Am Soc for Nutrition

pattern?  show up as experts in odd issues?cf stareegIn fact, critical reviews appeared in popular mainstream magazines of the day, including Time, Newsweek, Life, and The Saturday Evening Post.  One Time magazine review of September 28, 1962 deplored Carson’s “oversimplifications and downright errors…Many of the scary generalizations–and there are lots of them–are patently unsound.”  Another late September 1962 review by Edwin Diamond appearing in the Saturday Evening Post, stated: “Thanks to an emotional, alarmist book called ‘Silent Spring,’ Americans mistakenly believe their world is being poisoned.”  In Chemical & Engineering News of October 1, 1962, under the title, “Silence, Miss Carson,” Dr. William J. Darby, a nutritionist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, wrote: “Her ignorance or bias on some of the considerations throws doubt on her competence to judge policy.”  Darby suggested that the public could be misled by Carson’s book.  He also added at the end of his review: “The responsible scientist should read this book to understand the ignorance of those writing on the subject and the educational task which lies ahead.”...
Monsanto was one of the chemical companies to actively campaign against “Silent Spring.”Monsanto was one of the chemical companies to actively campaign against “Silent Spring.”     In November 1962, the Manufacturing Chemists Association began mailing out monthly feature stories to news media that stressed the positive side of pesticide use.  In 1963, The Nutrition Foundation, a trade group then comprised of 54 companies involved in food, chemical, and agriculture-related industries, began sending out Silent Spring “fact kits” that essentially contained materials, letters and book reviews that were critical of the book and/or Carson.  These kits went out to a wide array of colleges and universities, researchers, state agricultural experiment stations, the membership of the American Public Health Association, librarians, state and county public officials, and nursing and women’s organizations.http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/tag/silent-spring-velsicol-chemical/---
=According to a new report, many scientific studies about nutrition, as well as the trusted experts who disseminate this information to the public, are being funded by the very entities that should be scrutinized. The <a href="http://www.eatdrinkpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/ASNReportFinal.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">report</a>, "Nutrition Scientists on the Take from Big Food," details the ways that the world’s largest food corporations—aka Big Food—exert their influence on nutrition research and the people who conduct it.The report’s author, attorney and food advocate Michele Simon, has previously studied the influence of Big Food on the nation’s largest organization of registered dietitians. Together, these reports paint a scary picture of how food corporations collude to manipulate information in order to increase their profits at the public’s expense. The coyote isn’t just guarding the chicken coop here, it built the coop and kept the only copy of the key.The new report details how the likes of Coca Cola, Nestle, Hershey’s, Monsanto, Cargill, and many other food giants control what studies get funded and published, steering researchers toward projects that benefit the industry, while silencing research that doesn’t. It focuses on the American Society of Nutrition, which Simon characterized as a trade organization for nutrition scientists when we spoke by phone, though casual readers of the ASN’s <a href="http://www.nutrition.org/about-asn/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">mission statement</a> might not glean this.“The American Society for Nutrition (ASN) is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing together the world's top researchers, clinical nutritionists and industry to advance our knowledge and application of nutrition for the sake of humans and animals.”The researchers, nutritionists and industries in question are brought together twice a year for ASN’s conventions, where industry sponsors pay big money to get access to nutrition researchers, and even host sessions. While most of the sponsored sessions disclose the corporate funder, the report notes, industry ties are not always so obvious. A recent session, “Sweeteners and Health: Current Understandings, Recent Research Findings and Directions for Future,” was sponsored by the <a href="http://www.rippehealth.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Rippe Lifestyle Institute</a>. The Institute’s founder James Rippe, according to the report, has been paid a $41,000 a month retainer by the Corn Refiners Association, which represents the makers of high fructose corn syrup.One of the session’s ‘learning objectives” was to “Understand whether or not there is a linkage between sugar consumption and obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease as well as other metabolic diseases.” The sugar lobby, “has more than a passing interest” in this matter, the report notes. Rippe has consulted for many other members of the junk food industry as well, including Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, McDonald’s, Kraft Foods, General Mills, and Kellogg.Meanwhile, ASN publishes the one of the most respected scientific journals dedicated to nutrition, the <a href="http://ajcn.nutrition.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">American Journal of Clinical Nutrition</a>(AJCN). Several ASN executives with close ties to industry sit on AJCN’s editorial board, where they help decide what gets published and what doesn’t, Simon told me.“It’s hard for good nutrition researchers to get funding and published, she said. "That’s why people turn to industry sources. But the ones with too much integrity to take money from industry are facing difficulty and hostility in getting published, because the gatekeepers are on the take from industry. So a lot of good science isn’t getting published. That puts a chill on the research climate in general.”“People need to understand when they see the latest nutrition science story being reported, it’s always good to question where the funding comes from.”And when the evidence against a mainstay of Big Food grows to the point where it can’t be contained, the food industry uses platforms like AJCN to confuse the issue, or kick the can down the road a little further with claims that “more research is needed.”The AJCN has repeatedly propagated the notion that processed foods are being unfairly vilified, and that any time a piece of food is cut, frozen or cooked, it’s by definition processed.Many processed foods contain added sugars, which have frequently been in the news since the FDA recommended they be noted on the nutrition label as distinct from naturally occurring sugars, which are usually associated with fiber and other nutrients that partially counteract the effects of sugar. Not surprisingly, the <a href="http://www.sugar.org/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">American Sugar Association</a>, an ASN sponsor, has come out strongly against the FDA’s recommendation. The ASN has too, couching its true motives behind wording that inaccurately suggests its concern is for consumers’ health.“This topic is controversial and a lack of consensus remains in the scientific evidence on the health effects of added sugars alone versus sugars as a whole. There is also lack of evidence on the usefulness of a declaration of added sugars on the label to improve food choices and the health of consumers.”...http://www.alternet.org/food/whoa-huge-number-nutritional-experts-may-be-bought-big-junk-food-companiesntbcw?<a href="http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/whole-soy-story">http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/whole-soy-story</a>

<div id="block-block-15" class="clear-block block block-block" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; background: url("../img/NewsletterLogo350.png") no-repeat rgb(255, 255, 255); height: 100px; position: relative;"><div class="blockWrapper" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><div class="blockWrapperOuter" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><div class="blockWrapperInner cfx" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><div class="content" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: absolute; bottom: 0px;">Volume 38, No. 2</div></div></div></div></div><div id="tabs-wrapper" class="clear-block" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 class="with-tabs" style="padding: 0px; margin: 1em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 18.8928px;">The Whole Soy Story</h2></div><div id="node-772" class="node" style="padding: 0px 0px 15px; margin: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="content" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">In ancient times in China, soy was valued as a superb green manure for the nitrogen-fixing ability of its roots. However, it was not eaten, either by animals or by people until a slow fermenting process was developed, which reduced its gas-forming indigestibility and the anti-nutrient effects of many of its constituents. Dr. Daniel, author of The Whole Soy Story, gives a short history of uses of soy in the Orient, describes its commercial development here, and gives a great deal of carefully referenced information on the health effects of the many forms of soy that are now promoted.Soy contains chemicals that mimic estrogen and lower testosterone levels. About two thousand years ago, tofu - the drained curds from cooked, pureed soybeans - became a regular food for monks and assisted their sexual abstinence. These plant estrogens (phytoestrogens) cannot be wholly removed from any variety of soy food. The only way to remove the phytoestrogens is by "alcohol extraction." There is much reason to be concerned about the wide promotion of soy formulas for infants. Dr. Daniel has a chapter entitled. "Soy Infant Formula-Birth Control for Baby?"Soy contains protein. The monks called it "meat without a bone." However, it is low in methionine, an essential sulphur-containing amino acid, which in Detoxification & Healing: The Key to Optimal Health, NOHA Honorary Member Sidney M. Baker, MD, called "the queen of the amino acids". Dr. Daniel states, "Liver disease, brain disorders, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and depression are just a few of the disorders that have responded to supplements of methionine."Soy, and many other foods, contain protease inhibitors, which interfere with the digestion of protein. Also, in order to prevent germination, phytates - which are found in beans, grains, and other seeds - tightly tie up minerals like calcium, zinc, and iron, which are essential for health and growth in children. Both protease inhibitors and phytates are greatly reduced by the traditional, time-consuming fermentation processes developed in the orient, but not by modern quick methods.<blockquote style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 3em 1em;">Lectins are proteins with a "sweet tooth." Found in beans, grains, and other foods they bite into carbohydrates, particularly sugars, often causing immune system reactions and blood clotting. . . .Soybean lectins have two main functions. First, they react with the carbohydrate component of cell membranes, causing cell injuries and deaths. As this damage accumulates, it adversely affects the gastrointestinal, immune, and other systems of humans and other animal species. Second, they exist in a symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium bacteria. By fixing atmospheric nitrogen in the roots of the soybean plant, the lectin-bacteria team supports the miracle bean's traditional, historical use as a fertilizer and crop rotator.</blockquote>Usually, soy lectins are digested and inactivated by traditional fermentation or by heat in soy processing. However, it has been found that "soybean meals can, on occasion, retain functional lectins at levels that may be detrimental to the animal's health and productivity." Also: "Soy protein intended for human consumption has consistently contained low levels of functionally intact lectins." This situation can be a problem for those people who eat large quantities of soy protein. Then, "lectins are more than capable of perturbing digestive, absorptive, protective, and secretory functions throughout the gastrointestinal tract. . . . Unlike ordinary food proteins, lectins strongly resist breakdown by enzymes in the gut." Again, lectins are not likely to be much of a problem if people only eat the soy protein infrequently, say, if they "rotate their foods," as recommended by NOHA Professional Advisory Board Member the late Dr. Theron G. Randolph. However, if they eat the soy protein regularly, as a principal source of protein, they are asking for problems from lectins and the many other anti-nutrients in soy.Saponins are another anti-nutrient, along with protease inhibitors, phytates, and lectins, which all seem "to have evolved to help plants defend themselves against microbes, insects, and animal predators." Saponins injure the gut mucosa and contribute to "leaky gut syndrome." They are toxic to some fungi and yeasts and operate like the antifungal drug nystatin, which binds to the fungal cell membrane and increases its permeability. In the case of the drug, "side effects include pronounced damage to the patient's own cell membranes, with users complaining of gas, diarrhea, nausea, and stomach pain." People who consume modern soy foods complain of the same symptoms.Cooking and boiling does not remove saponins. "Only alcohol extraction removes them. When soy protein is removed from the oil, saponins stick with the protein." Fewer saponins are found in miso and tempeh. A bacterial enzyme, used in the fermentation that produces miso and tempeh, metabolizes and breaks down soy saponins. Saponins do lower cholesterol and may by themselves become a drug.In regard to thyroid function:<blockquote style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 3em 1em;">Soybeans contain goitrogens. . . . Soy is not the only goitrogenic food. Broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cassava, rapeseed, turnips, mustard, radish, peanuts, and millet also contain goitrogens. However, few adults-and even fewer children-eat these foods to excess. Furthermore, the goitrogens in most of these foods are easily neutralized by cooking or fermentation.Soy foods are different. The principal goitrogens in soybeans are the estrogenic plant hormones known as isoflavones. The antinutrients known as saponins in soy may also be goitrogens. Cooking and processing methods, using heat, pressure, and alkaline solutions, will neither deactivate nor remove isoflavones or saponins. Only solvent extraction can do that. . . . America is plagued by an epidemic of thyroid problems.</blockquote>Cancer can be promoted by hormone mimickers, like the plant estrogens in soy. These so-called phytoestrogens are also suggested for "natural hormone replacement therapy" and as possible new cancer drugs. Questions remain.In The Whole Soy Story, Dr. Daniel describes other major problems from consumption in large amounts of the recently developed soy foods, including soy allergies. Another example: Oil is extracted from soy that is usually pesticided and often genetically engineered. (Fat-loving pesticides concentrate in fats and oils) For convenience the soy oil is hydrogenated, producing "trans fats" with their deleterious health effects on all our cell membranes and their great convenience in processed food production."In the first half of the 20th century, John Harvey Kellogg, Henry Ford, and others envisioned a grand future for soy. By the 1960s, vegetarians, hippies, environmentalists, and other idealists joined the cry, recommending soy foods as the solution to world hunger, the path to good health, the key to healthy aging, and the way to preserve our environment."Sadly, big business and big government have usurped their impossible dream. Old-fashioned whole soy foods that contribute to health if eaten in moderation have given way to ersatz products that lead inevitably to malnutrition and disease."<hr style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; height: 1px; border-style: solid; border-color: gray; border-image: initial;" /> Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, The Whole Soy Story: the Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food, New Trends Publishing, Inc., Washington, DC, 2005.Article from NOHA* NEWS, Fall 2005*The American Nutrition Association was formerly known as the Nutrition for Optimal Health Association [NOHA].</div></div>