My compost bin and kitchen scraps bin. This is where the fun happens.

Although I’ve been enthusiastically  composting here at the Rubin Rodeo for over a year, I’m about to start something even bigger. Last night, I began my  journey to become a Master Composter. The  Master Composter course provides training in the art and science of composting and how to teach it to others. How cool is that?

Why compost?  Good question! There are a number of reasons.  When organic materials are separated from trash and allowed to decompose with an adequate supply of air, they can be turned into a valuable addition to  soil  that can be used for all sorts of things–plant and vegetable gardens, landscaping projects and much more.
Composting also provides a partial solution to our overloaded wastestream:  our landfills are filling up, garbage incineration is bad news, and towns are cutting  back on municipal waste hauling as budget money becomes harder to find.  Composting provides a way of not only reducing the amount of waste that needs to be disposed of, but also of converting it into a product that is useful.

Over the next 6 weeks, I’ll be learning more than I could ever imagine about recycling, composting and will even get to have some fun with worm composting.  My goal: to inspire you to start doing some composting and to find ways to get school systems involved with composting as part of food based education in their curriculum. It’s a great opportunity for applied science and can save a school system money to boot!

For a nice overview, check out this composting video by Kitchen Gardeners International

This is NOT a diet food!

A friend sent me a crazy article today about “The Chocolate Milk Diet” which was so outrageous that I had to take some time to blog about it.  It’s been said that the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.  I can’t believe that people could actually believe that chocolate milk is a healthy food, but then again the dairy industry has been pushing this propaganda for years.

As I tell my clients and students, milk is a hormone laced beverage that is designed to help a little baby calf grow into a big strong cow in a short amount of time. We are the only ones who drink milk past infancy and we are the only ones who drink the milk of another species.  How could a beverage designed for quick and efficient growth, help you to lose weight? That doesn’t make sense.

More importantly,  how did we get to this place where our government, schools and alleged health experts are pushing chocolate milk as a healthy drink?  I guess you could say it comes down to the almighty buck. Health organizations such as Action for Healthy Kids and the American Dietetic Association receive huge amounts of funding from the dairy industry. There was plenty of money and influence present when the USDA came up with their latest pyramid too. You could say Milk has friends in high places.

Over the years, I’ve taught lots of classes about bone health. My favorite quote comes from Dr. Walter Willet  who teaches at Harvard’s School of Public Health:

If you want strong bones, don’t drink milk! Walk the cow instead

One of my favorite mentors, Annemarie Colbin PhD, reminds us that every other animal on the planet builds strong bones by eating green foods: green leafys are the way to go. She should know, she wrote the book on food and bones: The Whole Foods Guide to Strong Bones

In my practice, I believe in biochemical individuality. Milk may be a great food for some but not for others. If you have a personal or family history of eczema, asthma, bronchitis, sinusitis, digestive issues or autoimmunity, I would suggest you stay away from dairy products. If you do drink milk, I strongly suggest that you invest in organic brands without the residues of antibiotics and additional synthetic hormones found in conventional milk. Those hormone residues may be the factor responsible for increased risks of cancer, especially hormonally driven cancers.

Now let’s talk a bit about CHOCOLATE MILK. I see moms all the time giving their kids little single serving boxes of Organic chocolate milk when they buy themselves a Starbucks coffee or shop at Whole Foods. I know these moms think they are doing the right thing. And I know that it is truly an uphill time consuming job to fully understand how to feed our kids beneficial food and drink in this crazy complex world we live in. But here’s the bottom line, moms: You’ve been duped!  Chocolate milk is loaded with sugar. And sugar is a serious anti-nutrient.

This anti-nutrient is addictive, creating a sweet tooth that makes kids clamor for more sweet stuff! Personally and professionally, I do not believe that chocolate milk is a beneficial beverage.  And now way could anyone consider this beverage a “diet food”. Except, of course, the authors of Eat This Not That! who wrote the crazy article insisting you should drink three glasses of chocolate milk a day. Who is paying them? I can only guess that the dairy boys are behind this one!

Here’s the beverage that will help to melt away the pounds and put money back into your wallet. WATER. Clean, clear, fresh filtered tap water. Drink it in a Kleen Kanteen or other reuseable container.  Insist that your kids have access to clean, delicious filtered water for FREE at school. Pretty simple, huh?

Yesterday, I wrote about the ambiguous nature of one word: sugar.  The food industry and well meaning mainstream nutritionists have succeeded in confusing us. Is sugar good? Is it bad? I spend loads of time helping clients understand the  distinctions between the sugar found in carrots and how that is completely different from the crystalline fructose (a fancy word for corn syrup) found in Vitamin Water.

There are so many words on food labels and in advertising that are, quite frankly, completely dangerous.  We read them and fall into a consensus trance, believing that these products are actually good for us.  When working with middle school students, I often encourage them to go on a “health claim hunt” in their kitchen cabinets at home.  They bring back some pretty outrageous marketing gimmicks. Here’s a few:

• Contains antioxidants
• Eco-friendly
• Green
• Made with whole grains
• May lower cholesterol
• Natural
• No trans fat
• Fat free
• Strengthens your immune system

“The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed.”

- Joseph Goebbels

It may be a bit upsetting to see me quoting a Nazi about lies, but in most cases when you see a health claim, its because the product has some dirty secrets.  Let me show you a few examples.

Eco friendly water bottles that use 30% less plastic than other bottles are still plastic bottles that leach questionable chemicals into your drink. Not to mention that the source of that water might not be as pristine as you’d like to think! No way no how is bottled water eco-friendly. Watch Tapped to learn more.

Builds immunity Are you kidding me? This one takes the cake! Sugar laden cereals like this one actually can work to deplete your child’s immunity. Sugar is an anti-nutrient. In addition to the spray on vitamins (which supposedly boost your kid’s immunity) this cereal contains hydrogenated  soybean and/or cottonseed oil. You already know how I feel about cotton! The one word banner on this one should be Hazardous.

No Trans Fat is one of those phrases that puts us at ease. Sadly many many products boasting no trans fat are lying. There is a “loophole”: food packagers are allowed to round transfat measurements down to the nearest gram. And of course, they play games with serving size. In addition to sneaking in hydrogenated oils, manufacturers will put in palm oil which does not contain trans fat but this ingredient has a devastating effect on rainforests. In the long run, Palm Oil is more dangerous to our future than just about any other hazardous ingredient I rant about. No doubt you’ve read my piece about how the Girl Scouts should re-think their toxic cookie campaigns.

What to do? As Michael Pollan says, avoid food products that make health claims. We must take the time and buy real food, not foodlike products. In the long run, you’ll save money, your health and the planet. The three products I showed above have a huge carbon footprint and probably use more fossil fuels than your car does. Pay your local farmer, not your doctor. Take the time, cook from scratch. Eat food you can believe in. Don’t pay good money for lies.

I’ve worked with countless cancer survivors in my private practice. They are some of the nicest people you would ever meet. Over the past ten years, I’ve had the good fortune to work with two wonderful groups in my community, Gilda’s Club and Support Connection that do great work supporting those dealing with cancer and other chronic illness. I highly recommend donating to these fine organizations.

Those cancer survivors who know me and my work know how crazy upset I get when I see a stunt like this KFC Pink Buckets for Cancer! The Susan G. Komen foundation has partnered up with KFC who will donate 50 cents for every bucket of chicken purchased.  Fortunately Think Before You Pink has come up with an online petition to try to convince the Susan Komen Foundation to re-think their partnership with this junk food giant, you can sign their petition by clicking here.

Of course I signed the online petition, which in turn got me an automated letter from the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Here’s what it says:

Thank you for your e-mail to us – we do appreciate you taking the time to tell us how you feel about this partnership. You should know that our partnership with KFC is designed to help reach millions of women we might not otherwise reach with breast health education and awareness messages which we consider critical to our mission. This additional outreach is made possible through KFC’s 5,300 restaurants (about 900 of them in communities not yet served by a Komen Affiliate). This partnership also helps us to generate funding toward the $1.5 billion in research and community programs that Komen has funded over 30 years – programs that are literally saving women’s lives through better treatments and early detection.

Our partnership focuses on healthy options at KFC – grilled chicken and vegetables, for example. Ultimately, we believe that the decision to maintain a well-balanced diet lies in the hands of the consumer. KFC provides tools to make those choices, by providing a healthy choice menu and advice on its website on how consumers can limit fat and calorie consumption in its products. We appreciate your concern and thank you for sharing it with us.
Very truly yours,

Margo K. Lucero
Director, Global Corporate Relations
Susan G. Komen for the Cure(r)

My automated online click with Think Before You Pink resulted in an automated email response. I’m sure the folks at Susan Komen Foundation are quantifying the onslaught of online responses, but so far they are still promoting pink buckets of fried chicken. Right now, the best thing to do to get Susan’s attention is to get out your good stationary and hand write her foundation a nice (angry) note. Good old snail mail will do more to change this foundation’s mind than an online petition.

Here’s the address:

Headquarters
5005 LBJ Freeway, Suite 250
Dallas, TX 75244

Let’s talk about this food for a minute.  If you want to check the ingredients of KFC’s products, you’ll have to click on this “nutrition page” and then click on the box on the left that says Ingredient Statement. You’ll need your reading glasses, but do take the time to read them. You’ll be shocked at all the MSG, hydrogenated cottonseed oils and soybean oils that goes into most of their products. I’ve written about Cotton ( It’s not a food!) and about their grilled chicken back when Oprah decided to promote free buckets of the stuff.

I know that you know better than to eat fast food like KFC if you want to be healthy. It’s not about the calories, or the “tools” on their website, it’s about ingredients. Even KFC’s green beans are coated with MSG! (you’ll see in on the ingredient list online, I’m not making this up!). Please take the time to tell Susan Komen that they are misleading people into believing that these pink buckets of chicken are somehow health supportive.  Tell Susan Komen to hire me! I’d be happy to teach them about how to make health supportive decisions that will benefit their Foundation and the people they serve.

Goldfish crackers. They lost out to Chicken Nuggets which came in first place. What sort of contest would chicken nuggets beat goldfish crackers, you ask?

Time Magazine’s List of Nine Kid’s Foods to Avoid.

You’ll find them in most pre-schools and kindergarden classes. They come in “convenient” little bags for lunches; “a tasty and smart treat” according to their marketing info. Dieticians recommend their “whole grain goodness” and their 100 calorie packs. They now come in a rainbow of colors and also “flavor blasted” varieties.

How come they ended up on this list of Kids Foods to Avoid? Because according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, they are “swimming in salt”.

I’ve been leading the crusade against goldfish for years. In my workshops with teachers and parents of toddlers, I warn them that Goldfish can act as a “gateway drug”. So easy, convenient and seemingly not unhealthy, they get our kids started eating “edible foodlike products” that have no connection to real food. That satisfying crunch sets them up for things like Doritoes  and Cheetoes in the years to come.  Why not give them a healthy orange crunchy food like carrot strips instead? It only takes a few minutes to peel and slice a carrot or two. Your kid can use a peeler and help you to do it!

In my opinion, Goldfish have gotten even creepier now that they are rainbow colored and “flavor blasted”. Those colors were never proven safe for your kids. Flavor blasted can only mean one thing in my book: MSG. Ingredients include Hydrolyzed Wheat Gluten, Enzyme Modified Cheese, Autolyzed Wheat Extract, and Disodium Guanylate. What the heck is all that??  The Truth in Labeling folks will tell you that Autolyzed Wheat Extract is a fancy word for MSG.

Bottom line: feed your kids real food, not goldfish.

She is fed up with school food and is taking it personally. Very personally.  An unidentified teacher somewhere in the mid-west has started a horrifying stunt. She will be eating (and photographing) her school’s lunch every day this year.  I greatly admire her bravery to put her health on the line to make a point.  School lunch in the USA is in need of a huge overhaul.

Thanks to the large number of concerned parents and health professionals here in the blogosphere, I expect that her  journey, which is reminiscent of  Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me film, will grow a huge following. The timing couldn’t be better.  The nation is starting to focus on the state of school lunch as  Congress is expected to update child nutrition programs this spring.  The re-authorization of the Child Nutrition Act will impact the health of 31 million children.

This  school lunch conversation needs to go beyond calorie counts and fat grams. We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, the photos being uploaded daily to the Fed Up: School Lunch Project blog tell a lot. Viewing today’s posted lunch of a “bagel dog” along with some pale anemic looking tater tots made my stomach queasy and makes me wonder more about the health and well being of  kids who are eating this every day.

Our kids deserve real food in schools, not packaged processed chemicalized fare. We need to teach them more than just the USDA food pyramid by incorporating school gardens and food based education through out the curriculum. This is a most worthwhile investment in their future. Real food is preventative healthcare which will save all of us enormous amounts of money in the future.

What can you do to make some waves like this teacher?

Have kids and parents write letters: Slow Food’s Time for Lunch campaign offers some great tools that will help you to get this message across.  Letter writing can have a big impact that legislators can’t ignore.  Legislators who already understand the importance of better school food can refer to letters as evidence of support.

Visit your kids cafeteria and have some lunch. Better School Food has an action plan and a handy checklist that you can bring to the school cafeteria. Bring your camera to lunch and send the photos to your legislator. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Language is important. Political strategists say those who own the language run the show. So far the food industry has been running the show when it comes to confusing the American public on what to eat. They play games with words like “natural“or “smart choice” or, my personal favorite, “zero trans fat”.

I’ve decided to beat the food industry at their own game. I’ve come up with language to help demystify food selection that works for kids and adults alike. It’s part of my trademarked system, Dr. Susan Rubin’s House of Health
I rate foods on a continuum from “Beneficial” to “Useful” to “Useless” to “Hazardous.”

Beneficial foods include any food that is unprocessed or “whole,” with most of their nutrients intact (e.g. whole oat groats or steel cut oats).
Useful foods are a little processed, but in a way that does not excessively diminish their nutritional value (e.g. old fashioned rolled oats).
Useless foods are too processed to be considered “health augmenting” but not dangerous enough to be considered hazardous (instant oatmeal with sugar).
Hazardous foods, however, are heavily processed and artificial – often having a negative impact on one’s health (e.g. instant oatmeal with “dinosaur eggs” in it).

Why do I use a strong word like hazardous? Because I remember the label on my mom’s cigarettes when I was a small child: The Surgeon General has determined that cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health. If the food lobbies weren’t so rich and powerful, I bet you’d see warning labels like that on foods containing these ingredients! In my system, a food product is hazardous if it contains any of these hazardous ingredients. Work to have a zero tolerance policy in your home when it comes to these ingredients.

So, want to learn what my top 10 Hazardous ingredients are?
Here goes:

1. Cottonseed oil Cotton is NOT a food! Oil made from cotton is super high in pesticide residue and off the charts when it comes to pro-inflammatory Omega-6 fats (contains a ratio of 259:1 Omega 6 : Omega 3). Learn more about Omega 3 & Omega 6 fats on Susan Allport’s site. She’s the author of Queen of Fats

2. Soybean oil Most soy oil is genetically modified, I don’t want my family ingesting oil made from Round Up Ready soybeans! Soybean oil is also excessively high in Omega 6 fats.

3. Hydrogenated oils These Franken-fats are created by bubbling hydrogen through liquid oils to turn them into solids at room temperature. Mother Nature never meant for us to be ingesting this stuff. Steer clear of any ingredient with the word “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated”, even if the nutrition information says “zero trans fat”.

4. High Fructose Corn Syrup Here’s another man made ingredient that is, in my opinion, unsafe in any amount. HFCS raises your triglycerides and LDL cholesterol. There seems to be a correlation with fatty livers and this ingredient. The food industry loves HFCS because it’s so cheap, it retards spoilage and, get this one, it makes you not feel full, so you eat/ drink more of their product! There also seems to be an issue with dangerous levels of mercury connected with HFCS.

5. Artificial Colors Let’s face it, food and drink should never be the color of Windex! These questionable chemicals are linked to behavior issues like ADHD. Food colorings that make candy pretty colors have been linked to cancer and tumors of the brain, thyroid, adrenal gland and kidney in animal studies. Have they done studies to determine safety in children? Nope.

6. Artificial Flavors These chemicals were whipped up somewhere in New Jersey. A guy from Kraft once told me they had over 20 different artificial flavors of strawberry alone! Most artificial flavorings are derived from petroleum. They have been shown to affect the RNA, thyroid, and enzymes. Most have never even been studied for safety or toxicity.

7. Artificial Sweeteners I steer myself and my family far away from Aspartame, Sucralose, Acesulfame-K and all the rest. They’ve got loads of bad side effects such as increased sweet cravings, migraine headaches along with questions of carcinogenicity. These tricky chemicals may be addictive. If you don’t believe me, just ask anyone you know with a diet soda habit!

8. BHA/BHT These preservatives Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) are used to keep fats and oils from going rancid. Used commonly in cereals, chewing gum, vegetable oil and potato chips (and also in some food packaging to preserve freshness), these additives have been found by some studies to cause cancer in rats. My bottom line: I shouldn’t have to rely on my two semesters of organic chemistry back in the 1980s to figure out what’s in my food!

9. MSG Good old monosodium glutamate does more than cause headaches. I can’t even begin to get started on this neurotoxic flavor enhancer, so I’ll refer you to this website dedicated to everything MSG related.

10. All other unpronounceable ingredients. My simple policy is: If you can’t pronounce it, maybe you shouldn’t eat it. At the very least, look it up and figure out just what the heck it is. I studied chemistry in college, but you shouldn’t have to in order to eat!

What’s YOUR list of hazardous ingredients? Post them in the comments section!

Yesterday, I received numerous emails from clients and friends telling me about Oprah’s free coupons for the new KFC Grilled Chicken. A free dinner: 2 pieces of chicken, 2 sides and a biscuit. It was such a huge promotion, this free meal, that the Oprah.com site experienced record high traffic.

Oprah seemed to think this was healthier than the fried version of KFC. Oprah apparently liked the idea of “grilled” vs. fried along with their claims of less fat and salt. Is it healthier? How does one go about figuring out what is healthy or healthIER?

Here are some ways I evaluate food to determine if a food is hazardous to your health.

#1 READ THE INGREDIENTS!
It took me a while, after some searching, I was able to find the ingredients on the KFC website. Not the “Nutrition Information” which just tells calories, fat grams and other manipulated info, the ingredients!
Here are the ingredients in the new KFC “grilled chicken” from their website. I put the hazardous ingredients in Bold so you can find them easily:

KFC® Grilled Chicken: Fresh Chicken Marinated with: Salt, Sodium Phosphate, and Monosodium Glutamate Seasoned with: Maltodextrin, Salt, Bleached Wheat Flour, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Monosodium Glutamate, Spices, Palm Oil, Natural Flavor, Garlic Powder, Soy Sauce (Soybean, Wheat, Salt), Chicken Fat, Chicken Broth,Autolyzed Yeast, Beef Powder, Rendered Beef Fat, Extractives of Turmeric, Dehydrated Carrot, Onion Powder, and Not More Than 2% Each of Calcium Silicate and Silicon Dioxide Added as Anticaking Agents. Contains Wheat and Soy.

Looks like this food is swimming in MSG! If you’re not concerned about MSG? Perhaps you should be! Here’s a link to a short piece about the Hidden Dangers of MSG

Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oils are on my “never eat” list. I’m sure that Dr. Oz would agree with me. Hydrogenated oils are unhealthful at any level. This is a great example of how meaningless the term “Trans Fat Free” can be. Oprah obviously got sucked in, just like millions of eaters every day.

Also, keep in mind that cotton is not a food crop, its heavily sprayed with pesticides and is extremely high in inflammatory Omega 6 fats. Cottonseed oil is not an ingredient fit for human consumption in my book!

Looking beyond ingredients, let’s ask a few more questions about Oprah’s grilled chicken.
Where were these chickens raised? In a factory farm? What were these chickens fed? Genetically modified corn or soybean meal with pesticide residues?Were they fed antibiotics to make them grow faster? Chickens are meant to run around outside and eat bugs and peck around on the ground? Did they ever see the light of day? Were their beaks clipped off? Factory Farms create huge environmental problems here in the US and in countries like Mexico and others. In addition to creating huge sources of pollution, they make for ideal breeding grounds for new strains of flu.

Perhaps we should change the name from KFC to KFFC: Kentucky Factory Farmed Chicken!

What can you do if you feel that Oprah was not doing her viewers a favor by offering a free meal of KFC? Ask Oprah do a show on the health hazards of MSG and the environmental hazards of factory farming! Tell her, no thanks for the free meal. Let her know at www.oprah.com

As we roll into week #2 of the pandemic swine flu, I continue to be entertained by what ends up in the media about this pesky health issue.

VP Joe Biden and his comment on recycled air on airplanes, the mysterious reduction in the number of deaths in Mexico along with the conservative zealots who still want to close the borders. Talk of vaccines and questions like,does Donald Rumsfeld still get rich if we all take the Tamiflu? Panicked countries slaughtering their pigs for no good reason, Purell hand sanitizer is no where to be found because panicked germophobes have bought it all up.

The Pork lobby has been hard at work: they succeeded at changing the name from swine flu to H1N1. Their latest goal: a photo op with President Obama eating some pork BarBQ to encourage Americans to support the pork industry. Do American eaters really think they can catch an airborne flu from eating bacon?

The Pork gang is spinning the story beyond belief stating that pigs might catch the new H1N1 from people! What’s next? Piggies wearing blue masks?

All of this wacky panicky behavior covers up a deeper darker issue: is our industrial food system to blame for this new disease? And if so, what can we do about it? David Kirby, investigative reporter and author of Evidence of Harm has been busy writing a book on factory farming. His articles on Huffington Post are a powerful motive for changing the way we eat.

I like to look at the bright side of a crisis like this. Seems to me that the foodies, food advocates & activists, sustainability minded folks and conscious eaters could create a teach-in on factory farming. Perhaps CAFO awareness week in which we ask more questions about where our food comes from. Boycott the Lunchables, the chicken nuggets and all the other animal products coming from CAFOs. This can be an opportunity to highlight and support small, local/ regional farmers.

2009 is supposed to be the Year of the Ox, but it certainly seems to be the Year of the Pig so far, allow me to explain!

The American News Project in a story entitled The Food Lobby Goes to School, was surprised to find the National Pork Board to be one of the lobbyists pushing for more of their products in school food.

Sustainable food advocates and many vegetarians have known for some time that the way the food industry raises lifestock is toxic to our health and the health of our planet. It was great to read the piece by NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff entitled Our Pigs Our Food Our Health which connected the dots between industrial hog farms and diseases such as MRSA.

Great timing for Nicolette Niman, whose well written book about meat production,Righteous Porkchop, hit the stores just as this Swine Flu story hit the newspapers.

David Kirby wrote a piece on swine flu suggesting that this is a great example of “Mother Nature Biting Back”, it seems to me, he’s probably right.

The National Pork Board is hard at work to change the name of Swine Flu into “North American Influenza” in a desperate attempt to spin their image. Those PR folks they hired to lobby for more pork in school food just got a bigger job to do!

So what do we do in light of all this besides just wash our hands?

Here’s five suggestions that could support your health.

1. Cut back on refined sugar- it impairs immune function.
2. Support your gut with the “good bugs” by regular use of probiotic supplements or even a daily bowl of miso soup.
3. Get enough sleep each night.
4. Meditate daily.
5. Eat lower on the food chain: more veggies!

When eating, support your local farmer, buy grass fed, pasture raised animals from small, local/ regional sources. Stay away from giant producers – Tyson, Smithfield Farms, Cargill who have created this toxic environment that is conducive to disease and pollution.