Eating Low Carb? Be Informed About Mad CowWritten by Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP
Finding Mad Cow in Oregon puts a new wrinkle in high protein diet, doesn't it? What's a person to do that wants to eat more meat, not less?Are you Eating Less Meat Due to Mad Cow Disease? Not people I've spoken with. Most are saying, "Yipee, beef's on sale!" The food industry has done a great job of convincing us they are providing a safe food supply and we've been lulled into a false sense of security. Nothing could be further from truth. In July 1988, a ban was introduced in UK which prohibited use of remains of sheep in cattle feed. BSE is thought to have spread to cattle from feed including meat and bone meal made from sheep suffering from a similar brain disease, called scrapie. Ban Not Properly Enforced Unfortunately ban was not enforced properly for many years and remained a paper exercise (exactly as it has been in US ever since). Francis Anthony, a Herefordshire veterinary surgeon, and British Veterinary Association's spokesman on BSE said, "If ban had been enforced properly from start, I have no hesitation in saying categorically that we should be seeing only a few cases today. But that contaminated feed was being given to animals until at least 1995, and possibly a year later." The false sense of security for us in US came from it being widely reported that practice had been banned. They failed to make it clear that this was a "voluntary ban." Even I falsely believed they had long ago ended this practice until recent news reports that it is still being done. Despite there being a clear connection between feeding rendered animals to animals causing Mad Cow disease, meat and dairy industry continues practice to this day. Why? Corporate greed, plain and simple. It is a cheap source of "protein" and makes cows and other animals fatten faster. A fatter animals weighs more, and they are sold by weight. I have no doubt that people in US aren't getting excited about threat or beginning to avoid beef simply because no people have been reported with disease. After all, this was a sick cow, not a human. Hence, people do not consider it a direct threat. Amazingly they don't consider those with CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) a variant of Mad Cow as being related when clearly it is.
| | Getting in Shape: 10,000 Steps to Terrific HealthWritten by Thomas Ogren
Getting in Shape: 10,000 Steps to Terrific HealthThomas Leo Ogren What if I could show you a completely simple, inexpensive, low risk, foolproof method to lose some weight, get healthy, and get in shape? Sound too good to be true? Well, it is true, and all it takes is a serious commitment and a $15 step-counting pedometer. It has been one full year now since I first strapped on a pedometer and started getting my 10,000 steps in a day. I’ll be honest, at times it has been tough, but rewards have been remarkable. I have no idea who first started concept of getting in 10,000 steps a day as a way to get fit, but sometime in 2003 idea started to get considerable press. The University of Minnesota thought so much of idea that this year (2004) they passed out free pedometers to every single staff member of University. I first read about 10,000 steps in a newspaper and then heard about it on radio. I looked up pedometers on Ebay and bought two step counters for five bucks each. I gave one of them to my wife who loved it but within a month had lost it. I managed to hang onto mine and it worked perfectly for 11 months before it finally stopped working. These first step counters were mechanical and needed no batteries. You just clipped them on your belt, started walking, and they counted every step you took. I was in New York last month, to give a talk on Long Island, when my first stepper quit on me. I was one day without it and withdrawal symptoms were quickly setting in. I went to a Sportsmart and for $14.95 bought a digital replacement, one that I’m wearing right now. It is a Sportsline 330 brand and it doesn’t count calories or miles, just steps. But that’s exactly what I want it to do. As I write this I have exactly 3,627 steps on my pedometer. This means that I have plenty of walking yet to do today, but I know that I’ll do it. I am a writer; it’s what I do for a living. Last October I had just finished writing back-to-back books. I had no sooner finished writing Safe Sex in Garden, for Ten Speed Press than I had to immediately dive into working on, What Experts May NOT Tell You About: Growing Perfect Lawn, for Time Warner Books. As a result of almost constant work on those two books I spent close to a solid year glued to my computer. Now, computers are handy beasts, no doubt about that, but working at one is hardly what we’d call good exercise. I had gained weight, some 30+ pounds of it, and I was 56 years old, fat, and out of shape. I finished last book, sent it off to publisher and bought my first pedometer. That very first day it arrived I put it on and went out and walked until I had my 10,000 steps. Quickly I found out that this took time, effort, and energy. That night my legs were a little sore but I felt really good about myself. I was doing something positive, something that might well get my big rear back in shape. I discovered that pedometers work best if there are no clothes covering them. They have to be free to be able to register each step and need to “feel” movement. Also, shorter people get a “better deal” with step counters. If a 6 footer and a 5 footer both walk five miles together, shorter person may well get in all of his 10,000 steps, while taller one may well still be a few thousand short. I’m 6’ 2” tall myself, so I need to get in plenty of mileage to get my 10,000. Shorter people claim though that they have to work harder and step faster to keep up with their long legged companions, so I suppose it all works out in end. Most of my life I have worked out and tried to stay in shape. I’ve boxed, jogged, lifted weights, done calisthenics, played tennis, hiked, done isometrics, you name it, and I did it. And all of these things worked too, to a point. But none of them worked half as well as putting on that pedometer and saying to myself, “Tom, you will get in at least 10,000 steps every single day from now on. Rain or shine, feeling great or not, busy or not, you’re going to get in 10,000 steps every single day.”
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