EFTA00849833.pdf

From: Gregory Brown To: undisclosed-recipients:; Bce: jeevacation@gmail.com Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.. 08/02/2015 Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2015 01:22:59 +0000 Attachments: Scientistsissue_Waming_Over_Chemicals_Common_In_Carpets„Coats„Cookware_Lynn e_Peeples_Huff_Post_May_l ,2015.docx; Expose_Book_Reveals_Shocking_Secrets_of_the_Proc_essed_Food_Industry_Dr_Mercola _May_3,_2015.docx; Playing_Through_Pain_Can_Be_Selfless„as_Well_as_Senseless_WILLIAM_C„RHODE N_NYT_May_9,_2015.docx; Erykah_Badu_bio.docx; The_World's_Biggest_Employers_Infographic_Niall_McCarthy_Forbes_06.23.2015.docx Inline-Images: image.png; image(I).png; image(2).png; image(3).png; image(4).png; image(5).png; image(6).png; image(7).png; image(8).png; image(9).png; image(10).png; image(11).png; image(12).png; image(13).png; image(14).png DEAR FRIEND Terrorism is Terrorism No Matter Who the Terrorist Are Jewish Arsonists Suspected in West Bank Attack That Killed Palestinian Toddler Inline image 1 EFTA00849833  Mourners bury the remains of 18 month-Old Ali Saad Dawabsheh in the West Village of Duma on Friday. If there has ever been an outrage in Palestine few have been worse than the arsonist bombing of a Palestinian family in the little hamlet of Duma in the West Bank that killed 18 month-old Ali Saad Dawabsheh and seriously injured/burned his father, mother and brother. Both witnesses and officials attributed the attack on Friday to Jewish extremists because of Hebrew graffiti sprayed nearby. "Revenge!"was written on one wall, next to a Star of David. Two witnesses said they saw two masked men outside the house watching as the family burned. Outside, Saad, 32, lay writhing on the ground. Nearby, his wife, Riham, 27, was still on fire. Their 4- year-old son, Ahmad, could be heard crying inside the burning house, and his brother, 18monthold Ali, was already dead. "The hardest thingfor me, was that there were two burning people on the ground, and two people were just standing over them,"said a neighbor, Ibrahim Dawabsheh, who like many in this Palestinian village shared a common last name. 'They didn't even care that the child was still crying inside." Israeli and Palestinian politicians branded the firebombing in this hilltop village of 3,000 as terrorism, the latest in a summer marked by repeated violence. Dozens of residents of the village gathered around the family's charred home, where a relative had tossed a baby bottle still sloshing with milk atop a pile of blackened furniture and burned blankets. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, called the arson attack a "brutal assassination" and said it was "a direct consequence of decades of impunity given by the Israeli government to settler terrorism." President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said that he would ask the International Criminal Court to investigate the attack as a war crime, local news sites reported. "Steps beyond words also have to be taken," Mr. Abbas said. Israeli politicians across the spectrum quickly condemned the arson as "a terror attack," a term usually reserved for Palestinian violence against Jews. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday afternoon visited Ahmad and Mrs. Dawabsheh in the hospital, where they were in critical condition. "We are shocked by it, we condemn itfully, the entire Israeli government and all the citizens of Israel. We decry it as a terrorist crime,"Mr. Netanyahu said afterward. "We will use all the tools at our disposal to bring them to justice and to see justice served to them." The attack revived painful memories of the abduction and killing last July of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, i6, who was burned alive by Jewish extremists after he was snatched from his East Jerusalem neighborhood. The past month, while hardly comparable to last year's war between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, has been marked by an unsettling string of violent incidents. Four Palestinians have been fatally shot by Israeli soldiers in recent weeks. Palestinians have also targeted Israelis, including Malakhi Rosenfeld, 26, who was fatally shot by Palestinian militants a month ago in the West Bank while he and four friends were driving home from a basketball game. The firebombing was quickly attributed to the movement Israelis call "price tag," in which extremist Jews attack Palestinian holy places or property in retribution for their own government's actions regarding settlements. Settlers were forcibly removed from two apartment blocks that were bulldozed n Beit El this week, as the government pushed forward the construction of 300 new housing units. It could have been revenge: Duma lies near several Jewish settlements, including Shilo, where Mr. Rosenfeld was killed. The Israeli military announced on July 19 that it had arrested several Hamas members they accused of Mr. Rosenfeld's killing and of another shooting two days earlier. EFTA00849834 Palestinians and their supporters questioned whether the perpetrators of Friday's arson attack would be treated similarly to Palestinians who kill Israelis. Israel has long been criticized for not vigilantly investigating pricetag attacks or punishing their offenders. Gilad Erdan, minister of internal security, said on Friday that he was giving the Duma case "top priority" and that the suspects "should end their lives behind bars." Following the attack in Duma, Hamas, the militant Palestinian movement, called for a "day of rage" on Friday. Local media reported some clashes with Israeli soldiers Friday afternoon in Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, Hebron and near a checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah; one Palestinian man was shot in the abdomen, a medic said. Israeli troops also shot a Palestinian man near Ramallah, who they said threw a lit projectile at them. In Gaza, a Palestinian teenager was shot dead as he tried to scale a fence to enter Israel, a military spokesman said. Witnesses said that they saw masked men in black clothing throw firebombs through the windows of two homes near the village entrance around 2 a.m., shortly after the family returned from visiting relatives. Mr. Dawabsheh, the neighbor, and another eyewitness, Ali Raqi, 21, both said they saw two men standing over the couple, their clothes still alight. "I reached the house, and I found Saad, lying on the ground," said Mr. Raqi, who was awake, unable to sleep from the heat. "Riham was there, by the well," he said. "Riham told me, I have a son,for the sake of God, help him." The masked men fled, and residents pulled the parents and 4 year-old Ahmad to a nearby house. We often hear about Palestinian terrorist but since 2006 there have been more than 2100 terrorist attacks against Palestinians living in the West Bank by Jewish settlers with most of the Jewish terrorism going unpunished.... This should not and cannot be tolerated. And only time will tell if the Israeli officials do the right thing and apprehend and punished these ungodly terrorist Because terrorism by anyone whether it be Arab or Jew, American or Russian, religious or atheist should not be tolerated in a humane society.... The Next Decade Will Decide What the World Looks Like for Thousands of Decades to Come Intim image EFTA00849835 The next to years will be decisive when it comes to the planet's future -- what we do (or don't) will play out over geologic time. It could, if we set our minds to it, be the decade when the planet's use of fossil fuels peaks and then rapidly declines. We've built a movement that, for the moment, is starting to tie down the fossil fuel industry: from the tarsands of Alberta to the (as yet unbuilt) giant new mines of Australia's Galilee Basin, the big players in coal, gas, and oil are bothered and even bewildered by a new strain of activist. They're losing on the image front: when the Rockefeller family, the Church of England, and Prince Charles have begun divesting their fossil fuel stocks, you know the tide has turned. And with it comes the sudden chance to replace that fossil fuel, fast and relatively easily. Out of nowhere the price of solar panels has fallen like an anvil from a skyscraper, dropping 75 percent in the last six years. Renewable energy is suddenly as cheap or cheaper than the bad stuff, even before you figure in the insane monetary cost of global warming. So in Bangladesh they're solarizing 60,000 huts a month; the whole country may be panelled by 2020. "The next 10 years will be decisive when it comes to the planet's future -- what we do (or don't) will play out over geologic time." That rapid change wouldn't be enough to stop global warming -- we're already seeing drastic changes, as anyone living through California's drought can attest. Well continue to see record-breaking years (like 2014. And like 2015 so far). We'll have to deal with record flooding. The ocean will grow more acidic. But maybe, if we really ratchet up the transition we'll avoid a challenge of civilization-scale. Or, of course, we could change slowly, the way the Koch Brothers would like. (And for that matter, most political leaders). We could do nothing out of the ordinary, and wait three or four decades for solar power to replace fossil fuel. It would rattle the fewest cages in the short run. And in the long run it would, by most of the computer models, condemn us to four or five degrees Celsius of global warming - - enough to take the world utterly out of the rhythms of the Holocene, enough to call into question our ability to grow sufficient food or find sufficient water. The next decade is decisive because trajectory counts for so much; if we bend it now, we may slide the car to a halt with just the front tires hanging off the cliff. But if we sail on for a few more years, it's pretty clear we're fast and furiously going airborne -- that's what happens when, say, Arctic permafrost starts to melt in earnest, releasing clouds of methane. So it's not too much to say that the next decade will decide what the world looks like for thousands of decades to come. We all get front row seats -- but we can all be actors too, if only we'll join the growing movement to do something about it. Bill McKibben - Huffington Post — May 6, 2015 ****** Playing Sports With Pain Is it wise to played injured EFTA00849836 As someone who grew of age watching professional football, basketball and baseball players being herald because they were playing with obvious debilitating injuries making them eligible for the All Madden's team of guts, glory and bit of blood. I remember New York Giant quarterback Y. A. Tittle, who after obviously being knock out and bloodied in a previous play going back into the game after having suffered a concussion and cracked sternum. Or Willis Reed hobbling onto a basketball court in the 1970 NBA Finals with a torn thigh muscle to take on Walt Chamberlain and the LA Lakers that inspired his New York Knickerbocker team to victory. And All-Pro Football Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott, who had the tip of his left pinky finger amputated after the 1985 season when it was crushed by tackling running back Timmy Newsome, and a bone graft surgery wouldn't have him ready in time for the 1986 season. But isn't this crazy. In a New York Times article William Rhoden wrote - Playing Through Pain Can Be Selfless, as Well as Senseless - about how Chicago Bulls All Star point guard Derrick Rose who refused to play until his body fully recovered from a sports inquiry. Rose, the Bulls' superstar, had faced mountains of criticism from fans and the sports media for putting himself and his health first. Rose has sustained a succession of knee injuries that have tested his physical and mental mettle. Brilliant and prophetic. Yet Rose was widely criticized by fans and by reporters, who warned Rose that his legacy would tainted if he failed to play hurt. Three months later, Rose sustained another meniscus tear in his right knee and was ruled out indefinitely, though he returned in April and is playing in his first playoff series since 2012. In some minds — in fact, in many minds — Rose has betrayed a code that mandates that athletes play with pain that they suck it up. He was called a coward. Some called for him to him be traded. One website commenter called Rose a better businessman than a player or a teammate. This reflects a contemporary environment in which broken bones, torn ligaments and fractures, no matter how horrific, are regarded like cartoon violence and video games: The safe falls on Wile E. Coyote's head, but he comes back in the next scene for more hilarious punishment. Rose has pushed back against this loose-ball mentality during his relatively brief career. So should Wall. EFTA00849837 The best example of a promising young athlete paying a steep price for unwisely pushing through injury is Robert Griffin III, the Washington quarterback. Griffin tried to push through a knee injury in 2012 when he should have shut himself down — or been shut down by management — for the season. Now Griffin has been robbed of the speed and agility that made him so special, and Washington may have lost a-once-in-a-lifetime talent. Injuries are part of sports. Coming back from injuries is part of the glory of sport. If you're smart. Doing so, no matter how much the pressure is stupid. And it is stupid for the team, fans in addition to the player. By the way Rose returned from injury to play in the Bulls' season opener against the New York Knicks on October 29, 2014 and recorded 13 points and 5 assists in 21 minutes of action. He went on to score a season-high 32 points on January 14 against the Washington Wizards, before being ruled out again with another knee injury a month later. He appeared in 51 games, the most he'd played since the 2010-11 season. On February 24, it was announced Rose required another round of surgery on his right knee and was ruled out indefinitely. An exam and subsequent MRI confirmed a medial meniscus tear of the right knee, the same injury he sustained on November 22, 2013 against the Portland Trail Blazers. On February 27, he was deemed a possibility of returning toward the end of the season after he underwent successful surgery and was ruled out for just four to six weeks. Rose returned to action on April 8 after a 20-game absence, and working on a minutes restriction, he was 3-of-9 from the field and finished with nine points in 19 minutes as the Bulls lost to the Orlando Magic. On April 18, Rose played in his first playoff game since Game 1 of the 2012 playoffs (the game where he tore his left ACL). Rose finished with 23 points and 7 assists on 9-of-16 shooting. During the Bulls' first round series against the Bucks, Rose averaged 21.5 points per game. On May 8, Rose banked in a three-pointer at the buzzer and scored 30 points to give the Bulls a 99-96 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers and a 2-1 lead in the Eastern Conference semi-finals. Why The Truth About The War In Iraq Is So Important Because When We Do We Are Destine To Repeat This Disastrous Mistake Again Inline image 1. EFTA00849838  Chris Matthews on the truth about the Iraq War Web Link: https://youtu.be/CreV9scJdpw -- Please see the video on the web link before reading below. Let me finish tonight with something that truly matters. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once noted we are entitled to our own opinions but not to our own facts. The fact that came forth here last night was pure, clear and stunning. The leaders of our country led by Vice President Dick Cheney led this country, bugled it into a war on a claim we know now to have been confected by Mr. Cheney himself. It was Cheney who told us, the American people, that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons. It was he who sounded the bugle call of war, he who convinced the skeptics that we had no choice but to invade, conquer and occupy a country that had neither nuclear weapons nor a role in 9/11. How do we know this? Well, you know what because the deputy director of the CIA, the man who briefed the White House on a daily basis about Iraq never once said that it possessed nuclear weapons. Never once made that clear here last night. So, the next time someone says that we made a mistake going into Iraq, please correct that person, say yes, yes, some of us made a mistake believing Dick Cheney, and the rest, and some of us believed him when the vice president said Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. I guess we weren't smart or suspicious enough to imagine a tough person like him would make something up just to get us into a war. But the next time Dick Cheney or one of his crowd says going into Iraq war was based on bad intelligence, say this: I don't believe a word you say. You took us into a war on evidence that didn't exist, that no one ever said existed. Go away and stop doing damage to a country I love. And that's HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us. Chris Matthews — Hardball — May 20, 2015 ****** My Family can't live on $6.9 Million EFTA00849839  lit Inline image 1 You often hear things out of people's mouths that let you know that they are absolutely crazy, and I am not taking politics because it seems that much that comes out of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz's mouths recently lets you know that they are leading the clown car instead of running for highest office in the country. But in the age of our vastly overpaid and often coddled professional athletes, the recent comment by journeyman and former NBA All Star Josh Smith, during a Los Angeles Clippers news conference last week to introduce the newly signed forward, complained that one of his biggest challenges would be to live on the meager salary of $6.9 million for one year. "At the end of the day, you know, I do have a family," he told reporters. "So it is going to be a little harder on me this year. But I'm going to push through it, you know?' First of all, prior to this contract Josh Smith has already made more than $97 million in salaries over his eleven year NBA career and his performance had deteriorated to the point that he was cut from the Detroit Piston who still had to pay him $5.4 million to not play for them. Yet, Smith was upset that he had to sign for the NBA veteran's yearly minimum of $1.5 million — That adds up to just $6.9 million next season -- a far cry from the over $13 million he was making just two years ago. Smith seem to be paying homage to former NBA star Latrell Sprewell by focusing on his family's impending financial struggles. Remember when Sprewell deemed the Minnesota Timberwolves' three-year, $30 million contract offer as "insulting". "I'm at risk. I have a lot of risk here. I got my family to feed," Sprewell told the Free Republic in 2004. And so does Smith. Somehow, some way, Josh Smith and his family will have to figure out how to survive on just $6.9 million during the upcoming NBA season. And let's remember that this contract pushes Smith through the $100 million mark for total NBA earnings. Yet this idiot has the gall of suggesting that he is being underpaid and his family will suffer Well Mr. Smith if your family ends up destitute it will not because he didn't make enough money or the NBA was cruel. It will be because like many professional athletes You are a knucklehead and this is my rant of the week.... WEEK's READINGS EFTA00849840  5 Lies Employers Use to Not Give You a Raise Inline image 1 Not too long ago I read a Huffington Post article by Brian de Haaff - 5 Lies Employers Use to Not Give You a Raise. The point of the article was that although the economy is making a comeback, the average wage increase for 2015 is expected to be in 3% range, and still below pre- recession levels, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. But what truly interested me is that many companies are recording record incomes yet very little of this new largess is trickling down to employees. While senior executives and investors received huge compensation -- and somehow no one cares as the collective has drank the Kool-aid. Case in point, is that last year Disney Corporation had a record $7.5 billion in profit, which was 22% higher than 2013. As a result, its CEO, Robert Iger was awarded $46.5 million in total compensation which was a 35% increase over 2013 which was a 26% increase over 2012. At the same time employees were given on average a 3% yearly pay increase. As for the investor class, the richest 17 people in America made more than $137 billion dollars last year alone or more than the bottom 140 million Americans. Yet, few people in power see this as a problem. As the CEO and a founder of Aha!, "this trend troubles me. Raises are important. We make sure our employees are well-compensated for their efforts. We set a high bar for hiring, so they know they are part of something special when they come on board. We are open about the performance of the company and how each individual contributes to the company's success." A raise in salary is a reward that shows that employee's hard work is paid off. And generally this happens at least once a year. However, in many companies, raises have been hard to come by, especially for the last few years. Claiming uncertainty and more than often blaming President Obama and his economic policies, even many of the companies that enjoyed record profits last year have been stingy in awarding pay raises for employees. It's bad enough to not get a raise when you know you deserve one. I know because there were years when I and my fellow workers met all of the company's objectives, and our paycheck stayed the same. What is worse, is when you know the reasons you were given for not getting paid more were lies. Here are the top five lies that Brian de Haaff says employers use to explain why their employees will not be getting a raise. EFTA00849841  It's not in the budget The lie here is that the company will only allow for raises that are part of the annual budget. However, the painful truth is that your employer has the money, but does not want to spend it on you. Chances are that your work colleagues have already received their raises. If the company truly values your contributions, they will find room in the budget to reward you. Sales are down this year Have you ever heard this one? There is a pot of money for raises, but the pot is empty because of the company's performance. This lie is easy to spot if sales figures are readily available. Unless your compensation is directly based on sales commissions, the company should not point to low sales to justify denying you a raise -- especially if you can prove your outstanding performance in spite of lackluster sales. You have not been here long enough This lie is especially painful if you are a recent hire, and you are diligently working to make a good impression. To hear that you haven't proven yourself yet keeps you believing your performance is not up to par. This lie forces you to keep striving toward a brass ring that may be forever out of your reach. You can tell this lie if your employer will not give you a specific goal to work toward for the next round of raises. You are paid the market rate If the boss says your pay is based on the national average for your position, not according to your performance, you are really hearing that you are not special. Although you worked harder than the rest of your team members, your effort does not matter. Do not swallow this painful lie. Market rates should only be a starting point for salary negotiations and should not determine the trajectory of your career. We will make it happen next year This is the most dangerous lie. Why? This lie trivializes your contributions, and is an ugly cousin to 'just relax - what are you worried about?" It minimizes the importance of your action and the time you are investing in the company. Worse, you may hear this lie year after year. Not only does your employer fail to take you seriously, they do not see how stringing you along wrecks your confidence. EFTA00849842 Smart employers recognize the value of their employees, and they find a way to give them a raise. Even a company that is genuinely struggling should continue to invest in employees. Employees are their most important asset. Rewarding employees with a pay increase is a sign of goodwill from the employer, reaffirming the employee's worth to the company. When an employer lies to make workers think that they don't deserve a raise, it makes one wonder what else they are lying about. Ultimately, a company that is dishonest to its faithful employees does not deserve them. And once an employee recognizes that fact, they should move on to a company who knows a valuable employee when they see one Because working at a company that won't share the wealth is as stupid as not be willing to cut back your own work rules, salary and benefits when a company is struggling. Living in a bubble China's Ghost Cities and Malls Inline image 1 China's Ghost Cities and Malls: https://youtu.be/rPiLhinv-th, It is hard to remember that as recently as two decades ago owning your own home in China was a alien concept to almost all Chinese because in the early days of communist China everyone was given a place to live. If we use the property price to income ratio to gauge the affordability of housing in China we see that for most Chinese buying a house in unattainable. Whereas the global average of a family buying a 100 sq meter home takes five years, in China that number is 15, and remember that this requires families to use "all" of their income (including moneyforfood, clothes, transportation, etc.) toward the purchase of the home. And one of the reasons is that between 2005 and 2008 property values tripled in China as many wealthy Chinese began buying up apartments without any thought of moving in, or renting them to others, further driving a wave of speculation. EFTA00849843 Further complicating matters is the Chinese wave of private lending, whereby a middleman would solicit monies from individuals, families and groups to lend to developers and businesses who would pay 3o% and sometimes more in interest. And like almost all Ponzi schemes by 2010 many loans were defaulted on. And since most of the lenders received no collateral, they often lost all of their money, including the interest payments as many reinvested them as well. This happened because of a false sense of security that the Chinese property boom could go on forever. And for a while it did as prices sometimes jumped US$15,000 in a day at its peak. It was a classic bubble as developers were on a building spree. And investors were snapping up multiple apartments on the expectation that prices would keep going up and up. Ordos, China in Inner Mongolia - built for a million with less than 70,000 inhabitants Never mind, that many apartments were built in the middle of nowhere. Also it didn't matter if there were more houses than there were people, as everyone drank the cool aid with reckless abandonment. It was estimated in 2011 that there were enough new apartments completed or being built to give everyone a brand new home in Ordos (the largest of the ghost cities in China), with 90,000 units to spare. And though it is estimated today that the government of Ordos currently owe US$800 million to contractors that it can't cover, it still is still continuing to build an additional 400 miles of new highways, 14 industrial parks and 15 power stations. And how they plan to pay for all of this.... no one knows. Needless to say today there is a property bubble in China that its government chooses to ignore and refuses to discuss. It is the massive over supply and massive over-valuations of property across the country. There are an estimated 64 million empty apartments in China and dozens of brand new empty cities, some of which are still be built. In order to continue the country's economic growth, the government has allowed this bubble to go on. China is able to do this because it is a "command economy," whereby the government can dictate how and where resources are spent. As such, the central government sets a GDP target number which local communities have to meet, and building is the easiest way to do so. What is being ignored is that the quantity of the GDP, is not as important as the quality of the GDP. A second point, is that when you are building stuff where there is little or no demand, you could be creating a larger problem in the future. Finally, many of these new units sell for $70,000 to $100,000 and a lot more, which are astronomical prices for the average Chinese person or family. And again, making matters worse, is that most of the apartments being sold, are to buyers who live elsewhere and are purchasing them as investments. But unlike with the U.S. housing bubble of 2008, most buyers in EFTA00849844 China are required to put down 5o% up front with the remainder paid within three years, cutting down the chance of a mortgage meltdown like what happened in the United States in 2008. In the top tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai there is rampant speculation pushing prices far beyond the means of the average Chinese worker or family, as well as driving up prices elsewhere in the country. While many of these poorer Chinese view owning a home as a basic human right — and that government should provide subsidies. At the same time hundreds of millions of Chinese live cramped in one or two room apartments often with several families living in the same few rooms using a communal bathroom and kitchen for the entire building. More and more, China experts are saying that this could become a social problem for the government as there are currently hundreds of thousands of vacant apartments with this number growing, while at the same time hundreds of millions of people are living in cramp substandard dwellings unable to reach the "dream" of home ownership. An obvious recipefor disaster.... Web Link: https://youtu.be/GpnoPhYdm The government of China plays down these negatives saying that it is going to move more than 400 million Chinese peasant from the rural areas into cities which they say will fill these "ghost" cities. Except that that many of these new city dwellers will be older in age, having spent their entire lives tilling the fields, so one has to wonder what kind of jobs that they will be able do in their new urban environment/city. By the way the bubble is also over in the stock market as the Chinese Stock Market has lost more than 40% of its value in the last several months.... The World's Biggest Employers [Infographic] EFTA00849845  Inline image 1 Given the size of their populations, many people generally assume that the world's largest employers are Chinese or Indian. However, according to research published by the World Economic Forum, the US Department of Defense boasts a workforce of 3.2 million people, making it the largest global employer. The Chinese military, the People's Liberation Army, is in second position with a force of 2.3 million. Walmart and McDonald's come third and fourth with 2.1 and 1.9 million employees respectively (the number for McDonald's includes franchises). England's National Health Service (NHS) makes a surprising appearance in fifth place with a 1.7 million strong workforce — more than Indian Railways or the Indian armed forces. ****** Secrets of the Processed Food Industry Exposé Book Reveals Inline image 4 EFTA00849846 Web Link: littps:figoutit.be/JeFTvC zVbA Almost every doctor and nutritionist will tell you that processed foods although convenient are not good for one's body and as a result avoiding processed foods is one of the keys to staying healthy. And although I normally don't take the medical website Mercola.com that seriously I do monitor it time to time because some of the articles covered are often contrary to the status quo, hence interesting. And because I knew that my generation is consuming too much processed food I was drawn to the article titled — Exposé Book Reveals Shocking Secrets of the Processed Food Industry. The book is by Scottish author and award winning investigative journalist, Joanna Blythman. It is a behind-the-scenes exposé book, Swallow This: Serving Up the Food Industry's Darkest Secrets, that delves into the details of what makes processed food the antithesis of a healthy diet. And the tease line — If you have any concerns about thefood you're eating, this is a must-read book. It will radically increase your appreciation ofjust how processed yourfood really is and enlighten you to many of the deceptive tricks the industry uses tofool you. The article admits that it's quite challenging to avoid processed foods as nearly all of us eat at restaurants occasionally. And as a result, the only question is how much? Joanna says that she has written six other books over the past two decades but most dealt with the production side of food: how and what goes on in fields, what goes on in farms, how to tell a good chicken from a bad chicken, that kind of thing. And she realized that production wasn't the full story. At the end, it is processing. We know quite a lot about how thickens are reared for our tables, but we don't know very much, "about how chickens nuggets are produced in a factory. I knew that we had to get to this information about processed food." Going Undercover... Joanna says that getting such information is easier said than done, considering how the food industry has created a near-impenetrable wall of security around its manufacturing activities. And that companies hide behind the rationale that processing methods are trade secrets, and that they're merely protecting proprietary information from competitors. 'They've gotten away with thatfor years. What that means is that unless you're a food industry insider, you're just not going to know what's happening behind the scenes," Joanna says. So, to get the inside scoop, Joanna assumed a fake identity and managed to convince a smaller food manufacturer to provide her with a professional cover. Using that cover, she got an inside look into the "core" of the food manufacturing industry. And what she learned was surprising to say the least. For starters, what non-insiders do not know is that there are a multitude of chemicals used in food that do not have to be in any way disclosed, as they're considered "processing aids." So besides preservatives, emulsifiers, colors, and flavors, which are generally listed, there are any number of others that you'll never find out the details about. "I realized that there's so much going on behind the scenes offood manufacturing. Most consumers, we haven't got a clue, and we are not allowed to know. You can't even trust things that would seem to be the healthy choice," she says. This may be disconcerting, as many health conscious consumers now take the time to carefully read food labels. EFTA00849847 But what Joanna's research reveals that there's an array of additives that will never make it onto the label. Surprising Truths the Processed Food Industry Hides from You Hamburgers: When people eat processed meats like hamburgers, they believe that they are eating mostly real beef? Chances are they are way off — as one type of meat process involves soaking butchered carcasses in hot water with added enzymes. This has the effect of releasing about another five percent of meat-like substance from the carcass. This is then added into cheap burgers, sausages, and other processed meat products. Enzyme-treated blood products are also routinely added to lower- end processed meat products. Natural: "What really got me were the things that seemed to be really natural... For example, I was amazed to find that there is a kind of coloring known as the cloudifier. It makes your juice look as though it's got more real fruit juice in it because it creates that hand-pressed, natural look," she says. Enzymes: Enzymes are used in a number of different ways in food processing. For example, when eggs are pasteurized, they lose their color. An enzyme is therefore added that brings back the color of the egg. There are at least 150 enzymes being used in food manufacturing, and they're rarely ever listed on the label. According to Joanna, there's typically at least one enzyme-modified ingredient in every processed food. Breads usually have five enzyme-modified ingredients. Enzymes by themselves aren't intrinsically toxic. They're merely functional proteins composed of natural amino acids. But what they do is they mask and deceive you about the underlying process, fooling you into believing that you're buying something that you really aren't. 'The classic one is a mature cheeseflavor. If you matured cheese the proper way, then you have cheese. You keep itfor three months or six months, even longer, to develop that nice, matureflavor. But you can do that in a few days with an enzyme. You can create a fakeflavor." Most Processed Food Is an Imitation of the Real Thing The goal of food technologists is to reduce the amount of real ingredients by finding cheap substitutes that mimic the authentic food. In doing so, chemicals and processes are used that turns the end product into something that looks, smells, and tastes like "goodfood," but really is anything but. Rarely is real butter used for example, because it's expensive. So they use additives that make the food taste like butter, but at a fraction of the cost. "But they will still put in enough butter that they can put on the 'made with butter' label,"Joanna notes. Another thing she discovered is that most processed food wouldn't look at all attractive if it didn't have colorings added. It would be gray and beige... Flavorings do two jobs in processed food. They cover up the unpleasant taste that comes as a result of processing. Flavor masking is one of the main reasons why food industries use flavorings. But they also use flavorings to try and give food flavor when it's been through a manufacturing process that has EFTA00849848 totally stripped it of flavor. They have to try and add back something that sort of resembles the flavors that have gotten lost. Because food processing is high temperature and high pressure. Something has to be done to them to make them taste better again. That's the logic of flavoring and coloring. What You Need to Know About the Clean Label Concept She also exposed the industry concept of "Clean Label." The food industry realizes that consumers don't like long chemical-sounding names on the ingredients list. These names are known as "label polluters." To avoid having to list the chemical names of additives, they invented a Clean Label concept, which is aimed at removing all the old additives and long chemical names, and replacing them with ingredients that sound better. "Carrot concentrate" instead of "coloring" is one example of a Clean Label swap. A related issue is the extraction methods used for these healthy-sounding extracts. While antioxidants are healthy, plant-derived antioxidants are typically extracted from the whole food using toxic organic solvents like hexane, which you cannot remove. Those solvents remain in the ingredient, and they're not required to disclose any of this. Perception Is Everything The processed food industry is primarily driven by the perception of wholesomeness. The moment the food industry finds out that a labeled ingredient is perceived poorly, they will either rename it, or find an alternative that may be just as bad, or worse, that doesn't have that negative association. "Perception is a really good wordfor understanding what thefood manufacturing industry is up to," Joanna says. "They have this thing called perceived naturalness." Their whole job is to try give you ingredients that sound natural, but actually aren't the same as natural. Another one is fresh-like quality. The industry doesn't talk about fresh any longer. They talk about a fresh-like quality. Joanna says that there are number of technologies that they can use behind the scenes and mainly on labels that will give products this fresh-like quality. Everything [related] to naturalness and freshness is being manipulated constantly. As an example she saved some chocolate chip muffins that she bought six weeks ago. She kept them on her desk and said that that even after six weeks they look hadn't changed to a new package. Obviously this wasn't a scientific experiment but having realized that the loaf of bread in my refrigerator was two months old and I was only able to tell after reading the sell-by date — I can concur. There's actually a whole section in the book dedicated to processed baked goods. Many grocery stores now have bakeries, where fresh bread is baked every day. But what many do not realize is that nothing is baked from scratch. As Joanna says, these bakeries are little more than "tanning salons" for processed frozen products pre-cooked in factories thousands of miles away. Another factoid: When baked goods are sold loose this way, they do not require an ingredient label. So that's another way they can get away with not disclosing what the ingredients are. EFTA00849849 Joanna: "One of the reasons I started writing the book is because I knew that if I made a muffin at home, it didn't taste anything like a bought one. I wanted to find out why. It's really interesting to find out why because the ingredients are completely different and the processes are completely different. And these are great lies perpetuated by food manufacturers — that what goes on in the factory is just a scaled up fraction of home cooking. But that really is a lie. It's quite a different activity." The Foxes Are Watching the Hen House Joanna says that if you're like most people, you probably think there's someone somewhere looking out for the consumer's best interest. fif something is sold as food, it surely cannot be hazardous. Can it? In truth, it just might be... More often than not, government oversight committees are usually manned by members of the industry, who have a vested interest in commercializing these chemical ingredients; or they're academics who appear on first glance to be independent but actually, in their day job, are getting a lot of funding from food companies. Most of the research used to establish safety is also done by the industry itself, which structures the research to show that its products are safe. What's worse, no one is really looking at the health effects of exposure to toxins from processed foods. "What happens to people who eat large quantities ofprocessedfood, maybe people who really based their diets on that? No one is doing any research on that," Joanna says. "There are all these assumptions that chemicals arefine in small quantities, but that's not really looking at the cocktail effectfor people, particularly children, who are obviously more prone to being affected by chemical overload. No one is looking at that at the moment" Summary Avoiding processed foods is one of the most important changes you can make if you want to improve your health or prevent or address disease. If you can, try to buy fresh. And try to by local, because the fruit you buy that come from South America and fish products that come from Asia can have anything it them to preserve them for the weeks and sometimes months it will take them to make it to your dinner table. Finally read labels, challenge anything whose ingredients contain so many syllables you can't pronounce them and those catch all words and phrases like fresh-like, extracts, concentrate, flavoring, coloring and preservatives. ****** Scientists Issue Warning Over Chemicals Common In Carpets, Coats, Cookware EFTA00849850  Gr Inline image 3 In 1961, a DuPont toxicologist warned colleagues that exposure to their company's increasingly popular Teflon chemicals enlarged the livers of rats and rabbits. Studies over the following decades found no safe level of exposure in animals and determined that humans, too, got sick when exposed to the chemicals -- which were also seen to build up in the body and resist breakdown in the environment. Nonstick, it turned out, tends to stick around. By the end of 2015, some of these most notorious polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs, will be fully phased out of use in the U.S. But emerging in their place, warn environmental health experts, are another group of PFASs that share many of the same concerning characteristics. "We know these substitutes are equally persistent. They don't break downfor geologic time,"said Arlene Blum, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the executive director of the nonprofit Green Science Policy Institute. On May 1, 2015, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a document known as the Madrid Statement, signed by more than 200 scientists from 38 countries. The statement highlights the potential harm of both old and new PFAS chemicals. You may know them best as the stuff that protects your carpet from stains, keeps your food from sticking to packaging or pans, repels rain from your coat and prevents mascara from running down your cheeks. If you got a pastry with your coffee this morning, a PFAS substance probably even lined the waxy paper it was served on. "It's a very serious decision to make chemicals that last that long, and putting them into consumer products with high levels of human exposure is a worrisome thing," said Blum, who was also the lead author on the statement. In an editorial accompanying the statement, Linda Birnbaum, head of the national toxicology program for the Department of Health and Human Services, and Philippe Grandjean, chair of environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark, cite the common industry practice of replacing phased-out chemicals with structurally similar ones, such as the recent swap of bisphenol S for bisphenol A. Other experts have pinned this pattern -- what Blum has previously called "toxic whack- a-mole" -- on the nation's outdated toxic chemical legislation, which allows chemicals to remain innocent until proven guilty. "Companies can currently produce other chemicals without a good idea of their impact on health and the environment," said Alex Stone, a senior chemist with the Washington State Department of Ecology, who signed the Madrid Stat