fructose is worse for our health than normal sugar. They then also do the same with baby food, which again is full of different types of sugars. So it is no wonder that we now have babies and small children who are obese. Mothers are not told about the dangers of these formula milks and baby foods by the mainstream media, and even more educated mothers can be fooled by the labelling. Food manufacturers are very clever in calling sugars by many other different names, so a mother looking at the ingredients of baby food may not even see sugar on it, but this is because the sugars has been called many different names that people are not unaware off.

Then as the child grows up it is bombarded by adverts on TV, in children programes, all promoting high sugar drinks and food. The mother may also buy ready made meals from the supermarket and again all these will contain a lot of sugar in them. The irony of this, is that if she is a health conscious mother she may buy low fat foods, not knowing that these foods are very high in sugar. Some people are beginning to notice that if they stop eating low fat meals, they actually lose weight.

This is what has happened to me. After watching Robert Lustig’s lecture I became strict about not eating any sugars, but I found this difficult as I had to find out about the hidden sugars in manufactured foods. I had to read the labels of processed food more carefully as I learnt more about the tricks food manufacturers use in calling sugars by very many different names. I found that it is very hard to find any processed food that is not full of sugar. The only processed food I found that didn’t have sugar in it was shredded wheat, porrage oats and some natural yogurts. So it became difficult not to eat sugar, after all if you go somewhere and you are offered cake or some processed food it is not polite to refuse. Yet in spite of this, I have found that by cutting down on the sugar I consume, I am losing weight easily. Another bonus, is that Lustig claims that sugar can actually make us feel even more hungry, and this is what I have discovered. I find that if I can eat a meal without any sugar in it, it will easy satisfy my hunger. As the result I am now finding I am eating less without any effort.

People have told me I must have a lot of will power to lose weight the way I am, but I say it is not will power, but only the fact I try to not eat sugar as much as I used to. Other people claim they cannot do as I am doing because they are addicted to sugar. It is true that when eating high levels of sugar, you get use to the taste and anything without sugar seems to be too bitter. But it is possible to re-educate your taste buds by gradually eating less and less sugar and keeping clear of high sugar foods. If you are willing to do this over weeks or months, you can slowly learn to enjoy food that is not oversweet. Lustig also points out that alcohol is simply fermented sugar and has the same effect on our bodies. Unfortunately, alcohol can be addicted, so that is going to be harder to give up than sugar.

Some people try to use artificial sweeteners which are so sweet that far less of it is needed to sweeten food. Unfortunately although they have been around for some time they have failed to stop the obesity epidemic. The reason for this, is probably that they get people’s taste buds use to very sweet foods. So they find ordinary food without a lot of sugar in it, too bland or bitter. So it is better to re-educate your taste buds not to want highly sweetened food or drink.

Roberts Lustig’s lecture is probably too long and too scientific for many people, but he is the expert on obesity, and is not being paid by food companies to say something that suits their agenda. So all we need to know is that all the advice given out by “food experts” in the mainstream media is clearly not working, and it is sugar that is the main cause of obesity. This means do your best to cut down on sugar and not buy low-fat foods and try as much as possible to cut down on processed foods and eat whole foods. That is to say, food that comes from farms and not out of factories.

People are fat not because they lack willpower, but because they are brainwashed by advertisers to eat food that is bad for them, and even if they want to do something about it, they are given the wrong advice by the mainstream media.

 http://www.theecologist.org/trial_investigations/268337/breastmilk_vs_formula_food.html

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/whattoeat/a/sugars.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet

http://www.naturalpedia.com/sugar_consumption.html

Do The Oil and Coal Industries Finance The Greens?

 From an ideological point of view the title of this article doesn’t make any sense, but from a financial point of view it good business for both the oil and coal industries, to finance certain green groups.

It is an open secret that fossil fuel industry finance climate change denier groups.  This is off course understandable, as scientists who say we need to eliminate fossil fuels to prevent climate change, threaten the future of both the oil and coal industries.  Now in theory Green activists are also concerned about global warming and so we would assume they would be on the side of the scientists who are predicting climate change and say we should stop burning fossil fuels. But as the old saying goes, “actions speak louder than words”.  So although the Green movement seem to be concerned about global warming, on the whole, their actions tell a completely different story.

It is estimated that about 80% of the world’s energy is produced by oil, coal and gas, all fossil fuels.  The other 20% is mostly produced by nuclear energy and hydro electric, both in which produce far less carbon emissions than either oil or coal. Yet, the green movement will protest against both nuclear energy and hydro electric but hardly ever against coal or oil burning power stations.  This is a bit strange, when you think about it, because the major cause of global warming is the burning of oil and coal for power.

Hydro electric is a very green energy, because once a dam and power station is built, it give off very little carbon emissions. Yet green movements all over the world protest whenever a dam is built.  Now, it is true that governments can be very insensitive in the way they build hydro electric schemes.  As many will build dams with little concern about the villages and towns they flood.  And even when governments try to give compensation to the people, corruption means that they do not receive what is due to them.  The problem is that the green activists seem to be more concern about getting the whole project stopped, than making sure the people who are displaced, are properly compensated.  So even though hydro electric is a green energy, we have the paradoxical situation where green organizations are protesting against it.

Nuclear energy like hydro electric also gives off very little carbon emissions.  Yet it would be fair to say nuclear power seems to be the green movement’s number one target.  Off course what frightens the greens and the general public about nuclear energy is that it give off radiation, but just how dangerous is atom radiation from nuclear power stations?  We can get some idea from this from the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

This was the worse nuclear accident that ever happened, and it was predicted then, that thousands if not millions of people would die of radiation poisoning.  Yet over 25 years after the accident there is little proof that many people have died through this.  After the accident governments all over the world closed down their nuclear programs but with so few people since dying of radiation from the Chernobyl accident, governments today are having second thoughts about this.  The Chernobyl accident has shown that a nuclear power accident is not as dangerous as once thought. 

Unfortunately, people fear nuclear radiation because of the many people who died of this in the A-bombs attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1946.  What tends to be forgotten, is that the levels of radiation coming from a nuclear explosion, is nothing like what comes from a nuclear power plant.  Studies have shown that workers in nuclear power stations, or seamen in nuclear powered submarines or aircraft carriers, do not suffer bad health.  It has to be remembered that the first nuclear submarines and power stations were first developed back in 1950s, this is over 50 years ago.  So it seems that the long term exposure to the radiation that nuclear generators produce, do not have a long term effect on humans.  It seems that workers in coal fired power stations, suffer worse health problems.  Not only that, the pollution given off from a burning coal is far worse, for the general population, than the radiation from nuclear generation.

If that is the case, why are not green activists protesting against coal fired power stations?  After all both coal and oil power stations are burning fossil fuel and are the major contribution to global warming. The answer could be, that it is unprofitable to do this.

Major green organizations like Greenpeace claim they will never receive donations from corporations.  The problem is, that it is so easy to get around a rule like this. If any corporation wants to fund a green organization, all it has to do is pay individuals, not directly connected to them, to do this for them.  So if a green organization was to protest against a hydro electric scheme, or a nuclear power station, and receive big donations when they do this.  Then they are greatly encouraged to continue to do this. They also find that they also receive a lot of publicity in the media as well.   But, on the other hand, if they was to protest against a coal or oil fired power station and do not get any financial support, or publicity from the media.  Then they will be discouraged from continuing with this. 

It must be remembered that media companies like TV and newspapers depend on advertisers for their finance, for this reason they cannot afford to upset very large clients like the oil or coal industries.  So if the fossil fuel companies want the media to make a big story out of a protest against nuclear energy but not say anything about a protest against a coal or oil burning power station, they will do their best to please their advertiser clients. 

This is how major oil and coal companies, can easy use their financial muscle to manipulate the media and green organizations.  From the point of view of any fossil fuel company, it is good business to help and support any green organization that protests against hydro electric or nuclear power, because they are in direct competition against these forms of power.  If governments all over the world started to replace their coal and oil fired power stations with nuclear and hydro electric power stations, it would be a major blow to oil and coal industries.  It is true that green organizations do also support renewable energy like wind and solar power, but these are not a problem for the coal and oil industries, as they are too inefficient.

At first sight seeing so many wind farms and solar energy panels on roofs suggest that governments are serious about tackling climate change.  What the public is not told is that this is all a cynical public relations trick.

We are told that one windmill can power thousands of homes, but what we are not told is that the majority of the electricity generated by windmills and solar panels do not end up in the power grid.  So why is this?  The reason is that homes and industry want a reliable source of energy, and the electricity generated from the wind and sun is not dependable.

If we had a power grid run totally on wind farms, when the wind stops there will be no electricity, so we would be subjected to frequent power cuts.  So to counter this, the power companies have a back up gas generators that come online when the wind dies.  Unfortunately it takes some time to power up these generators, and so to make sure we don’t have power cuts, they keep these gas generators running all the time.  The result is that as the wind turbines, generate electricity the back up power needed is also burning fossil fuel.  So most of the benefits of wind farms are being lost, in keeping the back up generators going, so they can immediately cut in, when power is lost, so we do not get any power cuts.  The same is also true of solar generation, where again back up power has to be ready if cloud blocks out the sun.  Some green activists have suggested that we should put up with frequent power cuts, but if they did this, people and industry would begin to buy their own motors and generators, because this would be far more reliable than the power grid.  These motors will be using fossil fuels like gas and petrol.

The only way renewable energy can be used, is to store the electricity into gigantic batteries, or use the electricity they produce to turn water into hydrogen and oxygen and then burn that as a fuel.  This then allows renewable energy to be used when it is convenient to the electrical grid it is supplying.  The problem is that no-one seems to be interested in trying to store the power from any renewable source and for this reason it is useless.

So if renewable energy is very inefficient and there is little effort in trying to make it useful by storing it’s energy, why do we have so many wind farms and solar panels?  The reason seems to be that politicians and green activists can claim they are serious about green energy, while at the same time coal and oil fired power stations can continue to churn out greenhouse gases.  This means that renewable energy has become the fig-leaf that fossil fuel companies can hide behind.

This all means that the oil and coal industries can easy use their financial power to control, the media, public opinion, politicians, and green organizations.  So it is, business as usual, as the fossil fuel industry has a free ride to continue pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. While green activists, do their bidding and attack hydro electric and nuclear energy and champion ineffective renewable energy, and not look at the pollution given off by fossil fuels.

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7538934/Oil-conglomerate-secretly-funds-climate-change-deniers.html

http://www.marklynas.org/2012/01/in-defence-of-nuclear-power/

http://www.monbiot.com/2011/03/21/going-critical/

http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html

http://bravenewclimate.com/