Consumer Reports finds canned food contains BPA

Consumer Reports will publish a ground-breaking study in the December issue showing that many canned foods, and other packaged foods, contain a synthetic estrogen called Bisphenol A (BPA).

BPA, which was invented in the 1930s as a synthetic estrogen, is used to make the plastic and epoxy resins used in all kinds of food containers, including the lining of food cans. Consumer Reports found the substance in canned foods of all kinds, including those labeled "BPA Free" and "Organic."

The human body responds to BPA as if it were estrogen, which feminizes men and increases the risk of breast cancers in women. It disrupts the body's hormonal system in other, less predictable ways as well.

Some studies have linked BPA to obesity, heart disease, early puberty in girls, aggression in toddlers and other problems.

The industry produces some 6 billion pounds per year of BPA, most of which touches food or beverages, human skin or is exposed to household air at some point. We eat it, drink it, touch it and breathe it.

Based on its findings, Consumer Reports recommends the following:

* Choose fresh food whenever possible.
* Consider alternatives to canned food, beverages, juices, and infant formula.
* Use glass containers when heating food in microwave ovens.

For people on the Spartan Diet, this doesn't go far enough. Never eat canned foods. Store foods and drinks only in glass containers. Nearly all your food should be fresh.

Why chocolate isn't on the Spartan Diet

Recent science has discovered healthful properties in cocoa, which has lead media organizations that cover health, fitness and diet to proclaim chocolate as a health food. One of the better articles summarizing the health benefit of chocolate was published on the Huffington Post: "7 Healthy Reasons To Enjoy Chocolate--Without the Guilt!" Those seven reasons are:

1. High in antioxidants

2. Helps with cholesterol

3. Reduces inflammation

4. Lowers blood pressure

5. Helps with mood

6. Improves blood flow

7. It's delicious!

Sounds great! Here's the problem. Nearly all these reasons benefit only those who eat poor diets, or who don't get enough exercise or both.

Conventional medical and health reporting assumes that you're overweight, undernourished and suffer from some level of cardiovascular disease. In fairness, those are pretty safe assumptions when writing for the general American public. Given those assumptions, chocolate can help make up in some small way for your shortfall in antioxidants, and help alleviate your industrial-diet caused high blood pressure, poor circulation, high cholesterol and high inflammation.

However, if you're on the Spartan Diet, you're not going to have any of these problems. The diet gives you all the antioxidants you need with fresh, organic fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and other plant foods. Because small amounts of extra-virgin olive oil is the only concentrated fat, and because the diet is generally as healthful as a diet can be, you won't need chocolate to help you cope with non-existent cardiovascular problems and the like.

Meanwhile, chocolate has some problems advocates gloss over. First, it's very unlikely that anyone will eat chocolate without sugar. So to recommend chocolate is usually to recommend white table sugar.

Second, chocolate as most people will eat it is a highly refined, highly processed food with many of the touted antioxidants and other nutrients compromised by heat and age. It's not usually a fresh food, but a processed, stored food that's been sitting around for weeks or months.

Third, chocolate is a spectacularly complex food, loaded with mild drugs. It's both an upper and a downer at the same time. One of the most appealing things about chocolate for some enthusiasts is improves mood. Chocolate contains bioactive chemicals, such as tryptophan, and is thought to increase the production of dopamine. Although pleasurable, chocolate can also be addictive.

The healthiest way to eat chocolate is to buy fresh, raw, organic cocoa, and make a chocolate drink with it based on cashew milk sweetened with a small amount of honey. Such a drink is just about as healthy as chocolate gets. But what's the liklihood that you'll take your chocolate like this? Most will grab a chocolate bar, or make hot chocolate with roasted cocoa and milk.

Because all the health benefits of chocolate are already fully present in the Spartan Diet, and because those benefits come in the form of a processed food with addictive bioactive chemicals, sugar and other bad stuff, chocolate does Spartan Dieters more harm than good.

The Spartan Diet is based on a solid list of core principles, including maximum (rather than adequate) health, zero addiction and the avoidance of processed foods and sugar. And that's why chocolate doesn't make the cut.

The Spartan Diet optimizes mind as much as body

A new study published in the FASEB Journal found that rats fed higher-fat content diets took longer to finish a maze, and made more mistakes in memory than rats on a lower-fat diet. The study suggests what we already know intuitively: High-fat diets can make us mentally slower. We believe this is especially true with lower quality fats, including trans fats.

Another recently published study has found that a Mediterranean diet, low in meat, dairy, processed foods and high in nuts, fish, whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables, is associated with lower rates of mental illness and depression.

And a recent study at Tufts University looked at low-carb diets, such as Atkins, and their effect on cognition and memory. They found that performance on memory tests started declining measurably compared with subjects on a moderate-carb, low-fat diet.

We have found in our own experiences, and in the experiences of others on the Spartan Diet, that all this is very true. The Spartan Diet is both relatively low in fats, has plenty of complex carbs, and also is an extremely Mediterranean diet.

People on the Spartan Diet report feeling mentally sharper, more upbeat and generally good all the time. That makes it easier to sleep better, exercise more and generally do all the other things that, combined with diet, lead to a more fulfilling and successful life.

How (and why) to make delicious Quinoa

Quinoa is a grain-like seed that originates in the South American Andes. It's not an actual grain because it doesn't come from a species of grass. Quinoa has been cultivated and eaten by the Incas in what is now Peru and Bolivia for 6,000 years.

Quinoa is fantastic because it's so flexible -- it goes with just about everything -- can be made in just a few minutes, and it has quite a lot of complete protein.

It's a great idea to always keep prepared quinoa in the fridge. You can quickly and easily create a wonderful meal with it thanks to its nutty and delicious flavor. Add it to just about any cold or hot meal including soups and salads. It also goes well with any type of cuisine including Mexican, Italian, French and Indian. Quinoa is a powerhouse food that provides complete protein with all nine essential amino acids.


INGREDIENTS

2 cups dried quinoa (red, white or black, rinsed)

4 cups water or vegetable stock (or 1 cup water, 1 cup stock)

1 tablespoon olive oil

Sea salt to taste

Freshly ground pepper


INSTRUCTIONS

1. Rinse quinoa in fine mesh sieve or strainer. In a medium deep pan, combine quinoa and water or broth, cover with lid and simmer over low heat for 20 to 25 minutes or until all the water has been absorbed.

2. Remove from heat and let it rest for 5 minutes covered. Add olive oil, salt and pepper and fluff with fork. Use in any recipe or let it cool and refrigerate to use in later meals.

Whole grains lower risk of high blood pressure

Both men and women who eat the greatest amounts of whole grains have the lowest likelihood of high blood pressure, according to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Men in a grouping that averages 52 grams of whole grains every day were 19 percent less likely than the men who ate an average of about 3 grams per day to develop hypertension, after other factors like activity level were factored out.

The Spartan Diet calls for all dietary grains to be whole grains, and for the total elimination of flour and compromised grains.

Research shows health effects are cumulative, long-term

We're living in a golden age of scientific discovery about the many links between diet, behavior and environment on the one hand and human health on the other.

Scientists often try to and succeed in matching specific individual causes with specific individual effects. But rational minds can detect trends, and deduce best actions to take to protect the health of our families and ourselves.

One of the trends we've noticed lately is that scientists are discovering links between events or behaviors that take place in childhood, affecting health in adulthood. These include:

Children who eat candy every day in childhood are more prone to violence as adults.

Rare, often fatal adult brain cancer may be linked to inactivity in teen years.

Childhood anxiety increases the likelihood of adult obesity.

Childhood social status predicts adult health.

High blood pressure in childhood is associated with hypertension in adulthood.

Childhood lead exposure associated with criminal behavior in adulthood.

We could go on and on with this. It would be trivial to cite hundreds of links between causes in childhood that create effects in adulthood.

These trends shatter several rarely-vocalized myths about health. The first is that you're either sick, or you're "fine." A typical scenario might go like this: A man visits the doctor for annual checkups. Every year, his heart and blood pressure are below some threshold. But one year, blood pressure or cholesterol or both appear in the danger zone. The doctor pronounces an official diagnosis, and prescribes a remedy, which might be a prescription combined with minimal advice about eating less fat and exercising more.

The problem with this scenario is that the conditions leading up to cardiovascular disease have been present for decades -- probably unhealthy diet and inadequate exercise.

The second myth is that if something causes no harm in the short term, that means it's "not bad for you." People say things like, "a burger and fries once in a while isn't going to kill you." Or "pesticides on produce won't hurt you."

What's actually happening is that our time horizon for cause and effect is growing longer. A century ago, you could take sip of something, and if you didn't drop dead on the spot, the liquid would be pronounced "safe." This short-term view of toxicity and ill health lead to the universe of food additives and processed foods that cause our overwhelming health crisis.

Very slowly and gradually, we're widening that time horizon. Now we're realizing that the junk food kids eat causes obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and a world of problems, even if no symptoms show up until adulthood.

Broadly speaking, it appears that bad health can result from decades of unhealthy foods and behaviors in totally unpredictable combinations. In fact, it's reasonable to assume that a lifelong combination of environmental pollution; toxic household materials and cleaners; chemicals from plastic beverage containers; domesticated animal meat treated with hormones and drugs; processed foods; produce pesticides; excess fat, sugar and salt; and many other factors conspire to compromise our immune systems and expose us to a wide range of unpredictable health problems.

That's what the Spartan Diet is: Avoiding all of it for maximum health, total fitness, strength, vitality, energy and longevity.

Why Pankration must be restored to the Olympics

The first modern summer Olympics, held in Athens in 1896, included events selected at the first Olympic Congress organized by French historian Pierre de Coubertin. Nearly all the events selected were modern sports actively practiced in countries in Europe and in the United States, but many with roots in the ancient games. (One exception was the Marathon, the idea for which was proposed for the Olympics by French philologist Michel Jules Alfred Breal as a way to capture the glory of ancient Greece.)

The Ancient Olympic Games, which started in 776 BC and lasted for nearly 12 centuries, included the following events throughout most of its history:

Stadion (a roughly 200-yard running race)

Diaulos (twice the distance of a stadion)

Dolichos (7 to 24 stadions)

Long jump

Javelin

Discus

Pentathlon (long jump, javelin, discus, stadion and wrestling)

Wrestling

Boxing

Pankration

Hoplitodromos (medium-distance race run by athletes in armor)

Plus, a variety of horse races.


All the ancient human athletic events (as opposed to horse races) have direct modern equivalents except the Hoplitodromos. They're very familiar to us -- track and field, as well as wrestling and boxing. Ancient Olympians viewing the modern Olympics would recognize these events immediately.

There is a good reason why both Pankration and the Hoplitodromos were excluded from the founding of the modern Olympics: They had both long since disappeared as fully-functioning competitive sports. And Hoplitodromos is totally obsolete, as it involves running with bronze-age helmets, armor, shields and spears.

But over the past few decades, Pankration has staged a come-back.


What Is Pankration?

Pankration, which means "all powers," is roughly a combination of wrestling and boxing. It's the world's first "martial art," predating all known Asian martial arts by centuries. It may have even been practiced more than a millennium before the first Ancient Olympic Games.

Ancient Olympic Pankration had only two rules. No biting, and no gouging the eyes out. All Pankration athletes were pardoned preemptively for murder, should any of them kill opponents in the contest. Knockouts were common, but many Pankration matches went to the ground, where joint-locks, pins, body strikes and other moves were combined with choking. An athlete could raise his hand to the referee at any time to concede defeat.

Pankration was central to Spartan life. As in all things, the mastery of Olympic events in general, and Pankration in particular, were viewed as vital to military supremacy. Pankration made up a huge component of agoge education. In Sparta, Pankration was practiced with no rules. The Spartans prided themselves on their skill in the biting and eye gouging banned at the Olympics.

Hoplite warfare very often degenerated into chaos, with shields and weapons easily lost. Spartans were trained from childhood to kill without weapons, and defend without armor. This wasn't an academic exercise -- Pankration skill was one of the most important factors in the Spartan's many battlefield victories during the classical era -- including at Thermopylae and Plataea where Spartan-led armies saved Greece from conquest by the much larger Persian forces.


Why Pankration Must Be Restored to the Olympics

Simply put: Pakration is the only ancient Olympic sport that is growing and flourishing internationally in the modern world, but that's not included in the Olympics.

Martial arts tournaments around the world include sparring events. Mixed martial arts and Extreme Fighting are among the most popular spectator sports ever. These are all, more or less, Pankration. But one of the fastest growing sports in the world right now is Pankration itself.

Ancient Pankration has been modernized for safety. Practitioners in Greece and around the world are reviving Pankration with new teams and tournaments, new rules and regulations.

In fact, the United States Pankration Team triumphed in the 2009 Pankration World Championships in Siauliai, Lithuania, in early September.

So here we have a central sport to the Ancient Olympic Games. It has undergone an enormous resurgence outside the Modern Olympic Games. What's wrong with this picture?

The Olympics includes the Japanese martial art of Judo, and the Korean martial art of Tae Kwon Do -- both fairly modern inventions -- but not the Greek martial art. The original martial art. The Olympic martial art.

The International Olympics Committee reviews a wide range of submissions for new sports to be added to the Olympic Games. Pankration is different from all of these sports. Pankration should receive immediate and automatic inclusion in all future Olympic Games, starting with the London games in 2012.

The creation of the Modern Olympic Games more than 100 years ago was a profoundly European idea. But Europe itself probably would never have existed without Pankration. The ancient Spartans and the ancient Greeks used Pankration, among other skills and practices, to defeat invaders and defend Greece. And without Greece, there would have been no Roman Empire, no Europe, no Renaissance, and no Modern Olympic Games.

Pankration must be restored to the Olympic Games.

Ryoichi Sekiya wins Spartathlon

Ryoichi Sekiya has won the 27th annual Spartathlon. Sekiya is a 52-year-old ulramarathoner from Japan. He completed the 152.85 mile course in 23 hours, 48 minutes and 24 seconds. The top female finisher was Japan's 43-year-old Sumie Inagaki who finished in 27 hours, 39 minutes and 49 seconds.

According to the Wikipedia:

"The Spartathlon aims to trace footsteps of Pheidippides, an Athenian messenger sent to Sparta in 490 BC to seek help against the Persians in the Battle of Marathon. Pheidippides, according to an account by Greek historian Herodotus in The Persian Wars, arrived in Sparta the day after he departed. Herodotus wrote: "On the occasion of which we speak when Pheidippides was sent by the Athenian generals, and, according to his own account, saw Pan on his journey, he reached Sparta on the very next day after quitting the city of Athens.

Based on this account, British RAF Wing Commander John Foden and four other RAF officers travelled to Greece in 1982 on an official expedition to test whether it was possible to cover the nearly 250 kilometres in a day and a half. Three runners were successful in completing the distance: John Foden (37:37), John Scholtens (34:30) and John McCarthy in (39:00). In the following year a team of enthusiastic supporters (British, Greek and other nationalities) based on the British Hellenic Chamber of Commerce in Athens and led by Philhellene Michael Callaghan organised the running of the first Open International Spartathlon Race. The event was run under the auspices of SEGAS, the Hellenic Amateur Athletics Association.

The race starts at 7:00 am, usually on the last Friday each September, at the foot of the Acropolis. It runs out of Athens toward the coast and runs along the coast towards Corinth via Elefsis, Megara, and Kineta. The route reaches the Corinth Canal at 78.5 kilometres and the runners hit the first of six major check points at 81 kilometres.

After Corinth, the race heads toward Ancient Corinth, Nemea, Lyrkia and at 159 kilometres, reaches the top of Mount Parthenio. From there, it continues south toward Nestani and Tegea, before reaching the main Sparta highway just before the 200 kilometer mark.

Runners must pass through 75 checkpoints along the way and each checkpoint has a cut-off time. Runners outside the cut-off may be pulled out of the race although tardiness in the first half of the race is generally tolerated. This tolerance begins to fade after sunset and in the last third of the race, organisers may pull out runners who are either outside the time limit or who display extreme fatigue."

French study directly contradicts UK report on organics

We blogged a study published over a month ago by the British government's Food Standards Agency (FSA), which found enormous nutritional differences between organic and conventional produce, but then bizarrely concluded that the differences were insignificant. The press then broadly reported that organic foods aren't any better for you than conventional.

A new study by the French Agency for Food Safety (AFSSA) found the same thing as the UK study -- massive differences in health properties between organic and conventional foods. But unlike the UK study, their conclusion supported their findings.

The AFSSA found that:

* Organic foods contain fewer pesticides and nitrates linked to disease

* Organic foods have higher levels of minerals

* Organic foods have more antioxidants known to protect against disease

* Organic plant products contain more "dry matter," which means they're more nutrient dense

* Organic animal products contain more polyunsaturated fatty acids

The study also concluded that differences in carbohydrate, protein and vitamin levels are "insufficiently documented."

It's worth noting, too, that the UK study didn't look at the overall health properties of organic foods, only whether they contained more nutrients.

Exercise cuts weight re-gain in three ways - study

University of Colorado at Denver researchers have found that exercise minimizes weight re-gain after dieting by curbing appetite, burning fat and lowering what scientists call the "defended" weight.

The study found that exercise causes the body to burn fat before it burns carbohydrates. Because the carbohydrates are still available to be burned for energy, the body is slower to trigger pangs of hunger.

Researchers also discovered that exercise prevents an increase in the number of fat cells during weight gain, which challenges the belief that the number of fat cells are fixed in number.

The "defended" weight is each individual's "natural" weight, which the body constantly strives to achieve. Exercise lowers that weight, so the body tries to stay slimmer than it otherwise might.

The Spartan Diet perspective is that everyone should exercise every day. Nobody should go on a temporary diet, but instead permanently embrace the diet that leads to total fitness.

Atkins and other low-carb diets 'damage arteries'

Researchers at Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the United States have found that the Atkins diet and other high-meat, low-carb diets can lead to atherosclerosis, which increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Atkins appears to provide superficial, short term benefits of weight loss without an increase in cholesterol. A visit to the doctor may lead you to believe your health is improving. But Harvard researchers have shown that the longer-term effect seriously degrades cardiovascular health.

After reporting their good science, the researchers then gave bad advice (which is usually the case for reasons we will detail in our upcoming book). They told the BBC: "For long-term health at least one-third of what we eat should be bread, rice, potatoes, pasta or other starchy food."

This is terrible advice, as they do not specify the healthy versions of these foods. White bread, rice, potatoes and pasta aren't going to benefit health.

The Spartan Diet calls for getting the majority of dietary protein from plant sources (easy to do on the Spartan Diet), the total elimination of domesticated animal meat, and the elimination of processed everything, including "bread, rice, potatoes, pasta." Instead eat only sprouted (flourless) whole grain bread, brown rice and other whole grains, limited quantities of potatoes (as it's a low-nutrition food) and only sprouted, whole-grain pasta.

Processed meats may lead to cancer -- report

The World Cancer Research Fund International (WCRFI) issued a report this week saying that eating smoked, salted or cured meats places you at risk of bowel cancer. They're talking about ham, bacon, pastrami, salami, hot dogs, some sausages -- that sort of thing.

They also warned parents that sending your child to school with a baloney sandwich or other processed meat product could contribute to bowel cancer later in life. (They didn't mention that the white bread and mayonnaise likely to envelop the baloney isn't doing them any favors, either.)

WCRFI says a diet high in processed and red meat is the top risk factor for developing bowel cancer.

The Spartan Diet calls for the total elimination of all domesticated animal meats, processed foods, and engineered foods from your diet. All smoked, salted or cured meats fall into one or more of these categories, and foods like baloney fall into all three.

How to make Spartan Muesli

Forget about that stale, sugary old industrial cereal that comes in a box. For a healthy start to your day, a delicious bowl of Spartan Muesli gives you incredible flavor and all the nutrients you need for total energy. It's easy to prepare, and you can make plenty in advance. We recommend you have it with Spartan Cashew Milk.

INGREDIENTS

3 ½ cups rolled old fashioned whole-grain oats
½ cup raisins
1 cup sulfur-free dried fruit bits (date, fig, apricot, prune, apple, pear, cranberry, peach,)
¾ cup ground flaxseeds
½ cup raw walnuts (whole or chopped)
½ cup raw almonds (whole or chopped)
2 tablespoons raw sunflower seeds
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
Spartan Cashew Milk
Fresh fruit (sliced banana, peaches, apples or blueberries)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients well with a large fork.
2. To serve, in a bowl, combine ½ cup to ¾ cup of muesli mix with ¾ cup to 1 cup of cashew milk and top with 1 cup sliced fresh fruit or berries or a combination thereof.

NOTES

Store in a large glass jar or bowl with lid. Place it in the cupboard to last a week, or in the refrigerator to last several weeks.

What's so great about white tea? Everything.

Organic white tea is on the Spartan Diet Superfoods list. If you drink caffeinated beverages, we recommend that you choose organic white tea because it boosts your immune system, slows the aging process, facilitates weight loss, protects you from disease and even strengthens your teeth. More on all that below. First, what is white tea exactly?

White tea comes from the same plant (Camellia sinensis) as green tea, the kind served in Chinese and Japanese restaurants, as well as black tea, which is the tea used for iced tea, English Breakfast tea and other ordinary teas served in Western homes and restaurants. The differences between white, green and black tea are in the particulars of harvesting and processing.

Black tea is the most processed. After harvesting, mature tea leaves are first "wilted," which means they're dried for a few hours. The leaves are then "bruised" to break down the plant's chlorophyll and release tannins in a process called enzymatic oxidation. While this process changes the flavor and improves the tea's durability for long-term storage, it also destroys a lot of the plant's nutrients. Some call the process "fermentation," but that's a misnomer.

Green tea is also from mature tea leaves, which are picked, then "wilted," or dried, then heated via a frying, steaming or other process, before being dried again.

White tea is the least processed. First, white tea is usually the buds and young tea leaves, or just the buds. It's then "wilted," then dried. That's it. White tea is also less "processed" by you, the drinker. Instead of pouring rapidly boiling, 210-degree water on the tea, as is the accepted process for black tea, white tea traditionally uses water heated only to about 185 degrees. (When a tea kettle first starts to make a quiet "white noise," that's about 185 degrees.)

Although the Chinese have been drinking white tea for centuries -- possibly millennia -- researchers have just begun discovering its incredible health benefits in the past ten years. It turns out that nutrients are concentrated in the buds and young leaves that white tea is made with, and the minimal processing retains those nutrients best.

Very recent research in Germany has found, for example, that substances in white tea inhibit the growth of new fat cells in the body, and also promote the breaking down of existing fat cells.

Another study in the UK has found that white tea contains anti-aging properties. It contains substances that protect the structural proteins of the skin, specifically elastin and collagen, from the enzymes that create aging-related symptoms, including wrinkles. Researchers found that white tea reduces inflammation associated with not only wrinkles, but also rheumatoid arthritis and some cancers.

White tea has more polyphenols (specifically a powerful class of flavonoids called catechins), even than green tea, which have been found to reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.

White tea may also help you fight off bacterial infections, including staph infections, strep throat, pneumonia and dental bacteria. White tea also contains fluoride -- although not quite as much as green tea -- so it's good for your teeth. Plus, it doesn't stain your teeth the way coffee and black tea do.

More benefits: You don't take it with milk or sugar, neither of which is on the Spartan Diet. You drink white tea at a lower temperature than other teas. Because white tea should be drunk weak and in larger quantities -- and, because you re-brew leaves three or four times -- it can take quite a while to drink white tea. That protects you from the sudden caffeine shock of guzzling a coffee drink, and also from the inevitable crash.

White tea is very likely the healthiest caffeinated beverage around, the extra-virgin olive oil of the caffeine kingdom.

White tea seems like it's more expensive than other kinds. However, you use less of it, and you can brew three or four pots with the same leaves.

Our favorite white tea company is Rishi, which has a wonderful variety of awesome white teas (we prefer Rishi's Snow Buds when they're available, and White Peony when they're not). Buy in bulk to save money.

Fresh garlic better for heart than not-so-fresh

University of Connecticut School of Medicine researchers found in an experiment that the heart-protective effects of garlic are strongest in fresh garlic, and weaker but still present in garlic paste, pre-peeled cloves, garlic powder and garlic pills. Specifically, fresh garlic was found to be superior in protecting the heart from damage, and also facilitating the recovery from damage.

Scientists must isolate causes and effects, such as the effect of different types of garlic on one function of one organ. But it's reasonable to assume that fresh garlic is also healthier for other organ systems and for health overall than non-fresh garlic. It's also reasonable to assume that fresh produce in general is superior to non-fresh.

The Spartan Diet calls for lots of fresh garlic, and never any other kind.

New study claiming no organic benefit is simply wrong

A report commissioned by the British government's Food Standards Agency (FSA) and based on a review of 162 scientific papers by researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine concluded that organic food has no nutritional benefits over conventionally produced food.

The conclusion does not follow from the findings. Although the most recent and relevant scientific papers were systematically excluded from the study, the papers they did include showed massive nutritional benefits in organic foods. One of the report's authors wrote:

"A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance."

Here are some of the "irrelevant" nutritional differences they found in organic foods:

* Protein: 12.7% higher
* Beta-carotene: 53.6% higher
* Flavonoids: 38.4% higher
* Phenolic compounds: 13.2% higher
* Copper: 8.3% higher
* Magnesium: 7.1% higher
* Phosphorous: 6% higher
* Potassium: 2.5% higher
* Sodium: 8.7% higher
* Sulphur: 10.5% higher
* Zinc: 11.3% higher

In other words, they found massive differences in nutritional content, then dismissed their own findings as either flawed or statistically irrelevant.

The FSA study excluded EU-funded studies conducted at Newcastle University, which found very large nutritional differences between organic and conventional produce, grains and milk.

A study conducted in 2007 at the University of California, Davis, found that organic berries and corn contain up to 58 percent more polyphenolics than conventionally grown.

Another study conducted at UC Davis found that levels of the flavonoids quercetin and kaempferol were found to be on average 79% and 97% higher in organic tomatoes than conventionally grown. These antioxidants have been found to reduce risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and dimentia.

It's easy to go on and on citing studies proving the nutritional superiority of organic foods. But these studies don't even contradict the FSA study, which found the same pattern of nutritional benefit.

The FSA study also looked exclusively at differences in nutrient levels and completely ignored the cumulative effect of the toxic herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers used in conventionally grown produce -- the avoidance of which is the main reason people choose organic foods in the first place.

The media take-away from the FSA study was "organic foods aren't healthier than conventional." That message, however, is utterly and provably false. Organic foods are better for you -- MUCH better for you -- as they contain significantly higher amounts of vitamins, minerals and photochemicals, and have significantly lower amounts of toxic herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer chemicals.

American children suffer from sunshine deficit

A new report claims that seven out of 10 American children are too low in vitamin D levels. Vitamin D deficiency causes the body to reabsorb calcium from the skeleton, weakening bones. It also increases risk of heart disease, rickets and probably other bad health issues researchers haven't yet discovered.

The conventional advice to remedy this health problem, of course, is: go buy a product. In this case, it's either milk with added (often synthetic) vitamin D, or vitamin D pills.

Vitamin D is not a vitamin. It's a hormone. Your body produces it when your skin is exposed to sunshine.

Milk isn't all that good for you. Neither are fake hormones in a pill. The best advice is to turn kids loose outside. They will get exercise, sunshine, fresh air and other things they need without anyone buying anything, or without experimenting on kids with ill-advice public health initiatives.

Processed junk food, inactivity hits Brit forces

According to a leaked army memo, Britain's Afghanistan effort is being "hampered" by soldiers who are too fat, sick and weak to fight. The memo concludes that the army has "not consistently maintained our standards of physical fitness" and needs to "reinvigorate a warrior ethos and a culture of being fit."

The memo echoes a similar problem among German forces in Afghanistan. A parliamentary report published late last year found that German soldiers were on average fatter than the German civilian population and generally "too fat to fight."

The problem is not confined to Britain or Germany. US military drill instructors report steep, ongoing declines in the physical fitness of recruits.

Contrast this to the athletic reputation of ancient Spartans. Every Spartan man and woman, girl and boy, trained as if they were to compete in the Olympic games. Unless there was a festival or a war, Spartan men trained hard outside every day. Every one of them at what we would now call fresh organic produce, whole grains, wild game and other fresh, whole raw nuts, seeds, legumes and more. Their only oil was olive oil. Their only sugar was raw honey. They drank wine, but never got drunk.

The problem with the British, German and American militaries is that fighting men and women are taken from a population immersed in industrial food marketing, and consumer societies where much of our energies are devoted to pursuing passive leisure and fake foods.

When the British Army Major who sent the memo called for a "reinvigorate a warrior ethos and a culture of being fit," he was in fact calling on Britain to become more like Sparta. Easier said than done. You see, it "takes a village" to raise a Spartan.

We have taken so much from ancient Greece -- democracy, philosophy, medicine and a million great ideas. But we forgot to learn from the society that did military fitness better than anyone: Sparta. The Spartan Diet book will re-introduce lost wisdom about food, health, fitness and life.

Risk of sun exposure 'overstated' - report

A new report published in the journal Nature Genetics says the cancer risk for sun exposure is "overstated." Researchers from Queensland, Montreal, Philadelphia and London found that the amount of sunshine you get is a weak predictor of skin cancer, but the presence of moles is a very strong one.

They also point out that mole-related skin cancer, called Melanoma, can be treated by the early removal of a suspicious mole.

Researchers say that an "obsession" with avoiding sun to prevent skin cancer is contributing to Vitamin D deficiency, which is causing other health problems.

New discovery shows barley in diet before domestication

The healthy diet community is split between the majority who believe whole grains are healthy and a minority who believe they are best avoided. The anti-grain camp is lead by Loren Cordain and his book, The Paleo Diet.

Cordain writes that grains were introduced into the human diet after the domestication of wild grains. Because human populations before the advant of "civilization" didn't eat grains, he argues, we shouldn't either.

Our view is that Cordain is mistaken about the consumption of grains in paleolithic societies, and also about the healthiness of whole grains in the diet.

The oldest evidence we have for the domestication of grains is about 10,500 years ago. But the direct evidence for the processing of grains for food (mortars-and-pestles) reaches back to 17,000 BC, well before agriculture.

Now, archaeologists have found new evidence for the organized storage of wild grains near the Dead Sea in Jordan. Some 1,000 years before the first domestication of grains, the inhabitants there had built and used graineries for storing wild barley.

We believe grains have existed in the human diet for ages, and are a vital part of any healthy diet.

How the Spartan Diet fixes the "10 diet mistakes men make"

Personal trainer Lorie Dudley posted a dead-on blog post called "10 'Diet' mistakes men make." Dudley lists each of the ten mistakes, and follows them with great advice and context on each. Here are Dudley's "10 mistakes" followed by brief commentary on how the Spartan Diet solves each one.

1. Eating too much. The Spartan Diet controls food quantity by limiting all food intake to three meals a day. Achieve hunger between each meal, then stop eating before getting full. There is no way to eat too much on the Spartan Diet.

2. Portion distortion. Spartan Diet recipes and meal plans provide all foods in just the right proportion, right-sizing protein, calories, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and all the rest in optimal quantities.

3. Drinking your calories. There are no caloric beverages on the Spartan Diet except for a total of four glasses of organic red wine or beer per week. There are no sodas, shakes, smoothies, juices or any other caloric liquids on the Spartan Diet.

4. Snacking on unhealthy foods. There is neither snacking nor unhealthy foods of any kind on the Spartan Diet.

5. Eating late at night. All food on the Spartan Diet is consumed in three meals per day.

6. Not eating breakfast. Breakfast is an important one of the three Spartan Diet meals.

7. Eating whatever you want. The Spartan Diet eliminates all low-quality foods, including all processed, adulterated or other junk foods. And it provides a system for choosing the most-healthy food option in every situation.

8. Eating processed foods. There are zero processed foods on the Spartan Diet.

9. Not drinking enough water. Water is the main beverage on the Spartan Diet, and most other beverages are not on the diet.

10. Not eating enough. The Spartan Diet three-meal, no-snacking system enables everyone to right-size meals and make sure that each Spartan Dieter gets just the right amount of nutrition-dense calories.

How industrial-food scientists turn food into drugs

The New York Times yesterday published an article about David A. Kessler's new book, "The End of Overeating" (link goes to Amazon.com page, which also has a video interview with Dr. Kessler). From the article:

"When it comes to stimulating our brains, Dr. Kessler noted, individual ingredients aren’t particularly potent. But by combining fats, sugar and salt in innumerable ways, food makers have essentially tapped into the brain’s reward system, creating a feedback loop that stimulates our desire to eat and leaves us wanting more and more even when we’re full."

The article -- and the book -- are worth reading. Kessler's essential point is that food scientists expertly "tweak" quantities of fat, sugar and salt in order to "hijack our brains" and make us crave, even need, their processed junk food. They do this by testing various combinations in order to reach "bliss points" -- that make some industrial food products almost irresistible.

This is the same point made by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma when he wrote: "The power of food science lies in its ability to break foods down into their nutrient parts and then reassemble them in specific ways that, in effect, push our evolutionary buttons, fooling the omnivore's inherited food selection system."

And Neal Barnard's entire book, Breaking the Food Seduction, is about how specific foods interact with the body in precisely the way drugs do to create something similar to addition. He goes into detail about a particularly addictive food: Chocolate. He writes that "chocolate is not just a single drug-like compound -- it's basically the whole drugstore: traces of mild opiates, caffeine, amphetamine-like components, and the equivalent of a slight whiff of marijuana."

As these and other authors (including us) continue to expose this trend in food science, which started out with food preservation, then developed techniques for making stale foods look fresh and now are perfecting methods for making foods interact with the body like addictive drugs, a rising public awareness of this phenomenon will motivate people to seek help.

The Spartan Diet is one cure. The Spartan Diet contains exactly zero food products created or "tweaked" by food science. There is no processed or industrial foods of any kind. Also: The Spartan Diet contains no cheese, chocolate or other foods that create a craving-satisfaction cycle of drug-like dependence.

When good science leads to bad advice

A study in the July/August issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior found that that because "peak bone mass" is not achieved until people are in their 30s, it's important for young people to get plenty of calcium, protein and vitamin D.

After detailing this good science, the article then gives bad advice: It says that people in their 20s should drink more milk.

Milk has been found to increase the risk of prostate cancer and Parkinson's disease.

Also: Much of the milk available in US supermarkets is from cows treated with a genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone, which is passed on in the milk (the hormone is banned in Canada and Europe). This hormone raises the risk of colon, prostate and breast cancer. Dairy cows are also typically treated with antibiotics and fed nasty foods treated with pesticides. (Go here to read more about the dangers of milk).

Meanwhile, milk is an inferior source of calcium, vitamin D (which is usually added artificially to the milk) and protein.

One of the best sources of calcium is kale, which is a major ingredient in Spartan Diet recipes. Other sources better than milk include: green leafy vegetables, cabbage, asparagus, broccoli, collards, figs, oats, almonds and prunes -- all key Spartan Diet foods.

Better sources of protein include wild game meats, egg whites, grains and legumes, all of which are major parts of the Spartan Diet.

And, of course, the best place to get vitamin D is from the sun.

So, yes, young adults aren't getting enough of the right nutrients for bone growth. But no, milk is not a good choice.

Lack of vitamin D may trigger cancer

Scientists at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California in San Diego say a wide range of research shows that cancer develops when cells lose the ability to "stick together" in a normal way. This loss of ability, they found, may be inadequate vitamin D. In other words, having enough vitamin D in the body may halt the first stage of cancer.

The new findings support previous work by the researchers, which found a close link between lack of vitamin D in the bloodstream and the incidence and severity of breast, colon, ovarian and kidney cancers.

Previous research by the UK's University of Warwick found that getting plenty of sun cuts the risk of heart disease and diabetes, too.

The Spartan Diet calls for plenty of sunshine, and for exercising outdoors. Exposure to the sun is vital for health. We recommend a nice long walk in the morning or late-afternoon sun every day, and also taking excercise outdoors whenever possible.