Month: September 2018

The REAL Reason Bottled Water Has An Expiration Date

3D render illustration of the row of plastic bottles with clear purified drink carbonated water isolated on white background with selective focus effect

(Ready Nutrition by Sara Tipton) Bottled water is a popular item to store in case of an emergency, and for good reason. It is normally readily available and water should be able to be stored forever, right?  So then why is there an expiration date on bottled water?

Of course, water doesn’t expire, but you should still check the expiration date on the bottle before you drink it. According to Live Science, there a few different reasons why water bottles come with expiration dates, and the first one, you shouldn’t worry too much about, but the second one should make you think twice.

Since water is a consumable product, regulations and laws require bottles to be stamped with an expiration date even though water doesn’t ever “expire.” Rational people understand this, but the government feels the need to step in and protect us from ourselves anyway. The only reason they were put there in the first place was that a 1987 New Jersey state law required all food products to display an expiration date, including water, according to Mental Floss. Since it wasn’t very cost effective for companies to label and ship batches of expiration-dated water to one state alone, most bottled water producers simply started giving every bottle a two-year sell-by date—no matter where it was going. Because the law is rather arbitrary, don’t worry too much about drinking expired water just because a law demands a company stamp the bottle. However, the expiration date serves more of a warning about the bottle itself than the water contained inside.

Unlike the water itself, which has existed on Earth for 4.5 billion years, that manufactured plastic bottle only has so much time before it “goes bad.” The plastic bottles that water comes packaged in (usually polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for retail bottles and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) for water cooler jugs). The bottle will eventually fail (expire) and begin to leach plastic chemicals into the water with an effect on the overall taste. So if you happen to find a water bottle well past its printed expiration date in your home, it’s probably safe to drink, if you don’t mind the chemical bits of bottle which have broken down and are now swirling around in it, but you should also be aware of the fact that it might not be super fresh tasting anymore either.  But in a life and death situation, you could drink well-expired bottled water and probably be alright. But there are many options for storing water that could help you avoid drinking the plastic.

PLASTIC CONTAINERS

That said, storing water for a disaster or emergency should be done in only food grade containers. You can avoid plastics such as HDPE and PET to prevent the leaching of chemicals, but those are, technically “food grade” plastics (according to the FDA – so take that with a grain of salt) and you may not have a way around it. Also, choosing BPA-free containers will be safer as well. If water is not stored correctly, it can (and will) become toxic.  You can minimize the chances of plastic chemicals leaching into your water if you store it in a cool dry place.  Direct sunlight will break down the plastic more quickly. But if there is any doubt in your mind at all about the integrity of your container, trust your gut over the labels and do not store water in that container even if the FDA says its safe to do so.  There are plenty of other options.

5 Short Term Methods to Store Water

One water storage suggestion is a 55-Gallon Rainwater Collection System. Some are made from FDA approved polyethylene resin (and are also BPA free). This particular one has a  plastic barrel and the capacity to hold enough water to supply a family of 4 with over 13 days worth of water, or 2 people nearly a 30 day supply of water. The dark blue color of this 55-gallon barrel restricts light and helps control the growth of harmful algae and bacteria.

You can also use glass containers to store water.  There is no chance that the container will leach and if you’ve got some extra mason jars laying around after canning, it may be a good way to put those to some good use.  Of course, the major disadvantage of glass is that it’s not only heavy, it is pretty easy to break. However, steps can be taken to minimize the chances of the glass breaking, such as wrapping the glass containers with newspaper or cardboard. Check out these highly-rated 18 oz leak-proof glass bottles for your water storage needs if you decide glass is right for you.

The best way to ensure you have enough water on hand and a replenishable supply of the water is to get a mechanized well.  This is my family’s method of “storing” water. We don’t actually have to store any at all, though, and can focus on building our supply of ammunition and non-perishable foods because of it.  Of course, we have the well on a pump that works with electricity, however, we also have devised a way to retrieve water from the well in the event of a crisis or disaster in which we have no power. It is important to keep in mind that this is more of a water generation system than “storage” system, but its the most effective for long-term disasters and therefore worth mentioning. Since wells both store and produce water, if you can build one on your property, you should have a good source of drinking water during an emergency. As the website, Skilled Survival put it: this is highly dependent on how much of your well is mechanized. But the fact remains: someone with a working water well is going to survive a disaster far easier than the rest.

Dr. Wakefield Talks Candidly About The Documentary “Vaxxed From Cover-Up To Catastrophe”

(Natural Blaze by Catherine J. Frompovich) Why weren’t the producers, et al, who were involved in the production and distribution of the dramatic vaccine documentary film VAXXED From Cover-up To Catastrophe, not sued in a court of law?

Dr. Wakefield talks candidly about the strategies that brought a remarkable, fact-based CDC whistleblower exposé into the light of day, and for the entire world to learn about.

After watching Dr. Wakefield, the movie’s director, tell a few “road stories” regarding his world-wide tour with the film, I thought my readers truly would enjoy hearing the “tales from vaccine la-la land.”

Related: How To Heal Your Gut

Please enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2V6p6riQ8o

Here is the official website for VAXXED, where you can find either how to see the movie or how to purchase the DVD.

Related: How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children

Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.

Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.

Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008)

Study Shows BPA Substitutes May Cause Same Health Issues As The Original

(The Conversation) The credibility of scientific findings hinges on their reproducibility. As a scientist, it is therefore disastrous when you are unable to replicate your own findings. Our laboratory has found itself in just this situation several times; in each instance, unintended environmental exposure distorted our data. Our first accidental foray into toxicology 20 years ago convinced us of the need to understand the reproductive effects of environmental chemical contaminants. The latest twist in our journey down that road adds a new dimension to an old concern, BPA.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is a man-made chemical that has become a household word. It is a plasticizer used in such a wide range of consumer products that daily exposure is inevitable. People absorb BPA through our skin – from receipts and contamination of personal care products and water. We ingest it via contamination from plastic food containers, and food and beverage liners. We even inhale it as a contaminant in dust. Studies of this chemical number in the thousands, but whether BPA is hazardous to our health remains “controversial.” Here’s why: Although data from traditional toxicology testing provide little or no evidence of harm, independent investigators like us have reported effects induced by very low doses thought to be in the realm of human exposure.

Related: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors

The implications of these low-dose effects for human health and reproduction captured media attention and increased consumer unease. In response, manufacturers introduced BPA replacements by producing structurally similar bisphenols. As a result, it no longer is simply BPA contaminating our environment but an ever-increasing array of bisphenols. Our recent studies of several replacements suggest effects on the production of eggs and sperm similar to those induced by BPA.

We stumbled into the BPA world 20 years ago when cages housing mice for our studies were damaged when inadvertently washed with a detergent intended for the floor. Unbeknownst to us the detergent caused BPA to leach out of the cages. We happened to be studying eggs from young females and saw an immediate increase in eggs with scrambled chromosomes that would give rise to chromosomally abnormal embryos. In the intervening 20 years, our studies and those of colleagues have described the effects of BPA exposure on the developing brain, heart, lung, prostate, mammary gland and other tissues, and our studies have described serious effects on the production of both eggs and sperm. Together these findings inflamed debate about the safety of BPA and resulted in the rapid appearance of “BPA free” products.

Remarkably, almost exactly 20 years after the BPA exposure of our mice, we recently found ourselves, once again, victim of an environmental contamination that halted our research. We were working to pinpoint the critical windows of BPA exposure when we noticed that something was interfering with our experiments. This time the effect was harder to run to ground: Again, it appeared to be due to cage damage, but the damage was milder, limited to a subset of cages, and the effect on our results was evident in some animals and not others.

Related: Microplastics in Sea Salt – A Growing Concern

The major culprit this time was not BPA but the replacement bisphenol, BPS, leaching from damaged polysulfone caging. Knowing what it was didn’t make eliminating it easy. We tried several less expensive methods to solve the problem, but ultimately had to replace all the cages and water bottles in the facility. When we could resume our studies, we experimentally tested four common replacement bisphenols and found effects on sperm and egg production in our mice analogous to those that result from BPA exposure.

The possibility that exposure effects may span generations has been a growing concern. Our recent experience with accidental exposure allowed us to ask if BPS exposure effects persisted across generations, and if so, for how long. Our data suggest persistence of effects for up to three generations, with full recovery evident in great-grandsons.

Widespread use of BPA-like chemicals

Do we simply have bad lab karma? No, we think we have supersensory powers. The process of making eggs and sperm is tightly controlled by complex hormone signals. This makes it vulnerable to endocrine-disrupting chemicals like bisphenols – chemicals that can interfere with our body’s hormones. Bisphenol contaminants cause a seismic shift in our data, but it’s not that the research of others isn’t also affected, but most remain blissfully ignorant.

Importantly, our laboratory knew what data from unexposed animals should look like. What if we hadn’t? We would have misinterpreted our results. If we had been asking if BPA had an effect, background bisphenol contamination would have diminished it, causing us to conclude that BPA had little or no effect.

This isn’t merely hypothetical. BPA use is so prevalent in consumer products and routine laboratory materials (like mouse caging materials or culture flasks) that low-level contamination of unexposed control groups is increasingly difficult to avert. Data and conclusions from CLARITY-BPA, a large, ambitious collaborative study conducted by three U.S. agencies, are coming out now. CLARITY was launched to understand why findings from traditional toxicology studies of BPA and those of independent investigators differ. Animal contamination was evident in a pilot study, but the source could not be determined, and the CLARITY initiative proceeded.

Related: Many Hand-me-down Plastic Toys Are Toxic for Kids

Given our experience, we have great concern about drawing any conclusions from CLARITY data because there is no way to determine the impact of low-level contamination.

The bisphenol story details the evolution of only one class of the endocrine-disrupting chemicals that are common contaminants in our lives. The ability of manufacturers to rapidly modify chemicals to produce structurally similar replacements undermines the ability of consumers to protect themselves from hazardous chemicals and federal efforts to regulate them.

As a canary whose research has been twice derailed by bisphenols, we feel the need to chirp loudly: These contaminants may not only affect our health, but also our ability to conduct meaningful studies of chemicals to determine if and how they impact on our health and the environment.The Conversation

Patricia Hunt, Professor of Molecular Biosciences, Washington State University and Tegan Horan, Washington State University

Bob’s Red Mill Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Glyphosate Weedkiller Contamination

Tractor spray fertilize green field with pesticide insecticide herbicide chemicals in agriculture field in evening sunlight. Farmer care plants.

(NaturalBlaze) Citing a recent report by the Environmental Working Group finding traces of the ‘known carcinogen’ glyphosate in Cheerios, Quaker Oats and other oat-based breakfast foods, plaintiffs Tamara Frankel and Natasha Paracha said Friday that Bob’s Red Mill knew its oat products contain or likely contain the chemical, but didn’t disclose it on the label.

Instead, they say, the Oregon-based company labeled the products with phrases such as “gluten free,” “wheat free” and “purity tested,” leading consumers to believe them to be healthy.

“Consumers have a reasonable expectation that material product information, such as the presence of a probable carcinogen like glyphosate, will be provided by a product manufacturer, especially when the manufacturer affirmatively identifies the health-related attributes of its products such as “Gluten Free”, “Whole Grain”, and “Friend of the Heart,” the complaint states, adding that the labeling amounts to “misleading half-truths.”

Related: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Frankel and Paracha say Bob’s Red Mill had a duty to disclose the presence of glyphosate in its oats and that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen, because consumers don’t have easy access to the information. They want a court order blocking the company from continuing to advertise the products as healthy.

They seek to certify classes of consumers in California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Washington. In the alternative, they seek to certify a California-only class.

Patricia Syverson with Bonnett, Fairbourn, Friedman & Balint in San Diego represents Frankel and Paracha.

In late August, it was also announced that General Mills is facing a potentially damaging class action lawsuit after a Florida woman accused it of engaging in deceptive business practices, by not alerting the public that their Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios cereals contain glyphosate.

Related: Gluten Intolerance, Wheat Allergies, and Celiac Disease – It’s More Complicated Than You Think

A 2016 testing project on glyphosate residues in popular American foods by Sustainable Pulse’s partner The Detox Project and Food Democracy Now! is one of the main pieces of evidence being used in the case, according to the court documents, after it found levels of glyphosate in both Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios as well as many other products.

This wave of class actions against food companies has caused many food brands to start seeking The Detox Project’s Glyphosate Free certification, according to their Director, Henry Rowlands;  “The Detox Project has received a massive rise in enquiries from food brands regarding Glyphosate Residue Free certification, ranging from baby food to honey to supplement brands. So far we have 15 brands from around the world fully certified but over 50 brands have been in touch during the last week.”

The lawsuits against food brands also follow the landmark cancer trial verdict in San Francisco very closely, in which Monsanto was ordered by a jury to pay over USD $289 Million in total damages to the former school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, a California father who has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which was caused by Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup.

What the world needs now to fight climate change: More swamps

(The Conversation) “Drain the swamp” has long meant getting rid of something distasteful. Actually, the world needs more swamps – and bogs, fens, marshes and other types of wetlands.

These are some of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. They also are underrated but irreplaceable tools for slowing the pace of climate change and protecting our communities from storms and flooding.

Scientists widely recognize that wetlands are extremely efficient at pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and converting it into living plants and carbon-rich soil. As part of a transdisciplinary team of nine wetland and climate scientists, we published a paper earlier this year that documents the multiple climate benefits provided by all types of wetlands, and their need for protection.

Related: Air Pollution Causes People to Lose A Year of Education
Saltwater wetland, Waquoit Bay Estuarine Research Reserve, Mass. Ariana Sutton-Grier, CC BY-ND

A vanishing resource

For centuries human societies have viewed wetlands as wastelands to be “reclaimed” for higher uses. China began large-scale alteration of rivers and wetlands in 486 B.C. when it started constructing the Grand Canal, still the longest canal in the world. The Dutch drained wetlands on a large scale beginning about 1,000 years ago, but more recently have restored many of them. As a surveyor and land developer, George Washington led failed efforts to drain the Great Dismal Swamp on the border between Virginia and North Carolina.

Today many modern cities around the world are built on filled wetlands. Large-scale drainage continues, particularly in parts of Asia. Based on available data, total cumulative loss of natural wetlands is estimated to be 54 to 57 percent – an astounding transformation of our natural endowment.

Vast stores of carbon have accumulated in wetlands, in some cases over thousands of years. This has reduced atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and methane – two key greenhouse gases that are changing Earth’s climate. If ecosystems, particularly forests and wetlands, did not remove atmospheric carbon, concentrations of carbon dioxide from human activities would increase by 28 percent more each year.

Wetland soil core taken from Todd Gulch Fen at 10,000 feet in the Colorado Rockies. The dark, carbon-rich core is about 3 feet long. Living plants at its top provide thermal insulation, keeping the soil cold enough that decomposition by microbes is very slow. William Moomaw, Tufts University, CC BY-ND

From carbon sinks to carbon sources

Wetlands continuously remove and store atmospheric carbon. Plants take it out of the atmosphere and convert it into plant tissue, and ultimately into soil when they die and decompose. At the same time, microbes in wetland soils release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as they consume organic matter.

Related: Study Shows Cell Phone Towers Harmful To Animals, Plants – 5G Will Be Much Worse

Natural wetlands typically absorb more carbon than they release. But as the climate warms wetland soils, microbial metabolism increases, releasing additional greenhouse gases. In addition, draining or disturbing wetlands can release soil carbon very rapidly.

For these reasons, it is essential to protect natural, undisturbed wetlands. Wetland soil carbon, accumulated over millennia and now being released to the atmosphere at an accelerating pace, cannot be regained within the next few decades, which are a critical window for addressing climate change. In some types of wetlands, it can take decades to millennia to develop soil conditions that support net carbon accumulation. Other types, such as new saltwater wetlands, can rapidly start accumulating carbon.

Arctic permafrost, which is wetland soil that remains frozen for two consecutive years, stores nearly twice as much carbon as the current amount in the atmosphere. Because it is frozen, microbes cannot consume it. But today, permafrost is thawing rapidly, and Arctic regions that removed large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere as recently as 40 years ago are now releasing significant quantities of greenhouse gases. If current trends continue, thawing permafrost will release as much carbon by 2100 as all U.S. sources, including power plants, industry and transportation.

Kuujjuarapik is a region underlain by permafrost in Northern Canada. Nigel Roulet, McGill University., CC BY-ND

Climate services from wetlands

In addition to capturing greenhouse gases, wetlands make ecosystems and human communities more resilient in the face of climate change. For example, they store flood waters from increasingly intense rainstorms. Freshwater wetlands provide water during droughts and help cool surrounding areas when temperatures are elevated.

Salt marshes and mangrove forests protect coasts from hurricanes and storms. Coastal wetlands can even grow in height as sea level rises, protecting communities further inland.

Saltwater mangrove forest along the coast of the Biosphere Reserve in Sian Ka’an, Mexico. Ariana Sutton-Grier, CC BY-ND

But wetlands have received little attention from climate scientists and policymakers. Moreover, many wetland managers do not fully understand or integrate climate considerations into their work.

The most important international treaty for the protection of wetlands is the Ramsar Convention, which does not include provisions to conserve wetlands as a climate change strategy. While some national and subnational governments effectively protect wetlands, few do this within the context of climate change.

Forests rate their own section (Article 5) in the Paris climate agreement that calls for protecting and restoring tropical forests in developing countries. A United Nations process called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degraded Forests, or REDD+ promises funding for developing countries to protect existing forests, avoid deforestation and restore degraded forests. While this covers forested wetlands and mangroves, it was not until 2016 that a voluntary provision for reporting emissions from wetlands was introduced into the U.N. climate accounting system, and only a small number of governments have taken advantage of it.

Models for wetland protection

Although global climate agreements have been slow to protect wetland carbon, promising steps are starting to occur at lower levels.

Ontario, Canada has passed legislation that is among the most protective of undeveloped lands by any government. Some of the province’s most northern peatlands, which contain minerals and potential hydroelectric resources, are underlain by permafrost that could release greenhouse gases if disturbed. The Ontario Far North Act specifically states that more than 50 percent of the land north of 51 degrees latitude is to be protected from development, and the remainder can only be developed if the cultural, ecological (diversity and carbon sequestration) and social values are not degraded.

Also in Canada, a recent study reports large increases in carbon storage from a project that restored tidal flooding to a saltmarsh near Aulac, New Brunswick, on Canada’s Bay of Fundy. The marsh had been drained by a dike for 300 years, causing loss of soil and carbon. But just six years after the dike was breached, rates of carbon accumulation in the restored marsh averaged more than five times the rate reported for a nearby mature marsh.

In our view, instead of draining swamps and weakening protections, governments at all levels should take action immediately to conserve and restore wetlands as a climate strategy. Protecting the climate and avoiding climate-associated damage from storms, flooding and droughtis a much higher use for wetlands than altering them for short-term economic gains.