Xylitol: Natural Sweetener Fights Tooth Decay

January is typically considered “diet” season. It is also the season for my annual rant against “diet” products containing artificial sweeteners, and in particular aspartame, a.k.a. Nutrasweet. Aspartame was originally approved for human use in 1981 by FDA, despite vigorous objections by its own scientists. It is now an ingredient in thousands of products consumed […]

Nutritional Pioneer Championed Traditional Diets

It is widely accepted that diet is a contributor to many adverse health conditions, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, colon cancer, and tooth decay. Yet there still seems to be considerable disagreement about what the “ideal” diet is to prevent these afflictions. The question of what constitutes the ‘ideal” diet is not a new one. Over […]

September is Organic Harvest Month

Organic agriculture has come a long way in the last 10 or 15 years. Organic foods of one kind or another can be found in most stores, and there is widespread recognition of the value of growing food sustainably. It is easy to list the reasons to choose organic foods. The tons of pesticides and […]

Nasturtiums Taste as Good as They Look

I recently returned to the store after a short vacation and was greeted by a cascade of nasturtiums overflowing their window boxes and spilling merrily down the side of the building. It was a cheering sight, made all the more so by my knowledge that these colorful blossoms are as tasty as they are beautiful. […]

Take JAMA Study with a Grain of Salt

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week asserted that vitamins A, E and beta carotene increase the risk of death in those who take them. Overall, the people in the study who took antioxidant vitamins had a 5% higher risk of mortality. “Vitamins Can Kill You” or some variant […]