Anita Burns  -

It’s the Christmas Season. I don’t usually celebrate this holiday, but since my mother passed away, I find myself unusually drawn to being a part of this annual ritual called  Christmas, or Yule, or Solstice. I probably won’t give much thought to peace on earth and goodwill toward men, or angels on high. I won’t go to church or watch for Santa.

I want to celebrate the joy of life with friends and loved ones. For me Christmas is  never going to be about obligatory gift giving. It’s about connecting with others from the heart. So this Christmas, I will give the gift I do best—REAL FOOD. I will cook my fingers to the bone and love ever minute of it. I will be filled with happiness when I see my friends stuffing themselves with my gift of really good food.

Anita Burns -

Whether or not the law on the ballot for labeling Genetically Modified Foods (GMOs) passes in California or not, you might not want to eat foods with GMOs if they can be avoided. My guess is that it will be a very long time before we really know which foods have been modified and which have not.

The scary part is that GMOs are so prevalent, it is nearly impossible to avoid them all. If you buy into Monsanto's motto that GMOs are save, then go ahead and eat them. At least you won't be stressed by trying to figure out how to not eat them.

I personally don't believe that they are safe. Too many tests from independent (read, not affiliated with Mosanto) have warned us about them. The Institute for Responsible Technology is one. http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers. Their website cites infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in our internal organs and the gastrointesitnal system as effects of eating GMO foods. There's a lot more from other organizations and even the FDA repeatedly warned that GMO foods cause dire problems. They wanted more study, but Monsanto dismissed that recommendation in a fit of hissy and went ahead with dollar signs in their eyes.

If genetically modified foods are so safe, why are they spending billions of dollars trying to keep from labeling products that contain the evil little buggers?

So what can you do? Learn which products are modified.

One of the main offenders is corn. GMO Corn is rampant. It is in so many things it's impossible to list them all. Even some vinegars are distilled from GMO corn. It is in animal feed so if you eat anything but organic, grass-fed meat, you are probably getting GMOs. According to the FDA, 73 percent of U.S. corn crops are genetically modified.

-- An Interview with Best-selling Author Guy Finley and Psychologist, Dr. Ellen Dickstein --

ED: Guy, you have become well known as “The Letting Go” author after your bestselling book, The Secret of Letting Go came out many years ago. So let’s talk about “letting go” today. There must be a lot of people all over the world who sense that they're hanging on to something that is hurting them, but they may not even be aware of what it is that they're hanging onto, what it is they need to let go of.

GF: It's true. We don't know. We think to ourselves, "When the time comes, I really need to let go of this person," "I need to let go of this career path that I've been on," "I need to let go of this pain that I've been carrying around." But those are always one step short of the real solution.
A nice feature of our spiritual work, of real interior work, is that gradually we begin to recognize that the experience we have of life outside of us is first and foremost a reflection and a result of an interior life, of something that is going on inside of us. We begin to recognize that the condition we blame for our unhappiness is never the cause of the unhappiness, but merely something that shows us a more persistent misunderstanding, a more persistent problem.
How many times have you let go of things, thinking that "when I get rid of this, I'm going to be different"? It's almost endless, isn't it? But the fact remains that we don't free ourselves. If I let go of you, then I get someone else.

ED: I let go of something and somehow I end up holding on to something else.

GF: That's right, and it's indicative of something that we need to understand at the root of letting go. The reason letting go is so hard is because what we have to let go of is not the person, the place, the position, the possession, but the sense of ourselves that is derived from thinking about that person, place, possession, or position. That's the real nut of it. I think my life depends upon something.
When I first meet the man or woman of my dreams, the new job -- whatever it is -- I'm glad that my life depends upon it. "This is the greatest thing that ever happened to me!"

ED: It gives meaning to my life.

Contrary to popular diet wisdom, filling up on protein and cutting carbs can raise cholesterol — and weight — in the long-term.

By Annie Hauser, Senior Editor, Everyday Health

View the original article at: http://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/0611/low-carb-diets-can-raise-heart-risk-study-finds.aspx

Bread lovers, rejoice: There's yet another reason to skip a low-carb, high-protein, high-fat diet.

Eating more fat and protein and less carbohydrates might lead to an increase in cholesterol and risk for cardiovascular disease, a 25-year study of 140,000 Swedish adults found.

How Healthy Is a Low Carbohydrate Diet

An effort to eat low-carb didn't improve study participants' body mass index (BMI), either: After adjusting for the aging study population, researchers found BMI actually continuously increased over the course of the study, even as participants tried to eat healthier foods. 

"While low carbohydrate/high fat diets may help short-term weight loss," cautioned researcher Ingegerd Johansson, PhD, in a release, "these results ... demonstrate that long-term weight loss is not maintained, and that this diet increases blood cholesterol which has a major impact on risk of cardiovascular disease." 

The study, published in Nutrition Journal, tracked the results of a regional and national efforts to reduce the fat intake and improve the heart health of adults living in Northern Sweden. The Västerbotten Intervention Programme (VIP) — which included a push for better food labeling, nutrition information, cooking demonstrations, and health examinations and counseling — began in 1985 after Swedish health officials noticed that rates of heart disease were higher in Northern Sweden, and for men, among the highest in the world. 

Before I begin, I want to say that I have no problem with other people’s body size. If that is a life-choice, wonderful. I don’t think less of anyone because of their body shape. We all have our comfort zones.

This rant is ONLY about me. I am accustomed to looking a certain way. That image of myself ties in with a zillion neuron’s that connect to my sense of well-being.

Over the years, of course I have adjusted that comfort image a little. I weighed 98 pounds when I was first married at eighteen. I crept up to 110 and stayed there until a  hysterectomy in my late thirties, when it shot up to 120. That’s where I stayed—until recently. I definitely don’t want to go back to 98 pounds, but 125 would be good. It will be perfect, in fact.

For centuries, or so it seems, I have been preaching from the food pulpit that diets don’t work. I still believe that, but as age creeps up on my A$$ and my metabolism goes equally south, I find myself in a dilemma. My life has taught me the valuable lesson of eating Real Food instead pretenders-of-food, for health and keeping the weight off, but now I see that sometimes it isn’t enough, especially for women of a certain ripeness.