Easy Eco Swap: Cloth Napkins vs. Paper

Are you still using paper napkins at dinnertime? I know, I know – it’s tough to think about adding to the laundry pile when you have a busy, messy family –... Read More

       

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Siobhan & Alexandra’s Top 5 Products Right Now

We did a fun round-up of our current favs for the Detox Market newsletter this week and couldn’t resist sharing with you, too. It’s always fun to talk shop. Here’s what we’re into right now. Kjaer Weis Eyeshadows. Cloud Nine isn’t too white, isn’t too matte and isn’t too shimmery. It just wakes up even the most tired eyes in an I-woke-up-like-this way. We also love Pretty Purple, which makes blue eyes pop without making you look like you popped out of a Debbie Gibson music video. Lina Hanson Satori Perfume oil. A few years ago, we found our dream scent in […]

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True Organic Of Sweden All You Need Is Me Cream

Every woman needs that one solve-it-all product in which she can trust. Forget all petroleum based “saviors” like Elizabeth Arden 8 Hour Cream, because there’s a much better, organic solution – True Organic Of Sweden All You Need Is Me intensive cream (approx. €27/£21). Its stylish packaging is made out of sugarcane and is fully […]

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Happiness Is Good for Your Health

By Dr. Mercola

Being "happy" is something that feels intrinsically good, but pinning down exactly what happiness is can be a challenge. Words to describe happiness include optimism, joy, success, and well-being, each which may play a varying role in your own idea of happiness.

What makes one person happy is often different from the next, but one common theme prevails, which is that being happy is associated with better health. Happy people tend to eat healthier, exercise more, and get better sleep than those who are stressed out or depressed – all habits associated with health.

But it's very much a case of "the chicken or the egg." It could be that happiness itself is the impetus for healthy lifestyle, which in turn leads to health. It could also be the case that following a healthy lifestyle, regardless of mental state, leads to better health, and that good health makes it easier to be happy.

Yet, there's even more to happiness and health than leading a healthy lifestyle. Happiness causes distinct changes in your body that strengthen your immune system, boost positive emotions, decrease pain and chronic disease, provide stress relief, and more…

Why Happiness Is Healthy

A review of more than 200 studies found that positive psychological well-being is linked with a lower risk of heart disease, as well as lower blood pressure, normal body weight, and healthier blood fat profiles.¹

Further, among those 60 and over, feelings of happiness and enjoyment were associated with improved mobility and a lower risk of developing a disability over an eight-year period.²

It's even been scientifically shown that happiness can alter your genes! A team of researchers at UCLA showed that people with a deep sense of happiness and well-being had lower levels of inflammatory gene expression and stronger antiviral and antibody responses.³ This falls into the realm of epigenetics—changing the way your genes function by turning them off and on.

In addition, it appears people who are happy are less impacted by everyday stressors, and this ability to deflect stress is responsible for many of the gains to their health.

Past research has found that positive emotions –including being happy, lively, and calm -- appear to play a role in immune function. One study found that when happy people are exposed to cold and flu viruses, they're less likely to get sick and, if they do, exhibit fewer symptoms.⁴

The association held true regardless of the participants' levels of self-esteem, purpose, extraversion, age, education, body mass, or pre-study immunity to the virus, leading the lead researcher to say:⁵

"We need to take more seriously the possibility that positive emotional style is a major player in disease risk."

Being Grateful Is Good for Your Heart

In a study of nearly 200 heart failure patients, those with higher levels of gratitude had better mood, better sleep, less fatigue, and less inflammation, which can worsen heart failure, than those with lower levels.⁶

This is important, as the patients in the study were in stage B heart failure, which occurs before symptoms such as shortness of breath and fatigue develop. If the disease progresses to stage C, there is a five times higher risk of death, so it's possible that a positive mindset could be life-saving in this case.

Keeping a gratitude journal, a simple task in which you write down several things for which you are most thankful each day, appeared especially beneficial. Study author Paul Mills, a professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego, said:⁷

"We found that those patients who kept gratitude journals for those eight weeks showed reductions in circulating levels of several important inflammatory biomarkers, as well as an increase in heart rate variability while they wrote.

Improved heart rate variability is considered a measure of reduced cardiac risk… It seems that a more grateful heart is indeed a more healthy heart, and that gratitude journaling is an easy way to support cardiac health."

Is Being Happy in Your Genes?

There is some research to suggest that some people are naturally happier than others. In one study of nearly 1,000 pairs of adult twins, researchers at the University of Edinburgh suggested that genes account for about 50 percent of the variation in people's levels of happiness.

The underlying determinant was genetically caused personality traits, such as being sociable, active, stable, hardworking, or conscientious.⁸ Further, according to psychologist Nancy Segal, research has shown that the biggest predictor of happiness in identical twins is the happiness level of the other twin.⁹

But this does not at all suggest that you're born with a certain level of happiness and powerless to change it. Anyone can improve their level of happiness, and your environment and life circumstances also play a role, as there are many other indicators of happiness outside of your genes (or your age). CNN recently highlighted some of the most interesting research on what makes people happy:¹⁰

• Emotional well-being rises with income (but only up to $75,000, after which no additional rises are seen)¹¹
• Research suggests experiences make us happier than possessions; the "newness" of possessions wears off, as does the joy they bring you, but experiences improve your sense of vitality and "being alive" both during the experience and when you reflect back on it
• Older adults tend to have a greater sense of happiness than younger adults, perhaps because they regulate emotions better, are exposed to less stress and have less negative emotions (and perhaps a diminished negative response)
• Happiness typically follows a U-shaped curve. Happiness starts high, trends downward into middle-age, and then climbs back up among older people if they do not have severe health problems¹²

Tylenol Might Dull Your Happiness

Acetaminophen, better known as Tylenol, is known for dulling pain, but it might dull your emotional responses too, for better or for worse. Researchers showed emotional photos to college students who had either taken a 1,000-milligram dose of acetaminophen or a placebo.

Those who took the painkiller had more muted emotional responses to both negative and positive images.¹³ According to the researchers:

"Participants who took acetaminophen evaluated unpleasant stimuli less negatively and pleasant stimuli less positively, compared with participants who took a placebo. Participants in the acetaminophen condition also rated both negative and positive stimuli as less emotionally arousing than did participants in the placebo condition…

These findings suggest that acetaminophen has a general blunting effect on individuals' evaluative and emotional processing, irrespective of negative or positive valence."

As for why the drug might dull your emotions, the researchers suggested it might alter brain activity, such the activity of serotonin, reduce inflammatory signaling, or decrease activation in brain areas linked to emotional processing.¹⁴ And although they weren't tested, the researchers believe other pain relievers, including aspirin or ibuprofen, might have similar emotion-blunting effects.

Probiotics May Help Improve Your Mood

In addition to the brain in your head, embedded in the wall of your gut is your enteric nervous system (ENS), which works both independently of and in conjunction with the brain in your head.

This communication between your "two brains" runs both ways and is the pathway for how foods affect your mood. However, this gut-brain connection is about far more than just comfort food or butterflies in your stomach. According to Scientific American:¹⁵

"The gut-brain axis seems to be bidirectional—the brain acts on gastrointestinal and immune functions that help to shape the gut's microbial makeup, and gut microbes make neuroactive compounds, including neurotransmitters and metabolites that also act on the brain."

Certain probiotics are now being referred to as psychobiotics, or "bacteria for your brain," and are being used to successfully treat depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric problems. In one recent study, a multispecies probiotic supplement taken for four weeks reduced cognitive reactivity to sad mood, which is a strong marker for depression (the more a person reacts to sad mood with dysfunctional thoughts, the more prone they are to a depressive episode).¹⁶ The strongest effects were seen for reducing rumination and aggressive thoughts. According to the researchers:¹⁷

"These results provide the first evidence that the intake of probiotics may help reduce negative thoughts associated with sad mood. Probiotics supplementation warrants further research as a potential preventive strategy for depression."

In another study showing the importance of microbes for your mood, researchers revealed why gardening seems to make so many people happy. Mycobacterium vaccae is a type of bacteria commonly found in soil, which people may ingest or inhale when they garden.¹⁸ Remarkably, this microbe has been found to "mirror the effect on neurons that drugs like Prozac provide."¹⁹ It helps to stimulate serotonin production, helping to make you feel happier and more relaxed. Taking a probiotic, or being exposed to microbes through soil, are not the only ways to increase your exposure to these beneficial "bugs." Fermented foods, including fermented vegetables, are one of the best sources of probiotics there is.

Mindfulness Can Help You Find Happiness

Happiness can be a poorly defined, elusive goal. One way to think about happiness is to define it as "whatever gets you excited." Once you've identified that activity, whatever it is, you can start focusing your mind around that so you can integrate more of it into your daily life. If you feel stuck and don't know where or how to start, I suggest reviewing these 22 positive habits of happy people. Another option is practicing "mindfulness," which means that you're actively paying attention to the moment you're in right now, helping you to keep your internal focus.

Rather than letting your mind wander, when you're mindful you're living in the moment and letting distracting thoughts pass through your mind without getting caught up in their emotional implications. Mindfulness can help to reduce stress-induced inflammation, and it's a strong example of how you can harness your own sense of power and control to achieve what you want in life, including a more positive, happier mental state. Simple techniques such as the following can help you to become more mindful and, ultimately, happier:

• Pay focused attention to an aspect of sensory experience, such as the sound of your own breathing
• Distinguish between simple thoughts and those that are elaborated with emotion (such as "I have a test tomorrow" versus "What if I fail my test tomorrow and flunk my entire class?")
• Reframe emotional thoughts as simply "mental projections" so your mind can rest

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Boost Your Brain Health by Developing a Higher Purpose in Life, and Other Simple Brain-Boosting Strategies

By Dr. Mercola

Research suggests that personality traits like optimism and having a sense of purpose can benefit your health in a number of different ways, and ultimately help you live longer.

One recent study^1,2 has even linked having a sense of purpose in life to reduced odds of suffering a stroke. More than 450 elderly were included in the study, and underwent annual physical and psychological evaluations until their death.

Purpose in life was judged on a five-point scale, and for every one-point increase in the score, the odds of having a macroscopic infarction (clearly visible stroke damage at autopsy) went down by about 50 percent.

In all, those with a strong sense of life purpose were 44 percent less likely to have suffered the kind of major brain tissue damage that drives up your risk of age-related dementia and disability.

This link persisted even after adjusting for contributing factors such as obesity, smoking, diabetes, blood pressure, and lack of exercise. Lead author Lei Yu told Reuters:³

"We and others have shown that purpose in life is protective against multiple adverse health outcomes in older age... Importantly, purpose in life may be improved through changes in behaviors or participation in activities like volunteerism, among other things."

Having a sense of purpose in life is a key component of psychological well-being, and involves finding meaning in what you do and who you are, and leading a goal-directed life. According to the study:

"Older people with a greater sense of purpose are less likely to develop adverse health outcomes, including mortality, decline in physical function, frailty, disability, Alzheimer's disease (AD), and clinical stroke."

Is Your Personality Geared for Longevity?

Having a sense of purpose and staying productive has also been shown to promote longevity in The Longevity Project,⁴ a Stanford study spanning 80 years. Here, your level of conscientiousness, specifically, was identified as a marker for longevity.

The reason for this, the researchers believe, is because conscientious behavior influences other behaviors.

For example, conscientious people tend to make healthier choices, such as avoiding smoking, choosing work they enjoy, and life partners they get along with—factors that can have a significant impact on their stress level and general contentment.

Conscientious people also tend to be more productive, even past conventional retirement age, and tend to regard their work as having purpose.

The Longevity Project dismisses the idea that hard work will kill you early. On the contrary, those who stay productive and work hard all their lives actually tend to be happier, healthier, and more social compared to those who don't work as hard.

Positive Attitudes Also Reduce Heart Disease Risk and Influences Gene Expression

Other studies have shown that positive thoughts and attitudes can strengthen your immune system, decrease pain and chronic disease, and provide stress relief.

For instance, one study⁵ found that happiness, optimism, life satisfaction, and other positive psychological attributes are associated with a lower risk of heart disease.

It's even been scientifically shown that happiness can alter your genes. A team of researchers at UCLA showed that people with a deep sense of happiness and well-being had lower levels of inflammatory gene expression and stronger antiviral and antibody responses.⁶

This falls into the realm of epigenetics—changing the way your genes function by altering environmental factors, which includes your thoughts and emotions.

How to Rewire Your Brain for Health and Happiness

But what if you're not already optimistic, happy, satisfied, and living with a sense of purpose; what do you do then? Not to worry. While it may seem like certain psychological attitudes are ingrained to the point of being unalterable, the reality is you can change your attitude.

Forbes⁷ recently listed a number of strategies recommended by Davidson, Ph.D., author of The Emotional Life of Your Brain, to rewire the neural pathways in your brain to boost optimism, focus, self-awareness, and other health-boosting attitudes. This includes:

• Surrounding yourself with reminders, such as photos or mementos, of happy times
• Regularly expressing gratitude
• Complementing people on things you like or appreciate about them
• Practicing mindfulness
• Visualizing compassion. "If you'd like to be more resilient, Davidson suggests doing this exercises for five to 10 minutes at a time, four or five times a week:

• Visualize someone you know who is suffering--a neighbor who is ill or a friend struggling in their marriage--and on each inhalation imagine that you are taking on that suffering.

  On each exhalation, imagine the suffering is transformed into compassion, which will help ease the person's pain," Forbes writes.

Your Brain Keeps Growing and Changing Throughout Life

Until recently, it was believed that the human brain could not generate new neural cells once brain cells died or were damaged. This old model is no longer relevant, as it's been proven that your brain can not only generate new cells (neurogenesis), it can also create new neural pathways.

So, you actually have far more control over your brain and mind than you might think. As suggested by Dr. Davidson, you can even rewire your brain to become more optimistic—and that alone could create a beneficial feedback loop that promotes health in the rest of your body.

The ability of your brain to change and adapt in response to experience is known as neuroplasticity.⁸ You can think of those neurological changes as your brain's way of tuning itself to meet your needs. One example of this is when you're learning a new skill.

The more you focus and practice, the better you become, and this is a result of new neural pathways that form in response to your learning efforts. At the same time, your brain is undergoing "synaptic pruning"—elimination of the pathways you no longer need.

This phenomenon applies to emotional states as well. For example, if you have a history of anxiety, your neural pathways become wired for anxiety. If you develop tools to feel calm and peaceful more of the time, those anxiety pathways are pruned away from lack of activity—"use it or lose it" really applies here. Besides life experiences and/or mental training, your brain's plasticity is also controlled by your diet, and lifestyle choices such as exercise. Despite what the media tells you, your brain is not "programmed" to shrink and fail as you age.

The foods you eat, exercise, emotional states, sleep patterns, and your level of stress—all of these factors influence your brain from one moment to the next. All of these factors also influence your genetic expression. It's important to realize that any given gene is not in a static "on" or "off" position. You may be a carrier of a disease-activating gene that never gets expressed, simply because you never supply the required environment to turn it on. As explained by neurologist David Perlmutter:

"We interact with our genome every moment of our lives, and we can do so very, very positively. Keeping your blood sugar low is very positive in terms of allowing the genes to express reduced inflammation, which increase the production of life-giving antioxidants.

So that's rule number one: You can change your genetic destiny. Rule number two: you can change your genetic destiny to grow new brain cells... You are constantly growing new brain cells into your 50s, 60s, 80s, and 90s – throughout your lifetime – through a process called neurogenesis."

Protect Your Brain with Wise Lifestyle Choices

A number of simple lifestyle strategies have proven to promote neurogenesis. This includes exercise, especially high-intensity interval training, calorie restriction (intermittent fasting appears to have many of the same benefits while being easier to comply with), and reducing non-vegetable carbohydrate (especially grains and sugars). According to Dr. Perlmutter, who wrote the excellent book Grain Brain, a low-carb, high-fat diet is a key component of Alzheimer's prevention. Gluten appears to be particularly problematic for brain health.

You also need plenty of high-quality omega-3 fats. I prefer krill oil to fish oil, as krill oil also contains astaxanthin, which is particularly beneficial for your brain. Astaxanthin is a carotenoid that's very good for reducing free radical-mediated damage to fat—and your brain is 60 or 70 percent fat.

Two other nutrients that play important roles in your brain health are vitamin D and choline. Researchers have located metabolic pathways for vitamin D in the brain's hippocampus and cerebellum; areas that are involved in planning, information processing, and memory formation. In older adults, research has shown that low vitamin D levels are associated with poorer brain function.

Choline also reduces inflammation and plays a role in nerve communication. Eggs and meat are two of the best dietary sources of choline. If you do not consume animal foods, you may be at risk of a deficiency and want to consider supplementation. Last but not least, the state of your gut can also have a significant influence on your brain function. Your gut is quite literally your "second brain."

Just as you have neurons in your brain, you also have neurons in your gut, and gut bacteria transmit information from your GI tract to your brain via your vagus nerve. Abnormal gut flora has been associated with abnormal brain development, and may be an overlooked culprit in many cases of depression. In addition to avoiding sugar, one of the best ways to support gut health is to consume fermented vegetables, which are loaded with beneficial bacteria.

Healthy Choices and a Sunny Disposition Can Prevent Many Ills

The takeaway message here is that you have a great deal of control over your mind, brain health, and life expectancy, based on the personal choices you make—from how you think to how you move, and what you choose to eat—and when. For a comprehensive food guide, see my free nutrition plan, which also addresses intermittent fasting.

In the end, there is no quick fix when it comes to longevity. There is no magic pill and no fountain of youth. But the solution doesn't have to be difficult or complicated either. Once you've memorized the basics, eating right and exercising becomes routine, and doesn't require much thought.

Speaking of thought, you'd be wise to keep your mind as active as your body. Remember, learning something new is one way to keep your brain young, so remaining a lifelong student is a good idea. Research⁹ has shown that engaging in cognitively stimulating activities both early and late in life is associated with slower late-life cognitive decline. Conversely, if you don't sufficiently challenge your brain with new, surprising information, it eventually begins to deteriorate.

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20% OFF EVERYTHING (Today Only!)

Hey loves, Happy Hump Day! If you haven’t noticed I’ve been taking a little bit of an ol’ internet break.  I’m working on some really fun, exciting projects that have […]

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La Mav in the Press: April, 2015

As April passed, La Mav was proudly featured online and in print. We’d love it if you show the La Mav Love and support all the below publications by clicking through and reading the posts and leaving a comment where you can!

Ocean Road Magazine – Autumn, 2015

Featured: La Mav Pure Tamanu Oil & La Mav Pure Hempseed Oil

Have you ever heard of the Oil Cleansing Method? If you haven't, check out Ocean Road's Magazine suggestion - how to get healthy, clean skin with the help of pure natural oils. Easy, fast and effective! Natural oils dissolve the hardened sebum and all impurities stuck in it and pull out the toxins out of your skin, leaving it purified and nourished! Does it work for oily, acne-prone skin? You bet!

Ocean Road Magazine Autumn 2015 - Back To Basics

The Carousel – April 16, 2015

Featured: La Mav Coffee Bean Body Scrub

"Cellulite can strike no matter what age or weight you are." Sad, but true. 

Nevertheless, with proper care and certain lifestyles changes, you can smooth out your skin and make it as close as possible to what you see in magazines (though, we all know there's quite a lot of Photoshop involved there.. but that's another story) Where to start? Well, a good body scrub is definitely something to include in your "beauty arsenal" against cellulite. For the rest - read on here.

The Carousel - How To Combat Cellulite

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Australian Natural Health – April - May, 2015

Featuring: La Mav Organic BB Cream

For all of you green beauty junkies out there Australian Natural Health Magazine offers a wonderful selection of must-have beauty items that I doubt you'll be able to resist. I know, I know - you've promised yourself "No more makeup this month" but c'mon - look at these beauties! Simple irresistible! Did I mention all are toxic-free and good for your skin?

Australian Natural Health Magazine - Beauty

She Said - April 19, 2015

Featured:  La Mav Antioxidant Rich Nightly Repair Nectar & Daily Vitamin C Brightening Serum

If you don't know much about La Mav, yet and you are curious to find out more about the philosophy behind the brand and why organic skin care is the best you can choose for your skin and your body, have a look at Tarj Mavi's interview for She Said. In it she will share with you her favorite beauty items and some exciting things that are going to happen around La Mav in the upcoming months.

She Said - Interview with La Mav's founder Tarj Mavi

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If you liked this post, let us know by sharing it! Share and get $5 off for youre next order with La Mav!

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Christina’s Morning Skin & Hair Routine… Exposed!

Meet Christina, a shea-loving green-juice drinking beauty who has a penchant for DIY and takes her routine day-by-day depending on how her skin is behaving. We can relate! Name: Christina Ossorio Age: 26 City: Bronx, NY Current Weather: chilly and windy Skin: Combination! It hates me in the summer — super oily and in the winter it is confused — oily some parts and dry in others. Every now and then it behaves. Easily breakout prone if I over exfoliate or if it doesn’t like an ingredient. So also sensitive and scars easily. Olive/tan complexion. Hair: Thick, Curly and Dry […]

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Recent Organic Beauty Empties #7

After every empties post I tell myself that I won’t do it again, because it’s hard for me to keep the empty bottles, tubes or whatever empty packaging around. However, I’ve held onto a few products just to share about the ones I really liked and would repurchase again: Juice Beauty Stem Cellular Repair Booster […]

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"Very High Levels of Arsenic" in Top-Selling Wines

By Dr. Mercola

If you drink alcoholic beverages on occasion, wine could arguably be described as one of the “healthier” options. Red wine, in particular, is rich in antioxidants called polyphenols, including resveratrol.

Resveratrol’s antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-carcinogenic properties have been well-established by science, and its benefits are thought to extend to the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, among others.

Resveratrol is found in abundance in red wine, and it's highly soluble in alcohol, which means your body may absorb more of it from red wine than from other sources. In fact, the resveratrol in red wine even has anti-aging properties that have been linked to increased lifespan.¹

Unfortunately, researchers have uncovered a problem in wine that has recently plagued other foods like apple juice and rice – high, potentially dangerous, levels of arsenic.

Concerning Levels of Arsenic Detected in Popular Wines

A class-action lawsuit filed in California states that wine drinkers have become “unwitting ‘guinea pigs’ of arsenic exposure,”² after tests showed levels up to four and five times the maximum amount the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows for drinking water.³

Of the more than 1,300 bottles of wine tested, nearly one-quarter had arsenic levels higher than the EPA’s maximum arsenic level for drinking water, which is 10 parts per billion (ppb).

Many of the wines mentioned in the lawsuit (nearly 30 companies representing 83 different labels in all) are considered low-cost brands that are popular among wine drinkers. Brands included Cupcake, Franzia, Flipflop, Rex Goliath, Korbel, and Trader Joe's Charles Shaw Zinfandel (or “two-buck Chuck”).⁴

The lawsuit is asking for monetary damages and a label to be added to the bottles disclosing the inorganic arsenic content as well as related health risks. It claims "just a glass or two of these arsenic-contaminated wines a day over time could result in dangerous arsenic toxicity to the consumer."⁵

David Hicks, owner of BeverageGrades, a lab that analyzes wine and which conducted the study, told CBS News: ⁶

"The lower the price of wine on a per-liter basis, the higher the amount of arsenic.”

The wine industry has fired back, stating that even the highest level of arsenic found is half the level of arsenic allowed in Canada’s wine. While the US has no regulations concerning arsenic in wine, Canada’s allowable limit is 100 parts per billion, while Europe’s standard is 200 ppb.

Some have also pointed out a potential conflict of interest, since Hicks’ company sells alcohol analysis services and sent out a news release offering its services to provide “reassurance from arsenic in wine,” according to CNN.⁷

Still, in general the less potential carcinogens in your wine, the better, so it’s probably best to follow the precautionary principle.

What Are the Health Risks of Inorganic Arsenic?

Arsenic occurs naturally in the earth and is released into rocks, soil, water, and air. It also gets into soil as a result of industrial pollution and arsenic-based pesticides that have been applied to soil. There are two primary types, inorganic, which is found in contaminated water and also released through industry and in building products (such as pressure-treated wood) and organic.

Inorganic arsenic is far more dangerous than the organic variety. It is a powerful carcinogen that has been linked to an increased risk of several types of cancer, including bladder, kidney, lung, and skin. According to the EPA:⁸

"Chronic inorganic arsenic exposure is known to be associated with adverse health effects on several systems of the body, but is most known for causing specific types of skin lesions (sores, hyperpigmentation, and other lesions) and increased risks of cancer of the lungs and skin."

Other impacts of chronic arsenic exposure include, according to the EPA:

Kidney damage and failure	Anemia	Low blood pressure
Shock	Headaches	Weakness
Delirium	Increased risk of diabetes	Adverse liver and respiratory effects, including irritation of mucous membranes
During development, increased incidence of preterm delivery, miscarriage, stillbirths, low birth weight, and infant mortality	During childhood, decreased performance in tests of intelligence and long-term memory	Skin lesions

Food Is the Largest Source of Arsenic Exposure for Most People

Unless you work in an industry that uses arsenic (such as a smelting plant), your largest source of exposure to arsenic is probably going to be your food. Although most arsenic in food is the less toxic organic form, inorganic arsenic does occur naturally in some foods. According to the American Cancer Society:⁹

“The highest levels of arsenic (in all forms) in foods can be found in seafood, rice, rice cereal (and other rice products), mushrooms, and poultry, although many other foods can contain low levels of arsenic.

Rice is of particular concern because it is a major part of the diet in many parts of the world. It is also a major component of many of the cereals eaten by infants and young children. (Nearly all rice products have been found to contain at least some arsenic, although the levels can vary widely.)”

Rice has been shown to accumulate 10 times more arsenic than other grains, due to physiology and growing conditions, and is an ingredient of “moderate” concern in rice and rice-based processed foods, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG). EWG reported:¹⁰

“In 2012, the independent, highly regarded Consumer Reports research organization made public tests indicating that arsenic concentrations commonly exceeded 100 parts per billion in rice, rice flour, crackers, pasta, hot and cold breakfast cereals, and infant cereal…

Arsenic levels in rice milk often surpassed 10 parts per billion, the maximum allowed in drinking water.”

Is US Rice Riskiest of All?

Arsenic levels vary significantly between samples, but in the US, rice is frequently grown on land previously used to grow cotton, on which arsenic-based pesticides were heavily used.

According to research by Andrew Meharg, professor of Biogeochemistry at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, American-grown rice has among the highest average inorganic arsenic levels in the world.¹¹

US rice contains nearly three times more arsenic than Basmati rice imported from Nepal, India, and Pakistan. Egyptian rice has the lowest inorganic arsenic levels of all. If you are consuming rice milk, rice flour, rice pasta, and whole rice on a regular basis, the levels of arsenic could easily add up.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also tested 1,100 rice and rice products and concluded “the amount of detectable arsenic is too low in the rice and rice product samples to cause any immediate or short-term adverse health effects.”¹²

However, this says nothing about the long-term effects, especially when consumed along with other sources of inorganic arsenic, like drinking water or wine. Unfortunately, the signs and symptoms of chronic arsenic exposure can easily be overlooked or misdiagnosed as something else. For example, early symptoms include:

• Gastrointestinal problems
• Skin discoloration or lesions, including hyperkeratosis
• Chronic fatigue syndrome

Chronic long-term exposure also increases your risk of:

• Various cancers
• High blood pressure
• Diabetes
• Reproductive problems

Arsenic Has Also Been Detected in Apple Juice

Aside from rice, the FDA has been monitoring levels of arsenic in apple juice for about two decades. Here, too, they stated that “samples contain levels of arsenic that are low, with few exceptions.” In 2012, they related data showing 95 percent of the apple juice samples tested were below 10 ppb total arsenic, and 100 percent of the samples were below 10 ppb for inorganic arsenic, the carcinogenic form of arsenic.¹³

In 2013, they proposed an “action level” of 10 ppb for inorganic arsenic in apple juice, which is the same standard set for drinking water. Consumer Reports scientists had urged a much lower standard of 3 ppb for juice. It should be noted that while apple juice with arsenic was highly publicized, the compound was also detected in grape juice. Further, in an analysis of arsenic levels in juice drinkers compared to non-juice drinkers, Consumer Reports found a striking difference. According to Consumer Reports:¹⁴

“The resulting analysis of almost 3,000 study participants found that those reporting apple-juice consumption had on average 19 percent greater levels of total urinary arsenic than those subjects who did not, and those who reported drinking grape juice had 20 percent higher levels. The results might understate the correlation between juice consumption and urinary arsenic levels because NHANES urinary data exclude children younger than 6, who tend to be big juice drinkers.

‘The current analysis suggests that these juices may be an important contributor to dietary arsenic exposure,’ says Keeve Nachman, Ph.D., a risk scientist at the Center for a Livable Future and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, both at Johns Hopkins University. ‘It would be prudent to pursue measures to understand and limit young children's exposures to arsenic in juice.’”

Beer and Drinking Water May Also Contain Arsenic

It’s not only those who drink wine or apple juice, and eat rice, that need to be aware of dietary sources of arsenic. Beer drinkers should also take heed. The FDA tested 65 samples of beer, all of which contained some form of rice ingredients. Ten of them contained inorganic arsenic levels ranging from 15 ppb to 26 ppb.¹⁵

No further testing is planned, but it goes to show that getting a little bit of arsenic here and a little bit there can easily add up, especially if you drink a lot of beer, wine or juice, or consume a lot of rice and rice-based products. Tests have even found very high levels of inorganic arsenic in a variety of baby foods,¹⁶ which is particularly concerning. Arsenic exposure in utero and during early childhood is particularly problematic, as it can cause lasting harm to children's developing brains, and endocrine and immune systems. For example:¹⁷

• A 2004 study showed children exposed to arsenic in drinking water at levels above 5 ppb had lower IQ scores. Earlier studies have linked chronic arsenic exposure to a range of cognitive dysfunctions, including learning disabilities, memory problems, poor concentration, and peripheral and central neuropathies.
• A study published in 2011 examined the long-term effects of low-level exposure on more than 300 rural Texans whose groundwater was estimated to have arsenic at median levels below the federal drinking-water standard. It also found that exposure was related to poor scores in language, memory, and other brain functions.

Not only can the level of arsenic in US tap water be high due to natural groundwater contamination, but the most commonly used form of fluoride added to water supplies also tends to be contaminated with arsenic. Those with private wells may face even greater risks than those on public systems. If you have a well, you would be well advised to have your water tested and treated accordingly. For example, in Maine, where almost 50 percent of the population relies on private wells, the US Geological Survey has occasionally found arsenic levels in well water as high as 3,100 ppb! ¹⁸

Arsenic Has Even Been Fed to Chickens

Arsenic-based drugs were approved for use in animal feed in the US because they make animals grow quicker and make the meat appear pinker (i.e. "fresher"). The FDA has stated these products are safe because they contain organic arsenic, which is less toxic than the other inorganic form, which is a known carcinogen. The problem is, scientific reports surfaced stating that the organic arsenic could transform into inorganic arsenic, which has been found in elevated levels in supermarket chickens.

The inorganic arsenic also contaminates manure where it can eventually migrate into drinking water and may also be causing heightened arsenic levels in US rice. In 2011, Pfizer announced it would voluntarily stop marketing its arsenic-based feed additive Roxarsone, and in 2013, the FDA banned three out of four remaining arsenic drugs on the market. In the European Union, meanwhile, arsenic-based compounds have never been approved as safe for animal feed.

How to Protect Yourself and Your Family from Arsenic Exposure

The problem with arsenic similar to that of so many other toxins in our environment. While you won’t drop dead from drinking a glass of wine or eating a bowl of rice, the arsenic exposure accumulates and it may cause problems over time. As noted by Consumer Reports:¹⁹

“People sometimes say, ‘If arsenic exposure is so bad, why don’t you see more people sick or dying from it?’ But the many diseases likely to be increased by exposure even at relatively low levels are so common already that its effects are overlooked simply because no one has looked carefully for the connection,’ says Joshua Hamilton, Ph.D., a toxicologist specializing in arsenic research and the chief academic and scientific officer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.”

It’s probably not realistic to expect to eliminate all arsenic exposure, but you can certainly take steps to limit it. If you’re a wine drinker, for instance, you may want to limit your drinks in light of this new information (which you would want to do anyway from a health standpoint). You could also contact the wine’s manufacturer and ask about arsenic levels.

Another, probably more pressing, aspect is to address arsenic in your drinking water. If you have well water, it would be prudent to have your water tested for arsenic and other contaminants. If you have public water, you can get local drinking water information from the EPA.

If elevated arsenic levels are detected, install a water filter, such as a reverse osmosis or activated carbon system, to remove it. Other common-sense strategies to help cut down on your exposure include:

• Limit your child's juice consumption. This is a general guideline for optimal health anyway, as juices contain high amounts of fructose that if taken in large quantities can cause very serious health problems.
• Limit your rice consumption. This includes not only whole rice but also rice milk, rice crackers, and rice noodles. Do not allow children to drink rice milk and avoid feeding infants rice cereal.
• Buy organic, pastured chicken. Organic standards do not allow organically raised chickens to be given conventional feed grown with synthetic pesticides.
• Avoid processed baby food. Not only are many baby foods contaminated with potentially toxic chemicals, they also tend to be loaded with sugar and trans fats, and some may even contain genetically engineered ingredients.

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What 5 Days of Junk Food Can Do to Your Metabolism

By Dr. Mercola

If you overdo it on pizza, macaroni and cheese, chips, and ice cream, you might worry about what it's going to do to your thighs or mid-section. But binging on junk food isn't only a matter of weight gain. It might have far more serious repercussions than that.

People who ate a diet focused on macaroni and cheese, processed lunchmeat, sausage biscuits, mayonnaise, and microwavable meals with unhealthy fats, for example, showed serious negative changes to their metabolism after just five days.

After eating the junk-food diet, the study participants (12 healthy college-aged men) muscles' lost the ability to oxidize glucose after a meal, which could lead to insulin resistance down the road.¹

What Happens to Your Metabolism After Five Days of Junk Food

Even though their caloric intake remained unchanged, when men ate a junk-food diet their muscles' ability to oxidize glucose was disrupted in just five days' time. This is a significant change, because muscle plays an important role in clearing glucose from your body after a meal.

Under normal circumstances, your muscles will either break down the glucose or store it for later use. Your muscles make up about 30 percent of your body weight, so if you lose this key player in glucose metabolism it could pave the way for diabetes and other health problems.² As reported by TIME:³

"'The normal response to a meal was essentially either blunted or just not there after five days of high-fat feeding,' [Matthew] Hulver, [PhD, department head of Human Nutrition, Food, and Exercise at Virginia Tech Hulver] says.

Before going on a work-week's worth of a fatty diet, when the men ate a normal meal they saw big increases in oxidative targets four hours after eating.

That response was obliterated after the five-day fat infusion. And under normal eating conditions, the biopsied muscle used glucose as an energy source by oxidizing glucose. 'That was essentially wiped out after,' he says. 'We were surprised how robust the effects were just with five days.'"

Just One Bad Meal Can Mess with Your Health

Morgan Spurlock's documentary Super Size Me was one of the first to vividly demonstrate the consequences of trying to sustain yourself on a diet of fast food. After just four weeks, Spurlock's health had deteriorated to the point that his physician warned him he was putting his life in serious jeopardy if he continued the experiment.

But as the featured study showed, it doesn't take a virtual month to experience the health effects of a poor diet. In fact, the changes happen after just one meal, according to research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.⁴

When you eat a meal high in unhealthy fats and sugar, the sugar causes a large spike in your blood-sugar levels called "post-prandial hyperglycemia." In the long term this can lead to an increased risk of heart attack, but there are short-term effects as well, such as:

• Your tissue becomes inflamed (as occurs when it is infected)
• Your blood vessels constrict
• Damaging free radicals are generated
• Your blood pressure may rise higher than normal
• A surge and drop in insulin may leave you feeling hungry soon after your meal

The good news is that eating a healthy meal helps your body return to its normal, optimal state, even after just one. Study author James O'Keefe of the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri told TIME:⁵

"Your health and vigor, at a very basic level, are as good as your last meal."

See Inside Your Stomach After a Meal of Instant Meals…

Dr. Braden Kuo of Massachusetts General Hospital used a pill-sized camera to see what happens inside your stomach and digestive tract after you eat ramen noodles, one common type of instant noodles. The results were astonishing…

In the video above, you can see ramen noodles inside a stomach. Even after two hours, they are remarkably intact, much more so than the homemade ramen noodles, which were used as a comparison. This is concerning for a number of reasons.

For starters, it could be putting a strain on your digestive system, which is forced to work for hours to break down this highly processed food (ironically, most processed food is so devoid of fiber that it gets broken down very quickly, interfering with your blood sugar levels and insulin release).

When food remains in your digestive tract for such a long time, it will also impact nutrient absorption, but, in the case of processed ramen noodles, there isn't much nutrition to be had. Instead, there is a long list of additives, including the toxic preservative tertiary-butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ).

This additive will likely remain in your stomach along with the seemingly invincible noodles, and no one knows what this extended exposure time may do to your health. Common sense suggests it's not going to be good…

Eating Processed Foods Linked to Chronic Disease

Research published in the Journal of Nutrition found that women who consumed more instant noodles had a significantly greater risk of metabolic syndrome than those who ate less, regardless of their overall diet or exercise habits.⁶

Past research also analyzed overall nutrient intake between instant-noodle consumers and non-consumers, and found, as you might suspect, that eating instant noodles contributes little value to a healthy diet.

The instant-noodle consumers had a significantly lower intake of important nutrients like protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, potassium, vitamin A, niacin, and vitamin C compared with non-consumers.⁷ Those who ate instant noodles also had an excessive intake of energy, unhealthy fats, and sodium (just one package may contain 2,700 milligrams of sodium).⁸

Not to mention, refined carbohydrates like breakfast cereals, bagels, waffles, pretzels, and most other processed foods quickly break down to sugar in your body. This increases your insulin and leptin levels, and contributes to insulin resistance, which is the primary underlying factor of nearly every chronic disease and condition known to man, including weight gain.

Not only that, but remember… when you eat junk food you are not just feeding yourself… you’re feeding your microbiome, too, and in so doing altering its construction for better or worse. Your body’s diverse army of microbes is responsible for many crucial biological processes, from immunity to memory to mental health, so feeding it wisely, with fresh unprocessed and naturally fermented foods, is crucial to your overall health and well-being.

Is Junk Food as Dangerous as Cigarettes?

In the US, about one-quarter to one-third of adults fall into the obese category. A staggering two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and poor diet is in large part to blame. Last year, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, said that "obesity is a bigger global health threat than tobacco use," and that this fact isn't taken as seriously as it should be. His statements were delivered at the opening of the 2014 World Health Organization's annual summit. De Schutter ultimately wants nations to join forces to place stricter regulations on unhealthy foods:⁹

"Just as the world came together to regulate the risks of tobacco, a bold framework convention on adequate diets must now be agreed," he said. 'The Special Rapporteur has previously agitated for greater governmental action on junk foods, including taxing unhealthy products, regulating fats and sugars, cracking down on advertising for junk food, and rethinking agricultural subsidies that make unhealthy food cheaper,' Time Magazine noted. 'Governments have been focusing on increasing calorie availability,' he said, 'but they have often been indifferent to what kind of calories are offered, at what price, to whom they are made available, and how they are marketed.'"

The idea that being overweight can be more harmful than smoking is likely to make many balk, considering how "normal" it has become to carry around extra pounds, but in terms of overall health effects and subsequent health care costs, it's likely true. For example, data collected from over 60,000 Canadians show that obesity leads to more doctor visits than smoking.¹⁰

Further, according to a report by The McKinsey Global Institute, the global cost of obesity is now $2 trillion annually, which is nearly as much as the global cost of smoking ($2.1 trillion) and armed violence (including war and terrorism, which also has a global cost of $2.1 trillion).¹¹ For comparison, alcoholism costs are $1.4 trillion annually, road accidents cost $700 billion, and unsafe sex costs $300 billion. What's more, if current trends continue, the McKinsey report estimates that nearly half of the world's adult population will be overweight or obese by 2030.

Junk Food Is Incredibly Addictive

Your body is designed to naturally regulate how much you eat and the energy you burn. But food manufacturers have figured out how to over-ride these intrinsic regulators, designing processed foods that are engineered to be "hyper-rewarding." According to the "food reward hypothesis of obesity," processed foods stimulate such a strong reward response in our brains that it becomes very easy to overeat. One of the guiding principles for the processed food industry is known as "sensory-specific satiety."

Investigative reporter Michael Moss describes this as "the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm your brain."¹² The greatest successes, whether beverages or foods, owe their "craveability" to complex formulas that pique your taste buds just enough, without overwhelming them, thereby overriding your brain's inclination to say "enough." In all, potato chips are among the most addictive junk foods on the market, containing all three "bliss-inducing" ingredients: sugar (from the potato), salt, and fat. Further, as reported by TIME:¹³

"Studies suggest that fatty, sugary foods promote excretion of the stress hormone cortisol, which seems to further stimulate appetite for calorie-dense foods. And the big post-meal spikes in blood sugar are more likely in people who don't exercise or those who carry weight around their abdomen. All of it makes it tough for people to stop eating junk food once they're in the habit. 'The more you eat it the more you crave it. It becomes a vicious cycle,' says O'Keefe."

And while food companies abhor the word "addiction" in reference to their products, scientists have discovered that sugar, in particular, is just that. In fact, sugar is more addictive than cocaine. Research published in 2007 showed that 94 percent of rats that were allowed to choose mutually-exclusively between sugar water and cocaine, majority chose sugar.¹⁴ Even rats that were addicted to cocaine quickly switched their preference to sugar, once it was offered as a choice. The rats were also more willing to work for sugar than for cocaine.

The researchers speculate that the sweet receptors (two protein receptors located on the tongue), which evolved in ancestral times when the diet was very low in sugar, have not adapted to modern times' high-sugar consumption. Therefore, the abnormally high stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets generates excessive reward signals in your brain, which have the potential to override normal self-control mechanisms and thus lead to addiction.

Does Junk Food Have a Hold on You? How to Break Free

Replacing processed foods with homemade meals made from scratch using whole ingredients is an ideal and important way to ensure optimal nutrition. This will automatically cut out the vast majority of refined sugars, processed fructose, preservatives, dyes, other nasty chemicals, and many addictive ingredients from your diet. This will allow your body to depend less on sugar and more on fat as its primary fuel—provided you eat enough healthy fat, that is.

As a result, you will no longer crave sugar to keep you going. The key elements for a healthy diet that can help kick your junk food cravings to the curb are the following. For a comprehensive guide, please see my free optimized nutrition plan:

• Avoiding refined sugar, processed fructose, grains, and processed foods
• Eating a healthy diet of whole foods, ideally organic, and replacing the carbs you eliminate with:
• • As much high-quality healthy fat as you want (saturated and monounsaturated). Many would benefit from getting as much as 50-85 percent of their daily calories from healthy fats. While this may sound like a lot, consider that, in terms of volume, the largest portion of your plate would be vegetables, since they contain so few calories.

  • Fat, on the other hand, tends to be very high in calories. For example, just one tablespoon of coconut oil is about 130 calories—all of it from healthy fat. Good sources include:

    Olives and olive oil	Coconuts and coconut oil	Butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk
    Organic raw nuts, especially macadamia nuts, which are low in protein and omega-6 fat	Organic pastured egg yolks and pastured meats	Avocados

  • Large amounts of high-quality organic, locally grown vegetables, fermented vegetables, and ideally sprouts grown at your home
  • Low-to-moderate amount of high-quality protein (think organically raised, pastured animals, or eggs)

Planning Your Meals Is Key

Ditching processed foods requires that you plan your meals in advance, but if you take it step-by-step as described in my nutrition plan, it's quite possible, and manageable, to painlessly remove processed foods from your diet. You can try scouting out your local farmer's markets for in-season produce that is priced to sell, and planning your meals accordingly, but you can also use this same premise with supermarket sales. You can generally plan a week of meals at a time, making sure you have all ingredients necessary on hand, and then do any prep work you can ahead of time so that dinner is easy to prepare if you're short on time (and you can use leftovers for lunches the next day).

Finally, if you're an emotional eater, I highly recommend using the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT is simple and effective, and can rapidly help you eliminate your food cravings naturally.

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Flawed “GRAS” System Lets Novel Chemicals into Food Supply Without FDA Safety Review

Physicians Formula makeup overview

So as you all know, the whole makeup thing got me really curious. And the more natural-oriented – the better. However, my cosmetics bag is not limited to green beauty products only and I tend to give a chance to some well known and mass market makeup brands as well. With that being said, out...

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The post Physicians Formula makeup overview appeared first on TLV Birdie Blog.

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DIY Skin Brightening Toner

The options for toners in the clean beauty market keep growing, with more sophisticated formulas popping up all the time. Toners with probiotics, hyaluronic acid, fancy mushrooms, rare hydrosols and herbal extracts… the list goes on. I love the innovation happening with natural actives in clean beauty. These tend to deliver great results, but sometimes you can do just as well with a little DIY action, and toner is a great place to experiment. Recently I’ve had this love affair going with rose water. It is incredibly soothing and it gently tones and revitalizes skin. Rose water is naturally full […]

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Organic and Om-azing Mother’s Day Gift Ideas

  Thank you to Rodale’s for sponsoring this post. Once you become a mom, you totally get why there needs to be a special day to celebrate moms. Plus you finally understand... Read More

       

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Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Growing up I was a huge fan of potatoes. Whether they were mashed, fried or baked, potatoes were my “vegetable” of choice. For years my mom had talked about how much she loved sweet potatoes and I would smile and nod my head but could not get over the bright orange glow of these supposed...

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Make Up intentions Update

You may have read my previous make up intentions post (here) and be wondering how I've got on.

I've reduced my collection right down to a core, small selection of favourite items. I have a video on that coming out on Friday. (link will be *here* after Friday)

I've done very well on my 'no buy' with the only items I purchased being 3 nail varnishes from Zoya's new spring collections and a highlighter. I feel like both of these purchases were justified as I do not have many light coloured nail varnishes and I was replacing a highlighter I had used up.

I feel like I have really broken some bad habits that I have had for years. I've found products that really work well for me and I am sticking to them. Not only that but my experience while on a 'project pan' have taught me that an item of make up takes a LONG time to use up so I don't need duplicates in my collection.

Having said that... I will be buying myself some treats for my birthday so you can watch out for a goodies (haul) video in about a month's time. Let's see if I can maintain any kind of restraint after letting myself free to purchase!

If you'd like to see my video on this topic, click here.


Information: 
This post does not include any products sent for consideration.
The links are not affiliated.
All opinions are honest and my own, any suggestions made are based on my own experiences and are meant as a guide. Please always take care when making any DIY products and patch test to rule out an adverse reaction.

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The Benefits Of Mineral Makeup

5 Reasons To Switch to Mineral Makeup

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Do you wear makeup? If you do, you are probably always aiming at achieving the most natural look possible, using the least amount of product. At the same time, you also want to cover all imperfections, even your skin tone and add nice healthy glow to your face. Oh, and you want your makeup products to be  free of nasty chemicals (who doesn’t?!). Well, I have something that ticks all the boxes – mineral makeup! If you haven’t discovered its magical, skin transforming powers yet, let me share with you 5 reasons why it must become your holy makeup grail right now!

It's Suitable for Sensitive Skin

When we talk about mineral makeup, it’s not only important to mention what’s in it, but also what’s not. Since mineral makeup is free from preservatives, mineral oil, harsh chemicals and artificial dyes and fragrances, it’s less likely to provoke allergic reaction or  irritate the skin (even the most sensitive one). Quite often, dermatologists recommend mineral makeup to patients with rosacea or eczema, because of the way it is formulated.

Besides that, being free from  mineral oil makes it a great pick for acne-prone skin - it won’t clog pores, thus won’t cause breakouts. Another beneficial ingredient found in mineral makeup is zinc oxide. It has anti-inflammatory properties and will help you keep pimples at bay. Last but not least, minerals absorb excess oil, thus balance oil production in a natural way, without over drying the skin.

It Provides Natural Finish

The best thing about mineral makeup (and the reason why it is preferred by so many makeup artists nowadays) is that it looks super natural when applied on the skin. While regular foundations and powders often give us the undesired “cakey” look, with mineral makeup you can be sure your face will look naturally flawless.

It’s Buildable

Mineral makeup allows you to get the look you desire with ease. You can even your skin tone and add some youthful glow or you can get full coverage and hide all imperfections (without looking “cakey”!) depending on the quantity of product you use. The fine pigment particles blend smoothly, allowing you to play with colors and shades, and making you whole beautifying ritual an incredibly pleasant experience.

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La Mav Anti-Ageing Minerals offer a chemical-free option for those of you who want to green their beauty routine and go toxic-free. La Mav is the first company to infuse 100% Pure Minerals with both Vitamin C and Certified Organic Rosehip Oil for a unique anti-ageing, skin transforming formula!

Discover Our Mineral Makeup Range Now

It’s Safe

The main minerals used in the manufacturing or mineral makeup are zinc oxide, titanium oxide and iron oxide. These minerals are mined from the earth (100% natural, I told you) and then ground or milled, until their size is so small that they can be used to formulate fine powders and foundations. As mentioned above, mineral makeup is  free from nasty chemicals that can damage your health and worsen the condition of your skin. Instead, the natural minerals used in the manufacturing of mineral makeup make it the safest choice on the market.

It Acts As Natural Sunscreen

Since both zinc oxide and titanium dioxide (key ingredients in mineral makeup) act as sun blocks, we can talk about a certain degree of sun protection. Nevertheless, if you have very light complexion or you are prone to  hyperpigmentation, we’d recommend using a more powerful sunscreen with SPF at least 30 (or even higher), in order to avoid sun damage. Still, if you want a “city sun block” (basic protection for your face during the day), mineral makeup is fully suited for the job. Give it a try!

If you liked this post, let us know by sharing it! Share and get $5 off for youre next order with La Mav!

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Health Canada to Relabel Roundup Weedkiller

By Dr. Mercola

In late March, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is the research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), published their assessment^1,2,3 of the carcinogenicity of a number of organophosphate pesticides, including glyphosate.

Glyphosate was determined to be a “probable carcinogen” (Class 2A), based on “limited evidence” showing that the popular weed killer can cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and lung cancer in humans, along with “convincing evidence” it can also cause cancer in animals.

Glyphosate and glyphosate formulations have also been shown to induce DNA and chromosomal damage in mammals, as well as human and animal cells in vitro.

It’s worth noting that while recent years have turned up studies raising serious questions about the safety of glyphosate, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) raised the allowable limits for glyphosate in food in 2013. And, as reported by the Institute for Science in Society:⁴

“The amount of allowable glyphosate in oilseed crops (except for canola and soy) went up from 20 ppm to 40 ppm, 100 000 times the amount needed to induce breast cancer cells.”  [Emphasis mine]

Root and tuber vegetables (with the exception of sugar) got one of the largest boosts, with allowable residue limits being raised from 0.2 ppm to 6.0 ppm. Meanwhile, malformations in frog and chicken embryos have been documented at 2.03 ppm of glyphosate.⁵

Glyphosate-Contaminated Foods May Eventually Carry Cancer Warning in CA

IARC is considered the global gold standard for carcinogenicity studies, so its determination is of considerable importance.

It may even end up having a significant impact on the sale of genetically engineered (GE) foods, as the IARC is one of the five research agencies from which the OEHHA—the California agency of environmental hazards—gets its reports to declare carcinogens under Prop 65.

What this means is that in a few years’ time, foods containing glyphosate will have to have a Prop 65 Warning label to be sold in California. And since glyphosate cannot be washed off⁶ once sprayed on a crop, a Prop 65 label would likely have to be applied to most non-organic processed foods.

Faithful to its modus operandi, Monsanto is pursuing a retraction of the IARC’s damning report.⁷

Canada to ReLabel Roundup

While officially disagreeing with the IARC’s determination, after re-evaluating Roundup in partnership with the US EPA, Health Canada recently announced it will update Roundup’s label directions to reduce human and environmental exposure.

As reported by The Star,⁸ changes to Roundup’s label will include:

• A statement that application should only be done when the potential for drift to residential or populated areas is minimal
• Agricultural workers will be advised not to enter fields for 12 hours following application
• An environmental hazard statement will inform users that the product can be toxic to non-targeted species
• Spray buffer zones will be recommended to protect land and aquatic habitats from unintended exposure
• Precautionary statements to reduce the potential for run-off of glyphosate into aquatic habitats

Roundup Also Promotes Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs

Right on the heels of the IARC’s reclassification of glyphosate as a Class 2 A carcinogen, another breakthrough study^9,10,11 ties Monsanto’s weed killer to the rising scourge of antibiotic resistance.

In this first of its kind study, the researchers found that commonly used herbicides promote antibiotic resistance by priming pathogens to more readily become resistant to antibiotics. 

This includes Roundup, which was shown to increase the antibiotic-resistance of E. coli and Salmonella. As reported by Rodale News,¹² the herbicide causes this effect by turning on a set of genes in the bacterium that just so happens to make it more resistant to antibiotics.

In a nutshell, Roundup “produces tolerance to antibiotics in the bacteria. This genetic switch-on occurs at the typical levels of exposure associated with agricultural and residential application.

It’s worth noting that both E. coli and Salmonella are commonly associated with foodborne illness outbreaks originating in factory farms where animals are typically fed a diet of genetically engineered corn and soy, which tend to be heavily contaminated with glyphosate.

The Growing Plight of Farm Workers Exposed to Toxic Chemicals

Getting back to the issue of toxicity, as many as 20,000 farm workers in the US may be sickened each year as a result of pesticide exposure. More than half are undocumented immigrants, which compounds the problem by the fact that they have no real legal recourse, and usually refuse to speak up for fear of deportation.

Mere handfuls of formal complaints are filed each year, which makes it difficult to track and evaluate the human health impacts of pesticide exposure. As previously reported by Mother Jones:¹³

"’The system in place to address pesticide exposure is horrible. It's dysfunctional,’ said Caitlin Berberich, an attorney with Southern Migrant Legal Services, a Nashville nonprofit that provides free legal services to farmworkers in six Southern states...

Some top state regulators agree the full toll of pesticides on farmworkers is not documented. Yet reforms requiring more complete disclosure of pesticide use have been caught up in EPA red tape...

The EPA ‘estimates that 10,000-20,000 physician-diagnosed pesticide poisonings occur each year among the approximately 2 million US agricultural workers,’ federal records show... No one, the EPA included, has a full picture of the problem.

An EPA slideshow report¹⁴ in 2006, for instance, opened with a question: How many occupational pesticide incidents are there each year in the United States?

The slide listed multiple possibilities, from 1,300 to 300,000. Each number could be true, the report said—it just depends upon the source... This uncertainty... can carry real consequences.

As its slide noted, the lack of accurate information ‘inhibits clear problem identification.’ Advocates say the dearth of information triggers another problem: It's hard to hold government and industry accountable when there is no benchmark from which to judge.”

As noted by Think Progress,¹⁵ while there’s a shortage of studies showing the effects of pesticide exposure on farmworkers, effects ranging from vomiting and skin rashes to leukemia, brain cancer, birth defects, and nerve damage have been reported.

With regards to glyphosate, drinking water contaminated with glyphosate and spraying glyphosate on rice fields without protective gear has been linked to chronic kidney disease.¹⁶

Environmental Causes May Account for 90 Percent of Diseases

According to Joseph E. Pizzorno,¹⁷ founding president of Bastyr University, co-author of the Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine and The Clinician's Handbook of Natural Medicine, and former advisor to President Clinton on complementary and alternative medicines, toxins in the modern food supply are now “a major contributor to.

In some cases the cause of, virtually all chronic diseases.” Dr. David Bellinger, a professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School has expressed similar concerns. According to his estimates, Americans have lost a total of 16.9 million IQ points due to exposure to organophosphate pesticides.¹⁸ Pizzorno believes pesticides may also play a significant role in the worldwide obesity epidemic, saying:

"Researchers are now finding such a strong connection between the body load of these chemicals [contaminating the food supply] and diabetes and obesity that they are being called 'diabetogens' and 'obesogens'."  

Pizzorno also points out that our modern food supply (most of which is heavily processed) also hampers your body’s detoxification process as a result of being deficient in key nutrients. An interesting admission and change of thought expressed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) webpage on exposomics¹⁹ is the fact that, conversely to what researchers originally thought, the vast majority of diseases do NOT appear to have a genetic origin. According to the CDC:

“One of the promises of the human genome project was that it could revolutionize our understanding of the underlying causes of disease and aid in the development of preventions and cures for more diseases. Unfortunately, genetics has been found to account for only about 10% of diseases, and the remaining causes appear to be from environmental causes. So to understand the causes and eventually the prevention of disease, environmental causes need to be studied.”

How to Reduce Your Family’s Exposure to Pesticides

As noted by Pizzorno, your toxic load is closely linked to your diet, as so many of the chemicals we’re exposed to on a daily basis are contaminants in foods and/or its packaging. Non-organic processed foods will expose you to the greatest amounts of chemicals and potential toxins, including pesticides and genetically engineered organisms (GMOs), but virtually all non-organic whole foods will tend to be contaminated with pesticides to some degree as well. To reduce your family’s exposure to pesticides and other toxic chemicals, consider the following advice:

1. Buy organic fruits and vegetables. Non-organic fruits and vegetables most likely to be grown using pesticides include apples, peaches, celery, and potatoes. For a full list of the most and least contaminated produce, please see the Environmental Working Group’s shopper’s guide to pesticides.²⁰
2. Add fermented foods to your diet. The lactic acid bacteria formed during the fermentation of kimchi may help your body break down pesticides, so including fermented foods can be a wise strategy to help your body’s natural detoxification processes. Pizzorno also recommends making sure you’re getting enough fiber in your diet, as it too plays an important role in detoxification.
3. Choose seafood wisely. Opt for low-mercury fish varieties, such as wild caught Alaskan salmon, anchovies, and sardines, and avoid farm-raised fish, which are often heavily contaminated with PCBs and mercury. To optimize your omega-3, you may also consider taking a krill oil supplement.
4. Filter your tap water. Municipal water supplies can be contaminated with any number of potential toxins, so filtering your water is always a wise idea. Be particularly mindful of avoiding fluoridated water when preparing infant formula.
5. Replace your non-stick pots and pans with ceramic or glass cookware.
6. Avoid plastic food containers, bottles, and mugs. Instead, opt for glass, ceramic, or stainless steel varieties.
7. Avoid using dangerous chemicals on your lawn. If you have a lawn care service, make sure they’re not using organophosphate pesticides.
8. Check your school's/employer’s pest control policy. If they have not already done so, encourage your school district/employer to move to Integrated Pest Management, which uses less toxic alternatives.
9. Switch to organic personal care products, and avoid using artificial air fresheners, dryer sheets, fabric softeners, or other synthetic fragrances. Any product containing “fragrance” will typically contain high levels of endocrine-disrupting phthalates.

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Solving Carbon Displacement by 2030

By Dr. Mercola

Carbon erosion from the land and into the water and air are creating a very unstable environment. Removing the renewable grasslands and forests that can not only sustain but also regenerate our soils and solidify this fragile carbon balance is a major part of the problem.

This carbon erosion from our land is only increasing, and our economy will mean nothing if we have nothing left – that is the direction we are heading and doing so quickly. Estimates of 50-60 years remaining have been made regarding our topsoil and aquifers. While it is hard to believe in two generations we could be in this position, it is the reality we face if changes are not made quickly.

A new study from The Club of Rome suggests that turning our economy into a circular one – that is, one that values re-using rather than using up – could also cut energy waste drastically.

A Circular Economy Could Cut Waste by 70 Percent

By doing away with wasteful lifestyles and business practices and greatly enhancing resource efficiency, The Club of Rome argues that we could ward off further ecosystem decline and avoid environmental disaster. According to their report, The Circular Economy and Benefits for Society:¹

"The proposition is that a circular economy, where products are designed for ease of recycling, reuse, disassembly, and remanufacturing should replace the traditional, linear 'take, make, and dispose' model that has dominated the economy so far.

This, no doubt, is a major prerequisite to stay within the Planetary Boundaries. It now takes the Earth almost one and a half year to regenerate what we use in a year (Ecological Footprint)."

A circular economy requires three main strategies: renewable energy, energy efficiency, and material efficiency.²

In addition, since a circular economy requires regular repair, maintenance, and remanufacturing, which is far more labor intensive than mining or manufacturing using automated facilities, it would also create an additional 100,000+ jobs, cutting unemployment by more than one-third.³The Guardian detailed several of the suggested policy options:⁴

• Strengthening existing policies in renewable energy
• Strengthening recycling and reuse targets to help reduce and process waste and residues, and putting limits on waste incineration
• Using public procurement as an incentive for new business models, moving from selling products to selling performance
• Establishing specific resource efficiency targets for materials where scarcity looms or the environmental impact of extraction is serious (such as rare earth metals)

Why 'Carbon Farming' is the Key to Save the Earth

It's estimated that one-third of the surplus carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stems from poor land-management processes that contribute to the loss of carbon, as carbon dioxide, from farmlands.⁵

Carbon farming is a simple solution that involves returning more topsoil to the land. The process is great for the environment, wildlife, nutrition and will:

Regenerate the soil	Limit agricultural water usage with no till and crop covers
Increase crop yields	Reduce the need for agricultural chemicals and additives, if not eliminate such need entirely in time
Reduce carbon displacement	Reduce air and water pollution by lessening the need for herbicides, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers

As reported by the Press Democrat:⁶

"Research conducted in Marin County and in the Sierra foothills revealed that a single dusting of compost on rangeland can boost the soil's carbon storage for at least 30 years.

'But there are significant hurdles to expanding the practice, including the cost of purchasing and transporting compost to farms. About 30 million tons of organic material ends up in California's landfills,' said Torri Estrada, director of policy at the Carbon Cycle Institute.

He envisions a network of regional facilities producing compost or farmers and ranchers doing so themselves on-site."

California Compost Experiment Turns into Weapon Against Carbon Erosion

Compost happens with or without the help of humankind—it's happening right now on forest floors, in farmers' fields, and in your yard. But oftentimes it's a slow process and you can speed it up using the right combination of water, oxygen, heat, and organic material.

It's estimated that compost made from California's green waste, which includes household food scraps, dairy manure, and more, could absorb 75 percent of the state's greenhouse gas emissions for one year if applied to just 25 percent of the state's rangeland. As reported by SF Gate:⁷

"Unlike high-tech geo-engineering schemes to pull excess carbon dioxide from the air and stick it in old coal mines or under the ocean, applying compost is a simple way of creating what scientists call a positive feedback loop.

Plants pull carbon dioxide from the air through photosynthesis and transfer a portion of the carbon to the soil through their roots. Soil microorganisms then turn the carbon into a stable form commonly known as humus.

This not only sequesters the carbon but improves the soil's fertility, boosting plant growth and capturing more carbon while also improving the soil's ability to absorb and retain water."

County-Wide Compost Program Diverts Nearly 1.5 Million Tons of Waste from Landfills

The Sonoma County Waste Management Agency operates a regional compost program in which they accept yard trimmings and vegetative food discards that are placed in curbside containers by local residents. They also accept yard trimmings from landscapers and tree trimmers, as well as certain agricultural byproducts from local farms, wineries, and food processors.

The organic material is then converted into premium quality organic compost and mulches, along with recycled lumber, firewood, and bio-fuel used to generate electricity. Since 1993, 1.6 million tons of yard and wood debris have been converted into these beneficial products.

Sonoma Compost, which operates the Organic Recycling Program on behalf of the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency, estimates that nearly 1.5 million tons of yard and wood trimmings have been diverted from landfills since 1993 as a result of the program.⁸

Factory Farms and GMOs Are Major Polluters & Poison Producers

Today, food animals are typically reared in cages and tightly cramped quarters, and their feed consists of grains, primarily genetically modified (GM) corn and soy, instead of grasses. These animals are literally imprisoned and often tortured by unhealthy, unsanitary, and unconscionably cruel conditions.

To prevent the inevitable spread of disease from stress, overcrowding and lack of vitamin D, animals are fed antibiotics and other veterinary drugs. Those antibiotics pose a direct threat to the environment when they run off into our lakes, rivers, aquifers, and drinking water, and drive the rise in antibiotic-resistant disease in humans and animals. However, CAFOs and GM crops also play a significant role in greenhouse gas emissions. As reported by Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association:

"CAFOs contribute directly to global warming by releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere - more than the entire global transportation industry. The air at some factory farm test sites in the US is dirtier than in America's most polluted cities, according to the Environmental Integrity Project.

According to a 2006 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, including 37 percent of methane emissions and 65 percent of nitrous oxide emissions. The methane releases from billions of imprisoned animals on factory farms are 70 times more damaging per ton to the earth's atmosphere than CO2.

Indirectly, factory farms contribute to climate disruption by their impact on deforestation and draining of wetlands, and because of the nitrous oxide emissions from huge amounts of pesticides used to grow the genetically engineered corn and soy fed to animals raised in CAFOs.

Nitrous oxide pollution is even worse than methane – 200 times more damaging per ton than CO2. And just as animal waste leaches antibiotics and hormones into ground and water, pesticides and fertilizers also eventually find their way into our waterways, further damaging the environment."

Even the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a report titled "Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States."⁹ According to the report, our current agricultural system, which is dominated by GM corn and soy, is unsustainable in the long term. Should temperatures rise as predicted, the US could expect to see significant declines in yields by the middle of this century.

Converting Corn Fields to Grasslands Can Also Help

In addition to carbon farming, increasing numbers of experts are advocating for croplands to be converted back into the grasslands they once were. According to a report by South Dakota State University researchers, grasslands in the Western corn belt, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska, is being lost at a rate "comparable to deforestation rates in Brazil, Malaysia, and Indonesia."¹⁰

Between 2006 and 2011, nearly 2 million acres of friendly native grasses have been lost to corn and soy—two of the staples in processed foods that are driving chronic disease rates in an ever steepening upward incline. The same thing is happening in South America, where native forests are leveled in order to plant soy.

The researchers claim the land being converted into corn and soy fields is actually much better suited for grazing than crop agriculture, as it is "characterized by high erosion risk and vulnerability to drought." As discussed in a Mother Jones article, this conversion of grasslands to croplands is the exact opposite of what might be in our best interest.¹¹

"...we should push Midwestern farmers to switch a chunk of their corn land into pasture for cows… The idea came from a paper by University of Tennessee and Bard College researchers, who calculated that such a move could suck up massive amounts of carbon in soil—enough to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 36 percent.¹² In addition to the CO2 reductions, you'd also get a bunch of high-quality, grass-fed beef... Turns out the Midwest are doing just the opposite."

Biological Farming Is Key for Reducing Carbon Emissions

Download Interview Transcript

One of the most pernicious contributing factors to the rising carbon dioxide concentrations in our atmosphere is not necessarily the burning of fossil fuels, but rather it's our modern agricultural practices. I'm really excited about the alternatives, such as the application of biochar (charcoal created by slowly heating biomass such as wood and plant materials in a low-oxygen environment).

Once added to soil, biochar helps sequester carbon for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years, and radically improve soil fertility by serving as a substrate for beneficial soil microbes.

Adding biochar to just 10 percent of the world's croplands would store 29 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. This roughly equals the world's annual greenhouse emissions. The addition of biochar also improves soil fertility, allowing for healthier crops, so it's a win-win situation. That said, biological farming expert Dr. Arden Andersen claims that by simply following appropriate, sustainable farm-management practices you don't even need to go through the process of creating and adding biochar.

"'If we follow those, by default we solve the carbon sequestration issues. We solve the environmental issues. Because what happens is that we increase the carbon in the soil, and that's sequestration of air carbon,' he says. 'A couple of different studies that I am familiar with showed that just by sequestering carbon in 15-20 percent of the arable land in the world, we would more than reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air that is causing a problem. As I said, by default, we solve all the environmental problems if we just do appropriate farming.'"

In addition to reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide, by increasing carbon levels in our soils, we can:

• Decrease weed proliferation. The USDA Soil Tilth Laboratory showed that increasing the carbon level in soil can decrease weeds by as much as 75 percent.
• Increase the soil's water-holding capacity. The Organic Horticulture Benefits Alliance (OHBA), an organization in Houston, Texas that does organic turf management, has shown that they can decrease water use for lawns by 50 percent by biological means alone.

So, by default, following biological farming practices will solve many environmental issues, including rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. As it stands, industrial agriculture is the primary culprit, and regenerative agriculture is the only solution. While more efficient means of energy are improving, there is no end in sight to our dependence on fossil fuels.

We are seeing signs of change, as major investors are also recognizing the significant problems associated with further reliance on fossil fuels,¹³ but we have decades before serious changes to our energy infrastructure are made.

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