The Random Blogger

I’ve long been a subscriber to Dr. Mercola’s Newsletter, which is claimed to be the world’s #1 free health newsletter, something which I can well believe.

He covers all sorts of subjects, including vaccinations (one of my hobby horses), as well as diet and obesity, pets, and much more - there are over 50,000 pages of articles and resources once you subcribe.

Many of his articles take the form of a short introduction, often with a video, followed by his own take on the story.

He doesn’t pull any punches, and is happy to take on the might of the drug industry if necessary.

He is also a great believer in natural solutions, such as Vitamin D, for example, which is fine by me as I’m no fan of chemical-based products of any type.

So, I was delighted to find out that he has released Dr. Mercola’s Total Health Breakthrough, which is a complete guide to weight loss, preventing both disease and premature aging, and living healthy and longer.

If this is even half as good as his previous material, then it’s going to be a great read that will make a significant difference to your health.

It also comes with five free bonus reports, including one on artificial sweeteners. (Did you know that aspartame was once on a Pentagon list of biowarfare chemicals?)

I highly recommend Total Health Breakthrough and know that you won’t be disappointed.

Whether to vaccinate your children, yourself or your pets is becoming an increasingly hot topic.

There are many who say that vaccinations have caused all sorts of minor and major problems, including death, while on the other side of the fence, the big drug companies and the government swear blind that vaccines are both safe and effective.

With the amounts of money at stake here, since the pharmaceutical companies make obscene profits every year, it’s not surprising that people are growing ever more sceptical, and when those fears are backed up by direct and personal observation of some of those side-effects (e.g. the often-quoted autism caused by MMR shots), you can’t blame them.

So, in a continued effort to pull the wool over the public’s eyes, the US Health and Human Services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, recently told Reader’s Digest that health officials had decided to tackle the problem of increasing concerns about vaccines causing autism by suppressing the press.

Unbelievable?

In a country that prides itself on its right to free speech?

It should be, but it seems like one more nail in the coffin of people’s rights to choose what they believe is best for them, their families and their pets.

Much is made of the fact that vaccines helped rid the world of all sorts of infectious and life-threatening diseases, as justification for their continued and increased use, while simultaneously trying to convince people that there is no evidence of side-effects, serious or otherwise.

So, I was delighted to come across an excellent blog post this morning, called “Proof That Vaccines Didn’t Save Us“.

In summary, this post presents a whole series of graphs that clearly demonstrate three things:

1. Vaccines did not eradicate the diseases that plagued the world.
2. Vaccines are not nearly as effective as the drug companies make out.
3. Vaccines are dangerous.

In the interests of helping people see both sides of the coin, I strongly encourage you to read the above-mentioned post before having any further vaccinations.

There are many ways that you can have a healthy diet.

For example, you could eat less food, although calorie-counting is not necessarily the best way for long-term weight loss and may not make your diet any healthier.

Or you could try food-combining, which can make sure your body receives the right balance of nutrients.

Or, you could eat “the right food”, whatever that may mean today (as the medical profession change their minds about what is healthy or not on an all-too-frequent basis).

And part of deciding what is “right” or not is based on the ingredients.

Which is why manufacturers nowadays are obliged to print details on the label - so you can see exactly what is in the product.

But there is, of course, a problem with this - the number of unhealthy ingredients that are in some of these foods.

As an example, let’s take a product called Chef Boyardee Beefaroni, which is basically macaroni and beef in a tomato sauce.

The version we’re interested in here comes in a 14.5 oz (or 411.068085 grams for you metric people) microwavable tub.

The first two things we look at on any food label are the amounts of trans fats and sodium in the product.

Now, the good news with Beefaroni is that there are no trans fats.

However, the amount of sodium is somewhat scary - 920mg, which represents 38% of your RDA (i.e. Recommended Daily Allowance):

Just by itself, nearly a whole gram of salt in such a small tub of food is too much …

… but then you realise that this 14.5oz tub is meant to contain nearly two servings, not just one - they claim the serving size is 249 grams (or 8.78 ounces).

I don’t know about you, but half a tub of Beefaroni is not going to cut it - even as a snack. Even a full tub needs topping up with something to transform it into something worth eating.

And in case you can’t see what the wording says on the left of the label, let me spell it out for you - it says “Big Size Bowl - For Big Appetites“.

Yes, it’s true - for those people who don’t have a “big appetite”, they also make this product in a 7.5oz (or 212 grams) tub, although I’m not sure who the target audience is for this size of Beefaroni, as even our Chihuahua could polish that off without any trouble.

Anyway, back to the label.

So, once you realise that in spite of what they say the serving size is, you actually need to eat the entire tub to even begin to feel like you’ve eaten anything at all, you find that you’re actually eating almost 1.5 grams of salt, and that means you’ll be consuming nearly two thirds of your daily sodium requirements - in a single small tub.

And that’s why they quote their nutritional facts using absurdly small serving sizes - because if they showed the size of portion that most real people eat, some of those nutritional figures (especially the sodium content) would be so high that nobody in their right mind would buy them.