Medical News You Can Use: “Dr. Atkins Was Right” Edition – Carbs Make You Fat, Not Just Inactivity

Researchers: Diet To Blame For Obesity, Not Lack Of Physical Activity

Lack of physical activity is not to blame for the prevalence of obesity, but rather the wrong diet, report physicians from the United States, United Kingdom, and South Africa who published their findings in the “British Journal of Sports Medicine.” However, they emphasized that even regular exercise cannot compensate for poor dietary habits.

Excess consumption of sugar and carbohydrates is mainly responsible for obesity, say the experts. Even 40% of people with a normal BMI will consequently have metabolic abnormalities normally associated with obesity.

But it is problematic that the public firmly believes that development is exclusively due to lack of physical activity. That misconception is due almost exclusively to

Could Climate Change help the Global Economy?

Raise a Glass of Scottish Wine to Global Climate Changes

By Rudy Ruitenberg Mar 25, 2014 11:00 PM CT

Thanks to climate change, Christopher Trotter will make history later this year by pairing a Scottish white wine with the local spoots.

The razor clams harvested from the nearby shores of the North Sea will go down nicely with the first bottles from Trotter’s vineyard north of Edinburgh. The 2014 vintage will be special for Scotland, where Highlanders have distilled whisky and brewed ale for centuries.

“Scotland has probably been more of a beer-drinking nation than anything else,” said Trotter, a chef and food writer. Wine hasn’t been part of the culture, he said, “until now.”

Christopher Trotter, Scottish Chef, Vintner and food writer, stands in his vineyard in Fife, Scotland
– Source: Christopher Trotter via Bloomberg

Trotter might as well pour a splash on the ground in memory of a vanishing world. Climate change, which scientists say is caused by heat-trapping gas accumulating in the atmosphere, is transforming dinner tables and scrambling traditions in the $270 billion global wine industry. In Europe, warmer seasons are chasing Italian and Spanish vintners up hillsides, making a winner of Germany, encouraging growers in Poland and spreading the cultivation of wine grapes to latitudes friendlier to belly-warming whiskies and ales. And it’s raising the alcohol content, and altering the flavors, of famous wines in France.

Vitis vinifera, the common grape vine, is a finicky crop. Vineyards flourish where average annual temperatures range from 10 to 20 degrees Celsius (50 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit). Too much dry weather, hail or too much rain can downgrade or wreck a vintage.

“Scotland has probably been more of a beer-drinking nation than anything else,” said Trotter, a chef and food writer. Wine hasn’t been part of the culture, he said, “until now.”

Trotter might as well pour a splash on the ground in memory of a vanishing world. Climate change, which scientists say is caused by heat-trapping gas accumulating in the atmosphere, is transforming dinner tables and scrambling traditions in the $270 billion global wine industry. In Europe, warmer seasons are chasing Italian and Spanish vintners up hillsides, making a winner of Germany, encouraging growers in Poland and spreading the cultivation of wine grapes to latitudes friendlier to belly-warming whiskies and ales. And it’s raising the alcohol content, and altering the flavors, of famous wines in France.

Vitis vinifera, the common grape vine, is a finicky crop. Vineyards flourish where average annual temperatures range from 10 to 20 degrees Celsius (50 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit). Too much dry weather, hail or too much rain can downgrade or wreck a vintage.

Fine Wine

“Wine is very responsive to climatic factors,” said Karl Storchmann, a professor of economics at New York University and managing editor of the Journal of Wine Economics. “This is especially true for fine wine, when weather-induced vintage-to-vintage price variations can exceed 1,000 percent.”

Over centuries, growers in the top producing countries — France, Italy and Spain — selected grape varieties that now account for 75 percent of the world’s wine plantings, according to a database prepared by the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Coca-Cola’s secret formula secret no more?

Rumor has it that Pepsi has already made their first batch.

And now, you can too!

And just so you’ll know… Coca-Cola is STILL made with sugar, instead of high fructose corn syrup. But NOT in the United States.

But where, then?

South of the border… Mexico.

Look for it – Coca-Cola made with cane sugar – in Latino grocery stores, or in your grocer’s Hispanic/international food aisle.

But, how did this happen, and what is the formula?

It’s official… I’m a nerd.

Image via Wikipedia Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Hey!

What do you read for fun?

It seemed an entirely apropos title for this entry.

What DO I read “for fun”?

Well, here are two excerpts from items I’m now reading.

Goodness and Light

Hey Betty.

Yeah, babe… I’m talkin’ to YOU!

Betty… not Black Betty, blam-de-lam, she’s from Birmingham. Blam-de-lam, way down in Alabam…

Butchu!

Betty Crocker!

Yeah, hon… I’m talkin’ to YOU!

Ever feel like cattle in a feedlot? High Fructose Corn Syrup works wonders!

Researchers at Princeton University have discovered what farmers have known for many years.

Corn will make you fat.

Corn chips, tortillas, corn meal, grits, hominy, raw corn, corn on the cob, creamed corn, sweet corn, pop corn… there are a veritable host of corn food products.

“But I don’t eat corn!,” you may say.

Sure you do.

Just read the ingredients labels of the foods you purchase.

Many, if not most, foods contain “High Fructose Corn Syrup,” which can be found in most unlikely of foods.

Ingredients are listed in order of concentration, from highest to lowest. Often, High Fructose Corn Syrup is