Sassafras Station Blog

A few words that would make people sit up and take notice today – green, eco-friendly, natural and organic – because they’re supposed to be in. We as a race have done everything possible to rape our planet of all its natural resources and are only now realizing that we are hastening our doom if we continue to lead this hedonistic lifestyle that we’ve become accustomed to. And so we’re now trying to mitigate our past actions and work towards a cleaner earth.

The same can be said for our bodies as well – we’ve effectively ruined them by eating all kinds of junk and are now looking to repair the damage we’ve done and save ourselves from illness and disease. This is why most people want to return to their roots and go organic and natural. They’re willing to spend more on products that are labeled with these words, but then, are they really getting what they’re paying for?

Are foods that are labeled natural or organic actually so, or are we being scammed by some very clever marketing? Did you know that products that are labeled “natural” are required by law to contain only natural ingredients? And did you know that natural food is not necessarily healthy food? Well, if you’re out shopping for foods that are good for you, you need to remember the following:

• Sometimes, natural is bad too: Salt is completely natural; yet too much of it is bad for you. So when you buy salted goods that are labeled natural, you’re actually paying for ill health, especially if you already have high blood pressure and other related ailments.
• Products labeled natural may not be completely natural: The FDA allows the use of the word natural on meat, poultry and other products that have been minimally processed, so don’t assume that the word natural means what it says on the label.
• Organic and natural do not mean the same: Organic food is good for you in that the vegetables and fruits have not been treated with pesticides and the animals (from whom the milk, eggs and meat are obtained) have been allowed to graze naturally (free range) instead of being stuffed with hormone-laden food that makes them grow unnaturally fast. It’s generally hard to ensure that your food is completely organic unless you grow it yourself or buy it from local farms where you know that organic methods are followed. Natural does not imply organic, so unless your package states that the product is organic, it is not.

It’s up to you to be wise about the food choices you make – don’t get taken in by the labels, cook your own food instead of eating out or buying pre-processed, ready-to-eat meals, and know where to draw the line in your quest for natural foods.

About the Author:
This guest post is contributed by Amy S. Cook, who writes on the topic of LVN to RN . Amy welcomes your comments at her email id: amy11s.cook@gmail.com .

If you have pets, you probably have used flea treatments.  One of the more popular methods is to put a medication onto the skin of the pet.  This medicine then absorbs into the skin and spreads through the blood stream to the entire body.  This medicine then causes the skin and/or hair to be toxic enough to kill fleas. 

Have you really thought about this?  I know fleas are small, but how much poison do we have to put into a pet in order to make its skin or hair toxic enough to kill anything.  Not surprisingly, the EPA has confirmed that this is, in fact, dangerous to the pet.  Well, duh?

I am just as guilty because I have used these treatments, but it is time to make a change.  We have purchased diatomaceous earth and are going to try using that.  It is organic and supposed to be very effective.  On top of that it is way cheaper than the dangerous chemicals in traditional flea treatments . . . wow cheaper and healthier.

Check out the article then do some research on diatomaceous earth.  It has lots of uses other than just a flea treatment.

Products intended to treat cats and dogs for fleas and ticks injure thousands of pets each year and kill hundreds more, the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday as it outlined plans to make the products safer.

Flea products can sicken, kill pets :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Pets

HVP, or hydrolyzed vegetable protein is a flavor enhancer found in many processed foods.  It gives food a meaty or savory flavor.  It’s found in potato chips, salad dressings and many other foods we consume on a daily basis. 

The company where the majority of HVP is made (it makes 20 million pounds of this food additive annually) knew its products contained salmonella yet continued to ship it out for over five months.  

For more information on the outbreak, along with a link you can go to see what items have been recalled, click on the link below.

The company at the heart of a growing recall of processed foods knew that its plant was contaminated with salmonella but continued to make a flavoring and sell it to foodmakers around the country, according to inspectors at the Food and Drug Administration.

FDA says Basic Food Flavors knew plant was contaminated with salmonella – washingtonpost.com

A new study done at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore concludes that live kidney donors do not die sooner than they would have had they not donated the kidney.  The study followed over 80,000 live kidney donors for the last 16 years and compared them with 9,000 non donors.   “Surgical mortality did not change during the 15 year period (between 1994 and 2009), despite differences in surgical practice and donor selection, “ Dr. Dorry Segev states.

Click on the link below to read the whole article.

Healthy Americans who donated a kidney were not at higher risk of dying afterward, which may reassure potential donors and help shorten the long waiting list for an organ, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

Live kidney donors do not die sooner: study | Reuters

Pregnancy related deaths have increased over the last decade.  The state with the highest number of childbirth deaths is California.  Out of 100,000 women, there were 16.9 maternal deaths.  The national average is 13.4 maternal deaths.  That number is nearly double what it was 10 years ago. 

The two most common reasons for the deaths were blot clots and hemorrhaging.  For more information click on the link below. 

Eleven days after her son Benjamin’s birth by C-section, Linda Coale awoke in the middle of the night in pain, one leg badly swollen. Just as her doctor returned her phone call asking what to do, she dropped dead from a blood clot.

Hoped-for drop in childbirth deaths not happening – Yahoo! News

Many wives blame their husbands poor hearing on selective hearing (only hearing what they choose to hear) but a new study has shown that poor hearing maybe the cause of common over the counter medication.  Pain relievers like acetaminophen or ibuprofen taken just twice a week is enough to increase your risk of hearing loss.  Click on the link below for the full article.

Plenty of women suspect their husbands of selective hearing loss, but it could be your spouse’s failure to respond to your overtures to help with the dishes might be more legitimate than it appears.

Over-the-Counter Pain Relievers Linked to Hearing Loss – AOL Health

Even though red wine has been associated with a lowered risk of heart disease and diabetes, diet book authors ban the drink because of a belief that it can stop your body from burning fat.  A new study is aiming to change their thinking.  A study that was published on March 8th shows that women wine drinkers who were at a healthy weight to begin with, gained  less than non drinking women over time.  For more information on this study click on the link below.

Women Who Drink Moderately Less Likely to Gain Weight – AOL Health

Over the last few years we’ve seen articles about a nursing home that has a cat that alerts nurses when a resident is going to die.   The article below is another example of how animals, especially cats, have some 6th sense that enables them to detect when something’s going wrong in our bodies.   In this article an amazing stray cat saves a women’s life.  Click on the link for the full story.

When a stray cat strutted into her life last summer, Judy Danchura of Canada could not have imagined how the orange and white tomcat she nicknamed Sumo would end up saving her life. Whether it was by accident or by design, we’ll leave up to you to decide. But without question, Sumo’s actions alerted Danchura to a tumor growing in her breast, enabling her to get an early diagnosis of cancer and begin treatment, reports CBC News.

Stray Cat’s Actions Alert Woman to Breast Cancer – Paw Nation

We are constantly seeing food recalls over the last few years.  It can make us scared to buy packaged food for fear of what disease we may pick up.

On top of the fear that food borne illnesses can cause in the wake of multiple recalls, it is extremely expensive to treat all the people that get food poisoning.  A new study estimates that food illnesses costs over $150 billion (that is Billion with a B) in medical bills, lost productivity, and lost wages.   If that isn’t enough to get you thinking about what kind of food you are putting into your body and where it came from, I don’t know what will.

Here is an excerpt from the article and a link to the article that was published in the Los Angeles Times.

A new consumer research report released Wednesday has found that the health-related costs of food-borne illnesses total $152 billion a year, including the costs of medical bills, lost wages and lost productivity. That total is more than four times that of earlier estimates calculated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Cost of food-borne illnesses is deemed much higher than earlier estimates – Los Angeles Times

If you have ever dieted or know somebody who has, there is a good chance you are familiar with diets that just don’t work.  The reality is that no single diet or exercise program is best for one person.  New research is showing that there is a logical explanation.

According to the article in the Wall Street Journal, there is a genetic pre-disposition for success in certain types of diets.  For example, in a test of women who showed a genetic tendency to lose weight with a low carb diet, they lost a lot more weight than those who didn’t have the same predisposition.

Check out the excerpt and see how impressive the difference is (it is more than double).  If you want to read the whole article (and you probably do), click the link below the excerpt to be taken to the article on WSJ.com

In a study involving 133 overweight women, those with a genetic predisposition to benefit from a low-carbohydrate diet lost 2 1/2 times as much weight as those on the same diet without the predisposition. Similarly, women with a genetic makeup that favored a low-fat diet lost substantially more weight than women who curbed fat calories without low-fat genes. The women were followed for a year.

Genetics Test Helps Predict Weight-Loss Success, Study Says – WSJ.com