Volume 2  Number 9

Natural Health Techniques
Monthly Newsletter
Produced and edited by

Dr. Denice Moffat

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September 2006

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Health in the News:

E.coli outbreak in Spinach     

Saturday, Sept. 16, 2006

An outbreak of E. coli was linked to a California spinach processor this month. Initially it kind of made people question why they were eating greens, but is anyone safe eating anything these days?

Natural Selection Foods LLC was linked to the E. coli outbreak that has killed one person. Twenty-nine people have been hospitalized, 14 of them with kidney failure. FDA officials said they had received reports of illness in 19 states. Supermarkets across the country pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers have tossed out the leafy green. The E. coli O157:H7 strain of the bug has sickened at least 94 people across the nation, the CDC said. I’m sure, as usual, the number of people reporting the symptoms or going in for diagnosis was minimal compared to the number of people who were affected.

Natural Selection Foods voluntarily recalled its products containing spinach and is cooperating with federal and state health officials to identify the source of the contamination. Its products are sold as Rave Spinach, Natural Selection Foods, Dole, Earthbound Farm, Trader Joe's, Ready Pac and Green Harvest, among other brand names.

Understandably upset, Natural Selection Foods spokeswoman Samantha Cabaluna said Friday night. "What we do is produce food that we want to be healthy and safe for consumers, so this is a tragedy for us." The company said consumers could call 800-690-3200 for a refund or replacement coupons for tossed-out spinach products. I fed mine to our chickens. I figured that they didn’t need MY phone call. They have enough problems.

State health officials received the first reports of illness Aug. 25, 2006. The FDA warned people nationwide not to eat the spinach. Washing won't get rid of the tenacious bug, although thorough cooking can kill it.

Each year, consumers buy more than 500 million pounds of triple-washed raw spinach, packaged in cellophane bags and clamshell boxes. See, now I didn’t realize that it had been triple-washed. I’ve always wondered how they could get it so clean before bagging it!

Wisconsin accounted for 29 illnesses, about one-third of the cases, including the lone death. The victim's son identified her Friday night as Marion Graff, 77, of Manitowoc, who died of kidney failure Sept. 7, 2006.

States reporting cases of the E. coli infection were California, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Comment from Paul of a Rural Roots List serve I belong to: The reports make it pretty clear the problem is only with bagged spinach, stored, shipped, and sold in airtight bags. None with loose spinach, and never with homegrown spinach. A little odd? Not when we consider the moisture in airtight bags, an open invitation to all sorts of microbe growth. Sacrificing safety for convenience?

And a final comment by Nina Planck (the author of Real Food: What to Eat and Why)

First, some basic facts about this usually harmless bacterium: E. coli is abundant in the digestive systems of healthy cattle and humans, and if your potato salad happened to be carrying the average E. coli, the acid in your gut is usually enough to kill it.

But the villain in this outbreak, E. coli O157:H7, is far scarier, at least for humans. Your stomach juices are not strong enough to kill this acid-loving bacterium, which is why it's more likely than other members of the E. coli family to produce abdominal cramps, diarrhea, fever, and—in rare cases, fatal kidney failure.

Where does this particularly virulent strain come from? It's not found in the intestinal tracts of cattle raised on their natural diet of grass, hay and other fibrous forage. No, O157 thrives in a new—that is, recent in the history of animal diets—biological niche: the unnaturally acidic stomachs of beef and dairy cattle fed on grain, the typical ration on most industrial farms. It is the infected manure from these grain-fed cattle that contaminates the groundwater and spreads the bacteria to produce, like spinach, growing on neighboring farms.

In 2003, The Journal of Dairy Science noted that up to 80 percent of dairy cattle carry O157. (Fortunately, food safety measures prevent contaminated fecal matter from getting into most of our food most of the time.) Happily, the journal also provided a remedy based on a simple experiment. When cows were switched from a grain diet to hay for only five days, O157 declined 1,000-fold.

The United States Department of Agriculture does recognize the threat from these huge lagoons of waste, and so pays 75% of the cost for a confinement cattle farmer to make manure pits watertight, either by lining them with concrete or building them above ground. But taxpayers are financing a policy that only treats the symptom, not the disease, and at great expense. There remains only one long-term remedy, and it's still the simplest one: stop feeding grain to cattle.

California's spinach industry is now the financial victim of an outbreak it probably did not cause, and meanwhile, thousands of acres of other produce are still downstream from these lakes of E. coli-ridden cattle manure. So give the spinach growers a break, and direct your attention to the people in our agricultural community who just might be able to solve this deadly problem: the beef and dairy farmers.

 (Thanks to my mom and several clients who notified me of the outbreak. We don’t have TV and I had already seen a case of gastro-intestinal upset that was most likely due to the spinach! I sent home Bacterial Immune System Stimulator homeopathic drops which kills the E. coli.)

WHO Promotes Use of DDT

Washington—Expanded indoor use of the pesticide DDT won’t harm people or the environment and is critical in the fight against malaria, the World Health organization said Friday, September 15, 2006.

Officials said they hoped their endorsement of the controversial insecticide would influence countries in southern and eastern Africa to allow its application in moderation. They also anticipated that environmental groups would be alarmed by the announcement.

(Uh, DUH! Why would they think that??)

DDT is history’s most notorious insecticide. It was banned in the U.S. in 1972 after decades of widespread agricultural spraying which led to environmental damage around the globe. But, health officials said Friday there is a distinct difference when it comes to using DDT for agricultural purposes and using it to coat once or twice a year the inside walls of mud huts or other dwellings.

“The dosage is completely different than when the U.S. used DDT,” said Dr. Arata Kochi, director of the WHO’s malaria department. From Wire Service Reports.

(So it doesn’t build up in the tissues over time then? Right. . .)

Now, I don’t know about you all, but I have to harp and harp to some clients that “If a little is good, a lot ain’t necessarily better.” What’s to prevent people from using stronger dilutions? I’m sure Rachel Carson is probably rolling over in her grave right now or at least is getting an army of friends ready to reincarnate!  http://www.rachelcarson.org 

Case of the Month:

Food Dyes: Kipper Brown and Blue Drinks

I’ve been doing research on Kipper Brown dye and blue dyes. It seems, over the years, I have lots of clients that are allergic to these particular food dyes. With the blue dyes we see lots of ADD and ADHD.  I’ve found that removing artificial colorings and preservatives from young children's diets (and every other age for that matter) most always has a significant impact on reducing hyperactivity.

Recently (2004) researchers studied 300 children who were split into groups and subjected to different diets, some containing artificial additives such as tartrazine and sunset yellow. (Tartrazine is a chemical added to both the brown and blue dyes to give varying shades of color.) They found that the three-year-olds became significantly less hyperactive when they were on diets where the additives had been removed. And they became much more hyperactive when they were put back on the high-additive diet, according to the study in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

So, why do we need dyes? Some of the primary reasons dyes are used in the food industry are:

• To protect the food against color changes due to storage and exposure to the elements.
• To mask the natural variations of color (like with oranges.)
• To enhance naturally occurring colors (like in cherry pie filling.)
• To provide an identity to food (like Skittles or margarine. Funny, but years ago when some states were trying to pass a law that margarine should be colored pink—sales went down.)
• To protect flavors and vitamins from being damaged by light.

Blue dyes come under a variety of aliases: Brilliant Blue FCF, FD&C Blue No.1, Food Blue 2, Acid Blue 9, D&C Blue No. 4, Alzen Food Blue No. 1, Alphazurine, Atracid Blue FG, Erioglaucine, Eriosky blue, Patent Blue AR, Xylene Blue VSG, and C.I. 42090 and E133. It is a synthetic coal tar dye. 

The 'E' stands for EC (European Communities) and is a numbered code applied to a variety of food additives used in many of the food products we buy today.

Blue dyes are commonly added to medicines, ice cream, sweets, baked goods, candy, and biscuits. The health ramifications of blue dyes include:  nausea, vomiting, high blood pressure, skin rashes, breathing problems, brain tumors and other allergic reactions.  Blue dye has also been used as a diagnostic aid for kidney function and other lab tests. 

Blue dye can be combined with tartrazine (E102) to produce various shades of green. It is often found in ice cream, tinned processed peas, dairy products, sweets, and drinks. It is also used in soaps, shampoos, and other hygiene and cosmetics applications. 

And get this. . . In the United States production exceeds 1 million pounds annually, and daily consumption is around 16 mg per person. Gee, it’s like you can’t get away from the stuff!

E155, Kipper or Food Brown. Kipper brown is made from six azo dyes, sodium chloride and/or sodium sulphate. It is mainly used to give fish flesh a healthy pigment which will not leach or fade during cooking. Typical products include smoked and cured fish, crisps, cooked meats and chocolate flavored cakes. It appears to cause allergic and/or intolerance reactions, particularly amongst those with aspirin intolerance and asthma sufferers, and is also known to induce skin sensitivity.

I guess what I don’t understand is that I keep testing people are allergic to this dye, but apparently, from my research, it is banned in the USA. So, I don’t really know what kind of brown artificial dyes I might be picking up. I’m open to suggestions on this one. Anyone? Maybe it’s something imported from another country that is part of another formula?  

One thing I did notice (I look for patterns in everything) is in the book, A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives © 1999 by Ruth Winter, M.S. is that most additives and flavorings are concentrated in baked goods, ice cream, flavored liquors and candy. After reading that book, I pretty much gave up anything with color in it! I guess chocolate ice cream is a really hard ice cream to imitate. Apparently the chemists mess with about 100 different flavorings to make imitation chocolate. Yuk. No more apricot-flavored brandy for me!

M and M’s or Skittles anyone?  

Helpful Links:

I found this fun link about dyes that is full of useful information:

http://www.mbm.net.au/health/100-181.htm their motto being, "HARM" seems to be an intrinsic part of "pHARMa"

What’s New on the Website: 

• Last half of 40-Day Juice Fast Blog has been posted along with musings about the fast.
• Michael finished about 14 handouts on the various aspects of water including: Water Basics—Your Drinking Water, Water Basics, Do you Drink Spring Water, Contaminants and Health Effects, Are Water Filters Necessary, Are Shower Filters Necessary, Chlorine and the Hazards of Chlorine, EPA Nitrates Fact Sheet, Hard vs. Soft Water, Water That Stinks, Water That Stains, and the Health Hazards of Drinking Acid Water. You can read all about them at:

Note: I’m including the full link. If this doesn’t work, please let me know!)

• I got several emails saying the links did not work in the plain text version of the newsletter. I think I know what I’m doing wrong. Let me know if it happens again this month. At least I got my own newsletter for the first time last month. Gee, I thought I was making so much progress.
• For all you entrepreneurs trying to get your websites seen: I have posted 25 articles on http://www.ezinearticles.com in the last 12 months, which have been viewed 9677 times. That’s a lot of free exposure! My goal this year is to get 100 articles turned in. I’ve researched other online publishers, but these people REALLY know what they are doing. I don’t see anyone else even close to the professionalism and effectiveness they provide. I highly recommend them.
• Affirmations have been posted from: Open Your Mind to Prosperity  by Catherine Ponder: See them here.
• Glad Passages: For years I have been fascinated by the Glad Passages talked about in the movie, Pollyanna. I've often wondered how Pollyanna’s father came up with over 800 glad passages. Are there really 800? And what words did her father use to look them up in the concordance of the King James Version of the bible?

After doing a Google search for the Glad Passages, I was discouraged to find that my name actually came up more times than the Glad Passages AND that most of the Glad Passages links led to negative passages in the bible written by depressed, schizophrenic and bipolar people!

So, I think this project will be a benefit to our world. I hope that it inspires you! The passages are in the rough form now. I’ve got to spend some time and delete those passages that are not totally positive. Right now I have about 1600 Passages posted. 

Product of the Month: Butter 

Butter is America's best and most easily absorbed source of Vitamin A., which is needed for a wide range of functions in the body, from maintaining good vision, to keeping the endocrine system in top shape. Vitamins A and D in butter are essential for the proper absorption of calcium and hence necessary for strong bones and teeth. Butter also contains the other fat-soluble vitamins E and K.

Butter contains lecithin, a substance that assists in the proper assimilation and metabolism of cholesterol and other fat constituents. Short and medium chain fatty acids in butter protect against pathogens and have strong anti-fungal effects (that means yeast and Candida.) 

Butter is rich in trace minerals, especially selenium, a powerful antioxidant. Ounce for ounce, butter has more selenium per gram than either whole wheat or garlic. Butter also supplies iodine, needed by the thyroid gland (Vitamin A is also needed by the thyroid gland.) 

Butter has appreciable amounts of butyric acid which are used by the colon as an energy source. Butyric acid is also a known anti-carcinogen. Lauric acid, also in butter is a medium chain fatty acid, which is a potent antimicrobial and antifungal substance. Butter also contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) which gives excellent protection against cancer. 

When looking for good quality butter, raw and cultured is best which may be hard to find. Organic butter is your next best choice, with store-bought butter being at the bottom. Butter made from grass-fed cattle is better for you because it has more of the healthier medium-chain fatty acids (and less E. coli.)  

When Dr. Weston A. Price studied native diets in the 1930's, he found that butter was a staple in the diets of many supremely healthy peoples. 

Now, a little history on margarine: Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had invested money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together. They added yellow coloring  to the white substance and sold it to people to use in place of butter.  All margarines are made from assorted vegetable oils that have been heated to extremely high temperatures. This possessing may be unsafe for your health.  

Now, comparing margarine and butter: 

• Both have the same amount of calories.
• Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams in margarine. Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
• Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few—only because they are added.
• Most people think butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods. Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

• Margarine is very high in trans-fatty acids which are carcinogenic and mutagenic. The US federal government requires (2006) the labeling of all food in such a way as to disclose amounts of trans-fat in products. Many brands label their products legally now as "zero grams" trans-fat, which in fact means less than 500 mg trans-fat per serving. I don’t know how they get away with this one.
• Some studies show that margarine triples the risk of coronary heart disease, increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol), increases the risk of cancers up to five fold and lowers the quality of breast milk. Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% when compared to eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study. Other studies sponsored by the margarine promoters refute this.
• Other studies show that margarine decreases immune response and decreases insulin response.
• And here's the most disturbing fact. . . Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC. . .Yum.

Who eats margarine? Humans do. Now, here’s a test you can do at home: 

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things:  

• No flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something.)
• Margarine does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value; nothing will grow on it. Hmm. . .come to think of it, the same thing happens with Kentucky Fried Chicken! Maybe they fry the chicken in trans-fats! That observation kind of bummed me out. I really liked their chicken before that.

References: http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/butter.html (biased view)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine (fairly unbiased view) 

(Note: I definitely have a biased view, but it’s my newsletter and my gut instinct! Thanks to my most favorite boss, Dr. Gary Thomas for sending me the impetus to write this part of the newsletter.)

Ask Dr. Moffat:

Natural Rat Care 

Question: Dear Dr Moffat, I love your newsletter; it tells me so many important things. I would hate to miss any of your fine articles; so please change my address for me. The old one is going away very soon. And. . .If you have any good advice on natural rat care and things about rats; I would love to see something about it in the newsletter. My rats are very dear to me. Thank you. Affectionately, Barbara P. from Pullman, WA.  

Answer: OK, I do promote that a cell is a cell is a cell, no matter what size or shape of animal or human it is in. I learned that in veterinary school from my favorite pathology teacher, Dr. Chuck Leathers. Rats are made up of cells and have the same components as humans or any other animals, so it would make sense that they would respond in similar ways even though some chemical pathways may be altered. So, here’s my take on preventative health care for rats: 

Rat stuff in general: Rats reach puberty at 6-8 weeks of age and start breeding at about 3 months of age. Gestation is about 20-22 days (just like most birds) and the babies are weaned in 21 days. They are best housed on solid bottom wood-floored cages in bedding (see below). After the male breeds with the female, the female is housed separately until after the babies have been weaned. You only need one male for several females.  

• They need fresh water—preferably filtered and chorine free.
• They need a variety of raw fruits, vegetables, dried fruits and nuts along with their rat kibble.
• Purchase only high-quality rat diet (from a store that moves the rat diets fairly quickly so you can be sure that it is fresh.)

continued in column 2 

Dr. Denice Moffat &
Michael Robison, Water Consultant
1069 Elk Meadow Lane

Deary, ID 83823 U.S.A.
(208) 877-1222
drmoffat@naturalhealthtechniques.com

michaelr@turbonet.com

The Healing Center Spring, 2006