The Top 10 Toxins that are Poisoning Our Kids

Dr. Brent Hunter | Natural News

Image: naturalnews.com

From BPA, MSG, pesticides, environmental chemicals, household cleaners, toxins in vaccines and prescription drugs, our children are exposed to a huge amount of toxic chemicals. Toxins are everywhere in our modern society. They are damaging your child’s health and causing disease. How can you get these chemicals out of your children’s bodies and protect them? The first step is to understand where they are coming from. Then you can eliminate them and incorporate a healthy lifestyle that naturally detoxes your child’s body.

This article is Part 1 of 2 addressing the issue of toxicity in our children and what to do to detox them. It is not necessarily easy to rid your kid’s bodies of years of these stored toxins but it is possible. In part 2, we will discuss specific strategies and tips for detoxing.

Toxins and Childhood Health

The problem of toxic exposure has only increased year by year. My readers of more advanced years will remember a time when children were generally healthy and active. Today, however, there are more children who are sick and taking prescription drugs than there are healthy children. Certainly, there are many factors that contribute to this but the extreme exposure to toxins is a huge factor that you can control.

Nearly 12 million children in the United States under age 18 suffer from one or more learning, developmental, or behavioral disabilities.(1) We have seen ridiculous increases in the incidence of autism, ADHD and cancer in children. Consider these facts:

• Autism rates were 1 in 150 in 2000. By 2008, the rate had increased to 1 in 88.(2)
• From 2001 to 2010, the rate of ADHD diagnosis increased 25%.(3)
• Cancer is now the leading cause of death by disease in children under age 15.(4)

My Experience with Toxicity in my Own Child

When my son was born, the doctors felt that my wife had an infection in the birth canal. If that were the case, it could be transferred to my son during delivery and cause harm to him. However, the only way to confirm the infection is a bacterial culture that takes three days to grow. As a result, my son was placed on ‘precautionary’, heavy doses of three different I.V. antibiotics for three days.

Well, three days later, the cultures came back negative – my son never had a bacterial infection at all. However, the three days of heavy antibiotics were not without effect. As a result of the antibiotics, my son is profoundly deaf. There is nothing I can do to restore his hearing. However, the experience that we gained over the last five years dealing with his deafness have been amazing. In fact, my wife and I write about those experiences at this blog: Seeing Life Differently.

Additionally, the antibiotics wreaked major havoc on his digestion system. It took at least three months to detox him from the antibiotics and restore his normal digestive functions. He endured a lot of discomfort and pain for three months all due to three days of antibiotic treatment.

He is now one of the healthiest, non-toxic kids I know. Since that incident at birth, he has never had need of any prescription drugs, including antibiotics.

He attends the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind - a public school serving Deaf and Blind children in all of Florida. Many of the children at this wonderful school live in dorms Monday through Friday. The school has a great medical clinic/health center right on campus.

On registration day, all the parents have to also check in with the health center. It was amazing to me how many of the parents - nearly all - checked in prescription drugs for their children’s chronic health conditions! Toxicity from prescription drugs alone is a huge problem for our children.

It seemed like we waited forever in the line for the health center. We simply had to let them know that he has no drugs, remind them of his vaccine exemption, and sign a health services form.

I thank God everyday for my child’s great health. It is not that he has great genes. It is that we have formed a lifestyle for him that produces great health. This is no easy task as a parent, for sure. But it is possible, even for picky eaters like my son and every other five year old kid!

Children and Toxins

The fact is that children are exposed the same chemical toxins as adults. However, children are more vulnerable to toxins than adults for several reasons.

• Their bodies are still growing
• Pound for pound children drink more water/juices, eat more food and breathe more air than the average adult which increases their exposure to toxins
• The typical child receives 50+ toxin-laden vaccines before age 6(5)

Here are the top 10 toxins that our children are exposed to regularly:

Mercury Fillings. The mercury in these fillings is slowly leached into your kid’s body everyday which causes long term neurological damage. This mercury exposure is made even worse by the other sources your child is exposed to from vaccines and other drugs.

Toxins in Vaccines. Vaccines are not as safe as you may have been led to believe. I do not intend to discuss the validity of vaccines in this post. I would refer you to NVIC and Vactruth.com for a full discussion of this important issue. However, please do educate yourself fully before deciding which vaccines and how many vaccines to give to your child. Regardless of your vaccine decision, they are filled with toxic chemicals that damage your child’s health and cause disease. Here are just some of the common vaccine ingredients – posted on the CDC website(6) - that may shock you:

Formaldehyde – also used to preserve dead things

Mercury (thimerosal), especially in flu vaccines

Aluminum – highly associated with alzheimer’s disease

GMO yeast

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)

Antibiotics (neomycin, streptomycin)

Human cells from aborted fetal tissue

Cells from pig and horse blood

Monkey kidney cells

Calf serum protein

Chicken embryo cells

Egg Protein extracts

Soy Protein extracts

Ammonium Sulfate

Prescription Drugs. I discussed the problem with antibiotics that my child experienced. That was only scratching the surface. Prescription drugs are all toxic and inherently dangerous. ADHD drugs are especially dangerous and toxic. They belong to a class of drugs called amphetamines and are similar to street drugs like meth and speed. No parent would even consider handing their child meth. However, when a doctor gives you a prescription for a legal version of the same thing, unfortunately, most parents don’t even think twice about giving it to their kids every day. Even worse, more and more kids are being prescribed antidepressant drugs as well with devastating effects.

MSG in foods and personal care products. MSG is everywhere. It is very toxic and results in many health problems. Read How to Avoid Being Secretly Poisoned by MSG to learn more about this important issue.

Toxins in processed foods and fast foods. Have you thought about the amount of synthetic chemicals, preservatives, nitrates and artificial colors and flavors in the hot dog that you give your child for lunch? These chemicals are used in all processed and fast foods and are a constant source of toxicity.

Toxins in Laundry products. These products may smell nice, however, the chemicals that create that fragrance are cancer-causing toxins. They are absorbed by your clothing and then absorbed through your skin and into your body.

Toxins in shampoo and personal care products (soap, deodorant, toothpaste, etc). Have you read the back of your shampoo or body wash bottle lately? Chances are that you will not recognize 99% of the ingredients. Neither will your body when they are absorbed through your skin.

Toxins in household cleaning products. Window cleaners state on the bottle that they are harmful or fatal if swallowed. Bleach will certainly cause grave danger if ingested. Though we don’t drink them, these chemicals are absorbed into our bodies by inhalation or through our skin.

Pesticides in the home, food, and environment. We use pesticides in the home that get into our bodies by inhalation or accidental skin exposure. We consume produce and meat that contain ridiculous levels of pesticides.

Soda pop. Both – depending on where you live – soda (and) pop contain high amounts of phosphoric acid which literally dissolves your child’s teeth and leads to softening of the bones as well. Not to mention the high fructose corn syrup causing toxicity, obesity and diabetes.

If you stop to think about all of these items, it becomes abundantly clear that our children (and you) are toxic! What can you do? How do you get rid of these toxins? We will discuss that in part 2 of this series. Look for it tomorrow.

The information in this article and the next (part 2) have been presented as a result of a question from a Wellness Achiever Newsletter subscriber. Be sure to subscribe for the latest updates from Wellness Achiever. You will also periodically have the opportunity to ask your questions about health and wellness and have them answered here. Visit WellnessAchiever.net and you will see a box near the top, right side of this article to enter your email address.

Question: What surprises you most about these statistics on childhood diseases? What about the sources of toxicity? You can leave your comment below.

Source: naturalnews.com

Resources for this article:

(1) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-gavigan/toxins-impair-childrens-n_b_458935.html

(2) http://www.naturalnews.com/035452_autism_vaccinations_children.html

(3) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130121161923.htm

(4) http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Sites-Types/childhood

(5) http://www.nvic.org/downloads/49-doses-posterb.aspx

(6) http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf

"Hacked" Potatoes Can Create Electricity

by Jonathan Kalan

Mashed, boiled, baked or fried? You probably have a preference for your potatoes. Haim Rabinowitch, however, likes his spuds “hacked”.

Image: Thinkstock

For the past few years, researcher Rabinowitch and colleagues have been pushing the idea of “potato power” to deliver energy to people cutoff from electricity grids. Hook up a spud to a couple of cheap metal plates, wires and LED bulbs, they argue, and it could provide lighting to remote towns and villages around the world.

They’ve also discovered a simple but ingenious trick to make potatoes particularly good at producing energy. “A single potato can power enough LED lamps for a room for 40 days,” claims Rabinowitch, who is based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The idea may seem absurd, yet it is rooted in sound science. Still, Rabinowitch and his team have discovered that actually launching potato power in the real world is much more complex than it first appears.

While Rabinowitch and team have found a way to make potatoes produce more power than usual, the basic principles are taught in high school science classes, to demonstrate how batteries work.

To make a battery from organic material, all you need is two metals – an anode, which is the negative electrode, such as zinc, and a cathode, the positively charged electrode, such as copper. The acid inside the potato forms a chemical reaction with the zinc and copper, and when the electrons flow from one material to another, energy is released.

This was discovered by Luigi Galvani in 1780 when he connected two metals to the legs of a frog, causing its muscles to twitch. But you can put many materials between these two electrodes to get the same effect. Alexander Volta, around the time of Galvani, used saltwater-soaked paper. Others have made “earth batteries” using two metal plates and a pile of dirt, or a bucket of water.

Super spuds

Potatoes are often the preferred vegetable of choice for teaching high school science students these principles. Yet to the surprise of Rabinowitch, no one had scientifically studied spuds as an energy source. So in 2010, he decided to give it a try, along with PhD student Alex Goldberg, and Boris Rubinsky of the University of California, Berkeley.

“We looked at 20 different types of potatoes,” explains Goldberg, “and we looked at their internal resistance, which allows us to understand how much energy was lost by heat.”

They found that by simply boiling the potatoes for eight minutes, it broke down the organic tissues inside the potatoes, reducing resistance and allowing for freer movement of electrons– thus producing more energy. They also increased the energy output by slicing the potato into four or five pieces, each sandwiched by a copper and zinc plate, to make a series. “We found we could improve the output 10 times, which made it interesting economically, because the cost of energy drops down,” says Goldberg.

“It’s low voltage energy,” says Rabinowitch, “but enough to construct a battery that could charge mobile phones or laptops in places where there is no grid, no power connection.”

Their cost analyses suggested that a single boiled potato battery with zinc and copper electrodes generates portable energy at an estimated $9 per kilowatt hour, which is 50-fold cheaper than a typical 1.5 volt AA alkaline cell or D cell battery, which can cost $49–84 per kilowatt hour. It’s also an estimated six times cheaper than standard kerosene lamps used in the developing world.

Which raises an important question – why isn’t the potato battery already a roaring success?

In 2010, the world produced a staggering 324,181,889 tonnes of potatoes. They are the world’s number one non-grain crop, in 130 countries, and a hefty source of starch for billions around the world. They are cheap, store easily, and last for a long time.

With 1.2 billion people in the world lacking access to electricity, a simple potato could be the answer– or so the researchers thought. “We thought organisations would be interested,” says Rabinowitch. “We thought politicians in India would give them out with their names inscribed on them. They cost less than a dollar.”

Yet three years on since their experiment, why haven’t governments, companies or organisations embraced potato batteries? “The simple answer is they don’t even know about it,” reasons Rabinowitch. But it may be more complicated than that.

First, there’s the issue of using a food for energy. Olivier Dubois, senior natural resources officer at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), says that using food for energy – like sugar cane for biofuels – must avoid depleting food stocks and competing with farmers.

“You first need to look at: are there enough potatoes to eat? Then, are we not competing with farmers making income from selling potatoes?” he explains. “So if eating potatoes is covered, selling potatoes is covered, and there’s some potatoes left, then yes, it can work”

In a country like Kenya, the potato is the second most important food for families after maize. Smallholder farmers produced around 10 million tonnes of potatoes this year, yet around 10-20% were lost in post-harvest waste due to lack of access to markets, poor storage conditions, and other issues, according to Elmar Schulte–Geldermann, potato science leader for sub–Saharan Africa at the International Potato Center in Nairobi, Kenya. The potatoes that don’t make it to the market could easily be turned into batteries.

Pithy answer

Yet in Sri Lanka, for instance, the locally available potatoes are rare and expensive. So a team of scientists at the University of Kelaniya recently decided to try the experiment with something more widely available, and free – plantain piths (stems).

Physicist KD Jayasuriya and his team found that the boiling technique produced a similar efficiency increase for plantains – and the best battery performance was obtained by chopping the plantain pith after boiling.
With the boiled piths, they found they could power a single LED for more than 500 hours, provided it is prevented from drying out. “I think the potato has slightly better current, but the plantain pith is free, it’s something we throw away,” says Jayasuriya.

Despite all this, some are sceptical of the feasibility of potato power. “In reality, the potato battery is essentially like a regular battery you’d buy at the store,” says Derek Lovley at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “It’s just using a different matrix.” While the potato helps to prevent energy being lost to heat, it is not the source of the energy – that’s actually extracted via the corrosion of the zinc. “It’s sacrificial – the metal is degrading over time,” says Lovley. This means you’d have to replace the zinc – and of course the potato or plantain pith – over time.

Still, zinc is quite cheap in most developing countries. And Jayasuriya argues that it could still be more cost effective than a kerosene lamp. A zinc electrode that lasts about five months would cost about the same as a litre of kerosene, which fuels the average family home in Sri Lanka for two days. You could also use other electrodes, like magnesium or iron.

But potato advocates must surmount another problem before their idea catches on: consumer perception of potatoes. Compared with modern technologies like solar power, potatoes are perhaps less desirable as an energy source.

Gaurav Manchanda, founder of One Degree Solar, which sells micro-solar home systems in Kenya, says people buy their products for more reasons than efficiency and price. “These are all consumers at the end of the day. They need to see the value in it, not only in terms of performance, but status,” he explains. Basically, some people might not want to show off their potato battery to impress a neighbor.

Still, it cannot be denied that the potato battery idea works, and it appears cheap. Advocates of potato power will no doubt continue to keep chipping away.

Article sources: bbc.com

allselfsustained.com

What This Man Found In A Bag Of Mulch Will Blow Your Mind. What He Did With It Will Melt Your Heart.

Images: imgur.com

A Florida man opened a new bag of mulch and, to his surprise, he found a baby squirrel inside.  We found the man on Reddit, where he is known by the handle “Nadtacular,” but now the Internet is starting to know him because of his compassion.  The baby squirrel appeared to be only days old when he found it.  It was so young, he initially mistook it for a mouse or rat.  But he decided to take care of it, and lucky for us, document his its development.

When he cut open the bag, this little guy fell out…

To keep it alive, he had to force feed the little fellow…

But after 2 weeks, he was eating like a champ…

By week 3, this is how he’d look after a satisfying meal…

Somewhere between weeks 4 and 5 his eyes finally opened…

By the 5th week, he was fully aware…

And getting playful…

It seemed this growing boy was always hungry…

“C’mon, just one more blueberry…”

He loves to bask in the sunlight…

As you can see from the photographs, a bond developed between the man and the squirrel, which he named “Zip.”  There is no definitive answer to how baby Zip found its way into the bag of mulch, but it’s safe to say Zip appears to be enjoying his new home.  It’s also safe to say that this man’s selfless act has restored our hope in humanity.  Way to go!

Sources: imgur.com & slightlyviral.com

Bees Have Been Trained To Sniff Out Cancer in Humans

Images: Susana Soares

Portuguese designer Susana Soares has developed a device for detecting cancer and other serious diseases using trained bees. The bees are placed in a glass chamber into which the patient exhales; the bees fly into a smaller secondary chamber if they detect cancer.

Scientists have found that honey bees - Apis mellifera - have an extraordinary sense of smell that is more acute than that of a sniffer dog and can detect airborne molecules in the parts-per-trillion range.

Bees can be trained to detect specific chemical odours, including the biomarkers associated with diseases such as tuberculosis, lung, skin and pancreatic cancer.



Source: likecool.com

Poisons You Didn’t Know You Were Eating

Sawdust in Everything

Extra fiber. You see it in large friendly letters on cereal boxes, orange juice cartons, everything, but you probably wouldn’t touch the box if you saw the word “sawdust.” From crackers to cocoa mix, cellulose (a.k.a. wood pulp) is used as filler in everyday foods. While the FDA deems wood pulp safe for consumption, the USDA limits cellulose to 3.5% of the total food mass. Maybe it’s time to go on that paleo diet.

Apple Seeds

An apple a day keeps the doctor away — unless you eat the seeds. Apple seeds (along with cherry, peach, and apricot pits) contain amygdalin, a compound of cyanide and sugar. Luckily, the human body is able to handle small doses of cyanide, so you won’t be keel over after crunching on a Granny Smith. Still, it’s probably best not to snack on a bowlful of seeds.

Cancer-Causing Artificial Colorings

Rainbow cake, neon popsicles, fruit punches and macaroni and cheese — they’re fun to eat because partly because they have such fun colors. But does that fun outweigh the risk of thyroid, adrenal, bladder, kidney, or brain cancer? Artificial dyes such as blue 1, red 3 and yellow 6 have been linked with all five of those cancers. Correlation doesn’t equal causality, but you might want to think again before slurping down that next blue raspberry slushie. (It’s better than the olden days: originally food was colored with natural compounds that included dangerous toxins like mercury, copper, or arsenic.)

Contaminated Bottled Water

Drinking water is one of the best things you can do for your health — but not all water is safe. While municipal tap water is tested and inspected on a regular basis, bottled water is only examined at the source on a monthly basis, Business Insider reports. After being checked once en masse, bottled water tampered with or partially opened may leave you exposed to a host of terrible substances like mold, kerosene, bacteria, glass particles, and even fecal matter.

Beetles in Frappuccinos

Last year, Starbucks came under fire from angry, caffeinated vegans who found out that the mega coffee chain colors their pink-hued Strawberry Frappuccinos with crushed up cochineal beetles, according to CBS News. At least they’re all natural. The company is not alone in their coloring practices. The beetles are used to dye many food products from yogurt to toaster pastries and have been used throughout history to dye fabrics in Central America.

Poison Potatoes

If you have a green potato in your kitchen, sadly you haven’t won a prize. (Unless the prize you’ve been wanting is poison.) Green on a potato is an indication of a concentration of solanine, a toxin that causes nausea, headaches, neurological issues and, in rare cases, death. Rule of thumb for potatoes: if it’s green, it’s mean.





Toxic Metals in Lipstick

Researchers have found that along with that vibrant hue, lipstick may contain dangerously high toxic levels of metals like lead, chromium (a carcinogen), and aluminum in some lip products. These results were found in all levels of lipsticks and glosses from $6-24. Researchers say that these substances can damage the brain, nerves and kidneys, and are linked to multiple cancers. “Just finding these metals isn’t the issue; it’s the levels that matter,” said the study’s principal researcher. “Some of the toxic metals are occurring at levels that could possibly have an effect in the long term.”

Mercury in Fish

It’s not just tuna anymore: mercury is on the rise in all varieties of fish around the globe. Some scientists believe that just a small amount of the toxic metal, which is deemed safe by the government, can pose a threat to brain development or cause other health problems. The danger is especially high for pregnant women and children. The safest bets are cod, salmon, shrimp, and sardines.

Kidney Beans

Beans, beans the magical fruit, the more you eat the more… likely you are to get sick from high levels of phytohemagglutinin (PHA), a toxin that causes vomiting and diarrhea. Just five raw or undercooked kidney or cannellini beans can be bad news.

In the 1970s, there was an outbreak of kidney bean poisoning when hundreds of Brits used their new slow cookers to make beans and toast, a popular breakfast. Simmering kidney beans on low actually increases their toxicity. Luckily, after being boiled for just 10 minutes, the chance of poisoning is almost zero.

Chemicals in Packaging

Keeping food and drinks fresh used to be a bit of a gamble — goatskin sacks were quite popular back in the day but apparently left a musty aftertaste. Then science developed tin cans and plastic and the world changed — for the better, it seemed. Now, BPA (Bisphenol A), which is used in clear plastic bottles and as food can liners, has been linked with reproductive abnormalities, prostate cancers, diabetes, and heart disease.

Though the use of the chemical has been restricted by Canada and some U.S. states, Consumer Reports found evidence of the chemical even in cans that were labeled BPA-free.

Rat Fur and Insects

According to many scientists, one of the best things we can do for our ecosystem is to eat bugs instead of meat. Even if you think you could never stomach a creepy crawler, chances are, you’re already eating a lot of them and don’t know it. As dictated by the FDA, food and drink manufacturers are allowed a certain amount of bugs and rodent hair in their products.

Peanut butter is allowed to contain one rodent hair per 100 grams. Pasta can have 225 bug parts per 225 grams of pasta. Canned mushrooms should probably be avoided at all costs. Only if there are more than 20 maggots per 100 grams of mushrooms will the FDA take notice.

Fungus Free — At a Price

In many ways, modern farming has been a boon to humanity. Production is up and incidences of famine are down. But the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides come at a price. In order to keep the fruit growing healthily, farmers spray apples with fungicides such as diphenylamine and thiabendazole. The former can cause long-term damage to your kidney, liver, and bladder, while the latter has been linked to nervous system damage. A recent study found that nearly 80% of all conventionally grown apples had traces of these pesticides on them, even after washing. Unless you’re buying organic, chances are you’re eating these poisons.

Sodium Fluoride in Toothpaste

Fluoride is good for your teeth, there’s no denying that. But a study found that just 5mg of fluoride ingestion can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea in children. If Junior gets a hold of the whole tube, it could be very bad news. Ingesting large amounts of sodium fluoride can cause muscular weakness and paralysis which is why it’s also a main ingredient in rat and cockroach poison. Wash that mouth.

Source:

blog.trutv.com/conspiracy
http://worldtruth.tv/poisons-you-didnt-know-you-were-eating/