Health – Page 73 – Things Are Good

Brazil and India Defend Nature

Last year India saw that biopiracy was damaging to the country and they reacted by documenting every plant and will release an encyclopedia of all the plants. They are specifically recording how these plants are used in traditional medicine in India, making it much harder for large foreign corporations to proclaim the use of plants as their idea.

Brazil is now doing something similar:

“Brazil has published a list of more than 5,000 generic terms from the Portuguese language related to Brazilian plant biological diversity to raise awareness and prevent further misuse of trademarks that hinder Brazilian exports.

The Brazilian government has been, and is, involved in a number of trademark disputes with companies that, for example, take a name of a fruit in Brazilian Portuguese and trademark it to get exclusive rights to commercialise it under that name in a certain country or region.”

Nutrition Facts & Calorie Counter

apple Ever wondered what you are putting in your mouth? I know I have and now I can find out using NutritionData. At the site you can find out what foods are best for your health or for weight loss.

It presents the information in very visual manner making it easy to understand how much fat something really has.

This is one place you can compare apples and oranges

World Map of Happiness

The first ever World Map of Happiness has been created. This map measures the happiness levels of people from different countries all over the globe. Developed at the UK’s University of Leicester the Happy Map is based on responses from 80,000 people worldwide who rated such things as their health levels, prosperity and education. Denmark ranks highest while Zimbabwe ranks amongst the least happy. Click on the map to take a closer look.

Vegan Medicine

carrot Recent studies show that people with type 2 diabetes can experience dramatic improvements in their health if they switch to a low fat, vegan diet. Research in Canada and the U.S has been done on two separate groups of patients with diabetes, with about half on the vegan diet, and the other half on the traditional diabetes regimen.

In close to 6 months the results were quite astounding, showing those who ate vegan losing nearly twice as much weight as people on oral medications alone. Not only that, but the people eating vegan were able to ignore other suggested health precautions usually required for stable weight and blood sugar, such as a decrease in carbs and portion size. They could literally eat what they wanted when they wanted so long as it was meat and animal free. Subjects also found a significant reduction in both their cholesterol and blood sugar levels after adopting a vegan diet.

Vegans are typically slimmer than meat and dairy consumers and have much lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, lung cancer and osteoporosis. Many health problems associated with saturated fats and other apparently ‘toxic’ foods can also be eliminated through switching to a more veggie friendly lifestyle. Perhaps this is why many fantastic athletes are vegan, such as 9 time Olympic Gold Medallist Carl Lewis, and and six time Iron Man Triathlon winner Dave Scott.

Greenpeace’s McVictory

mcvictory Greenpeace is reporting great success in their campaign to get McDonald’s to better respect the environment. This is really great for the rainforest!

“In recent years, the seemingly unstoppable expansion of soya farming in the Amazon had become one of the main threats to the world’s largest rainforest. The soya wasn’t being used to feed the world; instead it was used to feed farm animals destined for fast food and supermarket chains across Europe.”

The campaign to get McDonald’s to change their destructive was launched only in April of this year. The name of the campaign is rather witty – Eating up the Amazaon.

“The result is that McDonald’s and other big food retailers have worked with us to develop a zero deforestation plan. The plan will also help bring an end to the land-grabbing and social injustice that is rife in the Amazon.”