Gingrich wants what never was and can never be – a more aggressive drug war policy that works

(NaturalNews) Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is rising in the polls and could very well wind up being the next Republican presidential nominee. Like him or despise him, one knock against him is his publicly stated desire for something that hasn’t worked and can never work – a more “aggressive” drug policy and an absolute prohibition on medical marijuana. In an interview last month, Gingrich changed his mind since 1981, when he first introduced legislation to legalize marijuana. “What has changed was the number of parents I met with who said they did not want their children to get the signal from the government that it was acceptable behavior and that they were prepared to say as a matter of value that it was better to send a clear signal on no drug use at the risk of inconveniencing some people, than it was to be compassionate toward a small group at the risk of telling a much larger group that it was okay to use the drug,” he said. “My general belief is that we ought to be much more aggressive about drug policy.” The facts don’t bear that a “more aggressive” drug policy works, considering the “war on drugs” the U.S. has been waging since the 1980s. What has happened is this: millions of Americans have been jailed for smoking marijuana, and yet marijuana use has only grown over the past 30 years. In 2005, 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal prisoners were being incarcerated for marijuana use, according to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. Extrapolating out the costs, taxpayers – in 2005 – were ponying up $1 billion a year to keep people in jail whose only crime is smoking a “drug” that has less dangerous social implications than alcohol, which is legal, of course. But Gingrich wants even stiffer penalties for drug use – any drug. But to his credit, at least, he didn’t think prison was the answer. He favors providing medical help and drug treatment, but again, taxpayers would be on the hook for these programs too. And why does a casual marijuana user need a drug treatment program, when casual alcohol users aren’t required to attend AA meetings? The tide could be turning against Gingrich. Sixteen states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana, even though the federal government still lists it as a Schedule I substance – the most medically useless and dangerous of drugs. Also, Gingrich says his opposition is rooted in concern for children regarding drug use, and the “signal” it would send in terms of government condoning it. For one, medical marijuana use does not increase usage among children , a recent report has found. And two, children watch adults drink alcohol but are well aware that legally , they can’t have a drink until they are 21 years old. Wouldn’t it be prudent to place a similar age restriction on smoking marijuana? The pot issue is more one of finding the right combination of laws and public policy, to handle both the perception issue and the usage issue. The fight is not about whether marijuana is too dangerous, especially when compared to alcohol, because when that comparison is made, alcohol loses hands down . Sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/01/alcohol-more-harmful-than-heroin-crack http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/03/study-medical-marijuana-does-not-increase-use-among-youth/ http://www.alternet.org/rights/47815/ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/28/gingrich-calls-for-more-aggressive-drug-policy/

A shot across the bow deconstructing Dean Foods: Spinning-off organic / namebrand division (opinion)

(NaturalNews) A version of the following commentary appears in the January 2011 edition of the Milkweed , a monthly dairy marketing report for farmers and others with an interest in the dairy industry. Visit: www.themilkweed.com Make no mistake about it. As Calvin Coolidge put it, “The business of America, is business!” Nowhere in the dairy industry has that philosophy been truer than the example of the dairy empire built by Suiza Foods Corporation CEO Greg Engels, now known as Dean Foods. Dean’s was just one of the numerous acquisitions Engels put together to create the largest dairy empire (enterprise) in the United States. Although accused of crushing competition, both on the retail level and at the farmgate (as evidenced in part by the recent $30 million settlement in favor of the Northeast dairy producers), my message today primarily concerns their investments in the organic industry. Recent Dean history might prove the adage, “The bigger they are the harder they fall.” Dean Foods stock has been in free fall. Their stock lost 84 percent of its value since its peak in 2007. CEO Greg Engels was ranked 338th, out of 338 CEOs, in terms of wealth destruction, in a recent report by Chief Executive Magazine. All this amounts to easy pickings for “bargain hunters” on Wall Street. Rumors have been flying, as reported in the Milkweed , that major food and dairy conglomerates, including Groupe Danone, are eyeballing Dean Foods, or selected assets, as possible acquisitions. And that leads this discussion to Dean’s branded products division, at WhiteWave. WhiteWave is a weird conglomeration of organic, and formerly organic brands, along with disparate offerings such as International Delight nondairy coffee creamer (what we refer to in Wisconsin as: White Death). How can Dean executives look consumers square in the eye and profess their commitment to the environment and the healthy ideals of organic food while hawking a potion as damaging to human health as their imitation cream is beyond my imagination. But I digress. In the middle of the 2000s, when the value of Dean Foods stock was hurting, and dairy producers were receiving recent record-high prices (Dean seems to only be able to excel when farmers are being screwed by low farm gate prices), CEO Engles passionately hung his hat on the “future” of the company within the WhiteWave portfolio, principally Silk soy “milk” and Horizon. In a flip-flop, as the market for organic milk became glutted (due in part to factory farms that that Dean Foods invested in), and dragged down profit margins at WhiteWave, Engels was quick to tell stock analysts to quit focusing on Horizon, “organics are less than 3 percent of our business.” And in the next flip-flop, in what’s beginning to look a bit schizophrenic, Dean Foods executives are now hyping the value of WhiteWave once again. Their acquisition in 2010 of Alpro, with five manufacturing plants in Europe, makes Dean/WhiteWave the largest soy foods marketer in the world. Executives no longer refer to Dean Foods as a “dairy” business but rather as a “consumer packaged goods company.” Maybe not surprising because few of them have any experience in dairy or organic industries. For some time it had been rumored that Dean Foods was looking to either spin-off WhiteWave or sell the division outright. A few years ago the company announced completion of an initiative to separate the manufacturing, marketing and distribution functions of WhiteWave from the rest of Dean Foods. They named Joe Scalzo, formally with Gillette and Procter and Gamble, as the new operating unit’s CEO. Everything was ready to pull the trigger on cashing out the WhiteWave assets. That is, everything except pending legal action at the USDA that could have shut down the large factory farms producing Dean’s Horizon milk, including one corporate-owned dairy, managing at the time approximately 8000-head of cattle, in desert-like conditions in Idaho. Instead of seeing the writing on the wall, and looking for additional family farm milk to potentially phase out their vertically integrated milk production (an aberration in the dairy industry), Dean Foods announced plans to spend an additional $10 million upgrading their Idaho facilities to accommodate grazing (according to Cornucopia research and related formal legal complaints they had been illegally operating a confinement feedlot dairy). Current and former Dean/WhiteWave employees now estimate the investment in their Idaho “organic” dairy as being between 20 and 22 million dollars (over and above their original cost basis). Even if consumers believe that operating an industrial dairy, with thousands of cows, isn’t a betrayal to the values that the organic movement was founded upon, it’s certainly questionable whether this facility can ever be operated profitably. And now comes the warning. At The Cornucopia Institute, while acting as a corporate and governmental watchdog, we always say that the questions in this industry are about corporate ethics, not just about corporate scale. Regardless of who purchases the Horizon organic label, and Dean’s lesser-known organic brand, distributed in the Northeast, Organic Cow of Vermont, we sincerely recommend that they purchase “selected assets” of the operation from Dean Foods – without the white elephants – the corporate-owned Idaho dairy, a smaller corporate owned dairy farm in Maryland and a number of other certified organic “factory farms” that Dean Foods has either invested in or is leasing. Consumers first come to organic food because they were looking for what they perceive to be safer and nutritionally superior food for their families. And there is now a growing body of scientific literature substantiating this perception. But we know that the reason there is such little price resistance to the premiums in organics in general (organic milk sales increased by double digits in 2010) is that people think they are also doing something good for society. Organic dairy customers think they are supporting a more ethical environmental approach, a more humane animal husbandry model, and they think that economic-justice for farmers is built right into the organic milk price. So a new corporate parent could turn things around at Horizon. At least half of the milk right now, being packaged under Dean Foods’ organic labels, comes from family-scale farmers. And we have no reason to believe they aren’t every bit as ethical and authentic as the farmers shipping to other major brands. The new owners might have to temporarily continue to purchase organic milk from the Dean Foods’ dairies. But they can make it clear that they will put a program in place to help transition the brand to 100 percent, legitimate, organic farm milk. Then someone might have a winning investment in what is not just the largest organic dairy brand in the country but is the largest volume organic brand, period. If this sincere advice is not heeded, investors will acquire not just a brand but an ongoing prairie fire that has made Dean Foods the pariah of the organic dairy business.

Heirloom cacao is ancient treasure of chocolate from the Ecuadorian rainforest

(NaturalNews) Most people have never eaten real chocolate. Sure, we’ve all wolfed down plenty of “chocolate” candies, bars and cakes. But as you’ll see here, very little of that is actually made from real chocolate. Virtually all the chocolate used in modern foods is derived from a hybridized cacao plant that lacks the phytochemical potency that gives real chocolate its many beneficial properties. So even though almost everyone has tasted chocolate, very few people have actually experienced true heirloom cacao from the original, phytonutrient-rich plants. Cacao originated in a region now spanning the border of Ecuador and Colombia. Its plants were discovered thousands of years ago, and the cacao fruit and seeds have been used throughout South American culture for as long as human history can remember. Heirloom cacao is called Arriba Nacional or just “Arriba” for short. That’s the real cacao from Ecuador, harvested from heirloom plants growing just the way they grew thousands of years ago. In comparison, virtually all the chocolate used in candy bars, chocolate chips, chocolate cakes, breads and so on is derived from the hybridized plant called CCN-51 — a pale shadow of the heirloom “Arribe Nacional” cacao it was supposed to replace. Most consumers have no idea the chocolate they’ve been eating is “watered down” with what is effectively a cheap, weakened cacao substitute. And if you’ve been eating that watered down chocolate all your life, you’re in for a real surprise when you get your hands on “Arribe Nacional” cacao, which has a deeper, more complex and “floral” flavor profile. My first taste of real chocolate My first experience of real chocolate was enjoyed in Ecuador, where I lived on and off for two years. One day I drove to a nursery in Zamora, a small city to the East of Loja (in Southern Ecuador). There, we picked fresh cacao pods right off the trees, sliced open the tops and began to eat the cacao fruit . Here’s a picture of me holding cacao pods from Zamora: http://www.naturalnews.com/Valley-of-Longevity-Property/photos/17.jpg Yes, cacao trees have fruit. It’s a thin layer of sweet fruity flesh surrounding the cacao bean, sort of in the way a lychee fruit has a layer of delicious white fruit flesh surrounding its central seed. Cacao fruit tastes a little bit like fresh lychee fruit, in fact, with a hint of chocolate flavor in it. Once you eat the fruit, you’re left with cacao seed pods. This is where “chocolate” comes from. The seed pods are usually ground into a fine powder, with the oils being mechanically separated from the non-oil substances which are then subjected to a combination of drying, fermentation and cooking (depending on who’s doing the processing), creating a finished cacao powder. This fine cacao powder is what goes into fine chocolates, often sweetened with sugars or enriched with milk fats. Hence the name “Milk chocolate.” However, the higher cost of heirloom chocolate has kept it out of the hands of all but the most selective chocolate artisans. The number of chocolate-making shops in America that use real heirloom cacao in their confections probably numbers less than ten. That’s why virtually no one in North America has ever tasted real chocolate before. How I met the founder of Pacari In Ecuador, there’s a company producing 100% heirloom cacao that’s truly raw (never goes above 118 degrees during processing), truly organic and “single origin” meaning it’s all from one region and not blended with other cacaos from other countries. That company is called Pacari , and its founder, Santiago, introduced me to his line of heirloom cacao one evening at a raw foods gathering at Matt Monarch’s house in the Valley of Longevity near Vilcabamba, Ecuador. There, I had the opportunity to taste 100% raw, unsweetened, full-potency heirloom cacao — and it was a superfood experience that forever changed my perception about just how powerful and even enlightening superfoods can be. Food of the Gods? You see, the best-known active ingredient in cacao is a bitter alkaloid called theobromine . The Latin prefix “theo” is of course the same root as in the word “theology,” meaning the study of God. Bromine comes from “broma” which, in the variation of “brosi” is Latin for “food.” Theobromine, then, is literally translated into “food of God” or “food of the Gods.” Why would cacao be named “food of the Gods?” If you just eat regular watered-down chocolate, you’ll probably never know. To really attain a deeper experience of cacao, you must eat the heirloom variety that’s naturally high in theobromine and other alkaloids. And once you do that, your experience may give you a greater understanding of why, over the last several thousand years, the indigenous people of South America have used superfoods like cacao to support their connection on a spiritual level. In the cultures of South American people, eating heirloom cacao is not merely an act of consuming calories. Nor is it a form of entertainment as is often pursued in first-world countries. Rather, eating heirloom cacao is a way for them to connect with the universe . It is a deeply spiritual experience, to be savored and honored, not to be wolfed down with processed sugar and ice cream. Throughout the cultures of South America, food was a way in which people were able to gain insight into the universe around them . I realize it seems odd in our modern cultures to think of food as a source of enlightenment or wisdom, but this idea was pivotal for South American cultures, and it actually makes good sense: Since we become what we eat , to eat the seed pods of a sacred plant is to become one with that plant . Certain plants alter brain chemistry and function, expanding consciousness and inviting us to explore alternate realities before returning to their physical world, blessed with the gift of new experiential insight. Such is the nature of the “sacred plant journeys” also routinely practiced by medicine healers (shamans) of South American cultures. While cacao is not a psychedelic plant, it is well known as a source of unique antioxidants and bitter alkaloids that may support healthy moods while brightening your day. Maybe this is why this superfood was called the “food of the Gods.” Straight from Ecuador: 100% organic, raw heirloom cacao Now, after five thousand years of history, YOU can experience Arribe Nacional heirloom cacao straight from the rainforests of Ecuador. Thanks to our connections in Ecuador, we were able to coordinate with Santiago to receive a large shipment of this unique heirloom cacao, straight from Ecuador. This is the real stuff: Pure heirloom cacao, truly raw (not just a false claim, but really truly raw), truly organic and harvested with the help of local farmers in a genuinely fair manner that honors their livelihoods. (The Pacari company works in many ways to help support local cacao farmers, and while it’s not yet certified as “Fair Trade,” they are working in that direction.) Right now, we have available for immediate shipment from our store: • Raw “Arribe” Cacao Beans • Raw “Arribe” Cacao Paste • Raw “Arribe” Cacao Butter • Raw “Arribe” Cacao Nibs • Raw “Arribe” Cacao Powder • A combination “chef’s pack” of Powder, Nibs, Butter and Paste (regular price is $83.80, but for this article we’ve marked it down to just $54.72, a nearly 35% savings ) Click here to see these products in the NaturalNews Store . These are all single-source, straight from Ecuador, made 100% of heirloom cacao plants, organic and raw. Just as importantly, this is perhaps the finest cacao you will ever taste in the world . It is one of life’s “bucket list” experiences to ingest this plant and tune in to how it is interacting with your body and mind. To miss out on this plant that our world has to offer is to truly miss out on one of life’s real gems. I regret to have to mention this, but not everything described as “Arribe” in the cacao world is truly Arribe. Some cacao producers will blend a small amount of Arribe into a batch of largely hybridized CCN-51 cacao, then they’ll label the final product “Arribe” cacao. That’s like calling your salad dressing “Olive Oil Dressing” when it’s really made from 90% soybean oil and only 10% olive oil. Our Arribe cacao is 100% truly Arribe with no misleading blending. Additionally, all the products have absolutely no sweeteners, no filler, no preservatives, no GMOs, no soy, no wheat… nothing! Just pure, raw heirloom cacao from Ecuador to you. As a result, don’t expect this to taste like a candy bar. It doesn’t! This is not candy. This is a potent superfood in its purest form, unadulterated and uncooked. It is the closest thing you can find to venturing into the Ecuadorian rainforest and harvesting your own wild cacao pods. This raw cacao is grown in Ecuador, harvested by Ecuadorian farmers, then processed by hand in small batches. It’s never cooked! The result is some of the finest cacao you will ever encounter on our planet. When you get some of this, consider it a treasure. I recommend not feeding it to anyone who isn’t enlightened enough to appreciate what they are consuming. Most children, in particular, are expecting sweet “junk” chocolate and will likely not appreciate “Arribe” heirloom cacao. And if you do give this as a gift to someone, please explain the history of heirloom cacao to them so they understand what a magnificent food treasure they are consuming. This is the stuff of Kings and Queens. Just a few hundred years ago, only ultra-wealthy royalty would have had access to such exotic foods. Today, we can all experience it! Pick some up here at the NaturalNews store . And enjoy this heirloom cacao. This may be some of the finest superfood you are likely to be able to source anywhere in the world.

Bottled tea beverages contain little or no antioxidants

(NaturalNews) Countless studies over the years about the health benefits of tea — particularly green tea — have driven many health-conscious consumers to stock up on all the latest tea beverages that claim to improve health. But a recent study has shown that most commercial bottled tea drinks contain virtually no antioxidants and a whole lot of sugar or artificial sweeteners. “Consumers understand very well the concept of the health benefits from drinking tea or consuming other tea products,” explained Shiming Li, Ph.D., an analytical and natural product chemist, concerning the study. “However, there is a huge gap between the perception that tea consumption is healthy and the actual amount of the healthful nutrients — polyphenols — found in bottled tea beverages. Our analysis of tea beverages found that the polyphenol content is extremely low.” Polyphenols are the unique antioxidants commonly found in freshly-brewed tea that exhibit anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti-diabetic effects on the body. But after analyzing six different brands of bottled tea beverages, Li and his colleagues discovered that three contained “virtually no” polyphenols, and the others had so little that they provided little benefit. To put this into perspective, an average cup of home-brewed green or black tea contains anywhere from 50 to 150 milligrams of polyphenols. The bottled teas examined, on the other hand, contained as little as three milligrams of polyphenols per bottle. “Someone would have to drink bottle after bottle of these teas in some cases to receive health benefits,” emphasized Li. Part of the reason why commercial bottled teas contain so little polyphenols is that these antioxidants are what give tea its bitter flavor. So in order to appeal to the masses, commercial producers often dilute, process and sweeten the tea to make it more appealing to consumers. Sources for this story include: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/acs-btb080610.php

Placebo Effect Breakthrough: It’s Not Just in the Mind. It Actually Alters Physiological Response of the Spine

(NaturalNews) The placebo effect can be traced in part to physical changes that take place in the spine when a fake drug is taken, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, and published in the journal Science . The placebo effect refers to a phenomenon in which a person’s symptoms diminish after taking a biologically inactive treatment that they believe to be a real drug. It is a well-documented effect that is particularly strong for conditions originating in the central nervous system, such as pain and depression. “These results provide direct evidence for spinal inhibition as one mechanism of placebo analgesia and highlight that psychological factors can act on the earliest stages of pain processing in the central nervous system,” the researchers wrote. Researchers told 15 healthy men that their arms were being treated with two separate creams – one of them an anesthetic, the other a placebo. They then applied painful heat to the treated sections of the participants arms while taking a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan of their spinal cords. Both creams were, in fact, medically inactive placebos. Yet the men not only reported experiencing significantly less pain when treated with a cream they believed to be active, but the fMRI scans showed that the activity of the nerves in their spine was also significantly reduced. This shows that when given a placebo, the mind is not just filtering pain away – the body actually feels less. “It is deeply rooted in very, very early areas of the central nervous system. That definitely speaks for a strong effect,” lead researcher Falk Eippert said. The researchers still could not explain how the perception of treatment created an effect in the spine, however. They suggested that the body might respond to treatment with a perceived drug by releasing its own natural painkillers. Sources for this story include: www.reuters.com; www.medicalnewstoday.com.