Are fortified foods good for you?

The only thing that should be "fortified" nowadays is your
bomb shelter

We've all know about "fortified" foods - and the claims in
ads for white bread and sugar-laden breakfast cereals that
claim they're actually good for you - because they've
been "fortified" with vitamins and iron.

Let's get realistic here. It doesn't take much to figure out
that "fortified" refers to the lame attempt to put back into
foods what the refining and preservation processes take out -
which is typically anything about it that may have actually
been GOOD for you.

Just open your breadbox and take a look at the label on the
loaf of bread in there. If you see the word "enriched"
anywhere, your bread has been made from nutrition-free
refined flour, then sprayed, injected, or otherwise feebly
treated with a useless chemical version of valuable vitamins
and nutrients you really do need. In other words: Fortified.

Here's a funny one: Salt is "fortified" by adding iodine.
What they do is take perfectly good, natural salt - which
actually offers some amazing health benefits - then they
refine and process all the vital nutrients out of it before
finally treating it with iodide.

But they call it "fortified," so it must be good for you,
right?

So who's behind all this nonsense? The government,
initially. Since around WWII, they've been mandating that
the various branches of our military buy and use only
fortified flours, breads, and other such gruel. Why? Because
even they knew that our fighting men needed an influx of
nutrients in their rations, not just the empty calories in
refined foods.

What I can't figure out is this: If they KNOW that we really
need the vital nutrients in raw, unprocessed, preservative-
free foods, why don't they simply ban the processing methods
that strip these nutrients from flour, milk, and other foods
in the first place? So what if milk or bread no longer
lasted a month or more? Wouldn't the gains in health and
nutrition be worth it?

Obviously not, because instead of meaningful regulation, our
government just keeps accepting the word of the processed
food industry - that "fortified" foods are a real,
beneficial solution…

And not just another part of the carb-heavy "Food Pyramid"
that's been fattening us like cattle for the last 30
years… .  
 
***********************************************

Statin drugs cause mental "static"

I know I've mentioned cholesterol drugs a lot, both in my
newsletter and in the Daily Dose. But new research findings
keep cropping up almost daily, it seems, that tell us new
things about these harmful patent medications - and
their "benefits."

For instance, research unveiled at last fall's meeting of
the American Heart Association revealed that a commonly
prescribed "statin" drug for lowering cholesterol might
actually impair patients' brain function - even so far as to
affect their ability to perform everyday tasks, like drive a
car. The study pinpointed measurable decreases in attention
span and psychomotor reflex speed among the subject group
when compared to the un-medicated control group.

But here's the really incriminating part: Those patients who
experienced the greatest decreases in blood cholesterol also
suffered the greatest levels of impairment! Interesting,
huh?

I mention these findings to you because I know the
mainstream press will never pick up the story - but also
because some medical authorities estimate that in the very
near future, half of the adult U.S. population could be
taking cholesterol-lowering medications. That's right - if
conventional doctors and the "drug thugs" have their way,
every other one of us will be stumbling around in a statin
stupor! But what's not clear is whether the impairment is
caused by the drugs themselves - or the lack of cholesterol.

I suspect it's the latter. Why? Because low cholesterol
levels have been linked to numerous other health issues
directly related to the brain - things like violent
behavior, depression, mood swings, stroke risk and other
problems. Maybe now, we should add "impaired brain
functioning" to that list.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again now: Unless your
cholesterol climbs over 300, forget about it - even
the "ratio" of LDL to HDL that so many conventional doctors
make such a fuss about. For heart health, concentrate
instead on DHEA, testosterone (for both men and women), and
homocysteine levels. And be sure to supplement with plenty
of folic acid, B vitamins, and CoQ10, too.

Just leave the statin drugs alone - unless you're suffering
from an excess of IQ or terminal euphoria.