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ONENESS, On truth connecting us all: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7421476B2

Monday, March 11, 2024

we CAN shift the world with our behavior

Endgame: Global Monopolization

One fact that many don't realize is just how few firms control the global food system, from seeds to supermarkets. As noted by Howard:

"The trend in most industries is for fewer and fewer firms to increase their power. One really dramatic example is the beer industry. Four firms headquartered in Europe brew about half the world's beer. That's going to go down to three very soon, because Anheuser-Busch InBev is acquiring SABMiller.

Even if you're a very dominant firm, you're caught up in this system where you have to get bigger or become acquired by your big competitors. But it's resulting in less and less people making decisions about the food we eat. There's even speculation that InBev is not increasing its sales enough, even with this acquisition, so they're going to have to acquire a big soft drink firm, perhaps even Coke or Pepsi."

With its $103 billion acquisition of SABMiller, InBev became one of the three largest food firms in the world. InBev also owns Anheuser-Busch, which produces Budweiser, one of the most well-known beer brands in the world. In some parts of the world, such as in Africa and Latin America, InBev has already established a monopoly.

Antitrust rules and regulations enacted by the federal government are meant to prevent these types of monopolies. In fact, when large corporations want to buy other large corporations, a rigorous evaluation process is required before they're authorized to merge. So how is it that this kind of monopoly-building is still happening? Howard explains:

"In the early 1900s, there were a number of laws passed to prevent these trusts, these combinations that resulted in monopolies in these markets. That changed dramatically beginning in the 1980s. Reagan was elected. He directed the heads of federal agencies to take a very different view toward mergers and acquisitions.

At the same time, federal judges were being indoctrinated into the Chicago School of Economics. They got paid to go on these junkets to Arizona, Florida, places like that. They played golf. Then they attended these seminars where they were taught mergers and acquisitions that, unless they immediately raised prices for consumers, were good for everyone.

As a result of just one of those programs, by the early '90s, two-thirds of federal judges had participated. It's essentially impossible to win an antitrust case in the federal courts now."

Concentration in the US Beer Industry

Monopolies Do Not Benefit the Public

The truth is, monopolies really only benefit the corporations in question, not the population at large. It merely reinforces the company's power, including their political clout. Many multinational corporate executives even serve on federal advisory committees and global trade agreement working groups.

Some of these international trade deals are kept secret even from the U.S. Congress, yet executives from large multinational firms are present during the negotiations. When large companies are able to influence the very regulatory agencies that are chartered to regulate them, they're able to circumvent the regulatory process, forming what is essentially a cartel.

"A good example is the seed industry. It was taken over by big chemical companies beginning in the 1980s. We got down to just six firms. Previously, there were over 30 firms. These big six chemical companies, which are also seed companies, have cross-licensing agreements for genetically engineered (GE) technologies.

The commodity farmers that want these GE traits, like herbicide resistance — the independent seed companies cannot access those technologies. They either become acquired by these firms or end up going out of business. Right now, it's possible that those big six will be reduced to just three.

BASF … has gotten out of the seed sales. Bayer's trying to acquire Monsanto, Dow and DuPont are planning to merge … [and] ChemChina, a Chinese-owned chemical company, is acquiring Syngenta."

https://philhoward.net/2017/05/11/seed-industry-structure/

https://philhoward.net/2017/05/08/organic-industry/

 

More Information

To learn more, pick up a copy of Howard's book, "Concentration and Power in the Food System: Who Controls What We Eat?" If you're interested in more details, they're all there. The take-home message is that you need to vote with your pocketbook and really make the commitment to eating real, unprocessed food. Ultimately, that's how we change this corrupt and distorted food system.

As noted by Howard, it's up to each and every one of us to find out who we are supporting with our hard-earned money. In a best-case, ideal-world scenario, everyone would start cutting down on processed foods. That's really key, because if you do that, you're not likely going to support a large corporation, particularly if you buy locally.

"We need to really start avoiding those big firms, these 10 firms that control one-third of food and beverage sales in the U.S. and be willing to spend more in some cases, if it means getting a higher-quality product, or using less of it, and supporting smaller and local and independent firms," Howard says.

It's important to realize we CAN shift the behavior of these corporations. They're investor-controlled and investors want profit. If their profits go down, they have to respond to public pressure. This is how we can get many of the toxic additives out of our food supply, and how we will get GE ingredients out.

All you have to do is don't buy those kinds of products. They can have all these elaborate systems set up and control all of the federal regulatory agencies, but if people aren't buying, none of that matters. In addition to that:

"Many of these big firms receive enormous subsidies, direct and indirect. One of the ways we can change things, not only by seeking out and supporting alternatives, is by putting pressure on the government to end these big subsidies and level the playing field," Howard says.

Sources and References

 

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Fwd: Your Gut Health and Carbonated Beverages?

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Fw: This Invisible Army Fights for Your Health, 3 Traps that 'Bomb' It

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This Invisible Army Fights for Your Health, 3 Traps that 'Bomb' It

This underrated part of your body is finally receiving the respect it deserves - and so are its trillions of inhabitants. If you treat it well, good health is likely to result - so be sure to avoid these three traps or you'll wreak havoc on your immune system.
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The human gut is finally receiving the respect it deserves — and so are its trillions of inhabitants.1 You are, at your core, a microbial being,2 and while microorganisms are found everywhere from your skin to your mouth and even your blood,3 it's your large intestine where your body's largest bacterial ecosystem resides.4

If you treat it and the rest of your microbiome well, good health — both mental and physical — is likely to result. By nourishing this complex microbial community, you can even influence your gut-brain axis, which regulates digestion, mood, immune function and much more.5

The Number of Microbes Living in Your Gut Is Staggering

Your gut is home to bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea and eukarya. The latter two resemble bacteria but are distinct groups of microorganisms. Bacteria, meanwhile, make up the vast majority of microbes in your microbiome. Three main phyla or groups of gut microbes make up the human microbiome and serve diverse structural, protective and metabolic functions:6

  • Bacteroidetes — Porphyromonas, Prevotella and Bacteroides
  • Firmicutes — Ruminococcus, Clostridium, Lactobacillus and Eubacteria
  • Actinobacteria — Bifidobacteria (the most prevalent type)

Broken down, the average person may host the following quantities of bacteria in different body regions.7 Remember that this is just an average — your age, health status, diet and environment all influence the numbers and diversity of microorganisms in your gut.8


Your Gut-Brain Axis Is an Information Highway

Gut microbes' effects don't only apply to your gastrointestinal tract. They interact with your central nervous system via the microbiota-gut-brain axis, a two-way information highway that involves neural, immune, endocrine and metabolic pathways.24 By promoting proinflammatory cytokines, bacteria may also play a role in damaging the integrity of the microbiota-gut-brain axis and the blood-brain barrier.25

There are also 10 gut microbiota genera with a significant link to Alzheimer's. Six are negatively associated with Alzheimer's, meaning they're less common in people with Alzheimer's than in those without the disease and may therefore have a protective effect.

The remaining four are positively associated with Alzheimer's, meaning they're more abundant in those with Alzheimer's disease, making them a risk factor for the condition. Specifically:26

  • Bacteria protective against Alzheimer's include Firmicutes phylum (Eubacterium nodatum group, Eisenbergiella and Eubacterium fissicatena group) as well as from Actinobacteria (Adlercreutzia, Gordonibacter) and Bacteroidetes (Prevotella 9)
  • Bacteria associated with Alzheimer's include Firmicutes (Lachnospira and Veillonella), Actinobacteria (Collinsella) and Bacteroidetes (Bacteroides)

What's Hurting Your Microbial Health?

Researchers are only beginning to tap the surface when it comes to unveiling the complex relationship microbes have with human health and disease. But it's known that microbial diversity in your gut is a good thing, while decreased diversity in the gut microbiome has been linked to chronic conditions such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

In general, gut microbial diversity decreases with age,27 but even younger people are being affected. The overuse of antibiotics, elective C-sections and processed foods have been described as primary factors "driving the destruction of our inner ecology."28 C-section delivery is associated with an increased risk of immune system and metabolic disorders, possibly due to altered microbes.29

Dramatic increases in chronic diseases, including Type 1 diabetes, asthma, obesity, gastroesophageal reflux disease and inflammatory bowel disease, are also linked to the loss of bacterial diversity in our guts — caused by the overuse of antibiotics.30 Consumption of whole foods, meanwhile, is linked to higher gut microbiota diversity,31 as is consuming herbs and spices, for instance.32

But processed foods, which are devoid of fiber needed to feed a healthy microbiome, contain chemicals such as the herbicide glyphosate that also disrupt microbes.33 From EMFs and air pollution34 to antibacterial soap, your microbiome is under constant assault from the world around you.

How to Optimize Your Gut Microbiome

Avoiding antibiotics, including those found in conventionally raised meat, is key to keeping your microbiome health intact. Ultraprocessed foods, artificial sweeteners, chlorinated and fluoridated water, elective C-sections and antibacterial products are other culprits that can worsen your microbial health.

A healthy gut microbiome depends on the consumption of fermented foods. A study assigned 36 adults to consume a diet high in fermented foods or high-fiber foods for 10 weeks. Those consuming fermented foods had an increase in microbiome diversity as well as decreases in markers of inflammation.35

If you do take antibiotics or are looking for another supportive measure for gut health, consider spore-based probiotics, or sporebiotics. These are part of a group of derivatives of the Bacillus microbe and have been shown to dramatically increase your immune tolerance.

Spore-based probiotics do not contain any live Bacillus strains, only its spores — the cell wall or protective shell around the DNA and the working mechanism of that DNA. As such, they are not affected by antibiotics and may be able to reestablish your gut microbiome more effectively when taken in conjunction with the antibiotic.

In your gut, the Bacillus species also convert sugar into vitamin C, a nutrient well-known for its anti-infectious effects and, according to Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, a long-time mentor of mine, sporebiotics also massively increase reproduction of acidophilus, bifidus and other beneficial microbes in your gut via the electromagnetic messages they send out.

This is entirely unique. When you take a regular probiotic, they primarily take care of themselves. Bacillus spores, on the other hand, enhance many other beneficial microbes. Bacillus spores also create 24 different substances that have strong antimicrobial properties. But they do not kill indiscriminately the way antibiotics do. As noted by Klinghardt:

"Seeding the gut with things that make it stronger, more resilient towards the offenses we present to it is a huge key to our time. We need to live through this insane time, and we need to use all the tools that give us more resilience, which is for me like a holy war.

Resilience means immune tolerance — tolerating the stresses of our time, and any tool that does it, that is healthy, that doesn't have side effects, is important to have in our tool chest. [Sporebiotics] is one of the major ones."

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References



Papaya Supports Digestive Health

Papaya Supports Digestive Health

Rich in fiber and with a high water content, this nutrient-dense fruit naturally supports a healthy digestive tract. However, its secret "ingredient" for digestion is papain. A study published in Metabolites explains:5

"Due to their antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antithrombotic, anticancer, fibrinolytic, and immunomodulatory properties, these two enzymes [papain and bromelain from pineapple] have found numerous applications in medicine as digestive assistance, as a potential adjunct in cancer therapy, in the treatment of osteoarthritis, diarrhea, sinusitis, sports injuries and respiratory tract diseases (as a mucolytic), as well as in food production, textile industry, and cosmetics."

Further, papain and other papaya extracts have antibacterial properties against multiple enteropathogens, including E. coli, listeria and salmonella, and as such have been used in food products to enhance safety. In a study on mice, papain was found to decrease potentially disease-causing proteobacteria while increasing beneficial Akkermansia muciniphila, suggesting "beneficial effects on the gut microbiota."6

Increasing evidence also supports the use of fruit proteases like papain for prevention of colitis, inflammatory bowel disease and other chronic diseases, including diabetes, cancer and heart disease,7 while the researchers concluded, "Oral administration of bromelain and papain to healthy young mice demonstrated a stimulatory effect on pancreatic function, resulting in improved digestion capacity of dietary protein."8

In the Metabolites study, papain was found to significantly increase trypsin activity in the pancreas, likely due to enhanced bioavailability of amino acids from the breakdown of dietary protein. This is another sign of its digestive support, the team explained:9

"Papain boosted the presence of active trypsin in the cecum [the beginning of the large intestine], which was accompanied by reduced protein content in the chyme [partly digested food]. Thus, it is assumed that a plant enzyme-enriched diet could influence the hydrolysis of proteins into short-chain peptides, which increases food digestibility and modifies gut microbiota composition …

[W]e presume that fruit proteases have the potential to alter the gut microbiome by enhancing protein-digestive capacity, providing substrates for bacterial metabolic requirements."

Papaya Provides a Wealth of Nutrition

Papain is just one reason to enjoy this sweet, juicy fruit. Papaya is also a rich source of phytochemicals, including alkaloids, phenolic compounds, carotenoids and glucosinolates. Micronutrients, including calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper and manganese, are also found in papaya, as are magnesium, potassium, vitamin C, vitamin E and B complex vitamins. A literature review published in Foods continued:13

"Lycopene, the main pigment in red pulp papaya, has important health implications as a strong antioxidant due to its great capacity for scavenging free radicals among carotenoids, closely followed by β-cryptoxanthin and β-carotene. Seeds are rich in phenolic compounds, including benzyl isothiocyanate, glucosinolates, β-carotene, and carotenoids.

… Usually, only papaya pulp is consumed, and ripe fruit is a carminative, diuretic, expectorant, sedative, and has preventive action against dysentery, skin diseases, psoriasis, and ringworm. The unripe fruit is used as a remedy for ulcers and impotence, reducing menstrual irregularities, and promoting natural menstruation flow in women.

… Papaya juice helps in relieving colon infections and gastrointestinal maladies, such as dyspeptic and celiac disease, whose patients cannot digest wheat protein gliadin but can tolerate it if treated with crude papain. In fact, two important compounds of papaya are chymopapain and papain, which are widely useful for digestive disorders and disturbance of the gastrointestinal tract."

Fermenting Papaya May Boosts Its Benefits

Fermented papaya is also receiving attention as a nutraceutical with anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, anticancer and antioxidant properties. Due to its potential to reduce oxidative stress, it may be useful for Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, allergic disease, cancer and antiaging support.14

In one study, individuals who ate fermented papaya for six months experienced a significant reduction in one biomarker of oxidative stress damage to DNA, increased aging and the development of cancer.15

Further, fermenting dietary fibers from papaya also leads to the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which play a role in building the gut barrier, making it less permeable to disease-causing microorganisms.16 Fermented papaya preparations have even been found to favorably modulate gut microbiota in older adults receiving their nutrition from feeding tubes.17

With both anti-inflammatory and immune-modulatory properties, fermented papaya preparations contain both prebiotics and probiotics, and may help stimulate the immune system in the colon.18

What Else Is Papaya Good For?

Beyond gut health, papaya exerts a number of additional beneficial effects on human health. Papaya leaf extract, for instance, significantly increased platelet and red blood cell counts in an animal study,19 while papain may have antiobesity effects.

In a study on obese mice, papain reduced body weight, lipid accumulation and inflammation, with the team concluding, "Collectively, these results suggest that papain exerts anti-obesity effects … by regulating levels of adipogenic factors involved in lipid metabolism and inflammation; thus, it could be useful in the prevention and treatment of obesity."20 They continued:

"As a popular folk remedy, papain was used to reduce pain, inflammation, infection, swelling, diarrhea, and allergies, in addition to improving digestion. It is also known for its wound healing properties, antibacterial activity, and exhibits inhibitory effects on platelet activation, monocyte-platelet aggregate formation, strongyloidiasis, atherosclerosis and peritoneal adhesion."

Papaya also shows promise for diabetes. Supplementation with fermented papaya preparation for 14 weeks led to improvements in several organs affected by oxidative stress during diabetes. Levels of C-reactive protein significantly decreased, while the LDL/HDL ratio was also affected. The study's authors, from the University of Mauritius, explained:21

"FPP® [fermented papaya preparation] may present a novel, economically feasible nutraceutical supplement for the management of diabetes and for those at risk for cardiovascular disease, neurological disease and other conditions worsened by overt inflammation and oxidative stress."

Papaya's anticancer effects are also being explored. In one study of 14 plants foods, only papaya extract had a significant antiproliferative effect against breast cancer cells.22

Papaya extract has been explored for the treatment of breast, liver, blood, pancreas, skin, prostate and colon cancers,23 while Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center explains, "Papaya leaf extract modulates the immune system by enhancing the production of Th1 cytokines such as interleukin-12, interferon-gamma, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha."24

Extracts from the black seeds of ripe papaya have also been found to have anticancer effects on prostate cancer cells, leading to significantly decreased proliferation.25


Sources and References

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Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Fwd: Delaying the Inevitable