If I lived in London I'd be buying milk from Selfridges.

If I lived in London I'd be buying milk from Selfridges. - That's because, as the Guardian reports here, they are selling raw milk, i.e. milk that has not been pasteurised. Unfortunately, the Food Standards Agency is trying to put a stop to this, because of supposed risks of poor hygiene and microbial contamination. In actual fact, this raw milk is much more hygienically produced than is pasteurised milk, and the taste and nutritional content is far superior to the degraded pasteurised product. I've written more fully on the subject of raw milk before. There is an English dairy farm which produces and sells Raw Milk: Hook & Son.

Freudian Slip by the Department of Health

Freudian Slip by the Dept of Health: see the Guardian article Matthew Freud picks up £1m-a-year contract with Department of Health. The contract is intended to improve public health, e.g. reduce obesity.

Freud is a PR guy whose agency (Freud Communications) works for clients that include Pepsi, KFC, Walkers Crisps and the premium drinks company, Diageo. They are companies whose products could never be accused of being remotely good for public health. And remember Change4Life? - Freud handled that anti-obesity campaign, notable for its spectacular lack of success in reducing the nation's growing obesity problem. Well if Freud and his company have as little success at improving public health as they have so far demonstrated, at least their other clients will feel the benefit in their swelling profits. - Anyone noticed the old enemy, Conflicts of Interest, rearing its ugly head again?

Beware Tylenol!

See today's article about Tylenol by Dr Mercola. Many people tend to think of painkillers as pretty harmless, perhaps because they are so easy to obtain, both as prescribed medications and as OTC (over-the-counter) drugs. But they are by no means harmless in themselves and also many kinds of painkiller too often tend to cause addiction, and addiction can easily lead to overdose. So I'd say it's best to try to avoid taking painkillers regularly, and better still, to avoid taking them at all. If you would like to experience a safe, drug-free way to reduce pain, I suggest you try seriously cutting down on salt and salty food. This reduces most chronic (long-standing) pain, e.g. arthritis and back pain. Salt reduction also benefits your health in a great many other ways, including lowering high blood pressure and reducing excess weight. - Why not try it? - It costs nothing and is completely safe. - You have nothing to lose by trying it - nothing but some pain and risk and ill-health and excess weight...

Years ago I fell in love with Comic Sans

Years ago I fell in love with Comic Sans. A friend on the internet introduced us. Previously I had been an innocent user of Plain text, but here was my friend sending me emails in Comic Sans - and furthermore, they were in red! - And so, of course, I took to using the jolly font myself, and looking forward to receiving similarly engaging-looking messages. Since then I have grown up again and soberly use Times New Roman or Arial.

I remembered the Comic Sans interlude last week as I listened to Radio 4's Book of the Week by Simon Garfield. You can read about the book "Just My Type", on the BBC website, and as I write, there is still time to listen again to some of it. The book was excellently read and was so entertaining that I ordered a copy and now have some enjoyable light reading for a while instead of the more serious stuff I usually struggle to get to grips with.

A Steroid (Hydrocortisone) Victim wrote to me a few weeks ago

A Steroid (Hydrocortisone) Victim wrote to me a few weeks ago. This is what she wrote (omitting her name and location):

" In August of 2010 I had a brain tumor removed. I am doing well from a neurological standpoint, however the tumor was sitting on my pituitary gland so I developed hypothyroidism and Central Diabetes Insipidis (also known as "water diabetes"). And of course I was put on a steroid- Hydrocortisone- which is what brought me to your website.

I started the hydrocortisone August 26, 2010 and took it until May 5, 2011, so a little over 8 months. And in that time period I gained a total of 153 lbs. I have always been overweight, and then it was like adding the equivalent of an adult to my weight...in a very short time. All of my Dr.s (I had a total of 3- endocrinologist, neurologist, primary physician) all told me the weight would come off once I was off the steroid, and none suggested reducing sodium/salt intake. But the weight did not come off at all. Finally in July, my endocrinologist did suggest reducing my salt intake and also seeing a medical weight loss clinic. From July 22nd to August 25th I lost 10 lbs. But then the Dr. at the clinic cut my calories back and put me on a low calorie diet (1400 to 1600 calories a day) because "I clearly had an increased appetite" (this is the opinion of most drs that I see, due to my size. They usually form this opinion without having asked me what I eat. I do not eat any more than my healthy, 160 lb mother.) I gained the 10 lbs I had lost back, and was becoming so very frustrated with myself, my weight, and with Doctors.

I was so happy when I found your website today. It all made so much sense and it was so nice to read your story and know that someone has gone through what I am going through. Taking an hour to read your website has given me so much more hope than talking to any doctor over the last few months. I am going to try the sodium reduction again, now that I know it can work and I have the confidence that my problem is indeed not my caloric or fat intake, but my salt intake. I am only 21 years old and feel like I am missing out on so much, I use to be so active and outgoing before my surgery, but now I have no ability to do things people my age do or I am embarrassed by my size, but you have given me new hope at a chance to get my old self back.

Thank you for sharing your story and putting so much work into researching and finding the answer."

Fresh sardines make a healthy, nutritious, economical meal

Fresh sardines make a healthy, nutritious, economical meal. Yes indeed. The big drawback to tinned sardines is the added salt, but if you buy fresh and cook them yourself you can avoid adding salt. If you've not cooked sardines before, there are many internet sites that give good instructions about this. One site I thought extremely clear to follow is this one. I bought half a kilo of fresh sardines with my last supermarket order and that cost only £1.50.

When I was a child I was always being told that fish is good for the brain and I'm sure that's as true today as it was then. Being small fish at the bottom of the food chain, they do not carry the mercury contamination dangers that bigger fish do. They are oily fish, packed with healthy nutrients: protein, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, vitamin B12 and other B vitamins, vitamin E and calcium. They don't contain carbohydrate. And of course they cook very quickly. - Why not give them a try? They are very tasty and they are good for you - and good for your brain!

Consumer Affairs lists Kelloggs and Quaker as Worst Children's Cereals

Consumer Affairs reports that Kelloggs and Quaker are the Worst Children's Cereals. It is good to see publicity being given to this important health information. "In a list published by Consumer Affairs, some popular cereals measured between 41.4 and 55.6 percent sugar by weight." - That's a helluvalot of sugar! - I am sure that if a parent were mixing a bowl of breakfast cereal from scratch for their child to eat, it would be a very rare parent who would make half of it sugar. Similarly, I doubt that many parents would add a lot of salt to the bowl. - Yet that is what these breakfast cereal manufacturers routinely do.

As well as the high sugar content damaging children's teeth by causing decay, and both the sugar and salt contributing to child obesity, this unhealthy muck is likely to give children a taste for over-sweetened, salty foodstuffs that will damage their health throughout life. They will be at higher risk of developing hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart problems, weakened bones, depression, breathlessness and a host of other degenerative conditions that will cause them unnecessary suffering, unhappiness and a shortened lifespan.

Just because this crap is convenient, popular, heavily advertised, sold in brightly coloured packs attractive to children, and just because your children clamour for the stuff, it doesn't mean it's healthy or good for children. - It isn't. - And just because it's legal to sell such unhealthy junk, it doesn't mean it's really OK to feed it to children. - It isn't. - Feeding this stuff to your children is good for the profits of the manufacturers; it is not good for your children's health.

One of my webpages is about children and salt. - You may like to have a look at it.

Do you still need to be convinced about the benefits of Vitamin D supplements?

In people with low blood levels of vitamin D, boosting them with supplements more than halved a person's risk of dying from any cause compared to someone who remained deficient, in a large new study.
Read article in The Vancouver Sun (Canada)

Note:Vitamin D3 is the best version of Vitamin D.

Study finds both high and low levels of salt consumption are linked to higher risk of heart attack, stroke and congestive heart failure

Consumption of too much, and too little, salt may be linked to a higher risk of heart-related hospitalisations and deaths, according to a new study.
Read article at foodnavigator-usa.com

But the researchers seem to me to be confusing association with causation. - When consumers know themselves to be sensitive to salt/sodium and/or know themselves to have high blood pressure, for example, they are likely to reduce their salt intake as a sensible precautionary measure. - Thus their low salt intake is not the cause of their increased risk of cardiovascular events, but the intentional consequence of knowing themselves to be vulnerable to adverse consequences if they were to eat more salt. I myself would certainly have died years ago, had I not reduced, and gradually eliminated, my consumption of any food containing added salt, thereby reducing both my extremely high blood pressure back to 'normal', and my obesity due to fluid retention. See my Mensa article about this.