The UK Department of Health released its "Health Profile of England 2007". They noticed a trend:

The UK Government Office for Science projected that trend 40 years into the future and determined that a "bold whole system approach is critical":

Marion Nestle is taking some heat on one of her blog posts from a group that calls itself the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF).

The Mississippi House of Representatives has floated a bill (HB 282, below) that would make it illegal to serve obese patrons.

The gentlemen below are the Bill's authors. From left to right: W. T. Mayhall, Jr. (R), John Read (R) , Bobby Shows (D). It appears to be a bipartisan effort.

No, really. A comprehensive, online, free!, encyclopedia of every living thing on the planet. One page for each. Millions of pages. And it's a wiki - a collaborative, updatable effort from people all over the world. I can't think of a more ambitious project facing the internet.

And it went live on Tuesday (although it may be slow, it's getting over a million hits per hour):
Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)

Here's what the New York Times had to say:
The Encyclopedia of Life, No Bookshelf Required

Here's its official blog:
Encyclopedia of Life Blog

Here are some sample pages (clicking the image will take you to EOL's demo page):

Yeti Crab

Death Cap Mushroom

I sure am glad it's not my job to come up with the best eating plan for all Americans, let alone the world.1 (The World Health Organization has my sympathy.) The choices and defenders of those choices are numerous and polarized.

Regarding carbohydrates, it may be that a low-carbohydrate diet, around 10% of calories, is the best eating plan for overall health for everyone. Alternatively, it may be that a high-carbohydrate diet, above 45% of calories, is. Research has not sufficiently compared and contrasted the two.

You may not know about, or you may know and may not agree with, the conclusions drawn by the data presented in the recently released book, The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health. On the other hand, maybe you've already embraced them.

Until after the esophagogastroduodenocolonoscopy.1 Well, not all eating. This is tonight's dinner:

And tomorrow's breakfast too. Actually, just 4 Dulcolax. But the whole bottle, 14 complete servings of that MiraLax must be enlisted to perform the unsubtle function.

I had reservations posting this. But, well, what's a blog for? So, if you have any experience with this procedure, your comments are welcome!
________1 A combined esophagogastroduodenoscopy and colonoscopy.
Photo: Homegrown. I wish it wasn't.

Melinda shared these photos of her garden-in-work:"Here are 3 pix of what I brought w/ me from the condo when we moved to the little house w/ big deck. As you see, so far they aren't in the ground, but I did just get the raised bed, so hopefully I'll get it together [soon]."

The photos below are from photographer Peter Menzel's 2005 book, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats.

Menzel traveled to 24 countries, visiting and photographing 30 families for the book. Each photo represents the weekly food intake for the families pictured. (Each family was asked to purchase, at Menzel's expense, a typical week's groceries. The book lists the food items in detail, broken down by food group and cost, along with how the food was raised and prepared.)

I came across Menzel's photos on Amber's Blog (on Gaia), her post from November 27, 2007. She has a few more there, and some interesting comments.

Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: $500.07

An NPR commentator asked a dairy farmer how Daylight Savings Time affects his cows. I thought it wouldn't, because cows live by a biological clock. That was my knee-jerk reaction.

The farmer said, "It's tough getting them up early!" *
(So, they make the cows live by man's clock.)
"And they don't produce as much."
(...)
"But it's not as bad as in the fall when we gain an hour!"
(Oh, no...)
"The cows get health problems in their udders because their milk builds up!"
(Why don't we just schedule people to work around the cows' cycle?)
________* I'm paraphrasing.
Photo: Dr. Baker milking cow, circa 1900, Texas.

They became unstuck in time a day later.
"So it goes."
- Billy Pilgrim 1________
Photo above: Homegrown, from a couple days ago. It's frozen water in the cut-off bottom of an old gallon jug. I use it as a water feeder for birds. They, however, use it as a bathtub. There's one particular female cardinal that sits in it at night (if it's warm enough) for about 5 minutes. The water comes up to her neck. She occasionally flutters her wings.

Famed for its wine. Wikipedia has Burgenland inhabited since the Stone Age. How many years ago that was, I can't tell. I wonder if Burgenlanders enjoyed wine back then.

Below is Willi Wetschka (right) and his friend in the barn of Wetschka's winery, 2007.

Click to enlarge.________

Do visit a Calorie Counter.

It also counts protein, fat, carbohydrate, fiber, and lots of other nutrients the USDA has tucked away in their data base. Uncluttered, fast, informative - government agencies in charge of food could learn from a site like this. :)

The owner of the site also has a blog. His last entry on November 6th points to a spectacular table he just created that compares basic nutrition facts for some popular foods from over 20 fast food restaurants:

Fast Food Restaurants & Nutrition Facts Compared

Lavender Blue shared these photos of her garden. (Click for larger.)

There was a full moon last night. It will be visible tonight too, and according to NASA, it will be the brightest full moon you'll see for the next 16 years:"That's because it's the highest-riding full moon until the year 2023."

Well, how about that. Mark Bittman has a blog. (Thank you, Melinda.)

Bitten: Mark Bittman on Food

It doesn't look like he posts often. Although he did make a few comments yesterday about his recent article that appeared in the New York Times, the one we discussed on my post, Got Vegetables?:

Eating Meat Is Only Human, Bitten, 5 Feb 2008

He lamented (I think he was lamenting), that he "got only two comments [on his original article]: one from a cattle rancher with some smart reasoning, and one from someone who was a little more emotional."

Ruby shared these photos of her garden. (Click for larger.): "Here are some pictures of what I have going on this year.

Talk about polarizing issues. While campaigning in South Carolina yesterday, presidential candidate Fred Thompson said:"I don’t think that it’s the primary responsibility of the federal government to tell you what to eat."Thompson: Don't Let The Government Tell You What To Eat

Melinda's raised-bed installation:

Click for larger.________Photos: Melinda

Boy, do I get excited over new foods. Red quinoa! New for me, old for people who live in the Andes Mountains of South America, who, according to the box, have been growing it for more than 5,000 years. I wonder what they served it with. Maybe it's old for lots of you too, but I'm having fun with it!

It's a little more crunchy than the white quinoa I'm used to, if you could call quinoa crunchy at all. Otherwise, it's pretty similar in taste and cooking time.

The rusty red color of the grain blooms to a foggy purple color when cooked. (Click for larger.)

Every day, a little bit of my faith blows away ...

Cancer Docs Profit From Chemotherapy Drugs
Situation begs the ethical question: Are they overprescribing?"The significant amount of our revenue comes from the profit, if you will, that we make from selling the drugs," says Dr. Peter Eisenberg, a private physician who specializes in cancer treatment.________

The residents of Alamosa City in Colorado do - and it's contaminated with Salmonella.

Here's a news article from this morning's Denver Post:
Alamosa Water Tainted: At least 33 contracted salmonella, and use of bottled water is urged

Here's the Colorado Department of Public Health's News Release:
Bottled Water Advisory Issued for Alamosa Residents

Residents have been advised not to drink the water. Boiling the water is not good enough. There are 33 confirmed cases and 46 suspected cases of Salmonella in the City so far.

This is not a good story. Lettuce you can clean (maybe). But, if it's in the water? Ouch.

This is a follow-up to my post, Dietary Fat Raises Insulin Levels.

Warren asked:"I am curious whether there is any detail provided in these studies regarding the types of fat, or is all fat, i.e., saturated, unsaturated, etc. lumped together?"The type of fat matters. The more saturated the fat, the more often it's associated with reductions in insulin sensitivity. The following study is often cited:

Substituting Dietary Saturated For Monounsaturated Fat Impairs Insulin Sensitivity In Healthy Men And Women: The KANWU Study, Diabetologia, 2001

Sometimes pointing to where it hurts doesn't give the best clue as to what's wrong. It doesn't help that human anatomy can vary so much.

Below are two images of the large intestine. There are 3 sections visible ... the ascending colon on your right side (left in pictures), the transverse colon that goes across the top, and the descending colon on your left side (right in pictures).

That's the title of this recent article in Scientific American:

Humans Carry More Bacterial Cells than Human Ones,
You are more bacteria than you are you, according to the latest body census

The American Heart Association (AHA) has an online tool called:
My Fats Translator"A calculator that translates our fat recommendations into daily limits just for you."The calculator returns:

• Daily calorie needs (including BMI, and where it falls on an underweight-overweight scale)
• Recommended range for total fats
• Limits for bad fats: saturated and trans

I tried it. Below were some recommendations. (The same examples were given for all my various entries.)

Michael Winner is an English film director, producer, and food critic for the UK's Sunday Times. He just wrote a book, "The Fat Pig Diet."

Here's an excerpt (1 stone = 14 pounds):

The Fat Pig Diet: Michael Winner's Guide To Getting Thin

The Swedish grocery store chain, ICA, is considered one of the most trusted retail brands in Sweden. It celebrated its 90 year anniversary this year.1

According to Wikipedia, a documentary aired on Swedish television last week that showed ICA employees:"... relabeling out-of-date ground meat, as well as grinding down other forms of meat past their 'best before' date to make ground meat (mince)."