Penn & Teller: Bullshit! - Alternative Medicine

[thuja]

wheatgrass!

hey! grassroots pals! today i am stopping the banging of my head on a block wall, trying to analyze chemical and fermented vitamins, and their enclosure in animal product capsules, which contribute to unpeakable animal cruelty and the risk of prion disease.

i found a corporate office person who is honest, and like me when i worked for a corporation, suggested something not from her corporation, along with her experience with it. wheatgrass!
i had, earler today, gone to a website looking for up to date info on the book, the vitamin myth, so her confirmation of the usefulness of wheatgrass was what is now referred to as synchronicity, i guess.

now my life is easier, as i do not have to spend so much time taking an arnold and stallone amount of supplements. now i can just eat food and take fresh wheatgrass in order to get all the nutrients i need, vitamins and amino acids. i had overlooked this while deeply involved with my investigations of supplements.

look at the penn and teller video again, especially the dopes with the snail facials. that's what i think of myself for falling for the whole supplement thing. well, maybe not quite so stupid, since supplements have more support than snail facials, but fairly stupid.
fabulous thread ! it led me to a useful result! thanx!

 

[juice797]

Vitamin C has a history.

Yes, vitamin C is ascorbic acid, as it stands today. It is a unique chemical. However, it didn't start out that way. It was assumed that vitamin C was a single chemical and could be isolated. So work was done to isolate it. Ascorbic acid was the result. But in fact what was originally termed vitamin C was more than what we know as vitamin C today. It includes the bioflavinoids, etc. Find out more about the history of vitamin C, and you'll see there's much more to the story than those who say "I'm a scientist, trust me vitamin C = ascorbic acid". You see, technically they're right, but that's far from the whole picture from a nutritional standpoint. Do your own research, and don't make assumptions. That goes for everything else in life, too.

 

[Perry]

Another fantastic episode from everyone's favourite duo of libertarian magicians!

http://www.surfthechannel.com/info/television/Penn_&_Teller:_Bullshit!/48381/S1E2.html

Fair and biased, per usual

Drugs are chemicals.
Alternative medicines are chemicals.
Foods are chemicals.
Drugs come from animals & plants.
Alternative medicines come from animals & plants.
Food comes from animals & plants.
Scientifically it is not possible to distinguish one of these from another and alternative medicines are nothing less than medicines that haven't been approved by the fda.
P&T no absolutely nothing about science or chemistry.

 

[icon124]

Since we have a bunch of chemists in this thread that seem to know what they are talking about I need to ask a few questions.

1st - Any fruit (organic or GM) is good? Should I just go for the cheapest since they are all the same?

2nd - Is there any GM'd food I should be worried about?

Basically tell me what I should eat to be healthy lol

 

[thuja]

Since we have a bunch of chemists in this thread that seem to know what they are talking about I need to ask a few questions.

1st - Any fruit (organic or GM) is good? Should I just go for the cheapest since they are all the same?

2nd - Is there any GM'd food I should be worried about?

Basically tell me what I should eat to be healthy lol

i am not one of the chemists here, but would suggest avoiding any gmos and eat nice, normal organic everything.
i would especially worry about corn, soy, cottonseed, and canola, rice, and some papaya, and would keep an eye on www.gmwatch.org for info and news.
here is a site that offers hope, as things can be tested for gmos:
www.nongmoproject.org
and a useful newsletter:www.non-gmoreport.com

 

[tmosley]

The main problem with GM food is that it tends to get loose and contaminate other food supplies, which will not be labeled as GM, which is why there has been such a big uproar about it. Those fruits and veggies that are engineered to be more resistant to shipping, etc, aren't all that bad, as they were meant to be consumed by everyone.

The problem comes when some third world researcher grows his estrogen producing rice just down the road from a food rice paddy. You get cross pollination, and suddenly everyone who eats rice is on hormone replacement therapy.

So the problem with GM food is mainly that the modified genes can spread, and if those genes are designed to produce a drug, that drug is going to be in the food supply.

To directly answer your question, the cheapest one is fine. I generally look for the tastiest ones while they are on sale, and preserve them.

 

[amy31416]

hey! grassroots pals! today i am stopping the banging of my head on a block wall, trying to analyze chemical and fermented vitamins, and their enclosure in animal product capsules, which contribute to unpeakable animal cruelty and the risk of prion disease.

i found a corporate office person who is honest, and like me when i worked for a corporation, suggested something not from her corporation, along with her experience with it. wheatgrass!
i had, earler today, gone to a website looking for up to date info on the book, the vitamin myth, so her confirmation of the usefulness of wheatgrass was what is now referred to as synchronicity, i guess.

now my life is easier, as i do not have to spend so much time taking an arnold and stallone amount of supplements. now i can just eat food and take fresh wheatgrass in order to get all the nutrients i need, vitamins and amino acids. i had overlooked this while deeply involved with my investigations of supplements.

look at the penn and teller video again, especially the dopes with the snail facials. that's what i think of myself for falling for the whole supplement thing. well, maybe not quite so stupid, since supplements have more support than snail facials, but fairly stupid.
fabulous thread ! it led me to a useful result! thanx!

Oh, and wheatgrass is very fast-growing and easy to produce yourself. I briefly did some research on it years ago.

Congrats on the find.

 

[thuja]

Yes, vitamin C is ascorbic acid, as it stands today. It is a unique chemical. However, it didn't start out that way. It was assumed that vitamin C was a single chemical and could be isolated. So work was done to isolate it. Ascorbic acid was the result. But in fact what was originally termed vitamin C was more than what we know as vitamin C today. It includes the bioflavinoids, etc. Find out more about the history of vitamin C, and you'll see there's much more to the story than those who say "I'm a scientist, trust me vitamin C = ascorbic acid". You see, technically they're right, but that's far from the whole picture from a nutritional standpoint. Do your own research, and don't make assumptions. That goes for everything else in life, too.

thanks, i was hoping someone would say this.

 

[thuja]

Oh, and wheatgrass is very fast-growing and easy to produce yourself. I briefly did some research on it years ago.

Congrats on the find.

thanks, i'm really pleased myself
till i get my own growing, i found a place that sends cut wheatgrass, sunflower, etc:http://sungrownorganics.com/( it's an attractive website)
oops, not attractive, anyway, its sungrown organics

 

[amy31416]

Since we have a bunch of chemists in this thread that seem to know what they are talking about I need to ask a few questions.

1st - Any fruit (organic or GM) is good? Should I just go for the cheapest since they are all the same?

2nd - Is there any GM'd food I should be worried about?

Basically tell me what I should eat to be healthy lol

I'm one of 'em.

1. All fruits are not the same. a) Avoiding GM is, at this point, a personal choice because the official research has not shown that it's better or worse for you. Keep things balanced in your thinking--GM crops have allowed food to grow in areas of Africa where crops could not previously grow. Also, crops of rice have been modified to contain more vitamin A, helping out the locals with important nutrition. It's not all evil. As far as seeds go, do not get the GM seeds--they produce fruits and vegetables that are sterile--not good for the farmers and gardeners of the world.

b) Organic foods--the most important foods to go organic with are: beef, pork, chicken, milk, milk products, all the berries, apples, tomatoes, salad greens, coffee, potatoes, celery, peppers, peaches. The reason these are more important is because the fruits/vegetables absorb the pesticides, and the milk/meat has a lot of the hormones in the product. I'm tired of typing, so here's a good article: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...when-buying-organic-pays-and-doesnt/index.htm


2. As far as I know, there is no conclusive evidence that GM food is any better or worse for anyone. So, to repeat, they are modified to have better nutritional content, need less pesticide and even have environmental benefits. It's not evil just because it's a big company.

I'm not an expert in this particular area, I just have a little side-hobby of some of these things, but you don't have to have a degree in chemistry to do the research. There's lots of good resources on the 'net, just try to avoid the BS sites where Mary Jo decides that everything MUST be organic and all GM foods are evil, then makes up some BS to back it up, or cherry picks what info she includes.

 

[yongrel]

^great post

The big problem I have with the organic food movement isn't organic food; it's their unfortunate tendency to group GM foods together with pesticides and hormones and whatnot.

I like me my GM foods, just not when they're covered in chemicals.

 

[thuja]

wrong, gmos are a verybigproblem. the leader of this disaster is monsanto, not some creative guy in a third world country. those countries are suffering because on monsanto and pals. people commit suicide regularly because of GE and monsanto, and these crops, which are supposed to use less pesticide, use 10 times as much pesticide.
they are invasive, and infect normal crops.
the are far from being more nutritious, and organic crops provide much more.
there is a lot of documentation abot the serious adverse health effects from gmos.
the biofuel crops, which are gmos, and soy in general, has been wiping out the rainforests, and we are already feling the negative effects of the destroying of all the natural trees there in favor of soy crops.
please please, take a regular thoughtful look at www.gmwatch.org, www.biofuelwatch.org.uk
also, the videos in the gmo trilogy thread in the health freedom section of this site explains some things about this.

 

[thuja]

^great post

The big problem I have with the organic food movement isn't organic food; it's their unfortunate tendency to group GM foods together with pesticides and hormones and whatnot.

I like me my GM foods, just not when they're covered in chemicals.

it's unfortunate, but pesticides, etc are built right into the gm crops.
they also use MORE pesticide. they ARE covered in chemicals.

 

[amy31416]

Yes, vitamin C is ascorbic acid, as it stands today. It is a unique chemical. However, it didn't start out that way. It was assumed that vitamin C was a single chemical and could be isolated. So work was done to isolate it. Ascorbic acid was the result. But in fact what was originally termed vitamin C was more than what we know as vitamin C today. It includes the bioflavinoids, etc. Find out more about the history of vitamin C, and you'll see there's much more to the story than those who say "I'm a scientist, trust me vitamin C = ascorbic acid". You see, technically they're right, but that's far from the whole picture from a nutritional standpoint. Do your own research, and don't make assumptions. That goes for everything else in life, too.

I understand the history part, but I have my trusty Merck Index, 11th edition and it doesn't even list vitamin C. Under ascorbic acid, it states that it is vitamin C. That is the precise chemical interpretation and that's what I go with. Flavonoids should be addressed separately chemically, but supplements should work both in conjunction, just like the B vitamins work better together than apart.

Still stand by the notion that buying "organic" or "non-GM" vitamin C could be a bunch of hogwash. Ascorbic acid is vitamin C is ascorbic acid. The other components, well, like you said juice797, you'll have to do your own research and not make assumptions.

 

[amy31416]

it's unfortunate, but pesticides, etc are built right into the gm crops.
they also use MORE pesticide. they ARE covered in chemicals.

Going to have to ask you for some sources on that. Not really sure how you could build a pesticide into a crop, I mean you can genetically modify it to have resistance, but ya can't, as far as I know, attach some agent orange to a corn gene and have it replicate during the growth process.

And yeah, there have been some GM crop failures. There have also been many successes, you're probably eating it right now and have been since 1994.

 

[thuja]

Going to have to ask you for some sources on that. Not really sure how you could build a pesticide into a crop, I mean you can genetically modify it to have resistance, but ya can't, as far as I know, attach some agent orange to a corn gene and have it replicate during the growth process.

And yeah, there have been some GM crop failures. There have also been many successes, you're probably eating it right now and have been since 1994.

i may have, if contained in my cigarettes, since tobacco is genetically modified, but i now smoke organic cigs, and will probabl give up that last thing that's not so good pretty soon. also, in the vitamin C made of corn, but you say that's not possible when they isolate the ascorbic acid. or soy in vit E or gelcaps or something.

i never ever eat anything in a package, wrapper, box, can, etc, except wild alaska salmon, so maybe some farmed fish have or will ruin that. i have some organic canned soup, and hope i do not have to eat it. can liners contain bisphenol A and phthalates.
otherwise, i only eat organic produce. soon, most sellers will have joined www.nongmoproject.org, so if gmos get mixed in, they can be detected.

it takes awhile to research and understand the GE problem. unfortunately, you believe the hype put out by( or sponsored by, through some think tanks )monsanto.
the best place to read al about this is still the site i have suggested"www.gmwatch.org, who also publish the contrary view, usually monsanto's, when available. there are many resources there, including results of tests demonstrating the health results of consuming these gmos. unfortunately, many are animal tests.
if ou did not know, GE animals are designed to use as test animals. the ultimate cruelty.
the farmers in india kill themselves because of gm crops and the way monsanto forces them to farm.
anyway, if you spend time really studying this, several myths will be gone. it is often difficult to think that sometimes the old way was best, and hard to give up on anything that outwardly held so much promise.
there are, happily, newer ways to hybridize that make GE outdated, and maybe you will find reference to some of these there.
there is no time to waste believing that GE is a good solution to problems, as it is a problem.
again, those videos in the gmo trilogy thread are helpful. good researching. www.gmwatch.org

 

[Cowlesy]

I always wondered...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgtgOs_OkTU&NR=1

...now I know!

 

[amy31416]

If you read an earlier post of mine, in this and other threads, I've criticized Monsanto quite a bit. They've done some bad stuff and don't deserve the consumer's support.

I don't believe any hype. I'm realistic. There are crops growing in Africa that could not grow there before. Some of these crops have extra nutrients due to the modification. Are these companies out to make a buck? Sure!

But I can assure you, having worked for a giant evil corporation, that the people doing the research are not looking to introduce evil things into the world, they/we are actually quite driven by the "guilt factor," whether that be children starving or people dying of tuberculosis (my former "thing.") I worked 70 hrs/week and burned myself out doing it, and so did a lot of my colleagues.

So, for you to write off GM foods as purely evil is to accept that every scientist involved in it is interested in doing harm to masses of people. I assure you, this is not the case. More likely is that they are wrapped up to the point of OCD in getting food to grow for people who are starving, and are trying to get crops to grow with less pesticides because they understand the potential harm of chemicals in the food supply.

Once again, I say that choosing to select or not select GM foods is a personal choice. I gave my rationale for dismissing the GM seeds entirely. I do not believe the hype, whether it comes from the left or the right. If you only want to hear things that confirm what you want to believe then just say so.

 

[thuja]

If you read an earlier post of mine, in this and other threads, I've criticized Monsanto quite a bit. They've done some bad stuff and don't deserve the consumer's support.

I don't believe any hype. I'm realistic. There are crops growing in Africa that could not grow there before. Some of these crops have extra nutrients due to the modification. Are these companies out to make a buck? Sure!

But I can assure you, having worked for a giant evil corporation, that the people doing the research are not looking to introduce evil things into the world, they/we are actually quite driven by the "guilt factor," whether that be children starving or people dying of tuberculosis (my former "thing.") I worked 70 hrs/week and burned myself out doing it, and so did a lot of my colleagues.

So, for you to write off GM foods as purely evil is to accept that every scientist involved in it is interested in doing harm to masses of people. I assure you, this is not the case. More likely is that they are wrapped up to the point of OCD in getting food to grow for people who are starving, and are trying to get crops to grow with less pesticides because they understand the potential harm of chemicals in the food supply.

Once again, I say that choosing to select or not select GM foods is a personal choice. I gave my rationale for dismissing the GM seeds entirely. I do not believe the hype, whether it comes from the left or the right. If you only want to hear things that confirm what you want to believe then just say so.

i see you are upset, and i apologize for causing that. i do not aim this at individuals. many, like you, have good intentions of such things as feeding the world, but have not taken the time to stand back at look at this issue clearly, often as a result of being too busy at their chosen fields.
if, however, people continue to fail at this, the results will be unmanageable.
once again, the crops designed to use fewer pesticides are using ten times more. see the video in the gmo trilogy thread to undestand that. this is merely one failure of gmo crops. also, it isn't always wise to grow a crop in an area where it previously did not. a better solution would be finding a way to get that food to the people in that area. this item is interesting to study, and i hope that you will.

finally, i am not the sort who needs to be right to be happy, and if this whole gmo thing really were beneficial to anyone, i would be glad. but it isn't, and i hope and pray that everyone concerned comes to their senses and that it stops. really, i am not happy that anyone would feel bad, but of all people, ron paul supporter-types should already be aware of media hype and the facts being covered up. so, look into this asap. it's really big.

 

[ulsterscots]

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