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Dasani Bottled Water Has 4 Ingredients: Tap Water, Known Teratogen, Lethal Drug, and Salt

by February 23, 2016

I remember the first time I tasted Dasani bottled water. It was 2004 and I was at a gym in Orange County, California. The drinking fountain at the gym was out of order so I purchased a bottle of water from a vending machine. I cracked open that lid and—YUCK! I had never tasted water so disgusting. Who knew water could have such a strong taste? At the time, I assumed my taste buds were off and eventually I drank Dasani bottled water again… always with the same reaction. Gross! I’ve finally learned my lesson. Unless I’m extremely parched, I would rather remain thirsty than drink Dasani. While everyone’s bodies are different, I personally have a visceral reaction to Dasani. After drinking Dasani, my stomach sometimes hurts and I almost always have terrible dry mouth. Have you noticed any of these side effects after drinking Dasani?

Years later, during a trip to Costco, I noticed that Costco brand Kirkland Signature water lists several ingredients added: “for taste.” Out of curiosity, I drank the water and—light bulb!—there was that familiar, metallic Dasani taste. It seemed clear to me that Costco and Dasani had shared water “recipes.” When I noticed that Costco brand water had multiple ingredients in addition to water, I wondered if Dasani had additives as well. What I learned surprised me. Not only does Dasani water have additives, but these additives are known to cause much more than dry mouth and abdominal pain. These chemicals can, at high levels, cause birth defects and death.

Dasani bottled water contains four ingredients: tap water, magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride, and salt. The Dasani label claims these ingredients are added for taste, and while that may be true, these ingredients change a lot more than taste. Do you know what’s really in your bottled water?

Dasani Ingredient #1: Tap Water. It’s no secret that Dasani, which is owned by Coca-Cola, bottles tap water. In general, I have no problem drinking tap water. Although tap water often tastes noticeably different from spring water, I acknowledge that drinking tap water is an environmentally conscious choice…. but bottling tap water?! That seems to defeat the purpose. If you’re going to drink tap water, drink it from the tap.

Dasani Ingredient #2: Magnesium Sulfate. AKA Epsom Salts or Bath Salts. FDA Pregnancy Category D Teratogen, Drying Agent, and Laxative. On its own, anhydrous magnesium sulfate is a drying agent. (Side note: Could this explain the strange dry mouth I experience after drinking Dasani water? It’s ironic that Coca-Cola has added a “drying agent” to a beverage that is intended to quench thirst. If trace amounts of magnesium sulfate residue remain on your tongue after you drink a bottle of water, making it difficult to quench your thirst, it seems reasonable to question whether this might encourage you to purchase another bottle of water or perhaps a soft drink, either of which would benefit Coca-Cola. Could this be a dangerous ploy from the marketing masterminds at Coca-Cola?) In addition, magnesium sulfate has many powerful purposes in medicine. Off label, it has been used to delay labor by inhibiting uterine contractions in pregnant women. However, this practice is declining because recent studies show that magnesium sulfate causes birth defects at high doses. After studies suggested that just 5-7 days of in utero exposure to high doses of magnesium sulfate caused birth defects, the FDA recommended that magnesium sulfate be classified as a Category D Teratogen. Coca-Cola would probably prefer that the many pregnant women drinking Dasani water don’t know that an ingredient in their water can, at high doses, affect unborn babies. So what exactly happens to the babies of mothers who are exposed to high doses of intravenous magnesium sulfate? After just 5-7 days, exposed babies experienced bone structure changes and weaker bones. For these reasons, magnesium sulfate is now listed as a known teratogen (Pregnancy Category D) with positive evidence of human fetal risk, according to the FDA. Yes, Dasani water lists a known teratogen as an ingredient. As with any chemical, the dose makes the poison, but I personally choose to avoid water with additives. You can learn more about the FDA’s position here. One more thing: Magnesium sulfate is known to have a “bitter taste.” So why is Coca-Cola adding it to their already foul-tasting water?

Dasani Ingredient #3: Potassium Chloride. FDA Pregnancy Category C. Potassium chloride is commonly used as a fertilizer, but it’s also used in lethal injections to stop the heart and, in some cases, in late trimester abortions to stop the heart of the fetus. Interestingly, potassium chloride is known to have a “weak, bitter, unsalty flavor” with a “chemical or metallic aftertaste” which again calls into question how this ingredient could possibly improve the “taste” of poor-tasting Dasani water. If you would like to learn more about the role of potassium chloride in lethal injections, you might be interested Stephen Fox’s article, “Can Ingredients In Dasani Bottled Water Kill You?” over at The Water Filter Lady’s Blog. In addition to possible birth defects, the list of side effects from potassium chloride is endless: bowel lesions, gastrointestinal disruptions, cardiac arrhythmias, muscle weakness, nausea, abdominal pain, diarrhea, dyspepsia or heartburn, GI tract bleeding, hypersensitivity, nervous system damage, and more. While potassium and magnesium are found in natural food sources – and are, in their natural forms, vital to the body – anytime you separate a chemical compound from their natural food sources, they may behave differently than they would in their natural forms. That’s why it’s very difficult to overdose on bananas, but much easier to overdose on potassium chloride. That’s also why so few people are able to successfully use processed foods to lose weight and stay healthy. How much potassium chloride is added to Dasani water? Do you trust Coca-Cola and Dasani to make that decision for you?

Dasani Ingredient #4: Salt. As I’ve written before, I believe that table salt gets a poor reputation simply because sodium is added to almost all processed foods. While table salt itself is rarely dangerous, adding unspecified amounts of sodium during “food processing” can absolutely create unnecessary health issues for many people. While one bottle of Dasani water may not have much salt, if you drink six or seven bottles of Dasani water in one day, suddenly the amount could be much higher. That said, the real concerns are magnesium sulfate and potassium chloride.

Dasani is not the only manufacturer selling water with additives. Next time you buy bottled water, take a look at the ingredients. There should only be one: water.

People Who Drink Iced Coffee All Year Are Healthier

by February 23, 2016

For many coffee drinkers, summer doesn’t end until it feels chilly enough to make the switch from iced to hot, but if you are anything like me you probably drink the cold coffee year round. With benefits like these who wouldn’t?

They’ll stick it out through mid-autumn, insisting it’s still summer while carrying an iced coffee around an apple orchard, before finally conceding their hands are cold and a steaming hot coffee looks more appealing.

But when they switch over to hot coffee, they’re missing out on some health — and taste — benefits.

That’s right, your seemingly insane friend who drinks iced coffee through snowstorms and polar vortexes may actually be onto something.

But only certain iced coffees have benefits

While it’s annoying to hear a coffee snob highlight the varieties of brewing, it actually does make a difference if you’re looking for a healthier coffee.

Iced coffees are made in a variety of ways, but essentially they come down to two formats. First, you can make hot coffee the way you normally would and then cool it by letting it drip directly into ice.

The second format is a cold-brew. With this method, as the name indicates, the coffee is never hot. You put grounds in cold water and let it steep there for hours before drinking.

Cold-brew coffee is better for your stomach

When coffee beans are heated up, they release acidic oils. According to testing using the Toddy System, the acid levels in cold-brew coffee are about a third of the levels in hot coffee.

Vicki Edgson, a nutritionist:

There are definitely benefits to cold-brewed coffee because it’s more alkaline. The body functions best when in a relatively alkaline state.

A more alkaline drink helps your digestive system, which explains why your stomach flips with hot coffee but stays stable with a cold-brew.

Edgson also suggests when coffee beans get burned in the course of making hot coffee, it reduces coffee’s proven health benefits.

Cold-brew iced coffee tastes better.
The acid within hot coffee doesn’t just matter to your stomach — it matters to your tongue.

Hot-brew coffee tastes bitter because the acids and oils in hot temperatures create a sour taste.

Alice Phung at the UCLA Division of Life Sciences and Department of Integrative Biology & Physiology’s Science and Food blog explained the science:

The oils in coffee solubles can oxidize more quickly at elevated temperatures, causing coffee to taste sour. Acids also degrade, the most notable of which is chlorogenic acid into quinic and caffeic acid, causing coffee to taste bitter.

The acidity and bitterness of hot coffee are “just about absent” in cold-brews, Phung said.

Cold-brews are, scientifically and anecdotally, sweeter. Wearing extra-fuzzy gloves to comfortably carry an iced coffee in the winter doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?

Cold-brew coffee is super easy to make

Cold-brew may sound fancy, but in reality it’s very simple and perfect for people who are bad at mornings.

If you’re one of those people, like me, who has to prepare everything the night before because your brain doesn’t function in the morning, cold-brew coffee is an awesome idea.

All you have to do is put coffee grounds in a jar or bowl with water and leave it overnight. In the morning, strain the mix through a coffee filter or cheese cloth and add it to a glass or travel thermos over ice.

You can also use a french press by putting the mix in the press with the plunger up overnight. In the morning, plunge it and, voilà: iced coffee!

50-Year-Old Man Cures Lung Cancer With Cannabis Oil, Stuns CBS News

by February 22, 2016
A combination of cannabis oil and chemotherapy healed this man’s “incurable inoperable” lung cancer. Now, he’s paying it forward by helping others heal their lives, too.

Credit: CBS St. Louis

Credit: CBS St. Louis
Not too long ago, a 50-year-old man from Illinois was diagnosed with “incurable inoperable” lung and pericardial heart sac cancer. The doctors told him he had about a year to live, but could opt to undergo chemotherapy to extend his life.
As you may or may not know, the survival rate of lung cancer is incredibly grim. It is estimated that the prognosis for Stage IA non-small cell lung cancer is less than 50%. Sadly, this drops as the cancer progresses. For a Stage IV patient, the likelihood of recovery is 1%.
Aware of the odds against him, patient Darren Miller decided to supplement his chemotherapy treatments with cannabis oil. Clearly, he didn’t just want to extend his life, he wanted to save it.
After researching the benefits of cannabis oil and reading hundreds of other peoples’ personal stories of healing, Miller was confident the treatment was right for him.
Miller’s wife quit her job so they could qualify for medical assistance, and they moved to California where he could supplement with the controversial treatment legally.
Seven months later, Darren is officially cancer-free and has the hospital documents to prove it.

Credit: illegallyhealed.com

Credit: illegallyhealed.com
He told an affiliate of CBS News:
“Today, which is seven months later, they tell me I am completely cancer-free – not remission. I’ve cured my cancer. Now, am I giving credit to the cannabis oil? Absolutely. Am I giving credit to chemo? I would have to say yes, too. I did both.”
After recovering from the ‘incurable’ cancer, Miller and his wife moved back to Illinois. He now runs a “compassionate cannabis” program to help others who are struggling like he was.
“What we’re doing is we’re just making small amounts to keep it around and educating others on how to do this,” he said. “Because if you have access to any kind of cannabis, I can give you links on my site to show you how to do this in your own kitchen and save your life.”

 

Credit: / truthinsideofyou.org/

Credit: whale.to / truthinsideofyou.org
Darren is not the only individual to have benefited from cannabis oil, and he certainly won’t be the last.
What are your thoughts? Please share this news and comment your thoughts below!

 

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Navajo Water Supply is More Horrific than Flint, But No One Cares Because they’re Native American

by February 20, 2016

The news out of Flint, Michigan brought the issue of contaminated drinking water into sharp focus, as it was revealed that officials at every level—local, state and federal—knew about lead-poisoned water for months but did nothing to address the problem.

Under state-run systems like utilities and roads, poorer communities are the last to receive attention from government plagued by inefficiencies and corrupt politicians. Perhaps no group knows this better than Native Americans, who have been victimized by government for centuries.

In the western U.S., water contamination has been a way of life for many tribes. The advocacy group Clean Up The Mines! describes the situation in Navajo country, which is far worse than in Flint, Michigan.

Since the 1950s, their water has been poisoned by uranium mining to fuel the nuclear industry and the making of atomic bombs for the U.S. military. Coal mining and coal-fired power plants have added to the mix. The latest assault on Navajo water was carried out by the massive toxic spills into the Animas and San Juan rivers when the EPA recklessly attempted to address the abandoned Gold King mine.

“In 2015 the Gold King Mine spill was a wake-up call to address dangers of abandoned mines, but there are currently more than 15,000 toxic uranium mines that remain abandoned throughout the US,” said Charmaine White Face from the South Dakota based organization Defenders of the Black Hills. “For more than 50 years, many of these hazardous sites have been contaminating the land, air, water, and national monuments such as Mt. Rushmore and the Grand Canyon. Each one of these thousands of abandoned uranium mines is a potential Gold King mine disaster with the greater added threat of radioactive pollution. For the sake of our health, air, land, and water, we can’t let that happen.”

There is no comprehensive law requiring cleanup of abandoned uranium mines, meaning corporations and government can walk away from them after exploiting their resources. 75 percent of abandoned uranium mines are on federal and Tribal lands.

Leona Morgan of Diné No Nukes points out one example: “The United Nuclear Corporation mill tailings spill of 1979, north of Churchrock, New Mexico left an immense amount of radioactive contamination that down-streamers, today, are currently receiving in their drinking water. A mostly-Navajo community in Sanders, Arizona has been exposed to twice the legal limit allowable for uranium through their tap.”

Last week, Diné No Nukes participated in protests in Washington, D.C. to raise awareness of past and ongoing contamination of water supplies in the west, which disproportionately affects Indian country.

“The delegation is warning of the toxic legacy caused by more than 15,000 AUMs nationwide, extreme water contamination, surface strip coal mining and power plants burning coal-laced with radioactive particles, radioactive waste from oil well drilling in the Bakken Oil Range, mill tailings, waste storage, and renewed mining threats to sacred places such as Mt. Taylor in New Mexico and Red Butte in Arizona.”

“These uranium mines cause radioactive contamination, and as a result all the residents in their vicinity are becoming nuclear radiation victims,” said Petuuche Gilbert of the Laguna Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment, the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment and Indigenous World Association. “New Mexico and the federal government have provided little funding for widespread clean up and only occasionally are old mines remediated.  The governments of New Mexico and the United States have a duty to clean up these radioactive mines and mills and, furthermore, to perform health studies to determine the effects of radioactive poisoning. The MASE and LACSE organizations oppose new uranium mining and demand legacy uranium mines to be cleaned up,” said Mr. Gilbert.

Politicians continue to take advantage of Native Americans, making deals with mining companies that would continue polluting their water supplies. Senator John McCain sneaked a resolution into the last defense bill which gave land to Resolution Copper. Their planned copper mining would poison waters that Apaches rely on and would desecrate the ceremonial grounds at Oak Flat.

While EPA and local officials have been forced to address the poisoned water in Flint, the contamination of Indian country water supplies continues. A bill called the Uranium Exploration and Mining Accountability Act, introduced by Arizona Congressman Raúl Grijalva, has languished in Congress for two years.

Study Shows That Alcohol, Not Marijuana Is The Major “Gateway Drug”

by February 20, 2016

A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Florida has shown that alcohol is far more of a “gateway drug” than marijuana is.

The study concluded that:

Results from the Guttman scale indicated that alcohol represented the “gateway” drug, leading to the use of tobacco, marijuana, and other illicit substances. Moreover, students who used alcohol exhibited a significantly greater likelihood of using both licit and illicit drugs. The findings from this investigation support that alcohol should receive primary attention in school-based substance abuse prevention programming, as the use of other substances could be impacted by delaying or preventing alcohol use. Therefore, it seems prudent for school and public health officials to focus prevention efforts, policies, and monies, on addressing adolescent alcohol use.

According to the study’s co-author, Adam E. Barry, the later in life that a person consumes alcohol, the less likely they are to abuse drugs. Also, it seems that in most cases, use of alcohol and tobacco comes earlier in life than the use of marijuana.

“By delaying the onset of alcohol initiation, rates of both licit substance abuse like tobacco and illicit substance use like marijuana and other drugs will be positively affected, and they’ll hopefully go down,” Barry said in an interview with Raw Story.

Barry said that his studies were intended to correct some of the propaganda that has infected American culture since the “Reefer Madness” era.

“Some of these earlier iterations needed to be fleshed out, that’s why we wanted to study this. The latest form of the gateway theory is that it begins with [marijuana] and moves on finally to what laypeople often call ‘harder drugs.’ As you can see from the findings of our study, it confirmed this gateway hypothesis, but it follows progression from licit substances, specifically alcohol, and moves on to illicit substances,” Barry said.

“So, basically, if we know what someone says with regards to their alcohol use, then we should be able to predict what they respond to with other [drugs]. Another way to say it is, if we know someone has done [the least prevalent drug] heroin, then we can assume they have tried all the others. I think [these results] have to do with level of access children have to alcohol, and that alcohol is viewed as less harmful than some of these other substances,” Barry added.

Just like prescription pills and tobacco, alcohol is seen as more socially acceptable in American society because the government approves of it. However, these substances are largely more dangerous than many of the illegal drugs that people have a deep fear of.

Since certain drugs are taken less seriously, people are more likely to abuse them and not keep their addiction in check. That is not to say that these legal drugs should be banned as well, in fact, all drugs should be legalized so honest discussions can be had about the uses and dangers of each drug.

John Vibes is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war. In addition to his writing and activist work he organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference, which features top caliber speakers and whistle-blowers from all over the world. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page. You can find his 65 chapter Book entitled “Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance” at bookpatch.com.

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